The day before the Koh Samui tournament, we decided to get some last minute training in and ended up helping with the set up for the tournament. The tournament is run by a California native who lives in Koh Samui and runs it as a non profit just to have a fun event. This year he received sponsorships from a number of Koh Samui establishments, with two of them being Hooters and Hard Rock. Hooters in Thailand is such an interesting thing because in the states, it is a risque establishment. It would be considered an adult restaurant. In Thailand, it is a short distance from actual strip clubs, so it ends up being like a family restaurant. We still get a good laugh thatwe ended up eating dinner together at Hooter’s on Valentines’s Day. We went to collect our welcome package, which included a custom Koh Samui Open jersey, a Hooters calendar, a mixtape, a water bottle and some other goodies. The package included a Hooters tshirt, which I gave to a Dutch girl in our hostel room and was rewarded with the knowledge that most Europeans do not know what Hooters is.

The International Debut

The first day of the tournament, the main court was lowered to women’s height and the net closer to the water was used for some men’s games. The net closer to the water had considerably more wind coming onto the court, making dealing with the unfamiliar ball even more of a task. We played our first game against a friend we had made earlier in the week, a German named Florian who was quite a bit above our skill level, who was playing alongside the owner of Beach Volleyball Thailand. It was nowhere near our best showing and we did not come out on top. Ryan posted some of the game on his facebook, if you feel like watching us fail. Game two would be the following morning against the first player I played with in pickup on the island and his tall American partner. We played them in two games before leaving Friday night and barely lost both times.

The second day, we came to play. We were on the second court again. We adjusted to the wind and kept aggressive. Ryan’s serves stayed in and the wind tossed them around, perfectly hitting the lines. Our first international win, we’ll take it. Our next game would be on court one against a very tall Russian that we played against our very first day in Phuket. I believe the score of that game was like four to twenty one, so we refused to let that happen again. Our game took place at two, announced over the loud speaker, with all of the people we had made friends with watching. The entirety of this game is on Ryan’s facebook, but unfortunately, we did not come out on top. A few mistakes at the end cost us the game. A line shot from Ryan at the end went just wide to end the game, with the entire crowd saying it was actually in after the game was called. Insult to injury, nobody could have spoken up a few minutes earlier. Oh well, our first showing ended one win and two losses.

We stayed to support our other friends and returned the following day to watch the semis and finals. Finals was between a Slovenian pro team and a Russian team that seemed outgunned. The taller Russian had other plans though, demolishing every ball that was passed above his head. Taking on two and hitting down from behind the ten foot line, he overwhelmed the Slovenian team and they won the match in only two games. A good showing and we decide to go home.

We had had scooters for about a week at this point. As I got to my scooter and got my helmet on, the scooter wouldn’t turn on. I tried everything, but no luck. I pushed it into the lot and tried some more. Ryan pulled his bike over to mine and told me his bike would not start either. Did someone kill our bikes? Did we both somehow kill our bikes? We had learned how to kickstart bikes in Laos, which isn’t exactly ideal in sandals. My bike started up after a few kicks. Ryan’s wouldn’t even kick down. A few minutes later, a group of younger Thai guys started looking at Ryan’s bike, trying everything. They pulled another bike over, took the battery out of his bike and threw in the battery from the other bike and got it started. Then they switched the batteries back and told him not to stop. Thai kindness wins again. We head home to get some sleep before playing in the morning.

I wake up and head to the gym one last time. It is about eighty five degrees and none of the fans are on. After about a twenty minute workout, I am pretty much drenched in sweat. I meet up with Ryan and friends for some games. A group of German FIVB playing girls showed up at the same time as the guys and dropped the net to women’s height to run drills. The four of them played some games and finished up as I arrived. We were going to run some drills but the other net had to be taken down and the Germans “didn’t have time” to reset the net to men’s height before leaving, so we just headed back. I thought I would have enough time for a haircut before our ferry so I found a barbershop.

We have had a number of instances of Thai guys wanting to take pictures with us, especially the ones we play volleyball with. No big deal. Laugh, take a picture, walk away. I showed the barber the usual picture I use for haircuts, a straight on picture from a wedding this past summer and tell him some numbers. As he shaves the sides, he asks if the picture was of me. After I answer, he calls someone into the room. They begin speaking Thai and I recognize the Thai word for handsome and begin to laugh. The barber asks if I speak Thai. Another worker walks in and asks if I have Instagram. I awkwardly say yes and my haircut is postponed for me to type in my username. I look at my watch, fifteen minutes until I need to be at the port for my ferry. The haircut continues. It comes to an end and the usual cleaning up is done. The barber asks to take some pictures. Sure, go ahead. A few more minutes of this and I am edging towards the door. As I open it, he asks to take a picture of the picture I showed him to start. The haircut went well, so sure. He takes the picture and I immediately exit to the ferry and arrive back just in time.

Thai Prices, Please

Koh Samui is essentially a tourist island you would take a family to. If that is the case, then Koh Phangan is a backpacker party island. The prices are similar to the less touristy Northern Thailand, but it attracts a lot more tourists. The beaches get packed every month for the Full Moon party. The beach fills with party goers and the locals sling buckets full of liquor and mixers and the beach rages all night. Bars blast music, there are fire shows and fire jump roping and people stay on the beach past sunrise. Essentially a bunch of drunk tourists cover themselves in neon paint and stumble arond a beach, but it is an interesting sight. Our second tournament took place on Haad Rin beach on February 20th, as did the February Full Moon Party.

Most of my traveling is very planned, but with the length of this trip, I have been trying to be more spontaneous and plan things as I go. I didn’t realize the Full Moon Party was happening and failed to book anything before everything cheap was sold out. Whoops. A girl I had met told me she could get us a hotel room right where we needed to be for considerably cheaper than our other options. Ignoring the fact that this would be a super easy set up to murder us both and take our belongings, we took her up on the offer. Maria was gracious enough not to kill us and basically handled everything for us on the island. She had been coming to the island for years and had a group of cool people traveling with her, so it was a great situation we had stumbled upon. She taught me some Polish, so now I am learning Polish, Thai and Russian for anyone keeping count. We head to the beach to check out the playing spot.

