It's been 6 months...

...on the road and time for a quick recap. But first, 2 confessions. I have read some other travel blogs and thought to myself, "This person needs to take a writing course or 7" or "This guy has gotta be 12 years old" or "Who writes this crap? Can this be real?" The thoughts that the author is trying to convey is done in such a manner that it either sounds like a 2 year old wrote it OR the author is trying too hard to sound like a published writer (using big words and what not) which in turn makes it all sound like crap. Then I went back and read our blog and realized that ours is a combination of both. No offense to any of you other "writers" but there is a reason why authors get paid to do what they do and I am unemployed in Bangkok right now.

Second - The 6 months have been awesome to say the least but I think I'm getting burned out. Maybe it's time to come home. That's all I have to say about that.

Review of where we've been in chronological order: Guam, Chuuk, Yap, Palau, Japan,

China, Vietnam (Erin went back home), Philippines, Vietnam (only for 4 days), Cambodia and now Thailand.

This is my 4th time in Bangkok (once with the family when I was younger, once with Erin in 1996, once for a wedding in 2001 and this time). It seems like no matter where you go in Southeast Asia, you inevitably end up in Bangkok. We took a long (13 hours) and bumpy ride from Siem Reap to Bangkok and had our first flat while taking public transportation. We consider ourselves very lucky in this category as we've heard some horror stories from other's in the past.

Erin has gone home again to attend her annual mandatory training for Southwest and I will spend the next 3 weeks looking for a place to kite board in Thailand. That's the plan for now at least as I was hoping to go trekking in Nepal while she was home but the state of affairs are currently more unstable than usual at the moment. Then I looked into snowboarding in India but the 5 day wait for a visa (not including weekends) and price of a round trip ticket was not worth it. Things could be worse.

Thought you might be interested in what I have been carrying around for the past 6 months. Everything here is what I left with except the articles that I have marked with an "*" which was picked up on the way. Starting from the top left corner and zig zagging my way through: Back pack, 2 pair of convertible pants, jeans, 2 pair of lightweight "comfortable" pants, 4 pair of underwear, 2 long sleeve shirts for warmth and 1 long sleeve shirt for "going out", 5 short sleeve tees (1 given as a gift in Japan), 1 sarong (essential!), 1 soft shell jacket, 1 rain jacket, 2 knitted hats, 1 pair of gloves, 1 belt, 1 mask & snorkel, swimming goggles, 2 Tupperware holding 4 months of diabetic supplies, glucose meter and frio wallets (keep insulin cool), 3 pair of board shorts, day pack, 5 pair of socks, 1 converter, 1 speaker for ipod, 1 ipod (essential!), underwater camera case, 1 headlamp(essential!), 1 non-battery powered flashlight*(given as x-mas present in the Philippines) , 1 USB headset* (great for talking on skype or google talk), headphones, sunglasses, handheld fan*, multipurpose knife* (essential & given to me as a gift from my Tito Manuel in the Philippines when he remembered that my leatherman was stolen in China), playing cards, Lonely Planet guide book and leisure book, toiletry bag, bandanna (essential), silk sleeping sack, travel pouch, pen, calculator* (essential for doing your conversions!), passport, wallet with credit cards, local & U.S. cash, sun hat, rain fly for back pack, rope (great for drying the laundry you just did), Mr. Blues, Tupperware to hold electronic "stuff", 1 pair of athletic shoes, 1 pair of tevas and 1 pair of flip flops.

FMP - Painting found on the infamous Koh San Road