Even though our one year journey around the world finished back in September, 2009, I got infected with the travel disease. It was probably somewhere in Australia that I got bit by the travel bug so I'm am continuing to do so. But this time, it's without my good buddy and former travel companion William.

So instead of posting on the Two Guys Around the World site, I've been posting travel updates one my personal website over as SamPowers.NET, a site I've had since high school.

I'm currently in Thailand learning the ways of Buddhist monks. And I have no hair on my head! Soon I will be in Ukraine and will live there for about 2 months.

And the Videos?

I don't think a week goes by that someone doesn't remind me about the videos that need to be posted on the site still. I know - I really hate leaving things hanging like that and I'm determined to sum up everything, but it will be some time. The plan is to finish them off this summer when I get back to the States. At the very least I'll post a video summing up the whole rest of the journey and a "where are they now" bit.

Until then - it's been real and you loyal TGATW fans have been a blessing to us. Thanks for the wild ride so far; let the journey continue!

Wow - has it really been 4 months since I was in England... and since the last blog update?

First of all - sorry for leaving everyone hanging for so long. Let me get you guys caught up on what went down so that you can be more understanding of why we fell off the radar the past few months.

The end of the year-long journey with William

I was traveling alone in England while William was traveling with his sister in Norway. We met back up on London were we got caught up and William made the decision to go home early.

We didn't get in a big fight or anything - William just simply ran out of money completely.

So I went to Iceland alone. Many people have asked me "How was Iceland?" I tell them that it was probably awesome, but I didn't see much of it. Basically, I had a bunch of web projects come down on me when I got to Iceland and worked ridiculous hours for the whole month I was there to get them done.

The only two things I really did in Iceland was visit the Blue Lagoon and eat lamb's head (video soon to come).

Then I flew home to Lexington, KY, USA on September 15th where I was greeted at the airport with a local news cameraman.

I spent the next three weeks in Kentucky meeting up with old friends and family and getting asked "What was your favorite place?" about 50 times... per day.

The Recent US Travel

Then on October 8th, I headed to the West Coast of the States to do a little US traveling. I've been updating the US travel on my Twitter account and posting lots of pics with my new Blackberry I won from Lonely Planet.

I started in San Francisco for a big West Coast Swing dance competition called "Boogie by the Bay." It was loads of fun and I saw old dance friends I met in New Zealand, Australia and the UK!

Then I went to Palo Alto to hang out with one of my best friends since middle school David Potter who gave me a tour of his office at Google.

I then boarded a plane to Arizona to see my brother, sister-in-law, nephew and two new nephews in Phoenix.

About 3 days later I flew to Las Vegas to see the old X3 crew and my awesome cousin Rio. I didn't do any gambling, but I did check out the Bodies exhibition with my new friend Besty.

Going from desert to snow, I flew from Vegas to Denver, Colorado to meet up with my friend Cori whom I met at a hostel in Germany. We went dancing and found some tim-tams at Target and did some tim-tam slams with hot chocolate!

And finally, I flew to Oklahoma City (where I am now) to meet up with my friend and business partner Clint to work out new cool ideas for the coming year.

What's Next?

When I got home I noticed that for the most part, nothing had changed. Everything was business as usual. I feared that I might fall into a complacency trap and pick up "normal" right where I left it.

So on the plane ride to Oklahoma, I started making a list; an official TODO list for my life. I figured if I get all my desires written down, it would help me to better align what I'm doing now to what I want to achieve in the future.

I didn't let "oh that's a crazy idea" hold me back when creating the TODO list. I was honest to myself and wrote down things like "learn to fly a helicopter" and "win 1st place in an intermediate WCS strictly division".

I'm working on a new version of my personal site to publicly display my TODO list in order to keep accountable to it.

The past year has been the craziest adventure of my life... and I'm not going to stop there. The TODO list is one way to keep my life from going back into auto-pilot.

I love my life and intend to live it to the fullest.

What About The Videos?

Many people have asked about the videos on the site and "what happened to them". Nothing yet. :) They took a little hiatus. I'm about 50% complete with the next video podcast "The Swiss Alps Adventure". I fly back home tomorrow and I should have time to finish the video this weekend.

And there are plenty more videos to come. I'm playing catch up big time, but I won't promise you the world now, just keep your eyes pealed for new videos this November.

After 11 months of non-stop traveling I have to say that I'm really starting to miss my family and friends. I don't know if "homesick" is the proper word to use, but I do want to be home soon.

Despite that, these past 3 weeks I have been given that extra push to get through to the end of the journey around the world. That push came from the Speirs family.

I met an English-American guy named Jon in the States last summer while I was interning for XXXchurch. I knew he lived around Leeds, so when I was in the area, I shot him an email and came and stayed with him, his mom and his 4 siblings.

I have to say, I've never felt so much at home while traveling abroad. Staying with the Speirs family really felt like staying with some cousins I haven't seen in a while.

I would spend hours in meaningful conversation with Jon and his mom. Jon is quite the philosophical thinker and it was hard to not talk about everything from theology to ducks in boxes. Jon is like a combination of my two good friends D-well and David Potter.

I got to go "paddling" (walking in a creek) late at night in order to get into a closed park with Jon's sisters Hanna and Alice. Once we got in, Hanna fell on her butt on multiple occasions for various reasons. We also danced some Cha Cha together on the faux stage.

Jon's youngest brother Seb made some interesting candy that seemed to be disgusting at first, but was very addictive. I think it was something like "tomaco" like Homer Simpson made.

I went with all the siblings to a crazy abandoned communications bunker at night. There were these massive satellite dishes that you could walk around in. And the abandoned bunker was like something out of horror film inside. We all went inside the dark bunker in a close group with one wee flashlight. Jon's brother Pat and Hanna both thought they heard a woman's voice inside. Spooky.

Earlier this past week Jon's cousins came in from Scotland and the fun continued. We played some great card games like Nerts (which is a Powers family favorite.) We danced a folk Scottish dance and some West Coast Swing and ate hummus by the bucket loads.

The other night I made everyone fried rice but forgot to buy the key ingredient - soy sauce. So I used whatever was left in the cabinet which wasn't much. It was the worst fried rice I ever made, but the whole family was really nice and ate it anyways.

That same night Jon's cousins Lisa and Sarah made some great hummus. And Jon's mom made an insanely tasty cheesecake topped with fresh fruit. Oh man was it good.

It was hard to have to say goodbye to the Speirs family today, but they completely re-energized me and gave me that little taste of home that I needed in order to finish out this trip. I really can't wait until they come to Kentucky and can meet my awesome family. Sarah already vowed to win in a game of Nerts against my great aunts. I don't think she knows what a mighty big commitment that is.

The one thing I wanted to do when I got to Europe was go to a Tiësto concert. Tiësto is one of my favorite electronica musicians from the Netherlands.

I got online and found that he was playing in Scotland around the same time I was planning on being in Ireland. It wasn't hard to change my plans. I hadn't bought a plane ticket to Ireland yet, so I just bought one to Edinburgh, Scotland instead.

