It’s been two weeks since I docked back at the United States. I was very fortunate enough to spend close to 3 weeks of my life backpacking and touring South East Asia. Not only was it a culture shock but like I tell almost all my friends that traveling the world not only helps you grow as a person , but it also teaches you practical problem solving skills that can easily be applied to your day to day life.
The goal in my mind was to simaltenously pack up and move my life to Chicago from LA while at the same time backpack through another far away country. I know seemed it a bit radical and my mom sure wasn’t a fan of this plan but you only live once. I started planning my trip about 2 weeks before I went which was May 14th. I actually didn’t plan much at all as this whole experiment just popped into my head while I was riding my bike down to Playa Vista from Santa Monica.
I had a lot of weird thoughts in my mind during this process, moving again to Chicago from Los Angeles and having to leave both the amazing weather and a growing social circle of friends in LA for the new challenging life of the windy city wasn’t easy. At the time I knew absolutely 0 people in Chicago and even Facebook had no friends to recommend for me in Chicago. They’re isn’t many people in this world that have greater self confidence in themselves then I do so I was up for the challenge.
I started off by finding some trusted movers off of Craigslist since I would be traveling to Thailand and then flying back to Chicago so in a sense I needed to entrust a moving company to deliver all my valuables from LA to Chicago in three weeks.
I ended up choosing as usual the cheapest alternative, my sales guy was a pot smoking Brit who recently relocated to LA from the slums of South London somehow he seemed quite trustworthy. So the movers came by an picked up my stuff ,I had no clue where they were taking my stuff all they told me was that it would some how end up in Chicago in 3 weeks.That was good enough for me. Since I didn’t have a place to stay yet I told them to drop my stuff off in Chicago with no address. I will send them further instructions when I figure it all out.
I then found a storage spot for my car since I couldn’t leave it on the streets in LA, boom checked that off the list. I, then booked a ticket to Bangkok Thailand with no hotels or travel plans in mind. I planned my trip to stay 2 nights in Tokyo which I thought would be enough of Japan since I wasn’t to fascinated with spending a crap load of money in a short time in one country.
Then I had to figure out out where exactly in Chicago I was going to move to since I had no place to stay. I started emailing a bunch of realtors off of Craigslist and with their help they started recommending me buildings in downtown Chicago. In most cases, I like to take a look at the place I am going to be moving to before I sign up on a lease but there was no time for time. I went on Yelp and ApartmentRatings and started reading the reviews of the various places and the day before I left I made a final decision and paypal’d an apartment deposit to the people in Chicago and I was out. I then text messaged the movers where to drop off my stuff before I got on the airplane and I was set to go, not a care in the world.
I crashed at my friend house for a couple hours the night before and then he scooped me to the airport with my backpack inside were 3 undies, 3 socks, 4 shirts, an umbrella, a bathing suit, a towel a book and an iPad, 2 condoms some laundry detergent and some various toiletries. I packed really light but had a big bag which allowed me to buy stuff as I needed to.
I arrived in Tokyo 12 hours later the following day at 3 AM Tokyo after a long flight. I had to switch airports from Haneda to Narita which is about 3 hour bus ride away and I was traveling to Thailand the following day so I decided to burn some time so I lagged all my stuff to Shibuya .
I decided to take my backpack and use it as a monster pillow and leveraged it to pass out on a city bench for a couple hours. I ended sleeping amazing for about 2 or 3 hours and woke up quite refreshed. Even though I came with a decent wad of cash to burn, I made it a strict point to stay within a tight budget even if this meant living like a slum for the first couple days of which I did.
I then proceeded to eat at the first sushi spot I could find and the food met every single one of my expectations.
Japan is a very clean country and highly technologically advanced. I was very impressed with how efficient the Japanese culture is like how instead of flushing a toilet like in the states you put your on hand on this hand bar below and boom toilet flushes.
Also the vending machines were quite remarkable. You could get full meals of food and drink in a vending machines which just makes life so much more efficient.
I was a little surprised overall by the lack of English speaking but at the end I tend to respect cultures more for not accepting the English language as the quote on quote “say all be all language”. The Japanese have kept for the most part both their customs and their language over thousands of years very similar to the Thai people and I think this is awesome.
I ended up leaving Japan late that afternoon and I was ready for Bangkok. For some reason I put up on Facebook that I was arriving in Bangkok in the middle of the night the next day and my friend Tony who I had not spoken to in a long time responded to my Facebook post and offered to show me around Bangkok and offered me his couch which I gladly accepted since I made no actual plans to stay anywhere.
I arrived in Bangkok and immediately felt the mind numbing humidity, pairing along with the tax cabs and tuk tuk’s vying for your business in the airport. I had the presence of mind to ignore these crazy people and grab my bags and bounce. I then bought a thai phone, went on Facebook and connected with Tony and we arranged to meet at the airport. I was psyched to leave the airport after over 40 hours of travel. I had not showered or changed clothes in a long time!
I had no idea what time zone we were in. All I knew I was hungry and we immediately went to go eat Thai food and beer at a whole in the wall Thai restaurant on outskirts of the city. Food was really good.
We ate mostly veggies since the whole menu included mostly pork (which I don’t eat) . I remember smelling like something not to holy and walking around the restaurant feeling a bit awkward drenched in sweat and eating hot food at the same time. I needed a shower.
The next couple days were really fun but chill. I hung out with Tony met a bunch of his friends and kept a low profile which meant no Kao Son Road yet. The highlight of the first couple days of my trip was the wake-boarding trip we went to. Even though I suck at wake-boarding, I gave it my all.
We traveled to this place about 1 hour outside the city and they turned an old rice patty field into a wake boarding park.
The resort was really nice. The food and the drinks there were about 150 Baht each. I went out and made a fool of myself on the wake board for an hour or two then sat back an ate some amazing food and beers and met some cool new friends. I ended up crashing at the wake boarding resort for another 600 baht which equated to about $20 for the night.
I decided it was time to leave Bangkok, I been there for about 3 days so I thought it was time to set out to the jungles of Northern Thailand and what this equated to was booking a flight online to Chiang Maa an hour flight. I was to leave the next day early in the morning.
