The top picture is the perfect route I’d charted out from home. HA!

Itinerant Itineraries: Here, I want you to see what I mean. is a post from: Backpacking Travel Stories from Asia

It’s been one year since we released the site!

Well technically, it wasn’t THIS site, it was Fmy401k.com, which is still live under that domain but currently on hiatus/under eventual-renovation (the name didn’t work for the direction we decided to go with this site, but it’s too cool a name to give up!).

But for all intents and purposes, one year ago today we started our website for the trip.

We had “come out” to all parents about the trip, to Ray’s work, and my job required only the typical two weeks’ notice so I’d not yet told them, but it was close enough to the end that if they did catch wind of it, it wasn’t the end of the (saving money) world. And so we could FINALLY officially announce our trip plans to our friends and the rest of the world, and we did it with middle fingers turned up loud to the gutter-bound economy, and to taking the prescribed safe and acceptable route for our lives.

We were pretty angsty in those days.

You would have been too, if your biggest, proudest life-project to date felt like your “dirty little secret”. I’m sure most anyone else who has planned a big long-term trip knows how it feels.

But things have changed since then, as has the itinerary, and the site. We’re not angsty anymore, we’re just happy. Really, really, really happy. And we wanted to wish the site a happy 1st bday and thank everyone who has supported it and us on this great journey.

There is still much to come!

Happy birthday, Fmy401k / TwoKidsAndADream / OperationBackpackAsia! is a post from: Backpacking Travel Stories from Asia

Construction and creation is an inspiring and inspired thing. It’s been an incredible past couple of weeks; Ray and I have really grown and changed so much just since being here.

It seems funny to be able to say that, to know that. Usually these things happen in more subtle ways in more drawn out timeframes. But sometimes, once in awhile, something comes along that is cataclysmic.

For all the wonder, intrigue, and many things I have absolutely enjoyed over the past 27 years and for which I am very grateful, I’ve had only two of those moments in my life that I would call truly, completely, and unequivocally life-changing: France. And Sjoerd. I was set up par for the course of becoming Me (thanks Mom!), but it was those two parts of my life that without which, I would not be who I Am.

These past few weeks at our beach hut have brought me my third life-altering experience: the Empire Building Kit. I know without a smidgen of a doubt that it was my gut decision on that day in our room in Donsol that said GO FOR IT that will be the ultimate cataclysmic reason I become who I Will Be. The journey Ray and I are taking by even attempting to build a lifestyle business is one that will not leave us unchanged, and we know it. It’s awesome to know that.

It’s true I bought the kit during its inaugural launch about a month and a half ago across the country. But it was here in El Nido that we sat down and started working our way through the emails I had compiled as we let our trip take precedence above all else for the few weeks following its purchase. So it was here, now, that even I, a notorious over-achiever full of ambition, drive, motivation and follow-through, realized I can still ratchet it up another level or twenty – and had a fantastic tool in front of me to lead the way down that elusive, mystery road of How.

I’ve always been interested in personal development, self-betterment, relationship building. Even though this kit is primarily about building a business, it’s inextricably encompassing of all those things too. Above all, it may well be what helps us turn this beautiful trip, which is reward enough in itself, into an ultimately profitable venture. Where will this ride take us!? We are so excited to see and enjoy whatever comes of it all.

We love and relish every moment we live and breathe.

And so our days have been a sort of kaleidoscope of beautiful, sparkling-water sunny days, where water laps at the shore just outside our window in the morning, deep enough to swim in and then retreats to ankle-deep in the evening. It’s been an odd merry-go-round of too-short-here and too-soon-gone friends from all around the world, whose faces have helped mark our days and weeks as different from each other in our long tenure here.

It’s been the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, my beloved hammock that hangs laughably 2 inches off the ground when I lay in it (but darn it I got my hammock on the porch!), our wonderful young 19-year-old Filipina caretaker of these 5 cottages who diligently sweeps our porch (and, mysteriously, the sand yard that connects us to the beach), always wearing a big smile and a pleasant air of happiness.

Through it all, my dear little black Porch Dog (known as Porch Dawgg on Facebook, due to “We don’t recognize that as a name” restrictions on sign-up), who has padded along beside us on the beach on the way to the Art Cafe, down the street to Squidoo’s or the little burger place, or snoozed on the porch beside us.

We’ve had many packets of tang, too many jars of Cheez Wiz – any time you get into plurals of jars of Cheez Wiz it’s become too many – so many packets of crackers, plenty of packs of ramen noodles, offset by our beloved cognac-peppersauce steaks on the beach, our scrambled egg, bacon and bread breakfasts, divine milky banana shakes, a couple of salami and olive platters, a few great salami pizzas (yesssssss we have actually tried the local food – the Filipino fare here just hasn’t been too memorable).

It’s been days of rum and chess and coconuts on the beach at sunset, a few beautifully rainy and stormy days that we sat on our porch and enjoyed the downpour, some of the best snorkeling in the world with comical clown fish and psychedelic underwater coral and plant life, waters of shocking blue and ridiculous clarity, a few fantastic scuba dives that put enough notches in our weight belts to nudge us into the realm where breathing underwater doesn’t seem so incredibly unnatural and stressful anymore, and we can actually sit back and enjoy the view.

In short, it’s been absolutely completely awesome. Just the time here that we’ve enjoyed, being sedentary, having friends, getting to know people in a way that develops naturally and slowly over time like it would in “normal life”; calm days punctuated by the occasional great, fun activity – all this alone would have been unforgettable. That our perusal of the EBK marked a significant turning point in our personal developments and undoubtedly our entrepreneurial ones catapults it all into truly remarkable. I am so glad that we got to experience a time like this in our lives. We look forward now with great excitement to the wilds of Mongolia.

But first, another reunion awaits.

Remember how I said France changed my life? Well it wasn’t just France the country; it was France the experience, the embodiment of which to me came in the form of one person: a Parisian fellow named Arnaud. It was just two days, eight long years ago. But I knew nothing would be the same again after those two days, and it hasn’t been.

Then he kissed my cheek and was gone, melted into the crowd at the Charles de Gaulle airport. I haven’t seen him since.

Well it just so happens, Arnaud is in Manila at the same time we’ll be passing back through.

And we thought the reunion with Kevin was interesting.

Goodbye, El Nido…It’s been truly life-changing! is a post from: Backpacking Travel Stories from Asia

Good humor is a necessity when traveling to foreign countries where you don’t speak the language. Sometimes you just don’t get the answer you want, or even an answer that relates to the question you asked. Here’s to those “Lost in Translation” moments.

Preface: I was trying to get some information about a hotel in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia:

Hi,

My girlfriend and I will be arriving in Ulaanbaatar in the morning on the 1st of June. I was wondering if you have any private rooms available for that time?

Also, I need to receive a package from the US do you know the most reliable way of shipping? I’ve heard that regular parcel post is fine, but it is best to have a person’s phone number on the package who speaks Mongolian.

Thanks so much, I look forward to hearing from you!
Ray Gomez

–
The only reason some people get lost in thought is because it’s unfamiliar territory.
– Paul Fix

Response:

Dear Paul Fix
Thanks for contacting us. We are able to keep double room for you on June 1st.How many nights would you like to stay?
Also,if you are interested to go o tour, please find tour gallery from attach file. Also, if you write us your flight and train number with time, we will pick up you from train station or airport by free of charge.
I am afraid we have no idea about shipping, because mongolia is land locked country as you known.We recieve the packages only by flight and train.Please explain more about how to get your package to here.
I look forward to hear from you soon.

