So what a year it’s been!

Sjoerd came out to see us in Thailand for a few weeks and together the three of us rang in both Sjoerd’s birthday and Ray’s and my one-year travelversary. It was so awesome to see him again. He was here and gone in the blink of an eye, and now it’s our last day in Bangkok, Thailand, and the last of this first chapter of an epic journey.

Tomorrow we fly on to Taiwan to begin our China-region explorations, taking us through Taiwan, Tibet, China, Hong Kong, and South Korea. In January we’ll arrive in Japan to enjoy three months in one spot and snowboard all day every day in some of the world’s best powder.

But before we close this chapter and begin the next, I wanted to take some time to look back on this Year-in-Review.

The Top 20 Most Memorable Experiences of Year 1
(in no particular order)

1. Seeing the Taj Mahal
2. Cuddling with tigers in Thailand
3. Elephant bathtime in Nepal
4. 4-day kayaking clinic in Nepal
5. 9-day whitewater rafting trip through Nepal
6. Seeing the Dalai Lama
7. Swimming with whale sharks
8. The Good Friday Live Crucifixions in the Philippines
9. Beach Hut living in the Philippines
10. Seeing Kevin
11. Seeing Sjoerd
12. The Road from Manali-Leh
13. The baby white camel
14. The Epic 25-day Expedition through Mongolia
15. The Jeep getting stuck in the water
16. Taking a 4-day horsetrek to the taiga to see the Tsaatan reindeer people
17. The Pushkar Camel Fair
18. Riding mopeds in Goa
19. All the friends we’ve met along the way
20. My close friendships that have made it this far and even gotten closer

* * *

The more realistic-length list of highlights from our First Year on the road!

1. Seeing the Taj Mahal
2. Laying with my head on a full-grown, unrestrained, unsedated tiger
3. Elephant bathtime and standing on top of an elephant in a crocodile-infested river
4. Learning to kayak in one day on a lake then going on a 3-day trip on a river with Grade 3 rapids
5. 9-day Grade 4-5 whitewater rafting trip through Nepal
6. Seeing the Dalai Lama
7. Swimming with whale sharks
8. Seeing the Live Crucifixions on Good Friday in the Philippines
9. Living the good life in a beach hut with a hammock and a Porch Dawgg and a whole lot of time to just enjoy every ounce of our perfect days
10. Seeing Kevin, my grade-school penpal whom I’d not seen since we met in person 14 years ago
11. Seeing Sjoerd, whom I’m continually discovering what a wonderful friend and person he is, and how deep and permanent our incredible bond remains
12. Experiencing and surviving the unbelievably insane Road from Manali-Leh
13. Getting baby white camel cuddles
14. Taking a 25-day epic expedition from the bottom to the top of Mongolia
15. Getting stuck in the middle of a flooded crossing and seeing water come in the door of the jeep up to my knees in Mongolia

16. Living in a teepee with the shamanic Tsaatan reindeer people and interacting with their reindeer
17. A 4-day horsetrek over some crazy muddy rainy trails and galloping across the open Mongolian landscape
18. The absolutely incredible and mind-blowing Pushkar Camel Fair
19. Riding a moped along the palm-fringed beaches of Goa
20. The close friendships that I had to leave behind but have made it this far and even grown stronger in the year plus apart
21. All the friends we’ve met
22. Seeing wild monkeys
23. Going on camel safari through the Thar Desert in India
24. Seeing the birthplace of Buddha
25. Seeing the exact spot where Buddha achieved enlightenment
26. Walking on the Bridge Over the River Kwai and learning about its shocking history
27. Drinking cobra-infused whiskey
28. Visiting the Golden Triangle between Thailand, Burma and Laos that was used to grow opium
29. Going on a 5-day liveaboard scuba trip to the Similan Islands
30. Being in Bangkok at different times for the beginning, middle and end of the Red Shirt Protests in Bangkok

31. Meeting Chris Guillebeau
32. Meeting GotPassport
33. Meeting Legal Nomads
34. Meeting Gary Arndt
35. Meeting some of my distant relatives in the Motherland
36. Seeing Arnaud, whom I’d not seen since we met for a short 3 days in Paris 8 years ago
37. Seeing a wild rhino 5 meters away from where we stood on foot – with nothing more than a guide with a stick
38. Taking an elephant safari through the jungle and marshlands and seeing more wild rhinos bathing in the water hole
39. Staying overnight in a jungle tower
40. Seeing the biggest stupa in the world
41. Drinking and picking Ceylon tea in Ceylon (Sri Lanka)
42. Waving to smiling Sri Lankans from the train on one of the most beautifully scenic train journeys in the world
43. Living for a week in the guesthouse of the most adorable elderly Sri Lankan couple on the face of the earth
44. Not getting on the internet for 25 days in a row

45. Riding a reindeer
46. Staying in a ger
47. Seeing the Gobi Desert
48. Meeting nomads
49. Hearing the singing dunes at Khongorin Els – beyond bizarre
50. Learning to read Russian Cyrillic
51. Teaching myself to read Sanskrit
52. Catching 8 fish with just a line, a hook and some leftover food bits
53. Yakkity yaks
54. Drinking vodka with Mongolians – definitely not recommended if you want to live!
55. Seeing the big Naadam festival in Ulaanbaatar
56. Seeing a local Naadam
57. Visiting the erotic temples at Khajuraho
58. Scoring some kama sutras from their place of origin
59. Getting a chessboard from the country where chess was invented

60. Sitting on a yak
61. Holding a giant eagle on my arm
62. Staying in a fort
63. Celebrating Diwali in India
64. Getting a blessing from an elephant
65. Seeing a Bollywood movie
66. Drinking a beer with a bullethole next to my head in the famous Leopold’s Cafe (one of the venues involved in the terrible 2008 Mumbai Attacks)
67. Going on tiger safari and seeing a wild tiger in the jungles in India
68. Walking in the final footsteps to the exact spot where Gandhi was shot
69. Holding a baby tiger on my lap
70. Visiting a temple dedicated to rats
71. Starting the EBK (Empire Building Kit) and beginning my life as an entrepreneur

It’s been a hell of a year. Bring on the Year 2!!!

Backpacking through Asia, Year 1: The Year in Review is a post from: Backpacking Travel Stories from Asia

That’s right folks, an incredible ONE YEAR AGO TODAY two plump, nervous backpackers bid adieu to their families in the Phoenix Sky Harbor airport and boarded a plane bound for India. We didn’t know what kind of adventures, horrors, great experiences or terrible experiences laid in store. We were “Two Kids and a Dream” who had said “Fmy401k” through two total amateur and novice websites and vaguely hoped to stay in touch with our friends and maybe somehow make some money on the road through the websites. We felt we had to be defensive about quitting our jobs to travel the world because while many were very supportive and enthusiastic for us, a number of people also criticized us for it. We were quite sure we were doing something awesome, but didn’t yet know for sure.

Now we’re both 30 pounds lighter, know exactly what awaited us at the other end of that plane flight, revamped our takes on the website(s) to something completely different and still taking shape to something great and lucrative, we don’t fret over what other people think about things we believe in regarding the trip – and a lot of other things, and above all, we know that we are doing something truly awesome and have loved every second of it and can’t wait for more.

We’ve done more in one year than we can even wrap our heads around. The past 365 days have taken us through India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, and Mongolia. To help process it and for posterity’s sake, in a few days I’m going to post some of the highlights of the experiences we’ve had in each of these amazing places.

But for now, I’ve got my best friend here in town right now to help us ring in this big occasion (which coincided pretty well with his 30th birthday!) and I want to go spend some great time with him, as his presence here on our journey is definitely one of those major highlights of the year. Above all I can tell you right now how much I appreciate more than ever (and it was a lot already!) my friends, family, and the others we’ve had to leave behind to take this amazing journey.

If you’re reading this, I want to thank you for being one of those people who is following us and staying with us throughout this epic trip. It has been absolutely, positively, truly amazing and we have taken you with us in our hearts and minds every step of the way.

Happy One YEAR!!!!

ONE YEAR on the road, baby! is a post from: Backpacking Travel Stories from Asia

But the wide-open landscapes, the allure of the mysterious nomadic, ger-dwelling lifestyle of the people, the music, the food, the hospitality and culture, the tradition, the history…all so different from anything I’ve ever experienced before. India was too, but in another way. India felt crazy-different (in a good way); Mongolia seems fable-different. Like a fairy tale far-off place, one that you hear about in stories, myths, legends. I mean, GENGHIS KHAN! The Gobi desert!

