Birthday in Vang Vieng

Vang Vieng is the backpacker capitol of Lao.  It reminds me of Costa Rica with all of the outdoor adventure sports for tourists - intertubing, kayaking, caving, mt.  biking.  There are even enough tourists now that the Lao have nicknamed the place "Ban Falang" which translates as "Village of the White People". 

It is however a very dramatic setting.  A river runs besides the town.  On the other side of the river is a bit of flat farmland.  Then sheer cliffs rise suddenly out of the ground.  The contrast is almost unbelievable.  It's as if some god reached into the earth and pulled these mountains straight up.  I haven't yet found a geologists who can give me a better explanation of how they were formed. 

A friend sent me an email asking if I engaged in any strange local customs for my birthday.  Well....  no.  I was in the village of the white people and instead engaged in a typical Gen X custom (Yes, I know that at 31 I'm older than Gen X).  My sole birthday present this year was a magic happy pill that a friend accidentally smuggled across the Cambodia/Lao border in his pocket.  I popped that pill and from that moment onward the rest of the evening was very happy happy.  I spent my birthday with a half dozen travel buddies who I've been seeing on and off since northern Cambodia.  We smuggled a bottle of Lao Lao into the bar and drank night away sipping beer between oversized shots of Lao Lao.  It was a good birthday. 

Birthday Reflections

Birthdays are typically a time for reflection and introspection.  "Fuck I'm turning 31.  Am I old yet?  Am I happy?  Am I where I want to be in this point of my life?" This birthday was different in that I've spent the last 6 months on the road reflecting and introspecting.  6 months was enough time to make some decisions. 

The first decision is that I'm not planning on returning to the corporate world.  I found the following quote in an editorial in Analog Magazine

"Tokyo...  It was 6:30 pm but every office we saw was bustling with activity at a time when most business offices in the USA would have been empty for an hour or more"
That quote is only 8 years old, but it's funny now.  Things changed quickly and dramatically.  16 hour days, 60 hour work weeks are the new standard.  16 hour days are not for me and unless there is a very unexpected and dramatic shift in the corporate culture back towards reasonable working hours, I don't see myself returning to that life. 

I wrote a poem the 2nd week of this trip.  I hadn't originally planned on sharing it, but here it is: 

"Ode to Sapient"

The poem is a little bitter and it doesn't tell the full story.  I don't actually regret my time at Sapient.  I did have some fun and I'm sure I learned some things.  In addition, being at a technology company in San Francisco at the height of the dot com boom was very exciting.  Besides, I put in 4 years of work and get 2 years of traveling out of it - it's hard to complain about that.  I don't regret my time at Sapient, I just think that there are better ways for me to live my life. 

My 2nd decision is that I'm going to take a shot at professional travel writing.  One day a few months back I declared myself a travel writer.  "From this moment on, I am no longer an out of work software engineer, I am no longer a backpacker, I am a travel writer."  Now on occasion, I'll be walking down a beautiful beach in Cambodia or sipping beer in a bar in Lao and think to myself "This is work".  Each time I do it brings a huge smile to my face.  That is probably a good sign in terms of career choice.  All I have to do now is make money at it. 

I'm more or less sticking to my originally travel plan.  The speed that I'm traveling it'll take me another 12 months (18 months in total) to get to Turkey.  However, the bigger change is that when I get to Turkey I think that I am not going to continue across Europe and head home.  At least not immediately.  I'm going to spend 6 months somewhere taking my web journal entries, notes and other thoughts and put together a book.  I can't afford to do this in San Francisco, it's far too expensive.  In Phnom Penh you can teach English for 2 hours a day and make more than enough to live well on.  Phnom Penh is not where I want to spend 6 months, but I have another year of traveling to find someplace that I like.  My plan is to work half time or less, write a book half time and still have more than enough time left over to enjoy life. 

After those 6 months of working and writing I don't know what's going to happen.  There's a chance that I'll manage to sell the book and continue to travel the world on the royalties.  I may decide that I'm happy where I am and stay for a while longer.  I may just move somewhere else in the world and continue working part time.  I might return to SF and bartend.  There's even a chance that I'll decide I've had enough of this bumming around the world, return to SF, put back on a shirt and tie and look for a real job. 

And so, it appears that I'm going to be gone for a minimum of 2 years.  It was a hard decision.  I am going to miss my friends, miss San Francisco and maybe even miss my family. 

Of course, you're all invited to drop by and visit me.  Think about it - Burma, Nepal, India, Egypt, Tanzania, Turkey - none of these places are going to be boring.