Hi Ma!!! Yes as you can see I am OK!.. Since this is a post dedicated to the people I met along the way I figured what better way to show you that then with the very first post. 🙂
As you can see Sean makes another appearance, along with Mike.. Yea MIKE!! Way to get in there man. Here are some friends you might remember from the first post. Charlotte, Kelly, and Bella.
Below is a really great image of some friends. One I knew for a longer period of time, Katrina (Katri Na), she was in my Guesthouse the first night I arrived and such an incredible human being. She was such a pleasure to travel with. Laid back, went with the flow and just liked seeing other cultures and experiencing the people and society she was it. She is the woman just next to me. She will also be in a couple other photos as we traveled for a few days together. Meet Gus (The guy next to Katri Nah). Gus lives in Spain now (or was it Portugal?) and is a professional Futbol player (Soccer for the Americans out there). He was on break and traveling with the woman next to him, Habiba. Pretty interesting guy who has seen most of the world. He loves to travel and see a ton of countries on his breaks. He had some really interesting stories and someone I really wanted to spend some more time with, but unfortunately Habiba and Gus would only be in Bangkok for 1 day so I am thankful to have met them, if only for a very brief time. Habiba lives in Dubai, currently but I believe she is from London (or at least she studied there). She has ALSO been all over the world and had experienced some amazing cultures. I feel like I started a little late (but well AT least I started). From Gus and Habiba I have learned that I really need to embrace life and travel and experience different cultures. I really truly thank them for the time they have been in my life.
Here is an amazing picturesque image. I mean the view from this lookout was breath-taking. You all recognize Sean and Mike (maybe Mike, but definitely Sean). It looks like I actually made Sean bigger in Photoshop, but I promised I did NOT do that. 🙂 So it’s Sean, then Kristin and Sabrina. Kristin and Sabrina I met (along with meeting Sean) on the Night Train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. I have posted the link to the video of the Night Train accommodations. Click if you want to see what the travel is like. Not the best of accommodations, but not the worst (even though some people commented that they could never travel this way). Anyway, Kristin is from Germany (no NOT Munich, actually she doesn’t even like Munich and has never been to Octoberfest, which I found crazy as I thought it was a National Past time there). She speaks fluent English which I keep finding a blessing to encounter SO many people that speak english. It’s sad as americans we do not take more pride in learning other languages. I WISH I had really made an effort to learn and keep the languages I was taught, but I never did. I am going to be taking up a language here soon. Not sure what, but leave me a comment and let me know what you think would be a good idea. Sabrina is from the North of Italy, a little town called Kaltern,its near the “big” city called Bozen. She actually speaks fluent Italian, German, and English. She lives so close to German that they learn multiple languages in school. I wish America would do this, MAKE kids REALLY Learn other languages.. It would be so useful in their adult lives. I spent some really great moments with this group. I truly enjoyed the time I had with them. I was able to see the second best sunset EVER in my life and again, I live in Tampa, FL and I have traveled a little bit so that is saying something. If you want to see the sunset I am talking about you are going to have to wait for my next blog post coming soon.
Meet Jessica.. A pretty awesome chick (she likes the term actually) from Yorkshire (NOT LONDON).. Apparently I thought everyone from England is from London, and THIS.. IS..NOT…THE…CASE.. DO NOT make the mistake that I made. Apparently they sound different and use different words from different part of England as well. Interesting.. So interesting story about meeting Jessica. I met her and Hannah (the women in the picture below this one closest to Jessica) in Bangkok at our hostel (which was pretty great and located in a really great area central to everything in Bangkok) called Once Again Hostel. It’s the image of me with all the cake pans in the background if you guys remember that one. Well anyway, we got to talking over breakfast and of course we both noticed the accents and I just LOVE British accents so over breakfast we talked about all the different words that are different. Interesting. Anyway.. I only saw Jessica for a day before I left the hostel and was heading north. Turns out we were meant to meet again. This time 427 miles away on the streets of another city. I was randomly walking down the street when I hear this British voice that I IMMEDIATELY recognize. Yep.. Jessica. Totally random.. So she convinced me to take a cooking course.. Why not!!! This is our finished Spring Rolls.. Yep. They were delicious. Ain’t she a HAM!!!
