These shoes have tread the hard concrete alleys that is my Bangkok slum. Muddy truck potholes avoided in bad parts of the slum while mounds of broken glass and concrete scrambled over in worse parts.

They don't slip easily traversing rickety bridges over slowly moving creeks of rubbish. However sharp turns in a futsol game see them in the air and me on the ground. The padded upper cloth surface decreases the pain of keeping a dtakraw ball in the air.

They've occasionally scraped the baked dirt paths of a refugee camp where my friends live.

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w224/ramblin_/shoes04.jpg

The dark stains on these shoes are from regular contact with an oily motorbike gear lever. The folded in heels help when constantly slipping them on and off living in Thai culture. They're faded from spending time in the sun drying out after wet season floods.

They've felt soft grass a dozen times and even the grainy shore. These shoes have been worn but not yet worn out. There's still plenty of miles left in them.

Here's to meeting you on the journey.

Rod Sheard
UNOH Team
Bangkok