Trials & Tea Ceremonies

A love story disguised as a travel memoir. Or perhaps the other way around.

You know that quiet itch, the one that asks, "Is this really it?" The job, the routine, the slow fade of the evenings. Basho and Cesca, staring down their thirties and feeling their marriage quietly unravel, decided to do something reckless. They quit their jobs, packed two rucksacks, and set off for a year through twelve countries.

What follows is a memoir of storms in Oceania, third-class trains through India, peaceful Zen gardens in Japan, and holding hands beneath the Bodhi Tree. Not a glossy postcard trip, but the truth of a year on the road without the Instagram filters, and a journey into the self that saves a marriage.

Along the way: popping the backpacker bubble in search of real connection; the comedy of spitting alpacas, hungry sharks, and a running battle with the tropics' eight-legged locals; a pilgrimage into the present, learning to dance to the music while it is still playing; and the ultimate test for any relationship, from the rivers of Varanasi to the neon of Tokyo, discovering that love grows through shared resilience, not comfort.

Told with relentless honesty and a dry wit, Trials & Tea Ceremonies is a memoir about quitting the rat race, testing a marriage on the road, and searching for a better way to live, only to find that what matters most was right there beside you all along.

For readers of Wild, Eat Pray Love, and The Salt Path, this is a debut memoir of travel, marriage, and self-realisation across Southeast Asia, the Subcontinent, and the Far East.

Words by Basho. Photos by Cesca.