The Beginning

"There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the passion of life." - Frederico Fellini

As many of you may know, I love quotes and quotations, because for most things we seek to say, somebody with a much more superfluous way of speaking has probably already said it quite poetically.  After all, the wise learn from the mistakes - or creations - of others.  Be ready for a lot of good quotes!

I'm starting this blog now with the idea of continuing to update it as I travel Southeast Asia and hopefully beyond in the coming months and years.  The thoughts of this trip have consumed many waking and some sleeping moments over the past year or more.  I have always had a passion for travelling and learning about new cultures, people, places, ideas, perspectives, you name it; never before have I had the opportunity to really do anything about it.  This is my chance, and I plan to make the most of it.

The plan is to fly from Seattle to Bangkok, where I will stay for a couple days and arrange visas for the remainder of my trip to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam.  I will try to use www.couchsurfing.org as much as possible on this journey, to enrich and expand the experience.  Minimizing cost is also a nice side effect.  I am planning to travel from Bangkok towards the Aranyaprathet/Poipet border crossing into Cambodia towards Siem Reap and Angkor Wat.  From there I am undecided specifically, I may head north to Laos and have a more extended adventure before reaching my final destination, or may head east to Vietnam and work my way south along the coast.  This is something I will be planning out over the coming weeks through research and reflection.  This blog, and the journal I am keeping on my own, will surely provide some of that reflection.  By the time I leave I hope to have a file for GoogleEarth set up so that people can follow me as I go, though it may prove to be a bit ambitious.

For now, that's all folks!