The thing about being a writer is much of what you produce gets completely buried on your hard drive and in notebooks. But I discovered this short piece the other day, and reading it brought me right back to four years ago in Chiang Mai. Where I was the same same but different. October 2010 I learnt… Read More Same same but different in Thailand
When I told my family that I was going to India for a few weeks, they couldn’t imagine why I was choosing to go to such a poor and dirty place where children begged for money on the streets. My dentist, who was Vietnamese like us, also had a less than encouraging reaction on my… Read More Conversations on New Delhi’s tourist trail
For the longest time I felt like writer was a title I had to earn by writing a book…something worthy, something BIG. I’ve been writing for more than ten years, mostly articles and short pieces, but I would describe what I do as a verb (“I write”) rather than as a noun (“I’m a writer”). But… Read More Yep, I’m a writer
I used to think that eating any non-local food while being abroad was lame…that is, until I started spending more time abroad. Years ago, when I was volunteering in Thailand for a month, one of the greatest meals I had was at a Scandinavian restaurant in the seaside town I was staying in: toasted ham… Read More The globalisation of homogeneity
The sight of roasting dogs in Vietnam (such as this one) regularly freaks out tourists who come from places where dogs don’t end up on a menu. There’s an old joke floating around that goes something like this: Q. How do you know if a Vietnamese guy has robbed your house? A. Your dog’s missing and… Read More Not all dogs end up on a menu in Vietnam
One of the biggest watershed moments of my life was visiting Vietnam in December 2010 for the first time. My life has now been cut up into life Before Vietnam and After Vietnam. Since that first trip 18 months ago, I’ve continued to return on a regular basis, for trips of varying lengths – 3… Read More Sweltering in Saigon
I dodged a bullet on Tuesday night, figuratively speaking. Scores of flights were cancelled due to the ash cloud hovering over Australia. If I had flown to Bali from Sydney, I actually wouldn’t have made it. As it was, on my whirlwind visit home recently, I decided to pop down to Melbourne for a couple… Read More The year in review
The Travels of Elephant Woman 