Pre- trip planning

I'm going to South East Asia next week..How this all started and why it took so long? I'm not really sure. I have been traveling all my life, and in the past 13 years managed to make it to 30 different countries on 5 different continents. I've never really had a great paying job so all my trips have been on a shoe string budget where cutting corners is the norm. After a while I found the best stories and craziest adventures come from living low to the ground and now I opt for the backpacker route on purpose. After all, a room at the Marriott Tokyo is the same as a room at the Marriott Paris and the biggest adventure there would be if someone forgot to leave a mint on your pillow! A person comes back to their hotel at the end of the day where everything is familiar and safe, they lock the doors and shut the rest of the experience out. Hostels are very different in that they are created to force you to interact with the world you have stepped into. They could be lavish bed and breakfasts that were formerly a castle to an old crappy factory with a bunch of bunk beds (I've slept in both). Most are some where in the middle and are equipped with common areas that are filled with other travelers and the explorers vibe. If I ever get married, I'll spend my honeymoon at an expensive hotel that isolates me from everything but when I travel I want to taste and feel the new world. I've been wanting to go to South East Asia for the past few years but never got around to it because I always put it off for some day. As 2009 came to a close I decided before I went out partying on New Years Eve, to buy a plane ticket. My friend Scott, an emigration lawyer in Chicago whom I know from Burningman decided to join me for two weeks on the first leg of the trip. The plan is to fly into Vietnam, hang out in Saigon for a few days and then head to Cambodia and check out the killing fields and make our way to the ruins of Angkor Wat. It's South East Asia's answer to the pyramids and I hear it can't be missed. After Cambodia we are going to tackle Bangkok and then head south to the full moon party on the Island of Koh Phanang. That's the outline of the trip. I'm packing super light and plan to buy things I need there. I figure that everything is going to be pretty cheap plus it would be odd to buy something in the states that was made in Thailand! I don't have any idea what to expect but I'm excited and I'm sure I'll find some shinanigans to get into. I don't know how often I will blog or if I'll even have access to a computer but I'll try my best to be consistent. This way people who want to know about my trip can follow along and I won't have to answer the same stupid question "how was Asia?" over and over again. I guess my someday is here...