Regards,
Enkhmaa

Something tells me that Mongolia should be pretty interesting…

Paul Fix is Lost in Translation is a post from: Backpacking Travel Stories from Asia

Yes, it’s happened again. Itinerant itineraries…gone REALLY wild, now! We were supposed to head back to Southeast Asia to finish off Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos still. Then Malaysia and Indonesia and a return to Singapore, which we’d enjoyed for a quick four days.

But like I said back in January/February, with a trip like this the way we want to do it, if one thing changes, it kind of changes everything down the line. No problem! You just deal with it when you get “down the line” and so here we’ve arrived!

I realized if we picked up again with with SE Asia after the Philippines as we’d planned to when we came out here, while it was not ideal due to having to cram all three countries (plus we were entertaining thoughts of Burma) into less than two months, it was also going to be hot and/or the rainy season, neither of which = the funnest of times.

But the main thing – it meant that Mongolia would get pushed pretty much out of the picture, never to be seen again? (I have no desire to see a Mongolian winter, thanks.) And the same thing with Tibet? Unacceptable!

So with some clever (and somewhat crazy, since we were very much in “SE Asia mode”) re-arranging, we have revised things once again. Incidentally, this basically puts us right back “on track” with my original, climatically-optimized itinerary. We get more time in SE Asia when we do make it there, and at the BEST time of the year instead of the worst. Everybody wins.

This is by no means set in stone or necessarily how long we’ll decide to stay in each place. If things change, either for reasons within or out of our control, we’ll happily adjust.

But for those who were interested, this is our working plan for an itinerary for now:

June 1-July 21 (51 days) Mongolia

July 22-Aug 8 (3 weeks) Sjoerd Thailand

Aug 8-Aug 28 (3 weeks) Tibet

Aug 28-Nov 28 (3 months) China (and Tibet, Hong Kong and Taiwan)

Nov 28-Dec 15 (2 weeks) S Korea

Dec 15-March 15 (3 months) Japan Ski season
March 15-April 15 (1 month) Japan travel
April 15-May 15 (1 month) RT JPN-KTM-JPN Nepal Bhote Kosi River, Mount Everest Base Camp
May 15-July 15 (2 mos) Japan travel

July 15-Aug 15 (1 month) Malaysia dive and travel
Aug 15-Sept 15 (1 month) Indonesia dive and travel

~Sept 15-Oct 10 (1 month) Vietnam
~Oct 10-Oct 20 (10 days) Cambodia
~Oct 20-Nov 20 (1 month) Laos
~Nov 20-Dec 10 (3 weeks) Burma

Dec 10 – Mar 10 (3 mos Summer) NZ live/work
Mar 10-June 10 (3 mos Fall) NZ Travel
June 10-Sept 10 (3 mos Winter) NZ Ski

Sep 1-Mar 1 (6 mos Spring/Summer) Work Aust
Mar 1 – Sep 1 (6 mos Fall/Winter) Travel Aus

Which brings me to my second point, if you notice that little snippet there right after Mongolia…that’s right, our first friend from Home!! (Well, kinda from home. From our Past life, anyway).

Sjoerd, for those of you who might not know, is my ex-boyfriend (yes yes “ooga booga”, ex-boyfriend!), still and always best friend. He’s from the Netherlands, and I met him back in college in 2002 when he studied abroad at my school for a semester. Our relationship traversed some 3 continents and 4 countries together in the 4 years we were together, and no mere breakup could threaten our bond. Ray knew Sjoerd came as part of the territory when we got together 3 1/2 years ago, but anyway it wasn’t too hard for them to strike up an easy and genuine friendship when I introduced them, first through email and then months later when Sjoerd came to stay with us in Tucson for three weeks. Fantastic, open-minded guys, the two of them are! I am a truly fortunate individual to have both of them in my life.

I last saw Sjoerd when he visited Tucson in Dec 08; it had been two years at that point since I’d last seen him when we left New Zealand. We decided despite the trip coming up and the inherent uncertainties involved in that, not to mention his own life which had involved a lot of travel and being nomadic, two years had been too long to not see each other again, and to not at least have a working plan to see each other again was too much to ask. So we peered as far as we could into that black tunnel of the unknown future, and saw an opportunity. Sjoerd’s 30th birthday. Done.

Things always come up it seems, plans don’t work out, yadda yadda yadda. I knew it would be a possibility, if not a likelihood.

But against all monetary and time-constrained odds, my wonderful friend has kept his promise and is headed our way soon for three weeks or so, to allow me to be with him and us to be the ones to help him ring in that milestone birthday. Kevin was close, as far as being a friend from “home”, but not quite. This’ll be our first dedicated Visit from someone since we’ve been on the road (nearly 10 months now!). Very awesome.

I can’t wait to see him – we had so much fun when he visited us before!

New Plans: We’re goin to MONGOLIA!!!! is a post from: Backpacking Travel Stories from Asia

I’ll tell you right now, it isn’t a thousands-of-dollars product, but it isn’t a $5 one either. It’s one of those rare (especially internet-) things that you really do pay for value. No mark-up. Fair price. If you’re not serious about seriously rocking your world, you won’t buy it. If you are serious about it, you will – and you’d do it again in a heartbeat.

We are some of the cheapest (er, I mean thriftiest) people you’ll ever meet; we made the investment and we haven’t regretted it for a second.

The kit is available for purchase TODAY from 9am PST / 12pm EST for 24 HRS ONLY

Click on the picture below to see what the Empire Building Kit is made of and see if you’re up for building your own Empire, and rockin the world with us.

[Total disclosure: if you buy your kit through our link, we get a little travel money from Chris as thanks for sending you to his store. And we then drink a beer in your honor and send you a postcard from Asia.]

Happy building and welcome to the club!

The Second Launch of the Empire Building Kit is Here! is a post from: Backpacking Travel Stories from Asia

I know why, though.

It’s because I realized when I bought this thing and started going through the interviews, I started realizing what an incredible bunch of people there are out there. People who really want to do something, and actually get off their ass and do it. And I realized as I read through my kit, with a sort of dawning sensation that crept over me slowly until I realized what the strange feeling was…I had become one of those people. And I just felt…different. I felt like I had just become who I was meant to be.

The best is yet to come, production-wise, but something clicked for me and I knew. I was going to start moving forward, big time. And so were all the other people who had bought this kit on that same day that I had and were reading those case studies diligently and will be building their own empires too, right along with me for the next 365 days.

I feel excited about this launch, and any others that may come later, because I know that with the next wave of people who purchase the Empire Building Kit, it’s not a wave of people who are just buying some product of someone else’s design and profit and has no bearing on me whatsoever.

It’s a wave of people who are going to become my contemporaries, my colleagues, my collaborators. They are going to be my friends, my supporters, my inspirations to go far and do big things, because that’s what they’re going to be doing too. Purposefully. And with dedication, commitment and follow-through.

I am STOKED!

I am sure a few people I already know from my “past life” (pre-EBK) share my passion, drive, and interest to build something full of Awesome. I’m sure someone else out there that I already know and who is reading this right now could take this Empire Building Kit and run with it as far as I will. I’m posting this because I’m trying to find you.

I absolutely, positively only want people who definitely want to be here and do this thing with me, with all of us who have invested in this kit and are doing this thing for real. If you think you could be someone who wants to go far and do big things, then keep reading and TELL ME ABOUT IT because I want to know you’re out there.

Chris calls it building a small army; I thought that was just a clever marketing term…but I get it now. I am officially on a mission to find the best and most driven people to join forces with, and I’ll find them out here in the world at large but if it’s any of you, my friends that I already know (and love!), then all the better. Leave a comment, send me a message on Facebook or an email, or pick up your copy of the kit tomorrow through our link and start building your empire and let me know that way. But get in contact with me. I want to know who I can build with.

