Return of the Prodigious Son

Shortly over a year ago a thought instantly appeared in my head from nothingness. It came to me like a burning little flame, no larger than a grain of salt. Over the following days it grew brighter and larger, larger and brighter until I could no longer contain it.


"I'm quitting my job and backpacking around the world."

There, I said it. My brother looked back at me and after a brief discussion he agreed that it was a sensational idea. That was back in January 2008, just hours before I created this blog.

Slightly over a year later, I was on my way back from the World. On the evening of January 25th, after a 27 hour trip, I landed back in America. I worked my way through the maze of winding barrier ropes in the large sterile immigration room until it was my turn.

“Welcome home Mr. Fox”, he said as he inked the final stamp in my passport. I thanked him and headed through the door to rejoin the reality I stepped out on a little over 7 months prior.

Half in a daze I greeted my mother at International Arrivals, God it was great to see her. After a big giant hug she handed me my winter coat and my hat and gloves and we headed for the car. I’m home.
ROLL THE CREDITS!!!!

The Numbers

4 = continents visited

14 = countries visited

215 = days away from home

79 = beds slept in

6 = stomach bugs caught

3= colds caught

3= the number of times I got leaches

29,000 = miles traveled

Observations of America

1) It's cold!

2) Barack Obama is President

3) Gas is like 2004 cheap

4) After hours of YouTube-ing, I still don’t understand why Tina Fey’s portrayal of Sarah Palin is funny. I guess you just had to be there.

5) There is an "economic crisis" and everyone seems overly sensitive about it.

5a) John, you checked your iPhone 3 times over lunch and bitched about the stock market. Did you just consult a superfluous expensive device to tell you that you are poor?

5b) Nobody had a Superbowl party because of the economy? Really? Even though you all have the same job you had when I left, The economy wouldn’t let us all bring a 6-pack to someone’s house and watch TV?

5c) When you’ve been surrounded by people who worry about where their next meal is coming from, it's hard not to giggle when people who drive cars and live in houses cry about not having money. I apologize to anyone who I offended while laughing, don’t feel bad, I am unemployed myself.

5d) TV commercials pitch how cheap and economical their products are regardless what stretches they have to go to make it fit. By making your own Digiorno pizza you can save up to $4 on delivery and Sprint is saving the collective masses billions of dollars.

6) Technology has passed me by and in my opinion has surpassed any possible need it can meet. It's time to put the leash back on the engineers and the geeks and get them back into the nerdatoriums where they belong. Do we really need to watch TV on our cell phones? I tried buying a new laptop computer at BestBuy yesterday, there were 5 different kinds! “Sir, Do you want a gaming laptop, a desk top replacement laptop, a mini laptop, laptop stew, laptop gumbo, barbeque laptop…” "I want a LAPTOP LAPTOP!!!!!"

7) My nephew is still as adorable as he was when I left. However he now has more hair than me and answers my questions. “Did you poop in your diaper?”

“No,no,no,no,no!”

“No? Than who did?”

He points at me.

8) I now understand why America is the greatest place to live and I truely appreciate my citizenship. To all the America haters I met along the way…suck it!

Thank You

Jakes, Paul, Iris and Mutsa, The crew at Karongwe Game Reserve, The crew at Moby’s Backpackers in Hermanus, Mark and Gail, Frick, Nick and the rest, India for beating me into the strongest me ever, Raj, Deep and the Pahari Family, Party-on Jon “JD” Dong, Dan the crazy bastard, “The Israelis”, “The Irish”, “The Irish 2”, Kinley and Dshering, Nature, Andrea, Rae, Travis and Kelly for venturing out to meet me in the world, Jersey Jay Scouser, Trevor, Karl, Glenn and Claire, Skinner, Gordon, and the cast of many who I met along the way.

Lastly, thanks to all of you who’ve been following me, it’s been great having you along for the ride, especially through the tough times. The last number I’d like to post is

4,317 = Visitors to my blog since it started. Wow! Thanks for your support and your readership.

As the theme music comes to an end I’d like to say, this has truly been a life changing experience and I am so lucky and eternally grateful to have had the opportunity to be able to do it. I'm not exactly sure what’s next for me (book deal?) what ever may come, I will try to greet it with the same spirit. I wish you all the best.

And the death of my blog implodes back into nothingness...

The Not So Great Barrier Reef

It's 9:00 on Saturday morning and I'm sitting at a table outside of Starbucks in a daze watching Sydney go by. In less than 24 hours I'll start my 27 hour marathon flight to my final stop on this world tour, New Jersey, USA. I've committed to my goal of giving everything I have to this journey and now I'm shattered. I am emaciated, everything aches, my left foot hurts so bad I now walk with a limp and my mind has become jello unable to process much at all.

Everything takes effort, my pen feels like it weighs 20 lbs as I struggle to write for the 3rd day straight. I have ridden this one until the wheels fell off, I have nothing left and now it's time to come back down from the mountain and rejoin the market place. But first, I'll need rest. I promise there will be at least one more post before I close out this blog, but I can't promise more after.

So when we left off I was heading off on my pilgrimage to Carins to visit my Mecca, the Great Barrier Reef. It's been months since I've kept a budget and I was sure I'd blown it out of the water. However, I made the decision that if I were to dive the GBR, I would do it right. So I whipped out the plastic and purchased back-to-back trips on live-aboard diving vessels for a total of 7 days.

I was going to live the reef, take all I could get and leave sick of it. Plus I thought,"Isn't this the reason we work? To earn money so we can do what makes us happy?" (I don't think I believed this when I left in June, but it has become a code I live by now). This has been a life goal of mine since I was 9 years old and between environmental factors degrading the GBR and not knowing if or when I'd ever get back to Australia, making this decision was simple.

I was to spend 2 days on the outer reef, then come back to Cairns, switch boats and go far out into the open ocean, to dive the Coral Sea and remote parts of the GBR for the following 5 days.

The next morning I boarded ReefQuest, a 70 foot catamaran and headed out for my first 7 dives on the outer GBR. The first thing I noticed was how packed the boat was, it looked like a refugee ship. I did some quick and dirty head math and realized that between the number of people on the boat, the number of trips they make per week and the number of tour operators in business there was a good chance that this reef would be in bad shape. Having the memories of diving Sipidan fresh in my mind (See Post: Borneo Land of Monkeys and Scuba Junkies) my standards were set to a point that would be almost impossible to meet.

So there I stood on the dive deck, looking at the numerous dive boats bobbing in the water and the rising columns of bubbles of countless divers who had already been down.

I crashed through the water and as the white foam subsided I looked down. I felt like I was 5 years old again and my Dad just told me that there was no Santa Claus (I know, you're thinking "I thought you were Jewish?" But that actually did happened, a good story for another time) Everything I had built up in my mind was just a fantasy, this section of the reef was in bad shape.

