Ao Nang Krabi Thailand

Dear friends and family,

My year abroad has been an incredible experience. Although I miss home and all the people I left behind, I’ve had the time of my life, met fascinating people, been able to do some incredible things, and have grown in many ways. Since I moved to Thailand about 13 months ago, I have largely attained the travel goals I set out for myself and learned the things I’d wanted to learn. I’ve adjusted to the slower pace of life in Thailand, and the more laissez-faire attitude.

Mai Pen Rai

I watch tourists who just landed and can’t relax, can’t get off their Crackberry addiction, and get frustrated when the waitress (who can’t speak any English) gets their special order wrong. As a long-term traveler, you begin to understand the local customs, you learn to go with the flow, laugh at the vast language barrier and frequent mix-ups, take challenges as they come, and basically just enjoy whatever life throws at you. You learn to stop freaking out about misunderstandings, problems, and the unexpected. You learn to have a “jai yen”—a cool heart.

Failures

I failed at quite a few things this year. I attempted (mostly unsuccessfully) to reposition my social web development business to consult mainly with non-profit organizations and social entrepreneurs. I didn’t reach my income goals (not by a long-shot). Quite the opposite, I was very nearly a pauper for a majority of the year! But when you start to make friends, be ready for the right opportunities, and search for alternative ways to do what you want to do, you don’t need a lot of money to live well. Especially in Southeast Asia.

I sold nearly everything I owned last November and have learned to enjoy a minimalist life of simplicity, with few possessions. It’s a portable lifestyle with few distractions that allows me to spend more time concentrating on work, reading, writing, and spending quality time with my friends. I’ve been able to thrive with only about $700–1000 a month in living expenses, transitioned to a cash-only economy, and what money I do earn I typically spend on travel and other experiences, rather than things.

The Unexpected

I’ve had a lot of unexpected growth and unusual experiences. Come to Asia and you’ll see families of five crammed on clumsy motorbikes weaving precariously through traffic, elephants in the streets, quirky red-light districts where students, monks, and prostitutes share the same sidewalk, you’ll eat fried bugs, and much much weirder stuff I’m sure.

I live in the heart of Bangkok, in a building with five of my best friends. I hang out almost daily with a refugee who fled religious persecution in China (but you can call by his name, Ryan!) I pay extra for the fastest “high-speed” DSL in Thailand and spend most of my days at home working on the laptop. I know the minimart owner downstairs, the salon & massage shop owner up the street, and the owner of the wine bar/bistro across the soi. I couldn’t ask for more.

The Fun Part

I’ve dated a few beautiful Thai girls (and picked up a good amount of the language). I’ve dated a few travelers. I got to feel like James Bond. My friend Dwight Turner and I discovered a way to drink beer to benefit charity(!), catalyzed a monthly staple in the Bangkok event scene, and hosted massive parties at posh clubs way out of my league.

I worked with Dwight to develop a strong internet presence for his grassroots Bangkok volunteer organization, and spent a significant amount of time helping raise money, volunteer with kids, and make a difference.

Successes

Thanks to all of you guys, I built a real community of engaged, loyal readers here at Thrilling Heroics, with thousands of RSS subscribers, Twitter followers, Facebook fans, and over 12k+ visitors per month. I rank in the top 60,000 sites on the web, which is quite an accomplishment when you’re competing with thousands of millions.

I’ve experimented quite a bit with my businesses and work. I taught business English to masters’ students at Mahidol University School of Management for five weeks. I currently am involved in organizing the TEDx conference that we’ll be bringing to Bangkok in February, one of my dreams! The last few months, I’ve been working with some awesome awesome partners on an exciting new project/business for the new year (more on that next week).

Some other random stuff I’ve done while traveling this year:

  • I climbed over 1,000 steps to reach a temple on a mountain top in Prachuap…

  • …where I defended some girls from Coke-addicted attack monkeys.
  • I’ve spent an afternoon learning from and sharing a meal with a Buddhist monk.

  • I got stranded in the Thai countryside on the way to a friend’s hometown in northeastern Thailand when our car broke down.
  • I dragged my parents to Asia and spent 2 weeks living in luxury on the gorgeous beaches of Phuket & Krabi with them.

  • I took LOTS of jumping photos!

  • I spent my birthday week celebrating at posh rooftop bars that would cost hundreds of dollars back home, and hanging out with gorgeous women!

  • I traveled with good friends and saw the Mekong river in Laos, the breathtaking ancient wonder of the world—the Angkor Wat temples in Camobodia—and the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur—two of the world’s tallest buildings.

  • I saw the skulls of tens of thousands of victims of genocide and witnessed school classrooms turned into torture chambers.
  • I mastered the Asian squat toilet.

  • I saw elephants dancing, and went elephant trekking in the jungle.

  • I survived political protests in my neighborhood, with automatic gunfire, gasoline bombs, Molotov cocktails, and tear gas flying around.

  • I visited home, roadtripped with some close friends from Northern California to the SoCal desert to go to my favorite three-day outdoor music festival—Coachella—to see Paul McCartney, The Crystal Method, M.I.A., The Killers, The Chemical Brothers, Thievery Corporation, Groove Armada, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and more play at the Empire Polo Fields (and we won VIP tickets for life!).

  • I discovered paradise.

  • I adopted a Thai mom who made us lunch on the beach in Krabi every day.
  • I shook hands with people who lost their homes, their jobs, their limbs, and their families in the tsunami.
  • I volunteered with a large children’s home in the Thai countryside and took all the kids to the beach in Pattaya.

  • I dined on sidewalks and in alleyways for a year.

  • I got to meet Chris Guillebeau, Nomadic Matt, Chris “Travelhappy” Mitchell, Chris “MyEggNoodles” Osborne, Jonny Gibaud, Mark Eckenrode, Caron Margarete & Brittany Sims in person. I also spent a lot of time with my blogging buddies Migration Mark and Brooke “Business Backpacker” Ferguson.

  • I helped raise and deliver thousands of dollars to two orphanages near the Burmese border…and got to spend some cherished time with one boy a week before he lost his life to a struggle with sickness.

  • With a diet consisting mostly of incredibly delicious Thai noodle & rice dishes and fresh papaya salad, I lost about 25 pounds without even trying.
  • I added Beijing, Hong Kong, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, and Japan (although I didn’t see more than the airport) to my passport.
  • I became close friends with many fun, eccentric Canadian, American, English, Swiss, German, Australian, Mexican, Italian, and Swedish expats—backpackers, climbers, divers, English teachers, aid workers, fundraisers, journalists, photographers, club owners, news editors, UN workers, artists, musicians, resort owners, technologists, lawyers, chefs, investment bankers, refugees, business magnates and beach bums.

Do I plan on quitting the untemplate lifestyle and moving home anytime soon? Hell no. I’ll visit California probably in March and/or April, return here to Thailand (as long as they’ll let me stay), and possibly spend some time in Argentina. More on that next week.

“The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.”

—Ayn Rand

Merry Christmas! Please let me know how your year was with a comment below.

I’ll be missing you all, but hope you have great holidays, and hope you come for a visit in 2010! :)

Cody McKibben
23 December, 2009
Ao Nang, Thailand