Further Bound -

Healing in Cambodia

21.05.2013

The past month has been a difficult time. Lee and I struggled to work through our relationship problems whilst cooped up together 24/7, and I reached a personal all-time low on the road, feeling detached and isolated, and dearly missing my family and friends back home. It has been the hardest month on the road [...]

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Staying afloat

19.04.2013

I have always been afraid of deep water, a phobia I have long wished to overcome. But right now, as we make our way from Koh Tao back to the mainland of Thailand on an ill-timed visa run amid high winds and huge waves, my fear has never felt more valid.
Curled up in a ball [...]

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Reflecting on six months of travel

01.04.2013

I am so lucky.
I cannot count how many times I have said or thought these words. At least once a day since we left England six months ago. Over 180 wholehearted expressions of gratitude.
I am so very lucky. Lucky to be where we are, without question, but more than this, I am so very lucky [...]

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An abundance of choice

15.03.2013

I shift uncomfortably in my seat, wedged between my backpack and a sleeping stranger on a busy Bangkok bus, the smell of warm palms on metal railings mingling with the air-conditioned breeze that gratefully blows across my face.
Outside, the sights of a city I’ve never been to before pass by in a blur, but I [...]

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The evolution of dreams

07.03.2013

I stand on the edge of the Arabian Sea, my feet routed in that sweet spot where the white lip of the waves gently brushes the shore, covering my feet with foamy kisses. I allow my heels to sink into the soft wet sand, staring down at its rippled surface, lightly skimmed with a thin [...]

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Silver linings notebook

26.02.2013

Every cloud has a silver lining.
I lie on a hillside, turning those words over in my mind, gazing up at an undisturbed blanket of blue, searching for the hidden treasure amongst the flawless cerulean.
For the past few days I have been suspended in a cloud of my own, one of negativity and frustration. I was [...]

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A day to listen to

19.02.2013

It started with a seed, as so many things do, and a fateful conversation in the afternoon haze. Leaning against the wall of my back porch, I turned to a fresh page in my notebook and began to transcribe as my friend Ana read out a horoscope-like prediction from the Mayan Calendar. It was my [...]

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The doors we leave open

12.02.2013

I woke up to the familiar thud of a kitten dropping from the ceiling, a nightly occurrence since they grew brave enough to hurl themselves from the rafters after climbing in through a hole in the roof. I lay there agitated as Bear mewed incessantly, willing him to shut up, until I finally gave in [...]

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Piercing the surface in Jalligeri

05.02.2013

I woke up on my second day in Jalligeri stiff from the rock hard mattress, my clothes damp from baby Gonal’s pee. This wouldn’t be the first time that day either, as his little bottom went permanently un-diapered and was often in my arms or on my lap as I blended further into family life.
A [...]

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A weekend at Poopy’s house

01.02.2013

Last Saturday afternoon, following an arduous eight hour bus journey, I found myself in the tiny village of Jalligeri in the southern state of Karnataka, India. The word village might even be too grand a term, as in truth, Jalligeri is little more than a hamlet, nestled humbly amongst sprawling fields and mountain peaks.

The village [...]

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Just a little drive across India

31.12.2012

For at least the last five years I have longed to take part in the Rickshaw Run, trying my best to carouse and cajole everyone I knew into sharing the adventure with me, without success. And so it became this thing I carried around with me, a seed I didn’t have the heart to cast [...]

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The gift of the open road

17.12.2012

This is the first time in six weeks that I have sat down at my laptop, opened a new Word document, and quietly begun to write. It sounds like such a simple act, and yet I have been struggling with it for all this time. The words escaped me somehow, and I have been slowly [...]