As for the nitty gritty of the big Kahuna itself that started all these gears turning and will be ready to go tomorrow, the EBK: The Empire Building Kit goes on sale tomorrow. I’m promoting it because I like it. A lot.

So tomorrow, I will have a live link for this fantastic kit. Be ready for it. There’s been a waiting list for the kit ever since he closed the order form weeks ago, but the Empire Building Kit will be on sale for 24 hours only.

How to Build a Meaningful Lifestyle Business in One Year by Doing One Thing Every Day

How does one woman make $105,000 a year by walking dogs?

How does one guy make more than $65,000 by hosting murder mystery parties?

The EBK is everything you need to create your own empire. It takes hard work, persistence, and the right sequence of decisions – but the good news is that it’s not that difficult.

I will get the link to the kit up here the minute the kit is available at:

From that time, you’ll only have 24 hours to make the purchase if you’re going to. So think it over, and be ready tomorrow. Because I’ll be sitting here excitedly wondering if anyone I know is going to join us and give it a try.

Go big or go home!

See you tomorrow.

[Update 5/18: The kit is live!]

Click on the picture below to see what the Empire Building Kit is made of and see if you’re up for building your own Empire, and rockin the world with us.

[Total disclosure: if you buy your kit through our link, we get a little travel money from Chris as thanks for sending you to his store. And we then drink a beer in your honor and send you a postcard from Asia.]

Happy building and welcome to the club!

Time to Decide if the Empire Building Kit is Right For You is a post from: Backpacking Travel Stories from Asia

Every time I read my daily emails, I get more and more energized to move and shake my world, and rock the world of others.

I’m taking measurable steps towards success, and even though my work and business is conducted from the porch of a beach hut on a beautiful island in the Philippines, I can feel that I am on my way to creating a sustainable business for myself doing what I love to do, while genuinely helping others because of it.

This was exactly what the EBK promised to do, and it delivers.

Conventional wisdom would have you believe that my current life is impossible, or even irresponsible. Conventional practice says I should be in a fluorescent-lit cubicle for 8.5 hours a day, not cavorting and frolicking on some white-sand tropical beach. I should commute in traffic for an additional 2 hours a day, and arrive home in the evening mentally beat up and with just enough brain power left to watch some tv and collapse into bed to start it all over again early the next morning.

I am supposed to have to try to find pockets of time in my busy schedule to try to fit in my passions and fun-time activities, not find pockets of time in my very relaxed schedule of fun-time and passions to fit in the work.

I would have no time or energy to dedicate to my hobbies or develop new ones, no time to see the world and discover new ways of thinking or doing things, no time to launch big projects out of pure interest and excitement. According to conventional wisdom, this would somehow make me a responsible contributing member of society, and “working my way up” in life.

Oops. I never was very good with that whole “conventional” thing.

Instead, this month we’ve seen locals make birds’ nest soup, shared a rivalry over Porch Dawgg with our neighboring Australians, dined with an incredible Maltese and Australian couple and been invited to come visit them where they live in Brunei, and been served a delicious cognac-pepper sauce steak dinner on the beach by a very sweet Filipino transvestite almost daily for a mere $6.

We spent a week enjoying the company of Norwegians that we met on tiger safari in India three months ago, and had a bonfire fish fry on the beach under the stars and palm trees with new Finnish friends that we met scuba diving and their incredibly musically-talented Austrian beach hut neighbor. I never knew a guitar and a ukelele could sound so good.

Ironically, all I really want to do is sit on my computer and work all day but all this great stuff just keeps happening.

I’m not being facetious either. I really do just want to sit around and work; that’s part of the reason we’ve parked ourselves here for so long – so we could have a beautiful setting while we work hard.

People still think we’re on some sort of vacation. Every week I get at least one email, Facebook comment, or someone here asking how we’re on such a long “vacation”, sometimes almost accusatorily, like, why aren’t you at work by now? Shouldn’t you be doing something…productive? Who are you to be off galavanting indefinitely?

We tell them we’re not on “vacation”, that we’re working but they just say “ok, yeah yeah. Whatever. You’re having way too much fun for this to be work. Keep telling yourself it’s not vacation, yeah ‘ok’.”

But vacation means vacating from something, vacating your life for a while, taking a break from your work and “real life”, to get away from it all. Work is what you have to do to make money, to support yourself. That’s not fun, that’s just what you have to do. And you want to run away from it whenever you can.

But that’s just it…the work we’re doing isn’t work to us. The work is just as fun as all the “fun” stuff. Even when we were saving for the trip, while it certainly had some challenges – at one point if you had said “Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches” to Ray, he probably would have screamed – even that hard work was fun work.

The trick was we knew we were working TOWARDS something. Life always has a deeper level to it when you’re working towards something. Sure planning the trip financially and practically sometimes was work and a lot of it, but it was never “hard” work, because it was enjoyable.

The same is true now that we’re actually on the trip. Sure being on the trip is loads of fun and my mind isn’t tied up in knots and my energy isn’t drained, but it’s never just frivolous time spent dodging and avoiding “real life”. Nor is it a freakishly long “vacation” from the work necessary to contribute to society and to make money to support myself.

I just figure that while work is certainly necessary, it needn’t be a necessary “evil”. And I’m prepared to back that up.

And so as we enjoy our lives and our trip, every day, we are working towards something, towards a way to continue doing all that we love and discover new things we love to do all the time, and make enough money to keep on doing it during and after the trip.

This is where the EBK comes in. Making an income somehow from this trip had been my general, vague intention all along with this trip and life beyond. The EBK helps articulate and solidify a general direction into a plan and course of action. It’s frickin genius. I’ve already proven to myself (and to others – though to be frank, I don’t really care about proving anything to anyone else and neither should you) that You can do anything you can dream up, if you can turn it into a plan. But the EBK is helping to elevate even my dreams into more than they ever would have been.

I figured after the trip, I could write a book about the journey and the experience. It could take a number of forms: how-to, travel narrative, destination pieces, whatever. I figured maybe I’d be so inspired I’d pen some fantastic piece and “hit it big”, or at the least I could churn out enough on enough different topics to bring in an adequate cumulative income to get by satisfactorily.

It wasn’t a bad plan. But reading through the EBK has opened my mind even more.

Apparently, as evidenced by the 15 case studies that I now have at my fingertips, I could quite feasibly make a VERY GOOD income, while ON the trip and by doing what I was doing anyway – with some purposeful tweaks and arrangements, offered and executed in bite-sized portions. No excuses. Not even for someone on a massive backpacking trip who doesn’t want to miss a moment or a molecule of it. Just a little bit at a time.

It’s not “get rich overnight”; it’s build a sustainable business model, doing what I love naturally. Not labor for hours and hours and feel stressed and overwhelmed and overworked; have fun building something great, little by little, and benefiting from it as I simultaneously benefit others. What’s not to love??

It’s hard to tear ourselves away from this “work”, it’s really that awesome!

The Empire Building Kit is really well done. The 15 people in the case studies are all normal people who make a living doing what they love because they figured out how to model it into a business and they have some really great advice.

“Ok but define ‘making a living,’” you say?

The case studies are all from people who are making $50,000-$150,000 a year in net income and have no more than three employees, if any.

By looking at their stories, hearing their advice, their mistakes, and their own step-by-step processes to get them from where they were to where they are, you can see not only that it is quite feasible but you can begin to see how you can do a similar thing in your own life, whatever your passion.

The daily emails (365 steps, but only one a day) highlight one by one the important points of each interview and case study, asking the right questions to get you thinking about how you can apply each lesson to your individual situation. The emails also serve as a guide dog to lead you through the sea of information and point out what to do first and what to focus on or not waste time on as you go along.

