Finally, after years as a struggling radio host, Cash Peters has been given his own TV adventure show on a big-time travel network. The idea is simple: "Let's dump him in an unfamiliar culture in a faraway land with no money and no place to stay, and see what happens."

Unfortunately, there is one major problem: Cash doesn't want to go. Not only is he NOT the adventurous type, he is afraid of nearly everything and horribly allergic to the rest.

Bottom line: they've given the show to the wrong guy.

Naked in Dangerous Places is the story of one man's efforts to remain sane in an insane world. Told with wit and shameless honesty, it documents a yearlong journey through exotic lands, from Kenya to Cambodia, Morocco to Dubai, as Cash drops in on fascinating cultures, eating, drinking, even sleeping in cow-dung huts with the locals, and eventually proving the truth of the old saying "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." Though, to be honest, killing you is more likely.

From the Trade Paperback edition.

Shocking News

This is it. We're going down."
A painful grinding sound from one of the engines heralds a sharp drop in altitude. And painful grinding sounds of any kind on a plane are never good, right? I've seen documentaries. First comes the grinding, then you smell smoke. And from there it's all pretty straightforward: you crash.
With a violent shudder we tip suddenly to the left.
Yup, here it comes.
Bags somersault to the floor. Tasha, our field producer, is thrown forward, almost banging her head on the seat in front. My Gatorade is jolted from my fingers and skitters away, disappearing into the cockpit.
"Mayday, Mayday!"
That's me panicking, by the way, not the pilot. A trained professional, he's busy surveying the ground through a small triangular panel of plexiglass to his left, no doubt trying to figure out how long it'll be before we hit something.
Immediately he sits up straight again.
Uh-oh! Not much farther now, then.
As I'm hanging on, mortified, five rods of brilliant sunlight burst through the starboard windows and sweep the tiny cabin from front to back like deep-sea divers searching a sunken wreck for bodies, something that could actually become a reality very shortly if we don't level our descent. Although, of course, you learn not to express such things out loud. For a start, it might annoy Eric, our field production coordinator. And you never want to do that. It was he who booked us on this bucking clockwork junk heap in the first place, following a minor altercation at check-in back in Australia over the staggering amount of equipment and other luggage we'd wanted to wheel aboard the aircraft, the combined weight of which was so preposteriously excessive that, according to the waspish airline clerk, it would have "negated every one of the laws of aerodynamics." (She probably had a good point. I have no idea how many laws there are, but let's say for the sake of argument fifteen. I mean, who in their right mind would choose to break all fifteen laws of aerodynamics? It's crazy.)
"Okay. Here's an idea," Eric argued, running a thin hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. "What if we redistribute the equipment between the various cases? How about that?"
"Er . . . you could, I suppose. But . . . wouldn't . . ." Her brow corrugated into a frown. ". . . the total weight . . . be exactly the same?"
"In a way."
"Then no! No, you can't."
I saw his round shoulders quiver with suppressed rage.
Oh dear.
Sensing a small mutiny in the making, one of many this trip, I exchanged an "uh-oh" glance with Tasha, and distanced myself by flopping down on a suitcase, cracking open The Da Vinci Code, and letting the rest of them get on with it.
Letting other people get on with things is very much my way. I'm terribly hands-off as far as problems are concerned.
"Look, darlin'," Eric growled, hooking himself over the desk, "here's the deal, okay? We're trying to make a television show . . ." Ooh, clever. Playing the glamour card. ". . . so what would it take to get us o--?"
But the poor woman had heard enough. "Sir, please stand to one side. You--everybody in this group--stand to one side and let the other passengers through. Next."
With great relief, the young couple behind us shuffled forward in line, tickets at the ready . . .
"What if--"
. . . only to stop again with a groan. Eric wasn't budging.
"Next!"
". . . we bought more seats for the bags?"
"Sir, the flight's full. If you like, we can put the excess on tomorrow's flight. That m--"
"Nope," he cut her off, then sighed heavily. "No, don't worry, it's fine. We'll go elsewhere." Turning his back: "You're not the only major airline that goes to...

 

"A riotous and engaging read."

 

"Illustrated by one hilarious descent into madness after another."

 

"Only Cash Peters would go on such an absurd adventure and capture it so winningly. Beautiful language, great humor."

 

"Cash Peters is our generation's Alistair Cooke--a travel writer who sees things none of us would see ourselves if we were there. Of course, sometimes you wish he'd just kept his eyes shut."

 

"In one epic, horrifying, funny lurch across the planet, Peters manages to utterly trash the well-meaning efforts of generations of sensitive, sincere travelers. Naked in Dangerous Places is a running riot."

 

"Peters is a national treasure, with a wicked sense of humor that guarantees he'll never be asked to host a television show again. The world of travel literature, however, is all the richer for having him."--Rudy Maxa, host, "Rudy Maxa's World,"

 

"Great explorers possess bravery, a cast-iron stomach, and insatiable curiosity about what lies around the next bend. Cash Peters has none of these attributes. But he is very, very funny, and his misadventures in exotic locales make for the best travel writing I have read in years."

 

"Like most travelers, but too few travel writers, Cash Peters understands that nightmares are twice as entertaining as dreams--especially when they come true. Peters's iconoclastic charm unaccountably fails to seduce South Seas cannibals and Hollywood producers, but proves a winner in this sharp-witted recap of two years in the company of such exotic and dangerous creatures. Someone should make a TV show out of it."

 

"It takes a clever new hook to grab and maintain my attention when it comes to travel writing. Naked in Dangerous Places is fascinating, funny, and endearing."

 

 

Naked in Dangerous Places by Cash Peters
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