Laidback in Laos
In a poetic tale of hedonism, guest writer Aram McLean recounts drunken days & free-loving nights in Laos and still manages time to experience the country’s raw beauty. The way is a mix of clay, mud and manure, making a soup of epic slime. Leeches roam the path. And they jump! Yes, jump. Curling their bodies like some blood-sucking mutant of an inch-worm, they hurl themselves at our bare...
Read MoreRats & a Laundered T-shirt
It’s 1am in the morning and I am spending the night at YYZ (Toronto Airport) – by choice – because I couldn’t impose on anyone to get up in the middle of the night to deliver me the required two hours before my 6:30am flight. (“4:30am? Are you kidding!?”, was the exact response I think.) I’ve been here since midnight but I’m happy enough because I’ve found a quiet place...
Read MoreBlack Water Rafting
Experience # 174 Leave to the Kiwis to take caving one step further to create an adventure sport called Black Water Rafting just so they can clean their clothes. I went underground for the full story. I first discovered New Zealand as a backpacker in 1990. I spent three months traversing the Land of the Long White Cloud and fell in love with every cm of its 2,000kms from tip to toe. I’ve...
Read MoreThe Seven Trials of Tibet
Experience #936 Hoping to tread the path to enlightenment I took the Tibetan challenge and travelled the rough road from Katmandu to Lhasa discovering a rural land trapped in time and ruled by religion. Himalayan hidden and oft-shrouded in secrecy, Tibet has always attracted attention because of its blocked borders. More recently Tibet’s political plight and the Dalai Lama’s celebrity...
Read MoreIsolation on Easter Island
Experience #924 Walking along the statue strewn slopes of Easter Island’s extinct volcano Rano Raraku is a magical, almost spiritual experience. Essentially the main quarry and workshop for the island’s famed statues, it is here the volcanic rock was carved into life by the Polynesian islanders. What remains today is an empty studio of enigmatic statues in various states of progress,...
Read MorePhoto of the day
Recent Comments