I floated over bleached out crumbling dead coral, bumping into oodles of clumsy divers. This was a place that the local dive shops took people to learn. Many were on their first dive, unable to control their bodies in their odd new environment and unaware of proper dive etiquette. Some seemed to be oblivious to their surroundings as they snapped pictures with their "Rad" new cameras. Hech-hem, Japanese tourists...I'm looking in your direction. I swear, some of these guys see their entire vacation through the 3 inch LCD monitor on the back of their camera. I laughed as I imagined these folks coming home and assembling a flip book of pictures to experience the vacation they just missed on their couch. Then a fin came sweeping down, kicking my mask off my face and my regulator out of my mouth. "Don't dive angry", I told myself as I gave my assailant the OK sign when he turned to apologize in awkward underwater sign language.

Later in the afternoon I was transferred to OceanQuest a bigger and much more luxurious catamaran, where I spent the night and finished out the remaining dives of the trip. While the dives did get progressively better. I was completely underwhelmed with the Great Barrier Reef.

We headed back to Carins and on the following morning I boarded the Taka, a 70 foot single-hull ship that was built specifically to take divers to the farthest reaches of the GBR and the Coral Sea. This ship was not as luxurious as OceanQuest; but the crew was amazing, there were fewer divers on board, all with loads of experience and all good company and there was a Nintendo Wii in the lounge.

We set out at 5:00 in the evening and sailed all night to the furthest reaches of the GBR. When I awoke, I stepped out onto the sun deck. I found myself as a tiny insignificant speck in the middle of a boundless turquoise sea, there was no land to serve as a point of reference. The water was flat like a sheet of glass, perfect conditions.

Looking down you could see 90 feet to the ocean floor; the reef and its residents on their daily routines, a turtle here some large pelagic fish over there. I had a good feeling, I couldn't wait to get in the water.

This time I submerged and as my eyes gained focus I almost spit my regulator out of my mouth. Like in Sipidan a few months ago, I was descending on a pure unspoiled vibrant coral city. I cruised effortlessly, flying through the coral maze, gliding through caves as my dive buddy, Kris and I pointed out sharks and Morey Eels and Clown fish (Nemo) to each other.

We got back on the boat and everyone was in a fever pitch, "Holy...Did you see?... I can't believe...Wow!" That evening the boat sailed on to the Coral Sea and as I lied in bed I thought, "4 more days of this, Woo-hoo!"

The next morning we sat in the lounge for a briefing on diving in the Coral Sea. We would be diving a site called Cod Hole where we would feed the large Potato Cod.

This is the last underwater footage I captured before the same"waterproof" Olympus camera that broke in Nepal broke again. Thanks again Olympus! Regardless, the experience was awesome.

We got back on board and sat down for lunch while we cruised to the next dive site. As we sat eating, one of the crew busted through the door yelling, "We've got Dolphins!" So we all sprang out of our chairs and headed to the bow of the boat to find a school of Dolphins playing in our bow wake, at the front of the boat.



That night I went to bed once more with an ear to ear grin on my face, for on the following day we would be feeding sharks...Awesome! Following another dive briefing we jumped into the water and assembled in a semi-circle where Trent, the trip coordinator was waiting with a garbage can. Inside was a bait line consisting of a chain with Tuna heads attached to it. When he opened the can, the float at the end of the chain headed for the surface carrying the Tuna heads up with it. The sharks, as well as other fish, started to swarm in the dozens.


Unlike my previous experience diving with Great Whites back in July, there was no cage this time to separate me from the sharks. It was amazing, For the next 20 minutes I felt like I was watching the Discovery Channel live. Sharks passed within inches of me.

We got back on the boat and headed up to the sun deck to assume our typical post dive lounging. "This is the life.", I thought, "I want to do this from now on."

"Hey Mike", I said to a new buddy of mine, "I think I know what I want to do when I am done traveling."
"What's that?", he replied.
"I wanna be a pirate."
"What?!?"
"Wanna join me? I figure we can sail around like this, of course it would be a pirate dive boat. We'd fly the Jolly Roger, drink rum and only raid cruise ships for chicks and booze. What do you think?"
"I think you've lost your mind Chris."

Everyone else joined in our discussion as we designed our new lives as pirates. The women wanted to add a provision that we raid cruise ships for hot guys too, I obliged them as we all yelled "AARRRGH!" at each other and traded crappy pirate jokes.

In the days that followed we continued to dive 4 times a day, including some amazing night dives and cave dives. On the last evening we headed on an overnight trip back to Carins. Now all was well for the past 5 days, but on this evening we hit "a little bit of weather". As the ship tossed violently, the pots and pans flew through galley crashing as they smashed together. We were getting thrown all over the place. And that's when I came up with a brilliant idea.

I turned to my new Dutch friend Sander and said,"Hey Colonel Sanders, wanna rematch on Nintendo Wii bowling?" I beat him the last time so he was out to avenge his loss. "You're on Chris, I'm taking you down this time."
"OK, but the rules are, you're not allowed to hold on to anything."
"Deal!"

Folks what followed may have been the funniest 10 minutes of my life. It reminded me of the scene in Jackass the movie when the crew put on roller skates and hopped in the back of a U-haul truck while their friend drove it around like a maniac.

We flew through the air landing on couches, the floor, our faces. Everyone joined in, we had a dance party, we jumped around, and we fell all over the place. It was a laugh riot. That was until the first person said,"Um, I'm tired, I think I'll go to bed now" which is tough guy/girl code for, "Oh my God! I'm going to puke! I've gotta get to a toilet" As the minutes past, more and more people "went to bed" leaving just a handful of us behind.

An hour later I felt fine, hell I never get seasick I'm hardcore.

Thirty minutes later as the boat continued to relentlessly pitch and yaw I felt... OK, not great but OK, I'm hardcore.

Thirty minutes later as the bow continued to rise up then slap the oncoming waves, I felt not so great, not terrible, I'm still hardcore, I mean I wouldn't eat a 5 course meal right now, but I'm definitely hardcore.

Thirty minutes later, it was just me and Mike sitting hunched over with our hands on our knees, not saying a word, just breathing. "Dude, I don't think I want to be a pirate anymore" I said breaking the silence. He laughed looking over at me as we silently acknowledged that we were sick and we weren't as hardcore as we thought we were. Meanwhile the boat's crew members carried along as if nothing were different. They sat next to us during cigarette breaks and I tried not to inhale the puke evoking, second-hand smoke. They were hardcore.

Hey at least I didn't throw up. But, for four days following the trip I've been falling over in the shower and stumbling down the street like a drunk 3 year old as I still feel like I am on the boat. The fact that I have been drunk as well probably doesn't help the matters.

After a week at sea and 21 dives my new boat friends and I headed back to Cairns for a good night out on the town. The following afternoon I flew to Sydney where I have been sitting unaffected in listless lethargy, forcing myself to see the sights and go to the beach (Opera House....ooooh..ahhhh, Harbor Bridge...whoopie doo!!)

Tomorrow night I'll be in New Jersey, it will be in the 20's (Sorry my non-American friends, I don't know what that is in Celsius. Google it) and there will be snow on the ground. But now, I'm heading back to the sidewalk table in front of Starbucks to read and enjoy the last hours of summer. Coming up next...re-entry.

