I worked with Noah in Vietnam years ago, before it became the destination it is today.

In 2003, a man he met in a Korean karaoke bar told him tour leading was a real job. He'd just been fired by the company in question. Noah applied anyway.

He led trips through Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, then the Trans-Siberian from St. Petersburg through Mongolia to Beijing. Often he was working it out as he went, while the group assumed he had it handled.

We cover a Sapa hike that ended with him carrying a passenger's soiled shorts in his backpack, getting lost near Lake Baikal and finding the fine line between confidence and bullshit, a near-drowning in a Halong Bay cave that a passenger followed up by asking about an insurance claim for his sunglasses, and fermented mare's milk he'd rather forget...

Noah now works in disability innova ...