My life was changed when I met a naked man with his penis wrapped in a red cloth. It was on a tiny island in Vanuatu called Malekula and he belonged to the Big Nambas tribe. There were two tribes on the island. The Big Nambas and the Small Nambas and the distinguishing feature of each tribe was how much red cloth they used.
I was 19 at the time and it was my first trip abroad. I was blown away that there were people living as they had always done barely a couple of hours away by plane from my hometown in Sydney. It made me want to see more of the world, its peoples and their strange ways of dressing and I’ve been travelling ever since.
I mention this not because my therapist feels it would be helpful for me to talk about it – although he does – but rather because our co-founder and fearless leader, Lyn Hughes asked people to share their life-changing travel experiences over on the Forum.
And you have. None have involved ancient tribes wrapping their nether regions in itchy bark cloth – yet – but there are plenty of funny, intriguing and life-affirming tales. You’ll find them here. Maybe add one of your own.
Elsewhere on the Forum, a11lvj is looking for unusual and quirky things to do in New York to help make his girlfriend’s 40th birthday there memorable. Mattyboy876 wants to know if anyone has used a ‘photo-fixer’ in their travels and whether they are worth the expense. And will is unsure whether he has been to Russia. Help them out here, will you?
Rebecca-Jayne is just back from Mumbai’s biggest slum and was amazed to find it was an epicenter of manufacturing and enterprise. Steve48 brushed up on his emu-dodging skills in the jarrah forests of south-west Western Australia. And roovilla checked out Viking ships in Stockholm and the Hill of Three Crosses in Vilnius.
Over at Experiences, janieoates ponders the positive side of travel disasters in Geneva, Chamonix and Peru, AlicePG uncovers a forgotten tomb in Uzbekistan and butz0705 rides the rails to Kanchanaburi in Thailand, and contemplates the horror that was the building of the Death Railway there. Make sure you check out Jill24's fantastic tale about riding an Icelandic pony.
Finally, to Photography, where Chandaala has posted a thought-provoking set of young mothers in Kenya, treacleminer takes us further in Iran (this time Na’in) and markymark983 leads us through the heather-cloaked North York moors. Make sure you drop by TheBogtrotter’s set from Monet’s Garden. And Farawayvision’s pics from Morocco.
And so another week on myWanderlust ends. And I’m off to try and get my life back on track.