A few of the people we made friends with on Koh Samui were also playing in Koh Phangan, the first time on the trip that we had a group of friends to hang out with. We all went to the beach to play some games. The sand on Koh Phangan is almost silky, a sharp contrast to the gravel sand of Koh Samui. We got some games in and were told that we would get tournament information later that night.

The first tournament ran very well and everyone in the community was more than willing to help out. I am not one to speak ill of a situation, but it’s my site, so I’ll post the truth. Not having tournament information the night before a tournament is offputting. We didn’t know what time to wake up or even where on the beach the games would be. The group chat for the tournament was flooded with questions but no answers. We were told to arrive at noon for a captain’s meeting but were also told we wouldn’t play until one and that we didn’t have to show up until we played. Anyone who has been anywhere hot knows that one oclock is the worst time to be outside. The sun is out with a vengeance.

Oh well, we came to play, so we showed up at noon. We arrived to nets and lines on the ground five minutes before the first games were supposed to start. We were asked to help, so we did. For the same price to play as the smoothly run first tournament, we were building the courts at the last minute. We helped put things together for the first tournament, but just to speed things. Had we not helped, they would have gotten done, just slower. This time, had we not helped, I am not sure it would have. After about an hour of setting up, we were told to take a group picture. As cool as the Koh Samui jersey was, it was almost entirely yellow, so probably won’t be a regular wear for me. For this reason, we were excited to get different jerseys for this tournament. Everyone else had on different colored FIVB style jerseys with ones and twos on them. Awesome. We tried to get some for the picture and found out the only matching ones were yellow and we were told we had to match colors. We took the pictures and immediately took them off.

We played our three pool games against a strong set of teams and failed to come out on top in any of our games. The competition was strong and we didn’t play particularly well. Maria was a saving grace again, offering to take some pictures of us while we played with her DSLR. Not having any cool pictures of us playing, we were ecstatic at the offer. We stuck around to check out our other friends playing and decided to fix the jersey issue. We traded in the yellow jerseys for two red ones and mine has “RUS” on the back. Score. We head home and check out the island.

The second day, we make ourselves scarce to avoid more physical labor. The prices on Koh Phangan facilitate us shopping a bit more so we take advantage. We head over to cheer our friends on for semis and to check out the Slovenian team in finals again, but this time against our friends from Phuket. Not looking to make the same mistakes as on Samui, they lose the first game and then win the next two to take it. The tournament ended around 6:30, so the Full Moon party was being set up.

Booze in Thailand is particularly cheap. You can get two bottles of liquor and two liters for less than twenty American dollars. All over the beach, they sell buckets containing a mixer and a three hundred and seventy five milliliter bottle of liquor. These cost about five American dollars. A dangerous amount of drink and we received a number of warnings about people putting more than liquor into the drinks being sold. We had some drinks back at our place and checked out the scenery. It is standard fare to be covered in neon paint and glitter, but not feeling particularly eager to have either on any of my things, we attended as observers.

Blasting music, drunk people jumping over flaming ropes and a decent variety of light shows abound as the beach was literally covered in people. We roamed around and found some friends to hang out with before remembering that I care more about food than drunk people. We hit up a local burger joint that does the best attempt at a burger that we have seen in Asia and I decide it is time to get some sleep.

Next, we will check out some other parts of Koh Phangan and then begin the journey back to Bangkok to head to Vietnam before coming back to Koh Phangan for training with Olympic players.

Joy is Never a Waste

Sitting in an air conditioned room playing video games on a beautiful, tropical island seems like a waste. Trust me, plenty of people told me. But I’ve been playing video games since long before I could read, so I genuinely enjoy the experience. So most of the seventh was spent playing video games, with a break to grab some food and check out the local Muay Thai area. We played with some other people in the area, one of which happened to be a UFC fighter that I had watched before and not realized it was him. I planned to book a bus from Phuket to Koh Samui the following day, but they sold out, so I was stuck in Phuket for another day.

We had a mix up with another hotel, so Ryan had an extra night I could use and it gave me more time to sit and play video games. I woke up at 6am and rode my scooter to the eastern coast to check out a view of the sunrise that I had been told about, my first sunrise of the trip. Afterwards, I checked out a local market and booked my scooter for another day. I then rushed back to the hotel and played video games. It’s good to indulge from time to time. The computers came preloaded with DotA2, a game that I had invested thousands of hours into while at Ohio State. The urge to give it a try and see how it has changed was strong, but Ryan was nice enough to uninstall it for me before I got on the computer. A few more hours of Apex Legends and I took off for the beach to play some volleyball.

The ride to the beach was about thirty minutes and filled with construction and traffic. The scooter skills are slowly improving, I note as I weave between cars stopped in traffic and follow locals over sidewalks and around potholes. I get to the beach and see a few locals we had met. One of them is playing with a woman taller than me, brimming with muscles. I am introduced and told she used to play for the Thai national team until she got bored. Got bored of playing on a national team. Today, there is no fours, only doubles. Thank god.

My stamina has drastically increased over the few days we have been playing in the humid heat. My one handed digs are back to their normal annoyingness, saving my lack of experience and positioning mistakes from being my ruin. I am learning to hit short and deep shots with the Mikasa ball. My hopes for this tournament have drastically increased. I play until about 9pm and relax in the ocean for a bit to get the sand off while wondering if ocean attacks are more or less likely when it’s dark.

Back to the hotel for a shower. I am still covered in sand, which I notice as I step onto the bathroom towel and it instantly turns black. I take a shower and realize I haven’t eaten since about noon. A short walk away is a Mcdonald’s, not my favorite but the Thai diet is severely lacking in the sodium levels I am accustomed to. This may seem like a detriment to the American diet, but the sodium helps to keep the body hydrated, which I have been struggling with for the past week of playing in the sun. We found some electrolyte powders, but I could still use some more sodium. I grab a meal for cheaper than most of the restaurants in Phuket and people watch for a bit. I grab a small McFlurry for less than a dollar and head back to the hotel. I get my bags together and begin figuring out the logistics of my next day adventure.

Get Me Out of Phuket

Here’s the predicament: I have to return a scooter, walk to the first bus terminal and take a shuttle to the second, exchange my confirmation for a physical ticket and get on a bus by 9am. The scooter rental owner refuses to show up until 8am, so I pray he doesn’t share the Lao penchant for being late. It is a fifteen minute walk to the first bus terminal and at least a fifteen minute ride to the next one, if it leaves the moment I get there. I don’t feel like being in Phuket for another day, so I am up at 7:30am.

