Travel Writing Library

You know its going to be one of those days ; because it the day we planned to go to Alton Towers. So the car is packed, three teenagers sat in the patiently and I am about to drive.

9 p.m. Bags packed. Shopping completed. Tickets double checked. Checkout done.

What better way is there to see a country than by train? Having already experienced the 24 hour train journey from Hong Kong to Beijing, with its postcard-perfect rice fields and run down villages...

Andrew, an office colleague, convinced me to accompany him and some explorers on a relaxed rafting trip down a stretch of the Pongola River, on the border of the Ithala Game Reserve in Kwazulu-Natal.

Having survived emergency uplift in a plane courtesy of the dog on the runway, being locked in a coach toilet for 4 hours travelling through the mountains of Bolivia when the flush was broken, a 14 hour flight...

It’s the damned lock. As cutely antiquated as the key is, the lock doesn’t respond to any form of manipulation. I rotate the thing clockwise in the keyhole until I hear the click, and then twist the doorknob.

We are dressed in full outdoor gear; down jackets, thermal underwear, hats and gloves. Temperatures in Gangwon Province, South Korea can dip to -30 degrees Celsius in winter and we are taking no chances.

My mother screamed as a jet of blood erupted from her hand. I stumbled over to her, slipping on the wet deck. I was drenched. “Get back to your father” bellowed my mum above the storm.

I landed on my ass – HARD. Jet lagged and grumpy, I was jolted out of my sleepiness with a rude bump – Literally! I had barely arrived in New York before my grandiose plans of living it up in the Big Apple unraveled.

I’d imagined being greeted by a group of young, upbeat travellers excited to experience a place renowned for its anachronistic politics, its managed poverty and its thrusting, fluid hips.