Below you will see of course Jessica, and Hannah (who Jessica is traveling with) and Rebekka. We all took this cooking class and man was the food incredible. I learned a little about Thai cooking and how to prepare the meals, but best of all I got to eat with these fine ladies. I truly hope our paths cross again in the near future. You gals rock!
Kristin and Rebekka and Sabrina at our Thai cooking class. Of course we are going to have fun.. Sorry about the quality of the pics, apparently my phone doesn’t take the best selfies. I need to take a class on taking better selfies. Maybe some of the younger women out there can show me, as all I see from them is selfies.. Someone should write a book..
I love this kid.. He’s hysterical. I originally wanted a selfie with me and this temple because well, it’s pretty cool. Sean saw this and photo bombed it.. Priceless. It’s one of my favorite pics because Sean is truly one of those people I enjoyed spending time with. It’s bye for now, not goodbye. I look forward to coming to visit man.
Below is a pretty cool garden we found in a little square that you can get food from different vendors. They have these heart shaped flower symbols. You can see of course Sean, Mike, Sabrina, and Kristin, but here’s Lucas making an appearance next to me. He and Sean are traveling together from China (Lucas ALSO teaches English in China, but he’s from the USA and doesn’t have an accent, so he’s probably just a WEE BIT more qualified than Sean to teach these poor Chinese kids English).
Randomly running into Jessica, but this time out and about in Bangkok going down Khao San Rd (look it up if you don’t know about this road, it can get pretty wild). If you remember the video of Me Eating a Scorpion, it was down on Khao San Rd. You can apparently buy anything on this road.. It’s pretty crazy (don’t worry mom, I only ate a scorpion I didn’t do much else crazy). Just after this picture was taken I was seen dancing within a big circle of people with a crowd around us. I there is a video Of Me Dancing, but the crowd had dispersed by this time.
Below you will see some guys I ran into a couple days before this. Next to me is Damian. He’s from Amsterdam and speaks like 6 languages. This is simply amazing to me. He is a really cool guy and loves traveling (who doesn’t, I mean really). We all met randomly actually and from all walks of life. Next to him is Christian. Christian has an interesting story. He’s from Norway (speaks 3 languages including perfect English). He is writing his doctoral thesis on a specialty in Economics and the packaging industry. AND.. He came to Thailand to take a break and actually TRY and write while he is here. He did confess to me that he REALLY has NO Idea if he is going write at all, but he’s going to try. A couple weeks later, he still hasn’t written a word. Poor Christian. I will keep checking in with him to see if he has done anything. Next to Christian is Roman. Roman is actually from Munich, Germany and I will be meeting up with him later this year in Munich at Octoberfest (if nothing goes differently that is). For some reason I JUST kept missing Roman at every single stop in Thailand by a day or two. I hope to meet up with him at some point in the future.. He was really great to be around. I can’t wait to meetup with these guys in the near future.
Meet Davide (yes there is an “e” at the end. He’s from Italy and I met him in my very first hostel as he was one of the suite mates there. He speaks a couple different languages and man was he just awesome to be around. I had the pleasure of hanging out with Davide for a couple of days and he’s really funny and quirky and just a lot of fun to be around. He’s always making funny faces and just a pure jokester. Like Roman, I kept missing Davide by a day or two in each city that I visited. I would really love to meet up with Davide again in the future and plan to visit his city sometime through my travels.
Below is a group shot of Damian, Davide, Christian and some other females we met out drinking one night (Ma, I swear I am doing more than just drinking).
So.. here’s Stephanie and Jenny. You might remember them from my Facebook post (if we aren’t Facebook friends you might want to ask yourself why we aren’t).. This shot is a night on the town at a Skybar in downtown Bangkok. Drinks are expensive by ANY standards let alone Thai standards. To give you an example my 1 shot of bourbon on the rocks (Woodford Reserve mind you) was $15.00 (yes that’s US dollars). That’s roughly 550 baht, which is roughly the cost of 14 meals here. Yep 14 meals I could have eaten for 1 shot of bourbon. Well I guess you pay for the view. Below this image is a shot from the Skybar. So Back to Jenny and Stephanie. Again NO I am listing last names. These two are pretty damn awesome. They are taking some time off from life and traveling, like most, indefinitely (which really means, “Until our money runs out”). So basically all the people I have met for the most part are traveling this way. Jenny and Stephanie are basically bouncing around all of SE Asia and enjoying their time off. We met in Bangkok, hungout for a couple of days (I introduced them to Krua Apsorn as well). They went on their way, but we keep in touch (thank God for technology) via pictures and messaging about each others travels. I look forward to the next time we meet.
