I had no life experience zero common sense & had never eaten rice I suffered from debilitating anxiety was battling an eating disorder & had just had my heart broken I hoped by leaving to travel the world I would be able to heal myself Instead Lauren's travels were full of bad luck & near-death experiences Over the space of a year she was scammed & assaulted; lost teeth & swallowed a cockroach She fell into leech-infested rice paddies was caught up in a tsunami had the brakes of her motorbike fail & experienced a very unhappy ending during a massage in Thailand It was just as she was about to give up on travel when she stumbled across a handsome New Zealander with a love of challenges