The proximity to Malaysia means that the demographics here are noticeably different than the rest of the country: the Muslim influence from Thailand’s southern neighbor is very palpable, from the hijabs worn by the women to the presence of mosques to the Muslim and Indian flavors in the food.

Though you can get to the island from Malaysia by way of Langkawi, most people will fly to Hat Yai, stay one night in town, and take a bus/boat combo the next day. To take advantage of our night in town, Lummi and I took a car to Greenway Night Market and perused the stalls selling everything from clothes to toys to knock-off handbags to pets. We made sure to treat ourselves to some Hat Yai fried chicken – famous enough that I’ve seen it in America – and roti prata.

Once we were on the island, it was pretty much the choose-your-own-adventure that we were expecting. We spent our days swimming, eating, getting massages, reading, and laying around and doing nothing. Diving, snorkeling, and the other usual island activities were readily available for the more active tourists.

Our excellent hotel (Cabana Lipe Beach Resort) was adjacent to the gypsy village on the island, so we had to go through the tiny village every time we left or returned to the hotel. It was actually a very welcome, very tangible reminder that life on these islands is usually not easy for the locals and they don’t always reap the rewards of booms in tourism.

In an effort to protect the beautiful nature of the area, some people on the island have organized a weekly trash pickup, a unique and wonderful opportunity for travelers give back to the community a bit. Every Monday morning at 10:00, dozens of tourists meet on Sunrise Beach and an armada of long-tail boats whisks them away to a beach that needs cleaning.

On our day volunteering, we spent almost an hour riding to the north coast of Koh Rawi, one of Koh Lipe’s larger, but uninhabited, neighbors. We all worked up quite a sweat picking up garbage for an hour on the edge of the jungle, but were rewarded with a plunge in the ocean when we were finished. It was disheartening to see so much garbage that had washed up onshore: mostly plastic and foam, but also a lot of light bulbs, oddly. Even though so much trash was left behind after we had filled up all our bags, it was pretty satisfying to haul away enough to fill two dump trucks. I couldn’t help but notice the irony of the trucks spewing a ton of smoke into the air, so I guess we’re trading trash for air pollution?

Afterwards, the organizers made a small speech and treated everyone to lunch. It was a special experience and I highly recommend it to anyone visiting the island.

Good food is to be found all over Koh Lipe. In hindsight, it’s surprisingly hard to offer restaurant recommendations since we usually picked out places on a whim, though Forever Restaurant is memorable because we had read about it on another travel blog and made a special trip to go there. The home-cooked meal of crab omelet, eggplant and okra curry, and Burmese tea leaf salad was well worth our trek (on foot and by taxi) across the island.

As for nightlife, we found ourselves almost exclusively at Maya – a trendy lounge with the best music on the island – and the reggae bar on the beach, where one could indulge in a cold beer, a frozen drink with a flower in it, or a cheap joint with even cheaper weed.

For our only big activity on Koh Lipe, we hired a boat and a driver to take us on an afternoon trip to a few beaches on the other islands. We stopped for swimming at a couple nice beaches, but the main attraction was clearly Monkey Beach, named for its citizens, who hunt for scraps of people food and scamper around the beach to the delight of camera-toting tourists.

The skies had been a bit cloudy the whole trip, but we finally saw a beautiful sunset on our last night on the island. The sunrise the next morning was almost as spectacular and we made sure to capture both with lots of photos on the beach.

The plan with Lummi was that I would go to Singapore a few days before her, so I flew across the Pacific, arrived on a Saturday afternoon, and subsequently had a Welcome to Singapore, bitch moment when I got trapped in the local grocery store by a sudden downpour. I took my bags and waited it out at the neighboring coffee shop, then went back to the Airbnb, made instant noodles for dinner, watched the thunderstorm from the patio, and passed out from exhaustion.

On Sunday, I worked on my blog in the morning, then met my friend Laurie – who moved to Singapore from San Francisco – for a hawker center lunch. We went to Maxwell Food Center for Tian Tian chicken rice, dumplings, bok choy, sugar cane juice, cendol, and passion fruit juice.

Afterwards, we met her friends for coffee at Merci Marcel, a cute French cafe in Tiong Bahru, before I set out for my Airbnb walking tour in Joo Chiat. Jonathan (the host) took me around several of the neighborhoods, interleaving the city’s history with modern history and, of course, lots of eating: Katong laksa, roti prata, Nyonya sticky rice dumplings from Kim Choo, and putu piring, Malaysian (Halal/Muslim) sweets with palm sugar and shredded coconut.

Monday was a workday, so I checked into The Hive and had a pretty productive day, publishing a blog post and catching up on actual work. After work, in the interest of immersing myself into the city, I went to a data visualization tech talk at Google HQ. No networking happened, but it was a really interesting talk and also really nice to walk around the Google campus and surrounding area. While walking back to MRT, I stopped in a mall food court and had some surprisingly good, surprisingly spicy curry mee. Of course there’s a mall on my route, of course there’s a food court, of course the food is amazing, and of course it’s cheap.

On Tuesday after work, I took MRT to the airport and picked up Lummi, then we had wine and dinner with her old roommate at Ginett. The next day, Lummi and I took MRT downtown so she could get her bearings and go to Din Tai Fung for lunch. After I was done with work, we went to Marina Bay Sands for cocktails, then the Gardens by the Bay to see the supertrees and the Christmas light show, then Newton Food Center on the way home since it was only one MRT stop away. Upon arriving, we realized it was outdoors and the food center from Crazy Rich Asians! Clearly we hadn’t done our homework here, so this was a pleasant surprise. We had fried crab, an oyster omelet, and “carrot cake”.

Thursday evening, we had hotpot with Laurie and her boyfriend, then cocktails at Lantern, then super fancy cocktails at Operation Dagger, a great cocktail lounge with real mixologists. The bathroom has a fake CCTV camera and monitor for an extra bit of WTF.

Friday evening after I was done for the week/year, we walked around Joo Chiat, sort of trying to recreate my walking tour from Sunday. We had dinner at Guan Hoe Soon, the oldest Peranakan restaurant in Singapore (Anthony Bourdain went there in the Singapore episode of Parts Unknown). We wandered around the neighborhood afterwards, went to the always excellent Cat Socrates, ate some vegan soft serve, then turned in early.