Skyline of Bangkok, sorry for the crappy version this is from my phone. But the skyline is AMAZING and the view is a 360 degrees in all directions. I loved the top of the Skybar, if only it wasn’t so expensive. I mean everything here is so inexpensive, I guess I expected when people told me it was expensive I thought $5 or MAYBE $8 a drink.. $15 is like NYC prices.. I am NOT used to that here. I blew my entire daily budget on 2 drinks. I mean even beers were $13. I guess since they don’t charge admission it’s a way of justifying it. I am glad we went and I did have an incredible time that is for sure. These two girls are just amazing and I glad that I am still and pretty much always will stay in touch with them to see where in the world they are and that they are enjoying life. It’s not very often that you get to spend some time with genuine people that leave a lasting impression, but that’s exactly what happened once I met Stephanie and Jenny. Thanks for being YOU!
Another pic of Stephanie and Jenny, but this time with Sojiirat. I met here through a friend in Tampa who connected us through Facebook (isn’t Mark Zuckerberg great?). Through the powers of Facebook I have met some incredible people. Sojiirat was able to meet up with me and was actually THE person to introduce me to Krua Apsorn (you remember the amazing restaurante here in Thailand that has a Michelin award (or several). It’s apparently her favorite place to eat and well it’s certainly one of mine as well. Thanks to her for this amazing find. I would DEFINITELY NOT have found it if it wasn’t for her showing it to me, that for sure. ALSO… She showed me another place called Toast (what an amazing concept they have). At Toast they make, YEP you guessed it, Toast. However they add chocolate, or condensed milk, or Taro, or Yogurt, or a number of other things, and MAN it’s amazing.
Yet another pic of these two amazing ladies.. I really loved spending time with them and getting to know them. So many hysterical times talking about the differences of words in our countries. And of course I LOVE the British accent. That and Australian are probably the best accents. I also head over to Melbourne really soon and can’t wait to see the adventure that is ahead.
Here is another pic of Katrina, Davide, and I… but meet Jan and Edoardo. Jan (the guy in the Adidas shirt directly behind me) is a young, 20 year old, backpacker from Germany. He is pretty new to traveling, but he is also getting started REALLY young compared to me. He started in Bangkok and pretty much blew his entire budget in the first week. He likes to drink, eat and generally just spend money. Behind Jan is Edoardo. Edoardo is from Italy, Como to be specific, which is not very far from Milan. He’s also a professional photographer back in his home town. He specializes in baby and family photography, so as you can imagine we had a lot to talk about. I credit him with some of the photos on my blog. He has a pretty great eye and actually he’s a really great person too. I am DEFINITELY planning on visiting him in the future, and apparently according to him I have a free place to stay while in Como. I’ll take it. Thanks Edoardo!!!! He’s currently traveling for a few months and we are staying up to date on where each other is and man this guy sure does know how to travel. I am taking some pointers that is for sure.
Another pic of Katrina and Edoardo relaxing on a bench watching people pray at a buddha station in the middle of the city.
Hey!!! What do you know, Katrina again. 🙂 She is in a lot of my travels around Bangkok, mainly cause she is awesome, but also because it seemed like we both had the same agenda while we were there. Now, meet Miranda and Mattia. Miranda was also a suite mate in the guesthouse when I first arrived in Bangkok (although she got there a day after I arrived). Mattia is her friend from Italy that now lives in London (also where Miranda is from). Mattia is about 6’6 and loves to eat, I mean he is Italian ya know. So we got along fabulously. Miranda it turns out is pretty damn awesome herself. We really both love travel and music, and we found ourselves in the middle of Bangkok looking for a Jazz bar of all things. Well we found one, but well, it wasn’t really Jazz per-say, just good music of all genres. Sadly Miranda and Mattia had to leave not too long after I met them, but they will continue to leave a lasting impression on me throughout my travels.
So there ya have it. Some of the people that I have met on my travels so far. I am sure there are going to be more, that in some way leave me with a sense of awe and I will update you all when that time comes.
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Ryan G
