Hello and welcome to this episode of Tribology.

It's the only backpacking show where the house go all over the planet for your benefit, not ours for your benefit.

I'm Alan and I'm here with my best friend and one of the greatest travellers on the old damn planet.

It's the ever Slakian, Adam.

Said with confidence.

Thank you so much for tuning in for another week.

We're happy to be back.

We've got an amazing show because this week we're going to tell you a lot of stories.

I'm going to tell you a story about how I smashed my laptop and my phone at the exactly the same time just after last week's recording.

And then Alan, you've been off gallivanting around, seeing some swimming with some fresher sharks and doing some really, really amazing stuff.

We can't wait to hear about that.

And then, of course, at the end, it's everyone's favorite.

It's Tales of a Trip.

Yeah, you might have noticed I wasn't particularly confident about the work.

It's Salakian because I've only just learnt it.

It means shark like possessed of the qualities of the shark and it is thresher sharks with whom I've been having a diving experience ever so recently.

Finally, I'm in a new location and I'm here in Cebu and it's been a really crazy time.

I'm looking forward to telling you about it.

Before I hear about your laptop smashing adventures, Adam, I want to do a little bit of housekeeping because just like I'm in UK location, just like we're moving around constantly, Tropology is finding a new home on Tuesdays as opposed to Saturdays.

Fans of the show know Tropology comes out every Saturday and has done for the last couple of years, but we recently learned that Tuesday would be a better place for it, so we've we're going to put it there instead.

So the next episode is going to come out on Tuesday.

Yeah, we hope that's all right.

We've just done some digging and we think that maybe a Tuesday, a midweek release around sort of UK commuters time would be better.

So I hope that's not an inconvenience to anyone.

And yeah, it'll be a pretty smooth transition.

You can just look forward to it on Tuesdays now.

Well that's the beautiful thing about on demand media is if Tuesday is inconvenient, just wait up till a day that is convenient and listen to it then It's still gonna be every week.

I mean if I get even 1 complaint about a change to Tuesday I'm gonna be pretty annoyed because it's literally free and it's literally whenever you want it.

Just download it and listen to it whenever.

Do you know what I mean?

Speaking of ungrateful, horrendous people who I'd have a problem with still having an ongoing feud with the old Spotify.

So apologies if people have struggled to access our episodes recently on that platform.

It's just us and Spotify.

We're in that phase of our relationship where it's all beautiful and nice.

At first we were providing free content, they were providing wonderful publication.

And over time that relationship stalled.

They've taken a couple of little jabs at us.

We've tried to say, oh, you're being unreasonable.

Spotify, please.

We're just trying to be good travellers.

And they're going, oh, we're not bothered to reply to those emails just yet.

It's become toxic.

Yeah, it's a pretty difficult situation we find ourselves in because we, I don't feel like we have reached a human at this stage, Alan.

I think we're still getting bounce backs.

I think we're still getting automated emails.

The moment we do land on a human though, mark my words, you might see a few things happening.

So, you know, we're both on it, on different sides of the planet and I'm sure there'll be some sort of resolution very soon.

I.

Believe so.

I believe we're inching towards what can only be described as a resolution, and when we reach one, you'll hear about on Tuesday.

Yeah, okay, nice.

Adam, that's enough with the housekeeping.

What happened to your laptop mate?

Well, you would have remembered, but maybe you listening at home, you won't necessarily know.

There's a lot of stuff that goes on around creating a podcast and some of that involves technology like laptops and even a studio lamp.

And after our recording last week, Alan, that went pretty well.

I think it's fair to say I was just doing the usual cleaning up, just putting away the cables, you know, putting the laptop off to the side, just arranging the table as you would because, you know, even though we move around a lot and it is technically a backpacking show, we like to make an effort.

So I do set up a desk, I do set up a table.

I've got some notes maybe in front of me.

I've got a lamp off to the side.

The phone is, you know, placed just on the top of my laptop in front of me.

As you can imagine, a professional studio might be set up.

So there's things to put away.

And I was doing that.

I thought, you know, that I thought that the recording went very well.

I was in good spirits.