I grab my things and check out. A quick ride to the scooter rental place and I give him a call to ensure he will arrive at 8am. He shows up at 8:01, close enough. A few motor taxis stop near me and offer me a ride. I don’t feel like having my first motor taxi experience with a thirty pound bag on my back, so I opt to walk to the terminal. I arrive and the shuttle is not there. They tell me it will arrive in around twenty minutes. We’re at 8:15am now. I don’t have twenty minutes to wait. A taxi is about four hundred baht, or thirteen dollars, for a twelve minute ride. I walk over the motor taxis and ask the price. They tell me one hundred baht, about three dollars. Here we go, first ride with both bags on. The woman takes my bigger bag and throws it in front of her, score.

Being on the back requires you to trust the person in front, and this is her job, so I guess I do. I am not sure what leaning etiquette is for a passenger, so I try to lean as I see necessary. She is whipping between cars while I am sure we are exceeding the maximum capacity of this scooter. She gets me there in one piece and I pay her the baht. I exchange my ticket and throw my bag under the bus. A group does the same. I realize I didn’t take any of the things I might want for the seven hour journey out of my bag. Oh well, I have my tablet. I grab a window seat and lean it back with hopes that no one sits behind me. I hop off the bus to grab some snacks since I haven’t eaten and return to find two people behind me. There are maybe five other people on the bus and they sit behind me…so I move up one.

The ride is pleasant enough. Nice views of the ocean while I finish season three of The Punisher. The contrast between the view and the show is laughable. The bus arrives to the ferry station and I grab a Thai dish with some rice. Mistake, it is the spiciest thing I have eaten in weeks. I devour it as quickly as possible and drain my water bottle into my mouth to subside the heat. I find a free water purifier and refill. I ask the bus driver where my big bag is and he tells me it is on the bus, awesome. Onto the ferry I go. Beautiful views immediately. I grab a bench seat at the top.

After sitting for a while, I check out the rest of the boat. I realize my Tevas have given me a ludicrous tan line on my feet so I look to rectify this. I lay down on a bench that exposes my legs to the sun and covers the rest of me with nice shade. As a bonus, the seat I chose catches a cross breeze, so the wind goes right over me and cools me off. I lay down and begin reading The Picture of Dorian Gray. I wake up about an hour later as the ferry approaches Koh Samui.

I notice everyone has their bags and I do not see anyone from my bus. A panic sets in as I realize everything I currently own is located in that bag. I begin asking ferry workers where the bag might be, and they stare at me blankly with the language barrier. I run around the boat before stepping off to see if the luggage is somewhere. No luck. No worries, I will find the office for that company and ask them to help me. I exit the ferry station and ask where the Phantip office is. They point me off in the distance. A motor taxi tells me it is far. I ask how far the walk is and he says too far to walk and charges me thirty baht. I get off the motorbike less than two minute ride later and see my bag being unloaded, the entire bus was on the ferry. I pay the man his thirty baht and walk away, he can enjoy his karma. A couple I met earlier on the bus offers to let me share their songthaew and I agree before realize that they had not haggled at all. Whatever, more tax for being a farang.

The hostel I wanted to stay at is fully booked, so I book one next door and begin checking out the island. I grab a motorbike for more than I would normally pay since it is already 6pm and hit an atm. I shoot over to the beach we will be playing the tournament at and arrive just after the sun sets. The court is empty. I check out a few gyms I am interested in training at and realize the martial arts prices here are insane, even by American standards. I check out dinner at a highly rated hostel close by and decide to book the next night there. I try to get some sleep as some other travelers in their late teens yell about how excited they are to go to the bar.

Sam in Samui

I find a highly rated motorbike rental place, that will pick up and drop off the bikes to you, which only charges about sixty percent of the standard price. I get in contact with the owner and he tells me that he is currently fully booked for the whole week. He suggests me some other places that refuse to give me the deal we have been getting, even though I am renting two bikes for over a week. I happen to ask my new hostel and they are offering close to the original places price. I book Ryan and I a week there and a week of bikes and give them my laundry to be done. A week of stay and motorbikes for two people costs me less than one hundred and fifty dollars, but that’s significantly more than the other travelers who are only spending five dollars a night to stay. The owner pours me a coconut shake and pushes it towards me.

I toss my stuff upstairs and check out the area. I head back to the volleyball courts and start to do some exercises on the beach. People show up to play and I sit near the court to get picked up. The wind is much stronger here than Phuket and the sand on the court is more like small gravel than sand. The wind carries serves in all directions and I shank most of my passes. I dive for a save, a standard tool for my playstyle, and stand up to find my entire leg covered in abrasions. I assume after that display, I will not be playing again.

A little later, I get asked to play with a local. A much better showing this time. I get the feel back for this ball and start to get the hang of the ball moving in the wind. Two games later and I realize the bottoms of my feet have been destroyed by essentially playing on gravel. I rinse off in the ocean and go to meet up with Ryan for dinner.

Ryan and I have pretty similar tastes in food, outside of the whole vegetarian thing. This works out perfectly, because when one of us wants to splurge on a particular style of food, the other is usually in agreement. We have had Indian quite a few times on this trip, as well as Mexican. Ryan’s first night, we went to a restaurant that gave him ten percent off for the hostel he was staying in. We order massaman curry pretty much any chance we get. We have scoured cities for it. This particular restaurant offered a massaman curry burrito for a price that we probably would have avoided otherwise, but it was well worth it.

The following day, Ryan gets his motorbike and we do some roaming. I plan to be in much better shape but the time we leave the second island, so I check out a few local gyms. The cheapest Muay Thai gym is about sixty American dollars for a week, that’s like two full days of travel in Thailand and more than I would pay in the States, no thanks. I check out some other regular gyms and find one super close to my hostel. No air conditioning, open air gym, plenty of equipment from the seventies, but covers all of the bases and a plethora of fans. Eight hundred baht, or twenty six American dollars, for a week, not my favorite but it will have to do. The real kicker is that it was thirty American dollars for two weeks, but we would only be there for a week. In my excitement of finally getting to work out again, I go a little too hard, attributing the fatigue to the fact that it is currently ninety degrees in the gym.