And there’s camels. CAMELS!!! I LOVE camels! And there’s horse riding, the biggest festival of the year (Naadam Festival), CAMPING, rivers and lakes, fishing and I hope campfires, music, neat local dress, baffling customs, challenging foods, and unforgettable moments.

We’ve armed ourselves with a new tent and tomorrow will go purchase some sleeping bags and a small stove. Our fantastic friends J and Ange that we met in the Philippines live in Bangkok and have kindly agreed to keep our non-Mongolia-necessary stuff until we come back to pick up Sjoerd in July. This is excellent.

From what I’ve read, it is wise to be a little more vigilant against theft or muggings around the capitol, especially during the busy and crowded festival time that we’ll be there. We’re pretty aware and conservative travelers anyway, but something’s telling me this is a good time to step away from the computers, leave them behind, and really focus on this vast, great land…and each other. Then no worries, no hesitancies, and a new experience (not plugged in??!, gasp!). We’ll still have our small netbook with us, for uploading our pics, and hammering out the occasionally-needed long journal entries about particularly awesome days or pressing thoughts, maybe updating the site at least a couple times along the way.

But aside from that, I kind of like the idea of being more relegated to hand-written journal entries, and to not being “productive” for awhile. I’m going to make myself unavailable for article-writing this month, for the first time in almost 2 years. I’m not going to have much internet access for the next two months – and I’m going to embrace it! It should be a neat experience, for this flashpacking, (most) always-connected Gen Y’er. Mongolia to me looms as such a different destination, lifestyle, and experience from anything we’ve done or seen so far on the trip, or ever, and it’s calling to me to be much more strictly “functional” than “productive” in terms of using (or having) our technology.

Maybe it’s seeing the pictures with the lakes and rivers and owning a tent again, thinking about things like buying a sleeping bag and sleeping under the trees or under the stars in the middle of nowhere, that makes me feel differently about this particular country. Mongolia is different than anywhere else; it is a completely unique experience that awaits within those fabled borders, and I want to give it a completely unique approach from our normal modus operandi. I want to go, and be completely wide-open and flexible and purely just along for the ride. Everything I’ve read about independent travel/backpacking in Mongolia says you really rather need to be, if you even hope to have a good time there. I do hope to have a good time there; in fact, I am certain I will. I know almost nothing about this land of mystery, but I do know even from here that it’s something special.

I am very excited for tomorrow, and the next 51 days to come!

Gettin ready to launch…Destination: Mongolia! is a post from: Backpacking Travel Stories from Asia

The morning of our visa run started early, and if you know us by now you’d probably gather that we aren’t really ‘morning’ people. The DFSMSdss team back home (Linda especially!) could attest to my absence of morning fondness, or rather, my zombie-like state at 8am. I mean, not even a Venti quad-shot Americano (you know, the kind you chew) could wake me up. Well, at about 6:45am we received our wake up knock. It was the second knock that actually rolled me out of bed. I answered the door and saw a half-frightened, half-about-to-laugh-her-ass-off guesthouse owner as I realized I was answering in my boxers and sporting a ‘fro. Too tired to care, I threw on some shorts, poked G a couple of times and stepped out to the front to wait for our taxi.

Within a couple moments we were whisked away in a typical karaoke minivan en-route to pick up more bleary eyed travelers. Since we had some time before the other group arrived, I ran down to the nearest 7-Eleven to get some morning munchies. By the time I made it outside to the curb a van pulled up, opened its door–in a creepy abduction type way–a tour guide hopped out and proceeded to herd me inside. The door slammed shut, and the van started moving before I was properly seated. It was packed, but not India packed. Apparently in Thailand they observe tourist vehicles’ max-capacity. About 10 minutes in I became severely appreciative of my 3rd row seat. We had many windy roads, and the driver treated traffic rules more like guidelines. They may adhere to max-capacities here, but the drivers are still nuts, or at least ours was.

Our first stop was at the San Kamphaeng hot springs about an hour outside of Chiang Mai (we made it there in about 15 min). The location reminded me of a 2-sided strip-mall, though this one had a hot springs conveniently placed in the center of the dividing road. Our 30 minute stay at the springs didn’t allow for much dillydallying so G and I hopped out of the van in search of food. We found a small place, ordered, and scarfed. As we we waited we watched little old ladies scurry out of vans each carrying a basket of chicken or dove eggs to boil in the steamy water. After eating I had a couple of minutes to indulge my curiosity. It was just enough time to see the sign above the hot springs, smell the sulfur, and bolt before feeling sick from it. We all piled back into the van, and were off to the next site… The WHITE TEMPLE.

It sure looked cool in all the pictures we found online, and it was equally cool when we stood in front of it. The fact that it was a bit overcast didn’t hinder how spectacular it was. You honestly couldn’t stare at it for too long without sunglasses!

As you follow the path to the entrance you are first greeted by an eerie pillar with a platform of red skulls holding a bottle labeled Whiskey.

We were told before we arrived, but here was another indication that alcohol isn’t allowed on the premises. It was a bit fire and brimstone, but cool nonetheless. Past the pillar you could see the sparkling white building surrounded by small man-made ponds with white fish. Naturally, G and I went nuts taking pictures (most unfortunately, except for these few that we’d happened to email to people first, all the photos from this great day were lost in our recent hard drive crash :[ ). Moving along I made my way to the main pathway.

What I saw next was something out of Dante’s Inferno, straight from the 5th Circle. Cement hands reached upward from a shallow pit, and grasped at the sky frozen in time. They were of all shapes and all sizes, and each had their fingers contorted. This was hardly what I was expecting to see outside a Buddhist temple, but being a big Dante fan I thought the depiction was cool. However, while the cement souls shown here were similar to the damned “wrathful and sullen” in the Inferno, the metaphor is quite different. These were the suffering hands stuck in the cycle of rebirth, the worldly beings: us. The bridge that resided over them represented the crossing from that realm into the land of the enlightened: the land of Buddha. The overcast weather only helped to further the illustration. I love symbolism, so this was really awesome to see.

Walking along the bridge to the temple we could pick out many intricate statues. Each had a distinct mouth feature, or expression. The white on white made the statues subtle to see from a distance, but up close they had a character that gave you an indication why, after 13 years, this place is still under construction. After taking multiple close-up pictures we eventually made it to the doorway.

Photos weren’t allowed inside the temple, but I can tell you it was pretty cool. After you walk in and turn around, you see an entrance wall painted with all things Buddhist. The paintings had a very modern flair, and told a story of their own. The mural sported images of Keanu Reeves as Neo, The Enterprise, Darth Vader, and even a depiction of the 9/11 attacks. It was all very strange and artistic, but definitely cool. Having to enter barefoot, and seeing a monk meditating reminded me that this was still a temple. A modern Buddhist Temple. Neat. At about that time I looked at my watch and realized we had only a couple more minutes left. G snapped a few more shots of the cool hands outside for me before we hopped back in the van headed to the Mekong.

We arrived a couple of hours later and were rushed out of the van down a hill to board a long boat with about 15 other people. They don’t waste time in Thailand, so as soon as everybody had boarded, sitting or not, they were on their way. The sound of the wind was broken when our Thai tour guide started talking about the Golden Triangle region. The region itself is no-man’s land, but not because it is off-limits. The piece of land is situated on a flood plain so building there is essentially futile. The land became no-man’s land because none of the three countries surrounding it, Burma, Thailand, or Lao, actually claimed it. That lack of ownership made for unique real estate popular with opium trade (back in the day). Just like now, currency exchange made business difficult so a universal currency, gold in this case, was used, and that’s where the region got its name.

The boat ended up on the Laos side of the river at the completion of our little history session, and we were all ushered off the boat to have a free sampling of cobra, scorpion, or even tiger penis-infused whiskey (apparently the latter “makes you strong man”). G and I politely declined as goosebumps crept up our backs.

We had another 30 minutes to walk around before being taken back to the other side of the river, so we browsed. As time was passing I started feeling a bit un-travelerish by not trying the cobra infused whiskey. Knowing that G had made some friends with her seat buddies on the way out I said “okay, I’ll take a shot if the Kiwis take a shot.” The Kiwis were quickly located, and then presented with the idea. Moments later there were 4 shot glasses held up in the air. We made a quick toast, and then threw them back, surprised with how smooth the whiskey was. Minutes later we were back in our van on the way to the Burmese border.

