My travels through Southeast Asia

This is going to be a non-track blog about my travels in Southeast Asia for the past two weeks.  If you want some track stuff I’ll probably get back on it in mid-August once the kiddos get back

on campus.

Observations while in Asia

--The Chinese put the top 1% of their attractive population on Air China as flight attendants.

--You tend to bond with other Americans when you miss a connecting flight in a foreign land.

--Chinese people (and most Asians) smile when they’re nervous.

--The loudest eater on the face of the Earth sat next to me on a 12 hour flight (fortunately he slept most of the way).

--At some point in the first 3 days I had no idea what time or what day it was.

--Some countries in Asia don’t understand the concept of standing in line or personal space.

--Other Asians think the Chinese talk way too loud.

--Singapore is super clean.  There were touch screens in the bathroom at the airport to rate your experience while peeing.

--The meals on the overnight flights were surprisingly good.

--Chinese people take an insane amount of selfies as well as posed glamour shots.

--Before you die you need to go see the temples in Cambodia (especially Angkor Wat).  Pictures don’t do it justice.

--Get a tour guide.  Mine was one of the nicest people I ever met.

--People get massages all the time and it’s incredibly cheap for a legitimate good massage ($8/hour).  There’s a 50/50 chance they’ll ask you for a happy ending.

--Driving laws in Cambodia are a suggestion and rarely followed.

--I was surprised there weren’t more non-Asians tourists.

--Americans are actually friendlier than most non-Asian tourists.

--Taking a ride on a tuk-tuk is awesome in a “riding a rollercoaster” kind of way.

--Make sure your non-English speaking tuk-tuk driver knows exactly where you need to go before you get started.

--You’ve never really been in a traffic jam until you’ve been in a traffic jam in Bangkok.

--Everyone drives insanely but no one has road rage.

--If you’re not good at math then you’ll probably spend more money than you should. $1 US is equal to 34 in Thailand and 1000 in Cambodia.

--Pack light and do laundry every few days.

--Crossing the street in downtown Bangkok is a risky proposition.  Pedestrians do not have the right of way.

--If someone offers you a really cheap ride on a tuk-tuk, you will most definitely end up at a tailor where they will try to make you buy new and expensive clothing.

--The Buddhist temples in Thailand are spectacular and make anything we have in the United States seem small and cheap.

--Most people in Bangkok are nice but if you are white they will try to rip you off at every moment.

--Everyone seems to work.  It’s hard to get welfare and minimum wage is $9/day.

--If you know where to go you can eat amazing food for less than $5 a meal.

--Most taxi drivers in Bangkok have never left the city and dream to come to the USA but would never be able to afford it.

--I played a game of pool against a guy with no shirt, nipple piercings and tattoos all over his body.  Super nice guy.  He beat me handily thank goodness.

--The city planner (if there is one) needs to be fired immediately.  The streets in Bangkok are totally random.

--If you say anything negative about the king and queen you will be put in jail.

--More people have smart phones than running water.

--I saw an Asian man sing Oops I Did It Again by Brittany Spears.  One of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.

--French toast and pancakes are desserts.

--Multiple mornings I woke up and had no idea where I was (this has continued back in the states).

--I got a 5-minute massage and chiropractic adjustment by a bathroom attendant.  It was absolutely incredible.

--If you’re 6-0 tall you’re a giant.

--The red light district in Bangkok is much smaller than you would think.  If you’re curious to check it out it’s good to go with a group of people that have your back.

--Prostitution is illegal but there is no enforcement of the law.  If you are white you will get approached by prostitutes non-stop.

--If you happen to go inside of a club on Soi Cowboy you may see things you’ve never seen before and will never see again.

--The most fun thing about going to a Mai Thai fight is the crowd.

--Every street corner has a different smell – good and bad.

--Poor men in Bangkok drive taxi’s, the women work as street vendors.

--“Saving face” is something that is very important to the people of Thailand.  Causing embarrassment has the potential to result in a variety of bad things for you or them.

--I never felt unsafe at any time.

--I never saw or felt any form of racism.

--Religion is so much more important there than in the United States.

--You’re always respectfully greeted with two palms together in front of their face and a bow.  By the middle of the trip I started doing the same.

--Going to a movie cost $4 and you will need to rise to listen to the Anthem of the King.

--There is virtually no PDA (public displays of affection) thank goodness!

Why Southeast Asia?