And then I moved one cable, and at exactly the same time my laptop fell off the front of the able towards me and the lamp fell off to the side.

In hindsight, had it only been one of the two, my reactions might have been good enough to catch them.

But because they both happened at the same time, my brain was fast enough to try and catch both, but not fast enough to think that the laptop is worth saving and the lamp probably isn't.

So in going for the lamp, I lost grip of the laptop.

It fell flat on the screen on the back, immediately went went black.

I knew that that was toast.

And then the lamp went off the other side, hitting the floor.

The bowl popped out by force, started emanating sort of a very horrible burning smell that I immediately called you about.

And my whole world started spiralling because, you know, these things are incredibly important to us.

Yeah, in many ways you experience the trolley problem, the philosophical thought experiment in real life.

In the trolley problem, of course, you either keep the train on one track or actively divert the train, saving a couple of lives but ultimately ending the life of one person.

You experience that in real time with both a lamp and a laptop, and your inability to react ended up in killing both of those things.

Yeah, it was a tough one.

The first thing I did was, well, just slightly after I'd panicked, of course I could.

Very strangely, I could hear the video of our previous recording playing on the black screen.

So I I thought, maybe if I just close the laptop and reopen it, some miracles going to happen and everything will reappear and it'll be totally fine and we never have to talk about it ever again.

But that isn't what happened.

I phoned you, the Oracle, and I said all these things have happened and you said but was it your fault?

I said no.

Do you know what?

I've never, almost never in my life done anything like that.

And I know that some people might say they're clumsy.

Some people, they do stuff like that all the time.

They forget things all the time.

They might, I don't know, but you know, they break their phone, whatever.

I never, ever do that.

So this was a colossal error from from me.

I'm very out of character.

Of the two of us, I would say I think I'm more likely if someone, an actual Oracle, contacted us and said or in one week's time, 1 of you will throw your laptop on the floor and break it.

I would assume it was me, yeah.

No, I think that's fine.

And that's only that's not because you're clumsy by any stretch of the imagination.

You're absolutely not.

It's just I don't, I'm, I'm very, very funny about certain things.

You know, I am the sort of person that will go round at the end of the evening before I go to bed and make sure in imperfect routine that I've turned off all of the cooker, you know, the hob controls.

Yeah.

I go and run my hand across the doors on the fridge just to make sure I've closed it.

I press the light switches even though the.

Obsessive Compulsive disorder, they call it.

Well, I didn't want to use those words, but I have it.

I've heard it banded around, sure, by my, you know, throughout my childhood.

Yeah, I've just got this thing where I have to check that the doors are locked and the ovens off and take pictures of it to make sure that that's the case so I can reaffirm with myself when I leave the house.

It's great.

I mean, it's part of what makes you a brilliant.

Traveller Yeah, yeah, I don't lose any time or sleep on it at all.

But obviously the next port of call was phoning you.

You said, look, don't worry about it too much.

If you can hear the video playing, there's a chance that your hard drive's absolutely fine, a good chance, and you're just going to have to go and get it fixed at a repair shop.

It might just need a new screen, or maybe there's a disconnected sort of video input cable somewhere.

So I went around the houses, made a load of phone calls the following morning.

I tried not to cry myself to sleep the night before and not worry about how much it was going to cost me.

But anyway, spoke to some nice guys down at a repair shop in Queenstown.

They diagnosed the problem for me.

But then when they quoted me the price, I thought, Jesus, that's a bit steep.

Maybe I should go somewhere else.

And I went to see some, some Punjabi friends of ours over in not literal friends of ours over at a place called Phone Zone on an industrial estate.

And they, they sell phones and, you know, accessories and all this sort of stuff.

They went, mate, just leave it here for a couple of hours.

We'll sort it out for you.

Half the price.

Oh, and your phone screen's cracked as well.

Is it?

I was like, yeah, they went go on, give it here.

Oh, hang on.

Is it always this slow?

You need a new battery as well, I think.

And is this your case?

Is it?

Oh, you could update that, couldn't you?

Oh, my goodness.

No.

We'll do the whole job for you for a little bit more than the other company.