Tasmanian Devil

Chaos... Black reasonless darkness. Every neuron in my brain was on fire as I hyperventilated consumed by terror, rage and panic. "WHERE THE FUCK AM I!", I tried to scream on top of my lungs but not a sound could escape me. I violently exploded up off the couch as I fought myself awake. Tears in my eyes, heart racing, panting.

"Relaaaaaax...Breeeeeeeathe....Calm down, you're OK", I told myself, "We are on Ian Skinner's couch, in Adelaide, in Australia." The clock told me I'd been out for 15 hours. And as I caught my breath I felt the cold sweat soaked shirt sticking to my body. And there it was, my rebirth into Australia. I'd been delivered.

The past 4 months in Asia hung in my memory like one of those bizarre turbulent all-night dreams you toss and turn through and try to make sense of in the morning, in the shower and through breakfast. Part fantasy, part nightmare it leaves you spent and used up at its conclusion. Whatever it was, it was over and my introduction to Australia had begun.

The first thing I shouldn't have noticed, but did was that I was brushing my teeth in a sink using tap water instead of bottled water. It had been 7 months since I had done so. I finished dressing and decided to go for a walk to explore Adelaide as Skinner was off at work.

"Wow!, I am surrounded by white people", I thought as I made my way through the busy pedestrian street mall in the city center. "And nobody is hassling me. I blend into the background." I began to re-assimilate into a universe where 2 + 2 =4 again and I found that my old system of absolutes and the universal laws that comprised my reality were back in play. It felt odd. For the rest of the afternoon, I wrapped my mind around the peculiarities of Western culture that I had never noticed before. As I caught my stride I thought, "Hey, this place reminds me a lot of Capetown."

I spent the next few evenings on Skinner's couch (Oh, Ian Skinner is a friend I know from back home. He is a college buddy of my friend, Sapienza who I grew up with and whose address I've been giving to the locals in Asia as my own. Hey Sappy, do I have any messages?)

After an uneventful New Year's Eve, Skinner and I met up with his friend Gordon and we headed to the island state of Tasmania for a week of camping and hiking in unspoiled natural beauty.

Shortly after arriving in Tassie, we packed the rental car with our tents and provisions and headed south toward Eaglehawk Neck where we set up camp in the backyard of one of the strangest men I have ever met. I'd imagine that this is the type of guy who enjoys amateur taxidermy and building sculptures from his garbage.

Off to sleep, 3 large guys one small tent and the hard ground as our mattress. I awoke the next morning to the 3 monotone reports of the most vulgar type of alarm clock. What kind of man blasts a small over-crowded tent full of farts? I screamed,"You scumbag! I am so blogging about this!" Well, he asked to remain anonymous, so Gordon and I promised we wouldn't mention him by name (Take that you filthy bastard!) Now, I can easily let this blog entry slide into the realm of dick and fart jokes to appeal to the least common denominator. And while it would accurately portray the tone of the trip, I won't go there. Let's just say that by the end of the week vengeance was gained and everybody lost. Our obnoxious 12-year old behavior aside, the trip to Tasmania was incredible.

On the first morning we headed to Cape Raoul for a 5-hour hike to where the dolorite cliffs dropped hundreds of feet down to meet the cool blue waters of the Antarctic Ocean (aka the Great Southern Ocean). I stood at the cliff's edge and inhaled the cool fresh air for an infinity under the deep clear all consuming vastness that was the sky. I thought to myself, "This is it man. Take it, consume it, be 100% present in this moment, this is life."

I returned from my sojourn with the universe a few moments later to rejoin the fray. I now concentrated on the boulders and tree roots below my feet as I tried to navigate my way back without falling on my face.

The following day we drove a few hours over to the east coast and set up camp on a rocky beach enclave

then set off on a 2-hour hike over the mountains to a secluded beach at Wine Glass Bay

where we bathed in the crystal clear but mercilessly cold waters of the Antarctic Ocean. After a few seconds in the unbearable but beautiful sea we headed back onto the beach to dry off.

I sat eating an apple when this little kangaroo-like guy practically jumped into my lap.

Apparently I wasn't the only hungry one on the beach. "That's a wallaby dude", Skinner said, "I dare you to pet it." Now I know that you know that I have better sense than to feed and try to pet a wild animal. But, Skinner and Gordon were egging me on and I wasn't about to go out like a punk in front of my boys.

While he ate from my hand (adorable) the wallaby cocked back his pimp hand and almost slapped me when I went in for the pet.

Gordon didn't have any better luck.

We headed back to our campsite and with a ceasefire firmly in place I enjoyed a fartless night's sleep, dozing off to the sound of the waves crashing on the rocks a few feet away.

Over the following six days, Skinner, Gordon and I hiked our way all over Tasmania taking on the challenges of some grueling hikes, climbing mountains and taking in some stunning views.

The sky from the top of Tasmania's highest peak

Tasmania from the top of Cradle Mountain

Montezuma Falls

By the end of our stay we were drained, hurting and wreaking of Tiger Balm and funk. On our final night we cleaned up and hit the bars of Hobart, the main city in Tasmania, and in the morning we caught flights back to the main land. Parting ways, Gordon headed back to Adelaide and Skinner and I headed to Melbourne.

I am sitting in a coffee shop now, waiting out my time as I head to Carins this evening to fulfill one of my greatest life-long dreams of diving the Great Barrier Reef. The clock is ticking louder and louder; T minus 13 days and counting until my return to America. Now I will make sure that I get the most out my remaining time and savor every nanosecond I have left on this amazing journey.

Death and Life in Southeast Asia

I'm sitting in the airport in Bangkok waiting out my final hours in Asia. It's been four months since I arrived here, it feels like eons ago. Africa feels like a previous life and my life prior to leaving feels like a dream my mother had before I was ever conceived.

As I've traveled, airports have become almost sacrosanct to me, places for soul transition. They're like a changing room for your spirit. I walked into the Johannesburg airport and started reflecting upon what I had seen and done and who I had become over the past months. And on the plane to India I began to dream about and prepare for what was to come. It was as if I shed the old tattered rich tapestry of clothing I wove for myself through Africa, and spent the next hours naked with myself and truth. And when the plane landed, I was in a new strange place, a clean slate, alone again. It's like a rebirth. It will be a few hours until I am reborn again in Australia.

The Bangkok airport is serving it's duty to me today as I reflect upon Asia and dream about Australia. However, 3 weeks ago this place was the source of aggravation and a major shaping force of the design of my Thailand experience. It was 3 weeks ago that thousands of protesters stormed the airport, shutting it down until the government in power was dissolved. I was in Chiang Mai when I heard the news. "This isn't good, Rae is due in two days from now, I don't think she'll be able to make it."

I decided to head for Bangkok anyway in hopes that the protest ended in time. Halfway through the 12-hour overnight bus trip, my cellphone rang. It was Rae and she told me she had been re-routed to Phuket. The bus rolled into Bangkok at 6:00 am and I immediately ran to the first travel agency to purchase the next ticket to Phuket. Unlucky for me, the route takes 16 hours and runs overnight too.