I had been wanting to go on another international vacation for a while and was struggling with where to pick.  I’ve been to parts of Western Europe and the Caribbean so I was looking to go somewhere different – real different.

I’ve had several friends that said how much they’ve enjoyed visiting SE Asia so I gave it a good look.  I was in the office with Coach Yost and our Director of Ops Ryan Patton one day and asked them what they thought.  Before they could answer I went ahead and bought a ticket.

I decided to mainly hit Bangkok, Thailand and Siem Reap, Cambodia for a combination of history and excitement that would totally get me out of my element.  As I get older I want to go to as many places as I can so that I can experience as much of this crazy world has to offer.

It was funny to see the reactions that people had when I told them where I was going.  Most people, like me, don’t know that much about the region so their general reaction was, “That sounds ….. nice.”

The Travel

There’s really no away around the travel.  It’s a bear.  It’s basically halfway around the world.  On top of that my flights out there got all messed up and I was sent on a 38-hour excursion through five countries and seven airports.  Here’s what that looked like …

Depart Wichita on Wednesday afternoon on a direct flight to Los Angeles where I stayed the night (not counting this as part of the 38-hour trip).  Thursday my flight from LA to Beijing, China, was supposed to leave at 2:20pm (Pacific Time) but didn’t leave until around 4:00pm.  I had a two hour layover scheduled in Beijing so it was gonna be close.  It was a 12-hour flight and unfortunately I needed it to be 11:45 and I missed the connection to Bangkok by less than 10 minutes.  It was 8:00pm Beijing time and now I had two options.  The first was to wait for the next direct flight to Bangkok the next day at 2pm.  The problem with that is I had to depart Bangkok for Cambodia on a flight at 1:30pm the next day.  Obviously when you’re in China there is going to be some language barriers so for about 30 minutes I tried to convince this poor woman to just fly me straight to Cambodia and skip Bangkok but unfortunately they didn’t have a flight available.  What they did have was a 6-hour flight leaving at midnight to Singapore that would arrive at 6am, then I could catch at 7:40am flight from there to Bangkok to arrive at 9:30am.

At the point I realized it was 9am back home and I slept maybe 30 minutes on the flight to China.  Traveling through the night around Asia wasn’t going to help that either (I have trouble sleeping upright in a plane seat).  But I sucked it up and took the challenge and thought, “well I’ve never been to Singapore.”  Fortunately the flight to Singapore and the next one to Bangkok were on time.  There was only one problem in now flying to Cambodia from Bangkok and that was that I had to leave from a different airport on the other side of the city.  I got an Uber and for the super cheap price of $14 I got a 45 minute ride to the other side of town.  The flight to Cambodia was only an hour and by 3:30pm (in who knows what time zone) I checked into a hotel and slept for 14 straight hours.

Now after reading all that you probably thought it was a nightmare.  Well I think the little issues, problems, hassles that come up on a trip are just part of the deal and if you look at it as an adventure then it wasn’t as bad as it appeared.  Yeah I was super tired when I finally got to Cambodia and still haven’t adjusted back to Central Time in Kansas, but I also met a lot of cool people along the way.  While stuck in the Beijing airport for 4 hours, I befriended a guy from Los Angeles who ran track and cross country in college and was now doing triathlons.  On the flight from China I was sitting near a married couple from Columbus, Ohio, (they went to Ohio State) who was going to Asia as part of a Peace Corps type situation.  I struck up a conversation on the way to Singapore with a lady from Malaysia who was flying on a plane for the first time to go see her family.  My Uber driver in Los Angeles ran track for the LA Jets and knew Obea Moore, one of the best high school sprinters of all-time from back in my day.

If you aren’t busy chasing Pokemon or shutting off the world with your headphones you’d be surprised as how fast a trip like that can go.  Oh yeah, I also watched twelve movies and ate six meals on the flights.

Total flying distance on this trip – 26,743 miles.  How far is it around the world? 24,901 miles.

Final thoughts

Overall, traveling to Asia was a terrific experience.  If you want to see pictures, I put a few on my Facebook page.  I had a lot of help along the way that was desperately needed and appreciated.  I was really out of my element for much of the trip – which I think is a good thing for us spoiled Americans from time to time.  We don’t realize how good we have it.

I would definitely go back again someday.

Next time

It’s almost time for the Shockers to be back on campus!  We have an exciting year ahead and now that my travels are over I’m ready to get started!

Until then, thanks for reading and Go Shocks!