But there was a problem. I realized the day before my flight that the concert was actually in Glasgow, not Edinburgh. I was flying to the wrong city.

But I met up with some awesome people in Edinburgh like Kinga from Hungary and Kate from Germany. And luckily a train ticket to Glasgow wasn't too terribly expensive.

When I arrived in Scotland I was surprised to find that I could barely understand anyone there. I kind of thought that everyone here would sound a little like Groundskeeper Willie from the Simpsons, but that turned out to be false.

In reality the dialect reminds me of the way my family in Eastern Kentucky speak. But such that I have to ask them "I'm sorry?" at least twice before I understand what they are saying.

But sometimes even after three times of them repeating what they said, I still can't understand them and I have to say something like, "I'm sorry, I'm not quite accustomed to the Scottish accent yet and I'm having difficulty understanding you."

They usually just laugh and try to rephrase in a more "universal" way.

Back to the concert. So I bought two VIP tickets. They were expensive. I splurged big time. But Tiësto live in Europe is euphoria.

Two tickets you say? The other one wasn't for William since he's still in Norway with his sister. So I bought two just so that I wouldn't have to go by myself.

To make a long story short, the extra ticket was going to be for the Couch Surfer that hosted me, but since I flew to the wrong city that plan got screwed up.

So I'm sitting there on the day of the concert with two VIP tickets and no one to go with. I was posting on Facebook, Twitter, and all over Couch Surfing looking for anyone who wanted to go.

Luckily about an hour before the concert started a Scottish Couch Surfer named Naill called me up and took me up on the free VIP ticket offer.

The concert was amazing. Tiësto is a beast.

The best way to describe the concert is like a really, really huge Reality Party (the parties I used to go to in college) but with lots of drunken people and only electronica music.

The concert actually really helped me to practice something I've been learning on this trip: perspective.

I really can't stand being around obnoxious drunk people. They make me angry. And there I was in a room the size of a football field shoulder to shoulder with thousands of obnoxious drunk people.

They were dancing like crazy not caring if they plowed into you with their drunken dance. People were throwing their full beer cups into the crowd drenching them with beer. I got hit a couple times. People were constantly stepping on my feet and spilling beer on me. They were screaming in my ear and blowing hideous whistles and horns.

Needless to say, that's not the type of environment I like to be in. In fact, was a hell for me.

But I was determined to not let my environment ruin my Tiësto experience. So I changed the perspective in my mind. I forced myself to not get upset about what was going on around me by trying to look at it from the perspective of the other people around me.

And an amazing thing happened. I had a fantastic time.

Standing in the middle of a busy intersection looking around with a map in your hands, stopping to take pictures of everything you see and speaking in English are all dead giveaways of your tourist status.

Most importantly, I try to speak in German only when traveling about German-speaking cities.

Having spent so much time in Spanish-speaking countries, I have really neglected my German, but since I started learning German at such a young age, I am able to produce the sounds of German words much like a native speaker.

However, I still get pegged as a non-native speaker with my horrible German grammar.

You know you're not doing too hot when the person you're talking to switches to English mid-conversation. It's happened to me a few times.

I initially get frustrated with the person who switches to English because when I wanted to speak German with a native German speaker in New Zealand or Australia, they would refuse to speak German because they were in an English-speaking country.

Oh, fair enough, but now we're in GERMANy. Not ENGLISHy. Speak German please.

For the most part, all my conversations with people on the street have stayed in German even when I screw up the grammar a bit.

Yesterday I went into a bakery and ordered a sandwich. There were two desserts there that looked tasty and I asked the baker which one he liked better in German.

After some small talk in German he asked me if I was German and I said, "No, I'm American." He replied, "Oh, American German." I said, "No, just American." He was quite confused and asked where I learned how to speak German. When I told him, "in middle school in Kentucky," he was even more confused.

I take that as a compliment.

I just recently purchased a SIM card for my phone. I was going from cell phone shop to cell phone shop trying to find the best deal. At first I was asking people if they spoke English (asking the question in German of course).

One guy responded with, "A little," and then continued in German. I'm glad he did because it made me realize that even though I didn't understand everything they said, I still understood them quite well.

I finally went into T-Moble and bought a SIM card. From asking questions about pricing to purchasing the SIM, I kept it all in German. I completely undestimated my German speaking abilities.

I just spent 2 days trekking through the Swiss Alps with William and Alison... and as always, we were ill prepared.

William had found a cool trek online that would take us from one town to another through a pass in the mountains.

When we got to the first town we didn't know exactly where we were supposed to go. Luckily the bus driver realized that we were confused and went out of his way to help us out.

I tried to explain to him where we wanted to go and he told us how to get there. I was able to understand most of what he was saying (after all, this is Swiss German we're talking about here, so it's a bit different from the German I learned in school.)

He drove us as far as his route would let him up a steep grade surrounded by snow-capped mountains.

As we we were getting off the bus the driver said, "There's snow up there." I thought, no big deal - we trekked through plenty of snow in Torres del Paine.

We walked a few kilometers to where we thought the bus driver told us to go but we couldn't find the start of the trail.

We came upon a little cabin/cafe and walked in to ask directions. When we opened the door, the two tables of locals stopped their conversations and turned to look at us standing in the doorway with our huge backpacks.

After a few seconds of awkward silence a lady from one of the tables got up and walked towards us. I tried to say something in German but failed miserably. Probably my least grammatically correct German sentence since I've been here. But she understood that we were lost.

Luckily she had plenty of maps of the trek we wanted to do and gave us several of them. She explained where we wanted to go and how long it'd take.

Before we left she said, "There's snow on that trek."

Since we got such a late start that day, we only made it up the mountain by about half a kilometer before we set up camp in the remaining daylight. We found a cozy semi-flat spot right on the mountain.

It was a beautiful camp spot.

After some warm chili, all three of us crammed into our two-man tent and got some sleep.

The next morning we headed up the mountain. There was no one else on the trail. It was sunny and we could see the trail winding up the mountain ahead of us. I estimated that we'd be on the other side of the mountain in 45 minutes.

I was wrong.

We got pretty close to the top of the mountain when we hit a patch of snow. I didn't think that was a problem until I stepped on it. It was rock-solid and super slick.

It's one thing to slip and fall on your butt when traversing hardened snow. It's quite another to slip and fall and then slide down a mountain and crash into jagged rocks. And that's what would happen to us if we slipped.

With the steaks so high, every footstep on the slick snow is excruciating as your mind plays a video of you sliding down to your death over and over.

The patch of snow wasn't that wide, so after many slow and careful steps, we all got across just fine.

We were excited about getting closer to the top when we hit another patch of hardened snow, and then another. We had crossed maybe half a dozen of them before we finally got within 100 meters of the summit.

But there was one problem. The rest of the trail was just one big giant hardened snow patch. Far too dangerous to try and traverse.

So we tried going around it. William went one way and nearly fell a few times. I'll let him tell you his side of the story.

