Lek was my tour guide through Vietnam. Picture the typical guide you’d expect to be allocated to take a bunch of skint, giddy young people through South East Asia. You’re probably thinking of someone with nice teeth, a fifty million Dong smile, charming crow’s feet around their eyes, adventure-dyed skin, wrists a-jangle with bangles, a faded scar or two, hair free flowing, voluminous and wild, full of stories and quirks and gleeful chaos and, and, and… no. Shovel all that shit out of your head now. That wasn’t Lek. Continue reading
Backpackers: An Odd Species
I still remember the first backpackers I ever saw. It was the first stop of my big world trip, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Arriving at the hostel after our flight, exhausted already by the sticky heat and boisterous Vietnamese city life, my friend and I spotted 15 or so bedraggled western backpackers lounging in the foyer. Even at a glance, it was plain to see they weren’t normal tourists. I wanted to say hi, but I was too shy.
Strippers and Thugs in San Antonio, Texas
You are sleeping soundly in your four poster bed, dreaming of sugar plums and prancing ponies. A slight breeze makes you shudder in your sleep, and you instinctively draw the covers tighter around you. As you drift back to your slumber, a noise jolts you awake. Your eyes flick open, but you daren’t move. Slowly, you push yourself upright, gathering your nightie up around you. The window is open a crack. That’s not right. You closed it before you went to sleep. You always close the window.
Something moves in the corner of your eye. A shadow shifts, and you freeze.
“Who are you?” you croak. “What do you want from me?”
I step forward and you behold my terrible form; a translucent wraith, my face gaunt and hollow, my eyes sunken. I reach out for you, you back away frantically, until you bump into your wardrobe. Trapped. Continue reading
What the Dream Costs
A few months ago I wrote an article called something like ‘“I can’t afford to travel” Shut up. Yes you can’. It was, as the name suggests, a tongue in cheek little post about how if you really want it, you can always scrape the money together to get yourself out into the world. Well, that was months ago, and since then I’ve discovered whole new depths of scrimping and saving to travel. I got dressed for work today, and was busy rummaging through my wardrobe for something that wasn’t either decrepit beyond salvaging, grossly miss-sized, or simply in spectacularly bad taste. As I rifled, I realised just how bad my clothes have got, in the wake of all my scrounging. Can’t afford nice clothes. Must travel. Continue reading
That Time I Dropped My Phone Off a Cliff in Yosemite
***You walk into my office. It’s dark, but you can see my outline through the gloom. I’m sitting with my back to you, the slatted blinds casting thin slivers of moonlight over me. My face is lost to shadow. A cigarette smoulders in the ashtray on my desk next to a tumbler of some brown liquor. You say my name and I turn my head. I bring a bottle to my lips and laugh a bitter, gurgling laugh. I ask you what you want. You tell me you want to know what really happened, that summer day in Yosemite. I turn sour, I tell you to get out of my office. I stand up out of my seat and slam the bottle down on the table, spilling liquor over a stack of old newspaper cuttings. Get out, I tell you, but you stand firm. You whisper a name. I pause. I pick up the cigarette and draw it deep into my lungs.
“Samsung S3 Mini?” I murmur, as the smoke curls out of my mouth and the embers reflect in my eyes. “I haven’t heard that name in years…”*** Continue reading
I’m Moving To Berlin. Woo!!!
I’ve an announcement to make, which will no doubt to bring shock and disbelief to the scores of people who read this website, namely my parents and the occasional random Argentinian man who accidentally stumbles across this site while searching for porn. I wish to inform all three of you that, on the 4th of October this year, I will be moving to Berlin. Continue reading
Ganja Cookies in Nimbin, Australia
Warning!
This post features light drug use. If you are offended by the idea of a human being ingesting a small amount of plant and feeling a little woozy, here is your moment to recoil in horror, let out a ghastly wail of terror, slam your laptop shut and fling it out of the window.
Monument Valley
We were driving through Arizona, although we were passing through states so quickly I found it hard to keep track, especially with all the lack of sleep and the bottles of wine I was putting away at a rate that would draw a lopsided smile and thumbs up from Gerard Depardieu. Over endless miles of highway we sang songs and played games and drew on the windows with wipe clean pens. We laughed at each other’s gaping mouths when we took naps, and we disagreed on who should get to be in charge of the radio. (Nobody else wanted Meatloaf, dammit) The rocks around us steadily turned red as we headed south. We stopped at a deserted little settlement, some depressing metal huts in the arse end of nowhere. Navajo people sat in the huts, browsing magazines with disinterest, all kinds of Native American bric-a-brac stacked around them. Daggers, bows, arrows, necklaces. I hobbled straight past all of it and found a bathroom; the first we’d had passed in hours. Thank god. Continue reading
The Jellyfish
While at work today, I stumbled across an article by the Telegraph on creativity, which you can click here to read. Listening to the featured podcast, I was amazed to learn of an art project which took place in 2014 Liverpool; more specifically, in the poorest neighbourhood in the country, Toxteth. In the immediate area, only 1 in 10 houses are inhabited.
One night in the summer, on a quiet street in this deprived area, the shutters on a derelict shop began to mechanically wind up, for the first time in years. As the shutter rose, blue light spilled out from the shop, bathing the street. The shutter finished its ascent and clicked into place, and silence reclaimed the streets, illuminated in the shimmering blue light emanating from within the abandoned shop. Continue reading
Lost in New York
Travelling alone tests you. It’s shit at the time, obviously, but when you look back on it, wrapped in the warm blanket of hindsight, it’s a beautiful thing.
I was in New York in August, 2014, at the end of the best three months of my life. During those three wild months I had visited Vietnam, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, and had travelled the whole width of the USA. New York was the end of the line, and I was due to fly home in a couple of days. I was the most tanned I’ve ever been, my hair was long and curly and bleached by the sun, and I was horribly unfit after months of partying and boozy adventures around the world.
I realise I could have lied to you then, and made myself sound more charming, but… meh. Continue reading