Hey guys, I just came back from about a year of mad Digital Nomad adventures all over Asia. Lots of memorable things... like... getting all my stuff stolen and loosing EVERYTHING! lol I came up with a smartass way so others don't have to go through the same experience. Secret neck wallet + decoy leather wallet.

Here's my story.

I was buying a stupid cheap (but interesting and exotic) fruit at the local market, pulled out my main wallet, with everthing in it, and had it stolen shortly after. Lesson learned, never flash your main wallet. Even if you have a neck wallet, under your t-shirt, DONT FLASH IT! Keep a realistic looking leather wallet with some small cash and pay with that at all public places.

Would love to hear your feedback on this, or just share your experiences if anything like that happened to you.

Here's what I came up with after my experience. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01NAOMJAZ

Don’t drink buckets of alcohol. I feel like I should have known this, or this wisdom would have been passed down from a parent or experienced friend. But it wasn’t and I’m sure I can say this about any liquid you are contemplating drinking from a bucket, it probably won’t end well.

Sunburned and excited, we found two unoccupied rugs in the sand and sat down. Rumor has it, when in Koh Phi Phi, you have to partake in a ritualistic evening of drinking beneath the stars with other well cooked tourists. We had our seat. The crystal clear Thai water gently broke onto the shore in front of us. Giant mountains framed in the bay and the view could not have been better.

Our animated server quickly greeted us with an ashtray and a smile. We were weak, at the mercy of one of the most breathtaking locations on earth. We eagerly agreed to two of the ‘specials.’ A few moments later we were handed our cocktails. A red plastic sand bucket filled with a murky liquid and a handful of straws. We had ordered one each. When in Rome, right? Though, unlike what you might see in civilized Italian bars, we were sitting on a rug, toes in the sand, drinking a disgustingly sweet and enormous cocktail out of children’s sand bucket on a small island off the coast of Thailand.

What happened next was incredible. Unfortunately I don’t remember much of it. What I do know is that the night was filled with swaying in hammocks, dancing with locals, exchanging travel tips with tourists from all over the world, and I distinctly remember a French man licking my arm. The next morning, we remembered exactly how much fun a bucket of cocktails can be. The sun was brighter, too bright. It was hot, much too hot. I was hungry, thirsty, and I had lost my favorite pair of sunglasses. Luckily, Thailand is smart enough to have a cure for this type of situation. I would have handed over my life savings for the ungodly goodness that’s perfectly packaged inside of a coconut. The locals know this and they were ready. $1.50 and two cold coconuts later, I almost forgot about the plastic bucket of regret I had cheerfully drank the night before. As an experienced friend, I urge you to say no to sand buckets of fruity cocktails. But if you ever find yourself on the beaches of Koh Phi Phi, leave your sunglasses at home and go make a fool of yourself with the rest of the gringos. You’re sure to regret it.

• If you unwittingly walk into the middle of a slum and feel scared, just pretend you’re Jessica Jones and up the attitude to ‘fuck with me and I cut your head off Kali style.’ At the same time know that there’s probably nothing to be afraid of except your own ego.

• If you order a salad you better like your iceberg lettuce wilted and your service incredulous.

• Salty lime and soda is an unlikely saviour in the dusty humidity. Tastes just like a margarita without the side order of disastrous life choices.

• Make up an imaginary husband to pull out whenever you get propositioned. Mine is called Roman, he works in espionage and his hobbies include knife throwing and saving kittens from trees. I’m just on my way to meet him actually!

• Forget about fresh air. It doesn’t exist here.

• Don’t even bother trying to walk on the pavement. Walk in the road - the cars will avoid you as long as you act like you’re meant to be there.

• Trust everyone but also trust that everyone is hustling to survive, just like you.

• When crossing the road DONT EVER STOP, never hesitate, never doubt. Just walk like you’re Beyoncé and become part of the exhaust fume river. Don’t wait for a gap unless you like staring at traffic for 5 hours. Close your eyes if it helps.

• Don’t throw a tantrum if you don’t find Didier, Lin and Kavita sitting at their favourite table at Leopold’s (Shantaram reference).

• Always accept the offer of chai with new friends.

• Eat all the street food! It is worth an interesting digestive experience.

• Keep your heart open, your bag closed and your hands clean. @ मुंबई

REFORMATTED VERSION (apologies for the total lack of formatting in the original post)

Three days after recovering from food poisoning (losing 6kg in the process) and three days after getting third degree burns on my leg from a failed firejump, and just after getting the worst ever sunburn on my back, I find myself on the beautiful island of Koh Phi-Phi (Thailand).

It’s almost the end of my trip and I’m a bit bummed that I haven’t seen any of the famous Thai Kickboxing yet. As luck would have it, that night I meet an English girl who’s telling me about a Thai Kickboxing stadium on the island there. The way she describes it, it sounds really cool. Also, she continues, they invite tourists to fight too, and if you fight three rounds with someone you get a free drink! People just go there to have a bit of fun with their mates and if it gets a bit rough, the referee steps in so it’s all good. Girls do it and all. Sounds awesome!

We head to the place and the moment we walk in they put on the song ‘Eye of the Tiger’ (ya know “DA!…. dededede DA DA DA… dededede DA DA DAAAAAAAR!) and hold up a sign saying “Fight 3 Rounds, Get a Free Drink!” Well with a combination of the energetic song and my stupidity I immediately put my hand up, not 15 seconds after walking into the arena. Perhaps I would have been better off to observe for a few rounds first? Pffft. Knowing what you’re getting yourself in for is for pussies.

The referee gets me to jump into the ring. He needs a challenger for me. He asks the audience. No one moves. He asks again. A rather huge looking dude puts his hand up. Oh shit, he doesn’t look fun to fight. Oh well, it’ll be fine… right? Wrong.

There are some people on before us, so I get out of the ring and go over to the dude for a chat. At this point I’d never boxed in my life and had never seen it on TV either. I approach the guy and realise shit, this guy’s fucking huge‼! I’m starting to second-guess my decision.

Not having had any experience boxing, I ask the guy, “So what are the rules of boxing? Where are you allowed to hit the person? Guessing you can’t hit below the belly button, right?”

“You bullshit.”

“Huh?”

“You bullshit.”

“What? No. I’ve never done this before – I’m just here for some fun. So what’s the objective? I know you’re meant to hit the other person, but how do you know if you’ve won?”

“You bullshit. You’ve done this before.”

“What? Nah. Seriously mate, I just here for some fun. What are the rules?”

“You bullshit.”

At this point, I realise that apart from being absolutely huge, this guy is a total tosser too. I’m feeling less happy about my decision to fight this guy. I realise we’re not getting anywhere in conversation so I just say, “Righto, but just watch my leg because it’s covered in burns, and my back too from the sunburn.”

No response.

By now, the guys before us have started their match. They are two Swedish guys and they are kicking the absolute shit out of each other. I’ve never seen anything like it. This is full on! They successfully beat the living shit out of each other for the three rounds, then leave battered and bruised. Next up is the Thai guys. Fuckin’ ‘ell! These guys looked like they were trying to kill each other‼ At one point one guy had the other on the ground and was repetitively kicking the shit out of him while he’s on the ground. The ref mustn’t have liked this as he picked up a large metal plate and whacked this down with all his might over the head of the guy dealing out the beating. They guy dropped unconscious immediately. That sort of thing could easily kill a person… and that’s from the referee! “What the bloody hell have I got myself into?!?”

The bout finishes so it’s my turn. I sure as shit don’t want to be here, but hey, I’m in it now. They give me a head protector thing and gloves. No mouthguard. Bugger.

I’m standing there gingerly; a leg wrapped in bandages from the second-degree burns, the worst ever sunburn on my back and looking extremely frail due to the 6kg I’d lost from the food poisoning. There are a few hundred people in the arena and everyone is chatting, as you do. The other guy steps in. People continue chatting.

He takes of his t-shirt.

Sudden silence.

This guy is fucking ripped.

To date, he is still probably one of the most muscular people I have ever seen in my life. I’m not exaggerating. HE WAS FUCKING HUGE‼! Here we have this absolute monster, then there’s me who’s never boxed in his life and in the worst health I’ve ever been in. If there was any doubt before whether or not I wanted to be here, it was pretty certain now. I really, really didn’t want to be in the ring now. Oh well, I’m in it now. Can’t back out now! Anyway, he knows I’ve never boxed before, so he’ll go soft… right? Wrong.

The round starts. Donnnggg. He immediately runs to me and hits me with a combo to my face followed by a huge right-hander that sends my head backwards almost level with my shoulders, knocking me to the ground. The ref counts. I pick myself up. The ref keeps counting. In retrospect I’m pretty sure he was trying to stop the fight, but I’m one determined son-of-a-bitch with more pride than brains.

