Trials & Tea Ceremonies: Misadventures in Far Away Places

By Bashō Matsuo

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 from a year on the road, without the Instagram filters and becoming a journey into the self that saves a marriage.

Features:

How to pop the backpacker bubble and what it means for making authentic connections. Life found in the comedy mishaps of spitting alpacas, hungry sharks, and a running battle with the tropics' eight-legged locals.A pilgrimage into the present and learning how to dance to the music while it's still playing.The ultimate test for any relationship: the World of Varanasi's rivers, Tokyo's neon, and 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, and yet only to discover that what matters most was right there beside you all along.

For fans 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.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 103697197X
• ISBN13: 9781036971977
• Release Date: November 2025
• Publisher: Outside Context Publishing
• Length: 282 Pages
• Weight: 0.84 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"