Whose Panties Are These? and Other Misadventures : Funny Women Write from the Road (Travelers' Tales)

Rating:
Summary: Some funny, Some Good, Some Interesting, Some Boring
Review: As in any compilation, the quality of the stories ranges from the utterly boring (an 'adventure' of a woman having a Brazilian wax in NYC), through the culturally interesting (the importance of a big behind in certain countries) to the very funny (the effect of Lebanese chicken on women's breasts).

Also, as in most funny books, the jokes get old very quickly with repeated reading.

My advice? Get it from your local library whenever you feel you need the laughs.

Rating:
Summary: Some Outrageous Tales!
Review: Editor Jennifer L. Leo has compiled some strange tales as narrated by thirty -one women who have experienced outrageous travel mishaps.
Whose Panties Are These? More Misadventures From Funny Women On The Road's essays are sprawling with all kinds of unusual and sometimes hilarious happenings.

There is the tale of Barbara H. Shaw, who prior to her tour bus taking off for the pyramids at Cobà, advises the bus driver that she must use the bathroom.
As she explains, it is very common that there are no toilet seats and thus she is forced to stand up on the rim. Unfortunately, the toilet bowl was not fastened to the floor. I will leave the rest of the tale to your imagination!

We have all heard the expression you have "ants in your pants." Generally, this is taken to mean someone who is impatient. However, in the case of Jennica Peterson, who traveled to Paraguay, she had the ill luck of having large ants creep up her legs.

Suppose you have to explain to a pharmacist in Holland that you want some preparation H or some other remedy for your haemorrhoids. What do you do when the pharmacist does not understand English and has no idea of what you are requesting? Suzanne Lafetra informs us of her painful ordeal, when the pharmacist was convinced that all she really wanted were condoms.

It seems that in Korea the salutation, "Hello, How are you?" can't be translated. Evidently, the actual greeting is "Hello, Have you eaten your dinner?"
You can well envisage when Melissa H.M. Valks responded to several respective Korean men that she had not eaten and subsequently she was invited out for dinner.
This sudden wave of popularity had gone to her head, until it was explained to her that it would be ill mannered of her to say she had not eaten. Furthermore, the men posing the query bore the obligation of taking her out for dinner, according to Korean etiquette.

According to the editor, this book of essays endeavours to go beyond the ordinary been-there-done-that stories- rather focusing on the outrageous.
The book might have been more effective if some of the tales had been left out. They were tiresome to read and I had the impression that they were included to fill up pages. By attempting to include tales that really were not funny, nor outrageous, the editor undermined part of her objectives.


Norm Goldman

Rating:
Summary: More hilarity from the road
Review: For anyone who has had a trip go not exactly as planned, this book will make you laugh--and be glad that your mishaps weren't (relatively) that bad. I loved the story of evading the druglord/mafia in Turkey, and the painful panties problem in Paraguay. It's great to hear these fresh female voices and to hear about their adventures and misadventures. This book is for people who like funny, for people who like travel, who people who like funny travel. A great gift for you girlfriend, sister, mother, and any woman about to go traveling--or in the withdrawal phase of just coming back from a trip.

Rating:
Summary: A great read!
Review: I hold great respect for ladies that travel, especially the ones who travel to Third World countries. The toilets of developing countries are well...less than ideal. It is a lot easier to laugh at having roach in your ear in Moorea, a day after it happens, what a way to spend a honeymoon! How about a trip to the Great Wall of China with a two mile hike to the gondola ride, only to find out you will have to slide down a mountain to the parking lot, as the cable just broke. This book is loaded with tales of similar travel misfortunes, the joy of travel and the agony of travel from around the world

It is the mis-adventures of travel that bring upon the best stories, be they hurricanes or diarrhea. So have a seat in the comfort of your living room and share these hilarious tales of travel fortune and misfortune, the best part is you don't even need to take along your Imodium.

Rating:
Summary: Nothing Lost in Translation
Review: If you want to read about the travel misadventures of several very talented writers, I would highly recommend this book. They are presented in very short vignettes each unrelated to the other but share the common travel theme of misadventure. If you have ever traveled, the strangest things seem to happen spontaneously and this book is full of these types of anecdotes. You can be in Germany getting a Turkish bath (hamam) from Hassan, daydreaming about using him as your personal slave back home, or find your way to a house in Istanbul where a stranger allows you to stay with your Australian traveling companion until you find out that it is occupied by members of the Turkish mafia who won't let you escape. Other stories vary from getting waxed in New York to answering natures call in Yukatan at a public restroom where you had to squat on the rim of the toilet to preserve personal sanitation. You also had to board the bus that was leaving within three minutes. There are a total of 31 stories that kept me captivated and often laughing aloud.

Rating:
Summary: Whose brain-farts are these?
Review: Oh My GOD! This woman wanted to buy underwear in India, but she is too big for them! That's soo funny!!!! And then this one woman rented a cabin in the woods and thought the water pump was a killer out to get her in the night and couldn't sleep - that is soo funny. (For the benefit of any of the writers in this book who may happen accross this, that was Sarcasm).

These people are the kind of ignorant blowhards that give Americans a bad name all over the world. But I think these are even worse than most, bordering on the retarded. I would cringe for our society if I met any of these short-bus drop-offs in Iowa.

This is the dumbest bunch of drivel I ever forced my way to drudge through just to ignore the 8 month-old in the seat next to me in a plane. Killed 10 minutes anyway.

Keep your $10 and bang your head against the wall for free. Same humor value.

And people, just because you are ignorant of all things outside of your little hamlet, don't think we will find it funny when you encounter different.


Rating:
Summary: Some amusing anecdotes
Review: Some of the stories in this collection are pretty amusing, especially the ones that stick to brevity to relay their humor. Some, however, drag on a little, and a few could have benefited from some revising. And some just made me downright uncomfortable - especially the little story about the woman who gets a giant cockroach stuck in her ear (I guess it's a testament to good writing that it made me skeevy for a few days, thinking about a bug scrabbling away in there!).

All told, though, I enjoyed the book as a little piece of enjoyable quick-reading and would probably pick up another book in the series.

Rating:
Summary: Another undergarment disaster
Review: Surely there were more suitable submissions to Travelers' Tales than these. It was my fault for purchasing this book. I got confused and thought it might be funny. But shame on me twice bc I also bought the 'sand in my bra' mess as well. Please hire new writers and an editor who knows how to edit. Keep the cover photographer.