See Singapore for more!

Koh Lipe

Our time in Singapore was over, so we hopped on a flight to Hat Yai, checked into a surprisingly nice local hotel just for the night, then treated ourselves to some cheap eats and shopping at Greenway Night Market. The next morning, the minibus picked us up thirty minutes before we were supposed to be ready. The subsequent speedboat to Koh Lipe was as expected, including a stop at some kind of lovers’ arch on a neighboring island. Once we were set up in our hotel (Cabana Lipe Beach Resort) adjacent to the gypsy village, we had the usual routine of lunch, massage, walking around, reggae bar, and dinner.

Our first morning on the island (Christmas Eve), we joined locals, expats, and other tourists for the weekly Koh Lipe trash cleanup. The armada of long-tails took a while to get to a beach on the north side of Koh Rawi, so we had plenty of time to check out the wrinkly package of an old man who sat at the front of the boat and wore trunks that were a bit too short. Once we arrived on the island, we worked up quite a sweat picking up garbage for an hour. So much trash! Mostly plastic and foam, but also a lot of light bulbs for some reason. The garbage trucks hauling away the trash spewed a ton of smoke into the air, so I guess we’re trading trash for air pollution? I accidentally stubbed my toe in the jungle and it was bad enough that it was bleeding for a while, required attention for the rest of the trip, and was still healing weeks later.

On Christmas Day, we had some morning beach time, massages, and then lunch down the beach. For dinner, we went to Forever Restaurant on the other side of the island and had a fantastic home-cooked meal. The rain on the tin roof was really loud, the stray dog in front got really happy when the husband came home, and the bathroom in the woods required a flashlight and a sense of adventure. We had a blast at Maya for the rest of the evening: a party family with terrible DJs, “El Max” tequila, fire poi, fun house music once the real DJ started, and some G&S teenagers (glitter and shots).

Wednesday was a classic beach day – sun and sand and surf all day long. We went to the reggae bar in the evening and smoked a joint of crappy who-knows-what and watched the light and shadows of the fire poi in front of us.

On Thursday we hired a boat for a private trip to three beaches and saw this awkward French-Thai foursome (two couples) at two of them. We took lots and lots and lots of photos at Monkey Beach, then had a photo session back on our beach at sunset, which was the best of the trip.

See Koh Lipe for more!

Bangkok

On Friday, our last day on the island, we woke up early to catch the sunrise and take lots of great photos before our transfer to Bangkok. Funny that on the way to the island, there’s a rest stop and a stop at the lovers’ arch, but on the way out there’s nothing. Basically: “You’re not spending money here anymore, so GTFO!” Once in the city, we checked into our Airbnb, ate really good duck red curry at the hotel restaurant next door, then walked to Vanilla Sky for a couple of cocktails.

Before heading out on Saturday, we stopped by li-bra-ry (yes, that’s the name) and had our first taste of pandan, in the form of curved, three-dimensional waffles. Afterwards, we went downtown and wandered the malls around Siam, making sure to check out Yayoi Kusama’s art installation at CentralWorld as part of the Bangkok Art Biennale.

We had our big party night that evening, which started with a few drinks – including a coconut negroni! – at Havana Social, a Cuban-inspired cocktail lounge with a secret entrance that requires entering a password into a phone booth. We then walked to our main destination of the evening: Sing Sing, a gorgeous nightclub decked out with dark wood and red Chinese lanterns.

On Sunday, we basically spent the entire day at Chatuchak Market, one of the largest open-air markets in the world. We bought some clothes and incense and other little things, had a lot of snacks and drinks, and even had an “emergency” foot massage in one of the aircon tents nestled amongst the shops. After making it back to our Airbnb and resting for a bit, we got dressed, headed out, and rolled up to the Banyan Tree Hotel in a tuk-tuk – like a boss! – so we could go to Moon Bar for drinks. It was surprisingly busy on a Sunday, even late.

On our final day of the trip, we went out to Terminal 21 for some more shopping and ended the evening/trip with a deadly 2-hour massage. We ended up staying in after dinner and having a low-key evening since Lummi was basically half-dead at this point from all her injuries. We watched some local Bangkok NYE coverage, watched the fireworks from the balcony at midnight, then went to bed. It was a wonderful, very memorable trip and ended with a reminder that Bangkok is not for the faint of heart!

On Sunday, Nock went shopping and I had brunch with a friend before spending the afternoon researching NYE parties and calling around to different bars. Not for the first time, I was amazed at the level of high society that can be found in that city. I called up one rooftop champagne bar and they said the entrance fee was $500 a person and included only a half bottle of champagne. Damn!

We settled on Amorosa (slash Eagle Nest slash The Deck), which had reasonable prices and a fantastic view of Wat Arun across the river. A pleasant surprise of the evening was that a friend I had met in Tokyo during my sabbatical, Nisha, saw my Thailand posts on Facebook and reached out. She was traveling with a friend and was also in Bangkok for NYE, so we all met up for dinner, then went to the river for drinks and music and fireworks over the water. I was able to shake the gross feelings of the cold for a few hours and enjoy myself, especially after I won a pair of Singha sunglasses in the raffle, conveniently replacing the cheap sunglasses I had broken during my sloth on Koh Phi-Phi.

Getting home after midnight was a bit of a hassle since taxis and ride-sharing services were either overloaded or nowhere to be found. We decided to walk to the closest major road and found ourselves strolling past late-night flower markets, bustling with workers mostly oblivious to western New Year’s celebrations. Scattered among the markets and carts of flowers were a few expats and tourists, including us, still in their party clothes. It was a delightfully Bangkok way to end the trip.

Speaking of ride-sharing services, I felt they were much more prevalent and useful on this trip compared to last year. I used Uber or Grab (a service specific to Southeast Asia) in almost every city on this trip and the service was exactly the same as back home. Grab even offers the option of paying in cash, so I didn’t have to link a credit card to my account.

On another financial note, I’ve kept a spreadsheet of expenses and savings for my Southeast Asia trips for the last two years and I thought it would be interesting to share:

Now I think you understand when I say that traveling in Southeast Asia can be very inexpensive!

