~might be going to hell in a bucket~

Just to prove to you that I've gone off the deep end, I'm 75% committed to making a decision that will alter the fate of my trip - or potentially my life if I screw this up. IF i can learn to ride it over the next two days, I'm buying a motorcycle from my friend Greg here in Chiang Mai and trekking around SEA that way. I had absolutely no intention of it before learning that he is selling his but the absolute freedom this mode of travel will buy me might be too good to pass up. The downside, of course, is the danger of traveling around here. Thailand is a left-of-the-road system where people absolutely disregard any laws of driving as mere suggestions and the only salient rule is smaller yields to bigger... or else. But Greg's been nice enough to let me ride once and it's not so bad.

In other news, the food has been PHENOMENAL and sooo spicy. The beer has been a bit below what I'm used to ( they drink it here with ice in it!) We've been partying with Gregs teacher friend and her two friends who travel the globe taking really cool photos.

We went to an incredible dam where we get boated out to these floating planks where you feast and drink and swim and dive and sleep. Its pretty much the life. The hostel is killer with a private room and bathroom for 6 bucks a night right in the heart of the bar scene here. Just living the life and planning a trek to an ecolodge where they build mudhuts for the hill tribes and onward to a little hippy town called Pai. Thought I zapped my tablet over here with the wrong voltage so ive been taking more pics on the camera. It decided to wake up though. Havent found a way to transfer yet but meanwhile, here's a pic of my potential best friend/ worst enemy. :-) and the sweet hostel I'm staying at.

Peace

~hang it up and see what tomorrow brings~

It's too soon to tell if I'm writing this blog for you or for me. I've never really had a diary, but I imagine it'd be helpful and nostalgic to read this years later and trace my mind through the adventures I expect to encounter. We'll see how it turns out. At worst, you readers can ridicule the relatively uncensored lunacy that is my internal monologue...

Here's a Mark Twain quote that's always stuck with me: "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

This relates to me because I've lived a fairly traditional life, so far. Did well in high school, went to a decent university, graduated with an employable degree, joined the work force quickly, kept my nose down and kept working, and just accomplished my goal of getting into a PhD program. No one would waste time writing that biography. I experience occasional bouts of vitality when I travel or attend music festivals but all in all I feel like "I've measured out my life in coffee spoons" to quote T.S. Elliot. Come August, the rest of my life is also sketched out in a nice, neat template with only a few names and places missing. Half of me is terrified that I'll fulfill the prophecy in this 2 minute Alan Watts bit, but I know I'm too practical to 'tune in. turn on. drop out'. To be honest, my future's not all that bad - predictable as it may be - but there's not a whole lot of "explore. dream. discover" in the formula. Or freedom. These next three months are a requiem to the freedom I've enjoyed till now. We shall reunite upon retirement, my friend!

So I have no plan-book but a mesh of ideas floating around upstairs. Ziplining through Thai tree-houses, orangutan spotting in Malaysian jungles, hiking up Indonesian volcanoes, meditating in Cambodian temples, snorkeling Filipino reefs, and greedily snatchingVitamin D on Bali beaches and elsewhere. If anyone can offer other particular suggestions I'd be uber-grateful! I'm flying in to meet a good pal from Boston in Chiang Mai, should hopefully meet another in Singapore, and greatly look forward to traveling with one of my favorite people in the world for the last 3.5 weeks (if she doesn't kill me by the end of it). As cheesy as this sounds, I'm really banking on the people I meet and experiences I have helping me grow and smooth out the rough edges of my personality. I know I need to work on respecting others and accepting people without judging them and a million other things. How this trip is going to fix that, I know not... but we shall see...

So far, there's nothing travel bloggy about this so I'll lay these philosophical babblings to rest. I fly out on 04/24/2014 and you'll hear from me shortly thereafter.

Farewell,
Leo