I landed in this country 6 days ago. I’ve traversed nearly 1,000 kilometers in that span via taxi, pickup truck, ferry, train, subway, mini-van, motorbike, and of course my legs. Just 8 days ago I was still a full-time employee at redacted. 1
It was drizzling when I deplaned at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport; this came as no surprise as it rains briefly almost every day in mainland SEA’s wet season (typically between June - October). I had been wearing the same swag t-shirt from my previous employer for 24 hours, suffice it to say, I was not feeling fresh [^n]. The wetness washed away some of the face-oils so I wasn’t complaining. I’ve done long plane rides before. I’ve spent many summers visiting extended family in Taiwan so I knew that the ride would be grueling, especially if you’re a little squeamish at the idea of flying 1.2 kilometers over the open Pacific.[^n].
When I was a kid, a Nintendo Gameboy would usually hold me over, provided that the battery lasted the entire trip (usually didn’t). This time a different problem manifested. Somewhere over Lake Erie (BOS -> DTW) the screen on the iPhone decided to stop responding to my touch. My lock button hasn’t worked ever since I thought it would be a good idea to listen to music in the shower (turns out it’s a bad idea). I spent 5 hours toggling the vibrate momentary as well as continuously pressing the home screen just to get the battery to drain in the hope that when it eventually restarted, it would go back to normal (it did). [^n]
I suppose now would probably be a good time to mention why I’m doing what I’m doing. Since I was a sophomore in college I’ve held a job of some form. When I graduated I was extremely lucky that tech was just blowing up and have had the grand fortune of having job security and an abundance of new opportunities and positions. These positions more or less presented themselves in front of me. As much as I’d like to believe that any life successes are an acme of my natural talent, I’m skeptical of such a claim. Sometimes it seems that I’m just a passenger to the events that have unfolded around me. Additionally while I won’t claim that I’ve lived with a silver spoon in my mouth, I’ve never had to go to bed hungry, and with that I owe the world to my parents.
Objectively speaking, there’s really only a few things that I’m good at and one of those things is computer science (more specifically algorithmic analysis). Over the course of my post-undergraduate career I’ve had the privilege of working for three world-class organizations. I joined my last position with the goal of laying the foundation for building a multiple-system operator (MSO) capable of competing with big cable, completely over IP - in industry parlance over-the-top. I accepted an interview on a whim and arrived at the office when it was just 4 people chilling in a warehouse loft in Boston’s Seaport District. We’ve now hit the point where it’s just about to go live with about 70 real employees. Not unlike how a humpback whale might breach out of the ocean to get a breath of air, I was able to look back at what I’ve done during my tenure there. I’ve designed many things addressing unique problem sets that I’m proud of including FP-style libraries, ultra-low latency backbones, and other heaps of things that I can’t really divulge right now; all of which I’ve spent many many weeks laboring over and essentially surrendered over at the end of my tenure.
Any half-decent engineer probably provides value that far exceeds their compensation, but demand has driven market compensation to ridiculous levels. Selfishly I realize that demand for qualified techies today has never been this high. But something’s missing and I’m a little unsatisfied - call it a quarter-life crisis. I’ve spent so much time bringing the ideas of other people to fruition; it’s just so much easier to hit pause and walk away (for now). Walk away from a perfectly good job? Why not?
Yeah sure whatever, what could possibly go wrong?
My time in Southeast Asia is relatively short, compared to most of the backpackers here on the Banana Pancake Trail. I’m spending a grand total of 23 days in Thailand (considering sneaking into Burma for a couple hours but responsible me isn’t sure how I’ll adapt to a Burmese jail.) [^n] After this I’m spending a couple days back in New England then moving down to NYC where I’ll be joining The Recurse Center until the end of the year.
For the uninitiated, the Recurse Center is the self-purported “best programming community in the world”. The reason behind this move is because I feel that I need to broaden my horizons (not to sound cliche) and re-strategize the trajectory that I’m going while I can still afford to do so. I’m looking to gain intrinsic value in a world that is increasingly motivated by extrinsic factors. This is something that I feel like I have to do now, otherwise I’ll always regret not doing it. Everything else (that house, car, jetski) can wait. After RC I’m keeping my options wide open : )
> Fuck. caves are kind of awesome.