I leave the gym to meet Ryan at the courts. There are a few new faces, but mostly the same I met the previous day. Ryan and I embarrass ourselves game one, this ball does not like us. We sit around and warm up, a better second showing. The local from the first day, Kee, grabs me to play again and we win two games. We meet the tournament coordinator, a Californian with a pretty good hold on the Thai language, and discuss this devastating sand and he informs us that new sand will be coming in the next day. Ryan and I bike around and find a good deal on a set of Indian food and eat ourselves full for a decent price (for Indian food in Thailand at least).

There Are Worse Places to Diet

A hostel dorm is an oddly intimate place. You are agreeing to share a room with three to fifteen strangers. It supplies some experiences that exist in few other situations. Firstly, if you are alone or only with one other person, you become immediately close with strangers. You are the only ones each of you know in that country, and maybe that speak your native tongue, and it brings a sense of immediately closeness. Second, you basically live together, so things like being in your underwear when you meet, isn’t that unusual. Finally, everyone there is traveling, whether it is for a few days or for years, and knows that most of traveling isn’t pretty or glamorous, Everyone has stories of injuries or sickness or general bad occurrences.

Most hostels are a dorm room with a bathroom and shower in a separate communal room. The one we are in has one bathroom in the room for six people with a door made of slats that angle down and let the sunlight through. I wake up at six am with the feeling after a Spartan race, nothing on my body feels like it wants to be there anymore. I hurt all over, my head is throbbing and my stomach is actively trying to leave. Everyone is asleep, I go to the bathroom, it is definitely food poisoning. I try to go back to sleep, the pain persists. A long time ago, I learned I could make myself throw up on command just by thinking about it and decide that will fix this situation like it had two weeks before. No luck, but I do find out that Indian food is nowhere near as good on the way back up, and in fact, is my least favorite thing to throw up. I finally fall back to sleep.

I wake up with the pain now my prominent and notice everyone else is awake. I hop back in the bathroom. I have seated maybe three feet from everyone as they talk, separated only by a thin wooden door covered in slits, and try to be quiet as my stomach evacuates all the poison from my body. I reenter the room to notice only Ryan remains. We discuss how sick I am and Ryan heads off to a nearby cafe to sit on his laptop. The girls in our room return and inquire about my sickness. They invite me to the beach and I decline. I lay and regret life decisions for a while and decide to go be miserable somewhere beautiful.

I scoot over to Ryan and work on this blog at the cafe. A beautiful porch overlooking the beach and majestic blue water for miles until Koh Phangan, our next destination. I grab an Italian soda(which is mostly syrup) and some “chocolate bread”(toast with nutella and chocolate drizzle) to try to ease my stomach. I catch up to our current day and notice a netting area with pillows suspended above the beach. I lay there, wanting to watch a movie or something, but realize that if I reach for my tablet or water, I will likely vomit all over this beautiful cafe. As I stare into the distance, I chuckle at the poetic irony of feeling the worst I have felt in a while in one of the most stunning places I have ever been. I check my watch and notice volleyball has started. I summon my strength and tell Ryan we are leaving. Pushing my body to its physical limit in the hot sun is the only responsible way to rectify my current situation.

Again, our first game is rough. The wind is worse than before. We get better as we go. I feel better as the games go on and we swim in the ocean to rinse off. I feel much better but very hungry. I decide I will hit the gym on the way home, not to waste the money I have spent on the gym pass. As we make it to the gym, it becomes apparent that the adrenaline has worn off. My entire body hurts and I feel the sickness return. We each eat two people worth of food and I go lay in the room as my head pounds like a gorilla showing its dominance. I decide sleep is in order.

Who Wears Short Shorts

Ryan and I both have a good amount of Italian in our blood, so shortly after arriving to the islands, both of us got very dark. I am not sure about Ryan, but this is true for me everywhere my shorts are not. The only board shorts I brought were my longer red ones, so my tan only exists to my knee. Europeans all wear short shorts or speedos, so I set off for some short shorts. We will receive a fifty percent off coupon for a popular swimwear brand, 69Slam, so we go to check them out. Awesome designs and good materials, but cost over sixty American a pair. We look around the mall and find a pair of Speedo short shorts for twenty American. They don’t stretch well enough for volleyball and I realize I will need compression shorts for underneath that do not extend past them. We check out just the compression shorts since that’s what a lot of Europeans wear, but they too are about sixty American. We roam around and find a pair of FILA soccer shorts with compression shorts built in. The compression part extends past the outer short, but otherwise they are perfect. We pick up both pairs for about twenty six American dollars.

We get to the courts early to run some drills. As we arrive, there are already about six people there and they are setting up the net. New sand has been brought in, much softer than the gravel from before. We get a game in. I am lulled by the softer sand into my usual diving. Mistake, this sand is just a finer version of the gravel before. I feel the fronts of my shins burn from the abrasions. My serve comes back, I am hitting shots and serve receive is somewhat successful. We meet some Americans from Hawaii and discuss international volleyball. They tell us they have played some FIVB and tell us how easy it is to get in, noted. We play until it is too dark to see the ball and hop into the ocean. We eat way too much massaman curry and I hit the gym until the owner kicks me out. The tournament is two days away.

We will finish training, play the Koh Samui tournament and then head to Koh Phangan for another tournament and the famous Full Moon beach party. Then we will take another night bus to Bangkok to fly to Hanoi. Then it is time to put our motorcycle lessons to use riding through Vietnam.

After tubing, we were ready to get away from the drinking atmosphere of Vang Vieng, but our motorcycle lessons were an hour north in a small village and there isn’t another city where English would help us for at least three hours. Vang Vieng is surrounded by mountains, so we figured we could find some natural entertainment.

I Can See My Hostel From Here

When I left, I joked with Jeff that it was to be free from all the Spartain training/races so I could finally get fat. It seems that that won’t be happening any time soon. We did some research on trails in the mountains surroundiing the town and rented some bicycles. Laos is interesting in contrast to Thailand in that it is full of tourists, but as far as we have seen haggling is immediately turned down. Thai prices are usually set with the expectation that you will haggle a little bit. Any attempts we have made to haggle have been met with an immediate no and the person going back to their business. Everything in the city seems to follow the same price scheme, which happens to be higher than the Thai equivalent, even though everything seems to be of equal availability and lower quality. One point for Communism, I guess. We rented bicycles for almost the same price we had been renting scooters for in Thailand, but the ride was less than five kilometers, so no big deal. We made the five kilometer ride and paid the entrance fee to the trails.