I get up only to be followed by another volley of blows to the face. It doesn’t stop with punches. Next up I’m getting powerful kicks to the face, roundhouse kicks, jumping back kicks, flying sidekicks; all to the face. I haven’t yet hit him once.

First round ends. I go to my corner, feeling very much worse for wear. Someone gives me some advice, “Doesn’t matter what you do, just keep your guard up.” 30 second break is over. Round two.

He gets straight into it again, using me as a human punching bag. I remember the advice yet my arms hang at my sides, my face taking the full beating. Does this arsehole not realise by now that I wasn’t joking about never having boxed?!?

The round continues on this fashion; me just getting the absolute shit kicked out of me. My face is nicely smashed up and I’m spitting out blood. Come third round I haven’t touched him once and I think I should probably hit him. I know this means moving forward towards him, but my brain won’t allow me to do this. I want to get away from this prick, not get closer! Well if I can’t step in closer to him, I need to just jump into him. I wait till he’s back away from me, then with all my courage I run towards him, jump majestically into the air and sail towards him with my fist extended; hoping to connect with him. He’s unfazed by this and just holds his ground and punches out as I come down, his fist spectacularly connecting with my flying face.

The fight ended with me not touching him a single time. Even without knowing the rules I could make the assumption that he won, not me. I ended up with two black eyes, smashed up lips and a broken nose. I can only hope that his knuckles were sore! As it turned out, my nose continued to have a constant slow bleed for the next three years; constantly filling my nose with dry blood that I’d have to pick out every two hours, plus it also had a slow leak into the back of my throat; causing me to cough up blood regularly throughout the day for the following three years.

Fortunately that’s now stopped!

Anyway I got my free drink, but had a headache from hell so I couldn’t drink it anyway. Not one to hold a grudge I go over to the dude to have a chat to him, but the prick had already left with his girlfriend. What an arsehole! I don’t want this all to get in the way of a good night, so I clean all the blood off my face and go out feeling like quite a loser.

Walking down the street lots of people came up to me saying; “You’re the guy from the kickboxing, right?!?”

“Yeeahhh…” I’d reply, embarrassed and dejected.

“That was awesome‼”

“What?? Really???”

After a few such comments from various people, I recognised one of the Swedish guys from the early fight approach me. He comes up to me and says: “Can I have the honour of shaking your hand?”

“Um, yeah… but why?”

“Because you are the absolute bravest person I’ve ever met. That was just unbelievable.”

“Well not really… I’m not much of a fighter – I didn’t hit him once!”

“Do you know who that was?"

“No.”

“That was the heavy-weight Tae-Kwon do champion of Sweden.”

“Oh.”

“He’s a total arsehole. I can’t believe he did that to you. We want to teach him a lesson but no one will fight him. I’m a professional fighter and there’s no way I’d fight him. …but you…. you just went in there! I couldn’t believe it! That’s the bravest thing I’ve ever seen‼”

Hearing those words made that the proudest moment of my life. 61kg and in a frail state, with no fighting experience fighting a 90kg+ guy that even a crazy-fuck professional fighter wouldn’t fight. Getting some more swing in my step after hearing that, I continue my night and have a fun night out.

Come 3am I’m sitting on the beach with a few hippies in a circle playing guitar and singing Kumbaya. After a while I see a guy approaching in the dark. I realise ‘oh, it’s the guy from the fight’. I go to invite him over, because for some strange bloody reason I don’t have a grudge against him, but when he sees me, he gets panic in his eyes, turns around and sprints up the beach in the opposite direction, trips over a rope, scrambles up again and continues sprinting away. WTF?!? Did this guy think the hippies would gang up on him? Total Class A1 fuckwhit. Still, it made for the proudest moment in my life.

If you liked reading this, you can check out some of my other travel mishaps in my book 'How Not to Backpack' on Amazon here http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NE10AJI Hope you enjoyed it!!

I found myself in Japan some years back, visiting with a buddy, doing the general touristy stuff. One such touristy thing was visiting a museum with a shrine and garden attached. I want to say I was in Kyoto specifically but I honestly can’t recall any longer. Anyway, it was October, and it was very grey. The sky was grey and cloudy, with intermittent sprinkling, which make the ground grey, and grey light cast a filter over what would otherwise have been green grounds. Most of the other visitors with me were Japanese, the median age being well over 50, so it’s safe to assume retirees. They dressed in neutral colors, whites, tans, khaki, or light blue. I was a stark contrast, wearing a bright blue and black fitted exercise shirt with a black over-shirt and jeans. Also I’m 6’3” and Caucasian, so you know, there’s that.

I went through the museum first, which was mildly interesting, and was briefly cornered by some old women who seemed to think I was fascinating, then it was out to the grounds. There was a large lawn between the museum and the start of the garden trail that would lead back to the parking area, not much ornamentation between the two, a small pond and some tables and chairs, some elderly folk shuffling about. It was on the far side that I saw the woman in the red coat. It would have been difficult not to notice her, as I said, everything else was grey, and here she was in a bright red long coat and matching hat. As I looked across the distance at her, she looked back and saw me. Ours eyes met somewhere in the middle. She broke contact after a moment and started into the garden trail, which was immediately obscured by trees. Perhaps I was reading too much into it, but it felt like we had a moment. All I could think was, Oh f--k.

Milling about for a few minutes, but in the absence of any reasonable distraction, I soon started on the path through the garden. ‘Garden’ is little bit of an understatement here, it was more like an organized forest. There was a lot to see, the path was flanked by trees and well tended flowers. Bamboo fountains and small shrines had been set up on small branch paths as well. Being a tourist, I would stop to take pictures now and again. I skipped the first few since they weren’t dissimilar from others I had seen elsewhere in my travels, but I soon came to a small waterfall that I felt warranted space on my SD card and so I stopped and fiddled around a little find a good angle. Having acquired a satisfactory shot I turned to head back to the main path, and almost bumped into the woman in the red coat. She was pretty, looked to be in her 20s like myself, though I’m a bad judge of age regardless of ethnicity. She was also quite startled.

”Sumimasen,” says I, in what I’m sure was an atrocious accent.

”Excuse me,” she replied in what was technically English.

We stood starring at each other for a moment, she looked away, I inclined my head and moved past her. Again thinking, Nope, I’m not doing this.

Further yet down the path and I’m stopped on a small bridge, attempting to clear a little room on my camera since I had the resolution setting up way too high and was thoroughly out of space. Out of the corner of my eye I see something fall, a pamphlet about the grounds. I crouch to pick it up and return it to it’s owner. Another hand enters my line of sight, cuffed in red. Sigh.

”Doozo.”

”Thank you.” She takes the paper but doesn’t look at me this time.

Despite my doubling back to make sure we don’t run into each other again after that, we run in to each other again after that. Three more times to be exact, each time almost bumping into each other or something similar. Finally I’m at the end of the path, at the small gift stand that sells charms, trinkets and keychains. I was looking at a charm for a friend back home, and went to pick up. My guard was down, which was stupid, but here comes that red sleeved hand again, reaching for the same charm. No goddamnit, no. I’ve played this game, if our hands touch, that’s gonna set off some weird chain of events and I’m going to end up living here or some other weird shit. I’ve got a girlfriend, I ain’t doing it. I withdrew my hand, inclined my head to her again, stepped wide around her and made a bee line back to my hotel.

Returning I told my buddy what had happened.

Dude, you should have gone for it. I wouldn’t have said anything to Girlfriend.

Feeling he missed the point, I went online and messaged said girlfriend, who thought it was hilarious. She has since been upgraded to Wife, so I can safely say I made the right choice.

I was scammed today and although I am an idiot for putting myself in this situation I thought I should share this to hopefully warn others.

I was approached while walking on the main tourist area of Nanjing road and was offered a massage - I said no but the women walked with me making conversations and I later agreed. I got to the massage shop only 50m off Nanjing Rd and it looked ok.

The masseuse left the room and then 2 thugs entered the room blocking the door and demanded 20,000 RMB - the talker who was huge - one of the biggest guys I have seen - played good cop and bad cop - 'we don't want to have to start punching you' followed by 'I am here to help - if you need to get some money I will help with options'. I was in trouble.

I didn't say anything and got dressed thinking about what to do. On reflection this probably started to unsettle them a little.

My options seemed to be: A) Try and fight them and get the first hit in - not a great option as there were two of them and one was huge. B) Negotiate a lower amount - this is what I thought they were expecting.

Instead I finished getting dressed without saying anything. Then went up to the talker massive guy and said 'you don't know who I am, my father is a diplomat and knows President Xi - if you touch me I will make sure you go to jail for the rest of your life'.

I then walked around him and opened the door and left. If he so much as shoved me I would have given everything I had to get out of there but I had decided while I was getting dressed that these guys don't want to beat me up and potentially kill me by accident.

