Sometimes being abroad makes you feel a little fragile.

Life feels a little more fleeting when you’re so far away from all your friends and the quality of life in the countries you visit are not always what you’re used to back home.

That feeling became ever more present a couple days ago when 150 people died on a street in Seoul that I had just visited a week earlier. This isn’t America, so it wasn’t a mass shooting. Literally the street was just too narrow and too many people were packed into it to celebrate Halloween. That’s all it took.

Damn.

Anyway, on a brighter note, this was an otherwise fantastic week in Singapore and southeast Asia. On Wednesday, I took a stab at foreign diplomacy and got drinks with a girl from Russia on a rooftop bar in Singapore.

Okay, perhaps diplomacy was not at the forefront of my mind when we planned this, but it was a super fun time! Maybe we are even hanging out again next week 👀.

On Thursday I traveled to Thailand for the second time since coming to Asia, this time to Bangkok.

If it wasn’t incredibly obvious, the only reason I wanted to visit Bangkok was to attempt to recreate my own version of The Hangover Part II.

Alright, maybe that’s completely false, but I thought sneaking in a little pop culture reference might boost engagement.

And prove to all my friends back home that I should be on the movie podium :)

I was once again traveling solo for this trip. I hadn’t traveled solo since the last time I was in Thailand for the Full Moon Party, and I’ve gotten a little more traveled out since then. So I went in with the mindset to just take things easy, and didn’t pressure myself to be Mr. Outgoing, or feel the need to see every inch of the city.

Of course, that’s what felt like happened anyway, but I just took it as it came.

On Friday I saw most of the famous, touristy things in the city. Bangkok is known for its majestic temples and I visited about 3 of them, plus the Grand Palace and this museum about Thai identity.

One of the temples also had a great view of the city skyline, as Bangkok is pancake-flat, and this temple happened to be like 150 feet off the ground.

Friday night the hostel had this karaoke night as kind of a pregame for going out. I hadn’t really made many friends at the hostel until this point, but for whatever reason, karaoke brings out my personality in a way that makes it really easy to make friends thereafter.

Something about being a white guy who can rap the entirety of Lose Yourself lends itself to people wanting to chat you up.

Karaoke night helped me find a group of people who were planning to go out to Khaosan Road that night. Khaosan Road is basically a massive street lined with bars and clubs, and is one of the most popular places for Thais and locals alike to enjoy Bangkok’s nightlife.

While out, I ate a scorpion on a stick, which was kind of sick. But shortly thereafter, I decided I didn’t want to party that night, so I just walked back to the hostel.

That’s the beauty of solo traveling :)

The following day, I also took it super chill. I visited this massive street market and bought a Steph Curry jersey for $16 USD. I ate a bunch of Thai food, and went out to Chinatown for dinner with a few people from the hostel. Almost everyone at the hostel was in their late 20s, so I felt like an absolute baby whenever I was there. The only young people I met were those who just graduated and were traveling before starting work, but they were few and far between.

I was also pretty set on not going out that night, but I ended up getting convinced by one of the hostel reps and this guy from Portugal, and it ended up being one of the most insane nights I’ve had in Asia. We went to Khaosan Road again, and it was popping.

I don’t really like the whole concept of sit-down bars with live music, because you can’t dance because of the tables, and you can’t talk because of the music. And that’s what pretty much every bar on Khaosan Road is like.

But instead of sitting down, the three of us just decided to dance on the tables instead. It was so much fun. All the locals were digging it, the DJ and his hype man were loving it, and pretty soon, half the bar was dancing on their own tables as well.

At one point, they gave me the mic 😂 and let me be the hype man. When they played Empire State of Mind, I rapped the entire bit (minus the N-words. Don’t worry people.) I don’t know why, but that whole atmosphere was absolutely electric, and the party really got going because of the three of us.

We then pivoted to another bar, where I met this Thai local girl named Alyssa. I then got lost from my original group and hung out with Alyssa for the next 2 hours, before finally making my way back to the hostel at around 4:00am.

Oh well. So much for not wanting to go out. That night was insanely memorable.

The following day, I explored quite a bit of downtown Bangkok. I walked around the city for about 2 hours, just doing whatever I felt like: popping into shops and restaurants, or sitting and taking it all in.

That night, I got dinner with this guy that I met when I was traveling in Cambodia who works for the UN, currently lives in Bangkok, and previously lived in both Arlington and Atlanta.

It was so interesting hearing his take on all things international affairs, as that’s something I’ve become exponentially more interested in since coming to Asia. We talked about disaster relief and political situations in Myanmar and Laos, the US geopolitical agenda in Asia, and of course all things China.

Yeah. I feel kind of smart sometimes when I can carry a conversation about stuff like that. @Gavin, is that what it feels like to be you?

I ended the night with a Pub Crawl with the hostel, once again to Khaosan Road. But since my flight was at 7:00am the next day, I decided to head back early from that experience as well.

Most of all the Southeast Asian big cities (Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Ho Chi Minh, Hanoi, Phnom Penh, Manila, etc) all have a very similar feel to them. There’s an organized chaos, a showcase of culture, and startling mix of developed and undeveloped areas to all of them.

I’ve now visited my last Southeast Asian big city, and I think Bangkok was honestly my favorite.

There’s something about Thai culture and Thai people that is so warm and hospitable, something satisfying knowing that way less messed up stuff has happened here compared to Cambodia and Vietnam, and something about the fact that it is far more diverse than the other aforementioned cities that collectively draws you in and makes you feel at home and welcome.

It doesn’t hurt that the food is amazing and the nightlife is popping. Bangkok really has it all.

If there’s one thing I learned this week, it was how to take things slow, have no expectations, and let a travel experience take you by surprise. While I was extremely pumped for Bangkok, I knew that my energy has slowly been waning with each subsequent trip in Asia, and I had to listen to my body when it was begging to take it easy this weekend.

Obviously, maybe this post doesn’t indicate that I took it easy at all. But among all the stuff I did was a lot of downtime, and a lot less of a sense of urgency when going from one thing to another. That made the trip sustainable, and also gave me the space to really enjoy everything.

It was incredibly refreshing to see that I could still have a great experience without needing to see or do everything like I’m attached to a ticking time bomb.

Next week I’m traveling to a place that the most countries around the world do not even recognize as a country, so that is bound to be very interesting. Just a little teaser for what’s to come. See you on the flip side!