We're going to charge you just for your screen.

How does that sound?

They saw me coming, Adam.

You got up sold.

They saw me coming but they were super nice guys and now it's all fixed.

Less than 48 hours later I've got everything back and it's all working.

Little bit of a colouration change on the screen I would have said, but that's a small price to pay.

Well, I'm glad to hear it's all back and I would like to interview you more about how you know that experience, how you've learnt from it and all of that.

But I've got an advert to play, and more than any of the week, I would love the listeners to really indulge in what it is that we're offering because it's going to be very helpful when I write an angry e-mail to Spotify about the loss of earnings.

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What a wonderful thing to go and investigate more.

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And if I was a great big Swedish company, I'd be very upset if an e-mail came in saying, my goodness, you shouldn't have taken those episodes down because it's resulted in a great big loss of the old income.

My goodness, indeed.

So Adam, I've been teasing for many weeks the fact that I was interested in going to malapascar to dive with thresher sharks.

Yeah, so you have.

Of course you have.

Immediately you're filled with fear because the word thresher doesn't sound that intimidating, but the word shark definitely does.

Well, it's funny you should say that because I know a little bit about sharks and I know that most of them are fine.

So I wasn't that fearful of sharks at all, but I was very fearful about getting threshed to any degree.

I did not want that in my life.

So I had to clear that up right off the bat.

I'd not been scuba diving in a very, very long time.

So when I arrived on the island I potted around to a bunch of different dive shops trying to get the best price and all of them said listen you're essentially A risky endeavour at this point.

It's last time you died it was 20/17/2018.

Maybe if you count the ones I didn't log and you need to take a refresher course.

And you said no thresher sharks?

Yeah, not a refresher shark.

I've already seen one of those.

A refresher shark is just like a guy in a shark suit, just to make sure you're OK with the idea of the shark before you see the real 1.

Slowly introduce you.

Yeah, a soft entry.

I like that.

But that was how I found myself on a boat with a man also called Alan, which is very confusing when you're under the water.

He was teaching me how to do all the basic skills, clean your mask out and all of that.

I tell you what, I was totally fine scuba diving.

I remembered it all came back to me, if anything, because of all the jiu jitsu I've been doing the last six months.

I was in such good shape, I barely breathed at all.

I came back up with a completely full tank so I felt very prepared for the actual shark dive the next day.

It's unbelievable.

Bar of course means something different in diving to to that of the bar in jiu jitsu.

You didn't get those who mixed up, I hope underwater trying to wrestle your your guide.

I got a bit confused about it.

Yeah, I had a quick wrestle.

I also got confused with the other type of bar.

I tried to like drink some alcohol under the water.

He was like, no, no bar is a quantity of oxygen.

That was the one thing I needed refreshing on.

But once I understood that viscerally, they said you're OK, we're going to do 3 dives tomorrow.

So I got a good night's sleep.

Woke up in the morning, 5:30 AM.

Got on the boat mate, went down deep into the water, 20 meters down and looming from the deep, a great big silvery fish the likes of which I've never seen before.

What a beautiful shark.

It was a you won't believe it.

It was a thresher shark came towards me like this and I thought, wow, that's an animal that can swim around 22 mph, which is faster than the great white shark.

Oh really?

It's got a razor like tail which you can use as a whip to hunt prey.

It's got great big black eyes and they come straight up to you, her searching for prey.

It was majestic.

Actually now that you said the big black eyes, are they quite slim and slender?

I think I'm imagining the exact thresher sharks.

You might be picturing the exact one that I saw because I've described it so well.

Yeah, that's hilarious, but hang on, this was on the first dive the.

Very first dive you.

Basically were able to see one on the very first dive of the day.

How many meters down?

What do you think?

When you've been refreshed as thoroughly as I was, you're ready to see the sharks straight away.

So it's about 20 meters down.

Saw the shark and a strange thing happened to me mate.

Where once we'd gone down and I'd equalized and was swimming around, the shark turned up pretty fast.

It's like a place where the sharks feed a feeding station.

They're not fed by the humans.

It's all ecologically very wild and unmanaged in the best possible way.

But they just go there.

