Everyone has their travel coincidence stories. It was quite common to meet someone on one side of a continent and then not knowing anything about their trip plans meet them by accident in a cafe 4000 km and 3 months later. However this can be explained by math. Even when my good friend Dave Strobl who had lunch with someone in India, parts way, and then meets the same traveller in a Mexican canteen 7 years later. Impressive but still borderline math dealing with people, habits, culture, guide books, etc.

Airlie beach
Snorkelling in the Great Barrier Reef
One coincidence, pushing the math, happened on my first trip to Australia. Getting off the midnight bus, Airlie beach was full, only a few hawkers were around, one from a cheap motel far outside the “beach” area, doubling as a hostel, so I went there. The next day I was talking to the group of guys at the next table (this hostel/motel was only 25% full). I asked him where he was from. He said I wouldn’t know it, as he thought I was from the UK. I told him to try me. He said Canada, I said that I know it well. He said Ottawa, Yea know it. He said a small village outside Ottawa called Navan. Yes know it - What street? Yes it was my street. Where on the street? Where else but next door! He was the son of my next door neighbour. I didn’t know him, as he moved from his mom’s house to his fathers while I was living in the UK. He said “oh you’re that guy who travels”. Freaked me out a bit.
Another strange one was when I was camping on the lawn of a boat club in Kariba, Zimbabwe. At the bar, that night, there was only one guy other than my group. He was Canadian, it was the first Canadian I talked to in a couple of months. He was from New Brunswick. It was his first trip abroad. He wasn’t a regular traveler, he fact he rarely left New Brunswick, he was visiting relatives. He didn’t know anyone in Ottawa. He knew only ONE guy in Montreal though. Yes I knew the guy too! Then when we talked briefly about the guy, he promptly told me a story about another guy who worked with this Montrealer previously. Yes, it was a story about me.
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