At 1:00 PM the following day I arrived in Phuket having slept 4 of the past 48 hours. The bus dropped me off in the middle of nowhere along the highway. So I hitched a ride on the back of some old Thai guy's motorcycle and arrived at the airport a few minutes later. Rae landed at 3:00 and we took a taxi to the first arbitrary beach town we could find.

I'd love to give you a vivid account of what happened next, but you'd probably be more entertained reading your shampoo bottle. Basically we sat in an ugly, concrete, spartan guest house room for 3 days and talked and caught up. Oh, and I slept. We only ventured out to eat, but that was OK, I didn't really care for Phuket. In my view, the place is a soulless carnival of philistines that makes spring break in Daytona Beach look like Kennebunkport. It was decided that we should not waste any more of Rae's precious limited time sitting in what we affectionately named "The Post Soviet era Eastern-bloc hotel room for sleeping in". We headed for the islands of Koh Penang and Koh Samui where we met up with her cousin Travis and his wife Kelly. During this time, I popped back into vacation mode following my friends along on their trip. We did the typical "Hey I'm on a tropical island" crap. See the pictures?

Oohhhhh

Aahhhhh

Oooooooo

And after 2 weeks, my Thai visa had expired and Rae, Travis and Kelly had to return to Minnesota. They took one plane and I took another, to Cambodia.

It was a short flight to the capital city of Phnom Penh. The view from the taxi portrayed a bustling 3rd world city with a positive spirit. It was a Sunday afternoon and the miles of parks that flanked the main road were full of families picnicking and playing badminton (I thought it was oddly amusing, hundreds of people playing badminton? Those wacky Cambodians!).

I walked into a guest house that evening and as I checked in I met my new travel companions, Dave and Saskia, yet another Irish couple. The next morning we met up with their friends and headed out to see Phnom Penh.

It has been 30 years since the fall of Pol Pot's cruel and barbarous Khmer Rouge regime, a totalitarian communist revolution that practically destroyed and murdered the city and the entire country of Cambodia. Just a few months before I was born the Khmer Rouge sacked and evacuated Phnom Pehn sending many to their deaths.

Pol Pot was a sociopath who had a total disregard for human life and a merciless malevolence. His goal was to turn Cambodia into an isolated totalitarian state and he utilized the coldest and most vicious tactics to achieve his ends. The Khmer Rouge committed a genocide that took 1.3 million of their own people's lives in just 3 years.

We rented a tuk-tuk, or motorized rickshaw for the day. Our first stop was Choeung Ek, aka The Killing Fields. The place was beautiful, desolate and quiet. A green pasture spotted with grand trees. And the day was equally gorgeous; 80 degrees, a slight breeze and the sky above was a brilliant blue with fluffy white clouds. The only sounds heard were those of a bird's chirping and the drolling of a bulldozer somewhere off in the distance. At the entrance to Choeung Ek stood a beautiful ornate Buddhist stupa 60 feet tall.

As I walked up the steps I removed my hat as the sign requested and as I looked ahead I felt as if I got hit by a truck. Everything turned sour that moment as I stared forward at a 5-story high glass tower filled with the thousands of skulls of the innocent men, women and children that the Khmer Rouge sent to their deaths.

Upon re-examining the bucolic setting, I realized that the symmetrical rows of large divots that resembled a big grassy ice cube tray were in fact the remnants of exhumed mass graves.

This place was a processing plant where Pol Pot's regime disposed of anyone who posed a threat to his vision; doctors, monks, educated people, those who asked questions.

As we made our way through the Killing Fields it got more somber, more chilling. I snapped a picture of this sign.

Suddenly overwhelming feelings of sadness, anger, shock and rage started welling up inside of me. Luckily I was wearing my sunglasses. As the grandchild of Holocaust survivors, I have met many older people who lived through a similar hell during the Nazi regime in Europe. They have numbers tattooed on their forearms, they tell stories that they can only get half way through until they start sobbing uncontrollably. But it wasn't until now, that I had this sort of a visceral gut reaction or this level of understanding of what genocide meant. I can think of no greater evil. After an hour of walking quietly through the memorial, we got back in the tuk tuk and barely a word was spoken.

Next stop S-21, Pol Pot's top level security prison. This converted high school was used as a torture chamber to beat and force confessions out of the enemies of the Khmer Rouge before they were sent to the Killing Fields for extermination.

I can't believe that this happened and so few people know about it, myself included. In my view this is not some abstract piece of history, it happened while I was here. I remember what I was doing while this was happening. I was learning how to tie my shoelaces and voting for Jimmy Carter in the Kindergarten class election while my Cambodian counterparts were being forcefully removed from their families and tied to trees and beaten to death. And for what?

For the rest of my time in Cambodia I couldn't look at anyone over 30 with out feeling sorrow and empathy. When I looked at the young I felt hopeful and wished that the resilience that had brought their society from near extermination to playing badminton in the park would carry forward as they continue to build a happier and more prosperous future for themselves.

A few days later the Irish and I headed up to Siem Reap, home of the Angkor Wat temple complex. This place was truly amazing. Built in the 12th century, this city of ornately carved sandstone structures stretches 30 square kilometers and represents an amazing feat of engineering.

Even if the ancients who built it had access to modern technology the place would still floor you upon seeing it.

We spent the day exploring Angkor Wat and the next day exploring Siem Reap. We sampled the national beer and browsed the local market, which looked like the set of the TV show fear factor complete with a bowl of fried tarantulas

and fried grasshoppers

We met some locals and I even got myself a Cambodian girl friend. Her name is Kimberly and she is 14 years old. After telling me how handsome I was and learning that I was single, she asked if I'd be her boyfriend. Oh what a magical moment. "Yes! Yes!" I exclaimed as dreams of our future together filled my imagination. Then she asked me that damn question I never want to hear again.
"You want to buy some pineapple?"
"No", I said.
And then she dumped me. For43 seconds I was in a blissful relationship with my underage Cambodian girlfriend. But it turns out she was only a pineapple prostitute offering her love, devotion and fruit to the highest bidder. Oh well easy come easy go. Oh yeah, I can only imagine that it won't be pineapple she'll be trying to sell to men in 5 years from now. Sad but true.

After a week in Cambodia I ventured back to Thailand and caught a boat to the island of Koh Chang to visit Jay. Remember Jay, the British guy who lived in New Jersey that I drank beer with for a week on the banks of the Mekong? In Laos? (See post Goin' with the flow). Well back in Laos he invited me to spend Christmas with him, so I figured I'd take him up on the offer.

I spent the week living the life of an ex-pat, rather than that of the transient I had been living. I stayed with Jay, hung out with his friends and finally got some scuba diving in. While it couldn't compare with the reefs off Sipidan in Borneo, the views above the water were spectacular.

Hey, it beats sitting behind a desk and staring into a monitor any day, which will be coming soon.

I spent 6 weeks in Thailand and Cambodia and a total of 2 months in Southeast Asia. I've had some amazing experiences like tubing in Laos, meeting HER, making and reaquainting with friends from all over the world, seeing the breath taking beauty of nature and singing a duet with a guitar playing transvestite clown with dreadlocks in the middle of the busiest street in Bangkok.