They're guaranteed to be there because the population is quite high and that's where they eat.

So almost straight away I saw a thresher shark.

And then about 15 minutes into the dive, I suddenly became cognizant for the first time of how deep I was and how I was breathing through a tube and how I'd not done that in a while, how mental it was.

And like, Oh my God, I'm like really under the water.

And I started having like the kind of panic attack that I associate.

I think when I first started diving, this used to happen quite regularly.

I started like breathing a little bit heavier and I was like, Oh my God, this is mental.

As soon as the awestruck nature of it sort of wore off and I became really thinking about it, I was able to control it quite well and, and just manage my breathing, be like, it's OK, it's OK, it's OK.

Just enjoy.

Saw another shark come and that took me out of it and just got wrapped up in the whole majesty, the experience, it was amazing.

It sounds incredible.

It sounds amazing.

I totally can relate to what you're saying about the breathing thing because I remember quite vividly.

I, I don't know when the last time I went diving was, we did talk about this actually, but I think it was probably 2018 in Borneo.

And when you, when you have this breathing apparatus, I mean, most people just know, maybe they don't even give it any thought, but they just breathe fairly normally through the regulator, I think it's called, isn't it?

And and I remember having a thought at the beginning of a dive.

What happens if I forget how to use it to breathe?

And and then, you know, you kind of give that thought of space and you think, well, hang on, just whatever it is you're doing now, just do that.

And it kind of seems like a natural reflex to just breathe.

So maybe just sort of continue.

But if you yeah, if you let that thought spiral, especially 20 meters underwater surrounded by sharks, I can imagine that that would be quite a sorry end.

Well, you know, breathing manually is quite an anxiety inducing thing.

Anyway, we've all had the experience of maybe getting a little bit too drunk, call high, or you've taken something or you're just having a panic attack and suddenly you become very aware of like your breathing and how to breathe and all that stuff.

Scuba diving is an activity that forces you to breathe manually because you can't hold your breath.

You have to constantly be breathing while scuba diving.

So it kind of that in itself, I think is quite an anxious experience, but my experience scuba diving this time around, having not done it in 10 years, eight years, however long.

And that's quite an interesting thing in in and of itself because it, it was quite a big measure for me of how much I've changed, how much fitter I am now, like just my cardio is better and how much easier I was able to control those negative thoughts.

Whereas before I think I was like sometimes crunching through a tank of of oxygen in I mean my shortest ever dive was like 25 minutes, this time around I was like the dive was always ending whilst I still had plenty of air.

Yeah, yeah, sure.

That's interesting.

So I, I don't, I've never ever come up from a dive because I've run out of it.

But how big was the group?

You obviously had a dive guide with you who is a specialist in that area, I assume part of the dive shop.

And then were you with some other people?

A buddy?

Yeah, just two other people, sort of like a wildlife photographer and another diver who I think she was dive master, but we were all just diving together.

Yeah.

It was really like probably the most exciting diving I've ever done because there was a possibility of another thresher coming at any given moment.

And there was a lot of interesting kind of macro things, you know, look, corals and little crabs and little wiggly worms and that sort of thing.

So it was, and just to be in that space again, having not done it for so long, Diving is like an invitation to a world which humans are normally not invited.

And as such the animals respond quite differently because they're not evolved to be like, oh, a mammal might come down here and fuck shit up.

They've evolved to be like this is the Kingdom of the fish, and by the nature of you being here, you must be one of us.

The thresher shark goes up to you inquiring as to whether your food realizes you're not and swims off.

But the the interaction with that shark is much more is is is on a much more even playing field than being like in the jungle and spotting a a wild monkey.

And it like knows what to make of you because it's seen humans before and it like gets off or maybe observes you for a while.

It's just a different vibe when you're in their world.

Yeah.

I also think maybe I'll add to that and you know far more about the wild and wilderness and animals than I do and I'm more experienced in that in that field.

But maybe it's fair to say that when you're underwater and diving with fish, they don't think you're prey or they don't think you're a predator.

It's, you know, whereas I think on land a lot of things assume you might do them harm, which is why they scurry away or they're very wary.

