The ‘Itinerary’
Thailand – Cambodia – Vietnam – Laos – Northern Thailand – Myanmar (aka Burma)
We aren’t really the sort to plan out much of anything beforehand, but that is the rough idea of where we’d like to go. If it works out that way, great. If not… great. One big ol’ counter-clockwise loop around SEA.
The Cast
It’s going to be the same crew as our Taiwan/Hong Kong trip (as of this post anyways)
Detective McBurger – James MacKay
Detective Diesel – Jonathan Murphy
Agent Getz – Jamie Drisdelle
Si Agent Tha Queebs – Yujung ‘Queenie’ Yan
The Car
Nope. This will be a straight up backpacking adventure. We currently have no plans to purchase another piece of shit car. Instead we’ll be travelling by all manner of Candy/Martin vehicle: planes, trains and (rental) automobiles. Probably throw some tuk tuks in there, hopefully some scooters, maybe some off road nonsense, and we’re even hoping to catch a riverboat up the Mekong.
The Expectations
We’re expecting to see some amazing history (e.g. Angkor Wat, the Bagan Temples), some gorgeous locations (Ko Pha Ngan, Chiang Mai, Luang Prabang), and hopefully some live ping pong. I’m sure we’ll meet awesome people, eat great food and probably eat some not so great food along the way too.
The Reality
We will get lost and find things we never intended to. Some good, some bad. We’ve also been known to stumble headlong into catastrophes, both man made and natural (and hopefully writing this doesn’t jinxtafuck us). But mostly we tend to stumble into catastrophes of our own design. There will undoubtedly be no shortage of aimless debauchery and embarrassingly dumb shit. That just seems to be how it goes.
The Blog
All of this will be documented (for better or worse). We’ll be blogging regularly while on the trip. From past experience, there’s ample time between places and cocktails to rip out posts.
The Un-Route
This is a term we picked up years ago on the Mongol Rally. Basically, you don’t really have a route, just a beginning and an end. There’s so much shit that can go wrong that there’s literally no point planning it all out. Take it as it comes and figure it out along the way.
In that spirit, all we have is a flight to Bangkok and whatever we bring in on our backs. No hostels, hotels, tours, rentals, reservations, flights out, nothing.
Actually, I don’t even know where we’re going to meet MacKay yet (he’ll be flying in from Christchurch, NZ) and that fool still doesn’t own a phone. Total Ashgabat-shit crazy (but that’s a story for another time).
As The Adventurists eloquently put it “The un-route is a simple yet devastatingly effective concept. There’s a start line and a finish line. Everything in between is up to you… The un-route is designed to tickle your adventure balls (or lady balls), make you snort chai out of your nose then slap you in the face with disaster. Probably all in the space of an hour.”
It’s not a bad way to travel. Not a bad way to live your life either.