Asia for a Month

April 10th was my last day at Dell. Since then I took a brief trip around the U.S., enjoyed San Francisco for a few weeks, discarded many of my possessions, got rid of my hair (not for forever... but it's going to be 97 degrees and humid every day in Asia), and prepared for my first long-term (well, medium-term, really) excursion outside the United States.

Everything I'm bringing overseas, though I'll probably ditch some of it as I put it in the backpack.

I'll be traveling with Pouyan, a very good buddy of mine. Our itinerary is as follows:

 

Interestingly, as of last night the Thai military seized control of the government via a military coup. Oh well. We'll have to see whether this impacts our plans at all. Bangkok still seems relatively safe but obviously the situation can alter very quickly.

Our flight leaves tonight at 1:30am (technically Friday morning) and lands at 6am Saturday morning in Taiwan. Then following a brief layover we have a 90 minute flight to Vietnam, and then... I really don't know. Adventure and excitement, hopefully? My expectations are almost nil. It would be silly to expect a short trip like this to completely alter one's worldview, or be an extraordinarily seminal moment in one's life. It's just a three and a half week jaunt to somewhere that westerners go to all of the time. I suppose my only goal is this: to get comfortable living out of a backpack, and being outside of the United States for an extended period of time, and having cell phone service turned off -- with the expectation that if this goes well, I will be better prepared for a real serious trip one day in the future, a la yearlong round-the-world adventure.

Anyhow, I need to get moving. Only eight hours until we leave for the airport.

Several people have asked me whether I will be blogging and posting photos of the trip; so, yes: This is the place where I will be doing that, as well as (possibly) on Twitter. If you are actually interested in getting my updates in your inbox via e-mail (this probably only applies to my mom), there is a signup box for just that on the right side of your screen ------->

If you need to reach me about anything, e-mailing patrick.mathieson@gmail.com is the best way to accomplish that.

All right, folks, that's about it. Thanks for reading.