#harrower dervla

[sabrerine911]

Cerise Jarena meets Harrower Dervla(Lords of the Fallen) Again I will compliment how well this game handled crossbows(expecially compared to the absolute GARBAGE treatment that all Fromsoftware games have for them) Only got to use this repeating crossbow at the end of my pure crossbow build, but honestly even the basic marksman one was an absolute treat to use. and with the Dervla xbow it felt like a final reward/power increase for the final fights. Absolute best pure crossbow experience Ive had in any game!

[wheresmogs-blog]

Reading our way around the world.

Before we started our trip we decided to make sure we each read at least one book that is set in or about each of the countries we visit.

We really want to try and get a proper taste for the places we’re travelling through. Taking local transport. Eating at local spots. Staying at home or farmstays. Visiting historic sites. Supporting local social enterprises. Talking to people about what it’s like living there. All these things have helped to start to gives us a feel for a place. We’ve also found reading has proved to be another really useful and fun way of helping us understand the histories, cultures and peoples of the countries we’ve been travelling through.

Here’s a list of books that we hope might provide some inspiration for you if you plan on visiting any of these amazing counties - or if you’re just looking for something to help you escape during your commute.

We’ll keep adding to it as we go so feel free to pop back occasionally to see what else we’ve been reading.

Click on the title to find out more about each of the books.

Nepal🇳🇵

House of Snow - Ed Douglas

This as an incredible introduction to Nepal. A massive collection of fiction and non-fiction pieces inspired by the insane landscapes and rich and sometimes complicated cultural heritage of this epic country.

While the Gods Were Sleeping: A Journey Through Love and Rebellion in Nepal - Elizabeth Enslin

The personal story of an American sociologist who moves to Nepal after marrying a Nepali man. She writes honestly about the challenge of adjusting to her new life in rural Nepal and trying to fit into a culture so different from hers.

Thailand 🇹🇭

Fieldwork - Mischa Berlinski

The amount of research that went into this book is incredible. It’s a great story set in the hills of northern Thailand that often feels so real it could be a true account found in an anthropology textbook.

The Beach - Alex Garland

Even if you’ve seen the movie with Leo DiCaprio, the book is still a great read. Richard’s internal monologues pull you in and brilliantly reveal his eventual emotional and mental breakdown.

Anna and the King of Siam - Margaret Landon

Based on the true story of Anna Leonowens, a young Welsh teacher who ended up in the Siamese court in Bangkok, teaching King Mongkut’s numerous children and wives for six years from 1862. Her liberal, humanist beliefs were at great odds with the king’s tyranny and the country’s archaic traditions, but she eventually had a huge impact on the young crown prince who later on abolished slavery and set the bases for modern Thailand.

The Windup Girl - Paolo Bacigalupi

Set in an intricately believable futuristic Thailand, this book takes aspects of current day Thai culture and twists them into a brilliant sci-fi story. As all good sci-fi books do it poses fascinating philosophical questions. What Happens when calories become currency? What happens when bio-terrorism becomes a tool for corporate profits? Quite dark and depressing at times but very entertaining.

Sightseeing - Rattawut Lapcharoensap

A collection of short stories that provide a diverse, funny, and deeply affectionate view of life in a small Southeast Asian country that is inevitably facing ever encroaching westernisation.

Laos 🇱🇦

The Coroner’s Lunch - Colin Cotterill

This book provides a really funny and entertaining way to get a feel for what life was like in Laos in 1976, after the communist takeover. Told through the eyes of the loveable Dr Siri Paiboun you learn masses about Laos culture history without even realising it.

One Foot in Laos - Dervla Murphy

Dervla is a badass Irish travel writer who cycled around the world. At the age of 67 she visited Laos, hiking and cycling her way through the mountainous country. Her book is written with great wit, charm and empathy, and it provides a wonderful insight into the lives of rural Lao people whom she’s very fond of.

A Great Place To Have A War: America in Laos and the Birth of a Military CIA - Joshua Kurlantzick

This incredibly well-researched book reveals how the USA was able to run a 9-year war without the world noticing, and the devastating impact it had on Laos.

Vietnam 🇻🇳

The Beauty of Humanity Movement - Camilla Gibb

This captivating story is told in contemporary Vietnam but provides a huge amount of insight into the impact of the conflict and turmoil the people of this country faced over the decades. A story of loss and longing but also filled with hope.

Cambodia 🇰🇭

When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge - Chanrithy Him

A harrowing, first-hand, child’s account of what it was like to live through the hell of the ‘Cambodian Killing Fields’. Chanrithy doesn’t pull any punches and at times even reading can get a bit tough. But in the end, the thread of the strength and love between her family pulls you through.

