Carless for at least a few more days

Went to look at a used car tonight. When I got home and checked the VIN on Carfax, I found everything the "owner" told me about the car was BS. The odometer had been modified to the tune of 32,000+ miles (likely 100k). The car had been wrecked and rebuilt. The car had been shuffled all over the country. "One owner, who didn't drive it much."

Better luck next time I guess.

Thank you Danny for letting me borrow your car!

Angkor Wat

I think my next priority with this trip will be to figure out what type of temple this is and its general history.  I can't wait to go there.

Practice

Today Danny and I practiced what will be played out many times in Vietnam. I drove the motorcycle and Danny rode on the back as we drove to get pho for dinner. Some old lady almost drove us off the road.

pho: $10, gas for motorcycle: $0.21, Danny with one arm around my waist and the other frantically waving at the old lady: priceless.

AB - Our Coworker

AB is a coworker of ours. AB is an old fogey and doesn't play nicely with Excel, Lotus Notes, or really anything invented after the abacus. To compensate, he spends a large part of his day making fun of me. I'm constantly giving him ammo, so it doesn't take a whole lot of ingenuity on his part. He is the author of such lines as "Nick, I think you're the only one in this place that doesn't see sucker written on your forehead." He has also nicknamed me "Crash" for having two bike accidents in one week.

Anyway, he's been giving Danny and I a lot of shit lately for our trip. He has taken to calling us Harry and Lloyd - a reference to Dumb and Dumber. I guess we can thank him for that since it's now in the url for our blog. Yesterday I shared with him that Charlie is joining us on our epic voyage. His response was "I used to think Charlie was more intelligent than that. You and Danny I understand, but I really thought Charlie was smarter than that." Charlie, I'm not sure if you should take that as a compliment or not. He also promised to pony up $12 to bail us out of a Cambodian prison should we need it. But only if that's for all 3 of us. We're not worth $12 each.

This is my Helmet

Last Friday I purchased my helmet, Saturday I practiced riding Nick's nighthawk.

Today I notified my boss I'd be out starting this 24th.

Tonight I went all in and bought my ticket to Phnom Penh.

Next weekend I take a motorcycle class. Shortly after that I should have a license and then I'll buy a bike. I'm hoping to get 1,000+ miles in before the trip. In a few weeks I'll be taking a road (motorcycle) trip to the Skagit valley.

Good times.

Shout out to our newest follower

Marion Bagley just created our first mother/daughter pair of followers!  Welcome!  We'll do our best to entertain you as much as possible.

If you are not a follower yet and you are interested, please become one.

Guidebook comment of the day

"The best massage in town is given by the blind masseuses in a little street off Samsenthai Rd, 2 blocks down from Simuang Minimart.  There are 2 blind masseuse businesses side by side and either one is fantastic: Tradional Clinic and Porm Clinic."   From the Footprint series.

If you want to go there, its in Northern Laos...

Message from a concerned friend

 suzanne:  you guys aren't really going to ride 1 motorcycle are you?  cause the Vietnamese might think you are trolling for 12 year old boys then
 me:  I can only speak for myself

Here is a pic from our motorcycle practice on Saturday

The blog has gone international!

We officially have international visitors to our blog!  Charlie sends a big hug to our visitors from Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia and the UK.  I have no clue why you're looking at this blog, but we're glad someone else besides us is actually interested!

Time well spent

Based on the prior two posts, it is clear that Nick is prioritizing his time by researching important and useful information for our trip, instead of studying for that exam he wont stop talking about...

Also, I bought a helmet and gloves for the trip this weekend.  Based on those two purchases, I'm pretty sure that I'm going to be the most "metro" guy on our trip.  This comment will make a lot more sense if you see the graphics on my helmet....

More about motorcyling in Vietnam

Riding in the big cities, especially Ho Chi Minh City, is a very different matter, and not advisable unless you are an experienced rider with a very cool head. Traffic is intense and chaotic, with a long list of unwritten rules that don't resemble traffic laws anywhere else. "Right of way" is a nearly unknown concept. Riding in HCMC is like finding yourself in the middle of a 3-D video game where anything can come at you from any direction, and you only have one life.
http://wikitravel.org/en/Vietnam

Rules of the road

Vietnam motorcycling tips: http://www.offroadvietnam.com/eng/18-125.php
My favorites:
(5) Animals are everywhere in the country or mountain roads. Dogs and chickens are the most then come water buffaloes, cows, pigs and horses...If you kill a dog or a chicken don't stop, cry and feel sorry, it's not your fault. Slow down when you spot these animals and don't hit water buffaloes, cows, pigs and horses, simply they are too big!
(8) If the police stop you (this rarely happens), just keep talking English or whatever you want and they'll soon give up and let you go in less than five minutes.

Why?

Why Cambodia/Vietnam? Why on a motorcycle? Why buy a one-way ticket? And why go with a questionable character like Danny? These are all seemingly reasonable questions asked by reasonable people expecting reasonable answers.

If you knew me at any point in my life save the last couple months, you know that I have taken the responsible approach to life: sacrificing fun for studying, running, work, etc. This was all fine and good because - as Dan Finn once told me - "sometimes you've got to do stuff that sucks in order to do stuff that rocks." Well it turns out that stuff that rocks doesn't just happen. And if you just sit around studying for actuarial exams it never will. You have to make it happen. So why buy a one-way ticket to Cambodia to aimlessly ride motorcycles around with a shady sidekick and no particular plan or destination? Because it rocks. Commence quarter-life crisis.

Sometimes you've got to do stuff that sucks in order to do stuff that rocks . . . but sometimes you've just got to do stuff that rocks.

Welcome

Wow, am I really writing on a blog?  I never thought this would happen.  So why did we start the Psuedo Mid Mid Life Crisis blog.  We're doing this to document our upcoming trip to Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos and also to share our journey along the way.  Our plan is to fly into Phnom Phen on November 24th, 2010 and then.....   

Actually, we don't have plans.  The beauty of this trip (besides Charlies muscles and Nicks smile) is that it is completely open ended.  We really do not have any plans besides our one way plane ticket to Phnom Phen, Cambodia and our main source of travel, which is going to be by motorcycle.  That is right, motorcycle.  Do we know how to drive a motorcycle?  As of three weeks ago, the answer would be no for all of us.  Nick has since gotten his motorcycle license and is cruising around on a 250 cc that he randomly bought on Craigslist two weeks ago.  My license will be coming in about a week and Charlies will be in two weeks.  So we're doing our best to get prepared.