As the air becomes more crisp and the sun sleeps at an earlier hour, the greenery mellows and the school bells bellow. A turning of the season marks a time for reflection. For, the summer has past and the fall is the future. It's a time to look back and remember the rays. Remember the meals and remember the days. Remember the friends, the folly, the fun. The journey has passed, now the story's begun...
As soon as the airplane took off on April 17, 2012, I began to write. In the young hours of the morning, the ink bled through the first pages of my Moleskine as I broke the horizon on an adventure that would take me 139-days into the unexpected. At that moment, there was no foreseeable end. A pile of cash and a one-way plane ride to what I could only imagine was paradise.
Looking back on the journey, now exactly five months later; from atop the folds in my bed sheets, the fading light pooling on to the hardwood floor of my bedroom through the rectangular panes of my south-facing window in the city of Toronto; so many of the sounds, smells and sensations of Southeast Asia are still fresh in my mind. Some of the best times are a blur. The beaches are tactile. The mountains, so magnificent they're a mystery. The cities, my pulse. The food, my muse.
Here is the start (once again-- read my first blog of the trip here) of what went down through nine countries, with no plan, some free time, and a major yearning to live it up while I still can.
...Oh, and did I mention that booze is cheap and phenomenal food is practically free? Ya, that makes for some inspired writing!
Check back often as my hand-printed pages hit the hardwire.