Why did we go? Well, we had been in Thailand 30 days and we had to get our visas stamped. It was a bit weird to know we were going into Burma, but the time to contemplate the short adventure was over before we could even say bye to Thailand.

G and I handed over our passports to the Thai immigration officers, waited a couple moments and then walked 20 feet to a small building on the other side of the street. Successfully in Burma, along with 5 other folks, we were bunched inside a small 8×8′ room. We each paid 500Baht, had a webcam photo taken, and then walked back across the street to Thailand to fill out our Thai entry cards. It actually took more time to fill out my Thailand entry card than it did to ‘visit’ this other country. Whatever expectations I had of seeing Burmese people were thrown out the window in that 5 minutes we ‘left’ Thailand.

A difference of 20 feet bought us another 15 days. It was a bit of a strange process, but I was excited to have some more time here. So, 3 hours after arriving at the Mekong river, we had successfully visited Laos and Burma, and then made our way back to Thailand (all 20 feet). This wasn’t exactly what I was expecting when traveling to new countries, but hey, at least we know we can get free samples of cobra-infused whiskey in Laos. (Don’t worry, we will be going back to Laos for a longer, real stay soon, too!)

3 countries in under 3 hours!? is a post from: Backpacking Travel Stories from Asia

I didn’t know what to expect, and so I went into it with open expectations. I have reunited with a number of figures from my past before, with widely varying and completely unpredictable results. Some that I thought we’d get along great as adults proved to be disappointingly ho-hum, even irritating. Some that I didn’t think I’d ever be friends with have become decent acquaintances, even friends. And this past year, one most unlikely person from my distant past of summer camps gone by became one of my very best friends in the world. So past experiences could be no predictor, and with Kevin, I figured it could go either way. In all honesty, I knew that probably if we’d encountered each other on the street or through a typical means of introduction now as adults, we probably wouldn’t have become friends, owing to different personality types and interests.

But the fact was, we hadn’t met as adults on the street or by a typical means of introduction. Instead we’d met as we did, through letters, distributed by relative chance, when we were 13 and 21. And meeting as we had, we’d found a veritable connection with each other, and became friends. But precocious as I may arguably have been at 13, I was still just 13. It probably wasn’t real terribly difficult to have my respect and admiration, even affection, provided you gave half an effort, and Kevin consistently and reliably did. But now?… I’d maintained a certain soft spot in my heart for him through all these years, but not really for any concrete or justified reason, given our lack of communication and obvious lack of shared time or experience growing together. Putting up a sort of whimsied dream or fantasy that you’ve carried with you since childhood and setting it up against reality as an adult is always a risky thing. In finding it’s not as great as you’d remembered/created it to be, even if as adults we are more apt and able to rationalize and justify things away with things like “well that’s just the way it is” or “well at least now the truth is known, even if it’s not as pretty as the dream” and so on, it’s still a feeling akin to seeing Mickey walking around behind the scenes at Disneyland and it’s some dude carrying Mickey’s mouse-eared head around in one hand and smoking a cigarrette with the other. A little part of your soul dies inside.

So while I went into our 14-year reunion with open expectation, I had to prepare myself for a somewhat devastating blow. I didn’t know if we’d feel like maybe we’d outgrown each other and just didn’t share enough common ground to stand on beyond a polite and semi-formal one-time meeting. He’s a fun-loving, upbeat, energetic sort of guy. When I was younger I had a much goofier sense of humor right off the bat, with the capability of being serious and introspective. Now I think I’m rather more the other way around. Great for long-term friendships that invest enough to go the distance and really learn and grow and become the very best we can be; probably not the greatest match for “One Night in Bangkok” in which our incredibly ambitious plans involved taking advantage of the fact that we are now both well over the age of 21, and eating fried bugs.

So, I was prepared to have a fun and probably somewhat random time in Bangkok, and maybe be a little disappointed about the reality of our bond.

I wasn’t prepared for what actually happened.

The day was great. We both had our fantastic significant others there with us of course and time was short and we had partying to do, so I really hadn’t thought Kevin and I would get any time to talk one on one, which is something that is always important to me. Given that we had so long to catch up on, it was especially a bummer, but I was just going to go with the flow and make myself deal. But as it turned out, Ray needed to go out and take care of our tech issues, and Kevin’s gf wanted an hour or so to herself to rest and recompose after a long night traveling. So we got some time to really catch up after all! It was great. I got to fill in a lot of the gaps of things I didn’t know or didn’t remember, and start reacquainting with my good friend/practical stranger. I was pleased.

Then eventually all four of us gathered into one cohesive unit, introductions were made, beers were caught up on, and we moved the party to their hotel’s rooftop pool. I’ve wanted to frolic in a pool for 8 months now and it was a hot day in Thailand, so this was excellent. When the pool closed up at sun-down (lame sauce), we hung out in their room for a little bit, strange things happened with sunscreen getting smeared all over Kevin for reasons unknown (ok maybe a few reasons known: Chang, Tiger, and Singha come to mind), and at about 8pm (now that Kevin was thoroughly ready for a big day out in the sun), Ray and I parted ways with them so they could take care of some shopping they still needed to do. We made plans to meet up two hours later, where we got back together out on ol’ legendary Khao San Road and had a legendary “fkn awesome bucket”. They had an early flight out the next morning and there had been talk of them pulling an all-nighter. But they were understandably fatigued after their week of vacation down south and then the long day-and-a-night bus back up to Bangkok. For our part, we had a flight the next day too, not early (quite purposely), but to a new country wherein we didn’t yet have a place to stay or knowledge of what to expect and preferred to have our wits about us.

But still…

Now, I’m nothing if not grievously in tune with and on top of my emotions to the point of it being obnoxious (one can only sit around singing Kumbayah with one’s self for so long, after all). So for me to be blind-sided by some major flooding, rushing river of feelings that I never saw coming is pretty much unheard of. But when it came time to part with my long-lost friend, it just happened. Right there on Khao frickin San Road, and nope I never saw it comin, but I knew immediately that it was that kind of piercing feeling that needed two things: just a few more minutes together with just me and my old friend, and the chance to wish a proper goodbye to him in the face of uncertainty. I had to act fast lest I collapse into a piteous blubbering mess on Khao frickin San Road, which if you haven’t been there, with its milling insanities set to the thump of ear-imploding bass and the tap-taps of lady-boy heels treading the well-worn path towards the hotels with hourly room rates…well it’s just not an appropriate place to be staring at one’s own imminent fate as a puddle of emotional mush on the streetside. So attempting to stem the leakage long enough to step over to Chelsea while Ray and Kevin bid adieu, I did a terrible job of feigning composure and maintaining any semblance of not being a disgrace to hockey players everywhere, and asked if she would mind if I walked him home in just a few minutes. Sniff, wipe, sniff, blubber. Lady boy walks by. Oh, life.

Fortunately dear Chelsea was completely understanding, Ray is well-versed in my sentimentalities when it comes to my best of friends, Kevin was up for another beer and the chat to go with it (words being the vehicle, not the point), and I was glad to have another few minutes to compose myself back into some shape resembling something with some dignity. As another lady boy walked by. Oh, LIFE!!!

The others wished each other and us farewell and went in their different directions. Kev and I walked down Khao San, found a nice spot, pulled up a chair, and talked about whatever, until the bucket-tender of that spot decided our little intimate space where we could actually sort of hear each other was way better suited to be a deafening outdoor nightclub after all, pleaseandthankyou. We tried to bear it for a moment longer, then threw in the towel, gathered our respective bottles and ambled on towards somewhere we might be able to pretend to think. We ended up back right around the area near their hotel, where we’d sat talking that morning. O morning! That promising thing that spoke of the greatness that was yet to come, a friend not seen in an age and a lifetime…now on the brink of stepping back once more into the ether, and we had come so close to toppling already into that great beyond, there on Khao San Road. But not yet. Please, not just yet.