I’ve been amazed at how well the kit is geared to really enable you to get information from every person that will give your own ideas a jumpstart. Maybe the only thing I’ve been even more surprised and impressed by is how many new and bigger ideas of my own that have come up just from the blast I’ve had going through this kit.

I can feel my mind stretching and bending, growing and being bigger and better. I hadn’t even dreamt of doing something big like this, starting RIGHT NOW, but armed with this baby I’ve realized it’s just a matter of exactly my own motto that I used as the basis for this incredible trip: You can do anything you can dream up, if you can turn it into a plan.

So go big or go home!

I have some rough ideas already about the direction I want to go with this, and many more coming every day; I feel like I’m only just getting started on the brainstorming, but to be honest the ball is already rolling.

I’ve unofficially begun a sort of consulting business for people who have seen what we’re doing and want to do it too. I’ve always gotten the “Huh? How are you doing this?” (since it’s just a long vacation, after all. ;)) But now I’m starting to get a lot of “How are you doing this? No, really. HOW do you do it, because I want to do it too and I’m ready to take action.”

It’s life-changing for them and invigorating for me to be able to help someone feel like they’re, maybe for the first time in their lives, doing what they REALLY want to do.

I never thought I’d be a businessperson. I still don’t think I will be, really. I think I’ll go on just doing what I do – petting tigers, rafting rapids, seeing sights, visiting new countries, trying new food, learning new languages, making new and interesting friends. I’ll just make room in there for a new dream, too. That ultimate dream. The EBK gives me the “plan” I needed to turn the dream into reality: doing all that awesome stuff…and making a good living doing it.

I’ll continue to document my journey through this entrepreneurial world in addition to the Asian world as we go; the two journeys are inseparable for me and Ray. My every fiber wants to tell you about how awesome the material in this kit is and the ideas it sparks; I encourage you to check it out and give it a try for yourself if you want to build something out of your passion that will sustain you as well or better than the typical 9-5 model.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with a 9-5 job or lifestyle; I actually really enjoyed it when I was saving up for my trip. Again, the trick is just to be sure you’re doing it with purpose.

If your 9-5 job and lifestyle is what you want most to be doing and you are utterly fulfilled in your life, then that’s great. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that!

But if you’re just doing it because that’s what you’re “supposed” to do or think that’s the only option in life…You’re an adult now. Stop letting other people tell you what you’re “supposed” to do. There ARE other options. Countless ones, and none of them require being lucky, rich, previously experienced, or even all that brave.

They do require a plan and a reasoned course of action. They do require purpose and motivation. The EBK can help you cultivate them. So can I.

If you’re interested in travel, I can and will help you.

If you’re interested in anything else, the EBK can and will help you.

I’ll continue reviewing and talking about the EBK as we go along. For now, if your ears are already perked like mine were, I wanted to give you a heads-up that:

Chris will make his Empire Building Kit available for purchase again, day after tomorrow on May 18th.

More details tomorrow.

[Update 5/18: The kit is live!]

Click on the picture below to see what the Empire Building Kit is made of and see if you’re up for building your own Empire, and rockin the world with us.

[Total disclosure: if you buy your kit through our link, we get a little travel money from Chris as thanks for sending you to his store. And we then drink a beer in your honor and send you a postcard from Asia.]

Happy building and welcome to the club!

Empire Building from a Beach Hut: What’s this all about? is a post from: Backpacking Travel Stories from Asia

Yeah well I’m gonna be one of them.

I’ll spare you the caption though.

So I’m comin atcha from our beloved beach hut in El Nido, the Philippines! We have been at the same time both totally slammed and completely leisurely the past three and a half weeks: boat rides, snorkel trips, colorful fish and coral like you wouldn’t believe, awesome new friends, visits from old friends we met on tiger safari in India back in February, writing and selling articles, and more. As always, I have so many stories spinning around in my head that I want to write about. I still have to put pen to paper (finger to keyboard, rather) about INDIA for crying out loud. The time will come.

But recently we have taken on a new task. LIFE.

Not planning life. Not trying to catch up with life. Not even just living day to day life. But all three of those, at once. I’ve always been a pretty efficient human being, but this is something I’ve never experienced. It’s been awesome. To have the TIME and ENERGY to do all those things…at ONCE!? I feel fulfilled and satisfied and excited and full of so much potential energy and enthusiasm – that I’ll actually be able to do something with – it is practically firing out of my fingertips like lightning bolts.

We are nine months into the trip now. 9 months!

It only now feels like we’ve gotten our feet back under us from all the days of our two years’ preparation, working, saving, fretting, planning, plotting, getting shots, buying gear, setting up websites, packing, saying goodbye, mentally preparing, leaving the 9-5 steady-paycheck world and diving into the wonderful, calm, relaxing world of…INDIA!?!? (pretty bad when THAT’S relaxing!) and this bad-ass 3-year backpacking trip.

Now that my head has stopped spinning, I feel like I’ve learned so much about my life and the possibilities for my life in the past three weeks that we’ve been blissfully stationary here at our beach hut in El Nido. The last nine months have been incredible, so incredible we couldn’t even keep up with it in our own heads let alone on the site – which, as I stated before, to us is half the trip. This was a much-needed break to let it all settle, to stop the onslaught of amazing for just a little while and breathe.

Now big things are starting to happen.

In this time, for doing so little, we’ve still done so much. We’ve spent so many wonderful days on our porch. I read a whole book from my hammock. We’ve played a lot of chess – enough that Ray’s even starting to win again!

We’ve wandered the town, befriended the locals, toured the islands, hung out with friends new and old alike. We’ve established rituals: I move out to the hammock when the power shuts off at 6a and the room starts getting toasty by 9a or so. Then we’ll head over to Art Cafe to use their internet, which runs despite the power outage, catch up on web-stuff and eat the tastiest scrambled eggs, bacon, white bread with butter and banana milkshake meal in Asia. Then back to the porch and back to work and leisure (one in the same, nowadays!).

We’ve been able to catch up on so much house-keeping stuff that has built up over the past 3/4 of a year that we’ve been on the go. I – once again – got all our bank statements and accounts sorted out (had done it just before the Mac died and took all my work with it), photos sorted and backed up, miscellaneous files sorted or deleted, that sort of thing.

And a big thing: I jump-started my professional freelance career in a major and official way, authoring a post on current blogging trends, drawn largely from the experience I’ve had and what I’ve observed from our efforts setting up and manning this website.

For altogether one day’s work from my beach hut porch looking at that view you see above (and stopping every hour or so to go frolic in it, drink some rum from the coconut Ray had hacked open with his pocket knife, play some chess, etc.)…I sold my first article for not just supplemental pocket change, but enough to – quite literally – “pay the rent”.

It was such a rush; one article, which I had ENJOYED writing, paid for our beach hut for the two weeks we’d been here so far. Professionally, I have achieved what I aspired to: live life on my terms, by my timeclock, in my most preferred and perfect setting with my most preferred and perfect company…and make money to keep doing it.

For now that was just a taster. I’m not sure yet if that particular gig will be a permanent one, but it doesn’t matter. I’d learned what I needed to: With the right combination of creativity, resourcefulness, tenacity, and skill, there really is money to be made by doing what you love. And it doesn’t have to be a pain in the ass; it can be awesome.

That doesn’t mean it doesn’t still take work. It means that lucrative work can be enjoyable, and done the way you want to do it, where you want to do it, when you want to do it. I’ve always been a fan of the quote “Find something you love to do and you’ll never have to work a day in your life”.

But maybe the biggest thing of all this wondrous time living and breathing beach hut life is this.