Alison and I went another way that included climbing straight up through two large snow patches.

Luckily, these snow patches were not rock-solid, but instead were soft snow that compacted really well.

So I dismounted my camera from the tripod and used the tripod as an anchor as I tried to make reliable footholds in the snow.

Alison followed behind me using the same footholds.

With each foothold I make, my mind keeps thinking of the foothold breaking lose and careening me down the mountain.

I can hear my heart pounding in my head. My bare hands are numb from being icy and wet.

I finally make it to the dry patch and establish a firm stance to wait for Alison to catch up.

Alison almost makes it to where I am when one of her footholds slips a little. At first it looked like she regained her footing, but then she started to slip further and further.

I realized that Alison was about to fall down the mountain.

I've always wondered how I'd react in life or death situations. Would I freak out and lock up to become useless? Or would I be calm?

I jammed the camera tripod into the snow to anchor myself as best I could. I reached to Alison who was sliding downward. I could just barely catch the top of her backpack. I gripped it so hard my fist was white. I pulled up.

Alison managed to scramble up to where I was and when she was finally safe and the magnitude of what happened hit her, she wept.

Amazingly, I caught emotional end of that on video. I can't wait to release this video podcast.

Speaking of which, you have no doubt noticed we are behind on videos. Indeed. I have TONS of video footage all the way back to Vietnam that are waiting to be edited, but we've been so busy traveling all over the place that I haven't been able to.

Don't worry, the videos are coming eventually. I might be able to catch a break in the UK and in Iceland to get some edited. I have a feeling I'll be releasing them for several months even after we get back to the States.

It's safe to say that Zurich is the most expensive city we've been to yet. By at least double our last most expensive city. I'm talking $12 Big Macs at Mickey-D's and $4 train rides that take you just two measly stops from where you are.

But the water is free.

Any public fountain around here is flowing with clean, refreshingly cold water from the Swiss Alps. So I fill up my water bottle often here... and I pee a lot too.

But thanks to my buddy Kenny who is working at the Google campus in Zurich, we've had free accommodation.

Kenny has been so awesome - he's taken us out to diner (which starts at $20 a plate for any sit-down restaurant), bought us drinks, hosted us for a few days, gave us a personal tour of the Google campus and spent a day showing us around Zurich. I'm so grateful for his kindness! Thanks Kenny!

And thanks Marsel! (That's Kenny's roommate from Australia.)

Zurich is one of the coolest cities we've been to so far. Even though it's the biggest city in Switzerland, it's only got around 300,000 people living in it which isn't much more than my hometown of Lexington, KY.

It's also home to famous Swiss banks. Which, by the way, I tried to open one.

Every bank I went into said, "Sure, you can open a bank account without being a resident of Switzerland. You just have to have to meet the minimum deposit." I'd ask them what the minimum was and they'd in turn ask me which country I had my residency in.

Apparently, if you're a resident of the USA, you're minimum deposit goes up quite a bit. Of all the banks I went to, the minimum deposit for an American is anywhere between $500,000 and $5,000,000 USD. I said, "I'll think about it," and left.

After failing miserably at trying to open my own Swiss bank account, I went out to a pub with Kenny a bunch of Google employees.

I was sitting at a table outside in the chill Switzerland air with a bunch of people I had just met. After about a minute, I realized that all these guy have Ph.D's in some insane computational stuff.

Since I'm considering going for a Ph.D myself, I started asking for some advice. I want to maybe go for a Ph.D in Computational Linguistics with a focus in semantic search.

After getting some good general advice about Ph.D's, we all moved inside since it was starting to rain. There I met Paul, another Google employee from Hungary. We were making general conversation with people around the table and he made some comment poking fun at languages or something. Then Kenny said, "Whoa, hold on, Sammy's a Linguist, you don't want to insult him."

Paul looked at me and asked, "Are you really a Linguist?" and I said, "Well, my degree is in Linguistics, so I guess so," and he responded, "Me too."

He's got just a few more qualifications than I do. You see, I've got an BA in general Linguistics and he's got is Ph.D in Computational Linguistics.

Oh man was I excited! I started asking him all about his thesis and how I was thinking about going to semantic search. He gave me lots of good advice and help to direct me on the right path as far as a good thesis that would be practical for the real-world and is also good thesis material.

I find it amazing how that small conversation had such an impact on my vision for my own future. I also think it's amazing how much impact we have on other people without even knowing it.

Just last night we met up with Simi and Anna from Zurich who we met during Christmas in New Zealand. They were the ones we sailed the little wooden boats down the stream with. And I also showed Simi how to dance some West Coast Swing.

Simi said that she went to a dance venue where they had West Cost Swing and she was the only one there that knew how to dance it.

Simi and Anna also told me that they Couch Surfed through South East Asia because we told them about Couch Surfing.

Although those are pretty small examples of how we influence one another, it's weird to think that we only hung out with Simi and Anna in New Zealand for Christmas afternoon and evening.

Think about how we as mankind influence people that we're around all the time.

I hope it's a positive influence.

I have very mixed feelings about the latest big city on our travels. It was at the same time the best and worst city I have been to in my life.

As a rule, I do not like big cities. Sure, they usually have at least something interesting, and I do love a good public transportation system, but in general I have not enjoyed the time I've spent in big cities. The exception to this would be Auckland, but it doesn't really feel like a big city at all.

In big cities it takes forever to get anywhere, it's crowded, noisy, dirty and I feel completely cut off from nature, where I truly feel at home. Rome is no different. In fact, it was probably worse in these aspects than anywhere I have been. There are almost no parks within the city, graffiti and trash are everywhere and I've never seen so many tourists in my life. Plus food and accommodation are absurdly expensive.

But despite all these drawbacks, I really enjoyed visiting Rome. Why? Because it's worth it. I have never seen anything man-made that is more impressive than the buildings of ancient Rome. It is truly awe inspiring to stand inside something like the Colosseum. Constructed with ancient but revolutionary building techniques, it has endured 2000 years or neglect, vandalism, weather and war and still it is standing. You can truly feel the history surrounding you as you stand within the walls. Just be prepared to spend 15 euros to experience it. And the Colosseum is just one of countless ancient buildings in the city. The Vatican. The Pantheon. The Sistine Chapel. These are just the well known ones. Walk down nearly any random street in central Rome and you will most likely see something centuries older than the oldest building in the US. Getting to see these places up close is truly worth the fight with crowds, exorbitant prices for everything and all the other discomforts of the big city.

Pisa was equally impressive. It's not quite as old as the buildings of ancient Rome, but standing there staring at the Leaning Tower is just... weird. You really can't understand from just looking at a photograph what this building is like. For one thing, it is much bigger than I ever pictured it. I had always thought it was a pretty small tower to be able to lean so much and not fall, but it looked huge up close. Plus, it's quite hilarious to watch all the people there. Everyone has to get a picture pretending to hold up the tower. Literally every direction you look there is someone posing with their hands in the air, and someone with a camera trying to line up the classic shot.