Much to my dread, here’s the part where I try to write down some meaningful thoughts or at least a worthwhile summary about yet another life-affirming adventure, which is always impossible.

Vietnam was particularly rewarding on this trip, not necessarily because of anything that happened, and not even because it was a last-minute addition that worked out really well, but because I’ve been making more of an effort to learn about the country’s recent history, especially since it is saturated with acts of terror and violence from my own country. Most Vietnamese are too young to remember the war, so Laurie and I weren’t expecting to encounter any hostile attitudes, but I wouldn’t really blame anyone for having one. The war museum in Saigon was shockingly eye-opening and after I returned home, I downloaded the entire Ken Burns documentary about the war and watched the whole series (more than seventeen hours) over the course of the next week. On a much smaller and slightly lighter note, Anthony Bourdain’s Hanoi episode (the one where he eats noodles with President Obama) is incredibly touching and I found myself watching it before and after the trip. I even re-watched his Laos episode because it deals with really similar issues: recent political turmoil, the consequences of war, unexploded ordinance, and a third-world country struggling to move forward. I highly recommend all of these shows as a starting place for learning about that part of the world, but better yet, just go there yourself.

Finally, on a more personal note, this trip was enjoyable and very memorable for slightly different reasons than years past. A lot of my international travel has been solo, but I was rarely by myself on this entire trip. If I wasn’t working, then I was with one of my travel buddies or meeting up with friends from years past or meeting someone new. And though I’m naturally an introvert, all of this was absolutely perfect for this year’s trip. I feel content with my living situation and job and friends and family, so I wasn’t really craving any alone time because I didn’t feel like I needed to meditate on anything. I was happy to be more social and extroverted and enjoy the company of my friends, especially Laurie and Nock, who are both sweethearts and excellent travel companions. I had an amazing time with each of them and I hope that’s not the last time we travel together.

And with that, another unforgettable trip is in the books. Looking at the timestamp of my final blog post from last year’s trip, I see that I just barely improved my horribly slow writing this year. Over two months to document everything! One day I’ll figure out how to do this faster. Or not.

(Unlike my trips to the island in 2014 and 2015, I made a point of taking a lot of photos and videos this time around, so get ready for a lot of media content in this post.)

On Christmas day, after one last banh mi and iced coffee at the Saigon airport, I flew to Bangkok, where I met Nock for our flight. The next 24 hours were pretty standard for a trip to Koh Phi-Phi: a short flight to Krabi, a guesthouse for the night (since all the boats to the island leave early in the day), dinner at the night market, massages before bed, a lazy breakfast the next morning, a van ride to the semi-chaotic and tourist-packed pier, a relatively sedate two-hour ferry ride to the island, and a 10-minute walk from the pier to our hotel. There are no motorized vehicles on the island – which is always heaven on earth whenever you can find that in Southeast Asia – so the porters and other workers transport everything via hand-pushed carts.

We stayed at a hotel that I’ve stayed in before, so the walk from the pier was very familiar. There had – unsurprisingly – been a fair amount of development in the two years since I was last on the island. A nice paved walkway connects the two main beaches now, but the main corner by the pier has a fucking McDonald’s, which is infuriating. You can’t stop “progress”, I guess.

Before dinner, while Nock had to work a bit on her laptop, I took my camera down to the beach to get some photos of Koh Phi-Phi’s famous long-tail boats. Some of the tour guides will hang around Ao Lo Dalam in the late afternoon in the hopes of enticing tourists to book a sunset trip. A few guys were hawking on the beach, a few were lounging in their boats, and a few Thai children splashed around in the water nearby.

Our first full day on the island was a deep dive into the beach vacation we both were craving: lazy time on the beach to lounge and read and people-watch, swimming, some light reading, and Thai food for lunch and Italian food for dinner. I hit “peak vacation” in the mid-afternoon when I passed out in my chair – clearly exhausted from all the lounging and eating – and broke my cheap sunglasses.

The next day, we woke up early to catch the sunrise, then took a long-tail boat to Haad Yao, a beautiful beach on the southeast part of the island. It was honestly the best beach day I’ve had in a long time: powdery sand, perfectly hot weather, cool spots in the shade, fresh coconuts, an incredible lunch of massaman curry and stir-fried fish, and clear, warm water that was so salty you could effortlessly float away if you wanted to.

On our final full day, we had a fantastic brunch at an all-mangoes-all-the-time restaurant in town, followed by another lazy afternoon on the beach closest to our guesthouse.

In the evening, we asked around about boat trips and decided to hire one for a few hours to go sightseeing on Koh Phi-Phi Leh, the beautiful sister island to the south that is open for tours but has no inhabitants. Even though this was my third time on Koh Phi-Phi Don, I had never actually gone to the other island on my previous trips and I decided it was time to correct that.

We puttered around the island, mostly visiting the two large bays: Pileh Lagoon and the world-famous Maya Bay. We stopped frequently to take photos or go swimming next to the cliffs or kick around small, deserted beaches. We cruised by Maya Beach – best known as the shooting location of The Beach – but didn’t stop since it was already packed with tourists (and actually costs money for foreigners). Instead we found another deserted beach with palm trees and towering limestone cliffs and beautiful turquoise water.

As I floated in the water and looked at the tops of the karsts against the deep blue sky, I strained to fully absorb the stunning scenery. The nearby party boat blasting 90’s hip-hop brought me back down to earth occasionally, but mostly I felt like I was gently floating away in a dream.

Just as the sun was setting and the moon was starting to come out, we left the southern island and made our way back. The scenery for the entire evening was incredible and that boat trip was the perfect way to finish our trip to the islands.

That evening, we stopped by the massive nightly beach party for a bit to watch all the dancing backpackers and ridiculous fire poi antics. Our flight back to Bangkok wasn’t until 5:00 the next day, so we happily slept in and had a lazy lunch before our boat ride and transfer to the airport.

Even though the island has seen more and more development in recent years and one has to wonder if there’s a breaking point, Koh Phi-Phi is still the most beautiful island I’ve ever been on. I will always happily go back, especially if I can take along friends to see it for the first time.