You see, it had come to my attention earlier that day that mine and Ray’s Japan plans might not mesh with Kevin’s after all, and we might not see him when we’re there at all – let alone actually get to maybe spend some kick-ass “Ok now I get to ACTUALLY get to know you and do stuff with you and see what you’re like, what you’re all about, and the many ways in which you are awesome” time together. Suddenly I was looking down the barrel of a gun that pre-empted this meeting as not a serendipitous early quick chance to reacquaint and then later on solidify the bonds with more time and experience to pass together at our disposal as true Friends (!!!), those kinds of people who get to hang out and interact and get to actually know each other on a regular and extended basis. Rather…this could be It. Til who knows when? Even the time in Japan that we might pass together would be limited in duration, but still relatively it would have been lovely aeons. I’d looked forward to it ever since Ray and I set our sights on Asia. But now, that…gone?

Sure we have technology that we didn’t have in ’97 to “Have a great summer, K.I.T.!”, and we have obviously managed to make good enough of it to get to this point, meeting in Bangkok. And Kevin had cared enough about me once to seek ME out after so many years of lost contact (usually my role in such things); I’m pretty sure we’ll never lose contact with each other again. But while for a person like me or apparently also like Kevin it is pertinent to build bridges and bridge gaps in time, distance, or circumstance with other people, and CARE about them, for a LONG ASS TIME, no matter what the odds…in the end, there is no substitute for in-the-flesh, eye-to-eye, One Day, One Room, precious seconds with a person. I had gone into this meeting as I said, without expectation, or even hope. I still cared about Kevin from our early days enough to maintain the contact once re-established even if it lagged on his end sometimes, or to drop a hello his way once in awhile. But I didn’t know him well enough to know if I cared enough to hope that we’d hit it off. If we didn’t, so what? Nothing really vastly would be changed in our lives, after all. Worst case scenario, we’d just kind of dry up. It happens sometimes (“that’s the way it is”, “well at least the truth is known now” and all that). For once, with this person, owing to the distance that had kept us apart all this time, I had the luxury of moderate indifference.

But after we’d talked another hour or two outside his hotel, just sharing the time-space for a bit longer and spilling out whatever either of us had in there that might enable us to for now go our separate ways once more and at least know that we had “caught up” with each other… We stood up from our bench on the side of the (lady boy-free) road, and stepped to the edge of that critical juncture, where he’d go forward and I’d turn around and go back, down that long infamous road to my own hotel.

Down to moments now.

It had been a short time, sure, but with that last hour or two, I knew…it had been Enough time. I realized standing there with him, knowing this was it, knowing this might be It, for if not part of this trip, for Ray and I it’s practically an eternity, as we live lifetimes in a week, every week, on this journey, and what may lie beyond that for now is inconceivable…and anyway there are never guarantees. Standing there now with Kevin, I stood next to him, taking in the incredible fact that there we were, after 14 long years, mere inches apart rather than the miles and lifetimes it had been for so long and was about to become again, and I realized, I know this guy inside out. Of course there are still so many details to be filled in and that would be so fun to do so, new stories that could be written with both of us in it, shared life experiences (I had so looked forward to snowboarding with him in Japan!), more hours spent talking and getting to know each other better.

But for me and precious few in my life, and I’m pretty damn sure by now they know definitively who they are, those (marvelous) details are just that: details. If you look at me and the ten people I consider my closest friends, it’s a pretty ridiculous and awesome mix. None of them really make sense in relation to another. They don’t all run in the same circles. In fact, none of them do. A few of them I spend a large portion of my life trying to figure out if they even LIKE me, let alone LOVE me! But that’s ok, because even that to me is just details. What’s big then? What’s bigger to me than *gasp* maybe not being loved in return?

It’s who people Are.

It’s that people get it. It’s that people carry around all this stuff, they harbor all these fears or uncertainties or insecurities or imperfections or shortcomings…but they still get it. They still get it, even if they fight it. They still get it, even if they’re crap at showing it. They still commit, they still give. I may have to drag it out of them, for YEARS on end (cough Ray cough), and I may have to show some serious initiative and heart to stay in the game. But they get it. When I ask it of them, they are the ones who always share themselves with me, as much and as deeply as they can, and sometimes a lot more than what is comfortable to them. What’s more important to me than being liked, or even loved by other people? Other people. Period. If a person can sit beside me and have the guts to turn him or herself inside out and be honest and FEEL, in a world that beats honesty and feeling out of people every day, then what more could a person ask? The rest is just details. What matters is that that connection is made between two people. What matters is that they know how to care, deeply.

I can hardly even wrap my head around the pain it was to say goodbye to him. Not just goodbye, but goodbye for how long. It had been 14 years this time…would it be 14 years again? Would it be ever again? I put my hand on his shoulder, appreciating how awesome it was that for just that last moment I could do so, and I knew we both felt how incredible it was, after all this time, after so much time and so much distance and so much passed under our respective bridges. I’d become an adult, he’d had so many years of life experience, so much pain, so much challenge. But here he was still, my friend, my Kevin, as upbeat and beautiful and wonderful as he’s always been. And to my great surprise and supreme pleasure…loved me more than ever.

We’d never exchanged “I love you”s before, or anything remotely physical. Maybe we’d hugged in greeting when we met the once or twice before, but it was inconsequential. Yet now there was no doubt, no question. When we said goodbye, he hugged me tight and told me he loved me, without hesitation, without second thought. I’d not even thought about whether I would or would not say it to him, did I or did I not feel it for him; I went into this with no expectation, nor even hope or reservation that it would go great or fear that it would not. And so all we had was raw what-it-is, and what it was was real, intense, deep, lasting, beautiful, and unabashedly caring. That is what friendship is to me; that is who I bring into me to count as my closest friends. The people who get that.

And as I stood there with Kevin, that bitch of emotion absolutely bowled me over again, just as unexpectedly as earlier if not moreso, since you know, I thought it would have worked its way out of my system by now. But it wasn’t just the sadness of departure this time. It was just utter appreciation for this guy standing right there with me, who had spent the last twenty minutes (and many years, in a number of ways both vocal and tacit) regaling me with encouragements and praises, and more than even the kind words he used, what I recognized most in him above all that night: he gets me. He always has. 87 other kids never even got acknowledged when we sent those letters. He not only acknowledged me, but he respected me, he appreciated me, even back then. I didn’t know and didn’t even dare to think that the bond we had back then was something that could transfer into adulthood, not when we didn’t cross those seas together, in each others’ lives.

But I remember as I hugged him goodbye, I don’t think I’ve ever been so overcome by emotion that I didn’t CARE what the rules were or weren’t about acceptable degrees of caring about a person that you supposedly barely know; I knew him dammit, and well. And it had been so many years since I’d seen him, and there are no guarantees in life: who knows when, or If?, I’ll see him again, now without a working plan. The future now was a question mark for us, and we would just have to wait and see how it played out. But I had him for that one last moment, at least. And so to hell with it. I put my hands on his shoulders and my forehead against his, and I just cried. How it hurt to say goodbye! I pressed my watering eyes against his shoulder and just took in the moment of holding the back of his head in my hand, so close, so precious. What a wrenching moment, knowing that when you step away, you will have to walk away. Have I ever been so sad to say goodbye, to let go? I think not since Sjoerd first left, and that was a given. Who would have thought I’d feel so much for this?

But I did. I did, and for as much as it hurt, it was wonderful. I am so glad to have felt so much, so much pain to hold him once then hold him when again?, ever?, but so much pleasure to have him within my grasp but for a moment, and to know that even as adults we didn’t just “get along” in person, but were truly real friends, who loved each other. How had we grown together over so many years in a life where we’d grown up first not knowing each other, and then not growing together in time? By all rights, we should have grown apart, far apart. But we didn’t. We grew together, and our care for each other had grown proportionally to the 15 years we’ve known each other, somehow. I hugged him once more and held onto his hands as I stepped away, taking in his face, his eyes his arms his shoulders one more time…I’ll never stop marveling at how incredible the opportunity is to have such a luxury with a person! I squeezed his hands and he squeezed mine back; touch – that invaluable smallest but biggest communication afforded to us as humans, friends, when we’re not too shy or stand-offish to use it!

I felt it as his fingertips separated from mine, both a tearing of the soul and a cementing of it. We had it; I knew now that this friendship would always be this deep and kind and caring with him, and I felt rich.

I smiled through the tears as I took one last look at him, told him I loved him, then turned and walked back into the night, down along the length of the legendary Khao San Road.