About a month ago when we were in Donsol, as I stood in our room, sopping wet between whale shark swims, I held our internet-phone in hand, one leg up in the air, body bent over at an 83.7 degree angle, pinky in the air and tinfoil hat on my head, trying to will our little connection to just stay connected for a few more uninterrupted minutes before I dashed back outside to the whale sharks. Our new fellow-blogger friend Chris from The Art of Nonconformity, whom we had met at one of his meetups when he was passing through Bangkok, had released his “Empire Building Kit” for his strictly 24-hour launch and I had moments before the time was up.

I had hemmed and hawed over it for days. I’d even solicited the last-minute objective advice of Ray’s coworker who happened to be online at the crucial moment (I’m lookin at you, Andre!) to see what he thought I should do. I’m a salesperson; I know about tricks and techniques like urgency. I’m a backpacker; $249 is a LOT of money for someone who for the past 2.5 years thinks of money and instantly computes “$5 = 5 beers on a beach in Thailand,” “$12 = a night in a beach hut in Thailand”, or “$60 = a day petting 4 different sizes of tigers, from itty bitty adorable to OMFG I’M GOING TO DIE!!!”

But since meeting Chris in Bangkok, I’ve read up on and followed along with more of what he writes and does. I like what he has to say and how he says it. I liked that he is genuine and kind and honest. I liked that I have found at least one nugget of value in every single post of his that I’ve read on his site. (His site is at www.chrisguillebeau.com, check it out for yourself; I’ll bet he can give you some ideas and inspiration too no matter what your interest).

I’ve been poised to start turning my lifestyle and interests into a sustainable business model since Ray and I hatched the idea for this dual-layered trip. When Chris said that he was releasing a product about just that, and that it was his biggest project of the year (um this is coming from a guy who, “Among other projects” is “on a five-year personal quest to visit every country in the world” by the time he turns 35 in three more years and is at 125/192 right now – so he knows big projects) and gave an indication how much heart, soul and time he had put into it and how others in the industry – and even those who were clearly going to be buying it – were advising him to be sure to charge ENOUGH for it rather than to dial it down (and suggesting figures in the hundreds, at that), it perked my ears.

What I liked about it is that he breaks it down into 365 steps of doing one thing every day for a year to get there. I have time, on this trip, but often more in chunks than consistently. Still, even I can do one small thing every day. I bought the kit.

More tomorrow.

[Update 5/18: The kit is live!]

Click on the picture below to see what the Empire Building Kit is made of and see if you’re up for building your own Empire, and rockin the world with us.

[Total disclosure: if you buy your kit through our link, we get a little travel money from Chris as thanks for sending you to his store. And we then drink a beer in your honor and send you a postcard from Asia.]

Happy building and welcome to the club!

Building an Empire from a Beach Hut is a post from: Backpacking Travel Stories from Asia

Drinks and food were ordered and conversation commenced. It was so nice to be able to talk freely about our trip to people who are interested. Sure, people are interested in your travels, but not always the nitty gritties. That’s why travelers like Kasper, Heather and Maika (the Fijian guy), Maaike (the Dutch girl), Cathal and Amanda, Kristin and Bjorn, Jodi, Aye, Lauren and Jackie and Ange and J, are so great. They can relate to your experiences and give incredible advice (thanks Jodi: I’m laying on my bed looking out the window at a beautiful blue water, white sandy beach in El Nido as I type this).

The exchange between fellow travelers is like nothing else I’ve experienced. You have a chance to meet other similar cultures within the traveler niche, and take a lasting friendship away from it. I have left many dinners saying “Wow, that is so awesome we got to hang out with them!” and I’ve been excited so many times for our trip just by talking to other travelers.

When we find somebody we really connect with it’s invigorating. For me it is a healthy recharge for my own experiences. My eyes widen every time I hear a story about a crazy bus ride because I can relate. I can tell a crazy story about an insane boat ride and I get the same wide-eyed expressions back. There is a level of understanding in the details, and that’s what makes it incredible. Really, for me, it’s like extreme conversation. A fellow traveler can say they were on a bus from Manali to Leh and I will instantly be able to envision a packed bus, bumpy road, amazing scenery, high altitude, and slight motion sickness. It’s funny because it doesn’t require any thought, you just relive that experience because you were there.

When you connect with those special travelers, the result is something you won’t forget. I still remember gasping for air when I was climbing the steep Himalayan mountainside in Leh with Kasper, becoming bug-eyed with Cathal and Amanda or Kristin and Bjorn straining to experience the much-celebrated “99.99% chance of seeing wild tigers” in Bandhavgar (epic fail Lonely Planet), sitting 100 feet from the rowdy Khao San road conversing with Jodi and Aye over a pitcher of beer,  talking about the “gentle giants” at our beachside restaurant with J and Ange, or having a laugh with the Mayor of Donsol’s grandson and crew with Jackie and Lauren. The scenery set is always different, and the exchange is always unforgettable.

Following our dinner meetup, Mark and Tiiu invited us on their chartered boat the next day and G and I agreed without hesitation. This is the way it is with fellow travelers: you meet up, click, and continue having an awesome shared experience. We had a delicious jackfish, rice, and salad lunch on one of the many neighboring islands around El Nido, snorkeled 4 amazing sites, and shared more travel stories. The tall palm trees, sharp steep mountain sides, and white sandy beaches all made it a beautifully unique experience.

Before saying goodbye to Mark and Tiiu, and thanking them so many times for their amazing generosity, we decided that we’ll just have to make an addition to our trip. Their home in Brunei is now on our map, and we both look forward to seeing them again soon.

So, another awesome experience down. We had exchanged some great stories, drank some good drinks, and snorkeled some incredible reefs. I feel so lucky to meet people like Tiiu and Mark, spend some time getting to know them, and feeling grateful for that experience. They are like so many of our great travel friends. So, to all of you (Kasper, Heather and Maika (the Fijian), Maaike (the Dutch girl), Kristin and Bjorn, Cathal and Amanda, Jodi and Aye, Lauren, Jackie, Ange, J, and now Tiiu and Mark) thank you for sharing your time with us and helping to make our experience unforgettable. Hanging out with you is always a highlight of our trip.

Exciting times Meeting new People is a post from: Backpacking Travel Stories from Asia

I have a confession to make.

So we’re on this trip and yeah we do a lot of cool stuff and we’re livin large with our oceanfront beach hut at the moment. It’s the stuff of a classy millionaire’s dreams. But there’s a flip side to it.

We’re not millionaires (or classy). Ray and I are actually just really, really ghetto I mean resourceful.

To live the good life with oceanfront porches and massages and scuba trips, we do a few things to counterbalance the expenses. We eat Ramen noodles at night (and you thought you outgrow that after college!).

Ok, actually we just eat whatever’s around and cheap.

We don’t go out on the town – we get a bottle of local rum for like a buck and a half and drink it out of…that’s right, our hotpot. (Afterwards, we’ll go cook our Ramen noodles in it).

We amuse ourselves with the free things. Like giant streetside fish in aquariums. For hours.

Maybe best of all, we whore ourselves out to the whims of our family, coworkers, strangers, exes, friends, enemies, and hockey teammates (which can prove to be worse than enemies on this one!) and accept “dares” to eat, drink, or otherwise subject ourselves to all sorts of evil and disgusting things all in the name of earning an extra buck to keep this dream interesting, unconventional, and chuggin along for as long as we can. That’s how we ended up with those scorpions in our mouths in Bangkok. Totally disgusting. But for 35 bucks? Totally worth it.

Putting together the funding for a big ass trip like this gets you looking in every corner and under every rock that you can to scrounge up a bit more cash. After all, once you wrap your head around the idea that six bucks could be either a crappy fast food meal back home that makes you fat and gives you zits, or it can be an hour-long full-body massage on the beach in the Philippines, money takes on a whole new meaning. You get more resourceful.