All in all, I immensely enjoyed my time in these 2 cities in Italy. Would I ever want to live there? Definitely not. Even spending a few weeks there would probably drive me insane, but to spend a several days exploring these ancient buildings with great friends was truly an experience I will never forget.

After several months in South East Asia, our journey has finally taken us to Europe.

We were greeted by my sister Mary Audrey and her husband Michael when we finally made it to Rome. They had been waiting for us for hours and hours. And it's all my fault.

I told them that we'd be arriving  on Wednesday the 28th of May. But the 28th is a Thursday. So I was only half-way right.

So on Wednesday at 10:30 am, Mary Audrey and Michael were waiting for us anxiously at a fountain in the middle of Rome. They waited there until late that evening and we never showed.

Like a dummy, I never gave them my flight info or time, so when they went into a travel agency to check on our flight, they had to look at all flights coming in from Thailand. But our flight flew in from the UK on a connection flight so they would never find it.

Finally, around 2 pm on the 29th, we arrived in Rome and immediately sent Mary Audrey an email saying that we were headed to the fountain. I had no idea that they had been waiting all day the day before.

Luckily, Mary Audrey was at an internet cafe checking her email at that very moment and we were able to reunite a few hours later.

The first thing we did was go to a pizzaria to try authentic Italian pizza. It was so-so. Not all pizzaria's in Italy are amazing.

We spent the rest of the day unwinding and catching up with each other.

Bright and early the next morning I met my friend Alison at the airport. As she came out of the baggage claim area I noticed that she didn't have any bags on her. Her bags didn't quite make it out of the New York airport.

So we headed to the train station to meet back up with the rest of the gang.

There were crowds of people all along the train waiting for the train doors to open. When they did, the crowds tried to force their way into the tiny openings with their huge luggage.

When Alison and I finally made it to the door, Alison hopped on the train and then all of a sudden the train doors closed leaving me and a whole lot of other people outside.

I tried to yell through the thick train window, "Wait for me at the next station!" She nodded to confirm that she could understand me.

I made my way out of the people who were still crowded up against the closed train doors. I turned and waited for the train to leave, but then the doors opened again. I shoved my way through the crowd and got on board immediately.

We rode into Rome and meet up with the rest of the gang. We went to the Vatican and saw some amazing stuff including real mummies! And we did the "spinning thingy" from Episode #1 in the middle of the world-famous Vatican square.

The next day we went to the Colosseum which is amazingly huge and beautiful.

Today Mary Audrey and Michael left and I was sad. :( Alison, William and I are now headed up to Pisa to see some leaning tower action. I'm thinking about taking a picture of me making it look like I'm holding the tower up. I'm sure no one has ever thought of that before.

Two months ago I knew for a fact that I would never, ever, crash a motorcycle. How did I know this? Because I knew that I would never ride one. My whole life I've thought they were way too dangerous, and had never even considered getting on one. Then something changed all that. The "Top Gear Vietnam Special."

On the plane to Thailand, we had a fantastic selection of movies and shows we could watch on the little TV's on the back of every seat in the plane. After watching a couple episodes of "The Simpsons", I found the Vietnam special. To make a long story short, they spend 7 days riding motorcycles through Vietnam, and it is amazing.

2 weeks later, Sam and I were renting our motorcycles in Ha Noi. I won't go into the details of the entire trip. Don't worry, the videos will come out soon. I just want to describe one particular event.

Day 3, Cam Pha city on the east coast. We're just riding through, the traffic not particularly bad when suddenly (as is often the case in Vietnam) someone pulls straight out in front of Sam. He managed to stop, but I saw it just a split second too late and when I hit the brakes my tires found no traction on the wet, slimy pavement. I went into a slide, turned sideways and the next thing I knew I was sitting on the ground with a nice bruise on my hip and some very muddy jeans.  I was a little shaken, but otherwise fine.  With the help of a friendly local from a shop across the street, we got my bike fixed and were on our way.

3 weeks later, we'd been living in Chiang Mai Thailand for a while and I got tired of being confined to places within walking distance or taking son taus (pickup trucks turned into taxis).  I decided I would go rent a motorbike since they are ridiculously cheap (mine was $3 a day).  Plus the traffic in Chiang Mai, compared to Vietnam, is almost civilized.

For a week I rode around without incident.  Looking for good books, exploring the city and some of the mountains nearby.  It was very nice, and I started to think about how nice it would be to have a motorcycle when I got home.

Sunday morning, I went with two of our couchsurfing friends to Wat-Umong, an awesome temple, and then got wonderful Thai massages for $3.  On the way back, we're riding along when a truck in front of me suddenly decides to stop in the middle of the road.  I saw this and started to slow down with plenty of time to stop, not noticing that this section of the road was covered with a light dusting of dirty and gravel.  I found myself in the very familiar situation of my bike sliding sideways.  I didn't fall off the back this time, though, I continued to slow down controlling the slide.  Just when I thought I was actually not going to crash, my tires hit clean pavement, came to a screeching halt and threw me directly off the bike.

For a minute I just sat there in the street next to my bike.  I really couldn't believe I had just crashed again.  Alwyn and Paul rode up on their bike to see if I was ok, and other than a nasty looking scrape on my palm, I was.  They drove me back to my apartment and Alwyn skillfully helped me deal with my injured hands.  As she was pouring hydrogen peroxide on my hands and cleaning dirt out of my scrapes, I decided.  I'm so over motorcycles.

For 7 months we have been surfing Couches around the world. It has been amazing and we've met tons of awesome people. But we have always been the one surfing the couch. We have never hosted anyone.

Until this month.

Mid-May marked the 8th month anniversary since the beginning of our journey. And this whole month we've been staying in Chiang Mai, Thailand. We rented a nice serviced apartment called "The Grand Napat" and finally changed our Couch Surfing status to "Couch Available".

Yay!

We have hosted people from Argentina, Canada, Wales and several from England.

I thought the experience would be different as a host. But in reality, it wasn't all that different. It was just as fun as surfing someone else's couch.

There were two couples from the UK that stayed with us for a few nights. After their stay they found some longer-term accommodation in Chiang Mai. But we still got together many times to hang out.

We went for pizza (several times... like every time... James and Stacey are obsessed with pizza), we had races in the pool, we watched sweet movies, we hung out with my friend Ploy from here in town, we played with tigers... and Paul and Alwen even helped doctor William up! (He should have already blogged about "being doctored up", but I won't steal this thunder).

It has been a fantastic month in Chiang Mai. And the whole time I've been working on web projects to fund the rest of our journey (and pay taxes...)

BTW - I should clarify the ambiguity in the last paragraph. I'm not funding William. He's still running on funding "from other sources". It sounds shady because it is. Just kidding... kind of. No really, I'm kidding... ;)

And in just a week and a half we'll be in Rome! And my sister and her husband will be there! And so will my good friend Alison from college! I can't wait! Europe will be so AWESOME!... and so stinking EXPENSIVE!

