Travels

Travels

Hangouts

All over the world, I see groups of men huddled among rusty scissors and jars of antiseptic lotion (what is in that green stuff they rub on your face before hacking away with a dull razor-blade?).

Travels

Scenes

What are some social scenes you like in your neck of the woods?  I've noticed that while places may differ in ambiance – most of the conversations are universally the same...

Travels

A Wilde's Kind of Night: Bedouin Camp part 2

Dharma comes like a whispering wind, then lightning, it comes and renders the parts of you that wants to understand, it splinters the labyrinth – crumbling down like a deck of cards, so futile and easy and loathsome – when it comes, it's a violent silence...

Travels

Bedouin Camp part 1

I was in the Ammarin tribe's territory -- the only visitor there for the day. The compound was blinding white, scorched by the sun, until I saw a high bluff that cut deep shadows into the ground.

Travels

Petra

I spent an hour alone atop the mountain, sharing tea with the local guides and clapped along to their undulating songs, accompanied by a round, half-moon guitar. 

Travels

24 hour friends

And then again, there are times like when I met Carmine, Tan, and Natalie, and in a brief stretch of a day, we'd blazed past the usual muddled interactions of polite traveler-talk and sped up time to the point where it feels like we've known each other for ages.

Twentysomething

The Shrinking World

Much of the world is in shit, isn't it?  If you had a map, and if you lit spots in the world where there's violence, I think the round ball of mud would light up like a jack-o-lantern.

Travels

A Block Away

I was going to visit the theatre today, arriving in Amman in the morning – except at the time of this incident, I was passed out in my hostel, one block away from the theatre, from the heat.

Travels

J-Notes

The one character I see more than Mickey Mouse around the world: the Laughing Cow, of the cheese fame.

Travels

Dialogues a-Lined

We rushed headlong into the crazy dialogue. In fits and starts we began, eyeing the line that crawled to the flight attendant, careening from the silly to the sublime, opining on crazy Elyse's beliefs and surviving on my own desire to escape the tedium of the airport...

Travels

Crazy Bangkok Taxi Driver

What was atypical was that the maniac drove on the shoulder of the freeway – brushing the freakin wall – in the rain.

Travels

Jordan rocks

Men chat and smoke at coffee shops that dot the dusty streets – there's something so male and great about that. Hello, the kids shout. Then inevitably: You're welcome!