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Newsletter #7: Scuba Diving and the Thai Islands
Week six was a good one. I spent nearly all week scuba diving, eating food, hanging out with friends and sleeping on Koh Tao. The days were long, and I was wiped. It was wet. Like, really wet. It rained hard pretty much every day, for at least half the…
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Diving into Scuba: My Experience on Koh Tao
I’ve always been curious about scuba diving but have never had a good opportunity to try it out. Koh Tao is known as one of the best places in the world to dive for the first time. It’s quite cheap compared to other places and there are a good variety…
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Newsletter #6: The Beginning of Thailand
This one’s coming a little late. I’ve been wiped after spending the last several days doing a ton of diving and haven’t had the time or energy to finish this up until now. As I mentioned last week, my first week in Thailand didn’t go quite as planned. The intent…
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Back to the Fundamentals
Yesterday was my first day of my dive certification course. We spent two hours in a classroom covering information we needed to know before even stepping in the water. We then spent another hour on the boat talking through our equipment, and the skills we would start practicing underwater. Then…
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Newsletter #5: Food Poisoning, Food, and the end of Vietnam
Yesterday marks exactly one month since I left home. It feels like it’s been far longer, and not nearly that long at the same time. Feelings of homesickness have hit a little harder this week. The week did not go the way I planned it to (nor is this week…
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Newsletter #4: North Vietnam and the Ha Giang Loop
I was told by several folks to work my way from South to North in Vietnam as the landscape continues to get better. I have found this to be the case throughout my time here, but this week, I really got it. Both Ninh Binh and the Ha Giang motorbike…
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A Different Kind of Decluttering
You know the drawer. You might even have a whole closet, a whole room, or a whole garage full of things. You know your flathead screwdriver is in there somewhere, but when you search, it takes an eternity to dig through all of the stuff to find it. Sometimes it’s…
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Newsletter #3: Outside and Active in Vietnam
This week has been filled with a lot of time outside. The typhoon thankfully just touched Hội An one morning I was there with heavy wind and rain, but no sustained damages. Outside of that and one day of rain in Phong Nha, the weather was toasty and perfect for…
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Newsletter #2: Starting My Adventure in Taiwan and Vietnam
Wow. I can’t believe it was only twelve days ago that I left Seattle. So much has happened. I’m quickly realizing there’s no way I’ll be able to fit all the details into these newsletters, so I’ll try to stick to brief overviews of the things that stand out the…
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The Joy of Tears
It was my last night of a two-week bike tour in Norway. In short, the trip was brutal (don’t get me wrong, it was great too). I ended up having to do far more rerouting than planned. I rode through some miserable weather. I had tent setup issues on various…