Speaking of old & soulful in Albania…stumbled across this gorgeous entrance while in Tirana. Not sure, but those pompous staircases could mean the building was built way before the communist era. The crazy wiring reminded me of Bangkok and Hyderabad.

Speaking of Bangkok…I rewatched about half of the young Leonardo DiCaprio’s film The Beach a few nights ago. The scenes filmed in the Thai capital are surprisingly accurate to how I remember the very first time I checked into one of the many cheap guesthouses on Khao San Road. The wafer-thin walls of the room I slept in the noisy neighbors, the cockroaches, and the carefree lifestyle the then 25-year-old version of me led.