My mother asked me how drunk I was when I did this.
My reply, "30 minutes before my first beer." Yup, that's me.
Oh and thanks to Rae for the excellent videography and editing.

I've also had some crummy experiences like being ripped off and swindled by corrupt border guards. And I've met some of the shadiest people on the planet like Sex-pats, or nasty old guys walking the street with a teenage Thai prostitute on their arm. I've met people who should be in jail and would be if they ever returned home; Drug king-pins, mercenaries, hit-men, thieves, pimps, all sorts of crooks.

As I leave Asia I continue to process all that I have experienced, As I sit here finishing this entry, here in the airport, I am starting to prepare myself for my Australian rebirth.

Her

It was early evening and Trevor boarded a bus to Bangkok. As the bus rode off he made the transition from travel friend to facebook friend and for the first time since I left Kuala Lumpur I was alone with myself. Feeling a bit lonely and bored I thought, "Hmm...What does the universe have in store for me next?"

The small but developed city of Chiang Rai was awakening from a mid-afternoon nap. Vendors were setting up their stalls in the night market and as the sun faded away strings of festive lights snapped on, one at a time. The streets slowly filled with people and the aroma of Thai street cooking wafted through the air as the first of the local performers took the stage at the center of the market. First the slow rhythmic tapping of a traditional drum, then the whining of a familiar sounding oriental stringed instrument, and lastly a high-pitched tonal voice sang the setting of a festive night market into wholeness.

I browsed the stalls aimlessly breathing it all in. Perhaps I'd replace that ratty red Ohm T-shirt I picked up in Jaipur or find a new pair of matching earrings. After an hour of strolling the market my stomach started growling so I headed to the food stalls for a cheap and authentic meal. The scene reminded me of a flea market, a vast sea of plastic tables and chairs flanked on two sides by food stalls and the stage on another. I walked the perimeter examining the food in an attempt to identify what they were cooking up. All signage was in Thai.

"Pad Thai Chicken", I said to the woman behind the counter. I turned to my right and caught my first glimpse of HER in the distance. Six feet tall, slender and wearing a bright red shirt she commanded my attention from afar. A few seconds later I realized that my glimpse had turned into a full-on stare. She was really pretty, and she was heading my way. In a few seconds she was in front of me, surrounded by what must have been some sort of force field because as she approached time distorted, seconds lasted hours. Our eyes met as we passed and I felt a surge blast through my chest. I fought with all I had not to break my gaze and look away, digging deep I pulled out a smile. And as the plane of my shoulder broke that of her's, she smiled back. Warm electricity coursed through my veins as time resumed its normal flow. I was on a high, smitten. She took a seat at an empty table to enjoy her dinner. I had to go talk to her.

My fellow guy travelers will testify that anytime you meet a solo female traveler, within seconds you meet her boyfriend. A rule of thumb seems to dictate that the hotter she is, the bigger the douche bag her boyfriend is, making it that much harder to take.

"Oh come on! You've got to be kidding me! Seriously, you're with Dreadlocked White Guy??? Honey, what are you doing? Don't you know that white guys with dreadlocks occupy the highest rung on the douche bag ladder? A solid 3 spots above guy who wears blue tooth ear piece 24-7."

I know what you're thinking, Fox, you are "33 year old guy with ears pierced". Maybe so, but that doesn't begin to approach the level of douche baggery of having dreadlocks.

So I scanned the crowd for DB-BF candidates. We're all clear, she is alone. So with Pad Thai Chicken in hand I headed in her direction to take a seat at an adjacent table. As I got close her force field took it's hold on me again, my nerves started in, butterflies in my stomach, my internal commentator started speaking to me; "Think of something witty to say. How do you know if she speaks English? Don't be stupid. Bring your A-game!"

"SHUT UP!!!!!"

I sat down beside her and conversation unfolded with ease. We talked for hours over dinner, then over coffee, and more as we strolled the night market. And there it was. The command of my wit, the unabashed confidence, the silver tongue...the A-game. The dialogue couldn't have been written better. As we spoke, she looked deep into my eyes and smiled and laughed. It was more than apparent that she liked me too. Now, usually this is where the logical mind breaks down and that object of Bhutanese adoration takes over and starts calling the shots, typically leading to disastrous results. (Don't get it? Reference post:Res-Erection Part 1) But I kept cool knowing damn well where this was heading.

"Let's go for cocktails!", she said in her Dutch accent.

I gave no argument as we headed to a sidewalk cafe for a carafe of white wine. She told me that she really wanted to go on a 2-day trek into the local hill tribe villages, but the guides wouldn't go unless one more person signed up.

Now folks, I've done the jungle trekking thing and I am over it. But, here is where that object of Bhutanese adoration made the call. "I'd love to go trekking", I replied.

(Good job, you made a great decision this time!..but there is no way you are picking our next dentist, I'll let Mouth make that call.)

We planned to head out the next morning and then ordered another carafe of wine, then another until the evening transitioned into tomorrow.

Now I was raised by a good mother who instilled a good sense of chivalry in me. What gentleman would let a lady walk for 10 minutes to her guest house alone? At 1:00 in the morning? In the dark?

Her: "I'm going to get a taxi back."
Me: "You won't find one at this hour. I'd be happy to walk you back."
Her: "OK" with a smile

My Internal Dialogue: "WOO-HOO!!!!"

Her guest house was just outside of the city on the river banks. As the road transitioned from sealed pavement to dirt, the street lights faded into the distance. I stopped to look up. The view was magnificent, every star in existence was out on this clear moonless night. On the horizon I saw the bright red glow of a traditional Thai paper balloon lantern hanging in the distant sky. I pointed up at it and she stepped to my side to follow my finger in hopes to see it too. That was the last thing I would see as what entered my field of vision next was the complete blackness of the inside of my eye lids. Next, I felt the warm electric current enter my body through my lips and emanate through every fiber of my body as we stood on the bank of the river under the stars.

Yada yada yada...The next day we headed out for the hill tribes. A short boat ride up the river delivered us to an Akha village where we would start our 2-day walk through the unbridled pristine hills of Northern Thailand.

After a 45-minute elephant ride we hopped off and thanked our pachyderm friend with treats of bananas and sugar cane, then headed off to play ping-pong with the Akha children. Following a traditional lunch we set off through the dense jungles, pastoral rice paddies,

and secluded babbling water falls.

As the sun retreated over the horizon we came to the Lahow village we would sleep at that evening.

The Lahow live like there ancestors have for eons. With exception of solar panels to light the bulb in each hut and motorbikes to bring the rice harvest up the mountain side, I could have easily confused it for 1808.

Our house for the night was a hut like those pictured above. As our guide went to work on dinner we walked through the village greeting the people and their animals (I now have a blind hatred for roosters... crack of dawn my ass!!! These things never stop!).