Other than my first night in town, which devolved into a sweaty, Jager-soaked, bar-hopping hot mess with a South African expat, my stay was perfectly pleasant and exactly what I was looking for. I worked my usual hours during the day and then met up with friends – old and new – in the evenings. Chiang Mai felt almost exactly the same as last year, with the usual closing or relocation of familiar places and opening of new ones. Most notably, THC Bar moved out of the no-way-this-passes-fire-inspection death trap of a building and found a new home down the street. I still have no idea how that place stayed open for that long.

Once my friend Laurie had arrived in town, I met up with her in the evenings. I’d suggest a different restaurant and nightlife option each evening and she would tell me about whatever excursion or tourist activity she had done that day.

Throughout the week, we visited an artists’ village just outside of town, met up with my friend Pim (of Citylife) to go to her friends’ anniversary/Christmas party, wandered the Sunday night walking street, listened to live music at North Gate Jazz and Boy Blues Bar, watched Muay Thai at Thapae Stadium, enjoyed the full sensory experience that is Zoe’s, ate late-night crepes on the street, drank beers by the river at Bus Bar, and treated ourselves to peaceful foot massages at Wat Mahawan, one of my favorite temples in the city.

And as usual, I hit up all my favorite spots in town and discovered some new ones too. Get ready for lots of photos of food.

Peppermint for Thai food:

Fresh & Wraps for breakfast:

Italics & Rise at Akyra Manor for fancy Italian food:

Cat House for breakfast:

Kanjana for khao soi:

The Swan for Burmese food:

Lert Ros for grilled fish:

Farm Story House for Thai, Isan, and Burmese food:

Cooking Love for Thai food:

And a different place every morning for my requisite Thai omelette:

Just like last year, the last day of work was incredibly satisfying. My project was in excellent shape and I had reached a natural milestone; the next task on the list was fairly big in scope, so it made sense to defer that until 2018. I finished working at a cafe on Saturday morning and closed my laptop for the day, the week, the month, and the year. Free!

That night – my last night in town – I met up with my friend May, who I’ve known since my first month in Chiang Mai, way back in 2013. She had recently bought a bar south of old city, so I got an Uber and stopped by in the evening to catch up over beers and spicy food.

Much to my immense disappointment, I had heard through the grapevine that the entire Zoe’s complex was going to be demolished in a few months because the land had been sold. Supposedly they’ll be relocating the bars to a new location somewhere, but we all know it’s not going to be the same. I insisted that May and I go there one last time, so I hopped on the back of her motorcycle and we went.

We sat and drank Thai beer with ice in it and chatted with all the random friends that appeared out of nowhere. We watched the dancing backpackers in their elephant pants and the ladyboys in their tight dresses and the children hustling to sell flowers and trinkets. We reminisced about past party nights and talked about her boyfriend and her new business. And as if on cue, about ten feet away from us, a severely inebriated backpacker with a massive head of curly hair stood up, took one step, and executed the most beautiful, perfect faceplant I’ve ever seen. Peter Griffin would be so proud.

Don’t ever change, Zoe’s.

As the two friends of the sentient rag doll tried to help him up, the bars started closing, so I finished my beer and said goodbye to everyone. I walked home down empty streets, passing the occasional stray dog, listening to the far-off sounds of motorbikes, and admiring the full moon.

After a short layover in Taipei and a (relatively) short flight to Bangkok, I met my friend Pantip, who was very graciously picking me up from the airport. We had first met on my trip to Thailand last year and kept in touch and she was more than happy to celebrate my birthday with me. After dropping me off at my hotel in Ekkamai (a part of Sukhumvit), she left to run errands for a few hours while I checked in, unpacked, and wandered around to get the lay of the land.

After I walked back to the hotel and went up to my room, I quickly became aware of a lingering haze inside my room, in the hallway, and inside the building in general. I stepped out on both patios and looked around at the neighbors to see if anything was clearly wrong or out of the ordinary. The family next door had a small grill lit for cooking dinner, but that couldn’t have produced the amount of smoke I was seeing. I went downstairs to talk to the woman at reception and she spoke enough English to explain what had happened. She was noticeably on edge and trying to coordinate activities with the rest of her staff as she told me that there had been a fire in one of the rooms.

You know how’s a bad way to start a 39-day, trans-Pacific trip? With a fucking fire in your hotel. On your first night.

As she was offering her best explanation – something involving a lit cigarette – she gestured towards the driveway. I finally noticed what had been sitting there the whole time: a fully packed suitcase, burnt to a crisp, with an electrical cord sticking out of it.

Holy shit, talk about a disastrous start to a trip! To this day, I still don’t know exactly what caused the fire, but I’m more inclined to believe that it was started by a small electrical device (hair dryer or curling iron or whatever) rather than a carelessly discarded cigarette.

As the staff hurriedly worked to salvage furniture and electronics from the smoky, ashy room, Pantip arrived and both the receptionist and I filled her in on what had happened. My request for a portable fan was denied, as the hotel had only one or two and needed them for airing out the fire room. My request to be moved to a different room was also denied, as the hotel was fully booked.

We went upstairs to my room to figure out what to do next. I opened both patio doors and turned on the fans in both aircon units to create as much airflow as I could. At that point, there was nothing much more I could do to improve the situation, so I turned to Pantip and said, “Look, there’s nothing more we can do. It’s my birthday and I want to go out, so I’m going to get dressed, and then we’re getting out of here.” She agreed.

We got some tom yum mama hotpot from a local spot in the neighborhood, then I requested that we go to Moon Bar, probably my favorite rooftop bar in the world. It was a very relaxing evening, which was totally fine by me after such a long day: 24 hours of flights and airports, 48 hours without a proper bed, and one near-disaster involving a mysterious fire. We caught up over mojitos while enjoying the warm weather and admiring the twinkling lights of the city. My cell phone photos never do the place justice, so I suggest looking at Google image results instead.

I slept well that night, but the bright morning sun and jet lag woke me up at 6:30 the next morning, much earlier than my usual rising time. Leaving the windows open and the aircon fans running all night had helped a great deal with the air quality in the room. (By that afternoon, the haze would be gone entirely.)