The signs indicated that the first viewpoint was about forty minutes from the start and the second viewpoint was about an hour and a half. Insert snarky comment about me being a Spartan here. We begin the ascent and the trails were pretty steep. Someone had added some helpful brick steps to certain parts of the trail and bamboo railings to some of the more dangerous spots. They really earned that dollar entrance fee. I can’t imagine carrying those supplies up was any fun. Our friend we met tubing had joined us and didn’t seem quite prepared for the speed I was trying to go, so Ryan and her hiked at a regular speed while I shot up the mountain. Some advice about not doing dangerous, new trails alone briefly crossed my mind, but I had done enough training to dull those worries. About twenty five minutes later and I hit the rock with spray painted arrows indicated that left for fifty meters was viewpoint one and right for forty minutes was viewpoint two. Left we go. Except this was no longer a trail, this was all jagged rocks steeply ascending with ropes hanging to either side. I have yet to see any Laos or Thai natives that are my size, so I never dared to put my full weight on any of their safety measures. Another few minutes of scrambling and I reach a small mountaintop shop and a small path to a little roofed hut looking out over the countryside and onto the town of Vang Vieng. Like someone had a made a miniature version of Vang Vieng for us to view. I buy a tea with the added “I carried all of this stuff up a mountain for you spoiled tourists” fee and wait for Ryan.

Ryan and friend arrive five or ten minutes later and check out the view. I ask if they are ready and they inform me that they don’t think we will be able to reach the top viewpoint before sunset in a little over an hour. Not with that attitude. The mountain is mostly tree covered and the trail is on the eastern side of the mountain, so darkness would be coming rapidly. We make a plan to meet up at the bottom, I take Ryan’s headlamp and start the second half of the trek alone.

The second half of the trail is steeper and letting my muscles cool down at viewpoint one did not do me any favors. As I go up, listening to the soundtrack for the new Spiderman movie and wishing I had worn runners instead of my Tevas, I notice this trail is much less settled the first half. Rocks are less worn down, so any places to grab are sharp. Seemingly stable rocks tend to slip or snap. I could hear my mom yelling about how dumb dying on a mountain just because I wanted to get to the top would be, but my legs were already burning so no turning back. As I reached the first hut at the viewpoint two, I could see everything I had seen at viewpoint one, but everything now looked like miniature versions of the already shrunken town. No shop up here, fair enough. I stand on a rock and squint to see the hut I had left Ryan in. It’s amazing how quickly things shrink in view as you go up and away. A quick text to see if Ryan can see me way up here, no dice on his service. The sun is setting on the other side of the mountain and I can’t see it. Did I hike all of this way and there’s no view of the sunset?

I make my way back down a bit and see a small path off to the side. Crushed rock created a path with no footing on either side. A spray paint arrow points me to the left, but to the right is more crushed rock heading to the northern side of the mountain, a view I had not seen yet. I take a few steps and see the least supportive makeshift bridge I have ever seen in my life leading to what looks like a straight drop. I didn’t come this far to not at least look. I step onto the bridge with one hand on the rocks to one side, which at this point are likely untouched by anyone, so moreso resemble kitchen knives than hand holds. Just as I thought, a bridge to a straight drop, but a cool view to the side, just past a few rocks. A quick dynamic move off the bridge and I get a cool, if not terrifying, view. Back to the trail, a quick run finds another small hut looking over the western side of the mountain onto the sunset. I grab a few pictures of the sun going to rest in the mountains and weigh the pros and cons of sitting here until the actual sun sets but decided to have some light for at least the first part of the hike down.

I have always hated going downhill on trails. I’m too heavy, it ruins my knees. Not to mention I just spent over any hour overutilizing all the muscles that take you up and now those muscles are responsible for antagonizing the muscles that help me safely go down. All of the parts that requires borderline climbing to go up, now require awkward drops to go down. As I hit the halfway point, the trail starts to get a little more manageable. The sun is setting and the trees are amplifying the darkness. I pick up some speed and shoot past some people carefully taking each step. Again, I have regrets about having sandals on. As I reach the bottom, the sun is completely gone. Ryan and friend are waiting. My legs need a break. The bikes have to be back in twenty five minutes. We shoot down the now black roads. As we race down with no lights, I remember how many potholes we had seen in all of the roads since entering the area. How much attention are the aggressive local drivers really paying to if a tourist is being launched over their handlebars by a pothole? Doesn’t matter, somehow missed them all. We make it back with a few minutes to spare. Grab a shower and Laos’ bastardized version of Mexican food and call it a day.

It Feels Like a Weekend On a Tuesday

Not to toot my own horn, but I am a solid planner. When it comes to travel, that goes double. The point of this trip was to be a little more spontaneous, so I have been doing my best to have a vague plan and go with the flow. A side effect of this is that I have no idea what day it is. My watch tells me the weekday and date, but it is never internalized. We have been set to chill in this town until Saturday, the twenty seventh. So we took a day off to roam around and swim in the river. Finally head to the post office to ship back some extra stuff we have been carrying around. Forty American dollars to ship back a six pound box and it will be there in two to three months. Looks like everyone is getting postcards if they want anything. The twenty seventh turns out to be a Sunday. An extra day in a city we were done with immediately. We find some swimming holes outside of town and make that the plan. Ryan wakes up with food poisoning from the one nice restaurant we have been to in weeks and I venture to find small trinkets to send home. Trip in the morning, I haggle with some guides to find us the cheapest ride to a small town for our motorcycle lessons. They don’t speak English, I don’t speak Laos, so it’s mainly finding a ride at the time I want for a price that I can stomach. Done. I search for the third time this week for a book store/exchange that has a decent book in a language I can read, no luck. Looks like Bukowski is with me for a few more days.