World 🌎

Only Planet - A Flight-free Adventure Around the World - Ed Gillespie

An amazing book about Ed’s journey around the world without getting in a plane. His ability to express his observations and beliefs so eloquently means it’s full of things you want to quote all the time. His attempt to reconnect with communities and our planet in a sustainable way has been a real inspiration for our trip.

[sjohnson24]

A Solo Girls Trip to Costa Rica

Recent headlines about the deadly violence inflicted on women traveling alone have raised questions about how the world is greeting the documented rise in female solo travelers and about the role of social media in promoting the idea that far-off lands are easily accessible and safe.

They have also shone a light on the enduring nature of gender violence worldwide and laid bare how a lone foreign traveler’s cultural and social expectations do not always comport with local views about a woman’s place in the world – and whether she should travel at all.

Thousands of women go abroad every year without incident. Many women experience catcalls and myriad other forms of harassment while traveling; women of color have written about being dismissed or ignored abroad because of their race. And while violence against male tourists is just as devastating, the harrowing experiences of female solo travelers can still shock the senses.

In November last, on a five-day vacation to Costa Rica in November to celebrate her 36th birthday, Carla Stefaniak made sure to get home before dark in her Airbnb in the hills of Escazu. But Stefaniak never boarded her flight home.

In December, the bodies of Louisa Vesterager Jespersen, 24, of Denmark and Maren Ueland, 28, of Norway, were found with knife wounds in their necks in the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco. Danish officials called the murders an act of terror. That same month, Briton Grace Millane disappeared in Auckland, New Zealand, on the night before her 22nd birthday; she was found slain days later. In 2015, a 19-year-old British backpacker was gang-raped by bikers in Thailand. In March, an Australian man was convicted of kidnapping and raping a Belgian traveler seeking work; he had kept her locked up in his pig shed for two days.

There is no question that women face unique risks when traveling solo, experts say.

“We have evidence that shows that women face risks that men don’t face in public spaces, at home, wherever they may be,” says Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, executive director of UN Women, an organization that promotes female equality. Increasingly, “wherever they may be” includes alone in foreign countries.

But she says that violence against female tourists is a thread in the broader fabric of violence against women around the world. And violent episodes are just as likely to occur, experts note, in rich Western nations such as France, Italy and Germany as in the developing world.

“The root cause of this kind of violence against women in communities and in public and private spaces has a lot to do with the underlying gender stereotypes, social norms, entitlement and patriarchy,” Mlambo-Ngcuka says.

The lure of traveling alone

Women have always been explorers on a scale both grand and personal – long before British trailblazer Freya Stark visited inhospitable areas in Turkey and the Middle East and before Irish travel writer Dervla Murphy saw the world on a bicycle.

Today, women’s increased spending power has given them the means to travel more for leisure and adventure. Shifting attitudes in the West about who can travel alone have also added to a growing industry. Social media plays a big part, offering intimate glimpses of far-off lands. A scroll through Instagram hashtags such as #LadiesGoneGlobal, #WeAreTravelGirls and #TheTravelWomen offers millions of photos of women posing on glistening beaches, trekking up mountains and exploring cobblestone streets – a collective and aspirational lure.

Gavios found her passion for traveling solo while studying abroad in college. “I feel like it gives me the luxury of seeing the culture in the way I want to and being able to paint my own experience,” she says.

After college, she traveled to southeast Asia on her own, visiting Thailand in 2016 on a break from teaching English in Vietnam. One evening, she was walking alone after dinner in Krabi, known for its beaches and as a popular hangout for young tourists, when a local man offered to guide her back to her hotel.

The power of preparation

Seasoned solo travelers say that preparation can be the key to minimizing risk. For Cassie DePecol, 29, who in 2017 claimed the Guinness World Record as the first woman on record to travel to every country, traveling alone means having a long list of precautions. The Connecticut-born activist practices Krav Maga, an Israeli self-defense technique. She carries a GPS tracker. She makes sure someone knows where she is at all times.

“Some of these might sound extreme,” she says. “But I attribute having safely traveled alone to 196 countries to these specific procedures.”

DePecol says that gender-based violence is an unfortunate reality for women who travel. “The awareness of needing to always watch our backs when we’re both alone and in public places is something that men don’t necessarily need to be aware of,” she says.

Jessica Nabongo, 34, is on a mission to become the first black woman to visit every country in the world. Born in Detroit, she has been to 158 so far – 54 of them alone – and hopes to complete her journey in October.

Her road map for safety includes trying to stay in hotels with 24-hour security. If she stays in an Airbnb, the host has to have received consistently excellent reviews and achieved “superhost” status. She takes Ubers so that her location is tracked.

Nabongo acknowledged that “we tell women what not to do to avoid being attacked instead of telling men not to attack women.”

The article was adapted from the Independent. Read the original here.