They say (those who have gone before us) the mark of any great adventure can only be measured on the return. They say the mark is to see the same things again but for the very first time. Almost four years away from home and, curiously, some things do actually seem this way, others not [...]
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Finding love’s grace
“It’s a dangerous road Frodo, going out of your door”, he used to say, “You step into the road and if you don’t keep your feet there is no knowing where you might be swept off to”. – J.R Tolkien. If there is one thing that I have learned from almost four years on the [...]
READ MORE »Love and Revolution
This is an excerpt from a book, “Love and Revolution” by Alastair Mcintosh, that I wish to share: “I think Joseph Campbell was right when he said that all great stories share a common theme. There is the departure, when the fresh faced hero sets out on life’s journey; the initiation, when she or he [...]
READ MORE »At the ends of the earth
If there was such a place, Scandinavia would be a land of fairy tales. One of the first things I noticed disembarking from the ferry was the gentle rolling landscape, the open fields, houses made of straw, giant wooden windmills (the kind you read about in children’s stories) and flowers potted in long rectangular boxes [...]
READ MORE »A remarkable change in Europe
I followed the Danube all the way into Austria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. I met fantastic people along the way, stayed in a beautiful ashram for two weeks near Brno in the Czech Republic and ended up cycling towards Scandinavia. I had some good friends to meet up with in Germany who I’d met [...]
READ MORE »Waterlogged Vampires
After devouring some of the largest pretzels I’ve ever seen over a two week period in Bucharest, I headed north toward the Transylvanian mountains. Yep, this is where the story of Dracula was born. Interestingly, nobody really knows how this blood sucking story started but, like all good myths, there is always an element of [...]
READ MORE »Becoming lost
From my journal: “It’s a day of potential today. Spring is in the air; a hazy blue sky fills the cityscape horizon and it feels slightly warmer – a welcome relief from the recent cold. There is still a slight chill but, like the signs of an autumn forest, it feels like there is change [...]
READ MORE »A not so Black Sea
On the day I turned 30, I’d made it to the Black Sea. It wasn’t so sweet a meeting because it was my birthday, but rather the previous four weeks I’d spent in freezing conditions cycling through Northern Iran, Armenia and Georgia. With ongoing health problems since India and with the onset of winter fast [...]
READ MORE »An Angel in Armenia
Snow began appearing in the mountains of North West Iran. There I travelled along undulating hills and into the barren and often treeless mountains. I passed simple homes made from earth, clinging together in heaps on mountain slopes, forming a patchwork of small farms coagulating at the centre to form a small village. I imagined [...]
READ MORE »Why Iran?
I’m no conspiracy theorist, nor is this going to be a intellectual assessment of the current state of affairs. (I don’t have the capacity for intellectual understanding and this is not the time for either). This is merely food for thought. I’m not anti-capitalist, nor communist or pro-socialist. I hate labeling anything that doesn’t open [...]
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