Perhaps the best thing about traveling the world is crossing paths with its people. I consider myself fortunate to have met and interacted with folks from an astounding range of cultural and circumstantial backgrounds. It’s through such encounters that we break our biases and keep refreshing our view of reality. It was the bizarre, unique, real stories of some of these individuals that inspired me to start writing this short story collection.
These are the stories of some of the most remarkable and intriguing characters I’ve come across during my extensive travels. You can read the full collection on the blog. But if you’d prefer to enjoy it on your e-reader or on paper and support my creative work, grab your copy.
Across Siberia in a Train Carriage Half-Occupied by North Korean Slave Workers
I was sleeping heavily in the narrow upper berth of that 3rd-class carriage of a dated Soviet train traveling east along the Trans-Siberian Railway. My instinct, motivated by a desire to stretch my muscles and nicotine-yearning, aroused me as the ...
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 ...
An Arab Man, his First-Cousin Wife, and his Filipino Girlfriend
Dusk was imminent over the immense desert expanses of Arabia. Somewhere in the peninsula, a friend and I were striving to drive a 2WD sedan along a random, narrow, sand-sheeted dirt road, searching for a camping spot. An old military-style ...
An American Woman Left-Over In Communist Cuba After The Revolution
A searing tropical sun was approaching its zenith in the blue sky of Havana, but hardly any light had made it through the tiny, curtained window of my dingy room. The antiquated wall fan was whirring madly, pointed firmly over ...
An Englishman’s Retirement In Thailand
Darkness prevailed abruptly, and a relieving breeze began flowing seawards. A mellow tropical night had just befallen over the Thai coast. The streets of Hua Hin, one of Thailand’s most Western cities, would have normally been rammed. Street-food vendors would ...
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 Story of an Albanian Junky
A cool spring night had just fallen over the Albanian coastal city of Saranda. A pleasant breeze blew on the balcony. The Greek villages of Corfu glowed faintly from across the coal-black sea. They were in lockdown over there. Here ...
The Story of an Ethiopian Refugee
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 ...
The Guy Behind the Dating Sites’ Fake Profiles
Being, to a certain extent, the traditional and romantically nostalgic kind of person, I was never much into dating sites and apps. Apart from some brief sessions on various platforms for the sake of research and experimentation, I’ve never made ...
The Nonagenarian Shepherd in the Greek Mountains
The harsh midsummer sun had plunged a good deal and was approaching the western horizon. A soft, pleasant breeze was sliding soundlessly across the mountain col. The firs, the gently chirping birds, and even the rocks seemed to rejoice in ...
The Addict Who Became a Monk in Greece’s Holy Mountain to Quit Heroin
There was that bloke I knew a long, long time ago. He was an excellent guitarist and had a Metal band. He was also very bright overall and could have certainly made a name for himself in music… if it ...
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 ...
The Dude Who Swallowed 4 Grams of Cocaine Inside the Police Station
The hero of this story, who, for discretion’s sake, will be referred to as G, used to be a good friend of mine. By used to be, I don’t want to mean that he at any point stopped to be ...
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 ...
The Story of a Penniless Traveler
Throughout my many years roaming around the globe, I have had the good luck to become acquainted with a multitude of other people doing the same. Out of them all, many fell into the category of the so-called budget travelers ...
A Czech Dude Acid-Tripping in the Norwegian Woods
Subtle bundles of meridian sunlight penetrated the foliage and reached the forest floor. Enormous conifers and thick clusters of hazelnut trees seemed to rejoice in the warmth. Delicate smoke wisps ascended idly from the forgotten campfire towards the forest canopy, ...
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, ...
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 ...
The Story of an Albanian Immigrant in Greece
It was sometime midway between sunset and sunrise of a summer new-moon night at a secluded beach somewhere in Greece. Due to the moon’s absence, the sky, the earth, and the sea were veiled in deep darkness. Only the dim ...
A Japanese Guy Busking with a Hang while Tripping on Acid
It was that summer I was wandering around Romania on my bicycle. I had spent the past few weeks in deep isolation: pedaling across broad plains or up and down lofty mountains during the day; sequestered in my tent, pitched ...
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, ...
The Man Who Walked from Czechia to Istanbul with his Dog
Quite many hours had passed since I woke up, concurrently with the sunrise, at that random field somewhere in southern ex-Yugoslavia. After enjoying a cup of coffee in the company of the world’s awakening, I set off pedaling right away ...
A Random Girl, a Random Night in Cape Town
...Quite a few hours must have passed since the moment we were clinking the first beer glasses in an Irish pub until the next vivid memory I have: wondering “where the hell am I?” while drifting wasted along a dark ...
A Tanzanian Man Waiting for a European Benefactor
...Another nice chap I got to meet in Dar Es Salaam was Ibrahim. He was one of those tout-hustlers who parasitized the tourists. I, however, as a Greek, ought to have been a sailor and not a tripper. So I ...
A Zimbabwean Recycling Artist
...There was only that one bloke whose trust I managed to win. Akasinga was a toothless, fifty-year-old man who used to patronize the inn in the evenings. You would never see him mingle with the rest of the throng that ...
A Bedouin in Mount Sinai
...By noontime, as I was climbing down the mountain from the same path and reapproached that little village in the narrow valley, a jovial Bedouin man, standing by his garden’s threshold, invited me to his home. His name was Ramadan ...
The blind Doorman of an Ethiopian Inn
…Another man who caused me a particular impression in that place was the afflicted, aged, scrawny, eyeless doorman of the inn. I do not know it positively, but he was probably mute, too. I never heard, not a word, but ...
The Unarmed Guard of a Ugandan Guesthouse
...Finally, the time had come to get going and head towards new places. The sun had set for some time already. The electricity was back on, and in about half an hour, I needed to be at the station whence ...
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, ...
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 ...
