On transitioning from inconsequential backpacker to time-constrained holidaymaker.
I’m an atheist. It’s never normally hard for me to admit that. But last time I settled myself in a city overseas, while looking for community, I found myself in a circle of Christian men that made me their prey.
Personally, I’ve always found church a bit hard to swallow. Perhaps it is the remnants…
I sit in a rustic wooden house adorned with ornaments from South Asia in the middle of the wilderness in Bulgaria. It is a chilly night but inside, the atmosphere is warm. I sit in a circle with 12 new Bulgarian friends. Everyone has brought a vegan dish to this Friday night gathering. There is…
I walk into a hostel in Italy and the common room is filled with people for the free dinner. I scan the room quickly. There is one other person of colour. I walk into a hostel in Thailand. I hang out in what is literally one of the most popular tourist destinations in Asia for…
This piece was inspired by the many conversations of my travels.
The distant coastline falls beyond the view of the pier from the boundary of the hostel. Behind the partition, hands are burdened with wrinkled beer cans and tobacco ciggies littered with weed. The drunken party promises of new-age nomads from the distant kitchen sound…
Am I an alcoholic?
Some might say that if I have to ask myself this question, I probably already know the answer.
I sit here writing this with a margarita close by and a small child watching my every move, sipping on her juice box. She’s got dark curly hair framing her face…
I will never forget the screams of those floating Germans.
There I was, belly up on a scorching tube, drifting down the guts of the Mekong River, when a tiny fish decided to take the toe of a Deutschland-hailing backpacker.
And by take, I mean bite the fuck off.
As I attempted, in vain, to…
It was the night before the Thai new year festival of Songkran, and we were spending it in the luggage hold of a bus. We curled side by side, facing each other, hemmed in on every side by holdalls, suitcases, and backpacks. Even in the darkness, we could feel the sticky heat of the Thai…
I’m in the hostel common area and they’re all here. There’s the German solo traveller in sensible outdoor clothes; the bubbly Scandinavian girls who embarrass you with their perfect English (and French, Spanish, and already firm grasp of the language from whichever country you’re in); the perhaps unfairly labelled, perhaps not, weird older bloke who…
It’s midday and I’m standing in a parking lot across the road from Warner Bros. Studio. Around me I can see families, couples, groups of middle-aged women, and the occasional man. I overhear that a family has flown in from Seattle “just to be here”, another have travelled from East Coast, a couple have been…
Right now, I should be in absolute shock and wonderment. I'm sitting comfortably in the rental home of three elderly Japanese people, who have just treated me to a magnificent meal of sashimi, okonomiyaki and the usual unusual assortment of Japanese vegetables exotic to the foreign tongue.
Where I had presented nothing but the hitchhiker's…
I just missed another friend’s wedding. A friend I have known since the age of 10. She sent me the invite months ago.
Absolutely no pressure if you’re not, but do you think you’ll be in Australia in June? We have booked the date and I would love you to be there.
When she asked,…