Blessed with a full day to work with, I once again wandered the neighborhood and the city, partially to pass the time and try some new restaurants, but also to run some errands. While I was packing the day I left America, I realized that I had lost both pairs of swim trunks I owned, so I made a note to myself to buy some new ones in Bangkok. I didn’t realize this would be so difficult! I bounced from mall to mall, looking for a shop selling men’s swimwear, but it being “winter” in Thailand, those kinds of clothes were very difficult to find. It took almost half the day, but I finally found a shop in Terminal 21.

While I was still in a shopping mood, which is rare for me, I opted to get a new pair of white kicks too; the pair I had brought with me had been on many an adventure already and looked the part. It wasn’t a cute look for being in a major, metropolitan city. I shopped around and bought one of the cheapest pairs of “import” shoes that they actually had in my size. Ironically, and poetically, the “import” Chucks I bought were made in Thailand.

While wandering the neighborhood that day, I stumbled upon an incredible Stranger Things 2 art installation/advertisement on the outside of an abandoned building. (Funny enough, that abandoned building used to be a music venue called Sonic that I had read about before the trip and even added to my list of places to check out.) Evidently, Netflix had commissioned a couple of local artists to make the installation, which included several massive murals, a statue of Eleven, and various props and decorations that will be familiar to fans of the show.

I was up early again Monday morning to start working remotely. The shifted sleeping schedule would become the norm for the next few weeks and worked out incredibly well, just like it did last year. When it’s 7:00 am in Southeast Asia, it’s 4:00 pm in California, so upon waking up, I’d grab my laptop and work in bed, syncing up with coworkers about anything that had come up during the day. After an hour or so, I’d close my laptop, get out of bed, get ready, and head off to my coworking space for 8 hours of completely uninterrupted working. Just like last year, I had a medium-sized project to work on, so I would hack away all day, send my changes to my manager and coworkers at the end of the day, and get their feedback the following morning. The end of my day also overlapped with the start of the day in Europe, so I could sync up with my Dublin coworkers too, if necessary. I swear these trips to Southeast Asia are my most productive work periods of the entire year.

For my week in Bangkok, I worked out of Mashmellow, a new coworking space that had just opened only a few months prior. While researching the trip, I had briefly considered going to one of the larger or well-known coworking spaces in the city, but was worried that they would be too full, which is more likely during the peak tourist season. Mashmellow was the exact opposite: though most of the private offices were occupied by small businesses, I was usually the only person in the communal working area.

Every day, after finishing up in the late afternoon, I’d walk back to my hotel and take full advantage of the rooftop pool, drying off easily in the warm evening weather and soaking up the sights and sounds of the city.

And that’s more or less how my week in Bangkok went: up early every morning, worked on my project at the coworking space, came home to a rooftop swim, then either met up with a friend in the evening or explored the neighborhood on my own. Ekkamai is very local, so I didn’t see many tourists or expats the whole week. Actually, I barely saw any farang; the vast majority of foreigners in Ekkamai are Japanese or Korean.

As with my trip last year, I tried to be better about taking photos of my food and drink, so here are a few honorable mentions from the neighborhood.

Khun Churn for vegan/vegetarian Thai food:

Mikkeller for fancy beer:

Uncle Jeff Kitchen for Malaysian food:

Tamnak Isan for Isan food:

Having used only two weeks of vacation the entire year, I decided in September – while in Beirut, actually – to embark on another winter adventure. If you’re wondering why I keep doing this, see my post from last year because the reasons are just as relevant today. Given the success of working remotely last year and the appeal of being able to extend the trip, I pushed my luck a bit with my manager and told him I’d be gone for five weeks: three weeks of working remotely and two weeks of holiday. He was okay with the timing and remembered that I was quite productive when I did this last year, so I started making plans for my trip.

I looked into the same flights as last year: EVA Air from San Francisco to Bangkok, by way of Taipei. I would come back on New Years Day again, so Thanksgiving weekend was the obvious choice for a departure date since I was going to lose an entire day flying over the International Date Line. As luck would have it, my birthday fell on the Saturday after Thanksgiving this year, so if I flew out Thanksgiving night, I would arrive in Thailand on my birthday. As an added bonus, Black Friday – the symbol of the chaotic, frustrating, over-commercialized mess that the Christmas season has become – would simply not exist in my life this year and forever be lost in the ether. I loved the symbolism and bought my tickets immediately.

I scheduled two weeks in Chiang Mai and a week in Bangkok before that, since that’s where I wanted to be for my birthday. The end of the trip was also finalized; I had kept in touch with a friend I had met in Laos last year and we already made plans to travel together to Koh Phi-Phi at the end of December before going back to Bangkok for New Years weekend.

All these anchors on the calendar left a stretch of only nine days in mid-December where I could go anywhere and do anything. Like last year, I wanted to go somewhere new, and just like last year, I leaned very heavily towards Myanmar. I read a lot of travel resources, talked to friends who had been there, and even talked to my friend Bebee, who had recently moved back to her hometown in Shan state. However, the news coming out of Myanmar was horrible: the military government was carrying out ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya people in the western part of the country. Hundreds of thousands of people were fleeing into neighboring Bangladesh to escape execution, violence, sexual assault, and destruction of their villages and homes at the hands of the government.

Sometime in November, on the morning that I was supposed to buy plane tickets to Myanmar, my alarm went off and I lazily stayed in bed, flipping through the news on my phone. As fate would have it, my news feed contained an article about Myanmar written by a travel website. The author reiterated the (very valid) point that travelers have the power to vote with their money. On the one hand, money spent in Myanmar could go directly to locals who really need it; on the other hand, taxes, visa fees, plane tickets, and similar expenses would go directly to the government. In short, a trip to Myanmar would be directly funding the atrocities I kept seeing on the news.

After a lot of deliberation, I nixed the idea. Once again – and exactly like last year – I begrudgingly put Myanmar back on the bucket list.

Given that I was finishing the remote-work portion of the trip in Chiang Mai and was going to be meeting my friend in Bangkok, I started to look for a new place to visit that wasn’t too far from either city. A brief look at Google Maps revealed the obvious choice: southern Vietnam. I scrambled to research that part of the country, buy flights, and get a visa. Thankfully, Vietnam has recently implemented an e-visa program and website, which made the process cheap, fast, and easy.