Side note: Since I've been working feverishly at web projects, I haven't been able to push out the Vietnam Special video series. I can't promise I'll be able to release it this week, but know that it is on it's way soon!

Despite the fact that we have run out of the original $10,000 budget for our year-long journey around the world, we are not going home.

I've been able to get some extra cash by doing web development work on my MacBook Pro and William has gotten money from other sources.

So we've got enough money to finish out the adventure.

For now we've settled down in Chiang Mai, Thailand for about a month. We've got a nice apartment so that I can finish out some big web projects.

When I say "nice" apartment, I mean, "the nicest serviced apartment in Chiang Mai." We've got two rooms and two full baths, a nice kitchen and livingroom. It's also got a pool and workout facilities.

And the kicker? It costs almost the exact same price as the crappy hostels in Australia.

Because of the riots in Bangkok and the swine flu scare, people just aren't traveling to Thailand. Which means the foreigners that are here are getting sweet deals during this tourism slump.

By the way - the riots that you see on TV make Thailand look like it's on the verge of civil war. We haven't seen any riots or craziness go down since we've been here. The riots took place in a few small areas of Bangkok. Everywhere else is pretty much business as usual... except for the whole tourism slump.

Oh, and if you haven't noticed already, I've made some changes to the site. Most notably, the photo section is now thumbnailed, the video page now shows the popular videos on the right and I updated the press page with some media hype we've been getting. Check it out.

While exploring Vietnam by motorbike, I had a very strange encounter with some Vietnamese farmers.  Sam has already detailed the beginning of this scene in his recent blog, but he did not explain what happened to me afterwards.

I had had a few shots of their very strong alcohol, not as many as Sam but enough to feel a little light headed, and we headed off down the road to find a place to recover.  A little ways down the road, I realized that I had forgotten the map back at the house we'd stopped in.  We had gotten it out to verify with them that we knew where we were going.  I knew it would be near impossible to find an English map outside of an tourist areas, so I decided to head back and get it while Sam waited for me by the road.

When I got to the place, I was greeted by smiles and handshakes just like before.  I tried to tell them that I had forgotten my map, but of course they didn't understand.  Then I noticed it sitting on the table by where we had sat, so I went over and picked it up.  It was at that point the atmosphere somehow changed, and I must admit the scene is now a bit blurry in my mind.

As soon as I picked up the map, one of the guys walked over and took it from me.  He started pointing on the map and talking to me, but of course I couldn't understand what he was saying.  I assumed he was talking again about where we were going, so I tried to indicate on the map that we were headed to Cat Ba Island.  He just kept talking to me and pointing at the map.

At this point I started to get a little frustrated, I just wanted to take my map and hit the road.  When I tried to take it he wouldn't let me have it.  I reached for it again and this time he grabbed my wrist with his other hand.  I tried to tell him I just want the map so I can go, but obviously he still didn't understand.  I tried to pull my arm away but he tightened his grip and wouldn't let go.

That was when I decided I just need to get out of there.  I quickly grabbed the map with one hand and using a simple self defense move, broke his grip on my wrist and backed off.  Another of the previously friendly guys came over and they both stood between me and my motorbike, talking to me and pointing at the map.  I had no idea what this was all about, but I knew it was time for me to leave.  I quickly pushed passed them, jumped on the bike and rode off, a bit shaken and extremely confused.

Obviously I had missed something in the exchange.  I had just come back to get my map.  Didn't they understand that?  The only thing I could thing of was that maybe they'd thought I had given them the map as a gift, and when I took it back they got angry.  It didn't seem that way though, it was more like they were trying to show me something on the map.  I guess I'll never know.

Photo by ImageMD.

** Update May 3rd: Even though we've run out the original budget, we're not going home yet. **

We came, we saw, we blew 10 G's in 7 months.

We failed to travel to all the places we wanted to under $10,000, but we learned that traveling under $10,000 is a completely obtainable objective.

1) Don't try to see the whole world all at once.

That was our first mistake. We planned to go to 17 countries which is a lot of travel expense for buses, trains, airplanes, taxis and old pickup trucks full of chickens.

Slow down - you've got your whole life to travel. Stay in once place for a few months and soak up the culture there.

2) Stick to "cheap" countries

When you're on a tight budget, traveling to Europe, New Zealand, Australia, the States and other "expensive" countries, your dollar doesn't go very far.

To get by on a $10,000 budget in these countries, you've got to cut down to the bare essentials. You'll eat rice and beans everyday, your bed will be a mat on the floor of some stingy apartment shared by 10 other people, and you'll do nothing all day long because whatever it is, it's too expensive.

Go to places like Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Costa Rica. Your dollar will go far in these countries.

Not only will you live "comfortably," but you'll have extra money to go on weekend excursions through the jungle for $30, or go for a one-hour oil massage for $6, or eat at the fanciest restaurant in town for $6.

In fact, if you chose about 4 "cheap countries" to live in for the year, you won't even need the whole $10,000. You could do that under $7,000 easily.

3) Couch Surf - it's way more than just free accommodation

If you don't have a profile set up on CouchSurfing.com yet, create one.

CouchSurfing.com is an online community of travelers who open up their house to you for free.

For example, if you're going to Rome for a week, instead of paying $130 per night for a hotel, you can search the Couch Surfing database for people in Rome who have an "available couch". The search will pull up a plethora of hosts in Rome. You can browse the host profiles with comments from previous surfers to ensure they are good people.

Once you find someone that you want to stay with, you just send them a "Couch Surfing request" and most of the time they get back with you soon.

Couch Surfing not only saves you loads of money on accommodation, but you also learn so much about the culture you're visiting and you get to befriend the locals.

Couch Surfing is the way to travel - whether you're on a budget or not.

Photo by The Consumerist.

We weren't really that drunk. But we were really lost! Let me explain.

It all started on the morning of day 2 of our motorbike journey around the north part of Vietnam. Oh yeah - we spent a week on motorbikes touring remote areas of Vietnam.

We stopped for gas to start the day off on a full tank. Across the street were high-ptiched screaming noises coming from behind a big truck backed up to a building. I walked across the street to check it out.

As I got closer, the screams became louder and louder. It was quite defining. People were shouting and poking big sticks into the truck through holes in the sides. Pigs spilled out onto the ground on their heads and butts with each poke from the men with sticks.

It was a pig market.

There was a walled off area the men they were dumping the pigs into. Several people were tying up the pigs and putting them on scales. Others were smacking them on the butts to get them to move out of the way.

One lady purchased a pig and was having trouble loading it onto her motorbike. This is a full-size pig we're talking about! So William helped her get it on the bike.

As she drove off, a man from the other side of the building motioned for me to come into his house. I came in and saw a number of men circled around a meal cross-legged. They motioned for me to sit down.

They offered up some rice and meat. It didn't look at all appetizing, but I ate it in fear that they would be insulted if I refused.

The meat was so full of gristle, that it was impossible to chew, so I tried to swallow it whole but part of it was stuck in my back teeth. Half of the chunk of gristle was in my throat and the other half was completely stuck in between my molders.

