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the tatmadaw is the burmese military. this was taken in mandalay.

i don't really know where time goes. i used to freak out big time about time; always worrying that my life and time was unfolding in front of my eyes and slipping between my fingers without me realising. queue my "it's all about having a good story" rant and you'll have a slight insight into my mind and one of the things i wanna achieve most of all in life. it's all about hearing good stories over ten changs too many and i don't wanna get to that age and then think "oh, shit!". yeah, i have perpetually itchy feet and like to work on whims and limbs, but until this summer i never really put it into practice. i was slipping into the comfort zones of my south manchester lifestyle and if i didn't get out then, i probably would've been there for the next ten years. i miss my friends like you wouldn't believe, but it'd been two years since i moved back from madrid and i fancied a challenge and a change.

over summer time was irrelevant. i only knew the rough date or time by when i arrived in a country or when my visa or stamp was due up. time plays no purpose or holds no significance when you're on the road. as long as you make whatever bus or flight you're booked on, then it's all good and even at that, it's not the end of the world. until i flew back to bangkok from yangon and the final seven days was looming, i hadn't even thought about the post-asia times until i left burma. i think it was all made easier because i knew i wasn't spending any significant time in the UK. a two day turnaround, hello to family, wash some clothes, grab some knitwear and off i went on a plane to vancouver. ha!



5am sunrise near mui ne.






kenny our zealous ha long bay tour guide.




the tee was worth the $50 for ha long bay tour, alone. fucking genius.

my nine week long jaunt felt like it was gonna go on forever, in the best possible way. i'm gonna put that down to the fact i went with no plan or clue where i was going except with the loose idea of meeting up with becky and scott and travelling north to south, going armed with a multiple entry visa for vietnam, a return flight in september and malaria pills. as it turns out, i went to thailand for three days and ended up stayed for two weeks, went to burma for two weeks (too short!) where i met some of the most legendary people in one of the most fascinating and fucked up lands ever. scuttled through cambodia on a whistlestop tour, said hello to the angkor watt, fended off even more tuk tuks, made it back to saigon for one last bowl of pho bo and then boarded the singapore airlines airbus on sat 12th september destined for london which i ended up having a 13hr transit in singapore. in that time i managed hooked up with tasha an thomas, drank an unhealthy amount of rum, caught two hours sleep and spoon with tasha then boarded my flight pissed as a fart. didn't sleep a wink on the flight, arrived into london on one of the greyest and coldest september day imaginable and then sat waiting and waiting and waiting for my coach to newcastle. my coach left london victoria at 23:30 which was roughly 05/06:30 se asian time. Bearing in mind i'd had two hours sleep in more than two days, i was starting to royally crash and burn. my solution to me not missing my coach was speaking to one of the greats, robert clayton, and asking him to just chat shit to me to keep me awake. that's what friends are for, eh?

the wonderful hoi an, vietnam.







i’m now in canada where i’ll be stationed for the next year. i turned twenty-four somewhere over the atlantic where i managed to have a 36hr birthday with time differences et all. now am trying to slowly regain to normality, whatever the fuck that means. jetlag finally caught up and defeated me; it hit me like a wall of impending doom but i'm over that and the brief stress of unemployment. banff is rad and am off to work for round II of my split shift in a few hours and it's snowing heavily outside. it all suits me to a total tee. around five weeks ago i was on my way back to bangkok from burma and hanging out with new and old friends in a city i never once had any connection with or desire to visit. here i've succeeded in finding a bar which sells gin and tonics at $2.50 and plays decent music. it's also a stone's throw from work and in four weeks the slopes open and i'll be fleeshing down the mountains wild as a boghillian on crack (maybe not).

so my wanderlust took me to se asia where i managed to party with people i didn’t know four months months ago, hooked up with old pals from ten years ago, an impromptu arrangement of hanging out in singapore with old pals from mancatraz and new pals from travels, was attacked by a vietnamese pineapple seller on a beach who was armed with a ketamine sized meat cleaver, dodged minors in burma, corrupted many a mind, managed to caress a few souls along the way, got embroiled in some ridiculous (yet fun!) situations, heard way too much UB40 for my liking, went to some parties that revolve around the moon, in-jokes, gaped at temples, shared cigars with monks, grew an unadultered love for uncle ho and somehow came out standing despite the amount of changs I consumed in two weeks alone in thailand.



home from home. where i was propped for two weeks.



home from home again. jack, a cockrel and a singapore sling.

in total, the last four months has seen me:

-touch down on three different continents

-seven countries

-15 different coaches which clocked in at roughly 150 hours of me sat on my arse questioning my life, sexuality and why the fuck the vietnamese bus drivers have to keep their hand on the fucking horn for the duration of the ride through the night.



one break down amongst many. near thazi, burma.


-six boats and eight flights. flew approx 8, 000 miles to and from vietnam via singapore. boshed christ knows how many valiums, drank an inexcusable amount of changs and pretty much hurt my cheeks from laughing so much. along the way we saw a lot of celebrity deaths. for me to notice or remember means there must have been a fair few. i don't normally clock any celebrity related business. bobby robson passed away and john hughes died sometime in the middle of me drinking buckets and laughing at all the g-bronis on haad rin at the full moon. i didn't pick up a news paper once except to check the news and happenings in burma. all in all, i was and still am living in an isolated bubble fuelled only by the radge people i meet along the way. christ, a plane destined for koh samui crashed the same day i was heading for koh phagnan, the next island along. i didn't know about this 'til i switched on my phone and went online three days after arriving and received an abundance of messages hoping i wasn't on the aforementioned flight.



connect four in a very drunken nha trang, vietnam.







as quite rightly pointed out, the temples of bagan (burma) look like gold, perky boobs.





here is nathalie and i on u bein bridge, burma. supposedly the world's longest teak bridge. as taken by ellen

wey, i would trade big mountains or rooms full of gold for the places i’ve seen and the faces i’ve met. since leaving the UK my life's become a whirlwind and hive of fun, sunsets, debauchery and culture shocks. i don’t care how cliché I sound, this holiday’s been full of them. clichés fucking rule. life is absolutely rad.