Monday, August 19, 2024

A bit of bad luck away from disaster – #Travel #ShortStory #Giveaway @Gpakis

The Lonely Australian ... tour banner

Blurb

Hookers and hawkers.

Mosques and mosquitos.

Paul has had enough of Southeast Asia.

He's only here ‘cos it's cheap.

He's on the run from police after leaving Australia.

No, that place wasn't much better either.

Well, it was when he was young.

When his life was full of promise. An up-and-coming boxer. And he had friends. And fun.

Then a bit of bad luck later and he found himself on the run in outback Australia. Paranoid. Hiding from shadows. The heat. The dust. The sweat.

Next stop, Southeast Asia.

 

The Lonely Australian... book cover

Excerpt

Cigarette in mouth, Paul stood on the hotel balcony and stared nervously out into the hot Cambodian night. He hated Asia. He didn’t know why so many loved it. Of course deep down he knew - cheap holidays. But to Paul, Asia was hell - hot, dangerous and always just a bit of bad luck away from some sort of disaster.

Not much could be seen from his balcony. His hotel was down a small street off the main road that led to the tourist centre of Siem Riep. He could see people drifting down the main road, mostly tourists clutching dollar beers. Directly across from him was the construction site of a new hotel.

Paul took another drag from his cigarette, grabbed his beer off the balcony railing and walked back into the hotel room. He looked at his boots next to his duffel bag. He was sick of those stinky boots. He looked at the grime on the duffel bag. That grime was from India. Indian grime was unique. Black. Oily. Nowhere else that he had been in Asia left that kind of grime. It came mostly off the train floors. As he stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray, he remembered what his feet looked like in thongs at the end of those long train trips - black.

About the Author

ีAuthor Photo

Gregory Pakis is an Australian author, film-maker, actor and wacky vlogger.

He has written the short story, The Lonely Australian of the Asian Night; the soon to be released horror-suspense novellas, The Regressor and He., and Memoir of a Suburban Hoe-Bo, which is partly an account of when he lived out of a van for ten years in Melbourne.

Gregory Pakis is also the writer / director of the feature films, The Garth Method (2005) and The Joe Manifesto (2013), which have won national and international awards and been distributed through Accent Entertainment, Label, Vanguard Cinema.

Gregory's more informal video projects are the feature documentaries, Garth Goes Hitch-Hiking (2007) and Garth Lives in a Van (2011) which have screened at film festivals in Australia.

More recently, he has created the comedy series, suBURPieS and his Wacky Vlog which can found on his socials.

Gregory has been featured in articles in newspapers, The Age, The Herald Sun, Beat Magazine, Inpress, FILMINK, and the Neos Kosmos. He has been interviewed on radio by the ABC, 3RRR, SYN FM, 3CR.

THE LONELY AUSTRALIAN OF THE ASIAN NIGHT - LINKS

AMAZON SALES LINK

https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B01N36UWYK

BOOK TRAILER

https://youtu.be/ZE0JH1EdGfc?si=-zroVl6rV8Sd3OyH

AUTHOR CHAT TO CAMERA VIDEO

https://youtu.be/uTd0-Y_FT7Y?si=dz0NzUnpoYUYoNmw

WEB PAGE (WITH MEDIA KIT)

https://www.gpak.org/books/thelonelyaustralianoftheasiannight

CONTACT

GREGORY PAKIS

info [at] gpak [dot] org

SITES

BOOKS https://www.gpak.org/

FILMS https://guerillafilmnite.com/

SOCIALS

Instagram / https://www.instagram.com/gregorypakis/

Tik Tok / https://www.tiktok.com/@gregorypakis

Facebook / https://www.facebook.com/gpakis

X / https://x.com/GPakis

The author will be awarding a $25 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner.

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

4 comments:

Goddess Fish Promotions said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Goddess Fish Promotions said...

We appreciate you featuring THE LONELY AUSTRALIAN OF THE ASIAN NIGHT. Thank you.

Lisabet Sarai said...

Welcome to Beyond Romance, Greg. Your excerpt is very vivid. I've spent a lot of time in Southeast Asia, so I definitely understand the demographics of your narrator.

Gregory Pakis said...

Thanks, Lisabet. Yeah it's a description of the dark side really but there is so many great lighthearted and fun things about southeast Asia but that's not very dramatic to describe hehe.

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