Well when I logged into my account the other day to download our statements for the trip so far and make sure we’ve been as cheap resourceful as we need to be to make it eventually to Mongolia and beyond, I saw a great opportunity that is good not just for us, but for others too and I wanted to share it.

The bank Ray and I use – and love, ING, is offering a promo until April 30th where if we refer a friend to open an account with a deposit of $250, YOU get a free 25 bucks as a welcome bonus added to your account and WE get a free 20 bucks (double what we normally would get) put in ours for referring you. We signed up for ING more than a year ago when we consulted our accountant friend Andrew for a good place to put our trip savings and got the same deal when we signed up through his referral. It all went through as promised, so we know ING is good for it on both ends. Some things really are that simple. We have since made ING our primary bank and have been very, very happy with them.

The account – you can choose checking, savings, or both; we use both and have been very happy with it – is free to open, maintain, close, transfer fees to and from, dance the funky chicken with, etc. There’s no catch. It is all done online and is very safe and secure, and we can – and do – personally vouch for it with great enthusiasm and satisfaction.

We each have 50 referrals we can give out – so this chance could be HUGE for us! $2,000 would effectively “buy us a country” (and save us from eating a LOT of scorpions).

You’ve got nothing to lose, 25 bucks to make, and 20 bucks to give to us without spending anything. It’s a good deal for you and a good deal for us. If we can make use of all our referrals by the 30th, we can fundraise $2,000 for our trip without anyone having to pay out a cent, and in fact our friends, you guys, can make some money yourselves. ING will deposit the bonus when you sign up for the account and you can withdraw it (and close your account if you wish, though I think you’ll end up liking it as much as we have) after 30 days. If you’d do this, we’d consider it basically a donation to our trip and would be most grateful! Please no more scorpions?

You get 25 bucks and we get 20 bucks. See, you CAN make the Man work for you, if you know where to look (or if you’re desperate to avoid putting any more arachnids fried in soy sauce in your mouth)!

Please leave a comment or shoot us a message right away if you’d be willing to help us out before the 30th! You have to let me know before you go signing up though so I can send you the actual referral email or else no one gets any bonuses and we’re back to eating scorpions. If we do manage to make some funds from this, I promise to eat something disgusting for everyone who signs up.

Will Do Strange Things for Travel Funds is a post from: Backpacking Travel Stories from Asia

2) You had no idea there were 10 different remakes of Mariah Carey’s Hero.

3) You’ve never been woken up at 2am by beach Karaoke.

4) You never knew “Malling” was a verb.

5) You never knew that a sunny-side-up egg was considered a condiment.

6) You didn’t know Cheez Wiz and crackers were part of a staple diet. 7) You had no idea that a ‘comfortable van’ is actually a packed-like-sardines van with A/C. 8) You operated under the assumption that ATMs existed in every high tourist-traffic location. 9) You had no idea people were buried in apartment-sized buildings complete with A/C, kitchens, and flushing toilets.

10) You’ve never been invited to the mayor’s house for beer.

Top 10 ways to know you’ve never backpacked in the Philippines is a post from: Backpacking Travel Stories from Asia

I am on a mission. I don’t know, after hours of online researching and planning and attempts at reserving, if this will be a completed mission, but regardless I know it’s going to be one SERIOUSLY fun one to try.

I have in my head this PERFECT bamboo or otherwise-native wood and thatch or grass beach hut. It’s got a covered porch, with a bamboo-ish railing, wooden floor, a couple of wooden chairs and a little table, and a hammock. It stands on a white-sand beach, and when I walk down the three steps from the porch, I am immediately standing on said stand, mere yards from the crystal-clear turquoise ocean. There are palm trees shading my little hut, which makes the lack of air condition totally fine (air conditioning would seem out of place anyway). It has its own bathroom but no hot water, because that too would seem out of place. It is safe, secure, run by a lovely little family, and I can run out periodically throughout the day to go for a nice snorkel right off the shore and see all kinds of colorful fish and coral. It is also cheap, costing about $12-20 a day ideally, but certainly no more than $35. The picture above is a place we saw on Ticao Island during our scuba dive trip to Manta Bowl last week. It’s not quite, but very close to what I have in mind.

By day we can swim, or lounge, or read, or write, or catch up on “work” stuff, or work on opportunities to write some articles, sell some pictures, do some programming to make some money to keep the dream alive. Or on an active day we can take a boat trip to some surrounding islands and snorkel sites, do some kayaking, maybe a small hike, or a few scuba dives. By night we can drink some 50 cent beers on the beach or around the table with our new friends. We can befriend the local people and animals alike. Watch the occasional – or typical – episode of 24 before bed. We can get up the next day and do it all over again and again and again and know this is our life, this is going to be our life, for at least the next month. And then when we are sun-soaked and waterlogged, we’ll finally pack up our backpacks and hit the road again – ready and refreshed for the next big bout of whirlwind sight-seeing, adventuring, and exploring.

I am about 98% certain this fantasy is out there and my beach hut with porch and hammock right on white-sand and fish-filled turquoise-watered beach exists. Tonight we even bought the hammocks just to make sure we’ve done our part to ensure perfection. Even if my perfect beach hut doesn’t exist or if it does but not in El Nido, I am so excited for the opportunity to find out. What I know El Nido DOES offer is ridiculously gorgeous beach scenery, kayak trips, snorkeling, scuba diving, fishes, seafood, white sand, turquoise waters, boat trips, windsurfing, and a chance to catch up with myself after a whole lot of BAM BAM BAM action and excitement and intrigue that we have been so fortunate to experience these past 8 1/2 months traveling.

I absolutely, positively, cannot wait. Even the 6-8 hour bumpy, crowded van ride to get there sounds fantastic. I know I’ll be bumping along towards a dream, and I cannot wait for the chance to do so. Love this life!!!

We’re looking forward to the chance to avoid sun poisoning by interspersing snorkel and frolic time with chill time to get caught up on all our housekeeping stuff. We’ll be posting and responding to comments here again soon, hopefully from our porch and hammocks! Talk to you then! El Nido, HERE WE COME!!!

Counting the minutes til El Nido! No not El Nino, El NIDO!!! is a post from: Backpacking Travel Stories from Asia

POLKA-DOTTED SHARKS!!! Don’t TELL me God doesn’t have a sense of humor (or some serious drugs). They are absolutely awesome and even more incredible in person than I’d imagined – and I’ve been looking forward to this for YEARS!!! I’ll never forget the first moment I jumped in the water, mask and snorkel on, and saw my first one…I knew it was there, and I knew it was harmless…but out of the murky, plankton-rich darkness of the deep Philippine sea…a massive, hulking, motionless shadow, and my heart clutched in my chest and I could hear my own breathing through my snorkel as my respiration rate leapt to match my racing heart. This giant, submarine-sized silhouette against the thick waters didn’t seem to move, and yet it was coasting through the water fast enough to keep our fins a-splashing. It was magnificent.

We saw I think 6 of them the first day, yesterday, and came back today for another go. It was better visibility today, and we had better interaction time as well. We had another 6 encounters, with 4 different sharks. We jumped into the water with a young one twice, who was small at roughly 4 meters or 12 feet. “Small” when it comes to whale sharks means you can see its head and tail at the same time. Suffice it to say, my heart still went pitty pat. Both times. The second one we had a repeat encounter with was “mine”. I got to have an experience that I reckon very few people do – just me and the shark, for a good several minutes. I thought everyone else from my boat and the others that were headed our way when we jumped in were still tailing the shark as well, though I was happily aware that I had the prime view of the front of its head. I swam my legs off for I have no idea how long, until finally I could go no more, and he drifted on, still without seeming to move, but disappeared into the dark within seconds as soon as I stopped, panting, but elated. I couldn’t believe it when I lifted my head from under the water and looked around to share my look of glee with my fellow swimmers…and saw there were none. Not a single other person, nor boat, had been following along with us. We’d left them hundreds of feet behind. It. Was. AWESOME

More pics coming soon, when we don’t have such…wait for it…SPOTTY internet!