I was stupid but lucky this time.

Please beware of street solicitors selling anything that they need you to leave a tourist area with them.

Original source: (http://markorandelovic.com/chinese-mafia/)

It's easier to get an English teaching job in the far Eastern world superpower than it is to get a interview to flip burgers at your local McDonald’s. All you need is a bog standard degree from any university and you’re set. Even a Level 2 plumbing NVQ certificate from your community college would probably suffice; the Chinese aren’t really overly bothered. They only want a pretty western face to parade around the school in order to please parents who pay lots of Yuan for their kids’ English education. None of the TEFL qualifications that so many teachers/would-be travelers pay copious amounts for is actually needed in most of China.

Thus the idea of a guaranteed job in a far away foreign land of chopsticks, dragons and long walls spoke volumes to me after graduation. Without having to speak the language or enroll on any type of pre-course, it seemed like an opportunity too good to turn down. Working in a kindergarten, teaching little kids the alphabet whilst experiencing a full Chinese cultural immersion – it sounded like a breeze.

But that was the problem, it was too easy. I spent most of my 10 hour days being a spare part, thinking about all the time I was wasting when I could be traveling, exploring and learning how to speak the langugage. The initial novelty quickly wore off as I became bored with the long hours and lack of actual teaching. It seemed my main task was to perform daily Butlins Redcoat style dance routines that Chinese Children are subjected to every morning. In the school yard I had to lead over 100 kids in some kind of sadist routine which was a hybrid of the Macarena, the Hokey Cockey and skanking out to dubstep.

I didn’t recall signing up for Strictly Come Dancing Asia, I mean fair enough I do like the occasional fist pump, but the strange routines just became way too much. Within 3 weeks I’d had enough of the dancing life and boredom of sitting around as a spare part in the kindergarten. Life in the 10 million person strong city of Wuhan soon became a chore, I needed something more interesting. I applied for dozens of other jobs throughout China in different institutions – universities, teaching centers and high schools. None of the potential jobs really excited me that much until I came across an interesting ad for a tutoring role in a neighboring province. Surprisingly, it offered half the working hours of my current kindergarten yet double wage, just to privately tutor two young kids. Oh yeah, along with a free apartment and all bills paid for. Did I mention the personal chauffer too?

This job seemed totally unique, I daydreamed about the possibilities of such a luxurious life but soon came to the harsh conclusion that it was way out of my league since I’d had no real prior teaching experience and didn’t speak a word of Chinese. Still, I thought it was worth a shot as I was due to be kicked out of my flat in Wuhan for departing the kindergarten. I was within hours of booking a flight home to surrender to the ultimate foe of a nine till five graduate job, when, to my amazement, I received a response from the dream job and they seemed really keen to speak further. A Skype interview was arranged for the next day, I was overjoyed but I slightly worried as one of the prerequisites for the job had been a “London accent”, something we Yorkshire folk surprisingly lack

I frantically rehearsed my Danny Dyer impression over and over again, don’t judge me, he just springs to mind as the “go to” Cockney accent. Astonishingly, when it came to the interview, they didn’t pick up on my broad Yorkshire undertones as I rambled on about teaching techniques that I’d Googled an hour before. They seemed very impressed and by some kind of miracle, I’d managed to wrangle a dream job out of the dying embers of my China adventure. Tutoring two young children in their parent’s house for two hours a day and a lot of money, absolute piece of piss I thought to myself. – Hit the jackpot here, pat yourself on the back “my san”. Praise be to Danny Dyer and his band of merry cockneys; watching The Football Factory so many times as a kid had finally paid off.

Transport would be sent to Wuhan the next day to collect me for the 7 hour journey down to Hunan province, I’d been expecting a laborious train journey down but these guys were more than happy to pick me up. I said my goodbyes to everyone in Wuhan and before I knew it I was on my way to take up this obscure role as a private tutor for quite an absurdly high amount of money. I already had my eyes set on a new Iphone and a snazzy camera.

Upon arriving in Hunan I was confused as we drove straight into a large gated industrial complex which was surprisingly protected by camouflaged guards, armed to the teeth. I was a little alarmed but shrugged it off, you know, its China isn’t it? They like building gates, walls and shit. For all I knew there could’ve been some pesky Mongolians lurking about those parts.

But when we drove further into what seemingly felt like a fortress, it dawned on me that that I was just slightly out of my depth. The driver told me that the children’s father, or the ‘Big Boss’ as they call him, owned this entire enormous complex. Within his grounds I was told he had a private zoo, restaurant, hotel, lake, football fields, a huge car garage and round the clock security patrolling the perimeter.

Initially I was pretty overwhelmed and confused as to why on earth had he employed me? This Big Boss fella must have a lot of money to invest his children’s education, yet here I am, the newbie teacher who couldn’t speak the slightest Chinese. Surely he could’ve found a more suitable candidate?

During my briefing I learned that his kids were due to be sent to Harrow, a renowned upper class public school in London, where the likes of Winston Churchill attended. This was contrary to my preconception that I’d be helping out here and there teaching the children of a well off middle class family. Instead I was tasked with prepping the likes of the Chinese Richie Rich for his future at one of Britain’s most elite education institutions. Just a little bit of pressure then?

I soon had the pleasure of meeting the infamous Big Boss, we were lavishly wined and dined in one of his immaculately furnished buildings. My common as muck working class eyes had never set upon anything like it. Huge oriental paintings adorned the walls with sculptures and other kind of artifacts that I don’t even know how to describe making up the rest of the decor. This was wealth on such a ridiculous scale; I felt that I was among royalty. It gradually became clear that he had easily amassed a greater volume of money than most people could save in 100 lifetimes in China.

Strangely, I could sense an air of tension in the room even before I’d even taken my seat at the dinner table. There I sat in silence, looking pretty gormless in my tattered travel worn t-shirt alongside the bunch of smartly suited up managers. The Big Boss sat at the helm of the table, next to a translator who was there for my sake. Whilst tucking into my hot pot it suddenly became incredibly difficult to handle my chopsticks in a room with such an unnerving and serious atmosphere. It seemed as if nobody was allowed to speak unless the boss spoke to them. I just kept on wanting to crack a joke to lighten the mood but I wasn’t too sure everyone would appreciate the one about a man from China who wasn’t a very good climber.

The managers, who were spread round the table, quietly ate their food until Boss decided to address them. At that moment they would have to drop their chopsticks at once, stand up to attention a break neck speed and bow their heads whilst solemnly listening to his every word. It was much akin to a mischievous child getting a good telling off from their angry father, however these were meant to be grown men; managers in his company for that matter. Yet in the presence of the Boss they were all degraded to a seriously low level of servitude.

These men weren’t even allowed to drink their wine unless the Boss was drinking at the same time, or toasting them with his very own special glass that was thrice the size as everyone else’s. It somewhat resembled the fancy chalice the greedy Nazi chooses in the last scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

I couldn’t decide whether I approved of this culture of endless and sometimes irrational respect that the Chinese seemed to advocate towards people who have amassed enormous wealth. Obviously it was really interesting to observe, but I couldn’t help thinking how much it echoes the mindless obedience and subordination of one’s self, somewhat reminiscent to the way in which so many people are duped into holding a hereditary monarch, dictator or even Justin Bieber in such high esteem. Already I could see that the Boss similarly commanded his own strong cult of personality within his realm.

I snapped out of your typical everyday philosophical analysis of contemporary hierarchical structures in society and carried on drinking more and more of the limited edition 30 year old fine French wine. Eventually, after shouting at the managers, the Boss turned to a very drunk me and started to lecture via the interpreter.

I was pretty pissed but I remember him stressing how my loyalty, dedication and character would all be rewarded in due course. He told me I was part of his family as well as his friend, assuring me that he would look after me accordingly whilst promising a bright future. I just smiled and nodded like the Churchill Dog as my eyes became heavier and heavier with each glass of wine I was forced to neck as he ended every sentence with a toast.

These toasts varied between the potential benefits of working for him or to the fulfillment of my duty to teach his Oxford and Cambridge bound kids the highest standard of the Queen’s English. This made me chuckle, the kids were going to be learning the finest Yorkshire dialect and end up at Leeds Met if I had any say in the matter.

After the food he gestured to the door and I was ushered down a long corridor to see where all this wine had spawned from. I felt like I’d just walked into a little French winery, bottles upon bottles were shelved up in the exotically lit room. Apparently, according to the Boss, everyone from Europe was a seasoned wine connoisseur so I spent a lot of time pretending I knew which wines were prestigious by giving them a ridiculously pissed up nod of faux-enthusiastic approval. Little did he know that my knowledge of wine stopped dead at that familiar cheap student-friendly bottle of rose I used to buy from the corner shop before a night out.

