CURRENT MISSION

To go boldly where no backpacker has gone before with so little money yet get so much by giving as much of myself as I can

ABOUT ME

I enjoy travelling, seeing and watching the world go by. I want to learn how other people live their lives, one person, one country, one place at a time, so it will teach me better how to live mine.

There are so many lessons we can learn from the people of the world we normally regard as common, even ordinary. So often we are enamoured by the heroes and celebrities of this life that we forget that 99% of people have scant little to go home to and worry about paying bills and feeding their growing litter of offspring, in their own unique ways.

It is these normal people, these "you"s and "me"s, that I strive to travel round the world to meet.

PHILOSOPHY

To live each day ending it with a "wow" - that there was something I did today that made me go "wow", even if it involved standing in the rain waiting for a bus for hours.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I have been a couch-host informally for ages, letting random people I meet on my travels stay over in my house later. One of my favourite couchsurfers was someone I met on a doomed mountain climb who I have ended up visiting every time I go to his city! Currently I've been couch surfing since 2010 but had a hiatus since 2012 when the early years of my medical career took over. Now as 2018 and career stability alproaches, am intending to resume where I left off...

Interests

Reading books that stimulate the mind and let it fly
Travelling, mountain climbing, walking, rambling
Just getting away from the world once in a while yet learning so much more about the world from my escape.

• books
• poetry
• beauty
• walking
• flying
• reading
• traveling
• guitar
• cycling
• backpacking

Music, Movies, and Books

WARNING: reads too much. I love postmodern fiction - Murakami, Paul Auster, Don DeLillo enamour me. I have recently also discovered the wonderful world of Spanish vernacular literature and am slowly ploughing my way through Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Jose Saramago and Mario Vargas Llosa. I am a devotee of, funnily enough, Philip Pullman and Louis de Bernieres.

Music? Love jazz. Love musical tunes. Belle and Sebastian. The Smiths. (honestly!) Laura Marling. Jack Johnson. Nick Drake. Regina Spektor. Lisa Hannigan. Elliott Smith. Mumford and Sons.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Worked in a tiny hospital in the middle of the highlands of Papua New Guinea. Learnt to speak their language fluently in 9 weeks and be accepted as a native.
Learning Arabic from a burqa-clad lady on a long Syrian bus ride and realising our world needs more shades of grey.
Reading poetry out loud in the oddest of places, and not getting arrested for civil disobedience.

Teach, Learn, Share

I will give you a pretty good ukulele lesson if you ask. Chinese, Malay or Japanese informal lessons if you so wish. But I really hope, without trying, I can teach kindness, honesty and beauty in every little thing I do.

Countries I’ve Visited

Albania, Andorra, Australia, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brunei Darussalam, Bulgaria, Cambodia, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Kosovo, Laos, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Macedonia, Morocco, Netherlands, Norway, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russian Federation, San Marino, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Syrian Arab Republic, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Vatican City State

Countries I’ve Lived In

Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, United Kingdom

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