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Fashion-obsessed guy started it couple years ago, posting photos of random people met on the street, that he considered trendy, cool, unique or stylish.
Today, top fashion gurus and designers seek inspirations and season trends on his blog. The first album came out a last week, all bookstores across US.
Incredible, spriritual experience.
Riding bikes at 5am (to avoid the unbearable afternoon heat) through the Siem Reap area, into the jungle where the ancient temples start appearing in the sunrise was truly extraordinary! So many of them, such a vast area, with the thick jungle roots penetrating through the curved stones.
Rows of giant cold-smiled faces of gods and warriors is what struck me the most. We spent hours contemplating the sculptures, picking into the dark cool temples where the locals burn incents and meditate.
Red Khmers left Cambodia bloody and devastated, killing millions, so recently! Late 70′s, when I was born. 25% of the country’s population was brutally murdered. Still, no one recommends walking off a beaten path, where mines could still be activated and explode. As a proof, you can see many adults and children with no legs or arms. Vary sad, especially gasped together with the shocking poverty, hunger and dirt. Kids desperately trying to sell you baked(?) tarantulas and unborn ducklings (yes, still inside the egg, with its beak and feathers, cooked). Four year olds carrying their younger siblings.
We didn’t even go to Phnom Penh, just not to be reminded of the horror that happened there, but spent more time exploring the 12th century incredible ruins.
A man came home from work and found his three children outside, still in their pajamas, playing in the mud, with empty food boxes and 20 wrappers strewn all around the front yard.The door of his wife’s car was open, and so the front door to the house and there was no sign of the dog. Proceeding into the entry, he found an even bigger mess. A lamp had been knocked over, and the throw rug was wadded against one wall.In the front room the TV was loudly blaring a cartoon channel, and the family room was strewn with toys and various items of clothing.In the kitchen, dishes filled the sink, breakfast food was spilled on the counter, the fridge door was open wide, dog food was spilled on the floor a broken glass lay under the table, and a small pile of sand was spread by the back door.
He quickly headed up the stairs, stepping over toys and more piles of clothes, looking for his wife. He was worried she might be ill, or that something serious had happened.He was met with a small trickle of water as it made its way out the bathroom door.As he peered inside he found wet towels, scummy soap and more toys strewn over the floor.Miles of toilet paper lay in a heap and toothpaste had been smeared over the mirror and walls.
As he rushed to the bedroom, he found his wife still curled up in the bed in her pajamas, reading a novel.She looked up at him, smiled, and asked how his day went.He looked at her bewildered and asked, ‘What happened here today?’She again smiled and answered, ‘You know every day when you come home from work and you ask me what in the world I do all day?’Yes,’ was his incredulous reply.She answered, ‘Well, today I didn’t do it.’
My favorite year ever. Endless Summer- constant vacation, even though I worked and went to school in Sydney.
Traveling every weekend. Explored this vast country- deep scuba diving in the most amazing reef, surfing the waves, camping with Aboriginal people in hot red sands of central desert, outback style, rode camels, went to rain forests, saw kangaroos, koala bears and socialized with the Aussies!
Lived on Bondi Beach- right by the city (couple bus stops from the center), bluest water on earth, great waves, million tiny veggie cafes, hippy surf shops and retro bars. Great parties in couple beach hotels.
Kangaroo Land- I’ll be back!
Off I went one time. Boring rainy days in Poland. I was still at the beginning stage of writing my thesis- 2 chapters kind of written, still so much ahead of me, piles of literature on the desk, deadlines…ohhhhh.
And a phone call one morning “Zuzia? Hi, it’s Anna, we met in NYC. Got your phone number from Ania. She said you might be going to Asia soon. Do you want to go together?”.
Well, I did! Even though I didn’t even remember this girl, but yeah! Let’s do Nepal. I was supposed to go there after defending my bloody thesis (and yes, writing another 100 pages of it), by myself. But why not now, why not with her? Called my professor, she said “go girl!” (she’s always supported my travels and actually if not her I’d have not seen as much as I did or my masters would have had to wait few more years…).
2 weeks later, we were on the plane- cheap Russian airlines, pretty scary. 6 weeks trekking in Himalayas. Insane views, unbelievable people (mostly Tibetan refugees) we stayed with on the way, and other traveling people we met.
I have couple journals from the trip (with Anna, and after she left back to Poland, and me traveling another few weeks with a British philosopher George), so could go on and on about what we have been through.
