Introduction

“We're self-mending, we're self-cleansing/ our slate is clean, say what you mean/ it's our trip and, we're not listening!”
-The Thermals, “Our Trip”

I should probably kick this off by saying that I've never written a blog before. I guess I just never thought I had anything to say that was insightful enough for others to bother to read. And perhaps I still don't have anything insightful to say. But I do have an adventure to log.

On August 15, 2007 I resigned from my bond trading job at Morgan Stanley with plans to travel through India and Southeast Asia for thee months before moving to San Francisco to find a new job and, more importantly, a new social scene. I'd planned the perfect excursion-- the compulsively-planned, wonderfully-clichéd joyride one takes before settling back into the corporate rut. I even had a typed itinerary which had me arriving in San Francisco just in time to move into my new apartment and begin my job search.

In the end, things didn't work out quite the way I'd planned. But didn't John Lennon once say, “Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans”? As usual, John was right.

What you're about to read is a collection of anecdotes from my still-ongoing journey across Asia. The stories, like the places I've visited, are diverse, and their subject matter will run the gamut from disillusion and despair to uncontrollable laughter, hope, and joy—and that’s just one night in a Delhi guest house! Ha ha!

I’ll also include my own thoughts, when inappropriate, as well as everything else that has colored my travels: world news, politics, weather (oh that’s a big one), and even bits of pop culture. As you’ll soon see, I’m obsessed with music, and I’ll devote a significant amount of time to discussions of the sound waves that are destroying my ear drums on a daily basis. If you don’t like contemporary independent-label rock music you may find my musical commentary boring, and if so please skip those sections, though I’d prefer you to check out some of these artists for yourself—they’re really quite talented (and, at times, quite profound).

Enough chit-chat. Next stop, Delhi.