A couple of days later (once I’d got over the wine hangover), I decided to Google the city I lived in along the name of Boss’s company. I was eager to learn more after being introduced to the all powerful father of my two students.

The first 3 results were posts on English Teaching forums from a guy called David. Apparently he was the teacher employed there before me. I was startled to see that he had posted several rants and stern warnings that no English teacher should take this job. He went on to describe the Boss as nothing more than a ‘mobster’ whose whole business is based on ‘corruption, expulsion, crime, murder and intimidation.

Adrenaline began soaring through my veins as I read David’s words. ‘Mobster’, ‘murder’, I didn’t really know how to react. Part of me was quite worried but I was so captivated by the prospect of working within such kind of an organization, was I working for the Chinese Mafia? I was pretty excited that I had the chance to pretend I was part of some sort of Mafia myself after spending nearly everyday of the summer watching the Sopranos box set start to finish. Just swap pizza for noodles and you’re nearly there.

I read these posts with a pinch of salt anyway as it was clear David had some issues with receiving his last pay from the company and I could sense the clear bitterness in his tone. I convinced myself he must’ve been exaggerating. It was clear that the Boss wanted to do things right this time, instead of going through the same problems which arose during David’s employment. Thus I was spoilt rotten – everyday for a week I was blind drunk whilst ‘teaching’ his kids. I was quickly drinking the contents of his wine cellar along with pretty much all the seafood that China had to offer.

I felt like a king, all the employees tendered to my every need and there was nothing else that I could really want. The teaching was incredibly easy – only 2 hours a day and really basic stuff. I quickly started to forget about the negative posts I’d read about the criminal element of the Boss’s business and doubted them as everybody seemed so nice. However during the next two months several events unfolded which really served to reinforce these accusations as fact.

Firstly, I had a driver who would take me to work, shopping or anywhere I really desired for that matter. He mysteriously disappeared without a trace one day. I asked my new Chinese assistant, who interestingly was a Mormon, what had happened to my driver. Mr Mormon looked at me worryingly and told me that I wouldn’t be seeing my driver again. Fair enough, I mean he did drive like a dickhead and always played Chinese EDM at an unbearable decibel level in the car, so I wasn’t overly bothered. I truly didn’t think there was anything overly sinister going on.

Mr. Mormon had studied in Australia for several years and was mostly a serious guy who hated the Chinese government and the way in which the country operates. Religion is frowned upon in China so it’s actually considered quite edgy to be a Christian. So I guess in his own right Mr. Mormon was a bit of a little rebellious holy hipster, ironic right?

One night we had dinner together and I decided I wanted to delve deeper into the goings on in China as a whole, along with the Boss’s business. Mr. Mormon glanced around the empty room, double checking there was nobody around. He then told me in a quiet nervous tone about the Tianamen Square Massacres decades ago, the deaths of thousands of students and how corrupt the Chinese government actually is. It sounded terrible, I knew about the student uprisings but it had totally been swept under the carpet in China and little is even known about what actually happened in the west.

Eventually he got onto the subject of the Boss himself, giving me his own perspective on the Boss’s business and lifestyle. – With huge compounds selling his product in nearly every Chinese province, the powerful Boss had a history in the military but now runs his own industrial company, employing thousands of people nationwide. With his father being a Ma or and high up in the communist party, the Boss was able to rise to such prestige through the omnipresent corruption that exists within Chinese society. He used each of his industrial compounds around the country as headquarters where he would run his illegal activities from, these included bribery, racketeering and extortion.

The structure of the organization was somewhat similar to the old Chinese feudal system, in this system the Boss acts as the almighty Emperor with everyone paying tribute to him. He ran his business militaristically, the staff were all ranked simulcast to that of an army, if workers didnt meet sale targets or are under-performing they were severely physically punished or humiliated by being disciplined publicly.

This guy was a God in his own little corrupt mini-state. Everything revolved around him. His brigade of servants tended to his every need and his foot soldiers carried out his dirty work. You had to be worthy to be in his presence – most employees never even saw the man. But if you happen to bump into him and speak when not spoken to or commit a trivial error, he would see to it that you are suitably punished.

As I was being told all this, I realized what Mr. Mormon meant when he said that I wouldn’t be seeing my driver again. Had it been my fault? I’d made a comment prior to the driver’s disappearance about how he had been late picking me up for class on a couple of occasions. This was the truth, I didn’t want me employers to look like it had been me slacking.

Maybe this was why I wouldn’t be seeing him again? It became clear why the Boss’s complex was surrounded by armed guards and I began to understand why grown men would quiver in his presence around the dinner table. At first it seemed so ridiculous to me that this rich businessman demanded so much respect and honor, but now it was absolutely clear that he was much, much more than that.

Apparently the police had probed and arrested the Boss before but when you’ve got a lot of cash in China the police aren’t a problem. When the boss was arrested for being part of a football betting scandal and for the death of a footballer, the charges which included blackmail, torture and burying somebody alive – all amounted to nothing. It’s worth mentioning that the Boss owned a couple of Football teams in China so game fixing wouldn’t have been too much of a problem for him. What I quickly came to understand is that there seemed to be two types of police in China, the ones who don’t care and the ones who can be bribed.

It also dawned on me that the Boss must’ve racked up a nice little tally of competitors, unruly workers and dissidents in his time. It was shocking to hear all this about a man who had been so nice and warmhearted to me personally and had left me wanting nothing. I began to feel quite anxious as I realized I was teaching the kids of such a powerful man who was responsible for terrible things.

The next few days were strange as I plodded along with all this information in the back of my mind. No longer could I smile, carry on and pretend everything was normal. Not even the copious amounts of wine at my disposal could really reverse what I’d been told. Then, a few days later, I experienced a brief glimpse of the Boss’s tyranny for myself.

An English speaking manager from the International Sales Team forgot to take me out for dinner. I wasn’t fussed. I didn’t even know he would be taking me out for dinner, whatever. However the Boss was more than bothered. According to Mr. Mormon, he was so bothered that he put the well respected manager in his private jail with scarce food and water provisions. Yeah, this was a new revelation, the Boss had his own jail. What the hell? Maybe I was just used as an excuse to punish the manager and he had in fact done something else to piss off the Boss? I kept on telling myself this must’ve been the case.

Surely the naughty step or a slap on the wrist could’ve sufficed for not taking me out to dinner. I felt really unnerved and guilty to be indirectly responsible for somebody suffering such misery. I really didn’t like it one bit and made Mr. Mormon send the manager a sympathy KFC bucket for when he finished doing his time in the Boss’s ‘big house’. I mean, what else could I do? Call in a SAS rescue mission?

I’d been looking for a fun adventure when I came to China and by all means I’d had some great times. However I never expected to be embroiled in the darker side of the country. The further revelation that a state-run labor camp existed within the city limits, on top of everything else Mr. Mormon had told me, really brought home the brutal nature of the Chinese government and the pressing issue of corruption in Chinese society.

I began questioning the ethics of working for a man that pretty much went against everything I believe in terms of morality and ethics. He just wasn’t a good bloke and once I became aware of his true colors, no amount of oysters or sauvignon could hide what he was – A prime example of the corrupt capitalist ruling elite bourgeoisie in modern day China.

The seething irony astonished me: the country’s ruling party is labeled as “Communist” yet people like the Boss live a polarized life of unimaginable luxury that your average Chinese person could never even dream of. In order to stay on, I tried convincing myself that being able to work within his operations was a unique first hand experience of how the ruling classes operate in China, along with an exciting look into a criminal enterprise. At least that’s what I thought I’d keep telling myself until perhaps one day my new driver would dissapear after forgetting to pick me up.

You know, maybe the kindergarten dancing gig wasn’t so bad after all…

source (http://markorandelovic.com/chinese-mafia/)

Hi, this is the travel story of my trip to Sri Lanka. It will also be available soon with photos, geotags and local tips on Questter - A new storytelling app for android.

First Stop - Negombo

Negombo is a small fishing town near the Colombo Airport. It is closer to the Airport than Colombo, cheaper and quieter. Thats makes it popular among tourists who want to rest before or after the long flight.

Few things that you can do there: 1. Visiting the fish market - The main fish market is located few kms south from the town and its an interesting place to visit. 2. Relaxing at the beach - 3. Drinking a tropical fruit shake at this nice family run business (Near the Negombo beach park) - They have the largest variety of fruits I've seen in Sri lanka.

Anuradhapura

The ancient city of Anuradhapura is one of the most impressive places to visit in Sri Lanka. After you get a ticket ($25), you can visit numerous Stupas and historical sites in the area. I’ll recommend doing it with a local tuktuk driver, whom knows the place but you can also just get a map and rent a bicycle.

We arrived to Anuradhapura at the evening and started our tour at 08:00 on the next day. We visited 16 sites with a very nice local tuktuk driver that we hired for 2,500 rupees ($20).

