What do I remember most? The stuff I didn’t plan for. The places where I learned something. The spontaneous events. The interesting stories people share with me. The things that make me think. Making friends and reuniting with old ones.
What do I most enjoy writing about? Mostly that stuff. Some of these get long. See all of them here.
21st century: Passing New Years’ with defiantly unmodernised tribes in Ethiopia’s south
Befriend: Lost in translation and unable to decline in Kosovo
Border: One very hospitable people and incredible scenery straddling Tajikistan and Afghanistan
Beyond nature: The world’s largest mirror in Bolivia
Change: In Singapore and in life, five years after an affecting one-year stay
Ego: Alone in the physical manifestation of a personality cult in Turkmenistan
Emigrant: Reconciling my identity in Hong Kong
Endless: The amount of summer sunshine and possibilities in Canada‘s Arctic
Exposure: Fulfilling a dream of hanging out with penguins in Antarctica
Forgiveness: Of the most extreme sense in Rwanda, a nation rebuilt from trauma yet advancing fast
Invitation: Joining a family in Tibet for a week and 1700 km of unfiltered cultural highs and lows
Isolation: The feeling of utter freedom on Easter Island
Joy: Witnessing a family reunion in Nicaragua 18 years in the making
Patience: The prerequisite of life along Papua New Guinea‘s Sepik River (and Crocodile Festival)
Plenty: Wedding crashing, picnic crashing, and house crashing in rural Uzbekistan
Resistance: Connecting the dots from West Africa to Brazil
Theory: A week of wildlife and wild human stories in the Galápagos
Sidetracks: Missing countless turns and chasing sunshine in the Azores
Simple: Tranquility, determination, and dire straits in the middle of nowhere, Uganda
Strangers: The nicest ones in the world are in Ghana
Superstition: Accompanying local friends to voodoo priest consultations in Benin
Talk: “Visiting while Chinese” in Somaliland, a place unaccustomed to foreigners- Tradition: A raucous show of the sacred at Papua New Guinea‘s National Mask Festival
World Nomad Games: A week of headless goat polo and other unorthodox sports in Kyrgyzstan
Years and years: Reigniting travel friendships in new contexts, after years of life changes
I’ve also been fortunate enough to witness the work of various NGOs (none of whom I am affiliated with!) who were kind enough to lend me their time during my travels.
- Hope springs eternal: Providing internationally-funded, locally-driven clean water and hygiene education in remote villages of Ethiopia
Nourish: Local ingenuity and solutions for food security and agriculture in Kenya- Scale: HIV/AIDS prevention in marginalised communities, and the polarised reactions in China‘s government and conservative underground churches
- With love/with care: Balancing traditional Tibetan Buddhist and Hui Muslim cultures with church-provided poverty reduction, disaster relief, and education
Dig around. This whole blog’s written for me to remember anyway.