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I’m on a break right now from school that doesn’t start back again until around April 10th. A perfect time to go on a 43 day trip to Southeast Asia. In about 5 hours I’m going to go catch the first morning train to the airport where my plane will take me on the 7 hour flight into Bangkok, Thailand. My plan right now is to head north into Chiang Mai and explore the more mountainous northern parts of Thailand. I’ll be by myself until I return back to Bangkok on March 7th to meet Moe where we’ll explore together until we come back to Tokyo on March 28th.

The whole trip is exciting and traveling alone for half the trip and with Moe for the other is pretty much perfect. I’ve wanted to travel alone ever since I saw a speaker at NCSU who talked about his travels around the world that he’d done and the pros and cons of it. On the one hand, the possibility of being lonely exists and it’s a bit more dangerous, but on the other hand the freedom and the ability to meet people is pretty appealing to me. I don’t get lonely easily though and Thailand is just as safe as most countries in the world. By myself I’ll be much more likely to meet people and make friends. When Michael, Evan, and I biked around Europe although it was an amazing trip of a lifetime we didn’t meet too many people because we were always hanging out and talking to each other and certainly a bit more intimidating for strangers to talk to than a lone person.

I’m taking my camera and all my camera equipment which I fit, along with some small amount of clothes and other assorted items you need for something like this, into a backpack that is small enough that I can carry it onto planes and buses. For 140 dollars I bought a 120 gig harddrive I can download pictures from my CF onto while I travel. I think I should be able to hook it up to computers at internet cafes, which are plentiful in Southeast Asia, and occasionally post some pictures of things. At the very least I’ll be able to post here and write about things and make sure nobody is too worried.

I’ll post some pictures with me in them that others have taken before I leave as I’m about to get a lot stinkier, beardier, and dirtier.

Next post will be from Thailanddd