Of you, yeah.

And, you know, there are some things in the ocean which would consider human being prey and sharks, obviously.

Yeah, All right.

You might not be able to dive with those that God pay for three dives, you know, in Malapascua if there's a chance that that happens, I don't think.

Yeah, didn't see any whale sharks.

Didn't see any tiger sharks.

That's a good.

Thing There's another place in the Philippines that you can see whale sharks, sharks Oslob.

But they feed the whale sharks and that's why they can guarantee the sightings and that is ecologically quite a controversial thing.

There are articles online that you can read written by actual marine biologists that can explain why feeding the the whale sharks and having them go there is is damaging for the ecology as a whole.

But I thought more comfortable going to Malapascal where you can definitely see thresher sharks.

But they keep human involvement in their lives and their domain down to a very deliberate minimum.

Yeah, yeah.

I think it's got something to do with the migration of the whale sharks up one of the coasts.

It disrupts it and therefore, you know, affects the ecology in in the whole region.

But whale sharks are things that I've seen from a boat.

Never swam with.

Unfortunately, I wouldn't.

I've swam with sharks, but never a thresher shark, certainly never a tiger shark.

My God, if I knew there was a chance I was, I was going to meet a tiger shark.

I'm not sure I would want to be in the water.

Bull sharks as well, Obviously great great whites, but the all three.

They see a tiger shark there about once a month apparently.

Right.

OK, OK.

But the population of tiger sharks is about 5 or 6 in a much larger area than the population of the whale sharks, which is like more like 20 in a much smaller area.

Are they territorial tiger sharks?

Do you know if they sort of?

Stick to their territory, yeah?

Yeah, it's weird with fish, isn't it?

Because someone said to me once, do you think that it's unethical to keep a fish as a pet in a fish tank?

And I was like, well, it's such a small area and usually they've got a much larger, you know, area to, to swim in.

And they said, well, I, I don't know where the fish just stick to 1 reef, you know, their entire lives.

And if they do, I mean, maybe it's not as bad as people think.

Yeah, but a bowl is quite smaller than a reef, isn't it?

A bowl is, I mean, you know, some people, you do see them have an aquarium the size of a wall.

So maybe that's slightly better.

I don't know.

Do you think if if I scuba dive down there, got one of the fish, put it in a bowl, but left the bowl on the ocean floor, it would just stay in the bowl?

It's one never nice clue.

It has access to the whole ocean, but it exists.

Bowls quite nice.

So yeah, just stay in the bowls.

This is my reef.

You go around somebody else's house and they've got like a, an they've got an aquarium the size of a thresher shark nose to tail.

Oh, my mate Adam told me that they they stay in the same bit of water all the time, so I didn't think it'd be a problem.

Yeah, if you do have a fish, it's best to keep it in the bathtub because it's largely the best water receptacle in your house.

So there we go mate.

I did enjoy the scuba diving very much.

As you said to me beforehand, every time you scuba dive, you wish you did more of it.

I definitely feel that way.

I can't wait to scuba dive again.

But when I arrived back on dry land, I had a text from my hostel saying you've got to leave the island right now.

And it wasn't because of any illicit activities I'd been doing.

It wasn't because I'd upset them in any way.

It wasn't because of all the stories I'd told or any trouble I'd gotten into.

The reason was because Typhoon Tino was heading our way and was about to wreak havoc to the extent that Malapascar was going to shut down all ferry crossings the very next day.

So my hostel contacted me.

They're like if you have a flight, if you want to go somewhere else, if you don't want to be stuck on Malapascar for the next week, you got to get out.

Shit.

Oh dear.

And I know you'd already had plans to leave the Philippines at that point, but that lit the blue touch paper.

That was a catalyst, was it?

Did you think maybe I could hang it out for a week?

Or is it to the point where it's actually dangerous to stay there?

It's not just logistical things that it would mess.

Up both, I mean, it would just be it's, it's not the place unless you're scuba diving, you don't want to be on malapascar for an extended period of time.

And I was done with my scuba diving.

So it was definitely like I was going to go the next day.

It just meant that I had to leave that night.

