7 Life-defining travel moments
Earlier this year, I learned that couscous is pasta, not an ancient grain like quinoa or sorghum. If you know me, or you were around me, I could not handle the news of this. I felt that I was lied to my entire adult life. While all the other people around me just acknowledged this new nutritional fact and went about their day,
I went on a deep dive about what makes pasta, all the different types of couscous, its origins, gluten-free alternatives, and so forth…for days. I could not let it go. I bring this up because it is now a verb in my life. And again, it goes to show that you do not know what you do not know (something else that I always say).
Couscoused (verb, past tense) to be completely bamboozled by something so obvious that the simple fact makes you question everything else that you thought you knew in life.
These are the seven times I have been couscoused by my travels. In other words, my seven life-defining travel moments. And to be clear, I love these moments and I cannot wait to be couscoused again. This is listed in chronological order not in order of importance:
Mozambique (2009)
After a 36-hour transit from Australia to Mozambique, I arrived for 30 days of my dive master course. I will not get into some of the best scuba diving I have ever done here, but I will get into my fashion sense. Tofo was in its infancy of becoming a scuba diving mecca and hotspot in 2009 and I was happy to be amongst it. It was my first time in Africa and at this point, I was exposed to North American, some Latin, Australian, and Asian cultures and styles. When I got to Mozambique I was really enthralled by their bright colours and textiles and how the men and women of this little beachside village threw an outfit together.
One of my big regrets was not bringing some African prints home. But I did bring home a sense of style. What I learned was that it was not so much what you wore but how you wore it. The teens and the adults wore their clothes with confidence and without a care in the world what labels were on it. And from a few people that I observed, they loved wearing a colourful yet mono-chromed outfit. I think it was here that I truly started to see clothes as function over fashion, but somehow, that has now become fashion.
Cruising around French Polynesia (2014)
I truly learned about sustainability and the direction that I wanted to take Chickenfeet Travels after my 21 days sailing around the islands of French Polynesia. Living on a sailboat means you are for the most part completely self-sustained. Living on a sailboat is a great metaphor for life on Earth.I learned just how much time and natural energy it took to create electricity, how much fresh water we waste every day just to live, how to love reading, how to practice minimalism, how to rise with the sun and sleep with the moon, and how to live.
That’s why I believe that everyone needs to live on a boat for a short period of their lives. How I was so fortunate to sail for 21 days around French Polynesia for free—that’s a story for another day…
Diving in Wakatobi (2015)
A very good dive instructor friend of mine was working for a dive company in Wakatobi. He reached out to me asking if I could join him for three weeks because another instructor dropped out at the last minute, and they were desperate. I had never dived in Wakatobi, it was on my list but it was not a priority. Getting paid to go somewhere new, I basically did not ask any questions. I mean, it was only for three weeks, how bad could it be. Let me tell you, when Steve said “bring as much peanut butter as you can”, that should have been a red flag. I will not go into details but let’s just say that 1. I will never eat peanut butter Oreos ever again 2. I will never eat eggplant again, with the exception of baked Japanese miso eggplant. 3. And for the second time in my life, beer became the main source of my calories. For most of us (especially the veggos), food and caloric intake was the issue.
Almost everything we ate was white: rice, cabbage, a carrot to share between 100 people, eggplant cooked so long it was snotty, and funnily enough, one of the highlights of the weekly planned meals, noodle-filled donuts. When the island’s closest restaurant had a chicken or potatoes arrive, it was a fight as to who got the fried chicken and fries that week.
I learned a lot about myself on that island. Mainly, as much as I eat to live and not the other way around, food is important to me. Secondly, daily showers are optional as long as you don’t pee your wetsuit. I forgot to mention that fresh water was also limited. And mostly, the good always outweighs the bad. I was there to instruct, so dive sites were limited. And even then, their house reef was spectacular. Wakatobi is so rich with life that when you go out for a sunrise dive, you can see the little glints of blue, like stars in the sky, which means phytoplankton everywhere, the bottom of the food chain feeding everything above.
Let me finish with this. It could not have been that bad because I ended up going back for two more weeks a couple years later. I was prepared though, I packed 20kg of protein bars, electrolytes, and snacks to last. And I made some good friends to last a lifetime from those five weeks total there.