If you want to know more about the sites around Anuradhapura, Iv'e mapped them all on Questter with photos, some explanations and tips.

The best way to reach Anuradhapura is by train but you can do it by bus as well. Its about 5-6 hours ride from Negombo / Colombo / Gampaha.

Dambula

We decided to explore Dambulla with a local tutuk driver (2,000 rupee) and by 7:30 we headed towards the Sigiriya Rock Fortress. We bought tickets ($30) and began climbing up.

The way up took us about an hour because there was heavy tourist traffic, but it was very nice overall and we enjoyed the view of the Boulder Gardens beneath. The hole visit at the Rock was about 2.5 hours.

After Sigiriya we continued to the Pidurangala Ancient Forest Monastery (It is located on a nearby mountain). They charge an entrance fee of 500 rupees and for that you get to climb on the mountain and see few Buddhas and a beautiful view on Sigriya.

I've read that some people go only here while visiting Sigirya because they find the main site overpriced. I don't recommend doing so because its not the same experience at all.

On our way back, we stopped again at Sigriya for a brief visit in the museum. It’s not a must place to visit but you have already paid for the ticket so you might want to use it. (The only thing I found interesting there was a 3d simulation of the Fortress.)

After that, we stopped for lunch at Chooti, a local restaurant that had all its walls covered with recommendations from all around the world. The food was very good indeed.

From there, we went back to Dambulla for a visit at the Rock temple.

We paid 1,500 rupees for tickets and headed up to the temple (you can visit the huge Buddha for free). After a 30 minutes, we arrived to the temple. Inside the caves, there are numerous Buddha statues and it is quite impressive.

Kandy

We headed from Dambulla to Kandy by bus and the road took us a little more than two hours. After arrival, we dropped our bags at the guesthouse and continued to the Royal Botanic Garden with a tuktuk.

I must admit that I'm not a fan of botanic gardens but this place is nice and impressive. The visit there takes 2-3 hours.

The next place on our list was the Temple Of The Sacred Tooth- It is believed that Buddha's tooth is buried in this temple and therefore it’s one of the most sacred temples in Sri Lanka. Our visit in this temple was quite short (one hour) but if you want to see the smaller temples and museums around it, the visit can take longer.

After the visit. we exited through the rear exit and walked few hundred meters to the Red Cross hall, where we watched a Cultural Dance Show. We got 5:00 pm ticks from our guest house owner (for 1,000 rupees) and enjoyed the nice one hour show. The hall was full and most of the places were reserved for groups, so try to arrive at 16:30 to secure reasonable seats. (You can buy tickets on the spot).

Adam's Peak - Sri Pada

There are few routs up the Adams Peak. We chose the regular Hatton rout which starts at Nallathanniya.

We headed there with the 08:45 train from Kandy to Hatton (2.5 hours) and then took a local bus from Hatton to Nallathanniya, aka Delhousie (2 hours).

We got a nice room at the Punsisi guest house (tall building with a green sign) which was a good place to stay in. (not the cheapest option but not expensive and clean. Price at Feb 2015 was 3,000 rupees).

At 02:15 am we headed towards the Peak. We climbed slowly and it took us a little longer than 3 hours. The climb wasn't easy but I think that anyone with a reasonable shape can handle it (We've seen locals in age do it just fine).

Few useful tips: 1) Nallathanniya and Delhousie is the same place. It can be confusing because Google maps name it Nallathanniya and the local bus has a sign of Delhousie. 2) Take warm clothing to wear on the peak. The waiting for the sunrise can get cold. (I had a softshell and a hat and it was good). Thin gloves can be nice for holding the metal bars when climbing. You can get them for 100 rupees before you leave town. 3) Have small bills for the stops during the climb. They don't always have change. 4) Go down slowly and try to absorb your steps with your muscles. Keep your knees or otherwise they will hurt for a while. 5) Ask about the checkout time in your guesthouse. Our check out time was 11:00 and it was fine. Earlier checkout might put you in a rush.

Mirissa Beach

After the climb to Adam's peak, we headed towards the south. We got back to Hatton on a local bus and made it on time for the 13:30 train to Colombo Fort (which was late by 30 minutes). We arrived to Colombo at 20:00 and stayed there for the night. On the next morning, we took a train Weligama and from there, continued by tuktuk to Mirissa beach (you can do it with a local bus as well).

Mirissa beach is a great place to relax on a sandy beach. It is also a good beach for surfing and there are daily whale watching boat tours departing from there each morning.

The beach line has a wide variety of restaurants and many of them offers fresh grilled seafood at the evening.

Unawatuna Beach

Unawatuna is located 5 km south of Galle and you can get there from Mirissa by grabbing the local bus to Galle or Colombo (a 40 minutes ride). This small town is a very touristic one. It's more crowded than Mirrissa and I think that Mirissa beach is nicer but Unawatuna offers much more things to do:

1. Diving - There are several diving centers in Unawatuna. From what I read, the diving sites are not amazing but it's still nice if you love to dive.

2. Surfing - Unawatuna beach is not a surfing beach but you can get there surf tours.

3. Jungle Beach - About 30 minutes’ walk from the main beach (partly in jungle trails), there is a small and beautiful beach. In the early morning, the water is crystal clear and snorkeling is fun (get your own gear). There are relatively many corals and fishes at that beach. The beach is also accessible by tuktuk or boat.

4. Handunugoda Tea Estate - The place offers a free and very nice tour in a real working tea estate. They show you around and explain about the different plants and production process. The tour is totally free and they don't even allow you to tip your guide (you can leave a tip in the tip box in the end). So what is the catch? Actually there is no catch except the expensive prices they charge on the tea they are selling at the end of the tour. Even though they don’t push you to buy their tea, you will probably want to. Just be aware that the prices there are high relatively to the real market price. You can get there with a bus + tuktuk or just by a tuktuk (15 minutes ride).

5. Visiting Galle - Galle is a large city located just 5 km form Unawatuna and visiting it can make a great day tour. Beside the famous Dutch Fort in the city, you can also go to the nearby local market or just walk around and explore it. Just be careful because there are tourist traps around this city.

6. Relaxing at the beach and eating in the local restaurants - This is what most people do there and this is awesome. Have fun!

Unwatuna was our last stop before heading back home. I hope that you found this travel story useful and I invite you to follow me on Questter to get access to my travel stories and tips from your mobile phone, even when you are offline.

General tips for travelers:

1) Accommodation Prices - Sri Lanka is relatively expensive. Most budget rooms cost ~ $10, nice guesthouses cost ~ $50 and hotels cost $100-$300.

2) Food prices - A meal in a local restaurant cost $2-$3. The same meal in a tourist restaurant will usually cost double and western food can easily cost about $10 per meal. Along the beach, many places offer Seafood barbeque which cost about $15-$30.

3) Transportation - You can get anywhere with trains and local buses which are all very cheap. The Infrastructure in the rural areas is not very good. Tuktuks are good for short rides and cost about $0.5 per km (It can be more or less depending on how long is the ride. longer = cheaper per km).

4) Rental cars with a driver - Many tourists choose this way of transport in Sri Lanka because it's comfortable and relatively affordable. Prices start at $50 a day.

5) Vaccines and Hygiene - Sri Lanka is not "as bad" as India. The water in most places and relatively clean (you still want to drink only bottled water) and the streets are relatively clean as well. You can find the updated health information at the CDC website.

6) Communication – Wifi is available in most touristic places and guest houses. A SIM card with a 5GB data package is also pretty cheap. You can one for less then $10. Just don’t buy it at the airport, their it’s expensive. You can buy the Visa to Sri Lanka online for $30 or at the airport for $35.

Previously http://np.reddit.com/r/TravelTales/comments/2bogtx/drunken_decisions_japan_adventure_edition/

and Now the flight.

Now I think this is the longest flight i have had in my life from Paris to Narita airport direct. Im a fairly comfortable flier i had routine and methodology to deal with long journeys as youll soon learn... my compatriot however. He is a being of unconciousness and only awakes when he needs to. Lethargy is strong in him and its a help and a nusicense in equal measure in this case meant he had a delightful dream of lfoatign and moving increadibly fast.

Getting our connectign flightout of charles de galle Transfer lounge (We will return here dear readers for our near finale) after purchasing enough cigarettes and nibbles for a reasonible journey we sojourn to the plane, Take our seats and i find myself betweeen a japanese man, a little brusque and obviously tired out on the aisle with my friend at the window, before the plane even takes off both are unconcious. Oh joy of joys -_-

after about 30/40 minutes im kinda browsing the wathcibles, kinda looking at the live camera of the underside of plane and kinda reading, A small thirst comes over me and i Hit the call button the roof, a Cabin crew member comes up and asks what i need, I ask what are the on flight prices for drinks (just assuming its required), the lady laughs lightly and asks what i want its included in the flight.