A meeting in Bangkok, 15 years later: How did it go? is a post from: Backpacking Travel Stories from Asia

Tomorrow morning we are headed out on an alllllllll day long hopefully-scenic train ride from Chiang Mai back to Bangkok. It should take about 13 hours, and I’m looking forward to it. We haven’t been on the ground much here in Thailand, as we have perused the bountiful domestic flights several times as we flew into Bangkok, stayed for a few days, flew to Surat Thani for Ko Samui, and also flew from Phuket to Chiang Mai. It’s been a far cry from all our much more interesting transportation stories from India, but having only a month here (we thought) warranted paying a little more for the fairly inexpensive domestic flights. But honestly, it’s quite a lot more boring to travel richly like this. An airport’s an airport in the end, and they’ve already all blurred together. In India though, I’ll never forget some of our ridiculously uncomfortable, irritating or downright miserable moments of getting from Point A to chai stop to chai stop to chai stop to chai stop to no we can’t stop for the bathroom to but we can stop for another chai stop to Point B. It was good times (said now, plenty of months removed from it, mind). Anyway, fun train ride and returning to awesome Bangkok with its 40 Baht street pad thai, 10 Baht skewers, 10 Baht fruit and 25 Baht spring rolls aside (not that we’re looking forward to the food), we’ve got something else really awesome in store.

About 15 years ago when I was in 8th grade – well, when WE were in 8th grade, since Ray and I were both there and did this – our teacher had us send a letter to “any service person” for Christmas. Sadly, Ray, along with about 87 out of 90 of the class never got a reply. Happily though, I did. Even more happily for a 13-year-old with a penchant for making somewhat unorthodox friendships and writing way-too-long things (so much has changed, no?), my responding sailor happened to be an awesome guy and probably the best penpal on the face of the earth. We wrote pretty frequently, and not only did I get good, page or 2-page letters, but I got COMICS! I loved it. They were so great, I showed them to my friends and kept all his letters.

As luck would have it, not only was my Navy penpal going to be heading back Stateside from Japan sooner than later, but his parents lived in Phoenix, Arizona. So he was headed to where I lived! We continued our letter-writing friendship when he got there, and talked on the phone. We even met up once or twice, and this is sorta embarrassing now but we met up at…the mall. We walked. Around. The mall. Mind you I was 13 or 14 and just a freshman in high school, so in case you don’t remember, options are pretty limited. I’m glad mom was cool and involved enough in my life to check out the situation and just make sure that I was doing something that wasn’t dodgy (it wasn’t) with someone who wasn’t pervvy (he wasn’t), and let us hang out. Because I really did enjoy our friendship and having the chance to interact with someone much different from my school friends and living a much different life. I’m sure it played a big part in my interest in finding ways to bridge gaps between people, whether geographical, age difference, interest, or social convention. It’s tough to say whether that interest spurred my interest in travel or the other way around, but suffice it to say, he was a fun and probably developmentally significant part of my young life.

Sadly, I vaguely remember talking to him on the phone just before I left for a spring trip to California with my schoolmates…maybe he was heading back for Japan…and after that, we never spoke again. This was circa March 1997. I tried finding him again later, sent a letter to his parent’s house but no reply, even tried a search occasionally online when the internet came around to my sphere (wow do I feel awkward and old saying that). But to no avail. He was gone.

I graduated college in 2005, and while I was in the Netherlands that summer, I got an email from my roommate/college best friend, wondering if I knew this random weirdo who had just emailed her asking about me. How he found her, I still have no idea. But it was Kevin! I emailed him back and we got back in touch, and have been in relatively decent touch since then (especially now thanks to Facebook being so huge). I knew he was still in Japan, so he was definitely already on the itinerary, but not for another year or so. I felt it too, when we left India and flew this much closer to Japan, like dammit so close yet so far. I was eager to see him again after all this time.

Then last week or so he messaged me asking if we were still in Thailand. He was coming to Thailand! We were in fact still in Thailand at the time he wrote, but we weren’t supposed to be by the time he would be here. But it was too good an opportunity to pass up, and we were enjoying Chiang Mai, and feeling tired of being on the move and wanted a break for awhile anyway. So we did our border run to Burma to extend for the extra 15 days, scheduled our departing flight to the Philippines for the same day he and his gf will leave to go back to Japan, and planned to meet up in Bangkok for the night or two before that. And that time is here! It’ll be a quick visit, but I’m really, really looking forward to it. I thought this guy was lost for good, but he’s back in my life and I’m so excited that I am actually going to get to see him again NOW, for the first time in some 14 years. And I think being 27 and 34 in Bangkok will probably be a much different story and a lot more interesting than being 14 and 21 at the mall in Phoenix. Not that that wasn’t awesome.

Who’da thunk it, when I mailed my little letter back in 1995? Thanks, Teach! It was a good project, indeed!

A meeting in Bangkok, 15 years later… is a post from: Backpacking Travel Stories from Asia

Greetings to you from very chilled-out Chiang Mai, in the north of Thailand. We’ve been here almost two weeks now, and found it to be an unexpected but great place to relax and recharge our batteries for the next bout of whirlwind activity and non-stop sight-seeing and experience-living. We leave for the Philippines (the “homeland”!) in a few days, and this seems like a good time to purge a few things from my mind, share the thoughts with you, and be ready to begin an altogether new chapter in a variety of ways.

I haven’t had a chance to write about all the awesome things we’ve been doing and seeing since we left off in India…I think that was about a million years ago? I have sat down to try dozens of times but the depths of even the simpler experiences have proven to be too engaging for my tendency for long-winded descriptions. Before I know it, I end up with 20 pages on my hands when I intended two paragraphs, and I haven’t been able to manage to whittle down my accounts of all the fun stuff we’ve done into acceptably abbreviated bite-sized portions. I’ll keep trying on that, but for now what I can do is fill you in on what’s going on in my internal world, if not yet all the millions of things that have happened in the external one.

A part of me has been in a bit of a mental bog lately. You see, Ray and I realize that everything we do in this world and especially online can have potentially far-reaching and long-lasting effects. This can be both a less-than-favorable or even downright bad thing, or it can be an absolutely awesome thing (we definitely aim for the latter, of course). The thing we’ve found though is that where those lines are drawn isn’t always especially clear, or that those lines sometimes aren’t drawn at all, and it just comes down to a personal decision.

For example, we came up here to Chiang Mai eager to do some of the “hilltribe treks”, both to stretch our legs (and in my case, my comfort zone, as I despise hiking, solo ascent of Humphreys Peak in Flagstaff before departure notwithstanding), as well as learn about the different people of the country. I especially was interested in the Karen Long Necks, of whom I had first heard while on a visit during college to Ripley’s Believe it or Not museum in Los Angeles. But as soon as we got up here, we were beseeched by two of our new travel friends from a meet-up of fellow travelers and bloggers, both of whose perspectives and opinions we admired and respected, not to partake in the “human zoo” and to stay far away from the treks. I had never even heard of the Long Necks aside from the random trip to the random museum in LA, so I never would have guessed they’d be touristed heavily enough to have become a dehumanized spectacle. For that, I was glad for the heads-up to exercise some serious ethical consideration, rather than just going blindly and ignorantly and contributing negatively and negligently to an existing problem. But at the same time, I was still interested in seeing them in person, and if there were legitimate concerns about the industry that maybe other tourists should be made aware of, a part of me felt like “but if I were to see the situation firsthand for myself and in turn be able to spread awareness knowledgeably”, mightn’t that offset my negative “ethical carbon footprint” ten-fold? …What to do?

Or the tigers? We’ve visited two facilities that enable an up-close-and-personal experience with tigers, one in Kanchanaburi and one here in Chiang Mai. Online research yielded not just the how’s and what time’s to get there, but also surfaced questions from people who had done it before, and had me watching out for signs of drugging and asking myself the questions of whether this was right or wrong to engage in and whether we should be there, no matter how rare an opportunity. What to do?

Ping pong shows? Are we contributing to the degradation of women by attending what has got to be one of the oddest inventions on the face of the earth? Or is it yet another side of Bangkok and human reality that should be known, acknowledged, and brought to discussion? What to do?

Live crucifixions? Is it utmost devotion or religious mockery? Am I a conscientious traveler for following through my opportunity to experience such an undeniably fascinating, if disturbing, act of human belief or am I another idiot gawking tourist making a spectacle out of a solemn occasion with my very presence? What to do?

