In the 3 + 1 section we’ll be asking all sorts of people from all walks of life to delve deep into their memory banks – and memory cards – to answer two questions: what have been the three greatest travel experiences of your life? And where in the world have you always dreamt of traveling to? Perhaps we’ll get something profound; perhaps we won’t. In the end, all that matters is that you wasted a couple of minutes of your day that you could have otherwise used working productively.

Today, as part of ‘Meet the Kapowers’ week, it’s Adam.

Ahhh this is a difficult assignment to be given. 3 of my favourite travel destinations? I’ve had the good fortune of visiting a few places around the world in the past 10 years. So many of my memories of these places are somewhat faded but luckily I have quite a large photo library to delve back into. Let’s see what I can come up with.

1. “Railay Beach”, Krabbi Province, Thailand

Probably one of the first places that comes to mind is a fantasy world buried down in the south of Thailand in Krabbi province. This little hideaway is Railay beach.

I used to work in Bangkok for a small post production company and for my first few months in Thailand I had hardly managed to get away. We had a fairly big project on at one point and was doing some pretty long days/weeks and by the end of it I was pretty much dead and needed a bit of a break.

My boss at the time recommended I head south and check out Railay. He said something like “once you get off that long boat from Ao Nang, turn around and look back at the sea. You’ll have a “moment” “.

He was right. That first view back from Railay is killer. I arrived just at the end of a storm and the sun was breaking through the clouds. The limestone peninsulas hugged the beach and everyone was just chilling out taking it all in. I can’t say much more than that except I spent 3 or 4 days just hanging out, eating some tasty food, and talking to other folks who were all blown away by Railay’s incredible beauty.

If anyone heads to Thailand, skip Phuket and the usual over touristed haunts, and head straight to Railay. Or Koh Lanta. Or one of the other thousand awesome places down in Krabbi. Phuket is poo.

2. “Mt Bromo”, Java, Indonesia

Last year I had the good fortune to meet up with one of my best mates Liam in Singapore. He was there to see a NIN concert and then go for a bit of an explore. So we booked some cheap flight to Java Indonesia and went hunting for volcanoes.

Java is a beautiful place. People are incredibly friendly and I got the impression that it is no where near as visited as places like Bali.
We crept our way west to east through Java and made it Probolinggo. After no time we were in a little truck and heading up the mountains to Mt Bromo.

This makes it into my 3 + 1 because once again it was just a mind blowing view that was almost out of this world. Also walking inside a once mega volcano is damn cool.

3. Jaramana & Al Hasaka, Syria

Last year, whilst enjoying a beer in a hostel in Aleppo, I became instant mates with a cool dude from San Fran. Anobel was in Syria to photo document the Assyrian refugee situation in Jaramana, Damascus. As well as that he was heading out east to a place called Al Hasakah to partake in the Assyrian New Year festivities.

From memory I convinced Anobel to use his kickass Canon 5D mkII camera for more good and shoot some video on it. So I found myself a week later down in Damascus in Jaramana with our cameras and macs interviewing Assyrian refugees from Iraq. Being in a place like Jaramana was a first for me and something that has affected me greatly. The stories we heard were horrific and some of the photos we were shown were even more so.

The experience out in Al Hasakah 50km from the Iraq border was very interesting. We were tailed for 4 days by an “official” with a mounted machine gun on the back of his truck. Apart  from that we had a great time visiting some Assyrian villages and meeting some incredibly friendly people. The new year’s party was a lot of fun and I have never seen such a long line of people holding hands and dancing!

The +1: Papua New Guinea / Pakistan

Oh man this is a hard one. I think I’d like to get to Papua New Guinea one day. Probably because it is a place so close to Australia that I know absolutely nothing about and it sounds quite untouched. I am probably quite wrong about that though.

Hmmm, maybe Pakistan. Every traveller I have who has been to Pakistan has said that the people are the most hospitable they have ever met. And some of those travelers had been to Iran which I think had the most hospitable bunch of folks I’ve met.