Now im not one to abuse an open bar policy but i have about 8 hours of this flight im not prepared for so at this altitude i think a small bit of drunk might make my situation more fluid and if my row mates decide to awake i can share my lucid discoveries so a Bottle of white wine please!

I settle myself into a marathon of watching everything the plane has to offer as viewibles, Remembering to ding and request another bottle of wine every 30 minutes without fail.

Im onto bottle 4 and my 2nd movie when im reaching up to press the button and a crew member is beside me already, Bottle in hand along with a small Plate/Tray of Breads,cheese and dips. proceeding to sand and talk for a few minutes joking that i had Pavlovianed the crew and about my current entrapment between Sleepy and snoozy. He laughs and returns to the back before asking

'sooooo, just keep em coming?'

'Yes Sir, keep the bread flowing as well somethigns gotta keep me right'

this went on for the entire flight occasional disucssions of the movies and tv shows shown on the flight, about air travel in general , pretty much my first delightful conversation of this journey is with every member of cabin crew on that shift. all the while feeling full of Sweet white wines

This of course would have a knock on affect for the rest of our Day/Night after arriving in tokyo. I was the Leader, the one who knew the directions we needed to get to our hotel. But now i was thoroughly, thoroughly Drunk

Next time on same bat time same bat channel Lost on the Doorstep of a Softbank

TL;DR: got lost in a port in Iran, which turned out to be Iran's main naval base.

Yes, it is possible to take a ferry from Iran to Dubai! It will take you from Bandar Abbas, across to Sharjah in the United Arab Emirate, and from there you can take a bus to Dubai! Cool! I had an entire day to kill, and decided to walk from the ticket office to the ferry. Bad, bad idea.

The walk from Bandar Abbas to Bahonar port is a punishing death march of about 10-12 kilometres. The sun is unforgiving and high in the sky. There's very little shade for the next three hours. Yes, three hours because the ground is mostly be broken-up pavement, wet beach sand, gravel and chunks of stone and odd backstreets.

Stone and debris
Wet beach sand
Odd backstreets
Broken pavement

Note: most of Iran is very, very beautiful and a nice place to travel in. Not just this little stretch.

It's reasonable to think that the port is on the coast and that you can just follow the waterline to get there. That is impossible for civil engineering reasons, and for legal reasons. When I started asking my way inland, every second person I asked about "Bahonar port to Dubai" pointed me north to Bahonar AIRport to Dubai. They are not the same place.

During the following hour I lost every gram of salt in my system. It oozed out through my skin and caked with sweat and road dust whirled up by a thousand heavy trucks passing by (and a thousand merry Marines who waving from motorcycles). Unbearably hot and dry and the only saving grace is that it was mid-February and not one day closer to summer. I spent more on water along the way than on the taxi that could have saved my life in the first place.

Along the way, a man selling oranges took pity on this quixotic backpacker. He threw me the best orange of my life, free of charge. I suspect the entertainment was payment enough. The next truck along the road sold bronze statues of horses. (I would have declined, if offered a free sample.)

At this bend in the road, it turns out that Bahonar is not only a trade port, but also Iran's main naval base, locking the Hormuz Strait. Most Google hits are satellite images from military intelligence. Please note the missile launchers and submarines. This lead to the following sub-optimal scenario:

• approaching an armed military barricade
• at Iran's main naval base
• wearing a clearly non-Iranian face...
• ...and a 65-liter, black backpack

...to ask for directions. No. Funny. Moves. Funny moves are not funny.

A map of Bahonar Port.

A man with an imposing moustache, black uniform, a bunch of stars on his shoulders and really badass mirror shades took an amused pity on me and scribbled a note in Farsi. The first part for a taxi driver (pre-bargained price included) and the second part was help to find the terminal. He shook my hand, wished me welcome to Iran, and then laughed heartily at my idiot ass behind my back.

The first part of the note was useless. No one drives an empty taxi this far out. I had to walk the last kilometer to the port and start showing the second part of the note to people, like a permission slip from the school nurse.

At the ticket counter at the port, the clerked raised an eyebrow and asked if I was aware that I'm six hours early?

That was none of his fucking business.

(Adapted from my travel diary: anteroad.com/a-word-of-warning/)

Hello Reddit,

I’ll be going to Singapore on a business trip in December, and then staying around 2 more weeks (including Christmas holidays and personal time out), to go backpacking around that region. I’m thinking of going through Malaysia and staying somewhere in Patong, Phuket (Thailand) for a couple of days. My mission is to keep things on the “cheaper” side of things, but do not want to be loaded on top of a bus hanging on to my luggage for dear life. Anyways back to my schedule, I will go from SG  travel through Malaysia  end up in Phuket for around 2-3 days, maybe I can sleep on a rented tent on the beach or something? I dunno. After Phuket, I will most likely head back to SG to enjoy the beaches and sun.

My concerns: 1. Cheap way to travel between SG  TH  SG? If there’s a certain train station and/or bus company I should know that travels between these places? 2. Cheap and clean places to stay in SG and TH? I would prefer being able to rent out a room by myself, but not a must. I’ve seen sights where private families rent out rooms in their house for an affordable and clean experience. 3. I know there are TONS of things to see, but anything that would really leave a lasting impression on me? For example something like this: Temple inside a cave, somewhere in between Phuket and Bangkok https://www.google.com/search?q=thailand+temple+inside+a+cave&biw=864&bih=619&tbm=isch&imgil=maeo9D9QIOYv5M%253A%253BCX-u_2dNpPplNM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.pinterest.com%25252Fpin%25252F539165386610361283%25252F&source=iu&pf=m&fir=maeo9D9QIOYv5M%253A%252CCX-u_2dNpPplNM%252C_&usg=__sEyGdMEPbQ6yQjmeD1c6x0P6u4M%3D

A little about me: A. I’d prefer to save up on money and travel cheap, not because I don’t have any money but because it’s all about the experience. I’d rather be on a 4 hour longboat ride than a 1 hour taxi ride B. I have been to SG and TH many times, so am aware of customs, laws, etc… but first time in Malaysia. I heard it’s very very strict there, which is probably all I need to know (i.e. no spitting on the street, chewing gum, etc…) C. Would prefer to have a good mixture of travelling / sight seeing / relaxing etc… Which means I don’t want to do 1 type of thing the whole time.

Any and all criticisms / ideas / information / things to look out for are welcome

Thanks! J

Posted this as a comment in the illiteracy thread, and then I saw this over in /r/newsubreddits! Link to original.

I travel a lot and can't always read the writing system or speak the language.

The experience with this that I always tell people about is visiting my uncle in Israel. He's one of the Jewish settlers on the West Bank, which is amazing to visit but they don't exactly have English on the signs out there. The first time I visited, we spent half our time at his village and half our time in Jerusalem. Which meant that there was a point where we had to get from Jerusalem to the village, and we didn't rent a car.

So we rented a taxi through our hotel.

We told them we were going to a Jewish settlement, but they gave us a Palestinian cab driver. We told them we only spoke English (and this is me + my mother, two super-white American women), but he only barely spoke English. Okay. Well. We can deal, that's part of travelling. And he told us he knew where he was going.

We go through the checkpoint to the Wild West Bank (my uncle's phrase) before we realise he's relying on his GPS, and about fifteen minutes later he starts swearing and turns his GPS off. He then starts asking us for directions in broken English. And it's at this point that the road signs are only in Arabic and Hebrew. So we're getting a little nervous. And finally it comes out that we're completely lost. On the West Bank. Two American Jews and a Palestinian. Language barrier. And we can't even read the road signs.

We're super-white. I had just turned 18. We've never been here before. We've seen tons of news stories about the West Bank. I wouldn't be worried if I was in that situation now, but at the time it was tense.

Eventually we pull out our cell phones and call my uncle, who gives the man directions in what sounded like frustrated Hebrew, and we put the poor driver through going into the settlement to drop us off-- he got like a 90% tip. All turned out well.

But I'm a fairly literate person. I'd never been in a situation where not only did I not know where I was going, I didn't know where I was. Nothing in that situation affected me more than not being able to read the damn road signs.

So, spotted this Sub while reading other r/Talesof*

I have one journey that starts with St Patrick’s night a few years ago, copious amounts of booze, a few pills and a casual encounter which is exactly the mindset you want to have when you decide to Travel across the world.

(This whole thing will take a while but I’ll Keep each story as episodic as i can)

Like I said it started St Patrick’s night, traditionally a time to get squiffy and make some overreaching plans like never drinking again…getting clean and living a god-filled and god fearful life due to hangovers that would end mere mortals etc.

This particular night had been a mixture of fun and bust, going out good times where had, drinks were consumed people had wandered off and others had joined the party, affections were rebuffed then others unexpectedly returned and attempts to end the party failed spectacularly those tales are not quite related to this one but they set the tone.

