People often ask me how my relationships are with other humans while I travel all the time; whether I experience any emotional deprivation, being compelled to only develop strictly superficial ties, since limited time does not allow for a connection to deepen.My answer to such questions is what I have understood. To wit, that they fool themselves terribly if they believe that … [Read more...]
An Amputated Old Man at Lusaka’s Bus Station
...By early afternoon, I was finally roused by the squealing blares of some vendors who had invaded the bus. All of them, cardboard boxes on shoulders, were striving to sell their wares, consisting of water bottles, soft drinks, cookies, fruit, and various other edible-or-not products. Only the faster ones had made it into the vehicle’s interior. The rest had formed a mob … [Read more...]
A Homeless Chap in a Saigonese Alley
Ofttimes, you encounter people with whom you cannot exchange a single word and hardly even share an intelligible gesture with each other. Nonetheless, as if an invisible flow of some uncanny energy conveys ineffable meaning between you, such people may sometimes earn a prominent position in the realm of your memories. One of those people was that homeless guy I once bumped into … [Read more...]
The German Guy Who Got Stabbed by his Thai Girlfriend
It was a summer evening in the Norwegian capital, Oslo. It would already have been night if it wasn’t for the sun, which, as accustomed in such northern latitudes that time of the year, was lingering above the horizon, seeming hesitant to part with the one-half of the firmament visible from the northern hemisphere; so rendering the people, too, equally reluctant to quit the day … [Read more...]
Hitchhiking Around Europe Carrying a Double Bass
It was one of those wonted summer afternoons, somewhere deep inside an alluring, ancient forest atop a hill in the periphery of the Norwegian capital, Oslo. For us people present on the spot, there was nothing extraordinary about being there, as that was the exact place we were, as of then, accustomed to call home.We maintained a few tents and makeshift lodgings made of … [Read more...]
A Hungry Dude in Cape Town’s Streets
...So I bid her farewell and started walking up the Main Road. I longed for my bed. It had been a long night, and everything around was orbiting my head. It did not take long before I heard footsteps approaching me from behind.I turned to check and saw a lad, alone, coming almost running from the opposite pavement, getting ready to cross the road to my side. In anticipation, I … [Read more...]
A Senegalese Man Searching a European Wife or Football Team
It was an enchanting afternoon in front of the Atlantic, a couple of kilometers up-beach from the village of Palmarin, somewhere along the Senegalese coast. A friend and I had just arrived there after a long, hot, and dusty day driving in an about-to-break-apart, curio car, first; and on top of a luggage load on top of a small bus, then; through the flat, arid, and dirty … [Read more...]
The Story of a Vietnamese Prostitute
It was one of those hot Saigonese evenings. I was sitting in one of those depraved pubs of Bui Vien Street, having some beers with two Japanese fellow travelers, while watching the motley crowd rambling up and down the road. It was then when, all of a sudden, that cheery, young local girl darted out of the throng, and by the very next instant, had taken the liberty to occupy … [Read more...]
The Man Who Escaped Communist Poland and Got Imprisoned in India
It was that other evening in Ziguinchor, Casamance, Senegal. I was in that random hotel’s neat garden, sitting and sipping that Gazelle Senegalese beer I had just ordered. The moment was of a highly exhilarating quality. Some interesting company was the only thing I could wish for to have it elevated to something closer to ideality.It was that exact moment I heard that wonky … [Read more...]
An American Mormon In Thailand
Throughout my extensive travels, I’ve been fortunate to meet and interact with a vast number of people of the utmost diversity of cultural and ideological backgrounds. As it happens to be one of the most profound and enigmatic human sentiments, religion has always excited my curiosity to a high degree of keenness. And the more obscure, occult, or just unique someone’s beliefs … [Read more...]
