THESE SERBIANS HAVE SEEN SOME SHIT, like NATO bombs falling from the sky and exploding their neighbourhoods and the collapse of an entire global political structure. I don’t want to generalise after spending only a single night with a few liberal-arts types (excuse me as I do anyway), but it seemed to me that they have internalized all the ridiculous conditions of their upbringing—the wars, … Continue reading Serbia’s Gen-Yers are Black Comic Geniuses
I WRITE THIS FROM the last frontier of Asia, Turkey’s eastern half, before flying over the divisive Bosphorus River into what is securely the First World, and the second half of this four-month journey. I have a few thoughts leaving Asia, where V and I spent the last two years living and travelling; mostly I wonder if I will miss it (and the solid income) … Continue reading Stories Left Behind in Asia
THE TORRENTIAL DOWNPOUR DETERRED US, but nobody surrendered: at 6 p.m., as scheduled, our food tour guide met us on a busy Kolkota corner, in front of a meek electronics store surrounded by scaffolding. I wasn’t sure you’d make it, she told us. We thought the same about her. In the end, it turned out, food can cause anyone to brave a storm. And she … Continue reading Kolkata’s Street Food Walkers
IN A SINGLE AFTERNOON, it is possible to see what some claim to be the sites where Jesus was crucified, where the ancient Jewish First and Second temples once stood, where the Prophet Muhammad ascended into Heaven, and the tombs of half the characters from the New and Old Testaments. Perhaps anticipating the plausibility of a 21st-century tourist boom, very few Biblical folks did anything … Continue reading Jerusalem is a Dizzying Disneyland of Religion
I HAVE NEVER KNOWN SUCH SILENCE as the Jordanian desert at night. There is literally nothing making those noises we take for granted when we think of quietness; no humming fridge, no faraway birds, no buzzing lights or purring motors. To sleep in the desert is to exist in absolute nothingness, to be absorbed by a black hole and stare in awe at the sudden … Continue reading Under the Silence of the Jordanian Stars
SOMEWHERE BETWEEN THE TAJ MAHAL AND AGRA FORT there is a quiet little town—quiet by Indian standards—and somewhere therein live quiet people, normal people, people not out to get your money or impress you with Mughal legends but rather who are interested in speaking to you. These are friendly people, too polite to be easily found, and to meet them requires you spend time in … Continue reading The People Around the Taj Mahal
VARANASI IS A PROFOUNDLY DIFFERENT PLACE, spiritually bombastic and alive. Chants echo through dusty stone alleys and schoolchildren, in striped ties and checked skirts, sing and tease each other in the backs of colourful rickshaw trucks. The walls surrounding everything have been crumbling for so long that it seems unlikely that they have ever seen better days, and now stand plastered and re-plastered with old … Continue reading Varanasi: Dodge The Cow Shit And It’s Actually Quite Charming
EVERYONE AND HIS BROTHER owns a silk shop in Varanasi. Walk down the street and you will be personally invited to one every few paces, told “No pressure” and “Just take a look” when you hesitate, persuaded when they explain the secret to proving real silk from polyester knockoffs (the threads burn into ashes) and allowed to see the weaving factory because somewhere down the … Continue reading How We Spent Ten Dollars On Scarves in Varanasi and Why We’re Okay With It
THE THING ABOUT INDIA that travel magazines ignore is its fetishistic addiction to bureaucracy. If something takes place in a large building with air-conditioning, rest assured you will be helplessly drowned in endless spools of red tape—yet the streets outside are inevitably a manic free-for-all. The schism is symbiotic and outlandish, and in either case leaves a Westerner standing aside, shaking his head in bafflement. … Continue reading The Two Indias: Of Rules and Chaos
WE DEPARTED THE MAINLAND of Southeast Asia with some regret, having not met as many locals as we’d normally like. I also didn’t get as many good photos of the ones we did talk to, which you might notice below. This is because the conversations happened spontaneously, when I wasnt preared for them, which, in some ways, made each a little more engaging, and I … Continue reading Stories Left in Southeast Asia
A Long Way Back 