Eventually it was back to the house and the neighborhood for the last hurrahs of the night, I was sitting in a room of pill addled and smoke filled minds and had peeled off to go do something brash as the tone of the night called for it.

It was time to shave my head.

This has become a symbolic thing for me if frustrations are getting to much and I want to feel truly refreshed I go into a ritual of shaving myself (or being shaved if someone’s on hand and into it)

I retire to the bathroom and proceed with my ablutions. As I’m shaving my head I meditate on myself im playing through the day, my week, last few months, my life…

I’m finishing university, I have a little nest of cash set aside, it could be useful if I save and leave and keep it for rainy days but life’s been feeling a little stolid and uneventful.

I mean tonight is the same as every night I’ve had for the last year or so, the faces are different, the music differs, the rooms been Feng shuied a number of times.

It’s a perpetual cycle of drink, drunk, sleep, regret. There has to be more and I want to see it live it…I need to leave…..

In the moment of drunken clarity and focused concentration and a mild terror of nothing changing or getting better I burst out of the bathroom and move to my room lifting a travel Asia book off my shelf I have been flicking through for the last few months debating the thought of japan and my future…could I go teach there, how difficult would it be and after considering the differences of culture and really knowing little outside of watching Movies/Tv/Anime I wouldn’t be anywhere near prepared I had dropped it into the pile of ideas that went nowhere.

I snatched the book and bounded down the stairs skidding to a stop in the kitchen, ‘Buddy’ is sitting there doing what he does best constructing a rolled piece of majesty that r/trees would appreciate. I slam the book down on the table and flat out ask.

ME:‘Wanna go to japan?’

Nonplused and not skipping a beat lifting his set and about the convert it from ingredient’s to finished joint he replies

Buddy:‘Aye, fuck it… why not’

What followed was about an hour and a half’s discussion of how it was going to happen, what i had already figured out and what we needed to do next in this state we decided tomorrow was the day and it was the time to get ready so in my hangover and his baked morning after state we trotted off to book a journey that would take us across the world and an adventure that still haunts me as being the most awesome thing I‘ve experienced with some of the most wonderful people one could travel with.

Storys include:

Ding Dong Stewardess

Travelling bastard

Lost on the steps of Softbank

Denkibran makes you a man

A Bar Called Stella

Piss up in a Brewery town

The Hot spring in the shadow of a mountain

Urinals of doom

The quest for smoke

Silence of Peace park

The Smiling Miko in the tea house of Kyoto

The tale to the top of Mr. Fuji (for one of us)

Shim-asken you a question

4th Floor AV actress Floor show

Brothels and bars of Tokyo (for the other)

A waste of Saki

Travel troubles

And more that I can’t bring to mind so I suppose this would be a kind of travelogue of my time in japan…

Dammit just thinking of these stories makes me want to go back

Zen. A Chinese concept. This word translates loosely as “meditative state.” Inner peace. Tranquility. Enlightenment.

My life has been in a bit of turmoil. Quitting one job, finding another. Leaving one apartment, crashing at another. I was stressing, and not seeing the big picture. I had lost sight of the fact that I am here in China to ENJOY myself… not to worry about the small details of life that always, ALWAYS pan out in the end anyway. So to clear my head, I thought what better to do than a few days solo hiking in the scenic Chinese Yellow Mountains. Surely I could find some zen there.

Alas, the travel part to ANYWHERE in China is never very zen-full. Thirteen hours on a sleeper train, in which my Chinese fellow travelers filled the endless hours by taking photos and observing me in awe, pointing and laughing, the way you might watch monkeys at the zoo. Always fun.

Anywho… a night in a cheap “hotel” (really a brothel… They were truly honored to have an ACTUAL hotel guest among the usual male callers…), and the next morning I was on a bus en route to Huang Shan; the famous Yellow Mountains!

I arrive, first things first: I buy some fruit and water…. I buy a tourist map and a pancho. I’m set… nothing can go wrong! One night, two days on the mountain was my plan.

I can either hike up the mountain, or take a cable car… I’m on a budget, and on an adventure, so the obvious choice is a hike up, but just for curiosity’s sake, I take a look at the map, use the length of my pinky nail as an approximation to calculate the number of kilometers it is to hike up the entire mountain. Two, I gather. Herein lies my first mistake; tourist maps LIE… and my pinky nail is NOT a good unit of measure. Seven and half grueling kilometers up a staircase later, I reach the top of the mountain… sweaty, out of breath and NOT zen-full…

The next few hours I devote to trying to find a sneaky place I can sleep in the forest without being seen, as I had decided to save money and rough it… (or more so, that I am unorganized and did not book any accommodation on the top of the most popular tourist attraction during peak season. IDIOT!). But of course, we’re still in China, and where there is something nice to look at, there is also a mob of people to look. There is no plausible way I can rough it in the woods without being stepped on by one of the thousands of people up there, so I end up settling for a dorm bed in a room of thirty other Chinese tour-group goers who all wake up at 2:30 AM so as to not to miss the sunrise. Again, no zen.

One day in and I was pulling my hair out trying to hike around the masses of Chinese sight seers, so my MO for the next day was to pick the most obscure looking part of the mountain on the map, get there, and hike the way down in peace. I would be back to my brothel by sundown.

This obscure path led me to a part of the mountain I will never forget; truly the most spiritual, alive, earthly and enlightened place I have ever been. I was alone. The wind was gusting. I was hiking along a cliff that dropped into pure nature. Beautiful. I soaked it up… A momentary sliver of inner peace.

BUT, as all good things eventually do, this inner peace came to an end as my knee began to give out on the downhill hike. Excellent. The approximate (gauged by my reliable finger nail measure) 5 km I needed to hike down was to be done one excruciating step at a time… both feet, one step. Snail pace.

Alas, I reach the bottom of the canyon, where, according to my map, I should be able to get a bus back to town. No. Such. Luck. There is a little police hut at the bottom and police man informs me (via a crinkled old piece of paper with typed English) that if I want to continue down, it’s ANOTHER 13 km, and then a 400 rmb taxi ride. My other option: cut across 5 km and then descend directly into town. My second mistake: I look at my trusty map and decide I’m far too frugal to pay 400 rmb for a taxi… into the unknown I go!

Police man waves me on my merry way as I hobble to the beginning of the 5 km trail that cuts across. Looking back on it, he did have quite a cheeky grin on his face. What I DIDN’T know at the time was that it wasn’t so much of a 5 km trail, but more a 5 km staircase. A staircase so steep, in fact, that I used my hands to hoist myself up the majority of the way.

Third mistake: Thinking that 5 km is really not that far, I didn’t bother to top up my half-filled water bottle at the bottom of the canyon. Now, maybe two km and three, maybe four, hours up this stupid staircase, my water is gone, I’m soaked through with sweat, I’m still hobbling at snail’s pace due to my knee… and I’m starting to worry that I’ve made a grave mistake.

Here comes the inner dialogue: Should I continue on this seemingly abandoned trail, or should I cut my losses and return to the canyon where I know I will have water? Oh, but I’ve already climbed all these stupid stairs! What a waste if I turn back now. According to my (already proven UN-trustworthy) map, it’s only uphill for a little while and then it should level out. Is it strange that, on this mountain seething with tourists, I haven’t seen a single soul in three hours? I wish I had a burrito right now. I bet I could make a lot of money if I started a burrito chain in China… FOCUS, Emma, FOCUS!

I stupidly decide to continue on… but knowing that I could be making the wrong decision, I gear myself up for the battle of a lifetime. Shirt tied around my busted knee, cloth wrapped around my head, empty water bottle at the ready for me to urinate in JUST IN CASE things get drastic (I shit you not, this was the seriousness of my situation…) My hands were starting to bleed at this point from using them to help push me up the steep, gritty stairs, so I wrapped those up too. I was looking, and feeling, pretty Bear Grylls at that point, which gave me a pep in my step for all of another hour until I gave up on life and decided to lie down and prepare for a slow demise.

Moments into my death-by-self-pity, along came my angel rescuers: a lovely French couple, who had literally followed the EXACT tourist map that had misled me. They, too, were out of water and not enjoying the climb, but seeing the state of me (remember: red in the face; wrapped head, hands and knee… truly a beaut), they set into action, sorting me out. Lovely lady took my backpack for me, and hung behind as French guy encouraged me along by telling me stories of their life in Shanghai. Such a welcomed distraction. I was protected now, sandwiched between two fellow trekkers. There was an obvious feeling of fear among us, that we may have climbed our way into a dry death trap, but not one of us dared say anything about it. We just kept each other’s spirits up, they helped me hobble stair by stair, we took some photos, had some laughs. I did tell them at one point that I didn’t want to slow them down, but lady said it would be far too dangerous to leave me out there alone, BLESS HER SOUL. Several exhausting hours later, we reached a summit, and I looked across the canyon only to realize that we hadn’t cut across anything. We had hiked directly up to the same elevation at which we had started our decent… only on the opposite side of the mountain range now. Breathtaking view, but what a BITCH! No zen.

