Girl fools all with a 'virtual' tour of south-east Asia

Cape Town - You don't need a sturdy backpack and a good pair of hiking boots to go travel the world anymore. A mediocre camera and some basic photo editing skills will do just fine. 

This was made evident when a Dutch girl Zilla van den Born fooled everyone, including her own family, into thinking she was on an exotic break-away in tropical south-east Asia, while actually chilling at home in Amsterdam.

The 25-year old student decided to illustrate how social media has detached modern civilization from reality by creating a virtual tour, reports The Independent.

Zilla says her "goal was to prove how common and easy it is for people to distort reality. Everyone knows that pictures of models are manipulated, but we often overlook the fact that we manipulate reality also in our own lives."

She pulled out all the stops in order to make the experience look real. Here's how she faked snorkeling in the Indian Ocean:

Sjezus zeg, Zilla - Snorkelen from Zilla van den Born on Vimeo.

Zilla's Facebook friends were drooling over photos of her 'authentic Asian cuisine', all of which she made herself in Amsterdam. Take a look:

Sjezus zeg, Zilla - Koken from Zilla van den Born on Vimeo.

She especially created an Asian backdrop using old Christmas decorations to fool her friends and family on Skype. 

Sjezus zeg, Zilla - Skype from Zilla van den Born on Vimeo.

And when Zilla finally revealed her experiment to her family and friends, this is how they responded. You can bet that the older folk were especially shocked by the modern witchcraft that is social media!

Sjezus zeg, Zilla - de onthulling/reacties from Zilla van den Born on Vimeo.

Next time you feel jealous looking at other people's exiting Tweets, exotic Instagram pics and Facebook photos - keep Zilla van den Born's experiment in mind.