Sample work - writing

Brief description of selected articles:

Worn out on the 'W'
Torres de Paine, Patagonia, Chile
For the past five days I've been watching the Patagonian landscape through the greasy-hair-stained windows of a bus. My butt's sore and my legs are restless through lack of use. So when I get to Torres del Paine, I literally jump at the opportunity to go for a hike. Short on time and with a surplus of energy, I decide to do the five day ‘W'-hike in three. In the three days that follow I am torn between hating nature for torturing my body and loving it for its always surprising beauty. When on the third day, I finally reach the Grey glacier, and sit down to watch a big chunk of blue ice break off, with it, all pain mysteriously flows out of my muscles, and floats away with it into the distance. As much as I enjoy this euphoria that comes with completing your goal, it's time to move on, because as always, the journey is more interesting than the destination itself.

Small town girls
Whoever has traveled through small provincial towns has met small town girls. And everyone who has notices the difference between them and their big city counterparts. It's a story about their lives and dreams, and their charming innocent ways, and about how maybe you can take the girl out of the small town, but you can never take the small town out of the girl.

$50 for a private jet
Pakse, Laos
As I walk through the sliding doors I enter the surrealistic, dreamlike reality of a deserted airport in southern Laos: an airport that is too clean and modern for it's location in the world, and an airport that is too empty to look like an airport. The story tells about how, when I enter this place, life suddenly springs from invisible corners, and how equally fast it disappears again.

Nepal - Beyond the first impression
“As of today, I have to regretfully inform you, that our internet start-up dreams will not be a reality. We are bankrupt. We are closing. You no longer have a job.” Hearing these words upon arrival at what you thought would be a typical 12-hour work day, would make most people break down in tears. But when I heard these words, there were no tears, only a surge of excitement and a big smile. I could finally do it—witness, first-hand, the magical beauty of Nepali's snow-streaked mountain peaks, crystal-clear skies, and the sweet-loving people, while also being able to deliver school books for a San Francisco nonprofit. At first, every moment of my adventure matched my expectations of a backpacking trip through a mountainous, third world country—maniac bus drivers taking mountain curves with flat tires, eating chicken soup ten minutes after the live chicken pecked at my toes, witnessing the early morning sun rise over the mountains. But, what I didn't expect to discover came with the delivery of books to a school in a remote, mountain village.

How to become Ecuadorian
Latacunga, Ecuador
When you're traveling, things don't always go the way you expect. Some things simply can't be planned for. So what do you do when you planned a day trip to explore a little Ecuadorian village and its colorful markets, and suddenly find yourself confined to your hotel? I guess the best thing to do is live with it, and try to make the best of it. And maybe you'll find that in doing so, you'll discover part of the country that you never even thought of.

Lazy day, looking for the lake
Erhai Lake, Yunnan province, China
We all have them every once in a while: those lazy days that we just want to have a five hour lunch or sit in the park all day. On one of those days, on my way to the lake, where I intended to spend my lazy day sitting on the shore, I got lost in a little, maze-like Chinese village, and discovered an infinitively better way to spend a lazy day.

A place like any other?
Killing Fields, Phnom Penh, Cambodia
I don't really know what to expect on my visit to the Killing Fields in Cambodia, but the last thing I do expect is to find a place that looks almost exactly like any other place. But upon closer inspection it turns out that is not just the historical value that makes this place different - it really does not look like any other place.

Yin and Yang explained
China, land of ancient eastern wisdom, exotic, and charged with historic significance. But the first thing I find is a nation that is franticly working on building a modern, well-organized country. Mobile phones and ghetto-blasters. Most history and exotic, oriental sights seem to have faded from the country, to make place for skyscrapers and modern infrastructure. Is China then no different from any other country in the world? But after a few days I have to conclude that there is a lot hidden behind the facade of China at first glance.

Bolivia beyond the bowler hat
When we think of Bolivia the first things that come to mind are colorful indigenous people in wide skirts and bowler hats, and highlands with llamas and alpacas. But Bolivia is also scorching sun in a desert at 16,000 feet, seemingly endless salt-flats, and lush green jungle. It's Bolivia beyond the bowler hat…

To the end of the world
Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, Chile
Not all expeditions go exactly as planed. I find this out the hard way when I try to reach the most southern city in the world, and instead get stuck in a small, drab village on Tierra del Fuego. That's when I realize that being stuck in a remote place with no possibilities to leave may be as close to getting to “the end of the world” as a person can ever get.

Creatures of the night
Rurrenabaque, Bolivia
Early morning in the Bolivian jungle: the moon drowns the world in twilight, casting long shadows in the dark, long shadows that move in the wind. But it is not the morning chill or the spooky shadows that send shivers down my spine. I'm listening to strange cacophony of nightly jungle sounds, and start to dream away. What was that sound? A deep roar fills the night. I know that, of course, it's just a frog. But then there's another roar, even deeper than the previous one... and a hiss... and another one. And the hissing gets so loud that, if I wouldn't know better, I would swear I heard a dragon…

Sunrise on a Sacred Summit
Tai Shan Mountain, Shandong province, China
Though maybe not a religious experience, climbing one of the five sacred mountains of Tao religion is an experience that can't be left out on a visit to China. It's the Inca Trail of the orient. Sweating your way up a mountain, alongside thousands of Chinese – for who this is a religious experience, is something that won't rapidly fade from memory. With breathtaking scenery, and historic temples and palaces, nature and history go hand in hand here, and, in this way, help you get up the mountain, to witness, the next morning, the Sunrise on a Sacred Summit.

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