Burma/Myanmar? It’s a country that doesn’t even register as a blip on our radar as mid-20s, 9-5er Americans. Or at least it didn’t on mine, especially not before planning this trip through the region, and even then just enough to cross it off the itinerary because it was maybe unsafe, and apparently broached all kinds of ethical issues to visit anyway. So I just crossed it off the list of Asian countries since I’d never heard much about it before anyway, unlike say Japan or China. But being on the ground here, it has come up several times, and in fact has unilaterally been encouraged to go visit by people who have themselves been there and who we consider to be good, ethical, mindful and responsible travelers (including, most enthusiastically in fact, those who opposed visiting the Long Necks). There are still considerations certainly, but there are ways to minimize the negative impact, meanwhile providing ourselves with some potentially very enlightening and enriching personal experiences and understandings unique to this sole time and opportunity. Done “correctly”, with our visit if we could contribute good things directly to people who apparently need it, and furthermore be able to spread greater awareness of some facts and realities, not just about these far-off people and their far-off situation but about things we as a global society really probably ought to be thoughtful and aware of…What to do?

And lastly, on the question of “correctness”: this blog and site, and along with it, the way we live our daily lives over here. I’ve defended our decisions in the comments section of the blog before, but thanks to another recent one, I think it’s time to explain our broader scope with this trip once and for all, because frankly I’m tired of the “Travel: You’re doin it wrong!” mentality.

We haven’t posted nearly as much throughout this trip as we had hoped and thought we’d be able to because it’s been so happily full-on. However, at the same time we birthed the idea of the trip, we also birthed the idea of essentially launching our own sort of small business with said trip by gearing it to generate some sort of sustainable income, largely through this site, to help keep us traveling, as well as to build upon more once home. We figured books, talks, articles, and whatnot would also be eventually forthcoming, but unless someone approaches us to do them along the way, they would probably be relegated to post-trip, when we would have more time and focus to put into finding and pursuing the opportunities. So for now on the trip, we decided we’d work at honing our skills (primarily writing and programming respectively), our style, our voices, and our work-experience. This isn’t actually a “career break” or a “vacation” to us. It’s an awesome trip as well as a chance for us to find and create who we are and who we want to be professionally. And hopefully in so doing, we’ll also generate some on-the-road supplemental travel funds through our site and through the opportunities having the site enables us to have. We’d saved as much as we could for the trip of course, and I hope it will be enough for all we want to do for as long as we want to be gone…but there’s no way to plan for sure for a trip this long. People ask what our daily budget is sometimes, but we don’t have a daily budget; there’s no way. You can’t calculate 20 countries’ worth of budget in 20 different kinds of currency over a 3-year period in a hugely and constantly fluctuating economy. And money considerations aside, writing and sharing is cathartic for us, comforting for friends and family who care about us, and potentially useful for total strangers interested in similar lifestyle pursuits or lifestyle careers.

But there’s been a constant running commentary in my mind that is crowding out my ability to function for myself. I’m tired of it, and I’m giving it the big shove-off. This is my life, dammit. I put 100% of myself into every moment I’ve got, everything I do, and try to do my damnedest with every person I meet. While this is, I would think?, a positive characteristic outwardly, it can be prove to be a little maddening when you’re stuck inside the head with this person, which I am. I want (Ray and I both want, actually) to share this journey with all of you that we know and all those that we might, and to form our experiences in such a way that might somehow benefit your life as well. We want to be available too for maybe others who are interested in doing similar things, chasing similar seemingly-difficult and challenging dreams and ideas, but don’t know how or if it’s worthwhile to go for it.

But we get so stuck on how to best maximize our voice and our chance for public platform to express ourselves, we end up getting ourselves stuck on trying to answer an impossible question of “How” to do that, and so remain mute. This bothers us because by being absent from the site, in essence we’re being absent from half of the trip we wanted to take and half of the experience we set out to have. I realize now after facing a string of other unanswerable, non-black-and-white questions within the trip like whether it would have been worse to experience the “human zoo” for myself or if it’s worse now that I didn’t, that my nagging internal question of “How” best to share this trip is also unanswerable. So the reason the site has been un-updated more than not is two-fold: sure we’re busy loving the hell out of this trip and petting tigers and standing on elephants and diving underwater and seeing temples and world treasures and all that awesomeness (as the commenter was so concerned we’d somehow not be doing on the trip, back in January when we thought we’d take his concerns to heart). But it’s not like that’s all you DO on a 3-year journey! We get tired after a few days or a few weeks of go go go go go enjoy enjoy enjoy enjoy every day. Because GUESS WHAT! On a round-the-world (or round-Asia) trip, it’s not all about sight-seeing, doing, interacting, carpe diem-ing, and running around seeing awesome things constantly. Omg our heads would explode.

It’s also about finding a balance; learning about yourself and just how many awesome experiences CAN I take in a row before I really just want to watch an episode or 30 of House? You learn about what’s important to you, and what’s not. In my case, I’m also learning how to find my voice and when to use it, and what it sounds like, what I WANT it to sound like. That’s an important part of this trip for me, and an important part of my life and future. And you know what, random commenter who is happy to judge anytime we dare decide to work on the site and share what we’ve done ALONGSIDE petting tigers and visiting the Taj Mahal twice in five months, yet is too cowardly to use your name (or even the same name twice?…Yeah, we know.)? I don’t care if you aren’t enjoying our journey. I don’t care if you think we are living our lives wrong and can’t believe that we would concern ourselves with something like our HARD DRIVE CRASHING and taking thousands of words and photos with it. Then piss off and stop reading!

I was trained as a writer and a photographer, and this is what I DO. This aspect of the journey to me is just as big as the trip itself. It IS the trip itself to me, as it is to Ray, who loves learning about and running this site (as well as his new tech-travel-focused one, www.thetravelingcoder.com). We didn’t take this trip to run away from things. We didn’t take it to avoid our lives or the things we’d worked up to for all our lives previous to the Phx-Chicago-New Delhi flights we stepped on in August. This is a CONTINUATION of our lives, not a break from it. When the living-out-of-a-backpack and crossing some 20,000 borders over these three years comes to a close, I’ve got books upon books to write and photos to publish, and students to talk to/teach/learn from, and I want to be on top of my game and ready to hit the ground running with that. Ray’s got sites to build and run and things to program and pupils to share it all with. And we LIKE that, that’s where we’re looking forward to going. This trip is helping us get there. And in a funny, twisted sort of way, so have you.

I have thus far spent a lot of time passively or actively taking in others’ opinions and thoughts to ensure I wouldn’t by oversight deny myself the bigger picture that I seek. But now that we’ve started seeing what kind of personal decisions are out there to be made, and with this most recent comment on our blog, I have realized a major chapter has been turned in our journey and in my development as a traveler, writer, and a person. Maybe we won’t make any money after all, because no one liked what we had to say. But with this newest comment, I realized some people aren’t going to like what we have to say no matter what. OH. WELL. We’re just going to do our best, and they can go sit on it. So while I will always endeavor to keep an open mind and take peoples’ suggestions and even criticisms into consideration lest they have a good point that I am overlooking that may in fact resonate with my sense of truth and correctness, as someone I really rather have to get along with and not be annoyed by, I am also ready to break free of the degree of self-doubt and self-consciousness that I have consciously or unconsciously been living under since we began this trip. We are not n00bs anymore; we’ve been on the road almost 8 months and while there is always more to aspire to and others worthy of aspiring to be like, I for one have a pretty good idea of how I want to change my approach thus far.

Yep you might end up with an occasional (or frequent) post on here that is longer than the “most-blog-readers-prefer” allotted pithy 5 paragraphs or more palatable “10 Reasons Why You Should…” lists. And even if this is by rights a travel blog/site, you may have to deal with my philosophizing frequently enough to warrant its very own post tag, and all you wanted was a description of what the beach in Phuket looked like. I may even tell you about how we’ve spent two weeks in Chiang Mai, a place that has all kinds of cool stuff to see and do, museums, whitewater rafting, more temples than you can shake a stick at…and “all” we have to show for it is a sweet visit to the tigers, a visa run to Burma and Laos during which we saw the awesome white temple and drank cobra-infused whiskey with two new Kiwi friends, several yes AMERICAN meals and some excellent MEXICAN food (yep which we “could have stayed home and gotten” – but we didn’t stay home! So SHUT UP, voices in my head!), two visits to the awesome Sunday night market, and a sudden and possibly heartbreaking (prognosis still forthcoming) hard drive crash, but besides all that in two weeks…we did a WHOLE LOT OF HANGING OUT IN OUR ROOM, staying up ridiculously late, sleeping in ridiculously late, and enjoying the hell out of getting to do whatever we feel like doing – or NOT doing whatever we DON’T feel like doing, even if we “really should”. I felt guilty about doing such 3 months ago when we were in Varanasi. I don’t feel guilty about it this time.

