The bedroom door bursts open, and David flicks the light on. ´Quick amigo! Out of bed! There is an earthquake!´ I sit up, rubbing my eyes and stare at him stupidly. ´Seriously..?´ ´Si, si! Vamos! We must go outside..!´
After about 10 minutes of waiting, a car with three young Englishmen in it picked me up. They’re the “Young’uns” and were on their way to perform at the festival! They’ve just landed in Australia and I gave them some Aussie slang lessons delivered with a German accent…
As I started festival-hopping, I got into the “scene of crazy people”… Instead of spending all their money on a car or on public transport, they would just hitchhike everywhere…
Coming from Australia, New Zealand is familiar, but also oddly different. One obvious difference is the size of the lumps. The landscape here looks a bit like Australia, only stretched, like someone scaled a picture on Photoshop…
Travelers Dilemma ( #2 ) Sometimes you stumble into a place and it’s beauty makes you feel as if you could spend the rest of your life there. Paradoxically, if you followed those sort of impulses you would not be a traveler and you would not have discovered the place you yearn to remain in.…
We went out to Cedar Bay to visit my old mate Wilson the basketball. It’s a 17 kilometre hike to Cedar Bay, through the national park. No roads. You get there by foot or on a boat. This place is nice and quiet. Shannon and I took about 8 hours to do the hike because…
…Our mouths smell of whiskey and we are both breathing hard through our nostrils as we kiss, our sweaty faces sliding over each other. I see a monkey over Katherine’s shoulder. Two monkeys. Three. I pull away from the kiss. We are surrounded by monkeys. They are in a ring around us. They’re big,…
…My left knee jams under the accelerator grip, and the next thing I know, I’ve lost power, lost my balance and I’m toppling, slowly and gracelessly toward the ground. A group of monks are laughing at me uproariously. I pick myself up with Buddhist humility, and ride slowly and carefully out the temple gate… Flashback:…
Kuang Si Waterfall. One of the most beautiful places I’ve visited in Asia. It’s about 25 km outside Luang Prabang, Laos. The water is cool and clear. It’s refreshing and the lush forest surroundings make the place feel magical. It’s the low season for tourism, so most of the people at the falls are…
…I climb up and sit on the throne. Looking down on the cave floor below, I can imagine the people who lived here a hundred thousand years ago. Jessy clambers up and sits beside me. ‘Your highness’ she greets me, with a sardonic smile. ‘Doctor.’ We kiss on the throne. It is intensely erotic… I…
I hear something move a few metres away. A crackle of shifting twigs. It’s closer now, just on the other side of the tree. I whirl around the trunk, spear ready…
…There was a woman on my mind. Of course there was. She’d given me an ultimatum; give me what I want, or leave me alone. I loved her. I wanted to make her love me too, but I seemed to be unable to reach her. I sat on the muddy ground under the lush forest…