An added bonus to all of this was the 11th-hour addition to the trip: my friend Laurie, who I know from San Francisco. She’s taking two months off from her job to travel (mostly in Southeast Asia) and it made perfect sense that we should try to meet up. She’ll be staying in Chiang Mai during my second week there and then we’ll be traveling together to a few places in Vietnam before I swing around back to Thailand to meet my Lao friend.

I also had an incredible stroke of fortune with respect to funding my trip. Just as with my previous multi-week trips, I was able to find someone to stay in my apartment while I was gone. This year, I found a nomadic, remote-working couple in their 30s who wanted to come up from the peninsula and spend an extended amount of time in San Francisco. (Well, really, they found me.) They had even just been to Koh Phi-Phi a month prior! We clicked immediately and I was very happy to have them stay in my place the entire time I was gone. They arrived the morning after I left and left a few hours before I returned home. The apartment was basically never empty and a massive portion (over half!) of my trip’s expenses was covered.

Fast forward to Thanksgiving day. After eating an irresponsible amount of potatoes, stuffing, cheese, and deviled eggs at my friends’ house, I spent the rest of the day burning all those calories while cleaning and packing and preparing for the trip. Even though I started at 3:00 in the afternoon and my flight wasn’t until midnight, I barely had a moment to rest before it was time to grab my bags and leave for the airport.

Who’s excited?

Once I was on the ground, I got a taxi to my Airbnb in Sukhumvit, dropped my things on the floor, and was immediately enchanted by the scene from the balcony: a fiery sunset barely peeking out from underneath the moody late-afternoon clouds, a horizon of skyscrapers and high-rises, the rooftops of neighborhood houses, barking dogs and squawking birds, and a bizarre, fortified white mansion surrounded by a small forest in the middle of a concrete jungle. I ended up being out and about most of the weekend, but when I found myself back in the apartment, I made sure to take photos to capture the view.

That evening, I met up with a friend for an excellent tapas dinner on Soi 11, chosen because the restaurant was a short walk from Havana Social, a place both of us had been interesting in visiting. The Cuba-inspired lounge is beautifully decorated and has a great selection of rum-based cocktails, but also has a funny trick up its sleeve. To get in, you must walk to an unremarkable small soi off of Soi 11, enter a retro telephone booth next to a large wall mural, pick up the handset, and enter the passcode you received by calling the bar earlier that day. Upon putting the handset back down, the wall behind you clicks and opens a tiny bit, and you realize the wall is the door to get in. It’s delightful.

After a drink, we hit the pavement again so I could get my rooftop bar fix, something I’m sorely deprived of by living in San Francisco. My friend suggested Nest, which was just down the street, and that’s where we spent the rest of the evening. It was perfect for lounging, chatting, enjoying the warm weather, and looking at the blinking lights of the skyline.

One funny moment of the evening – for me, at least – was browsing the drink menu at Nest, which included a section of bucket cocktails. Sure, bucket drinks are popular in Thailand, but usually at beach bars pumping EDM and patronized exclusively by gap-year backpackers in “Full Moon” tank tops. This was a swanky rooftop lounge! One drink in particular caused me to immediately take a photo and text some friends back home:

Good. Lord. Talk about front-loading your evening. Or destroying it. “I really want a Long Island, but I don’t think a glass of it will be enough…”, said no one ever. Now that I’m thinking about it in hindsight, such a ridiculous libation makes perfect sense for a city like Bangkok. Sometimes you’ll find holes in the the classy facade and see the simple, down-to-earth, and sometimes ugly truth behind it all. Simple, ugly truths like a bucket full of alcohol.

Friday was my shopping day, so I took BTS downtown and immersed myself in the labyrinth of upscale, interconnected malls that define the main shopping district of Bangkok. I’m always amazed at how posh some of these places are. They’re more yuppie and more expensive than malls in America!

The only real discovery and purchase of the day was from a new shop selling merchandise for “Bloody Bunny”, a series of characters created by a partnership of Thai and Japanese design studios. When she saw the photo, my mom described it as the antithesis to Hello Kitty, which I think is a pretty accurate description. Parents were forcing their half-terrified children to take photos with the maniacal-looking, possibly murderous mascot who was standing in front of the store. After laughing at their discomfort for a bit, I went inside and bought a few notebooks for friends back home.

I found Terminal 21, another multi-level mall, particularly interesting because each floor of the mall is themed after a different international city. Most are European, but much to my surprise, the top two floors are homages to San Francisco. There are faux Fisherman’s Wharf statues and even a miniature Golden Gate Bridge that spans the floor, complete with model cars and even an accurate configuration of lanes and (lack of) dividers.

In the maze of endless hallways and escalators and pedestrian bridges, I quite literally got lost and disoriented. While trying to find my way back to a BTS station, I accidentally stumbled upon a small gallery dedicated to the late and very beloved king, who had passed away about two months before. Next to the gallery, a pianist played soft, sentimental music for the shoppers who were admiring the various paintings and photographs. I quietly wandered the gallery alongside an elderly Thai grandmother in a wheelchair who was barely able to power herself, but was doing her best to see all the works on the walls. It was a surprising dose of sweetness amidst the unbridled capitalism and noisy crowds.

That evening I was on my own, so I went out to a couple places in the neighborhood that I had heard very good things about. The first spot was WTF, a gallery and cozy bar just off Sukhumvit Road, which was a perfect first stop for the evening. After a couple drinks and funny exchanges with the quasi-intoxicated staff, I walked down the street to my real destination for the evening, Sing Sing Theater. The venue is most easily labelled as a nightclub, but based on what I’ve read, it seems to have a legitimate mix of live performances and genres of music. The night I went didn’t have anything particularly special planned, so I was treated to many hours of very fun, danceable house music played by a few of the resident DJs.

Normally I wouldn’t bother going into this much detail about a night out, except Sing Sing deserves special mention because it is easily the most beautiful club I have ever been to. I’d describe the decor as an upscale, romanticized opium den that you’d see in a movie: Chinese lanterns hanging from the ceiling, dark wood everywhere, lit candles on tables, and what parts of the club weren’t shrouded in dark mystery were bathed in beautiful red light. Every room and balcony felt small and intimate, giving the entire place a very cozy feel, which is rarely a word used to describe a nightclub. And to give the proceedings a little extra something, the club’s dancers wore gas masks along with their skimpy outfits.