After dinner I slipped off for a moment and returned with a bottle of white wine I bought when she wasn't looking (Damn I'm smooth!). We shared the wine and conversation under the great expanse of the gorgeous night sky, looking over the distant lights of Chiang Rai in the valleys below.

Yada yada yada... The following day we headed deeper into the hills, stopping at another Akha village for lunch before heading through the tea plantations of an ethnic Chinese village.

By 4:00 we reached our final stop, the natural hot springs. And after an hour long soak we met a truck and caught a ride back to Chiang Rai.

We spent one more evening together before I said goodbye to her. I had to catch a bus to the laid-back, hippie art community of Pai on the Burmese border, and she had to catch that proverbial bus to oblivion. As quickly as it started, it was over.

I spent the next 4 days in the sleepy town of Pai (hmm...Pai......) replaying moments in my mind and missing her. Then I headed to Chiang Mai; to meet up with some friends I made in Laos and Africa, and to bide my time for a week before Rae, Travis and Kelly arrived.

When I got to Chiang Mai I learned that there was civil unrest in Thailand and it looked like a military coup was imminent. As the news showed images of thousands of protesters shutting down the airport in Bangkok, I questioned whether my friends would be able to get in. I exhaled and took another sip of my coffee, then looked to the street dog beside me and said to her,"Hmm...What does the universe have in store for me next?"

Goin' with the flow

I woke up with the glare of fluorescent lights beaming in my face and to the sound of garish conversation in an unintelligible language. My legs were nowhere to be felt and my neck ached, the stack of books made for a terribly uncomfortable pillow. I opened my eyes it was 4:30am and an hour had passed since I surrendered to the "comfort" of the bench. the International Departures counter was still closed, and the weary bodies of my fellow travelers were strewn about the terminal like rag dolls on the floor of a child's playroom. I had 30 more minutes to get to check-in for my flight from Kuala Lumpur to Laos.

At 10:30 my taxi pulled up to an arbitrary guest house somewhere in Vientiane, I walked up in a daze, the one hour of bench sleep is all I had had in the past day. As I headed for the reception desk I could care less about the price or condition of the accommodations, I needed one thing, a bed. Eight dollars and 4 flights of stairs later I arrived at room 406. I through my backpack to the floor, unlaced my boots and climbed into bed.

Six hours later I awoke feeling refreshed, so I decided to explore the capital city. Vientiane is somewhat developed yet quiet and desolate with few people roaming the streets. There is little French influence left, the architecture is rather simple and functional with the exception of the clusters of Buddhist temples that dot the landscape.

There is an all-encompassing feeling of calmness as the city moves to virtually no pace all. Just some people going somewhere with the occasional Buddhist monk passing by.

I made my way to the Mekong River and stopped at one of the many simple bamboo deck bars for my first Beer Lao (the national beer of Laos). I sat and watched the brown muddy waters flow by at the same pace of the city and after a few hours I returned to room 406 for the night.

The following morning I set out to find a restaurant with an English menu for a decent Western breakfast. I happened upon a place where a guy wearing a Yankees hat was enjoying some eggs and bacon.

"Hey is this place any good?", I asked.
"Yeah mate, it's not too bad. Are you American?"
"Yup, Are you British?"
"Originally from Liverpool, but I've been living in Thailand for the last 6 months. Before that I lived in New Jersey for 12 years"

Jay, was a musician/house painter who had lived in Belmar NJ with his then wife. Turns out the Yankees hat wasn't just a fashion statement, he was a fan. We sat and conversed over breakfast.

"Is it too early for a drink?" (it was now 11am)
"Nah, it's 5 o'clock somewhere in the world. Besides, I don't even know what day of the week it is. Let's go!"

Two hours and 4 Beer Lao's later, we were still bullshitting on the banks of the Mekong...
A day later and several Beer Lao's later, we were still bullshitting on the banks of the Mekong...
A week later and God knows how many Beer Lao's later, we were still bullshitting on the banks of the Mekong.

What had occurred in me, for the first time I can remember was calm complacency. For my entire life, I've always been relentlessly driven by what feels like a inner engine, of which I have no control over. From the moment I wake to the moment I think myself to sleep, it never quits, never. I have always strived to shut it down to quiet that inner voice that repeats, "I want, I want, I want". That's the rub however, you can't strive for calmness, the more you strive the less relaxed you are. But here in Laos, it just happened.

I was now living second to second completely satiated and in want of nothing, just being, no longer in a constant evolving state of becoming. I felt like I could have easily been in downtown Mogadishu and felt the same. I caught glimpse of a calendar and realized "Whoa, I've been here 7 days, better get moving, there's more things to see and do."

My trip was no longer about where to go or what to see or do, it was now just about doing. The places had become irrelevant. So I headed back to the internet cafe where I had posted my last blog update just the day before and I gave you the reader the ultimate decision on how my life would unfold. With a contribution of 38.5% you voted that I should head north into Laos and cross into Thailand. So I headed back to room 406 and packed my belongings, I would leave the very next morning.

That evening I met Jay for a last Beer Lao on the Mekong. En route, I stopped at a store for a snack where I met this tall hot blond Canadian girl. And damn I was smooth, but not smooth enough. I walked out and headed left, she headed right. For just once in my life I'd love to have the right words on the tip of my tongue at the right time like Tom Cruise in Top Gun. But instead I headed off to drink beer with Jay.

The next morning I went for breakfast. As I walked down the street I heard an Irish brogue yell out "Chris, Hey Chris mate!"
"Holy Shit! Trevor!"

Queue the wavy visuals, it's time for a flash back

On September 15th I walked out of "a little internet cafe/convenience store/barber shop" in Pushkar, India having just posted the entry "Welcome to India Hooooo-Leeeeee-COW!" and headed to the train station in Ajmer to catch the 3:00 to Jodhpur. A tall white guy walked by and I assumed he was in similar shoes so I struck up a conversation. His name was Trevor and he was from Ireland. We wound up staying at the same guest house and spent the next days kicking around Jodhpur. I left Trevor and cast him off back out into the universe from which he came prior to our paths crossing on that train platform in Ajmer. For reference, it was just hours before my encounter with Sham (as told in my post: High from Nepal).

FAST FORWARD
"Oh my God! How in the Hell? This is crazy", I said. We had breakfast and caught up on our individual happenings from the past 2 months:

ME: "...Yeah, they actually lopped the goat's head off right in front of me!"
TREVOR: "Where are you going next?"
ME:"I put a survey up on my blog and let the readers vote, they are sending me north to cross into Thailand."
TREVOR:"Cool, I'm heading in the same direction, wanna join me?"

So Trevor and I spent one more day in Vientiane and the following morning we caught the bus to Vang Vieng. After 4 hours of traversing the lush green valleys of central Laos, we pulled into the lazy village on the Nam Sung River.

"HEY CHRIS, WHAT IS THERE TO DO IN VANG VIENG?"

Glad you asked. The primary attraction in Vang Vieng is tubing. The Lao have made an art out of sitting your fat ass in an inner tube and floating effortlessly down a lazy stream. You pick up your tube in town then get dropped off a few miles upstream where you "drop in".