It’s Like Riding A Bike For Adults

The next morning, we get up for our 7am bus trip. I paid extra to go at seven instead of nine because we wanted to get there early and nothing in Laos is on time. I figured maybe since we paid extra, it might just be us and we might be on time. It is almost 8am before our already packed minivan arrives. The usual Laos saying is “Please Don’t Rush”, so it is to be expected. Ryan and I get the back seat as some Chinese tourists cover the further up open seats with their bags. Oh well, we watch the Fyre Netflix documentary until the bus stops. The door opens, I fumbled to check my phone to see if we are where we should be. The driver waves me out. Phone still not loading. I ask if this is Kasi. He says yes and points me at a guest house. Nope, I need the Kasi bus station. He points me at the bus station and says “Kasi Bus Station”. I contact the owner of our motorcycle lessons and tell him we are at the bus station. He informs me that he is at the bus station and we are not. Phone loads, seven miles away. He gets a car and comes to get us. He informs us that white people don’t tend to come to Kasi, so the drivers all assume we are going to organic guest houses and take us there instead of where we are saying.

We organized these motorcycle lessons with Uncle Tom’s Trails via some recommendations from Reddit and a blog post. The trip advisor rating was good as well. Tom picks us up in a truck and informs us that it is rare he drives with four wheels. He is a Welsh man in his fifties, who looks a bit like my uncle, Denny. He opens with some snarky comments and I immediately feel at home. It’s nice to be doing something with native English speaker for a change. We arrive at his home and drop our bags, he takes us to the garage where there are about ten bikes. He pulls out the smallest of the lot and has us run him through what we know about the bike. Our two wheel experience as of now is only our beloved scooties, so we get about half of the answers. He runs us through a clutch and how starting works and gets us rolling around his yard in first gear. Then he teaches us how to switch between first and second and pulls out a second bike so we can both practice at once. He informs us that with the bus mishap our plans of an immediate road trip are a bit shot but it just gives us more time to practice and do harder stuff the next two days.

Tom gives us two helmets, one containing an intercom linked to his helmet. Ryan takes it for our training session. I have a bit of trouble with the initial starting, but Ryan has plenty of manual driving experience so takes to it. We drive through the roads to somewhat of an obstacle course. As a frame of reference, Kasi provice roads are either paved with gigantic chunks missing all over the place or dirt with huge divots and areas missing, so a bit daunting for a beginner. Tom has us follow him around the area, throwing hand signals for what gears we should be in. He then runs us through some trials type obstacles, straight down a slope, sharp turn, back up an angled slope, etc. We get a good feel for following lines, as it will be necessary when there is only the width of a motorcycle tire that isn’t a straight drop. Off in the distance, Tom points to a mountain (the area is filled with them) and informs us that we will be going up there next to test our skills.

We take a somewhat relaxing ride to the area where he informs us that it immediately becomes challenging. We both grab buffs to cover our faces as the air is constantly filled with dusts from the dirt roads being so dry. At this point, I have the intercom helmet on and am learning some interesting stuff. Getting the rundown of all the different things we are passing and some cool tidbits about Tom’s past. We start up the trails and things go smoothly despite being a bit anxiety inducing. We get to the top and grab some cool pictures. There’s a steep downhill that leads into a single line that does not lead into a ditch and then a steep uphill. Here’s that problem with starting, I’m releasing the clutch too soon. I pop down the hill, get control just in time to dodge the ditch and head up the hill. It’s mostly softer dirt here and I hit an eroded part, bike slips out from under me and falls on it’s side. No big deal, it’s just dirt, but now I get to test my already poor starting skills up a hill. A few tries and we get there. We ride back and Tom informs us we are doing an overnight road trip the following day and he feels confident taking us on the harder path. Yikes, what have we done.

Earlier, I asked how much Lao Tom spoke. He had lived there for over seven years and was in a city that didn’t have much English, if any. He told me he spoke enough to get by, that’s my line. We meet up with him for dinner and he is in constant talk with everyone there. He seems to know everyone we encounter in every city we are in. We hop in a sidecar and go to a little market for some food. We haven’t eaten in about eight hours at this point. Sour bamboo, noodles with pork, eggs in caramel sauce and sticky rice. Not our usual meal, but we both eat some. Tom informs us his friends have invited us over. We’re both exhausted but we can sleep when we’re done. He tells us where to head and we meet him there. A local dog escorts us down the street and we marvel at the lack of light pollution and chat about the stars. We arrive at Tom’s friends’ home, a table covered in beer and food surrounded by smiling faces. The Laos way to drink beer is to get a big bottle and glasses, everyone shares the bottle and just fills their glass. Food seems to function the same way for the most part. We learn some Lao and try some homemade sticky rice coconut snacks before saying goodnight. Tom has gotten us both private rooms with full sized beds, our first of the trip. Being fully alone is a luxury that is easy to take for granted.

Day two, we start by riding some roads up a mountain, learning to pick our lines at higher speeds. The area is filled with beautiful mountain views and little villages. We stop at a mountainside temple and take a break. We head up to a higher view and chat about our road trip. Seventy kilometers of rocky roads to test our new skills. Telling your brain to shift gears isn’t too bad once you get a feel for it, but telling your brain to shift gears when you’re trying to keep out of a ditch going straight up a hill and avoid an oncoming bike is a different story. This scenario led to a couple stalls, but nothing more for either of us. Cows, goats, chickens and children walk in the street making every kilometer an obstacle course. The amount of times I yelled “I don’t want to kill you, chicken” as a chicken barely ran past my front tire is not an amount I would care to count. About forty minutes from our destination, we get to a river crossing. Tom rides down the side of a steep slope and across a rickety bridge and instructs us on how to get across the river. Ryan goes first, doesn’t get enough speed and cranks it at the end to keep from stalling. His shoes are a little wet but not bad for knee deep water. I get a little more speed to compensate but as I feel the bike slow from the water, I remember Ryan almost stalling and crank the throttle as well. I feel water hit my chest and face and the bike rolls up the hill. As we head up the opposite side, the turn exposes a sign “Road Closed”. We have to go back across. No big deal. Back through the water and around the other side. We arrive in our new village.

At this point, I am entirely covered in dust. My white patterned buff is a distinct brown now. A much needed shower and we head to dinner. Spicy vegetable fried rice and beer, just what we needed. A local comes and chats with us and demands we try a local dish. Tom informs him we probably don’t want any but he persists. Tom asks what it is in Lao, and then informs us that it is bile soup. Part of me wants to try it but the idea of being sick on a seventy kilometer motorcycle ride in the hot sun doesn’t tickle my fancy, pass. The local does his best to convince Ryan that bile is vegetarian, but to no avail. We head to our rooms. Round two of private rooms with big beds.

