It’s an occupational hazard of being a travel writer: to visit a country and think: “oh! this place looks INTERESTING; I wonder what it would be like to live here.”

The answer is always: Much the same as a yeast infection, HAEMORRHOIDS or AMOEBIC dysentery, so move along; nothing to see here.

Keep Wondering and keep wandering.

Do not stop.

But I stopped.

I should have learned.

But I didn’t.

And then I whined like a bitch for the next 12 months as my life circled the drain.

Pretty much every day, during my time in Qatar, was worse than the day before.

It was worse than the time I drank a bottle of wine and decided to get on the roof and fix my TV aerial.

It was worse than the time my mother thought I’d alighted from her vehicle and drove off with me hanging out of the door.

It was even worse than the gin-fuelled time I made a ladder out of garbage bins to climb in through the second storey balcony after locking myself out of my apartment.

So many broken bones.

My Doha life was no less fractured, hurtling from one calamity to another.

It had been crappy from dot.

My first day at my new job I should have known. 

The moment she reached around, I should have known. 

I thought perhaps she was brushing off an imagined imperfection. 

But no. 

Hands like shovels, she (my new boss) dug deep into her gusset and removed her briefs with a deafening snap of knicker elastic. 

Bahhhhhh! 

I screamed in my head. 

And again Bahhhhhh! as she offered me her hand. 

At that precise moment, I should have hightailed it back to the airport and caught the next flight home. 

But I didn’t. I chose to stay. 

I chose to spend 183 days living my worst life.

I wan’t blind or even blinkered. I was informed… well aware.

I’d spent time in the Middle East before so I knew exactly what to expect. 

I'd been there before; worked there before. 

I’d been to Qatar twice. But this time was different. So, so different.

And now I was working on a magazine and directing a fashion shoot.

“Dude, she’s put her chest on back to front. I’ve got bigger tits than her,” said the photographer.

She had and he did.

RBF Model glared.

The photographer motioned me over.

“She’s too bony for that outfit,” he said.

He had a point; she had all the grace of a wicker basket.

Earlier I’d been thinking, when the call to prayer woke me at dawn, that today would be less crap. Dunno why… just a feeling. And work wasn’t going to be too bad. At least I was out of the office and away from her…my boss, not RBF Model.

Just one of those things: a garden-variety fashion shoot I told myself.

I got this.

Until RBF Model arrived: face like a slapped arse, thieving the happiness with every breath she took – a thunderous pout someone mistook for glamourista-chic.

She chain-smoked and flicked me ‘if-looks-could-kill’ evils between sips of Diet Coke and scowls. 

Hate her.

The shoot began. And all was well for a while.

But later that day.

"Can you just give me one more look in the pink outfit before you get changed,” I asked politely and gave a thumbs up to the photographer. We were almost done with the spring/summer shoot, and we were pooped. 

“Can you just go f*%k yourself,” RBF Model muttered under her breath. 

To be continued…

My grandmother, Alice Warrington

Before I was too young to understand, my grandmother told me to follow my dreams.

"You can be anyone you want to be, if only you have the courage to seize the day," she said.

I told her I wanted to see the world, and so you shall she said with a squeeze and a kiss.

Alice passed away before I got to know her; before I understood the worldly advice of a lady who never left the country she was born in.

Worldliness is a state of mind and not measured by the stamps in our passports.

I was in Sri Lanka. 

The look on this little fella's face says it all: it's hot as hell. 

Two weeks in and still the awesomeness keeps coming. 

I arrived at Sigiriya, an ancient rock fortress located in the northern Matale District near the town of Dambulla in the Central Province, sans trusty water bottle.

No matter.

How hot can it possibly be. 

Very. 

But then one of the locals spied me swooning Jane Austen style and shared their water with me and all was right with the world again.  

Sri Lankans really are the most generous, caring people. 
 

It's a truth universally acknowledged that if you ask someone not to do something, chances are they're likely to do exactly that which you forbade.

Don't touch the costume cupboard .... sorry I can't hear you.

Such was the request and subsequent naughty defiance during a vacation to Byron Bay.

A theatre group had once rented the property and a substantial costume collection remained.

Red flag.

Bull.

The door to the costume room was locked but no match for a Phillips head and few gentle taps.

Honestly, what did you expect?

Costume parties are fun. At home. While travelling, sometimes less so.

When all logic abandons you and colouring your hair with white house paint seems reasonable. 

Back home, outfits are well-planned, thoughtfully executed and usually shed before the witching hour.

Costumes on the run, when you are travelling, are more complicated.

What to wear?

Such was my quandary when visiting a friend in Sydney.  

The taxi was fast approaching and 'Plan A' to spray my hair with temporary white colour had resulted in my having a consumptive, sickly appearance covered in what looked like dead skin.

Drastic action was required.

I disappeared into the workshop and came back with a more permanent solution.

Logic said no.

But the six dirty martinis screamed yes. 

I bent over a drop sheet and painted my head white.

And then just for good measure, sprinkled a small fortune in glitter all over my head.

The next day it did not seem like such a good idea.

Three weeks later, even less so. 

I am not a fan of glands.

A rodeo in Hawke's Bay where the fruits of labour swing like a mighty bag of onions

My flatmate used to have a dog that had a particularly pendulous sack of gonads, which it insisted on draping all over my soft furnishings.

Maybe it was curiosity. Maybe it was a a perverse sense of revenge but twice on my travels I've dined on bull's testicles and twice I've thrown up the entire contents of my stomach.

Once in Cambodia.

Once in Montana.

Sometimes, as a freelance writer, you need to live spherically and think laterally.

The offending looking glass in all of its glory

Being a travel writer will not make you rich.

In fact, most of the time, it's quite the opposite - sitting under a tree eating walnuts.

'Sudoko' doesn't get you very far in Japan. Not when you need to hail a cab or order a drink or ask where the bathrooms are or excuse yourself for sitting on an old lady on the metro.

Bonsai! ... One of the few Japanese words I know ... but not very helpful

I really should have learned some Japanese .. or brought my phrase book. And then of course, when you get lost the arguments start. 

Nelle and I are bickering furiously about which Japanese symbol to press on the ticket machine at the subway station when we hear, “this button, press for Nikko”.

The thing about travelling. You meet a lot of people. And sometimes you need to walk away.

This is just a random picture I found on the net. Any resemblance to Margot is purely coincidental.

This is a bit hard when you're trapped on a four-day Sydney to Perth train trip. One of the guests took an instant dislike to me. Or rather to the fact I was a "freeloading" travel writer. On day two she hunted me down...

While in Japan, a mixture of confusion and greed (mine) led to enough saké being ordered to down a small horse. I have not touched saké since.

Naughty saké ... wickedness never tasted so good

We dine at Gonpachi (the Kill Bill restaurant).

I’m with my travelling companion Nelle, her friend Alicia and Japanese partner Kazuo, the latter whispers something into Alicia’s ear.

I don't much like water.

This is not me. I was not nearly as elegant.

It's more that I don't like being fully immersed in wetness ...

As with so many things in life, it seemed a good idea at the time… ignoring the signs and feeding the wildlife at Lake Burley Griffin in Canberra.

Do not be fooled

But hindsight is a wonderful thing. No sooner had I flicked the aspic off the pate than a swarm of geese attacked.