Every couple of thousand feet there is a bar, each with zip-lines, rope swings even giant slides. They have mud volley ball... basically tubing Vang Vieng is a hedonistic ritual that closely resembles spring break in Cancun.


At the end of the day you exit the river, if you are still conscious (Some Swedes woke up 2 hours down stream, in their tubes and had to take a taxi back) eat dinner then head to the Bucket Bar (named for the buckets of mixed drinks they serve) to share your battle scars and war stories from the days events. (That picture of me on the zip-line ended with a belly-flop from 15 feet up. I thought I collapsed a lung!)

Trevor and I found a good spot at the Bucket Bar and as the tinny sounding techno blasted through inadequately small speakers I scanned the crowd. Wait a second, there in the corner, NO WAY!!!! "Holy Shit! Dan!"

Forget the wavy visuals and flash backs. Dan is this kid from Manchester who stayed in the room next to me when I arrived in Kathmandu back in September. I don't know what kinds of games the universe was playing with me, but this was getting weird. I felt as if Laos was some cosmic vortex that linked the universe. The following morning as I walked out of my guest house, a couple I stayed in Chitwan National Park with (see post: High from Nepal) was checking in! What the hell is going on I thought, is this fate, kismet, God. And if so why does it keep bringing me dudes? "Hey God/kismet/universe how about that hot Canadian chick from the store in Vientiane? Do ya think you can send her back my way?"

After spending a few days in the vortex of the universe Trevor and I headed north to Luang Prabang a beautiful little city and world heritage site on the Mekong River. The first guest house we stopped at had a good room for cheap so we took it. As we checked in wouldn't you know, the hot Canadian chick from the store in Vientiane walked passed, she (Joanne) was staying at the same place! This shit is bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S! Oh, I know what you are going ask....no comment.

Trevor and I woke up early the next morning to watch the procession of the monks.

The townspeople line the streets and give the monks alms to feed them for the day. Every morning a procession of saffron clad monks makes their way on this 1KM long walk for their food. It kinda looked like trick-or-treating. People wearing orange costumes, carrying a bag and other people dropping treats into them.

From there we hiked some local waterfalls

and did some kayaking before we headed north to the Thai border.

The trip to the border took us 2 days on a slow boat traveling up the Mekong River from Luang Prabang to Huay Xai, stopping for one night in Pekbang. As we made our way upstream on the Mekong, once again images from the movie Apocalypse Now formed in my mind. I heard Ride of the Valkyries by Wagner playing in my head as I imagined Martin Sheen motoring past on a boat. While I didn't see Martin Sheen, I did catch some amazing views as we passed through gorgous green valleys and passed remote hill tribe villages.

We finally made it to the border and in the morning we crossed into Thailand at Chiang Khong. Trevor and I stopped for a nice Western breakfast before boarding a bus to Chiang Rai where we parted ways, after 2 weeks of traveling together. He headed out on a 36-hour bus ride down to Kuala Lumpur and I was alone once again left by myself to follow the flow of the universe. But I wouldn't be alone for long...


NOW AS PROMISED Q&A!
You asked them so I'll answer them:

Q: How do you keep your underwear clean? Do you keep it clean?
A: Laundry services are readily available almost everywhere I've been, and for cheap. Some times it entails a washing machine, other times I think they slap my clothes against rocks in the river. In extreme cases I carry camping detergent. Add a cut-in-half racquet ball and you've got a universal drain stopper.

Q: Can you always find bottled water?
A: Yes, for the most part. In cases where I can't I have a hand pumping water purifier and water treatment drops. I needed the pump so infrequently, I sent it home with Andrea to lighten my load.

Q: Have any of the foods made you throw up just by the thought of what you are eating?
A: No, I have a no dodgy food policy. When in doubt I've lived for days on bananas and boiled water (tea)

Q: I don't suppose you were able to vote by absentee ballot in the Presidential election here? Are they talking about it?
A: Sadly, while I did request an absentee ballot, I didn't realize that moving home prior to doing so would kick off a mountain of red-tape and paperwork that would make it impossible for the County Clerk to process and issue my ballot in time. As for world opinion, everyone is talking about it, from the moment I arrived in South Africa until this moment as I type this sentence. When I identify myself as American, typically the first topic is Barack Obama or George W Bush. Once in a while the first question asked is to confirm whether the claims rap stars make in their lyrics are true (i.e. "Does 50 Cent really go laughing all the way to the bank?" To which I reply, "Yes, yes he does. And if you are lucky, every once in a while on a Wednesday afternoon around 1-1:30, you can go to THE bank, in New York and see him get out of his limo laughing, carrying bags of cash with dollar signs on them.)

Q:Have you met any nice girls? You know the kind your mother would approve of?
A: While I am not familiar with my mother's taste in women, I have met many nice girls. I meet many like-minded women I would easily date, if we lived in the same place. However, the road lifestyle is more of the 2 ships passing in the night type so you never really get the chance to date. Don't try reading between lines here, "that" isn't what I am insinuating (get your mind out of the gutter!) Sometimes it's just a really good 3 hour conversation while visiting a museum before you have to catch a train to the next city and she has to catch the bus to oblivion.

Q: Are you getting laid?
A: No, not at the current moment. I lack the flexibility to do so while I type.

Q: I love the blog, how long does it take to write an entry?
A: While I collect ideas, notes and photos almost constantly, it can take quite a while when I actually sit down to write. It takes most of the day, sometimes 2 sittings across multiple days.

Choose my next adventure

OK, while I've been busting my ass making it through the world on my own, you've been sitting on yours following along vicariously reading this blog. Let's mix things up, I'm tired and indecisive and I bet you'd love a chance to get more interactive. So let's get interactive, no more living vicariously through me as a passive bystander. I'm handing YOU the remote control to my life and letting YOU decide the outcome of my trip from here. I have to be in Bangkok, Thailand on November 28th to receive my friend Rae, but I have no plan on what to do until then. In the spirit of the upcoming election, I'll hold it up to a vote. Polls close on November 4 at midnight EST.
Click Here to vote
Here are the options:

1) I can stay in Laos until the end of November and just go where ever I wind up on a whim like that feather in Forest Gump

2) I can go to Southern Laos to the 4,000 Islands area on the Mekong River then cross in to Cambodia where I'll visit the amazing Ankor Wat temple ruins of the Khmer dynasty and see the genocide museum commemorating Pol-Pot

3) I can go to Northern Laos to visit the hill people and see some waterfalls and hangout with crunchy pot smoking Israeli hippies then cross into Northern Thailand and make my way to Bangkok

4) I can cross into Northern Thailand and make my way across to the border of Burma (Myanmar) and try to get a entry visa. I have no idea what's doing in Burma other than that British backpackers tell me it's amazing. There's no guarantee they'll let me in though.

5) I can go to Vietnam and kick around there too.

Click Here to vote
In addition, I'm giving you a forum for Q&A with this survey. Ask away and I'll post the Q&A on my next entry.

