Dice Travel: An Experiment

An inspired hour of hunting around the sweaty market and nothing. one last time I showed the piece of paper with the scribble of Laotian script on it: “Do you sell dice here?” the paper asked. “No, no, no…” said the woman shopkeeper, waving her hand. There were no dice in her shop of plastic nicknacks and toys. I looked at her watch and saw it was approaching 5pm so resigned my search. If I were to follow options 1 ,4 or 5 I would need to buy the ticket and pack my bag right away.

It was quite on a whim that I decided to try dice travel. After the high of an amazing motorcycle escapade in the Bolaven plateau, I found myself slightly bored and wondering where to go next. Coincidentally, I was also reading a book called The Dice Man about a man who decides what he will do from one minute to the next based on the roll of the dice (verdict: interesting concept, in fact part autobiographical, but in the end a mediocre novel).  Also coincidentally, I am a thrill-seeking, impressionable young man, willing to try new things. It did solve my problem: part of me wanted to relax and chill out in a sleepy riverside town; part wanted to continue by motorbike; and part yearned for the seafood and the beaches of the central vietnam coast. In the dice options I wrote down, I tried to represent how much I wanted to go to each place, ie. 2 possibilities for 4000 islands in Southern Laos.

The options for my first (only?) round of dice travel:
1) Hue, Vietnam (Overnight bus to the home of Vietnamese Imperial cuisine. Appeals to my inner food critic)
2) Stay in Pakse another night (Rent a motorbike again and search out more adventure in the surrounding area. Appeals to my inner petrol-head)
3) Don Kone, Laos (One of the 4000 islands. hammocks, bungalows, and cheap beer. Appeals to my lazy side)
4) Vientiane, Laos (Great city with cafes, great restaurants, colonial history. Long overnight “sleeper bus’, with beds apparently. From what i hear on the travelers circuit, the overnight bus has mice)
5) Don Det, Laos (4000 islands)
6) Phnom Penh, Cambodia (The wild card choice. Appeals to my masochistic side)

But unfortunately, as I’ve said above, i couldn’t find any dice.

Hence, Plan B: consult the Oracle.

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On Being Scared Shitless: Hunting Wild Boar in Indonesian Borneo

As most experienced outdoor enthusiasts know, it’s usually some combination of two elements that put us into the most dangerous situations: 1) underestimating the proposed adventure and 2) overestimating one’s own abilities. Which brings me to this story.

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Man Eating Bugs: Addicted to Culinary Adventures.

Below, a video of me in Northern Thailand, half-drunk on rice wine and trying deep fried bugs at the local market.

I love eating weird stuff. Love it.

Kangaroos. Caribou. Big bugs. Beating snake hearts. One of my favorite things about traveling is trying strange new foods — foods that the locals will eat usually to gross out a foreigner — that’s the stuff I seek out. It makes life more interesting and helps get me out of my travel routines.

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Don’t Get My Motorbike Wet…

I’m addicted to montages.

This one is of Kim and I on our $300 motorbike in Southern Vietnam, off-roading, crossing a river and checking out some waterfalls… just before we got arrested and detained for the better part of three days (story coming soon).

The dirt roads that we drove on for the first week of our trip were a little hairy at times. We crashed twice — once while trying to dodge a rogue cow and another time trying to slowly cross a wooden bridge. The funny part was that Kim actually got the crashes on video (she used to take a lot of videos while we drove — something about being bored because she couldn’t see around my big helmet).

I’m going to post the crash videos (they’re pretty hilarious) as soon as Kim emails them to me.

(UPDATE: The videos were on Kim’s laptop, which got stolen…)

Oh yeah, and that picture of Kim driving: She’s faking it. I didn’t let her actually drive the bike until much later on in the trip…

Vietnam Motorcycle Diaries

Tet holidays in Vietnam and everything shuts down for a good ten days. My good friend Marc and I used the opportunity last year to do a trip to “the end of Vietnam,” meaning the southernmost tip. Having never really rode my motorbike more than around the block before, I was thrilled at the proposal.

I only really “crashed” once, and it was into a river. After boarding a mini ferry, I went to get off of my bike and my foot got caught on the baggage attached to the bike rack. I lost my balance, tipped the bike on it’s side on the ferry, which tossed me clear into the river head first. The locals, who had likely never seen other foreigners traveling those dirt paths, didn’t laugh. They just looked concerned and bewildered as Marc and I cracked up.

Other follies include our celebration at achieving the Southernmost Point Goal: Marc decided to take off his shoes and walk in the tidal mud. He made it a whole three steps before slicing his foot open quite badly on a barnacle. There’s a picture of him lying down getting his foot cleaned up at the “doctor’s office.” There’s no picture of my folly, as my camera fell in the water with me and had to be dried out…

My Favorite Topic Is Me

I usually write about my myself, I know. Yes, I’m self-centered and no, I don’t care. I write about what I know best. That said, I refuse to contribute another “I got up, brushed my teeth, went to the store…” blog to the online world. Something’s gotta be at least interesting to me to write it out, and I have a short attention span.

Writing about my experiences and opinions accomplishes two things: One, it gives me an outlet to record my life; and two, it pushes me to take my life in a direction that is worth recording and sharing with other people.

In the past few years of personal growth, I feel that more anything, the one thing that changed my limiting beliefs and helped me break out of my boring lifestyle has been reading and watching the examples of other successful eccentrics and adventurers. People who are living life and not letting life “live” them. I love to read about how Neil Strauss went from being a college virgin to the worlds most famous pickup artist; how Tynan became the head of an online gambling ring in two years and made hundreds of thousands; and how Timothy Ferris trained for four weeks to become the Chinese Kickboxing National Champion (which is, by the way, a great example of turning the system on its head for one’s own benefit). The people that I read about inspire me to live outside everyday social norms and expectations and consequently have much more fun.

On that note, here’s a video of fun times with Kim and “Georgia” (my motorbike) in Thailand and Laos:

You, massage?

When Kim and I arrived in Northern Thailand we decided to take a long break from the road. Driving every other day or so was taking it’s toll on our bodies, so we decided to take a little R&R break. I signed up right away for a week learning Thai massage, but Kim’s version of re-cooperation was to join a Mui Thai kickboxing class and do a week-long solo bicycle trip through the mountains… (yeah, I know. She’s a little crazy…)

The culmination was for Kim and I to do an intensive weekend oil massage course together and then take the motorbike up to the border of Thailand and Myanmar for a few days.

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