First update of the trip (one week in). Past ten days or so have been an absolute madhouse. Of course I waited till the last minute to move all my stuff into storage (and didn’t even make it that far, dropped most of it off at Joey’s place [thanks!]) Those of you that know me know my friend Erik and I always try to “do it live”. This trip is no exception so here is a recap of the last week’s events.
If I haven’t talked to you recently my friend Matt and I decided to buy one way tickets to Thailand. The rest of the trip is of course, going to be done live. At first we thought of flying down to Koh Samui or Krabi and getting a place there so we could climb limestone on the beach and do some snorkeling/diving. However, at the last minute (literally while waiting to board at SEA) we decided to fly to Chiang Mai in the north. So we booked tickets to CM while sitting at Seatac. And our super long journey began. I’ll cut it short and say we arrived in CM some 20+ hours later (and essentially two days later thanks to time changes).
Since getting to CM we’ve spent most our time looking for a place to rent. We’ve had the coolest agent helping us find a house who has gone above and beyond what would be required in the states. She has spent literally 6 full days/nights helping us find a place; driving us all over, showing us the town, eating with us, taking us to buy supplies etc. Then on top of it all our place wasn’t ready to move into yesterday so she let us spend that night at her house so we didn’t have to pay for a hostel again. Oh, and she let us borrow towels, dishes, misc. things, and her gardener to clean our house! And she is going to make ~ $33 for this whole deal! Unbelievable! I am always amazed at Thai hospitality.
Some quick highlights from the first week:
- Food is of course amazing.
- We had moo ga tat our first night in (similar to Korean BBQ for $9 total).
- rI’ve had a ton of different dishes, and they’re always amazing.
- Most of the food costs about a dollar a meal here.
- I transferred my number to Google Voice so feel free to text me and I’ll reply at some point.
- One hour massage is $4-5.
- The exchange rate really sucks now (go USA! :-/) It’s sitting at ~29.7 to 1 versus 38 to 1 when I was first here.
- We have a urinal. You read that right.
- 2 big screen TVs.
- Matt started teaching me to ride a scooter today. I’m hoping I don’t crash this time.
Photo Time!
What. No hot tub in the Tropics? How you gonna ship code without a hot tub?
Seriously, though, your agent sounds amazing. That’s a beautiful place to live.
Glad your settled in brother! How much is rent! Love ya
No hot tub sorry. 🙁 It is a hundred degress outside tho. Rent is $700 for the whole place (furniture, cable, internet) and we pay a lady $10 once a week to come clean the house/yard for an entire day.
Wow this looks and sounds so awesome. Glad you are doing well. You have always been self sufficient and adventures and up for new challenges. We are so proud of you and we miss you like crazy. Is rent 700 in Thai dollars or US. I figure Thai dollars. Beautiful home. Who knows maybe your dad and I might venture there some day. Love you
$700 American, would be cool if you guys came out here sometime.
Hi Jesse—-Finaly got around to looking at your web site.————–Wow ————It looks like like you are doing alot better then O.K.———-Things have got way better around here at the poker room.———-I,m gonna take some time off here sooner or later.———Before you left you mentioned me coming out there to visit.—Lets see what happens.—-I just might take you up on that.———————————————————————————–humble jerry