[ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 19.02.2016] The Backpack:Quite simply the raison d’être of the backpacker. Its mere ownership qualifies for backpacker status regardless of age, social standing or number of children born since the last expedition. The internal capacity fluctuation challenges all laws of physics through its unexplainable reverse black hole properties: the exact same contents that fit in neatly …
[ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 10.02.2016] Every once in a while, a backpacker’s travel stars align so beautifully so as to create an experience that transcends the realms of realistic expectation and enters the pantheon of personal globe-trotting immortality. The mere mention of a city or, even more rarely, an entire country that has merited inclusion into this …
[ORIGINALLY POSTED 08.02.2016] “Stop! STOP!!! STOOOOOOOOP!!!!!!! Hyenas, mother and cub, 8 o’ clock!” You never forget your first safari sighting. Neither will my nine tour companions, as my shrill, robbery-victim falsetto threatens to shatter every pane of glass in our spotting vehicle. That the animals have not scarpered across the border into Angola is a …
[ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 30.01.2016] I look over to my phone for perhaps the fiftieth time in the last few minutes, but the flashing LED that signals a message notification remains absent. From receiving corporate emails from all longitudes and latitudes, almost twenty-four hours a day for the past fourteen years, I am now a telecommunications pariah …
[ORIGINALLY POSTED 22.01.2016] The time draws nigh. Disappointed by the non-manifestation of my much anticipated midlife crisis one entire year after my 40th birthday, and without the financial or legal means to acquire an appendage-extending Porsche 911, I have decided to take the matter into my own hands. So goodbye job of 14 years, au …
[ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 06.05.2011] ‘No, this is illegal in our country, we have to confiscate it. You should not have it.’ I am in deep trouble. How stupid of me, I should have known that I would not be allowed to enter Azerbaijan with a live hand-grenade and a kilo of near-pure Columbian cocaine. What was …
[ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 25.04.2011] I can deny it no longer, you have to know this: I am in love with you. My heart aches with the all-consuming fire that you are burning inside me. I love you, I really do. I am dizzy with happiness for discovering you, but equally with sadness, as I know I …
[ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 03.09.2009] ‘No nay, no no,’ said the White Rabbit, ‘don’t drink the potion! It will make you shrink in size. Follow me, hee hee, follow me this way, it’s much more fun. Let me take you to this amazing place, follow me. Follow me!’ Alice hesitated, but quickly gave in and followed the …
[ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 31.05.2008] At precisely 01:23am on 26 April 1986, Reactor #4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the former Soviet Union exploded, causing the worst nuclear disaster in the history of the world. Large areas of current-day Ukraine, Russia and Belarus were severely contaminated by the intense radiation and nuclear fallout, leading to …