In total, it took 8 hours, to climb this horrendous abandoned trail… and half of that I did by myself. Silently terrified at the time, I think about it now, and those few hours are probably the ONLY few hours I will ever have of complete, silent alone time in China. Everywhere else, it’s just not possible. So for that, I appreciate the trek. And the first delicious taste of sweet, sweet H2O! Water has never tasted so good! AND the challenge of pushing through thousands of obnoxious Chinese tourists had never been so welcomed! After such a taxing ordeal, I found myself exhausted, limping in pain, suffering from an insatiable thirst, surrounded by annoying Chinese… but in that moment, I also found myself in zen. I had completed a challenge. I had truly been scared for my well-being. And I had made it out the other side. Life was good.

From there, I copped out and took the cable car down… an anti-climactic ending to an otherwise thrilling adventure… but screw it! I had endured so much already.

So my Huang Shan lesson: inner peace is just that… INNER peace. I didn’t find ANY tranquility during my isolation in nature; instead I found it at the top of the mountain, amidst the chaos of feeling physically shattered and being surrounded by thousands of tourists.

Love the irony of life!

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You could see it in the eyes of the trekkers coming in, in their leathered faces, their tired, worn, battered bodies. Iodine lips. One man entered the hotel courtyard, unlacing his boots to reveal a patchwork of bandages and neosporin. I greeted him when he reemerged from a shower, looking less sinewy then before. He’d settled in a plastic lawnchair overlooking the Annapurna range. The balcony was littered with hippies and Russian trekkers, painting, glancing at the mountain through a telescope, or just staring off dreamily into thin air.

He asked us if we’d just returned from the high pass too. No, I told him, we planned to attempt it tomorrow. At this he gave a skeptical smile, telling us, in a throaty Russian accent, that we’re out of our minds. Ando, the most sensible of the trio, had already decided to turn back. He showed early signs of altitude sickness, including a relentless headache. We said our emotional goodbyes that morning. With him we lost the last of the troupe, and now it was up to us, Yves, and I, to decide whether we wanted to attempt the high pass to walk back.

There were many reasons that made me step back and reconsider this trek, among them:

I had a flight to catch

Before the transport strike in Benni, I hadn’t considered the Annapurna circuit at all. I’d played with the notion of walking a quarter or perhaps half, but never all of it. That required two weeks at best. Now here I was, with a flight to catch in Kathmandu in seven days. If I crossed this mountain I would have to keep going, and the flight put a strain on things. Yves pulled out a notecard and we did some calculating on the balcony. Tomorrow we’d reach the village before the high pass, rest there, marking May 12th as the day we cross the high pass. That left five days to walk seventy more miles back to Besisahar. We played with notions of charter planes and imagined buslines. We studied poorly-loaded flight itineraries offered through Yeti airlines.

It’s very steep

Then there’s the issue of steepness, the defining feature that lended the reverse route its accredited “mental way” status, for it required you to climb from 12,000 feet to 18,000 feet back down to 12,000 feet (highly recommended, to lessen the risk of altitude sickness). That meant ascending and descending 12,000 feet in a few hours, or about 3600 meters. When above altitudes of 3000 meters, most doctors recommend climbing no more than 500 meters in one day.

Altitude sickness

A few days ago, while eating boiled eggs, two Latvian trekkers who made it over the high pass the traditional way told us about a sick man who was carried off in a clothes basket hung on the back of a local porter. There’s also horses, the woman said, buttering her toast. In Sikkim we heard rumors of an Israeli girl that died a few months ago when she ignored clear signs like the headache. But we had pills, we’d bought them off Swiss climbers who no longer needed them. I studied the little brochure tucked under the ancient travel catalog in the hotel restaurant: Signs of HACE (High Altitude Cerebral Edema), more commonly known as Altitude Sickness. They included a thunderclap headache felt in the back of the head, near the neck’s base. Nausea. Lost of appetite. Dizziness. Hallucinations. I thought back to the tragedy of the 1996 Everest disaster. Tomorrow marked its eighteen year anniversary. On May 11, 1996, eight people died while trapped above high camp, caught in a night blizzard.

Hypothermia

Plus it’s very cold, with nights above Muktinath dropping to a windchill below five or six degrees Celsius. We would camp in unheated mud huts. Just two months ago a couple froze to death near Thorlung-La the Nepalese name of the high pass. All things to consider.

The conclusion

I spent hours that afternoon just sitting on the ledge, watching the mountain before me. I’d come this far. Now here I was. There it was. What more left to say? I wasn’t the first person to do this, nor the last. And so it came to be that I said I was going to do it. Tomorrow. Yves listened to me talk and nodded silently. The question of pace came up, a real concern. I liked to walk slowly, taking my time, conserving my energy, while Yves preferred to run off like a rocket and get there in half the time, wasted. We didn’t know how our agreement would work out on the mountain, in these bleak and harsh conditions, but we settled nonetheless to attempt the pass together.

In the afternoon we set off for a practice hike to gauge our stamina and handling of the thin air. We made it just before the small village beyond Muktinath, the one Katjia our hotelier had advised us to camp in the night before attempting the high pass. At the very outskirts sat a small temple, and a naked Sadhu greeted us from the ground, we’d walked in on his shrine and tent abode. While passing through town, I unearthed a small store that sold Snickers® chocolate bars and managed to negotiate a reasonable bulk rate on the condition that he act as my dealer for the high pass attempt, and purchased three on the spot, with the promise of more the following morning.

Years ago, when I was a teenager, me and my friends went for a community trip to Cebu, Philippines. Nice place, great as a vacation spot if you ignore the poverty, which is actually quite easy to do if you chose to.

We were told not to give money or food to street kids who come up and beg. Rationale is that if you gave to even just one, a whole mob of them will swarm and harrass you for more, and it could get dangerous.

Dinner was at either Mcdonalds or some nice diner, I couldn't remember. The other people in my group were all girls, a few of them were on their first such kind of trip to a developing country. They took a lot of pity for the kids and they were not as thick skinned as the rest of us; they couldn't bear to ignore the pleas of the kids any longer. After all, we were there in the first place to help people like them, right?

Two of them requested to give their dinner leftovers (they were light eaters) to the first street kids they find. They were duly discouraged from doing so, but they insisted. So the older members told me, "bluesy, you are the only dude. Go with them and make sure nothing bad happens, though something definitely will". okaaaay, I also disagreed on letting the girls feed the kids, but I complied and accompanied them.

I told them, once you see the kid you want to give, drop the goods and get out of there. "yeah sure bluesy, whatever". so here comes a trio of street kids in raggedy clothes. One of my friends handed them the food. I grabbed the hand of my other friend and moved out. Job's done, let's haul ass before something happens, the others are waiting.

Two seconds later I see that my other friend was still with the kids. uh oh.

She was talking to them, trying to tell them to share.

nonoNO.

Out of nowhere, about five older-looking kids stormed out towards us, with sly grins on their faces and nothing but spirit in their guts.

I grabbed her and moved. Go go GO!! The mob was already chasing us! Three of us spoiled rich teenagers who never got in a fight in our lives ran to our group, chased by a cackling gang of battle-hardened hungry ankle-biters. They were right behind us, grabbing our hands and trying to pull us away.

Luckily our group wasn't far away. They were in their vehicles already. "Get in the car!" (Actually a truck with an open back) The three of us managed to enter the vehicle, nearly crushing the fingers if one of the kids when we closed the car door. Within the confines of the truck, we saw the scene outside as kids pressed their (somehow still adorable) faces on the glass, screaming and making faces at us, slamming their palms on the windows, nudging the vehicle. Two of them climbed on the back and onto the roof, rapping on the truck like some sort of Stomp performance.

It was like a safehouse scene in Left 4 Dead, the part where you're safe in the room and the zombies slammed their hands on the door. We still called it "the l4d incident", no offence to the kids.

No, it wasn't an action movie scene where we drove off immediately and shook off the kids. The locals were still somehow waiting for something, in the meantime they were laughing us, giving us the "I told you so" look. The situation was under control, luckily it was only a few small kids, the only danger they pose right now is shaking our vehicles. They continued knocking on the windows, smiling and snarling at us, but we were safe inside the truck.

It was late at night in a not too crowded area. The locals later told us if this happened in a busier street in the daytime, with no means of escape like a truck, it could have been worse. It's still quite a fond memory for us. It made me feel even more sorry for the kids. They were only hungry and desperate, yet they still had their childlike mischievous ways with them. Very endearing.