The author of this book began his trip in the Yali country of West New Guinea, now known as Irian Jaya, where penis sheaths are the only article of male attire and farmers still hack at the earth with stone adzes. Nothing new has happened here for 10,000 years. Elsewhere change races ahead of the guidebooks as Lewis travels through the Western Highlands some 200 miles away and on to Aceh on the northern tip of Sumatra where a unique pine forest he is urged to visit has been handed over to a logging concern and by the time he reaches it most of the trees have been turned into cement sacks. The final leg of the journey is through war-torn East Timor.