Now it’s just the reality of the matter; this is a long ass trip, and we are in it for the long haul. Thinking that we can just be go go go all the time in every place we go is not just unfavorable, it’s stupid. And I have but a simple brain; if I’m going to be able to even attempt to hash out answers to those impossible questions like “should I witness things firsthand so as to be better educated about them or not”, I need my downtime, and my writing to process it all. I will share some of it publicly for anyone who wants to glean either insight about me personally as one of your friends/family members, or who wants to see an insider’s look at what life on the road is like, what some of the issues are out here (whether or not I can figure out in the time allotted whether they are “right” or “wrong”) and insomuch as I can, help you to do the same if that’s what you endeavor to do.

I’ll do my best here on the fly, but the perfect and polished version of all this will just have to wait for my book. But if you’re waiting for the perfect and polished version of my Life, and I’m talkin to you one more time before I banish you from my mind forever, buddy: this is the best you’re gonna get. Take it or leave it.

On ethics and who I choose to be as a traveler, a writer, and a person. is a post from: Backpacking Travel Stories from Asia

OMG.

OMG.

This will be our saddest and scaredest post to date.

We have just experienced the “Click of Death” on our Macbook. That would be our digital powerhorse, the one housing all of our photos, videos, journals, movies we brought from home, G’s METICULOUS chronicling of every penny spent so that we can be sure we make this trip last as long as we intended it to. Which, btw, she just spent the past 3 days copying ALL statements from ALL (6!!!) accounts and painstakingly entering in every day of the past month’s expenditures from the wire notebook she diligently carries around to mark down every time we buy something. She’s also been staying up til all hours of the night organizing and re-structuring the thousands upon thousands of files that had piled up all over the computer until they were (nearly-)perfectly ordered. What was the next step?

That’s right. To back up all these updates to the external hard drive, in case anything ever happens to the computer.

We feel like we are going to be sick.

We HAVE done a pretty good job of backing up to multiple sources regularly, thank god. We think it was last done a month ago. It’s not bad enough to go jump in front of a tuk-tuk, but it is bad enough to go to the bar and blow through some savings so we can laugh instead of cry about this.

All crossed fingers, prayers, hail Marys, Ganeshas or Buddhas, recommendations for a good computer repair place in Chiang Mai or Bangkok, or pity beers are welcomed tonight.

RIP, Macbook HD? Please no. :(

P.S. If any Apple representatives happen to get wind of this and would like to donate two Macbook Airs to our journey, we would be willing to accept them. We’re just saying.

CRISIS!!!!! is a post from: Backpacking Travel Stories from Asia

I sent this over the weekend to a work/travel company called BUNAC:

Hello,

I went to NZ with a working holiday visa through the NZ government in 2005-06. Can I work in the country again if I go through BUNAC? I am under 35. Thank you.

G

And just got this in my inbox:

Hi G,

Yes!

Regards,
Outbound Programs Coordinator
BUNAC USA

In 2005-2006, for 12 months I spent one of the most incredible years in one of the most incredible countries on a New Zealand “working holiday visa”. My heart never really fully left, and I’ve been plotting my eventual return, to Queenstown especially, ever since. Even Ray is pretty convinced he wants to live there, and he’s not even been yet. You’ll see on the left that NZ has always figured in on our itinerary, just before we go on to do a year with a working holiday visa in Australia, which I knew we could get. The idea was to have a sort of “reintegration” to the Western world after spending two years in some 17 or 18 countries in Asia. Imagine the shell-shock of that being your life for the past two years, then one day suddenly going from the crazy bizarro streets of Tokyo to the next day BAM: life back home in Phoenix, Arizona. Cacti! Desert! SUVs! Your car, your neighborhood, your STUFF! Being able to understand EVERYTHING around you! What?!?!

If you’ve traveled before, you might know exactly what the problem with that would be. If you haven’t, it’s a phenomenon I’m glad I was told about before the first I went overseas because otherwise it woulda been a pretty big head trip: Reverse Culture Shock. It’s when all of a sudden, just like at the beginning of a trip you suddenly find yourself smack in the middle of a life swirling around you that is totally different from where you came from, sometimes in the very most basic and fundamental ways, leaving your understanding of the world around you and how it works completely upside down and on its head. You expect this when you journey out somewhere new; but you probably wouldn’t expect such a thing when you go back home. I mean, home’s home right? What’s weird about that? But sometimes it can be just as disconcerting and unnerving to suddenly be back where everything is as it always was: understandable, sensible, and well…normal. Every day no longer different, every venture outside no longer an adventure (whether you meant for it to be or not!), the world of scouring guidebooks to find the best things to do and see in a new place every few days no longer applicable to you.

It’s REALLY GREAT to get home and see friends and family again, don’t get me wrong. But it’s a place that you know should seem familiar and right, but it doesn’t. You know it should feel more natural than the life on the road you just left, but it doesn’t. A lot of returning backpackers experience this, and can have a hard time dealing with it.

So to combat that utter shock to our systems and ease ourselves back into not only a more once-familiar world but also a more once-familiar lifestyle (for example…going to work every day!) while still getting to explore a new, different and cool place that we’ve always wanted to visit, we built in a year working and traveling in Australia at the end of our trip. But first we planned to spend the winter in New Zealand – Queenstown! – for the three months I could be there without a visa and enjoy an awesome season of playing ice hockey, netball, basketball, living in my old hostel, partying our 20s goodbye (too late in Ray’s case but we’ll let him slide), and snowboarding, snowboarding, snowboarding!

Well the more we’ve thought about it (and the more I’ve talked it up ;]), the more we realized we’ll want longer there. Even if we don’t take a full year since three of the months wouldn’t be spent doing rafting like I did before, I do want to show Ray the best of the country. And I’d really like to see QT in the summer as well as the winter. The only problem with this was that since I’d already done the working holiday visa (WHV), I’m no longer eligible for it, and so can only be in the country for 3 months without a visa. I think I MIGHT be able to get a tourist visa for 9 months, but the NZ immigration site has always been ridiculously inconclusive to me and google searches haven’t helped either. And anyway, by that point in the trip, we’re only hoping that our savings will have carried us even to that point, especially after Japan…let alone another 9 months living footloose and fancy free in a fully developed country. And one with really cool adventure activities and extreme sports ($$$).

But with this email…not only does it take care of the time issue, but more importantly, the money one. I am ecstatic, if even only for having this on the table as a possibility (the downside to the BUNAC program – and it’s a big one – is that you have to be in the States to apply, which would rather defeat the purpose). But whether we can get around that so the WHV works out or if I can score a 9-month tourist visa, we don’t know yet whether we’d want to tack on the additional time to what we already had planned for the trip, or just reduce the time in Australia. I probably lean more towards the latter at this stage. Especially if we could manage to get some savings back up while in NZ and not HAVE to work in Australia, we might just fancy ourselves a campervan figure-8 tour through the great outback and skeedaddle. I would love to spend a full year in another country, working and living and turning a foreign place into a home again. But I want to do that for probably about 20 countries in the world. I want to take the 3-year road trip through the United States I’ve always had in the back of my mind. I also want to go to an exotic animal training school and spend a decade or so working with dolphins (sorry Dave, I know you think they’re evil), maybe a decade working with elephants, and/or a variety of other cool and fascinating critters, open a hostel, run a bar, go back to school and get my Master’s or PhD, be a Residence Hall Director at NAU, teach at a high school and coach a couple of sports teams, and be a professor at a university as well…

But the fact is, time is ticking. I do want to have a kid too, and preferably my own, with my genes. We take it day by day here, but we do have to keep one eye on the horizon occasionally, and remember to balance out what we want much with what we want most.

But still, how could you resist spending more time in a place like this?:

Update 3/23 2:56a: Argh, foiled! BUNAC says yes you have to be in the US because you have to send them your passport. But there must be some way to do this… will keep working on it!