The pictures here are from a lovely Chitwan National Park, where local people keep elephants at their households, to help them with tough work. Every morning they scrub them with…rough bricks in the river- tubby time! I jumped on one and all of us had fun- including the elephant of course, who would “attack” me with her trunk, splashing water all over!
Welcome to the jungle. When I went to Indo, flew to Singapore from my home town. Spent 2 nights in that shiny city- clean and organized. Loved the food already. Went by myself, but meant to join my buddies, who- according to their latest, very unclear messages- were somewhere in North Sumatra already (thanks for waiting! They had their exams much earlier than me, set off then in search of some dive spots, but were not expected to go all the way across South East Asia!).
No worries, I can do it… Spent a week trying to figure out ways to get there- chicken buses, rice trucks and other lovely automobiles to reunite with them (tried not to think too much of them floating underwater with bright fish and shimmering Indonesian sun, while I sat for 14 hours on top of a rushing bus, speeding without lights across Sumatra, in dust, sweat and no idea if it was going in the right direction).
All I had was notes from my friends’ only e-mail, that had names of towns they had to pass to get to the place they were supposed to be within next 7 days (to be precise…). The problem was though that all the names were spelled phonetically, since none of us knows Indonesian writing (nor the language itself).
Bla, bla, bla… million adventures later, I arrived to the beautiful island off North Sumatra, where they appeared day later.
Among all the wonderful things we did in Indonesia, spent couple nights in the jungle. Saw enormous Orangutan, wild and pretty furious. The photo is not very clear- a mother of the cutest orange baby-ape ever got little mad at strange human creatures disturbing her privacy…I bet it was me, squeaking and tiptoeing around the tree. Within seconds, we had to run for our lives and throw our cameras and backpacks to pick them up few hours later. Smart guide of ours (funniest guy from a village right by the jungle) threw some papayas behind us, so the big dude could occupy herself and give up the chase.
The guide spent his childhood in this dangerous but stunning environment, but moved to the village after loosing his mother under a falling tree. He shared all the beauties of jungle life with us, proving his senses were probably thousand times stronger than ours (could hear certain monkey or tiger from miles away!). Or even the jungle-viagra secrets: how to mix a wild duck yolk with a jungle bee honey to be the man of the… jungle I guess.
Below is a photo of him getting our dinner ready (brought/caught/picked some fish and veggies for me too!)
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where we wandered a while. I’m not a fan of big cities in poor countries. Love the nature and am scared of poverty, at least the bad kind of poverty. City people have access to more ‘precious’ fruit of civilization, such as cars and TV, therefore realize more what’s out there. I often compare kids in Asian or South American countries- begging, starving, wanting to watch cheap American soap operas squeezed in some drunk bar of a dark forbidden street of a city. Just hours outside of this noisy craziness, you meet kids running around, playing, taking care of their younger siblings and animals.
They too might only have a tiny bowl of rice a day, but having never been outside their village, they simply don’t miss anything, since this is the only reality they know. And it’s usually sweet- kind of paradise for a traveler, passing amazing hills, beaches and mountains and looking at them living their lives.
Malaysia is beautiful and so is it’s capital city and the famous Petronas Towers.
My traveling started when I was a little kid, in my mind first… Growing up in a communist country, there was not too many options for aspiring traveler.
Living in ever-changing Poland, during my high school years, I spent couple summers in London, working like crazy as a waitress and bartender to make enough $ to go and explore. First Europe, since it was easy, convenient and no need for expensive tickets.
But the real bug started when me and two best friends (Michael and Patrick) decided to take a year off after our 3rd year in college and moved to Australia… (with just enough precious british Pounds for a flight and literally couple meals)
We found jobs, went to school there, rented a small place right on Sydney’s famous Bondi Beach.
Have gone, have done, have seen it all there and promised myself to move to the Kangaroo Land permanently after graduating (yes, my polish University was waiting impatiently…)
In the meantime though, went to several places in Asia, South and Central America, and from then on the list of destinations grew and passport filled with stamps.
Myanmar, Cambodia, Nepal, Guatemala, Thailand, Hawaii, Malaysia, Indonesia, Alaska, Caribbean, Singapore, Indie, Honduras, Greece, Costa Rica, Portugal and many many more, amazing adventures, places, people, experiences, inspirations.
Had to sometimes ‘stop’ in more civilized spots like New York City to fill up the sacks, working in restaurants again (NYC tips are very generous though and budget traveling in all my dream places doesn’t require more than around $5 per day, including transportation, lodging and food).
All through the adventures I wrote journals and took endless photos that I’m going to share in this mini-blog.
Aloha!