A bunch of us all just evacuating the island got on this boss.

It was the most packed bus I'd ever been on.

It was one of the most uncomfortable bus rides of my travelling career, which is saying something because I've been on some fucking buses in my time, let me tell you.

So we powered out of Malapascua and then all the way 5-6 hours in heavy traffic towards Cebu.

And it is from Cebu that I'll be taking a flight to Borneo once the typhoons passed in a couple of days time.

Very, very cool.

Very cool.

Are you in Cebu City itself?

Yes, yeah.

And what are your first impressions of that?

If they are your first impressions, is it pretty seedy still?

Been here a couple of times before but right now the weather is terrible and people are preparing for the typhoon which will come through tonight or tomorrow morning as of recording and people think there's a small chance it might become a super typhoon which is really destructive.

Shagao, where I just was, will potentially be hit really badly.

So my heart goes out to everyone in Shagao and I hope that it just goes and not too much damage is caused.

Yeah, God, How did you feel in that moment?

Were you concerned at all or were you just going through the motions and getting things sorted?

What was the the feeling in the camp like?

Yeah, when you get a text like that from your hostel, mate, you've just got to take your medicine and get gone.

So it was very practical, very logistical, as is the case when people are forced to do something a little bit out of the ordinary.

People talk and communicate more than they ordinarily would, just getting on a ferry and then a bus.

So it's quite nice, the community spirit of we've all got to leave Malabasqua and get ourselves a Cebu, which is quite a lovely thing and I'm glad that we're able to do that.

But now all I can be is excited about Borneo, really.

I've never been to Borneo.

I have been to both Indonesia and Malaysia, but never to Borneo, and it's been a long dream of mine to seeing orangutan just as you have before me, so I'm really looking forward to seeing if I can't get my hands on one of those wild apes.

Yeah, well, you know, I'll give you a long list of things that if you're listening to this at home and you've got some advice or any tips for Alan in Borneo, then please do send them in.

There's a contact form on our website and and I'll, you know, I'll look forward to hearing all about that, mate.

Because if there's one place that I've been that you haven't that I think you absolutely adore, it probably is Borneo.

That's exciting stuff.

Then I'm stealing myself to go to Borneo.

And as I mentioned, you can head to our website to let me know all about it.

And there's another thing that you can do on our website.

It's called Tales of a Trip.

Head over topologypodcast.com/tales of a trip and you can send us 3 minutes of your best travel story.

Maybe tell me about the time you were in Borneo and you got your hands on a great big orangutan.

Maybe tell me about a time that you've had to change your travel plans because our act of God, a crazy natural disaster.

Any great 3 minute story over on triplegpodcast.com.

This listener did just that.

Let's listen to it now.

Hi guys, I'm Paffy.

I saw female backpackers.

I spent over six months travelling South America this year and I'll hopefully go back soon.

I've collected so many travel stories I had a really hard time choosing the want to tell.

But I start with a fun story from my time in Peru, specifically in a town named Ointai Dumbo in the Sacred Valley near Cusco.

I decided to spend 2 days there one night in that town to visit some ruins and soak up the vibes of the place, which was very cute and colorful.

However, it happened to be one of the big festivities of that town, so I ended up dancing with strangers on the main square for most of the night.

And on the second day I finally got to visit the first burn.

And later on my way to the second one, I got lost in the small alleys since Google Maps would keep directing me to a street that didn't exist.

And the locals instructions were even more confusing, although I'm fluent in Spanish.

So while I was there wandering around the alleys, I started hearing music and soon a parade of young, dressed up Peruvians passed by.

And while I was filling filming them, one of them dragged me into the parade.

And I had no option but to follow the fun.

And I ended up spending seven hours with that parade group, going between different houses, tents and yards scattered across the town and trying to understand what we were actually celebrating.

And when entering each of the houses, they would perform a dance.

They had their own live band actually, and in turn they would receive food and beer from the hosts.

We would usually stay some 20 to 30 minutes at each place.

And I got better progressively because at some point everyone was pretty drunk obviously, and was hilarious because many guys would be wearing skirts, masks and wigs, and many girls were dressed like men.