A constant theme of our trip has been everyone walking/driving through places just fine and then me getting cut off or harassed. I’m a big boy, no big deal. On our scootie rides, same thing. On the road trip, same thing. On day three of the trip, Ryan and Tom went through a group of chickens and I followed their line as usual. One chicken decided to try to cross in front of my tire and now I am confronted with the trolley problem. Turn away from the rogue chicken and potentially hit the rest of the group or continue forward and hope the chicken recognizes its error and turns back around. I continue forward, the chicken turns, I feel hope. The chicken turns ninety degrees instead of one eighty. It is now running in line with my front tire. A bump and I inform Tom that I have made his bike a murder weapon. He informs me that it isn’t an uncommon occurrence and it’s still food to the locals. I’m not a huge fan of the incident but we carry on. After an otherwise uneventful rest of the trip, we shower and pack. Tom runs us through what to check when buying a bike and takes us to the bus station. We grab three bags of delicious bakery for less than two dollars and hop on a bus. The open air of the bus is refreshing until we remember the dust. Six hours later, we arrive in Vientiane coated in dust.

Our First Real City in Laos

Luang Prabang and Vang Vieng are purely tourist cities. Kasi was a great town. Vientiane is Laos’s center of commerce, so has a real city feel. We arrived late, showered and headed to a rooftop bar. Near the rooftop bar was a night market. We’ve been to plenty of night markets, but this one was filled with locals. We walked through and saw plenty of knockoff Nike, Adidas, Supreme, Asics, you name it. We had some good laughs at the misspellings and odd butcherings of slogans. We both scratched up our glasses riding, swo we picked up a cheap deal on two pairs of knockoff RayBans. Back to the hostel for much needed sleep.

The next day, we rented scooters and head to Buddha Park, a large tourist attraction filled with statues of all the different buddhist mythology. Over an hour of trafficked roads each way, we put our new driving agility to work and drove around like locals. Besides some serious sunburn, successful job. We grab some ice cream and hire a tuk tuk to take us to the airport, we’ve had enough of buses. We arrive at the airport too early, I find a bookstore to get a new one and we wait. Our one hour flight takes off almost forty minutes late and we arrive at our hostel around midnight. A quick shower and we go to check out Bangkok’s famous Khao San road. This is the real sin city. Bar after bar filled with cheap buckets of alcohol, laughing gas and girls for hire. We people watch and walk the street, grab some food and off to sleep.

We will spend another day in Bangkok to do some tourist stuff and then head down to the islands to finally play some volleyball. About two weeks before our tournaments at this point so we could use the practice.

Here we go, week one. I’ve already explained how we got there so we’ll hop right into what we’ve been doing. We started in Chiang Mai, which is beautiful. A little more touristy than what we expected, but still cool enough. The weather was in the 80s most of the week (in start contrast to Cleveland, which was in the 30s and 40s when we left). Some of the things we did in the Chiang Mai seem to be staples of Thailand, and Southeast Asia as a whole. With the prevalence of Buddhism throughout, temples are everywhere. The terrain lends itself to beautiful views and waterfalls, so there are lots of those as well. Anyon e who knows me knows how much I love food, so we had to start there.

Cooking Up Some Fun

We did a little research (Read as: grabbed a fistful of brochures and picked the one with the best pictures/competitive price) and chose one of the many cooking classes offered. We chose Pra Nang Cookery. This class consisted of 6 courses and you were given choices for each course. You learned all of the different options, but only physically made your choices. We were picked up from our hostel at 8am the next day and got away from the heavy city area of Chiang Mai and were taken to a market. The class was led by a Thai woman named Poi who took us through all of the ingredients we would be using, giving us good descriptions of what they are used for and what they might be called/where to get them in our home countries. After that, we roamed around the market while she gathered all of the ingredients and then we head off to a beautiful little building to do our cooking.

The first floor of the building had a row of burners for cooking and a table of cutting boards, mortars and pestles for ingredient work. The second floor was full of places to sit around tables. We started by separating out for each course choice made, so people could make their dishes together. First up was the curry paste, I had chosen the chicken with red curry because Ryan had convinced me red curry is the best one, even though he chose green. We started by crushing all of the ingredients into a curry paste and then set it aside for later. Next, we cut up all of the ingredients for our soup and main entrees. I had chosen Pad See Ew and Coconut Milk Chicken soup. Throughout the course, Poi was very good about making sure to adjust the recipes for Ryan being a vegetarian. We learned that pretty much every Thai dish is made with fish sauce and oyster sauce, so the request to ue soy and mushroom sauce instead will likely be made the whole time we are in Thailand. A little work at the burners and we sat down to eat. Already filled to the brim, we headed back down to make the curry dish and some spring rolls.

Some more prep work and time at the burners and then it was time to make dessert. Adding butterfly pea flowers to the cooking coconut milk gives the milk a light blue color. Thai cuisine doesn’t use food coloring, so all of their colors are made from adding in colored ingredients. Sticky rice is just a different type of rice that is prepped for 8 hours the night before, so we didn’t make that, but we added it to our now blue coconut rice. For the final dish, the people at the cookery cut the mango for us and we had mango with sticky rice, a common Thai dessert dish. Back upstairs to punish our stomachs with all of this delicious food and we were done. We were given a cookbook and driven back to our hostel.

Temples

Most of Asia contains temples for various religions. Chiang Mai is filled to the brim with temples. Some of them cater more to tourists than others. Having a decent interest in Buddhism and Hinduism, it was cool to see all of the ornate statues of different gods and learning about the relation of Thai gods to the different Buddhist/Hindu deities. One of the days Ryan wanted to take some time to do some computer work, so I took it as a time to roam the city and check out all of the temples.

The map I had picked up at the hostel had the more notable temples around town marked, so I just roamed and checked them out. In Buddhist culture, you are to dress respectfully when you will be within sight of a Buddha, so shoulders and knees covered for me, luckily it was a cooler day. A lot of the temples follow very similar designs and set ups. Statues of Thotsakan guard most of the entrances to the temples. He is the demon king and is almost the exact same character and story as Ravana from the Hindu pantheon. Ganesha, remover of obstacles and my favorite deity, adorns all of the temples we visited, usually painted in different colors. Each of the temples requires you to remove your shoes before entering the actual temple area and for the smaller temples, before entering the praying shrines.

