Trail of Ants captures the breathtaking tale of its backpacking author, Ant as he engages in a perpetual journey of astonishment, passion and discovery.
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This week’s LISTENup travelcast revisits the Nepali capital of Kathmandu. A city I visited two years ago, and where I penned the original entry of The Kites of Kathmandu. Continue reading ‘The Kites of Kathmandu (Audio Podcast)’
I stare at the newspaper. It wasn’t me. I gawp at the television. It wasn’t me. I trawl through the internet. It wasn’t me! I listen to the radio, podcasts, and conversations on the bus. It WASN’T me! At least — I hope it wasn’t me? Continue reading ‘Trails of the Unexpected’
Kathmandu is not the dirtiest city I’ve ever been too. That award is divided between Naples, Marseille and pretty much every north Indian megalopolis. Marseille has some room for appeal, the binmen were on strike (it’s France, go figure). Naples suffered the same affliction, but for some reason I’m throwing their right to appeal out as I’m pretty sure the piles of garbage covered up greater evils. Like bodies. My life was threatened on several occasions. Well, twice – the remaining times were suicide plans incase I got stranded there. Continue reading ‘The Reprint: ‘The Daily Commute’’
If it’s true that you can judge a man by the company he keeps then I reckon I’m up for some sort of global award. Everywhere I go I’m surrounded by insanely loyal friends, and even for the enemies I hurl mental rocks at I hold some deep-rooted passion. This weeks Reprint is a demonstration of all things friends. Continue reading ‘The Reprint: ‘Friends’’
They peek at you, leap at you, and creep up on you to squeak at you. Some of them reek, while some of them leak but every one of them leaves you feeling – you guessed it – weak. They are the children of The Trail and collectively, they’re probably the biggest curiosity in my life. Continue reading ‘The Reprint: ‘The Little People’’
I’d seen him from a short distance, twelve months previously, he travelled alone aboard a plane to Moscow. He wore a dark tracksuit top zipped over a light t-shirt, and loose pale green shorts covered the knees he cradled by his chest. His hair sprayed out in loose brown curls beneath a khaki cap, highlighted by scribbles of grey. His pale thin lips lined a shallow smile, and his early morning eyes seemed glazed with relief. As his homeland slipped beneath a thin veil of cloud, he lifted his cap and ran his fingers through his hair, his lips parted just once to release his farewell thoughts: Let the journey begin, my friend. Today, he lay upright on the rippled white sheets of a double bed, in a simple, homely room on the island of Bali. Continue reading ‘A Thousand Glorious Times’
I lied. Forgive me. I told you I was going to hire a motorbike. I did not. I told you I was heading through Nepal’s eastern Terai. I did not. I told you I would now be in Darjeeling. I am not. I don’t know what came over me, it wasn’t intentional but I feel that I owe you all an explanation. I’m coming clean. I was in Kathmandu, right, yeah, when this huge-great-big dribbling monster came storming angrily through the narrow city streets, gobbling up everyone and everything in it’s path. As the cobbles shook loose beneath my feet, I drew breath, stood strong and stared up fifteen feet into his twenty-or-more burning red eyes. In a moment of inspiration I hurled a splintered rickshaw and it’s skinny rider up into the monsters rabid fangs. From that moment, of uncapped bravery on, I knew my path would lead me elsewhere, to where heroes walk the land. Honestly right, that monster had like fifty eyes and forty mouths and stood one hundred feet tall but I crushed twelve rickshaws up with my hands and sprayed him into submission with a cloud of pedals and spokes. Continue reading ‘Bl**d, Swe*t and B*rders!’
I'm currently working my way through Wellington, New Zealand.
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