Eight days ago we lost 22 of our own.
Backpacking on a budget especially is all encompassing, and for the most part overwhelmingly positive (i’ll cover that next time), here I have chosen three things that grind my gears, completely subjective of course, with a travelling lifestyle. Bare in mind throughout that this all makes up maybe 10% of the whole experience, I adore this life.
Embraced by ocean on the very north western tip of this great continent, it has bones of fortress walls and a belly of multicoloured colonial buildings, rhythmic salsa drums provide the heartbeat that pumps a melting pot of humankind through its narrow pastel streets...
Away from the neon glow of the big cities, this was a chance to peer into real life for these hill dwellers that have survived for generations, barring the addition of a few Premier League shirts, almost unchanged.
Set in a valley of forest green hills, small businesses sit like punctuation marks along the road, dogs came sniffing inquisitively and then left us for the next...
Where most of Vietnam bares the scars of recent horrors, Phu Quoc, even after housing South Vietnam's largest prisoner camp during the war, is a literal and metaphorical breath of fresh air...
...the carvings here are sensational, almost two hundred giant faces towering out from its peaks, detailed bas reliefs depicting the mythology and history narrating the centuries that have passed here.
We bathed in the waters, watched ephemeral rainbows dance in the falls like quantum particles blinking in and out of existence, then wearing our most sincere smiles we walked back through streams and caves to our bikes.
Past midnight; the moon cut like a sickle, thousands of iridescent points of light overhead, the three of us waded into the lukewarm Cambodian sea...