Update 3/23 7:00a: YES! Maybe? http://chrisguillebeau.com/3×5/how-to-get-a-duplicate-us-passport/ I’ve written Chris to see if this would apply in this case! (We met him in Bangkok at our first-ever “Tweet-up” when we first arrived in Thailand; great guy, fascinating ideas, awesome site – check it out!) I know he’s busy right now so I’ll wait (mostly) patiently to hear back from him! Will update again then!

Update 3/23 2:25p: Well he actually wrote back right away, but I figured I should probably get to bed. ;] He didn’t know if that would satisfy the requirement of my being in the US in this case, but I’m hoping it would. I guess we’ll see closer to the time. If anyone sees this and happens to know for sure, please drop a line.

Last Update 3/24 5:02a: Alas, it looks like the WHV may not work out for me. BUNAC says I have to be in the States, and while they do respond to my emails, they’re not really working with me much on it. Personally, I think we’d be able to get around it with the second passport. Maybe I’ll try again in a year. On a brighter note…it does seem I can do the 9-month tourist visa! Winter and Summer, here we come! (in 2012)

For now…back to Thailand!

!!!! Mission: New Zealand for a YEAR? is a post from: Backpacking Travel Stories from Asia

Agh, it MUST be spring! Itineraries gone wild!!

Nonetheless, even if it doesn’t, hasn’t, and won’t go quite as I plan even now, it sure is an amazing journey! And even for the sheer overwhelmingness of months and days and countries that I’m trying to wrangle into these 941 cells (I’m using Excel for my calendaring)…I have to say, I sure am happy to be overwhelmed by something so incredibly awesome. The only reason it feels overwhelming is because the mass amounts of potential and promise and adventure and intrigue is bursting out of the seams! And now nearly 8 months into this, I don’t just have to whimsically imagine what wonder it might hold in those days, months, years, countries…I KNOW!!!

And still yet Mongolia! Japan! China! Indonesia! The Philippines! And that’s just a fraction of it all.

Anyway, we’re taking one last chill day here in Chiang Mai tomorrow before gearing up to be somewhat physically productive again, and I hope to start filling in some of the gaps as to where we’ve been since we effectively left off with our story-telling back in November. And not just for you, but for me and us as well. Ever since the fmy401k days (RIP…for now), one of the best and most important things to us about this great ride has been our desire and ability to share it with others, especially those we had to leave behind in order to take it.

So even if all I’ve really got time or coherence to muster for you at this 5:07am hour is the fruits of my itinerary-planning labor, I wanted to pop in and share it, in light of my newly-made dedication to updating more often, if more randomly. Much of the itinerary, though it’s now all laid out as a general plan (3 of them, actually), is still so open to probably inevitable and unavoidable change, I’ll leave it out for now unless any die-hard fans really want to know how one maps out 3 years of one’s life in an Excel sheet.

But this part looks pretty solid and reliably in place. We just have to book our tickets tomorrow to and from the Philippines and we’ll be set. We are having some technical difficulties on deciding which way to do it though, so if anyone can shed some light for us, it’d be much appreciated. I’ll explain at the end of this post so you don’t forget. I know you have short attention spans. ;]

Mar
21 Thailand
22 Thailand
23 Thailand
24 Thailand
25 Thailand
26 Thailand
27 Thailand
28 Thailand
29 Bangkok <—— meeting up with Kevin! (cool story!!)
30 Bangkok <—— or maybe today meeting up with Kevin! Wish he’d write me back!
31 BKK, Thailand-Philippines

Apr
1 Manila-San Fernando
2 San Fernando <—— to witness the unbelievable Good Friday live crucifixions
3 San Fernando-Donsol
4 Donsol <—— for swimming with WHALE SHARKS!!! (life dream!)
5 Donsol <—— just in case they didn’t show up!
6 Donsol <—— after this I’m giving up!
7 Philippines
8 Philippines
9 Philippines
10 Philippines
11 Philippines
12 Philippines
13 Philippines
14 Philippines
15 Philippines
16 Philippines
17 Philippines
18 Philippines
19 Philippines
20 Phil-BKK

Nice, that’s about a month then! So that’s all I can say with relative certainty for now. Next it will just come down to (input welcome!) whether we decide to go to Mongolia in June-July to see the summer and the huge Naadam festival, or in September to keep all of SE and Indo-Asia together (Mongolia would then precede the China-ish region instead of being smack in between SE Asia and Indo-Asia…kinda awkward). So yes that’s how it works with a trip of this magnitude…what happens in as much as 4 or 6 months in the future can dictate what happens in all the time before that. That’s why it takes some planning. A lot of planning.

Then, when all that excellent planning completely falls apart…re-planning. :]

Last thing, with regards to our flight booking…does anyone know – if our visas are up on March 31 but the flight departs 40 min later, at 12:40a on April 1, as long as we’ve cleared passport control hours earlier, which we would have, are we good? Or should we pay $70 (!!! That’s a lot of tiger petting, is the thing!! :[ ) more per person and get a flight that gets us out and in at normal times on the 31st. (Also a plus for the comfort factor, but $70 bucks each is a lot of dough…)

Thoughts? Experiences?

Itinerant Itineraries is a post from: Backpacking Travel Stories from Asia

me: ps did you see the blog update? have you entered your email address to get email notifications?
michelle: scuse me but i just learned how to text!!! I need to do more??! Now i know how that kid felt about learning the times table!!COFFEE!! NOW!!!!
me: lol ok
michelle: am still digesting Tiger pics – will get to blog after heart returns to normal
me: the baby tiger??
michelle: was it fun?
me: i’m going back and doing the whole thing again best 60 bucks EVER! k before you go just look at this real quick http://www.operationbackpackasia.com/ and scroll down
michelle: OMG!! i need more than coffee now – maybe even a pacemaker!! Are you kidding??! Hes not even tied up!!!!!

Fun times catching up with Mom… is a post from: Backpacking Travel Stories from Asia

This is about how the pace of life has been the past couple of months.

Greetings from beautiful Thailand, all!

This post will serve as an official notice that we are hereby vacating all hopes and delusions of being able to keep this up as a chronological journey. Or of always being brilliantly-written, well thought-out perfect stories. It’s a blog! And we’re missing so many chances to tell you what we’re doing every day! So someday we may retro-actively sort it out to be in a more cohesive, ordered experience and memoir. But for now we are officially abandoning that ship and jumping into the waters of “we’re gonna post what we want, when we can, whatever it may be”! The chronological, beautifully eloquent and perfectly researched and edited version will just have to wait for the book we publish when we get home. ;)

So it took 7 1/2 months, but traipsing through magical Asia with a backpack has finally wholly curtailed our (apparently) overly anal-retentive natures! We’ve been living every day one day at a time with an adventure or twenty packed into every single one. No wonder we can’t stay on top of it and haven’t been able to write – so forget staying on top of it with real entries… we’ll just share what we can!

We’ll sort out the order of it all later. Deal?

Thanks for reading, and we’ll be back soon with some recent Asian adventures for ya!
G and Ray

Example?…

Srsly. Enough is enough! We’ve got STORIES to tell! is a post from: Backpacking Travel Stories from Asia

Happy Birthday, Ray!

Update: here’s the photos we got!

Sign from G in the morning

Gomez Family

DFSMSdss IBM team, thanks Andrew!

Melissa and Toby, our roomies from Tucson!

David pretty much little brother

Jenny from high school

Greg from college

Gina from college

Jake from high school and coworker

Justin from hockey

Cousin Chris

Aunt Debbie

Cristina pretty much little sister

friends/G’s old college roomie Matt and Tina

Kasper, Dutch travel friend from India

Sjoerd crazy Dutch really good friend

Josh and Sue friends from college and high school

Josh and Sue friends from college and high school

Heather and Maika, American and Fijian travel friends from Nepal

Andre from Ray’s work, with friends on top of Tumamoc hill over Tucson

(G’s) Mom and LILY!!! ^.v.^

Dianne, a friend we met on our Royal Caribbean cruise in 08

In addition to all the fantastic photos, Ray also had a really great Pina Colada fund for his big day. Thanks so much to Chuck, Gini, Andrew, Grandma, Esteban, Greg and Deanna who so generously contributed to his rum-filled coconut! We both had a real blast for his birthday and were so happy that so many people wanted to share it with him. You helped make it really special and memorable.

Happy 28th Birthday, Ray! is a post from: Backpacking Travel Stories from Asia