Polka-dotted…SHARKS!??!! Massive doses of Awesome in Donsol, the Philippines is a post from: Backpacking Travel Stories from Asia

I almost broke that promise as the man with the glass-shard paddle scraped it, repeatedly, down the other man’s back and blood started rolling out with enough intensity and volume that it was an angry red stream – not just an accidental, forgiving ooze. Then the whipping began. With each clack of the mop-like bamboo-and-rope contraption as he swung it around his body, back and forth from one side to another against his back, the blood spread and the bamboo sticks got redder and wetter. I felt a little sick, but at least he was several feet in front of me and walking away in the opposite direction. The line of bare-chested men progressed to the side of me, headed for the man with the glass-shard paddle for their turn at Good Friday penitence and absolution of their sins. I realized too late that not all of them had yet to be carved and some were already swinging. In the slight and sudden panic that comes with that cracking dawn of realization-come-too-late, I turned and frantically tried to jump out of the street, but a combination of Filipina-woman-onlooker, bicycle, dirt mound, and treacherous pothole left me with nowhere to go and no time to get there. I cringed outwardly and heaved inwardly as I felt the splatter of consequence for sluggish reflexes on this early morning. I was covered with drops of fresh blood on my wrist, shorts, and probably in the open cup of local beverage I was carrying. And the day was just beginning.

We’d gotten up in the dark at 3:45am (if you call it getting up after only going to bed at 2am) to meet our Filipino taxi driver, Lito, who was entirely too perky and rarin’ to go after a ridiculous 8 hours of sleep despite the ridiculous time of day. Ray and I stumbled across the street to the 7-Eleven for a breakfast of pineapple-orange drink and a bag of Cheetos (you can tell our brains were functioning real well) and back out to the taxi for the two-hour journey to San Fernando, a small and religiously-fervent town 40 miles outside of Manila, in the Philippines. Actually I don’t know if they’re religiously-fervent the rest of the time. But I can attest with (a bloody) firsthand certainty that they are for at least one Friday of every year.

The light was just starting to show when we pulled into San Fernando’s town limits and Lito slowed to a stop on the side of the road. It was the first of many times throughout the day that Ray and I would sort of wonder what we were looking at or doing exactly and just look around to see if we could figure out what was going on. A few minutes later, some people with a loudspeaker and somewhat haunting, obviously prayer-filled song came around the corner onto the large, empty main street, carrying a huge cross. The “some people” were followed by a flood of dozens, and hundreds, and millions and billions of Filipinos. They eventually trickled away down the street towards the dawn. We drove on.

We drove to the site of the crucifixions. I knew from my online reading that they wouldn’t happen til about noon, and then with crowds of thousands of people, and an unbearably oppressive heat. But it was only about 6:30a now and it was a stark sight against a cool-ish morning’s backdrop: three lone black crosses on an artificial hill in the middle of a vast and empty field.

Well, empty except for the satellite dish-laden news van and the McDelivery booth. Signs that it’s going to be a strange day…

In case that wasn’t awkward enough, how bout the group of tourists, local and foreign alike, standing around the crosses on the hill, taking turns posing…on…the crosses. I’m not religious or especially into iconic imagery being sacred, but that made even me feel awkward. We averted our eyes so we wouldn’t burst into flames and went back to our taxi driver and the very fluent New York-raised Filipino parking man who was hooking us up with his friend the “tricycle” driver.

One of the first things that struck me about the Philippines was the many, varied, and bizarre forms of transport. We thought we’d seen a lot in India: horses, camels, elephants, miniature donkeys, rickshaws designed for 2 and carrying 45, cycle rickshaws designed to be pedaled by someone 25 and being powered along the rickety streets by someone at least 147 years old. But the Philippines’ transport is something else entirely. You’ve got bicycles with essentially an attached park bench on the side. Bicycles or motorcycles with a gazebo bolted onto the side. Stretch Jeep/truck…things…with benches in the back along the sides with a roof; I believe these are the “Jeepneys” the books talk about. And my personal favorite: the motorcycles with the space-age cosmo-blaster sidekick car, hovering about 2 inches off the ground, not even coming up to the handlebars of the motorcycle, clearly designed for maybe half a person, but only if they are 12 years old or younger and severely undernourished – and what also happened to be the contraption that Ray and I were now being herded into, for reasons (and prices) unknown.

We had no idea wtf was going on, but we’d basically expected that to be the case for the day, so we just went with it. If we don’t feel threatened, we’re game. We did however, insist on a pricetag, over-inflated as it was probably going to be (though being new in the country and as-yet with no reference point, we’d be unable to tell), despite our New York-raised Filipino parking man’s insistence that it was no problem, it was his friend, just pay whatever we think. What we think is that is a very bad premise in which to engage in anything, to our experience. Finally we arm-wrestled a quote of 200 Pesos from him. Clearly an entirely arbitrary number, and clearly for still a very foggy picture of what exactly we were going to see in this…cosmo-blaster space car. But, hell. Worst case scenario, it was 4 bucks to see where this oddity of a day and a machine would take us. In we squashed.

And so we drove along for about 10 minutes, an oddly scenic, picturesque ride through the small town. I felt for a moment like I was in a rustic old painting of the old Philippines, as children frolicked, chickens darted across the street or in yards, roosters crowed, bicycles pedaled, women washed, men stood on corners, propped against their elbows on chest-high brick walls, leaning casually and talking to their neighbors…and all the funny, completely unique and adorable forms of human- or vroom-vroom-powered transport outnumbering regular cars by about 400 to 1. I laughed as our cosmo-blaster ker-thumped us over an especially ingenius makeshift speedbump: an old tire sliced to be laid out flat on the road, stapled together with another one to extend the width of the road and anchored down with a large rock. Efficient, and not a single tax dollar spent!

Eventually, we stopped at a crossroads. Not a metaphorical one. The kind where you sit there in your cosmo-blaster and wait while your Filipino taxi driver and your Filipino cosmo-blaster driver get off the motorcycle and discuss for 5 minutes in Tagalog who knows what. It was apparently decided that we’d end our cosmo-blaster ride (now, that wasn’t the several hours, going to see “everything” that New York-raised man had promised!) and stand here on the street for awhile til something happened. We shrugged. Ok. At least he only charged us 50 Pesos ($1) instead of the 200. We stood for a few minutes, then Lito randomly decided actually we’ll go for a walk. We didn’t know if we were actually walking TO something or just walking, so we just waited to see and walked on. Turns out it was just a little amble around town. Saw the jailhouse. And the highway. And back to the streetcorner to stand around some more and wait for something. Ray and I just laughed. Oh, Day.

And so we stood, Ray was interviewed for the news (you know, the usual), we bought some local fare for breakfast – we weren’t quite up for our brilliantly-purchased Cheetos breakfast – which was a sort of noodley chow-meiny concoction, with squishy things that Ray said were mushrooms. I didn’t think they looked much like mushrooms but thanks to 2 hours of sleep, couldn’t think much beyond that so just shoveled some in so my stomach wouldn’t eat itself entirely. I chewed. No that definitely wasn’t mushroom. Oh well. We went and sat in the shade along the side of the road with a large congregation of natives, who soon all had their eyes and attention trained on us, in particular Whitey Ray (ahh, blissful complexion of mine! I’ve been mistaken for Indian, Nepali, Sri Lankan, Singaporean, and Thai – and really am half-Filipino. Convenient, eh!? :)). Maybe it’s just because I’m less on edge here owing to the blood relations, but even though they look here, they don’t stare, and it’s not as uncomfortable as it was in India. That said, I wasn’t the one who was having to nod and smile exuberantly for forty minutes while the 70-year-old jokester of the group in some unknown form of English made jokes about fish and ocean and something about 7-Elevens? Good ol’ Ray.

