Tom Spurling

Writer's Biography

Tom Spurling is a freelance writer based in Melbourne, Australia. He has travelled to many Asian countries, including a year spent teaching in Japan. A move to Hong Kong is imminent. He writes guidebooks for Lonely Planet, and was recently crowned Survivor of the Lewdest in a knockout fiction writing contest.

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Featured Travel Stories in Oriental Tales Magazine

Hong Kong: The Travel Bug - Story by Tom Spurling
- 3rd Online Issue

The recent bird-flu epidemic that swept across Asia has made me all sentimental about travel in the region.

In 2003 I flew from Japan to Hong Kong at the height of SARS hysteria. It was Spring Break and my girlfriend and I needed a cheap getaway. Being a global citizen, it would have been poor form to reschedule on account of CNN warnings.

All the toxic spills and adrenaline refills of adventure travel were screaming at me through saturated lungs. Being a vagabond at heart, my girlfriend was also buoyed by the idea of a spot of virus dodging in the petri-dish of British-Chinese confluence – spectacular Hong Kong island. If biology was spitting back at the human race, then we wanted to be there to cheer the bastard home.

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