MY GREAT ADVENTURE

After my first rough night (jet lag caught up to me), I woke up very early, but managed to stay in bed until 7 or so. Once up, Benji and I got ready and then headed down for our complimentary breakfast at Namamema Boutique Hotel. This breakfast was much more elaborate than the ones at Niras Hostel. Not only did it have a continental breakfast with toast, croissants, fruit, cereal, and other baked goods, we were also served more traditional Thai breakfast a la carte. This fist morning, it was a pad Thai like dish.   After eating, Benji and I headed out in search of scooters. Our hotel host suggested a couple of places, so we ventured to the closest one we could find. Since Benji had never ridden a scooter, the woman running the rental shop suggested that he take a smaller scooter (150 CCs) and that I take the bigger one (200 CCs). She also made him do a few laps up and down the street before she would let us head out. Once we had paid and both felt comfortable, we hit the roa...

After another restful night at our hostel in Bangkok, we got up early, got most of our stuff ready for check out, and ate the same breakfast we had the morning before. We then headed out to do a little last minute sight seeing before our flight to Chiang Mai.  We quickly grabbed a tuktuk and jetted over to the Grand Palace for a very reasonable 40 baht. On our walk from the tuktuk to the entrance, yet another middle aged Thai man stopped us to ask where we were going. We said we were heading to the palace, and he assured us that it was yet again closed to tourists until the afternoon, and suggested we go to one of the many places that we were directed to go to the day before. I just thought he was being nice, but Benji was not convinced. After parting ways, we headed to the Grand Palace in spite of the man’s warning. Luckily, Benji was right on his hunch, and we got in for no problem. We can’t be certain why all these random, middle aged Thai men wanted us to see other touris...

Wow. Bangkok is a crazy city. In spite of the crowds, we saw some pretty spectacular stuff.  In the morning, Benji and I were fully rested by 7:30 AM, allowing us to get up and start our day nice and early. We ate our complimentary breakfast at the hostel, which consisted of eggs and toast, with the option of “sausage” (pretty sure it was just a hot dog). In spite of the simplicity of the meal, it hit the spot.  After leaving the hostel, we ventured up the street in search of the Grand Palace. We stumbled upon a couple of temples (or Wats) that seemed impressive, but we knew we didn’t want to “waste” our time on any temple that wasn’t on our agenda. We did, however, take a few minutes to check out an impressive statue relatively near the Democracy Monument. While we gazed upon the statue, a nice Thai man came walking up to us to ask if we knew who the statue was of. When we did not, he proceeded to tell us all about that king (Rama), as well as the newly appointed kin...

I am sitting in a plane somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, on my way to Bangkok, via Shanghai. I have left everything behind, other than what I have packed in my carry-on Osprey backpack, to travel the world for seven weeks. For the most part, today has felt very calm. I woke up anxious, but once I started to get ready, everything felt as it should. I did all of the last minute things I needed to, and made sure to look around my room a couple more times before walking out the door. And then I drove to work to drop off my car, alone. It all felt very strange. Perhaps the calmness of the morning was just because the time had come, and there was nothing more that could be done to prepare. Even now, as I sit here on the plane only a fraction of the way into my journey, I mostly feel calm, but I also at times allow myself to daydream of what’s to come, which brings fleeting moments of terrified excitement. I imagine all of the things I’m going to see, the places I’ll go, the people I’ll meet...

The Blog is Live! It is now officially less than a week until I board a plane to Bangkok for my sabbatical! This "travel blog" will not be as polished as those created by professional nomads, but I hope that you enjoy my stories as I make my way through Thailand, Bali and New Zealand. I will try to keep this updated every few days if not daily. Thank you for reading along. Wish me luck!