Blog - 4 of 4
13 Dec 2014 | The Stress of Objects
You don’t feel it when your life is stable. When your stuff is safe at home and you never risk much more loss than a misplaced wallet. Losses are annoying, but quickly resolved. Intensification But your possessions are kind of like a cracked rib: you really feel them only when you move. When you breath. Pickpocket signs are everywhere here...
12 Dec 2014 | Day 8: Momento Mori
No pictures allowed! It’s probably for the best: the exhibits in the Bangkok Forensic Museum are universally unpleasant to see. Today, the more strong-stomached among us went to a museum showcasing all sorts of horrible ways to die. The entry was a reasonable ฿200 (actually, for ฿199 we got the museum pass which grants admission to a raft of museums....
11 Dec 2014 | Day 7: Not in the Guidebooks...
One of the wonderful aspects of staying at a hostel is that you get access to options that no hotel concierge — never mind globally-published guidebook — would offer. The two most popular are the Ghost Tower and the Abandoned Mall. The Ghost Tower is the site of a fresh “suicide” and so I’ll likely not get to go. The...
10 Dec 2014 | Day 6: Day of the Sun
Today’s theme was the sun. We took off to investigate Lop Buri, a two hour train ride north from Bangkok. It’s an ancient town, filled with the ruins caused by waves of various armies and the neglect of time. We were not there to see the ruins. To get to Lop Buri we got up long before sunrise, at 3:30,...
09 Dec 2014 | Day 5: Grand Palace & Wat Arun
Today was a day for a couple of the top attractions in Bangkok, ones you’ll find in every guidebook and web site. The Grand Palace and Wat Arun. That was the plan anyway. Royal Grand Palace Visiting the Royal Grand Palace seems like a good idea: it’s after all the seat of power in the kingdom. The reality is quickly...
07 Dec 2014 | Day 4: Chatuchak Weekend Market
Saying that the weekend market is big is completely true. It also fails completely to give the right sense of the place, as do my pictures here. It’s vast. A heaped mass of commerce filled with everything imaginable. And in such variety of everything! Clothing from traditional Thai fisherman pants, to the ubiquitous traveller elephant pants to jeans, to edgy...
06 Dec 2014 | Day 3: Amphawa Floating Market
My plan for today had me leaving my plush guesthouse Hansaah and checking into the much less costly hostel, Three of a Kind. How much less? 1/4 the price. Sadly, this first day’s boon was blown on accident: the ฿1000 security deposit refund entered the pocket with my phone, and my phone must have pulled it out onto the street...
05 Dec 2014 | Day 2: Jim Thompson House
Jim Thompson House was just an average tourist experience. Some good parts, some unique sights but it was filled with passels of unenthusiastic tourists checking the boxes. Lonely Planet, page 654, check. Honestly I need to report that I was one of these. Jim Thompson was an American who, after WWII, fell in love with Thailand. Left his wife and...
04 Dec 2014 | Day 1: Wat Pho and Riverboats
What Pho is incredible. Believe me that pictures don’t really do it justice. Beyond its physical presence is an odd feeling created by having monks — who at one point were having a full-on service, complete with chanting — lay faithful and gawking tourists all thronging up against each other. I half expected some attempt to restore decorum on us,...
03 Dec 2014 | Jet Lag
Jet lag is like the common cold. There are many cures offered but none are widely believed to work. There is no penicillin in the world of circadian rhythm misalignment. Sober health professionals will simply tell you to stay hydrated, try to rest and it’ll resolve itself. Yet remedies for jet lag are as abundant as they are for colds....
02 Dec 2014 | ... then Suddenly
And I’m OFF.
01 Dec 2014 | Cold Feet
The most common reaction when I tell people my travel plan is to be impressed. Most harbor the desire to chuck it all and go somewhere exotic. It’s very romantic. They’re fascinated to see someone actually doing it. Doesn’t that take a lot of courage? It didn’t take me a lot of courage. Saying so is not humility, it’s perspective:...
01 Dec 2014 | Gold Bar, WA
Awake at 6am. My computer tells me it’s 9pm today in Bangkok time. I leave Gold Bar today. The freezing wind has been blowing hard all night long. Howling down the Skykomish river and batting around anything not fixed to the ground. The bamboo plants with their icicle ornaments tinkle against the glass of Barb’s sunroom. The wind has been...
30 Nov 2014 | What's in Your Backpack?
Here’s where I write about the things I’m carrying with me for the next few months and what I’m carrying them in. I intend to update it when I find new things and when I discover new aspects of the things discussed. Overpacker Shock Therapy I admit it: I’m an overpacker. I’ve packed too much for so many trips I’ve...
30 Nov 2014 | Gradually ...
“How did you go bankrupt?” “Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.” ― Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises As a child, I learned how cheat at school. Don’t be shocked! Everyone knew I was doing it. Even praised me for it. You see, if you read ahead you can totally find out the topics before the teacher even gets to them....
28 Nov 2014 | Plans and Deadlines
In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable. — Dwight D. Eisenhower My career in software revolved around deadlines. Ship dates. Milestone plans. Large, multi-colored Excel workbooks filled with dates orchestrating the activity of dozens to thousands of people. The tracking of work items, bugs. Status Reports. Sometimes we even had the...
27 Nov 2014 | Irresponsibility is Hard Work
“No,” the speaker replied, “that’s not the point. The truth this illustration teaches us is: If you don’t put the big rocks in first, you’ll never get them in at all.” — Steven Covey (link) If you’re going to fit your life on your back for any significant period of time, you’re going to have to get rid of a...
24 Nov 2014 | Waking From a Day Dream
”I never expected this” That’s a common reaction to a layoff. I, however, expected it. Before the VP’s earnest explanation. Before the mysterious email insisting upon my attendance at a non-specific but ‘very important’ meeting in a random conference room across the sprawling corporate campus I’d called my work-home for the last 14 years. Before the idle thoughts triggered by...