I have no idea how my face looked at that point, but it probably wasn't a pleasant one.

I got my tongue underneath the gristle and lifted up. Instead of dislodging from my teeth, it came back up from my throat. Not pleasant.

After a few minutes of trying to communicate anything to each other, the man that invited me in poured a clear liquid from an old plastic soda bottle into a shot glass. He handed it to me.

Moonshine.

Generally speaking I try to avoid drinking hard liquor. I have never been flat-out drunk before and I don't have a desire to be. But knowing that in some cultures, it's very insulting to refuse food or drink when someone offers it, I took a sip.

Very disgusting stuff.

Before each sip we all had to do a "cheers". I was finally able to choke down the moonshine and was happy that it was over. But I was wrong.

The man took my empty shot glass and filled it to the top again.

Dang it! I tried to communicate that my stomach couldn't take it (although, I'm a big boy and I have a really high tolerance for alcohol.) But they just kept pouring and "topping me off".

This went on for about 45 minutes and I had drank about 5 shots of hard-core moonshine. At this point, I'm starting to feel the affects. A little light-headed. Not totally balanced. I think it's safe to say I was drunk.

Being drunk while driving a motorbike in one of the most dangerous countries to ride a motorbike is not something I wanted to do. So William and I tried to "wait it off" for a few minutes at the mans house who was now serving us tea.

A few minutes isn't enough to wait out being drunk and if we stayed any later, they'd start shoving moonshine down our throats again. So we made a decision to drive down the road a few meters and pull over to hang out for an hour or two.

So we said our goodbyes. It was almost like they were saying a long farewell to a good friend. The man who invited me in gave me a big hug and a big kiss on the cheek. They were all really happy to have us over for lunch.

So we drove a few meters down the road and stopped at a cafe type place and ate Choco-Pies to try and absorb the alcohol.

After we had sobered up, we headed towards our next destination which was only a few hours away. Or so we thought.

Seven hours later, the sun is about to set and we are completely lost in a tiny village on an island.

Expect to see the rest of this story in a special video series; The Two Guys Around the World: "Vietnam Special" inspired by Top Gear. It's a seven-day, seven-video series about our motorbike adventure in the north of Vietnam. Coming in a few weeks.

Before coming to Vietnam we've heard many people say that they absolutely HATED it. And will never go back. They say the people there are rude and they had a horrible time.

Then others say they LOVED it. And can't say enough good things about it.

William and I have been here for about a week and really like it here.

The people are really friendly, the food is good, and stuff is cheap.

Now, there are some things here that I would have to get used to if I were staying long term.

For instance, people stare at you here. I don't mean you see them staring at you out of the corner of your eye and you look at them and they look away, I'm talking you see them stare at you and you look at them and they KEEP staring at you. It's so weird.

But usually if you just nod your head and smile they'll do the same in return. It's just a thing that they are comfortable doing here - staring at you.

Also, personal space is non-existant here. I'm already used to being close to people on buses and things after spending so much time in Guatemala, but here they take it a step further. They're "all up in my business."

I'll be just working away on my computer - editing a video, or programming code and some guy will come up from behind me and just stare at my computer screen. He doesn't even try to be covert about it.

I always stop and look at them as if to say, "Can I help you?" But they just keep staring at the screen. The first time it happened, I thought it was just a nosey guy, but it's happened over three times so far. Must be another culture thing.

We've found a little town that doesn't see many tourists. We stayed at this hotel and everyone treated us like a celeb. They even took pictures of us with their cell phones.

Of the entire hotel staff, there was one person that could speak a little English. To order our diner, we drew pictures of a pig and a cow and some rice and noodles. It's quite an effective way to order food.

When we got our food (which was soup with pork and beef) we started eating with chopsticks and everyone was staring at us and laughing. Then one came over and showed us how to eat the soup "properly" by using the chopsticks to put the noodles on a weird looking spoon.

You could tell they were really excited to have us there at their hotel. Everyone here is so nice and full of smiles - what's not to like?

Right now my face feels warm and is no doubt red with embarrassment.

We arrived here in Ho Chi Minh (in the south of Vietnam) yesterday evening from Cambodia. We quickly found a cheap hotel and realized that we were really hungry, so we decided to discuss our "secret plan" for Vietnam over dinner.

I told William that I was really interested in seeing important places during the Vietnam war. I told him that I really wanted to go to Saigon which I was pretty sure was in the center of Vietnam a few hundred kilometers north of where we are in Ho Chi Minh.

We decided that Saigon was the perfect place to carry out our plan.

That night I hopped onto Wikipedia to dig into this country's history and suddenly realized how little I knew.

We were already in "Saigon".

Saigon got renamed to "Ho Chi Minh" after the Vietnam War (which is called the "American War" here).

Today we visited the Reunification Palace (formerly known as Independence Palace) which was the "white house" of South Vietnam during the war. In 1975 the war ended when north Vietnamese tanks busted down the gates of the palace.

It was so weird to be in such a historical place that was so famous back in the 70's.

Today most teens, and sadly, a lot of people my age don't even know what the Reunification Place is. I knew what it was, but there were a lot of things I didn't know.

History is a story coming from a perspective. The history I learned in America is different than the history the Vietnamese learn, or the Germans learn, or the Africans learn.

For example, the Vietnam War history I got in the American public schools never mentioned the My Lai Massacre. That's a significant event to forget to mention.

This isn't a political forum and I'm not a hippie that thinks that we should poop rainbows, but in my opinion, war is never a good thing.

War sucks.

It does. Seriously.

William and I have been busy little bees doing cool things in Cambodia which would explain why I'm a little behind on video podcasts.

We've been motorbiking around Cambodian villages, relaxing in hammocks on tiny islands, walking through temple ruins created by a culture in the 12th century, eating crickets and spiders, and most importantly, hanging out with monkeys.

All of that stuff will be coming to a video podcast shortly, but for now to keep you from being at a complete loss of video fun, I present to you a new series: the microsode.

A microsode is even shorter than a minisode, but I can release them when I'm behind on minisodes.

To kick-off the microsode series, I have posted the long-awaited video of William learning to surf in Lennox Head, Australia. I know William's mom has been anxiously awaiting that one.

Right now we're in Phnom Penh again which is our last stop before going into Vietnam. We have quite an enjoyable plan for Vietnam, but it's a secret. You'll know soon enough.

Alright, I'm off to go edit some minisodes... and at about 5 hours per minisode, I'll be going at it for a while...

I had no idea what to expect before coming to Cambodia.  We came here mostly on a whim, wanting to get out of Bangkok, and only knowing a couple of towns that we wanted to go to.  We first ended up in a hotel called "Me Mates Place" in the middle of Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital.

It turned out to be a wonderful stroke of luck.  The place was very nice, reasonably priced, and the staff was amazingly friendly.  Sometimes a bit too eager to try and sell tours and touk-touk rides, but mostly they just like talking to us.  The area of the hotel was great as well.  Hot, dirty, crowded, and completely absent of tourists.  We were able to walk around without constantly being asked to buy something, or get in a touk-touk.