So that was about the time the whippings began. We got our blood shower that I mentioned above, then were escorted by Lito to some random porch which I’m not sure if it was a house or a shop or who knows what, but there were a few broken plastic chairs, a wooden table, and a bench, and for the next 4 hours or so I contorted myself into various angles of circulation-killing attempts to sleep on all of them. I’d read online it would be scorching here this time of year, and so far it had been quite pleasant. I had intended to get a good night’s sleep before our big day (right, like that ever happens), but in retrospect I am so glad we hadn’t. Even sound asleep and drooling in my upside down lotus missionary position suspended between the wooden table and broken plastic chair, I could feel the heat starting to boil the mercury. It curled around us like an invisible wildfire. Had I been fully conscious for it, I would have been entirely miserable. This way it wasn’t so bad. And when the ice cream man came around, Lito got us a Filipino ice treat with beans, which we sucked out of a plastic bag. Nummy! Strange… But nummy!

Finally at 11:30a it was time. Once again, “time for what?”, we didn’t know. But it was time. So we went out and stood on the street. After about 15 minutes, the whippers walked by, no longer whipping, but well bloodied-up and starting to limp (by the way they were barefoot on the sizzling ground too). We gave them a wide berth, lest they decide to start up with the whipping again as they went by.

Soon Romans with feathered hats and fake bronze chests came in with chariots and horses. Wtf is going ON?? Then Jesus came and was tossed up on the stage at the end of the street. We could see exactly nothing due to everyone in the crowd having brought their gigantic rainbow sun-umbrellas. But there was some yelling in the microphones and Ray interpreted this for me to be the trial.

The crowd started moving and Lito and our newly-acquired was-it-a-shop/was-it-a-house friend quick waved us on so we could get a shortcut back to the field with the crosses, where the “main event” of the crucifixions would take place. They’d asked if we wanted to follow the procession and walk for two hours through the heat or take the shortcut and wait for two hours in the heat for them to get there. We gathered that walking meant a possible forecast for more blood showers the whole way. We opted for the sunny day in the fields.

Even so, along the way as we walked briskly down the sidestreets towards the crucifixion site, periodically we’d hear the tell-tale oncoming clack-clack of repentance coming down the street head-on. I’ll never forget the strange and oddly giddy feeling Ray and I had as we looked at each other with these knowing smiles filled with a mild panic and a mild rush of adrenalin at the purely bizarre fact that we were a) in the Philippines, b) running around these streets behind two Filipino hosts that we could barely communicate with and mostly having no clue what we were doing all day, and c) actually having to jump off the street and run to duck behind trees, walls, buildings, or highly amused locals to avoid being hit with BLOOD splatters. What a trip this is! What a strange and wondrous world we live in!

After about 4 of these near-miss dodgings, we made it back to the field. Unsurprisingly, it was no longer the stark and empty field it was from the morning. Now there were masses of people, ice cream vendors rolling around with their umbrella-covered bicycle-cum-ice-cream-cart contraptions blasting their merry tune, coconuts being chopped up and served, children running around, locals absolutely PILED into (or under!) tarp-covered trucks, rickshaws, cosmo-blasters, you name it, trying to escape the angry sun. For our part, our taxi driver left us and retired to the parking area to wait for us and our was-it-a-shop/was-it-a-house friend found us a local tourist who was thankfully willing to share with us the shade of his van trunk lid for the next hour and a half or so. Good thing because if not, I’m pretty sure I’d have been willing to skip this thing we’d specifically come out here to see if we had to stand out in the direct sun, it was that hot by now.

Eventually, things started happening up on that hill. First the flagellants arrived. If they were bloody and limping before several hours ago, now they were nearly comatose. They were followed by teams of paramedics with stretchers, I think ready to catch and cart them as soon as they pitched over after paying their respects to the crosses on the hill. As far as I could tell though, no one needed them. So the paramedics melted back into the masses.

Later, the fake-bronze-chested Romans (I’m calling them Romans and Ray says they were, don’t sue me if that’s wrong) rode up on their horses and presumably readied things. A white cross made its way up the hill and was perched on its side. The black crosses were brought down, nails were hammered, and then the crosses were stood back up with live bodies attached. The heat had gotten to me by now, so this is all kind of a blur. I thought I saw Jesus. We figured it was time to brave the direct sun to go take a look. Ray and I bid our Filipino fellow-onlookers goodbye and made our way up closer. There were slated to be some 23 crucifixions this day. We’d already agreed emphatically with each other that we’d be good to see one and then call it a day.

I didn’t have the energy – or the stomach – to push my way up with great commitment. I was nearly impaled or eye-gouged by everyone’s umbrellas as it was, and it took great care to sneak by the cars that were parked all over without rubbing against the blood-spattered sides. I was still regarding my penitent’s-bloodstain on my shorts with a lingering sort of nausea; I didn’t need more on me.

We got as close as we could muster without chancing heat stroke or permanent blindness and got a few pictures of a real live person with real live nails pinning his hands to a real live cross. I took a moment to take in the whole event, listened to the sounds chattering on around me, felt for the vibe of the occasion. Oddly, while it attracted hundreds of tourists and onlookers, it didn’t feel touristy. I thought I’d feel awkward taking pictures, but I didn’t – it had been encouraged by the locals since we’d arrived that morning, and without ulterior motive. No one asked for Pesos in exchange for pictures. We’d only bought a little food to hold us over all day, and paid one dollar for a somewhat random – but enjoyable – cosmo-blaster ride, and that had been the extent of our contribution to their economy; they weren’t trying to attract tourists there for our money. Ray and I weren’t there to partake or share in any religious beliefs or rites, just to come and (respectfully, if confusedly) observe what there was to see. The huge field now teeming with people and with three black crosses standing up on the little artificial hill, now with three live bodies attached to them, it seemed a little like a circus, and yet…not a disrespectful or un-solemn one. I wouldn’t call it solemn. But I wouldn’t call it un-solemn either.

With some relief at an interesting but long day complete, we made our way back to the taxi. We stopped along the way to hold a couple of the brightly-dyed chicks that were available for sale (yes we considered taking one or a rainbow home with us and selling or eating them along the way, but managed to move ourselves along), then collapsed back into the car, glad for the two-hour air-conditioned ride home.

Later that night, a friend shared a link with me through Facebook to none other than AZCentral.com back home, which talked about the rites that had taken place in the far-off land of the Philippines that day for their Associated Press readers in Arizona. The judgmental and rude comments at the bottom of the article contributed by Arizonans who probably never had and never would actually come to see the event made me sad. These people who do this aren’t crazy or stupid or even disgusting. It’s just what they do. For as much as an oddity of an event as it was, it didn’t actually SEEM an odd event, being there. It seemed earnest, and…natural. Like of course this town does this. Just like Vegas does casinos and drive-thru weddings. Just like Aspen does skiing, or New Orleans does Mardi Gras. San Fernando does live crucifixions and street self-flagellations. The Catholic church officially does not endorse this event. No, it isn’t a typical way to observe Good Friday – even here in the Philippines. It is, however, very unique, very interesting, and I am very glad we got to go see it for ourselves and have such a bizarre but somehow befitting day in doing so. Blood splatters and all.

Live Crucifixions and Bloody Whippings in the Street, or: “Just another Good Friday in San Fernando, the Philippines” (Warning: A little graphic) is a post from: Backpacking Travel Stories from Asia