Category: Ideas/Books/Philosophy
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From the Killing Fields to Kibera
It’s been a surreal couple of days. I went from New Years Eve in Seattle, Washington, watching a laser light show themed “outer space,” straight to the killing fields of central Cambodia, an area where Pol Pot’s troops devastated the population, killing roughly one fourth of Cambodia’s people. (Skulls left as testament of Khmer Rouge…
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Cangyan Shan and the kindness of strangers
My Mom sent me an email the other day – she had picked up a book I left behind by Ryszard Kapuściński, a Polish journalist, and someone I idolize. In this book (Travels with Heredotus), Kapuscinski writes this about travel: “Indeed, there exists something like a contagion of travel, and the disease is essentially incurable.”…
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My trip, one month in
I just got back from seven days in rural Mongolia, and am about 5 weeks into a round-the-world trip. Truthfully, so far this whole trip has been pretty surreal. A lot of the time it feels like a bizarre dream, and I have to remind myself to be present or I’ll miss it. My first…
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An American in St. Petersburg
I’m sitting in a hostel in St. Petersburg, Russia, surrounded by 12 travelers from all over the word. To my right, a young guy from Holland, who took a bus all the way from Lithuania. Next to him, a Brazilian national who has spent the last two months researching oil prospects in Siberia. On her…
Sarah PecK 