After the chaos and psuedo-culture of Khao San road in Bangkok, it was great to be able to see real Southeast Asian city life.  The endless little shops and street venders, the insane motorcycle traffic, and people everywhere.  It is crazy, but at least it's real.  This is the kind of thing people don't get to experience when they only go to the tourist-spots.  Sure, it may be a little harder to find a good internet connection, or a waiter that speaks English, but to me it's totally worth it.

We spent a couple days in Me Mates Place, not doing anything, really.  We just enjoyed being there.  Afterwards, at the recommendation of fellow travel-blogger Nomadic Matt we went to the tiny fishing town of Kep.  It was a great recommendation.

The first day, we noticed a motorcycle rental place right by our hotel.  Expecting it to be expensive, we checked it out and found that we could get two motorcycles for the entire day for just $13!  How this is profitable, I have no idea.  We gladly accepted their offer and spent the whole day cruising around the countryside, just taking it all in.  It was as much a cultural experience as exploring the capital.

There aren't anywhere close to the number of people in the country as there are in the city, but compared to the Kentucky farmland I'm used to seeing, there are people everywhere.  Riding on these roads requires extreme concentration.  When someone wants to merge into traffic, they just pull out, and it's up to you to not hit them.  There is no such thing as right-of-way in this country, but as long as you pay attention and just expect everyone to pull in front of you, it's not so bad.

On the way back to the hotel that afternoon, we road through a hilly section surrounded by big trees, I was concentrating on the curves up ahead and after a minute, realized that Sam wasn't behind me.  I turned around and saw him with his camera looking into the trees with a huge smile on his face.  I went back to see what he was looking at, and realized it was monkeys!  Lots of monkeys!  They were climbing in the trees all around us, even little baby ones.  I've never seen wild monkeys before, so it was a really wonderful moment for me.  I can't believe I just rode by them without even noticing.  The exciting times on this trip just don't seem to end.

I still can't believe it.

Not only did we win our category - Best Video Blog, but we also won the big one - the grand prize - Best Travel Blog of 2009 by Lonely Planet!

First of all, a huge thank you to YOU. All you who supported us. We are definitely feeling the love.

And thanks to Lonely Planet for this huge honor. We're just two Kentucky boys and to get recognized by one of the largest guidebook publishing companies in the world is a big deal for us.

I pour tons of hours into this site and the videos and it really feels good to get recognition for all the hard work.

But there are loads of other people who were up for nominations who put just as much hard work and love into their site like Craig and Linda with the Indie Travel Podcast. They won "Best Podcast". Congrats guys! You've got to listen to their podcasts in your car on the way to work. It'll inspire you to travel!

One of the "competitors" in our category was Amtrekker. This guy's got some pretty cool videos and I remember finding his videos on iTunes before we even started our journey. I suggest watching one of his recent videos, "Making Moonshine". Quite funny.

And then there are great sites that for whatever crazy reason didn't get nominated at all, like Nomadic Matt. I've been following his blog since the beginning of our journey and he's given us some crucial advice for South East Asia. Definitely deserves some recognition.

And there are LOADS of other high-quality blogs that I have on my Google Reader like "Everything Everywhere", "Irish Fireside" and my friend Benny at "Around the world in 80 Mays".

So we also won some pretty awesome stuff.

As the grand prize winners we won the entire 2009 Lonely Planet library - that's $10,000 worth of nearly 500 books! And I'm having them all sent to my parent's house. Sorry mom - I meant to tell you to look out for 500 books to show up on your doorstep. I'm sure you have plenty of extra storage with that whole remodeling project you're doing... or not. Sorry!

We also won a brand new Blackberry Bold! Woo hoo! We only get one - and it's mine. William already has one anyways but he still tried to claim it. Yeah right.

We also won some new Adobe software called "Visual Communicator" that has lots of cool effects and music clips to spice up our video podcasts. I swear by Adobe and already use Premiere, After Effects and Photoshop to make our video podcasts, so this one's another exciting win.

We also won a solar charger and $100 worth of international call credit and a bunch of other cool stuff.

Thanks again to all you who support us! We love you guys.

Me: You want to go to Cambodia today?
William: Ok.

We'd been in Bangkok, Thailand for just 5 days and were already itching to get out and do some adventure-monkeys-and-elephans-in-the-jungle type stuff.

We've finally took some sound advice from our online friend Nomadic Matt and got off the well beaten, get-scammed-fast, guide-book-guided, tourist-trap road through South East Asia.

So we begin our counter-clockwise journey through South East Asia in the capitol of Cambodia, Phnom Penh. Don't worry, I don't know how to pronounce it properly either.

It's awesome here! I saw like 4 white people this whole day! Everyone else is a local. And sure, there's still people here who try to hassle you to get a Tuk-Tuk or taxi, but you don't get swarmed like ants on a honey as soon as you step out of your hotel.

Interesting things from Cambodia - they used up an ENTIRE PAGE in my passport to place their massive visa sticker. And then added another stamp on another page after that. Dude - I've got more countries to go to!

The people here speak surprisingly good English. I'm trying to learn as much Khmer as possible. I start with what's most important: "Thank You" (Akun) and "Dessert" (forgot this one, but I used it earlier).

This country uses the US dollar as their currency. They have their own currency called the "riel," but they only use riel in place of US coins. So if something costs $3.50, you'd pay 3 USD and 2,000 riel.

"Gas stations" here are quite different from what we're used to in the States. This one is better described via video. I'll make sure to get some video footage of it for a minisode.

The people here are really friendly. Lots of smiles.

Tomorrow we head to a little coastal town called Kep (again going on Matt's advice). We've heard that it's a cool little beach paradise that's more "authentically Cambodian". It's costing us just $6 to get there. Nice.

The problem is the location.  We're right in the middle of a big tourist area of the city.  It's crowded, loud, dirty and it feels like someone is constantly trying to scam me wherever I go.  Possibly because the first thing that happened when we got here was to get scammed by  taxi drivers.  Whenever I've gone walking through the city, people are constantly trying to get me to by things, tell me my fortune, or get me in their taxi.  I always ultimately get fed up and go back to the hotel.

There is one redeeming quality to this city, however.  The food.  At a street vender, a good plate of pad thai is about a dollar.  Spring rolls, fresh fruit drinks, and many other delicious things are even cheaper.  In a nice restaurant, the food is about 3 or 4 dollars a plate and quite amazing.

Yesterday I took a cooking class, which was also quite cheap, and learned to make 2 of my favorite dishes, pad thai and green curry, as well as spicy prawn soup which is quite amazing.  We made everything from scratch, all the sauces and spices.  We even made the coconut milk.  Everything was delicious.

I'm sure my opinion of Thailand will improve as I see more of it.  In a couple days we will be staying with a couch surfer, who hopefully will be able to show us the city outside the tourist traps.  I know there is a beautiful and fascinating culture to be discovered here, I just haven't figured out how to find it yet.