The gorgeous crowd matched the gorgeous venue and there was a pleasant mix of people: small groups of girls, one large group of very single guys, couples, expats, Western and Chinese tourists, and some hi-so (“high society”) Thais. Speaking of which, as I was leaving around 2:30, I passed two very pretty Thai socialites who were just on their way in, looking way too fresh for that hour of the night, as if they had just finished getting ready. They could easily have been walking the red carpet at the Oscars with how fashionable and on-point they looked. One was pulling along the other by the hand, almost in a motherly manner. The girl in tow was clearly on something heavy because when I caught eyes with her, I saw a deer in the headlights looking back at me. Woof.

None of my photos or videos from that night do Sing Sing any justice, so the best imagery I can offer is the collage of Google Images search results.

The next day was New Year’s Eve. After a lazy day of sleeping in, wandering, eating, and a massage, I met up with my friend again for another fun night out. After a tasty dinner at a neighborhood restaurant, I took her to WTF since she had never been before. Once again, it was the perfect jumping off point for the rest of the night. After drinks and more funny stories from the same bartenders as the night before, we went out in search of a rooftop bar. Our first choice was absurdly expensive (6,000 baht per person! $170!), but my friend found another place (AmBar) that was much more reasonable (500 baht per person). The night was great fun with lots of dancing and even a live saxophone player to accompany the DJ. Months before I started planning this trip, I had decided that I wanted to spend NYE on a rooftop bar in Bangkok, and it was incredibly satisfying that the last night of my trip was my silly plan coming to fruition.

The next day was lazy and sad, if I’m to be honest with myself. My flight wasn’t until the evening, so I had plenty of time to go to a few of my new favorite local spots, get one last massage, and wander the neighborhood with my camera.

On this trip, I tried to be better about taking photos of what I ate, so here are a few photos of very, very delicious things I had in Bangkok. Nothing cost more than $4.

Since this will be my last post from this trip, I guess this is the part where I try to summarize everything.

For starters, value-per-dollar on this trip was exceptional. I rented out my apartment on Airbnb while I was gone and I cashed in a lot of rewards (Capital One and Agoda) that I had accrued from my previous international trips. Once those are taken into account, my out-of-pocket total for the entire trip was around $1,500, which is crazy for nearly four weeks of traveling, including an expensive flight across the Pacific.

Value-per-day was also phenomenal. I crammed a lot into a relatively short amount of time, especially compared to the speed of my travels in the past few years. Every place I went offered something wonderful and different. Pattaya and Bangkok, the bookends of the trip, were all about new friends and really fun nightlife; Chiang Mai was nostalgic, comforting, incredibly productive work-wise, and a chance to reconnect with old friends; Laos was a whole new country where I could really enjoy meditation, creativity, quiet reflection, and beautiful nature.

Viewed through the lens of these two metrics, this was the best trip I have ever taken. Everything – logistics, weather, activities, relationships, health, you name it – turned out exactly like I thought it would, or better. It was another life-affirming journey that left me feeling happy and motivated.

Goodbye to 2016 and hello to 35 indeed.

Don’t let the above photo fool you; December 8th was not a fun travel day. To begin with, I had a very full day at home: working, packing, cleaning, preparing my apartment for my Airbnb guest, and trying to fight off a cold. After going to a friend’s company’s holiday party in the evening, I went home to grab my bags and start my 30-hour travel day: a few hours at SFO, a 14-hour flight to Taipei, a few hours in the airport there, a 4-hour flight to Bangkok, a couple more hours in an airport, and finally a 2-hour bus ride to Pattaya. Uuuggghhh.

The entire travel day actually went very smoothly since I had planned out all my transportation in advance and nothing was delayed. However, I’m unable to sleep on planes – even with chemical assistance – and I’m 6’3″ on a good day, so long flights are a real test of patience and pain endurance. Everything ended up being fine in the end, but my tolerance for long, uncomfortable journeys has definitely gone down. Needless to say, I was incredibly relieved upon finally reaching my hotel in Pattaya.

I should probably take this opportunity to explain why I went to Pattaya, a city infamous – even for Thailand! – for its red light districts and sex tourism. My only reason for going was logistics: Pattaya is the closest seaside getaway from Bangkok. I knew that after such a brutal travel day I would want sun, sand, and Singha; Pattaya has all those things within a 2-hour drive of the capital. The local airport also has a direct flight to Chiang Mai, my subsequent destination. And I had never been to Pattaya before, so in the interest of going somewhere new, it made sense. Plus I could be witness to a spectacle of unadulterated humanity and vice, which is always entertaining.

Allow me to try to summarize Pattaya.

For those of you who have been to Thailand, Pattaya is Khaosan Road in Bangkok multiplied by Soi Bangla on Phuket. There are multiple red light districts with literally hundreds of bars, dance clubs, girlie bars, massage parlors, and go-go bars (strip clubs). Pretty Thai women (and ladyboys) in tight mini-dresses and stilettos catcall everyone within shouting distance. Groups of Thai women, gay boys, or ladyboys sit outside the massage parlors, calling out “Meestah you want massage?!” while trying to grab the arms of potential patrons walking by. Wide-eyed Chinese tourists slowly drift around in massive groups, sometimes wearing identical outfits, but always wearing their backpacks facing frontwards, clutching them tightly as if Thailand was populated exclusively by purse-snatchers who could strike at any moment.

And then there are the farang: a few gap-year backpackers, a few honeymooning couples, some young parents with babies in strollers, a few trashy Russians on holiday, and a small clique of pretty, 20-something Russian girls who work there. But the real demographic of Western visitors is the fraternity of bald, fat, or ugly – pick any two, maybe all three – older white men who bankroll this town. Such men are often accompanied by a Thai woman twenty, thirty, or even forty years his junior.

Even with all the crazy shit I’ve seen on my travels, the one thing that still creeps me out every time, without fail, is seeing young white women working in the sex industry in Thailand. I have so many questions! Why can’t you do this in your home country? Why would you travel so far to earn third-world money? What men are traveling to Thailand to pay for a night with a white chick? I’m not sure I’ll ever understand.