The prayer involves dropping to your knees, usually with feet straight behind you. A meditation is usually done in front of the Buddha statue followed by leaving a candle or ringing a bell three times. The more you learn about different religions, the more you see how similar they are. Buddhism is much less of a worship culture than the Christianity we are used to in the States, but there are many similarities. We watched various monks, Thai locals and tourists partake in the prayers and did some ourselves.

We went to arguably the most notable temple in the Chiang Mai area, Doi Suthep. This temple is up in the mountains and is more grandiose than most of the temples. A little over 300 steps from where we are dropped off and we are at the temple, overlooking all of the surrounding Chiang Mai area. The statues here are bigger and more intricately painted than the others we have seen, but are all similar characters. The center of the temple is a large structure covered in gold, which shines as the sun rises. Doi Suthep is a big tourist attraction so it was filled to the brim with people. This felt like a bit of an exploit of the culture, but I’m sure it helps fund a lot. On our way down from the mountain, our driver brought us to a much smaller temple hidden in the trees. It was much more serene and we liked it much better. The statues were of many different animals and a small waterfall ran through the center. To each their own, but this was closer to my idea of a Buddshit temple.

Climbing Walls like Spidey

One of our day trips led us to haggle with a red cab driver to take us over an hour to Bua Tong falls. These waterfalls are covered in a special mineral that give them a grip similar to that of rock climbing holds. At first, our brains had a little trouble handling the concept of being able to walk up and down rocks covered in rushing water, but after a few minutes, we were running up and down them. This one of the few things not sold to us in the many tourist shops, but it was easily my favorite thing to do. Bonus, it was free as it is a national park.

The Day to Day

Most of our days have been spent roaming around the city and eating food. Thailand has a myriad of markets and I could wrote a whole post about that. We hit two different night markets in our first few days and have hit a few since. We tend to get a slightly higher price for being farangs (non locals) but you can haggle for anything. Even getting slightly ripped off is significantly cheaper than what things would cost in the states. Plenty of Thai food and trying out the Thai attempts at dishs of other cultures. Our hostel had a pool and bar a few doors down, so a lot of our down time was spent lounging around there. The pool had a volleyball, so we spent some time tossing that around as well. We hit up some waterfalls and different places to swim as well. At the end of the week, we were ready to get away from the busy city and headed up into a little hippy mountain town named Pai.

I’ve been asked a number of times “Why Asia?”, “Why quit your job?”, “How did you do it?”, amongst other variations of the same line of questioning. So here it is.

I had made the decision to leave Rockwell Automation and Cleveland, Ohio in January of 2018, when I had reached three years of employment with Rockwell. The plan was to check out some cities in the summer time and decide where to go and apply for a new job in October and be moving by the end of January. I checked out a bunch of cities and had decided on Austin, Texas. The day I had decided to start applying to jobs in Austin, I ran into an old coworker who offered me a position on a new team that ran an agile environment. As if someone in the company had heard I was planning on leaving, a manager I had worked with in the past offered me a DevOps position.

I went to check out the Agile team and after meeting the team and hearing what they were working on, I was sold. It was a utility role writing code, tests and working on DevOps. A whole product being rolled out by three members. I met the team on a Tuesday and was accepting the position by Friday.

The team ended up being the dream job. Great coworkers, plenty of cool opportunities and a never ending list of different challenges to work on. The downside was it required me to stay in Cleveland and traveling was restricted to a few times a year. This brought back up the leaving Cleveland idea.

I started looking at Austin again but it seemed like I had skipped over Austin last time and maybe something bigger was in order. This is when I began to look at other countries. I have made plenty of friends in Australia and loved my time in Germany. Next, I started looking at Software Engineer positions in those places, but nothing was really peaking my interest job wise. Then it occurred to me that I had my ideal job in the Software industry, but maybe there was something else I want to do more.

I started by looking into other fields I am interested in: fitness or game development. Again, it just felt like I was finding another thing to drag myself to. So I began to look at master’s degrees. I had looked at business master’s because it is something I was unlikely to learn on my own time. A mentor had suggested a one year business master’s in another country so that I could learn another language as well as attain the master’s. He had also suggested aiming for the ones in the top twenty. I had decided to try for INSEAD, IE or Bocconi. After some dedicated research and starting to study for my GMAT, I realized that this was a heavy investment for yet another thing I might not end up liking. So what did I really want to do that I could afford to live doing and appeased interests I already knew I had?

Thailand and Vietnam have always been at the top of my travel list, but the flight time has always been the stopping factor with me doing short trips while having a full time job. I’ve always been interested in Buddhism and martial arts. Asian culture has always fallen in line with my interests. I knew that area of the world was much less expensive than America and had plenty of experience planning budget trips in other parts of the world.

The original plan was to spend a month in Southeast Asia and then decide what I wanted to do with my life. After looking at flights and hostel prices, I realized I could stay there for quite a while until I really figured out what I wanted to do. I realized that my lease and other obligations all came to an end in December and I could walk away with little fuss.

First, I had to tell my family. Most of my family lives in Cleveland and has lived there most of their life, so me leaving a good job to walk around Asia with a backpack probably seemed like I had lost it. Outside of the worries that something bad was going to happen or I would never find a good job again, I think they all sort of expected something like this at some point. Next was the job.

Being the neurotic planner I am, selecting a date to tell my team that I was leaving was a big deal to me. Part of me wanted to tell them that day, three months in advance. I had decided on two months in advance but some friends had suggested that although that was a good friendly move for the team members I am close with, the company had no reason to keep me for two months on a three person team. I decided on a specific date about a month before I was planning to leave.

To my surprise, the engineering lead of the team announced that he was leaving about nine weeks before I planned to leave. The team had decided that he would knowledge transfer most of his responsibilities to me. I immediately planned a meeting with my manager to inform him I was also leaving. After this meeting, I told my product owner and had a meeting planned for the following Monday to tell the rest of the team. Monday morning I got in early and had fully prepared what I was going to say. About fifteen minutes before the meeting, I got a message that it needed to be rescheduled to the next day. The following day, I sort of just blurted out to the team that I was leaving and taking a backpack to Asia. Most of my teammates have lived elsewhere so were very supportive of the move.

So that’s that. The telling people part is over and now I just need to get rid of all my stuff. There’s one answer to one of the questions I tend to get frequently regarding this trip.