We hadn't been in Thailand for 10 minutes before we got scammed.

We were in the airport and I had just gotten some money out of the ATM. We needed to get to a cheap hotel called "D&D Inn" which was recommended to me by my buddy Ben from Brisbane, Australia.

There were some guys on the floor above us looking down at us saying, "Taxi!" So we went up to follow them to their taxi.

First red flag - none of these guys had any official taxi company logos on their shirts and none of them were wearing an official badge.

But I kept following them thinking that it's just done a little differently here in Thailand.

Second red flag - we got to the car and it was unmarked.

This looks shady as heck. I told the guys, "Look, this car doesn't say 'Taxi' on it." They ensured me that it was the official airport taxi, that's why. William had already put his bag in the trunk. A little hesitant, I slid into the back of the car.

Third red flag - all three of the guys that were taking us to the car got in with us.

That was it. Something seriously wrong is going on here. The car started to pull out but I demanded that they pull over and let us out. They acted all confused but eventually let us out.

One of the guys kept hassling me all the way back inside the airport. We eventually lost him though.

William and I got a drink of water and then headed back out to see if we could get into a car that actually said, "Taxi" on it with a single taxi driver.

We were met by some other guy who tried to get us into another unmarked car. I told him that I was only going in a car that said "Taxi" on it. So he took us across the road to several marked taxis. There stood the shady guy who hassled me into the airport. It was the guy's friend I guess.

He told us it'd be $20 USD to get us in D&D Inn. All we had were baht (Thailand's currency). He said, ok, just 1,500 baht then. At the time I didn't do the math, but 1,500 baht is the equivalent of $42. Rip off.

So we get in and the hassle guy got in with us. As the driver started to drive away from the airport the hassle guy started saying, "You pay now! You pay now!" We were like, "Dude, chill!" And then he made the taxi driver pull over and demanded that we pay $1,500 apiece.

I was like, "Hail-no! You told us 1,500 baht total, not 1,500 baht apiece." He wouldn't move until we paid. So, just to get out of the situation, we agreed to pay a total of 2,000 baht ($57 USD) which is way more than you're supposed to pay for a taxi here.

I gave him 1,500 baht and told him we'd pay final 500 baht when we got to the destination. He didn't like that deal, but he took the money and got out of the cab. Then the taxi driver took us to the hotel where we paid him 500 baht.

Then the taxi driver tried to hit us up for more money saying that he paid two tolls on the way over and we owed him 70 more baht.

I obviously didn't give him anything more.

A few tips when you travel to Thailand:

• Get a random taxi off the street - not one that someone suggests to you.
• Insist that the taxi driver use the meter. If he say's it's broken, find another cab.
• Some taxi and tuk-tuk drivers will tell you that some special attraction is open today only for a special holiday. They're full of crap and trying to scam you.
• If you want to get from the Bangkok airport to somewhere in the city, it should cost around 300 baht ($8.50 USD).

If you're one of the brave ones that is considering bringing your laptop with you while you're traveling, you're no doubt concerned about it getting thieved.

I'm right there with yea. I'm traveling with an expensive MacBook Pro. She's a beaut. And I'm super-anal about who can touch her.

I'm asked all the time from people at hostels if they can use may computer. I have absolutely no problems saying, "No."

Here's a few tips to keep your laptop safe:

• Keep the laptop on you at all times. If you can't because you're trekking or something, keep it in a locker in a hidden area. Pay more to get more security if you have to.
• Don't flash it around the wrong areas or at the wrong times. Most people that have been mugged were mugged because they advertised that they were loaded.
• When walking publicly with your laptop, act like you own the place. If you're wandering around in aimless circles, looking at street signs and maps, you've got a big sign on your head that says, "Rob me!" Even if you're lost, walk briskly like you've got somewhere to go. Jump into a store and ask the guy behind the counter how to get where you're going.
• Don't leave the laptop alone on the table while you go take a pee. It won't be there when you get back.
• While sleeping in hostels, slide it under your bed and put your other stuff in front of it.

Ok, so you've followed all the rules, and your laptop still got jacked. No worries, as long as you did a little pre-theiving planning, you can fight back.

• Install anti-theft software like Undercover (for Mac) and LoJack (for PC). Once activated, Undercover will take a picture of whoever is using your computer every six minutes and send it to you. It also takes a screenshot of the desktop and sends that as well. The people at Undercover also work with the local police where it was stolen and you usually get your computer back.
• Log out! Most computers stay logged in once you shut the lid. So that means, if the computer gets jacked, the thief has accesses to all your stuff. If you log out and password protect your user account, the thief can't see your stuff.
• Create a gust user. Guest users have limited abilities on the computer and don't need a password to log in. Once a thief jacks your computer, he will only be able to access the gust account - not your stuff.
• Make Ctl+Alt+Del blow up the computer (Mac only). Most thieves are PC users, so they'll no doubt take your mac and try to "break in" with the crazy key combo. Boy will they be in for a surprise!

If you take simple precautions with your computer and do a little pre-theiving preparations, your mind will be more at ease as you travel with your precious baby.

Every once in a while you meet someone while traveling that has a special quality about them that makes you say, "What make them different?"

A few days ago as I was staying a hostel in Coolangatta, I noticed a guy - looked Asian, that was kind of quiet, but you could tell he was a nice guy. Always giving a friendly nod and such.

A few days had passed and I had seen him several times passing through the hostel, but had never said anything to him.

One evening, I was cleaning dishes in the kitchen and saw him cooking. I couldn't take it anymore, I had to say something.

"I'm Sammy by the way," as if we were already in mid-conversation.

"I'm Shoyu," which sound's exactly like "Show You". Although I had never heard that name before, I figured it'd be easy to remember. Just "Show You" something.

A saw him a little later on and I said, "Hey Shome!"

We laughed about the name blunder and began a conversation that went on for ages.

Shoyu lives in the mountains of Japan in a Buddhist Temple. How cool is that?!

As soon as he told me he was from Japan, I told him a few Japanese phrases I learned from the Japanese kids I hung out with in Middle School like, "Awesome," and "Will you marry me?"

We started talking about languages and being the obsessive linguist that I am, I started asking him about Japanese grammar.

After a few translations like, "The boy kicked the ball", I quickly picked up on how Japanese denotes the subject and the object. It's done by inflections on the words, not the word order like in English.

I quickly threw back a different sentence in Japanese at Shoyu. "The ball kicked the boy." He was quite impressed that I figured out that aspect of Japanese grammar so quickly.

Japan is now on one of my must-see countries list.

Before Shoyu left the next day, we sat outside waiting for his bus. He pulled out a tiny box and opened it to reveal a bunch of colorful little square sheets of paper with designs on them.

He said, "Pick one," and I pointed to the red sheet with little white flowers on it.

He pulled it out and carefully began to fold it into different shapes. After about a minute, he handed me an origami crane - perfectly folded together.