Frank Goes Walkabout
Walkabout
82 entries, 2022 to 2025.
2025
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A Lesson in Sales, Delhi Airport
February 28, 2025
You step off the plane, you collect your bag, and just past the sliding doors you make the one mistake.
2024
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What the Quiet Does
September 29, 2024
A morning in Georgia, and nobody knows where I am. Nothing dramatic in that. It's only that no one has a reason to think of me before evening, and I have nothing to be on time for.
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The Fear of Being Free
August 25, 2024
I have been round a wide loop: from the Emirates to Italy, a short run into Germany, and back to Georgia. Now I am in a hut in the mountains, going back over two years.
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A Fellow Traveller Writes
August 8, 2024
In Abu Dhabi I decided to put the self-discovery on hold, spend time with friends and concentrate on the business. I don't need much, but a few extra dollars in the pocket are usef
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A New Shade
February 24, 2024
What follows may sound strange to you. But you are here, sharing this moment with me, so you probably feel it too.
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The Water Hole at Gomismta
February 9, 2024
Susi has 283,175 kilometres on her. The engine is perfect. The clutch is fine. Entirely reliable, this car — thanks to Jorge Martins and his workshop, who went over the whole thing
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2023
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Three Hours a Non-Smoker
December 20, 2023
If you have resolutions for the new year, there are a few days left. Raise your glass. Let us put off once more the thing we said we would do, and we both know how that ends.
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Anything Less Than Yes
December 12, 2023
If you have read a few of these, you will have noticed that I am an authority on how not to do it. I know exactly how failing feels. I have taken more or less every dead end that w
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The Same Mess, Twice
December 9, 2023
This one is personal, and it is for the few people who know me. Nobody else will read it anyway: I have been silent for half a year.
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Dubai
May 7, 2023
After the business with the stolen phone I flew from Georgia to the Emirates. One night in Abu Dhabi, then a taxi across the desert.
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The Unfortunate Club
May 4, 2023
If you are looking for stories that end well, you would be better served by Instagram. This one concerns a misfortune that began two days before I flew to Dubai.
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The Chronicle of Georgia
February 24, 2023
Day two hundred and eighty, Georgia. When I lived in Germany I was proud of knowing how the world works. The rich exploit the poor. Things used to be better. What I am told is pres
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The Men You Meet Out Here
February 11, 2023
Day two hundred and sixty-seven, Georgia. You meet them more often out here than at home. Independent, sharp, entirely unbothered about questioning how things are done. Confident a
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The Wheel
January 25, 2023
Day two hundred and fifty-three, Georgia. A friend said this to me on the phone a few days ago:
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Everything Is Negotiable
January 16, 2023
Day two hundred and forty-six, Georgia. Love can move mountains and breaks like glass, at least the sort between a man and a woman.
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The Mosaic
January 14, 2023
Day two hundred and forty-two, Georgia. Looking for an answer can take a long time. Longer than you would think possible.
2022
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New Year, Kutaisi
December 31, 2022
Day two hundred and twenty-eight, Georgia. New Year's Eve in Kutaisi.
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A Hundred Euros
December 20, 2022
Day two hundred and seventeen, Georgia. I was afraid for twenty years.
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A Chapel in a Tree
November 27, 2022
Day one hundred and ninety-four, Georgia. A walk in the botanical garden in Kutaisi.
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Prometheus
November 7, 2022
Day one hundred and seventy-four, Georgia. I have to get out. Some days the learning and the work and the video calls pile up until I can't see over them. So: into the car.
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Eight Thousand Euros I Don't Have
October 27, 2022
Day one hundred and sixty-five, Georgia. Two weeks in Tskaltubo now, near Kutaisi. It has been clear for a while that I won't reach Tibet before the winter. The snow is about to cl
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The Crack in the Plaster
October 20, 2022
Day one hundred and fifty-six, Georgia. Joseph Turner has gone, as unexpectedly as he arrived. I went down to the landlady of the guest house in Tskaltubo first thing and asked whe
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Under the Car
October 7, 2022
Day one hundred and forty-three, Georgia. In two weeks I will sit up half a night with Joseph Turner arguing about whether the world is a dream. I don't know that yet.
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Splitting Wood
September 30, 2022
Day one hundred and thirty-six, Georgia. What splitting wood teaches:
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Letting Her Go
September 22, 2022
Day one hundred and twenty-eight, Georgia. It is coming clear, slowly, that if I want a happy life I will have to let go of someone who matters to me very much.