> But so are waterfalls! Not sure which one I’d pick to be honest : caves vs waterfalls. This is like pizza vs burritos all over again.[^n]
Back to when I landed in Bangkok… I had done some very tentative planning before I left. I put together a laundry list of days in the geographical regions that I wanted to cover:
3 x Siem Reap/Angkor War 4 x Bangkok 4 x Southern Kohs 5 x Chiang Mai 6 x Days spare (maybe Laos?) It didn’t take very long for this list to get axed. I cleared customs at the airport around 11:20 PM. Bangkok public transport shuts down at midnight, which in my opinion is straight up unacceptable for a major metropolitan area of over 14 million people. To be fair though cabs and tuk-tuks are extremely cheap, to the point that a 15-minute cab ride priced a couple shades under 6 USD is still labeled a scam. First time visitors to Bangkok are going to get scammed in some form, but probably not by much, just accept it and learn from your mistakes. It was around 11:45PM when I read the confirmation e-mail and realized that I wouldn’t make it to the hostel that I had booked in Sukhumvit before the reception closed (also midnight).
I was slightly perturbed but somehow in my jet-lagged haze I managed to make it to Khao San Road, commonly regarded as the epicenter for backpacking in SEA. As it turns out, it’s stupid easy to just show up at any place of accommodation and ask for a room. No vacancy? No problem, just go to the guesthouse on the other side of the street. Ever since I’ve been deciding where to go next ad-hoc, sometimes mere minutes before leaving, probably not going to go to Cambodia/Laos. Traveling solo has
its benefits after all!
> Hey man, would it be ok if I fell down here? > Naw man. If you fall here you basically die in real life.
The above is Pai Canyon. The ridges can get quite narrow (and steep), if a sudden downpour happens you’re screwed.
I spent less than a day in Bangkok. I woke up early the next morning, bought a razor blade and a yogurt from the 7-eleven and started heading north to Chiang Mai with a stopover in Ayutthaya. Saw some pretty cool ruins on the way but I wasn’t really feeling energetic, being jet-lagged and all.
> Even the scaffolding is 99.9999999% authentic Khmer.
In the beginning I was bored out of my mind when I got to Chiang Mai. Seemingly every travel blogger is/has been based out of there at some point and everyone raves about how you can’t spend enough time up north. But personally I felt that once you’ve seen a couple of temples, you’ve seen them all. Plus there were an inordinate number of western middle-aged men seeming to court dangerously young Thai girls. Who am I to judge? Seems like they both found what they were looking for. The cafe and food scene was admittedly pretty bumping though. It wasn’t until I headed even further north that I came into my groove.
> My bike
It turns out that the best way to experience the north is to rent a motorbike. There’s something about riding in the mountains, perhaps faster than you probably should be going (because hey, you just learned how to ride for the first time a couple hours earlier), through flash downpours while ignoring road signs you can’t understand. Near tourist hubs (even in the north) it’s too easy to set an itinerary and get lost in a crowd, but it’s a different story when you have a bike. If there’s
something that catches your eye and looks like it might be interesting (not that you’d know) you can just decide to go there [^n]. Even in small villages, there’s bound to be a guesthouse (or at least a friendly host with room to spare).
> My other bike (swapped it out to get from Pai to Mae Hong Son)
And with that I sign off half-way through my road-trip (or so I think) from Mae Hong Son. I’m not so sure where I’ll end up between here and NYC but the road will always twist on. (Unless of course it ends abruptly in Burma)
> Pai at night is often described as the biggest frat-party in the East with an abundance of loud obnoxious early 20s trust-fund kiddies on holiday (mostly probably from Australia, just saying). I can confirm, probably the biggest collection of Greek letters I’ve seen east of Athens (absolutely nothing wrong with that though!).
> Road-side market in the far north
> So I heard you like bokeh…
> Now if only Anheuser made drinking water too. Oh wait…
Technicality: I’m on sabbatical/leave of absence. I am not ruling out the possibility of a return to my previous employer. Additionally I’m under a PIPA so I’m not going to mention the company name right now. As it is a sensitive time right before the go-live. ↩ It’s important to stay fresh, thanks Jersey Shore ↩ As an aside who’s your favorite LOST character? Mine’s Vincent. ↩ I also tried hard restoring it off of my laptop but it won’t allow you to restore it as long as Find My iPhone is turned on. Couldn’t exactly do that without the screen working… wtf Apple? ↩ I’m writing this from Mae Hong Son in northern Thailand. There is an unofficial border cross into a tiny Burmese village just north of Ban Rak Thai, a village composed of (the descendants of) KMT soldiers who fled China’s Yunnan province after being defeated by the CPC. The only way to reach the Burmese village is through Thailand, as no official road connects it to the Burmese highway and rumor is the guards usually don’t really care if you cross over. ↩ Burritos, by the way. ↩ Actually there was one sign that was in English that said “Asia’s longest cave system” that I tried going to, but the well-paved road abruptly turned to gravel. Decided not to risk getting a road tattoo. Cue the “why come you don’t have a tattoo reference” ↩