And all of this time I was the only foreigner, which I obviously loved and I truly felt like a special guest.

They would even want me to join in their dances, but I didn't know the choreography.

And what's even better is the amount of proposals I received on that day.

The guys would try to steal me from each other, it was so funny.

And in the end, they performed their show on the main square and finished up entering the church where I finally understood what we were celebrating.

El Senor, they took a Kilka, the Saint of their town.

I got to see they how they all kneel down in front of a picture of the Signor 1 by 1 being beaten up by their fellows with a whip for being too drunk.

Having been late to rehearsals and others since I didn't quite understand.

And the tricky part in the end was leaving all of this because they wouldn't want to let me go.

But I was getting a bit too intense and well, it's a sole female traveler.

You got to know how to help yourself.

So I said goodbye to the group, escaped, although some of them were trying to follow me.

And I got on the first van to Cusco that same night.

So yeah, this bank said, guys, if you want to follow along more of my travel stories, feel free to check out my Instagram.

It's at puffy trend.

Yeah, Puffy at Puffy trend on Instagram there.

Thank you so much for sending in the message displaying quite a high level of traveller awareness, not only in knowing when to call it quits and get yourself safe as a solo female traveller, but also just exploring and having an idea that you know, understanding isn't necessary all the time for experience.

You can learn by doing, just embracing the chaos and seeking deeper understanding by just getting involved.

Yeah, I mean, that's absolutely amazing experience.

Thanks very much for sending it in.

Paffy I it does make me think immediately of a time when I was in Behold in the Philippines, funnily enough.

And I got invited to kind of this town square where there was this huge dance, like a community kind of village dance, Zumba class type thing.

And I was too self-conscious and afraid, really too nervous to get involved.

And, and that plagues me to this day.

So what an amazing, yeah, like you say, embrace of what's happening, getting stuck in, not worrying about it too much and having, well, such a wonderful experience that you've called up on the show and it's one of your greatest travel stories.

I I do regret those times when I haven't, I haven't put myself forward like that.

Yeah, I always promote this idea of an ornithological approach to travel, meaning as a bird watcher, observe but don't judge.

But sometimes I think that can be interpreted as having too much of A passive role, like you're just observing, you're not inserting yourself into the narrative and getting involved.

But I think what Paffy shows there is that part of that part of the being a good traveller.

You can like get into the narrative and enjoy the festivities and like have an impact on everyone's day, as I'm sure Paffy did there, but also had an awareness of like, okay, I don't necessarily understand what's going here.

Like I'll figure that out.

I'll observe, I'll see, I'll be an ornithologist.

I'll like assess the situation.

And then once I understand and I've had my feel of a good time, I've like had that travel experience to the maximal impact it can have, then it's time for me to be like, OK, it's time to leave.

So I just think it was really good travel.

Yeah, it sounds like I'm, you know, I'm sure there's more to that story.

It could have gone into far more detail.

But I mean, it sounds like it was all good and none of the bad.

I mean, what an amazing time.

Have you been to that place in Peru or do you remember it being like that in Peru?

Did you get involved in any any festivities while you were there?

I've been to Cusco, but I was very much in Peru, just, I mean, I was very set on the ancient world at that point in my life.

So I was seeing mummies, I was observing ancient geoglyphs.

I was going to Machu Picchu.

I've been to Cusico and, and like, I was very set on a very specific type of trip.

So I did absolutely no drinking and absolutely no festivals of any kind.

That is amazing.

I mean, I wish, I wish I was there.

Peru is a country that I, I should go to really.

And that's inspired me to to get there maybe sooner than I otherwise would.

South America in general, Adam, I often think of it as the biggest hole in your travel map.

Whereas Russia, the Stans, Japan, Korea are for me, South America is for you.

We have to rectify it in the coming years.

You, the listening audience, will be there as we do as we go on more travel adventures every week on a Tuesday.

If you want to hear more from us this week, you've got to go to patreon.com/tripology Podcast where you can hear an extra 15 minutes that takes place after the ever controversial theme music has ended.

For now, though, we'll see you all next time.

We'll see you there.

Bye bye.