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Traffic
September 21, 2022
Day one hundred and twenty-seven, Georgia. Batumi certainly has its good corners. It is the second city, it sits on the Black Sea, and in the last five years the tower blocks have
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The Poker Tournament
September 20, 2022
Day one hundred and twenty-six, Georgia. The Machakhela National Park is a long way from what we call civilisation, and from out here civilisation looks like the aftermath of somet
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Childish and Naive
September 19, 2022
Day one hundred and twenty-five, Georgia. Underneath everything I am childish and naive.
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Four Generations, One Roof
September 18, 2022
Day one hundred and twenty-four, Georgia. A farm in the mountains of the Machakhela National Park, near the Black Sea. Batumi, the nearest town of any size, is thirty kilometres an
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Writing It Down
September 17, 2022
Day one hundred and twenty-three, Georgia. Letting go. How does one do that, exactly? Let go of what — the person, the feeling, the memory of someone you loved? What am I holding o
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2.81 Lari
September 15, 2022
Day one hundred and twenty-one, Georgia. Georgia wants its own car insurance on top of the one I already have. The office near the border is open around the clock and the business
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A Place to Fall Back To
September 14, 2022
Day one hundred and twenty, Georgia. I drove through Turkey in two days with barely a stop and reached the Georgian border at night. A queue. Three hours of passport control. Then
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Swapping the Tyres Round
September 12, 2022
Day one hundred and eighteen, Turkey. On to Georgia, the country on the Black Sea between Europe and Asia. Two days, I reckon. Turkey is large.
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Thirty Thousand Euros for a Jeep
September 11, 2022
Day one hundred and seventeen, Turkey. I meet Armela and Dustin at the Tas Gölü campsite, a quiet place in the hills near the Black Sea coast. The German couple are travelling in t
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Cold Water
September 11, 2022
Day one hundred and seventeen, Turkey. In the old hermetic teaching, water is one of the five elements, alongside fire, air, earth and the Akasha principle. It takes up what you wo
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Twelve Hundred Kilometres
September 10, 2022
Day one hundred and sixteen, Turkey. Twelve hundred kilometres along the Black Sea coast to Georgia. The car's electrics are in hand.
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The Only Answer That Worked
September 10, 2022
Day one hundred and sixteen, Turkey. This road keeps going past the places where my old thinking used to live.
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Toast Spezial
September 9, 2022
Day one hundred and fifteen, Turkey. Hand on heart: do any of us know what tomorrow looks like? Do you know where your life is in a week, in a month? Three years ago, who would hav
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Eighty Per Cent
August 27, 2022
Day one hundred and two, Turkey. Inflation here is running at eighty per cent and climbing. People are not having an easy time of it. At home the energy prices are going up and the
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What You Do With the Power
August 20, 2022
Day ninety-five, Turkey. The symptoms are finally going. There is still honey in my head, but the worst is behind me.
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Give Me Your Account Number
August 11, 2022
Day eighty-six, Turkey. I have very little left. The plans haven't held. The work I was going to do from the road is not coming in the way I imagined it.
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Eight Days on Seher's Sofa
August 4, 2022
Day seventy-nine, Turkey. Covid. I have never had symptoms like it. Aching limbs, a throat that won't swallow, ears, and on it goes, arriving and leaving like a faulty string of Ch
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The Womb Cave
July 19, 2022
Day sixty-three, Bulgaria. This place puts me back in the middle of myself.
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Perperikon
July 14, 2022
Day fifty-eight, Bulgaria. A ruined city in the south of the country, with Anthony, Mathilde and their daughter Hanae. The French family are on a road trip through southern Europe,
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Leaving Popovets
July 14, 2022
Day fifty-eight, Bulgaria. Goodbye to Anil and to the Bakalnitsa Trakiya, my guest house in Popovets. At breakfast I make friends with a couple from France. I will miss this place
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Anil Buys Me a Lemonade
July 13, 2022
Day fifty-seven, Bulgaria. „Which is the most beautiful place in the village?“ I ask Anil.
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A List, After Fifty-Three Days
July 9, 2022
Day fifty-three, Greece. Today I leave for Bulgaria. Along the Thracian coast I drive through fishing villages that haven't fully woken up. The people are warm. In a taverna in Por
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Karutious
July 8, 2022
Day fifty-two, Greece. On the beach at Fanari I meet Karutious. I am looking at the sea. He simply starts talking to me.
