The Final Exam

Within minutes of arriving, an old man was leading me by the hand up the steep mountain path. I walked out of the dark into the large, open air communal area lit by a generator and a few swinging lights. Inside, the mother of all vagabonding challenges was awaiting me.  Three years of travel have [...]

The best birthday

I sat comfortably on the bamboo platform beneath my two-story local style bungalow updating my journal and listening to the sounds of the waves smacking the rocks just a few meters below me.  I could smell a cooking fire somewhere in the distance and tiny boats from the local village bobbed on the water trying [...]

Back to Indonesia

Every budget traveler, from every geographical location, has a local bus horror story to share. Sometimes several.  We’ve all done our time.  The stories are so ubiquitous that no one wants to hear them anymore.  I’ve personally sat on boxes of onions for 10 hours (Laos), watched kids poop in the aisle between the seats [...]

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