love and the apocalypse

I never expected any of this. Noone did.
Of course all the defining moments in my life have been a surprisingly intricate and delicately woven  junction of surprises and accidents.
Its March 2020. The entire world is in a self and government imposed quarantine due to the sudden appearance of a virus so contagious, that it has spread to every country on the planet in a matter of months.
In Europe Asia and the USA, all places where I have friends, all shops are closed. group gatherings forbidden. everyone is suddenly locked indoors and waiting...
This crisis is affecting everyone in different ways, but my fiance and I belong to a certain group of people left waiting as the pandemic accelerates across the globe.
My fiance and I were approved for a K1 fiance visa after waiting and submitting paperwork for 8 months. Only days later our governments stopped all travel between our countries.
8 months of waiting. together only on messenger video. Waiting for approval and then a virus sweeps the planet and we cannot join.
You see, this isn't an ordinary courtship or relationship at all. The bitter heartache of being blocked from my partner is difficult, yet it fits a pattern of lessons from the universe that her and I have been experiencing for the last 5 years.
I live in the United States of America. My fiance lives in France. We met due to another beautiful accident, in Kerala India, 2015.
Ever since the day we met, we have been partners on a journey that is part spiritual pilgrimage and part cosmic video game with an untold ending. Each level we climb, the challenges increase.
So now here we are after traveling through 6 countries together, living the entire time out of backpacks like gypsies, surviving everything that happens when you decide to tramp around a 3rd world country only to return home to a global pandemic. Its a story beyond belief and one that has to be told. Even if noone ever reads this shit its written down and I guess that makes it real. Real as anything else in this short existence.
So this story begins in Allepey Kerala India, December 2015.

Well, I made it back to the states in one piece, no signs of intestinal parasites, or any other various ailments common with sailors and the like...

It was really amazing to be immersed completely in a culture so foreign from mine in every way.
sights, sounds, smells, tastes, these are all things we take for granted because we are surrounded by the same things everyday.
experiencing so many sights, smells, sounds, etc. that I had never experienced in my whole life on a daily basis, was actually sometimes pretty overwhelming.
Here are some examples.
I'm walking down a street where I can smell the open sewer really strong, but as I approach the temple it starts to smell beautiful like spices and roses.
And I realized, for the first time why they burn incense in sacred areas.
Eating a hot curry soup and then biting a green leaf in the soup that turned out to be a super strong icy tasting mint leaf.
Swimming in the ocean and getting surrounded by glow in the dark mossy stuff.
the plankton in the ocean around Cambodia are phosphorescent, and glow when disturbed.
its amazing!
sitting on mats in the jungle sweating like crazy, and then noticing all the local people have bamboo fans and they don't look sweaty.
I never knew until that moment why Ive always seen Chinese/Asia associated with fans...

The other travelers I met were all people leading inspirational lives, and I was fortunate to have befriended them.
 finding value in life experience as opposed to finding it in money was a common topic of discussion among us all.
I met a lot of really good hearted people who helped me, even with money, and never expected anything back.
I now know things now about other cultures, and other natural environments, that I couldn't learn from a book or TV.
 I learned a great life lesson, from traveling this year.
the whole time I was traveling I had no idea exactly where I was going or how to actually get there.
I just pointed myself in a direction and headed that way. In the end it was perfect.
Even after being completely lost, or taking a train 300 miles the wrong way, or losing my money, everything always worked out if I just had a little patience.
I'm gonna remember that...

my route

For anyone planning a Thailand trip this might be handy.

Heres the route I took through southeast Asia.

SOUTH THAILAND

I started in Bangkok, went south to chumpron by train, then to puket by bus, then drove a rented SUV through the jungles of trang, down to the border of malaysia, then up to surit thannee, and then drove back to puket. then I took a bus to surit thanee and a boat to ko phagn nagn. then train to bangkok.

CAMBODIA

bus to pnom phnem Cambodia, then car ride to siem reap (angkor wat), bus to sihanukville, then bus to pnom phnem again to fly to Laos.

LAOS

flight to luang prubang, mini van to vang vieng, then minivan to vientiane.

NORTH THAILAND

Bus from laos to thai border then minivan to chang mai, minivan to pai, then minivan back to chang mai, and train to lop buri, then train to Bangkok.

Boise bus

Shoot, this is just as much fun as exploring Bangkok by bus!
I was supposed to make it downtown for lunch with Brett but it's 1pm and I'm still somewhere in garden city..
Maybe the wrong bus? Eh who knows, it's a nice tour of the "Boise area"

Burgers

I'm laughing now because I was whining that a burger cost 7$ in south Korea.
I had a beer and a burger in Seattle and it was 18$ before a tip!

No wifi

I haven't had wifi in days so you'll see a mass of posts. I'll post one more time when I get home, it was nice having buddies commenting on the pics, I'll post my videos on YouTube soon...

This means you!

I hope this sign isn't important.
I don't have a clue what's going here...