Also, who the fuck is bringing their babies and children to Pattaya?! And then taking them for walks around town at night?! There were multiple nominees for “Parent of the Year” during my 48-hour stay. No eight-year-old kid needs to be bombarded with the screams of dozens of scantily-clad prostitutes and the sleazy salesmanship tactics of drug dealers and touts for ping pong shows.

With that colorful backdrop, I spent my weekend eating, sleeping, getting massages, reading my book by the rooftop pool at my hotel, and in the evenings, sitting at bars and watching the free entertainment with some new friends.

On a lighter note, apparently the new thing in tourist Thailand is VR! On Walking Street, the most popular strip of nightlife in town, there were multiple stations where tourists could strap on VR goggles and go on a virtual roller coaster ride while everyone else watched the video on TVs. Truth be told, the VR was good enough that people would flip out and fall over if they weren’t being physically restrained by those running the show.

And even though Pattaya certainly isn’t known for its food, the first meal I had – a random assortment of fried snacks – was spicier than anything I’ve eaten in months in America. It was good to be back.

On Sunday, I flew from the small, ex-military airport south of town up to Chiang Mai for a week of working remotely and seeing some old friends. My manager – who enjoys traveling and Thai food just as much as I do – graciously agreed to my proposal of working remotely when I talked to him about vacation plans a few months ago. In an effort to prove that it was a good decision, I decided to spend that week in a place that I’m familiar with and can be very productive in, rather than a new place where I might struggle to get work done.

Much to my chagrin, my first day in Chiang Mai was not productive at all, at least with respect to work. Because I slept late in an effort to correct my body’s sleep schedule, it didn’t make sense to pay for a full day at my usual coworking space, so I played a round of let’s-try-cafe-wifi-networks-today. And lost. On top of spotty WiFi, my company’s IT department had upgraded their VPN infrastructure that weekend and I continued to have problems (shocker) for the next 24-48 hours.

Sensing the workday was going to be washed out, I salvaged things personally by getting a haircut, wash, and head massage ($9 total) at my usual spot in town, followed by a $4 foot massage in the late afternoon at Wat Mahawan, which has always been a first-day Chiang Mai tradition for me. As usual, the temple was a wonderfully peaceful respite from the city’s traffic and noise and I spent the hour watching the monks tend to their gardening duties around the temple grounds.

Starting the next day, the week ended up being incredibly productive work-wise. In fact, I’m pretty certain I was more productive that week than I normally am back home, mainly due to zero distractions. Because my work schedule hardly overlapped with anyone else on my team, I wasn’t distracted by emails, Slack notifications, or people coming over to my desk. Once I worked through the backlog of messages every morning, which didn’t take long at all, the rest of the day was completely mine. And unlike my usual commute through the dirty, crazy jungle of Mid-Market in San Francisco, the walk through old city every morning was quite pleasant.

It took a couple days before I really settled into the flow there, but I can remember the exact moment it happened. I was walking home one evening, feeling a tiny bit hungry, when I came upon a street vendor selling mango sticky rice. I sat down on a cheap plastic stool at a cheap plastic table and ate with a cheap plastic spoon out of a cheap foam container. A Jason Mraz concert DVD played on a portable TV and I hummed along while cockroaches scurried among the bags of trash on the ground. As I ate some of the best mango sticky rice I’ve ever had, I glanced up at the dark sky, punctuated by the clear white light of a bright full moon. It was every Thai cliche at once and it was perfect.

My non-work time that week was spent catching up with friends and going to all my favorite spots in old city. A couple of my personal favorites had closed but the staples were all still there. I made sure to savor two of my favorite things about Chiang Mai: khao soi and the subtle joy of walking the old city’s tiny, quiet sois late at night.

After a week that went by way too quickly, I had a farewell dinner with my friends Jay and Mel before packing and getting ready for the next adventure. I could stay in Chiang Mai for months on end (and I have), but new lands await. Onward to Laos!

I’ve been working on a new personal site for quite some time now and I’m happy to announce that it’s finally live! As you can see, it’s part resume, part portfolio, and part blog. The resume and portfolio are a pretty good representation of me, but I’m still trying to figure out what I’ll be writing about. I’m sure I’ll blog about my travels, but since I’m working full-time and no longer on a sabbatical, I’ll have much less travel content than before. Maybe I’ll write about tech or San Francisco or photography. We’ll see.

Appropriately, my first few entries will be about my recent holiday in Southeast Asia, written in the style of my old blog. I feel somewhat obligated to explain why I decided to go back to Southeast Asia, considering I’ve already spent so much time there. In no particular order:

• It’s my vacation and I can do what I want, damnit!
• I wanted to do something big for my 35th birthday.
• The weather in Southeast Asia in December is perfect.
• Getting across the Pacific is expensive, but after that, everything is cheap.
• America’s excessive consumerism during the Christmas season – not to mention the two-month duration – is exhausting, so I like escaping the country for at least a little bit. I love November (Thanksgiving and my birthday), so it makes sense to leave in December.
• Donald Trump.
• I have friends in Thailand that I wanted to see.
• Southeast Asian food and massage are two of my favorite things ever.
• Let’s just say I know how to enjoy myself there.

Given that 2016 ended up being a shitty, shitty year, I was even more excited about this trip and about leaving the country.

The actual itinerary underwent a lot of iterations before it finally settled. Initially, I wanted to go to Myanmar, but after factoring in travel time and the requisite stop in Chiang Mai – clearly a requirement for any trip to Southeast Asia – it didn’t leave a lot of time to move around Myanmar, especially considering that travel there is slow. Begrudgingly, I moved Myanmar back onto my bucket list and searched for a different new place to go. Non-Bali Indonesia became a real possibility for a while, especially since I’ve wanted to check out Djakarta Warehouse Project, but the considerable extra travel time and slightly unappealing line-up diluted my enthusiasm for that plan too.

Flight prices and timing, friends’ availability, and the fact that I would be working remotely for a week eventually led to me narrowing my focus to only Thailand and northern Laos. I could get my Chiang Mai fix, have very reasonable flight times and costs, see my friends, work remotely, and spend most of the trip exploring a new country.

Well, I think that’s a good place to wrap up my first post. I’ll be breaking up the rest of the trip into smaller posts for easy digestion, especially since I’ll be adding lots of photos. Thanks for reading and welcome!