Traveller Interview

drifting_adam I ran into a guy called Takeshi when travelling through Russia. He was tracing back his Russian/Japanese ancestry and travelling overland from Japan to Europe over 3 months. All he had with him was what the clothes he was wearing and a small shoulderbag. I couldn't quite beleive it - I carry more stuff with me for a day at work than he did for 3 months. Proved to me that there is really very little you 'need' when travelling.

markbroadhead I woke up one morning in my Hollywood hostel to find clown shoes under the adjacent bunk (you know, really long, red shoes). I later discovered they belonged to an Argentine who'd busk on Hollywood Blvd, juggling, etc. He said he'd fought in the Falklands war, been a hitman in Florida, and escaped from prison in that state. Somehow it all seemed true.

minnesota_trekker I've had a number of very interesting encounters in Vietnam. I once ran across a guy up north at a guesthouse bar. We talked for a few minutes, during which he told me he worked for a government land agency or some such department (I forget the exact department he claimed to work for). He kept asking me where I was headed, if I'd been up near the border, if I'd had any problems at checkpoints and all that sort of chat. He seemed a bit dodgy, so I eventually decided to go back to my room for a bit. Four days later, I saw his photo in a local newspaper/publication. I couldn't read Vietnamese, so I asked a local about the caption under the photo. Apparently he was arrested for gun running up on the northern border. Go figure.

On a more positive note, I once met a guy that was trying to walk from Oslo to Johannesburg. I was in a hurry to make my plane though, and never got the guy's name. Would love to know if he made it...