What travel teaches you: sometimes you have to swallow dead rats

Life Lessons on the Road

I can’t get a replacement ticket without selling my firstborn child. I fly to a border town instead, but the last bus just left. The airport WiFi isn’t working  – an immutable law of the universe – so I have to try and wing it with one of those old-timey maps made out of dead trees. It’s one Hail Mary after another: Over 16 hours, I take two taxis, a crowded minivan, two planes, a train, a ferry, a motorbike, and do plenty of walking, often in circles. I’m pulled aside at the border for questioning. An ancient vending machine swallows my last banknote. It’s think-on-your-feet, sprint to catch the last train stuff; an accidental one-man homage to the Amazing Race.

With exactly one sen (0.3c) to my name, I trudge the final stretch to my lodgings. It’s 11pm, and everything that could go wrong, has gone wrong. I’m soaked in sweat, desperate for the loo, starving, and absolutely knackered.

And I wouldn’t have it any other way…

A Sense of Perspective: The Time I Received Five Marriage Proposals in One Day

The Time I Received Five Marriage Proposals in One Afternoon

That fateful afternoon in the slums of Jakarta is seared into my memory forever. No ego-boost here – just people desperate to escape from grinding poverty. Travel is a uniquely powerful way of broadening your perspective, but talk is cheap. No amount of sanctimonious think-pieces and gratitude journaling will put food in hungry bellies. The good news is, we have an amazing opportunity to actually do something…