Category: Travelogue

  • Malaysia & Australia (and a little bit of Istanbul)

    Day 1 It’s about midnight by the time I land at Istanbul Airport, but thankfully, the hotel I had booked is in the airport. All my needs and worries are met as I check in to my tiny – but sleek and modern – room, get a bag of toiletries handed to me by the…

  • Rwanda

    Day 1 It’s not an auspicious start when I struggle to find my way out of the airport. Thankfully, a helpful man with an assault rifle has pointed me in the right direction, so now I’m walking into Kigali. It strikes me, through the fog of travel-exhaustion, as I look out across the terracotta roofs…

  • Colombia & Panama

    Day 1 The hotel is small and basic. There are few amenities. The lock on the door keeps getting jammed. Showers are shared, and are some distance from my room. The local neighbourhood does not seem friendly. Yet, I could not be more glad to be here. My entire body feels weird from going without…

  • Canada

    Day 1 The first thing that strikes me about Toronto is the similarity to the New York of the movies. It’s a proper city of skyscrapers, of straight angles of glass that stretch ever upward. I can’t help but gawk a little at the sheer scale of it all, like the country bumpkin that I…

  • France

    Day 1 France! Western Europe! Well-developed infrastructure! This should be a pleasant change of pace from jungles and deserts. I can travel with ease and comfort. Well, that was what I thought right up to the moment when I got lost searching for the hotel in the dead of night and all the streetlights suddenly…