Rubies and Rucksacks by Mel Christie

Wander. Lust. Repeat.

Some people find themselves by sitting still. Ren found himself by leaving.

He quit his office job in London, loaded up a rucksack, and bought a one-way ticket to Bangkok—a year long search across Southeast Asia for Life, Love, and Meaning.

He wanted risk, heat, crystalline beaches in paradise, and a backpacker nightlife under flickering neons. But he also got hustlers, humidity, mercenaries drunk by noon, the Brotherhood and goat head stew, and hour rent proprietors who watched everything but gave away nothing. The search took longer.

And took him further.

Set in the 80s and 90s, when Burma denied visas to journalists, Beijing had one budget hotel, the USSR still existed, and the best currency was Johnny Walker Red, this journey is less Four Seasons, more Four Cockroaches in a Dorm, a coming-of-age celebration of wanderlust for anyone who's ever suspected that certainty is overrated; and that the only way to find out where you belong is to throw away the map.