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Wedding Photographs, Fanari
July 5, 2022
Day forty-nine, Greece. Kalambaka is behind me. I drove the coast, past Thessaloniki, a short stop in Kavala, and found a place for tonight near the little fishing village of Fanar
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Whoever Is Pure of Heart
July 2, 2022
Day forty-six, Greece. The day before I move on, I walk up into the Meteora rocks. A path goes up from the village of Kastraki. The way is stony, steep and shaded. The trees make n
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Not Friends, Family
July 1, 2022
Day forty-five, Greece. The Meteora Garden campsite is a quiet place, and I am using it to go on learning how to trust things. In the daytime the cicadas work in the grass. At nigh
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Six Men from Memmingen
June 27, 2022
Day forty-one, Greece. „You're off your head,“ Markus says. „But off your head in a good way. I wish more people had the nerve to do their own thing.“
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Roussanou
June 23, 2022
Day thirty-seven, Greece. Roussanou is one of six monasteries left on the Meteora rocks. There were once twenty-four. The first recorded hermitages go back to the eleventh century.
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Somewhere Under Meteora
June 21, 2022
Day thirty-five, Greece. I have decided to leave the doubt behind and go the rest of the way on trust. Pogradec was a safe harbour. Today I set off for Greece.
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Shihemi
June 19, 2022
Day thirty-three, Albania. Pulling back is doing me good. I work in my room and walk on the beach when my head is full. In the afternoons I sit in the garden with Gzim, the father
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So What
June 17, 2022
Day thirty-one, Albania. I am walking in the hills above Pogradec, looking at myself and my worries from a distance. From up here everything is fairly small.
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The Assessor Runs Out of Material
June 15, 2022
Day twenty-nine, Albania. Driving from Durrës to Lake Ohrid took something out of me again, because most of the work I had lined up for the road has evaporated. One client can't pa
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Different Rules
June 13, 2022
Day twenty-seven, Albania. The Villa Osmani in Durrës is a rock in the surf. I am mostly on my own here, working, taking stock.
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Where Lines Cross
June 10, 2022
Day twenty-four, Montenegro. Four days here and I am only now arriving.
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Camilla
June 8, 2022
Day twenty-two, Montenegro. At the Namaste I meet Camilla. She is the reason the place is clean, the beds are made and the kitchen is always in order. She arrived two weeks ago.
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Fifty Euros, No Receipt
June 7, 2022
Day twenty-one, Montenegro. I'm at the Namaste hostel. The word is Indian and means welcome, or, taken literally, I bow to you. I'm safe here.
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What the Clutch Cost
June 6, 2022
Day twenty, Bosnia. The last few days have been a lot: almost no sleep on Friday night, then the pyramid, then the tunnels, then people, more people.
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The Stone Hamza Gave Me
June 5, 2022
Day nineteen, Bosnia. „That's zultanite,“ says Hamza, turning a stone over in his hands. In the sun it is kiwi green. In shadow it goes through a cognac pink and comes out raspberr
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Two Kilometres of Three
June 5, 2022
Day nineteen, Bosnia. „We've cleared two kilometres of three,“ says Esmar Alimanovic, who is taking us through the tunnels at Ravne.
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Does That Look Like a Pyramid?
June 4, 2022
Day eighteen, Bosnia. „Does that look like a pyramid to you?“ I ask Nicky.
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The Pink Airline
June 2, 2022
Day sixteen, Bosnia. She was supposed to land in Sarajevo on Friday at 11:35 in the evening. It is now Saturday, four in the morning, and I am waking up in the car outside the airp
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Twenty Cars
June 2, 2022
Day sixteen, Bosnia. I cross the border between Imotski and Posusje and decide to go straight through, past Mostar, over the hills and the dry country to Jablanica.
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Ten Euros a Night
June 2, 2022
Day sixteen, Croatia. Yesterday I swam in the sea for the first time on this trip, somewhere near Split. I simply pulled over.
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Mushrooms
May 31, 2022
Day fourteen, Croatia. At the Old Mom's Lodge I meet Filip Mukulicic, who eats fruit and nothing else, and grows most of it himself. „It gives me the most energy,“ he says.
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Winnetou Country
May 29, 2022
Day twelve, Croatia. Pian del Cansiglio stayed quiet and the clouds stayed put, so I never got the stars. What I got instead was two days with nothing to do but sit in my own compa
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Leaving the House in the Park
May 27, 2022
Day ten, Italy, morning. I am leaving the Casa nel Parco. Every extra day here would make the leaving harder, and I can feel it already.
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The Fourth of October, Twice
May 24, 2022
Day seven, Italy. In Campione del Garda I run into Gernot Koza: architect from Innsbruck, writer, poet, son of a pastor.
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Jump
May 24, 2022
Day seven, Italy. I arrived at Lake Garda yesterday, at the Casa nel Parco near Prabione, five hundred metres up in the hills. The second battery charges while I drive, and the sol
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Storm, Then Soup
May 21, 2022
Day four, Germany, two in the morning. A storm is crossing the country. At the Kochelsee the lightning goes over the sky in whips, and I wake up because the car is being shaken.
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