I've often found that to feel, see and hear the real beauty of a country, you need to leave its capital city. In Slovakia that's especially true given its incredible mountains, national parks and caves. So with the pull of Košice - Slovakia's second city in the east - I set off on the 5 hour train journey to see what adventures lay ahead.
"Bratislava? That's the city they had those unbelievably cheap drinks in the movie EuroTrip, right?" a friend asked before I left. Having spent 2 days in the Slovak capital, I can safely say that while cheap drinks are abound in the city, it's a far cry from what the slightly dubious teen comedy portrayed it to be.
Slovenia surprised me in more ways than I expected. Whether it was strolling through the glacial landscapes by Lake Bohinj, or visiting the world's only underground post office in the Postojna Caves or sitting at dusk in the courtyard of a monastery by the Adriatic Sea as a violinist started to play, this country was a hidden gem for me.
Before I landed in Ljubljana, if asked what I expected, I would have said a generic old town, some grey Soviet architecture, a good selection of watering holes, uninteresting restaurants serving stodgy food and sweeping but clinical roads. I was shamefully mistaken, not least because Slovenia was never part of the Soviet Union. Although I would...
The scenery is dominated by varying shades of green that extend for miles. The reassuring babble of the river is somewhere in the background. People here are soft-spoken and kind. The sounds of Khasi fill the air. Help is never far, and you are always warmly welcomed by everyone. This is Meghalaya, in the north-eastern corner of India.
From hitch-hiking in the back of jeeps of drug peddlers, to exploring one of the most bizarre and arid landscapes, to visiting the world's largest salt reserve which is a whopping 155 metres below sea level, read about my adventures in Djibouti - a tiny country in a forgotten corner of the world.