Borneo: Land of monkeys and scuba junkies

I looked out the window as the plane made its final decent into Kuala Lumpur. On the horizon stood a modern metropolis surrounded by hills in the distance and a well planned out suburb in the foreground. As the ground grew closer and closer I could make out the contemporary model cars traveling in a steady and orderly stream on the arteries that comprised a network of multi-laned highways. The recognizable brands of hotels and traffic lights completed the picture of a bustling modern first-world city. I breathed a sigh of relief eager for a reprieve from the third-world conditions I'd been living in since August. Kuala Lumpur delivered.

I grabbed my dusty beaten backpack from the baggage carousel, breezed through immigration and after an hour-long bus ride I followed the other Westerners to a hotel in Chinatown. My head touched the pillow and I was out, gone in a 10-hour coma, the kind of sleep that only comes about from complete and total exhaustion.

I arose the next morning, washed up and walked out the front door into the busy streets of KL to explore my new urban surroundings. As the blocks of the city passed me by I found a subway station and decided to press on. 1.40 Malaysian Ringetts and 20 minutes later I arrived at the Surya Mall in the basement of the famed Petronas Twin-Towers. The feeling was overwhelming, I almost cried upon seeing a Banana Republic, Starbucks, Chili's and the kinds of upscale boutiques you would only find at the finest shopping malls in America (Cartier, Versace...)

I was taken back by the emotional response I had, simply from the reintroduction of the simple things I had always taken for granted. It felt like I was freed from a twenty-year prison sentence. Noticing the permanent dirt on my pants and feeling the incessant itch on my cheeks as the only indication informing me that I had a full beard, I watched well-groomed trendy people pass by. I thought to myself,"I must look like a hobo, and I probably smell like one too."

I headed straight for Starbucks and ordered a tall soy latte then I took a seat and just sat there for an hour, breathing. I spent the entire day in elation floating on air through this four story marble and glass cathedral. It was the most beautiful temple I'd visited in months, a temple devoted to commerce and Western ideals, it was the closest taste to home I've had.

I went to Chili's for lunch and gorged myself on fajitas and a Budweiser long-neck. Six months ago it was shit beer, but after eating rice and curry and dead goat and drinking bottled water, it was nothing short of ambrosia. To be honest, I would have paid $100 for that little taste of home.

Next I headed to the cinema to see Max Payne, a crappy Marky Mark Wahlberg flick. And while the film did suck, I was eternally grateful to be able to experience watching it. Over the next 6 hours I visited the national aquarium (in the mall) and ventured up to the observation deck of the Petronas Twin-Towers

After 9 hours of feasting on pedestrian Western familiarity I exhaled and headed back down to the subway station to return to Chinatown for some KFC and some HBO before resting for the night.

Over the following two days I explored KL, taking in the sites, meeting the locals and learning the basics of Malaysian culture, history and language. I had just over 48 hours to kill before heading to Kota Kinabalu, Borneo to meet Andrea, my first visitor from the States.

I touched down in KK and met Andrea an hour later at International Arrivals. We took a taxi to our hotel, dropped our bags and grabbed a late evening beer at the bar next door.

"Wow! you've lost a lot of weight.", she commented as I poured two glasses of Indonesian beer, "You're shoulders have disappeared!" I hadn't noticed (according to the carnival scale at the video arcade a few days later, I am down ~18 lbs from when I left...Oh and as a Cancer, I will find love with an Aquarius this month) We spent the next hour or so catching up and planning the following days of our trip.

We spent 2 days in KK then hopped a bus through endless palm oil plantations to Sipilok, to visit the Orang-utan (I know, I thought it was Orangutang too!) rehabilitation center. And while I was slightly tired of seeing rainforests and jungles and wildlife I thoroughly enjoyed my stay with these silly orange furry little people.

They almost remind me of the Muppets the way they perform to the delight of their onlooking human cousins. Actually, they reminded me of Ryan, my 18 month old nephew.

From Sipilok, Andrea and I headed for a 2-day jungle river safari. It was kinda like the Jungle Cruise ride a Disney World except without the wise ass pimply-faced "guide" pretending to shoot animatronic hippos in the water with his cap gun. We spent hours watching brilliantly colored birds and Macaque and Proboscis Monkeys, the one's with the funny big noses.

Only the males have large noses, it's a sign of sexual maturity and attracts females for mating. The Proboscis male with the largest nose in the group will mate with up to 25 female. I get the short end of the stick again, In the human world, my large nose communicates that I probably celebrate Hannukah and have a nagging mother that peppers her whiny Brooklyn accented English with tid-bits of Yiddish. Oye gevalt!

With our visit to the jungle complete Andrea and I headed to Sipadan, a tiny island off the coast, to dive one of the world's top 5 dive sites.

Now every junkie remembers the unattainable high of their first fix. Mine was in 1992, Cozumel, Mexico. While my friends were enjoying our Junior year homecoming, an event that generated stories still reminisced upon at Fourth of July parties to this day, I was slipping into the crystal blue waters of the Caribbean enjoying what I have since described at the best 45 minutes I've ever spent on Earth. In the 17 years since I've been chasing that dragon. And while I've thoroughly enjoyed the sport of scuba diving, I've never been able to replicate that feeling I experienced in the waters off of the Yucatan Peninsula. That is not until the moment I rolled backward off the side of the boat into the warm azure water off of Sipidan Island, Borneo. In a moment that feeling of, "I never want to return to the surface" I felt all those years ago came rushing back. We hovered over a vibrant city of vivid corals, teeming with the most exotic fish as we hung in mid flight over a wall which dropped into the bottomless cobalt blue abyss.
(Oh yeah, everyone feel free to thank the good people at Olympus for making a wonderful "shock proof/water proof" camera. If their products lived up to their claims, I'd have pictures to show you. Lucky for me the thing was under warranty and they fixed it for free. Now if the terms only included time travel so I could have had the damn thing when I needed it. Son of a bitch!!... Hey at least I'm not bitter)

As we floated along with the warm tropical current through the crystal clear water we were greeted by graceful green turtles, flying effortlessly around us and regal white-tip reef sharks. Five minutes into the dive I looked down at my watch to see that in reality, 45 minutes had passed. I'd lost myself in paradise. Over 4 days I made 13 dives only coming up to eat and sleep.

Alas our time in Sipadan had come to an end and we hopped a short flight back to Kota Kinabalu. We spent our final 2 days wandering around the city, mostly at the Centre Point Mall where we took in some movies, sampled local street food and did some shopping and people watching.

On our final day I realized, "I have no idea where I am going next." So after some thoughtful deliberation, research and a coin flip I decided to go to Laos. I purchased a cheapo ticket on-line, spent a horrible night sleeping in the airport and a day later I landed in Vientiane, Laos where I sit now writing this blog entry.

Last week my friend Rae decided to come out into the world to meet up with me too. She'll be coming to Bangkok for the first 2 weeks of December with Travis and Kelly, two of my acquaintances. Now I just have to find my way to Bangkok by November 29th and decide what to do between now and then. I'm just as curious as you are to see how November unfolds for me.

Lastly to everyone in the US, on behalf of the citizens of the rest of the world who I've spoken to along my travels, go vote!