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New York, the city that never sleeps, the city of dreams, the concrete jungle where dreams are made of. 

Well my dreams are certainly made up of it.

I’ve wanted to go from the first time of seeing he manhattan sky line, jagged and tall and full of stories, 

Oh the stories.

The romance, comedy, heartbreak, love, family, tears and laughter and goodbyes and hellos born in this city, on each corner,

A writer can’t help but be inspired.

I’m writing this in a coffee shop, on a corner, a minute walk from my dad’s office, thirty seconds to my hotel and a cross of the street to a diner,

It’s what I’ve been dreaming of for so many years.

I’ve cried with happiness at least three times.

And after having lost my writers voice for about three months-

I’ve found it.

After lunch I’m going to Times Square and Central Park so I’ll write more then but for now- here’s what I wrote on the plane, I hope you like:

I wanna see the world. Not ‘backpacking across Europe to find myself’ or ‘hiking up the Alps to ski’ I mean I want to sky dive and scream so loud that I think my throat will rip but feel wind on my face and feel the rush of blood in my veins and 

I want to drive a moped up a rocky classic American cliff, with that shitty music that always plays in those scenes in my ear and instead of being the one watching, to be the one driving and

I want to turn up to a country half my school didn’t know existed because it isn’t somewhere with Instagram worthy views and I want to turn up with a tenner in hand, three spare clothes and a friend, nothing else and just see the country how it was meant to be seen and

I want to scuba dive so deep below the sea I forget the taste of clean air, seeing the miles on miles of just ocean, conspiring with itself in a language we’ll never understand, a world we’ll never understand and

I need to be in a festival in Mexico and lose myself in the shouts and music and noise and chaos and raw emotion thick in the air and forget that there has ever been a moment of quiet in this world and

I need to sit in a studio apartment in Brooklyn and hear shouts and honks below me while I curl up with a classic book and just belong and 

I need

To 

Live.

I’m young and naïve I’m sure, unrealistic and idealistic, almost definitely but I want to live. I don’t want suburban England and mothers’ meeting and football games. I don’t need mortgage and debt and insurance-

I don’t want structure god damn it! I want to mess up and make mistakes and mess around and be loud and a kid and a unrealistic idealistic one at that because we’ve been told our entire lives we need to grow up but what we need to do is

Stop.

Love, Hea xx

As a generation, as in my generation, we know near nothing about the atrocities that took place in Cambodia from 1974 to 1979. The name Pol Pot may just blur into the dictators you’ve heard of before. Maybe the Khmer Rouge (pronounced-ca-may roo-j) rings a few bells. But as it doesn’t have to do with England’s country, England’s history-

It doesn’t effect us anyway, right?

The death of 3 million people because of the fact they were educated,

irrelevant to us, isn’t it?

Torture of innocent people for the soul wrongdoing of being in the wrong place at the wrong time,

Why would we need to know that?

i’m not going to pretend that I can sit on my high horse, all knowing and factually wise, I didn’t know anything went on until I went to the place it did

But it made me realise how blind our generation can be.

Told stories of little boys who wander into the camp then watch their mother go through unthinkable things,

Hearing the crack in a mans voice as he talks of his wife and hearing her screams,

Seeing a forty foot high monument filled with skulls,

We need to look up people.

Did you get know similar things are happening in Egypt? 

Probably not.

Because our news consists of Kendal Jenner’s new hair cut or Justin Bieber’s fiancé

Of her with him and him with him and her and her

When there are people fighting.

For their lives, their freedom, their rights,

Maybe,

Just maybe,

We should look at them for a change,

Love, Hea xx

So, during the day we didn’t do much. Lay around the boat, I finished a few books, took a course on napkin folding- because why not- and at about five thirty we ventured off of the boat for another temple visit, this time up over 200 steps and so we could see the sunset- and by god was it gorgeous.

Pink flooding the sky, purple rays trying to burst out from behind white fluffy clouds, later with orange melting into the colour scheme and giving it a freshness which reflects inot the river running through the city below is, full of life and noise and a soul, running through the city like the series of connected streets, confusing to us all but so simple when your while life is down those cobblestones and the field on field on field of rice being grown on green and brown ground, put together like a geometric design of a coffee shop floor.

And standing up there, watching the sunset spiral and the clouds collide with a temple at my back and my mother at my side,

Well is there a word for a feeling deeper than peace? Deeper than contentment or freedom? More than spiritual or powerful or unforgettable? I think I know it-

love. I just felt love for this world we’re on and what I have, my friends and family and my life, while hardly perfect, I just felt so much love for it all.

This one’s short because I think I’ve said all there is to say. But todays homework is easy-

Message someone telling them you love them.

Love, Hea xx

So, I’m won’t writing this at about twelve because we’ve had a rather jam-packed morning and I don’t know how much detail I’ll remember this in after an equally busy afternoon.

After a (too) early start we made our way off of our boat to a smaller one, one allowed to dock on shore. And the lady taking us told us a kinda fascinating fact about Vietnamese and boats. At the front of the boat, there have to be eyes painted on because they believe that doing so makes your boat more like a fish, so better and swimming and if something were to happen to the boat, you’d be less likely to sink,

Isn’t superstition in culture amazing?

People united in one belief, one thought, one hope,

Although isn’t the whole world united in at least one hope?

Anyways, sidetrack.

We went on land in a town called Mý Tho and into a temple for Buddhism, with the happy Buddha. Do you know why the buddha always smiles and is always rather large round the stomach?

The most common guess is good food.

It’s because he eats all of our sadness, and smiles to give us his happiness.

Isn’t that beautiful? Taking our sadness for his own and smiling anyways

All for us.

After the temple we went to try some pure honey, some chocolate, I saw dogs so was thoroughly happy, we herd some singing, some music from their culture,

And then we rode in boats down the local canals,

And even I can’t find the words to describe it.

The sound of the water, the laughs of the people, the colours, bursting out of themselves into our eyes, the smell of moisture and food and water and heat thick in the air,

The gentle flow of the stream, the friendliness and kindness of the other boats,

There wasn’t a moment that went by without a smile on my face,

Love, Hea xx

I realise I haven’t explained what and ma are actually doing on our trip. We’re spending five days on a boat trip down the Mekong, visiting temples and floating markets and sunsets and landmarks and ending in Phnom Penh seeing S-21 and the killing fields.

But today was about meeting our boat, the staff, and the eighteen fellow passengers on it.

And so far it’s all I had hoped.

Despite exhaustion from yesterday seeping through, despite social anxiety screaming at me to stop, despite mosquito bites and humidity and awkwardness and age difference,

I’ve had a nice day.

The boat seems full of lovely, educated, fascinating and diverse people, us being the only people from England, the rest from USA or Canada or Australia. All seemingly making an effort (apart from me, opting to sit on asseverate table and write this instead of engage in. My second conversation of the night about real estate and tax prices), all seeming worm(ish) and open(ing).

But for me what I love is the boat,

the look of the water parting as we pierce the sea,

The waves glistening and catching the sun, seeming to hold onto the light and turn it into crystal,

The sound of the boat’s side being lapped, in a constant, steady, reliable pattern of whoosh on whoosh,

The realisation how trivial the small issues really can be.

Because when the things that could upset a person for months passes in a second,

You realise just how much time we waste,

So don’t waste the time you have

Love, Hea xx