Ho Chi Minh Highway, Vietnam (2016-2018)
This is actually a 3 for 1 point, probably more.
I have gone north to south, south to north, and more in Vietnam by motorbike. I knew there were points of interest. I knew there were certain experiences that I was looking for, so a motorbike was a cheap means of transport. But specifically in Vietnam, it is all about the journey in between the “highlights”. And without a doubt, I was just sightseeing until I travelled alongside a guide, who knows the roads in Vietnam like the back of his hands. As much fun as it is to independently solo cruise the Ho Chi Minh Highway, without the decades of connection, relationships, and experience as a guide who loves his job, it is just scratching the surface. I went from driving past things and observing with curiosity to immersing myself into the varying ethnic minority cultures of Central Highlands. This is when I learned that the ethnic minority tribes, famously in the North, are also dotted all along the HCMH. There are 42 recognized ethnic minority groups, and more than half are found in Central Highlands, all speaking different languages with their own customs.
This was another moment that really taught me that I had evolved as a traveler once again. I was ready to learn more about my very very distant heritage, keep digging for more oral history and folktales and then try my best to conserve any of it.
Then along came Kon Tum and that’s a story for another day. It’s a good one.
Nam Et Phou Louey (2018)
The reason why Chickenfeet Travels stands apart from any other travel company is because despite all the research that you do, there are still local secrets hidden away from the Banana Pancake Trail. If you do not know what to put in Ecosia, how do you get the results that you did not know you needed.
Nam Et Phou Louey is one of those trekking spots where I had heard rumours on the backpacker threads. People mention that they hear good things about it, but as backpackers, the cost of this tour is always over budget. I went out of my way to trek in this national park and I can say with confidence, that this is the experience that keeps me pushing forward with Chickenfeet Travels and everything that I do.
Someone else asked one of the porters a simple question: “Do you have children?” And his answer was loosely translated to “Yes, I had 8, but now I have 3.” We had a lot of questions after but they died of simple winter colds because they live so far away from a hospital, he couldn’t take the 3 days it would take to bring his children to the hospital and back away from his crops. This experience made it so clear to me that tourism can change communities for the better. When we go out of the way to travel FOR these communities, we directly contribute to the safety of their future, their healthcare, and their education. It is that simple.
Alor Island (2018)
A friend of mine started a dive centre in Alor and I had to go out there to support them. And oh boyyy were my expectations blown out of the water. It was around this time that I truly fell in love with the diversity of culture in Southeast Asia. When I arrived, it was like I arrived in the South Pacific islands; I was surrounded by beautiful people with curly, wavey hair. I did not do any research about the place until I got there, and when I started to pull at that thread, I could not stop. There are over 1300 recognised ethnic groups in Indonesia. And then when I started to research more about the rest of Southeast Asia and their specific woven patterns and the very specific ways they shape their homes, it was like falling in love with travelling once again.
Traveling Alone in general (2008-present)
I think that travelling alone by bus, train, plane, sailboat, and motorbike for my entire adult life has truly made me the person that I am today. I was lucky enough to have started before the smartphone boom, when we had to talk to strangers at bars and bus stops to get the best information. I learned how to be patient and wait for the right people to come help me and show me the best parts of their hometowns. It surprises people that after all these years, I only speak American (currently learning Bahasa Indonesia), but so much is said without words.
Working with all the guides we have been working with, some of whom I have known since 2010, has been the privilege of a lifetime. To earn the trust of people and to be able to give back in all the ways big and small. We have all grown together and learned from one another and we continue to grow with the industry and the exceed expectations where we can.
It is wild for me to think that it took all of covid for me to recognise the knowledge and expertise that I have and also the pioneering spirit of each of the guides we work with. As I come out of my hermit phase and back into the world, meeting with all the guides and seeing all our destinations again, it is with slightly fresh eyes and appreciation for the beauty of the places and each of the guides. Being with them for days on end again, with my enhanced skill for asking the right questions, allowed me to learn more about who they are and what they have done for their communities. It still shocks me to hear them describe how each little town was before the tourists started to come and how it has transformed. And imagine what we can do with all the information, innovation, and collaborations in the years to come.
To finish where I started, if you are gluten-free, you cannot eat couscous; choosing a couscous salad to be “healthy” is not real; and lastly, to be super clear, couscous is literally tiny, tiny balls of pasta.
