Tuesday, September 4, 2012

150 DAYS: A LOOK AT THE NUMBERS

Celebrating 150 days on the road at a sidewalk food stall in Rangoon, Burma (aka Yangon, Myanmar).
After eight countries and around 20,000 miles, we hit the 150-day mark of the trip this week in Myanmar, the country formerly known as Burma.

While there have been plenty of teachable moments and surprises, the most shocking part so far is that Liz hasn't left Kip stranded in a rice paddy with a water buffalo (see photo 5), or that Kip hasn't killed us both in motorcycle wrecks (2) or cliff jumps/falls (many). Seriously. 

In celebration of reaching such an auspicious milestone safely (as if we need a reason to celebrate), we pulled up two plastic chairs at a sidewalk food stall in Yangon and ordered a tall, cold Myanmar beer, toasting to the simple pleasures of the traveling life while hoping we wouldn't get food poisoning.

Yes, we were sweating, the mosquitoes were feeding, a smelly stray dog sat under Liz's chair (which she loved), and the beer was actually a bit warm, but no matter. This was living! 

Inspired, we did a bit of calculating and came up with a few of the more interesting numbers from the journey thus far. It's been a long, strange trip indeed. 
The five little angels in white sprint back to their mosque after helping us clean up a beach on the tip of Borneo. 
A few more:
  • Books read: 28 each (long bus/boat/train rides; beach time)
  • Weight lost: 10 lbs. each (third-world travel is guaranteed weight loss, whether you want it or not)
  • Overnight buses: 10+ (saves a night in a hotel, plus you wake up in a new place; of course, you're exhausted, cranky, and confused upon arrival, but, hey, that's like every morning before work back home, right?)
  • Times mobile phone rang: 0 (not that we have working phones, but still...)
  • Times shaved/worn a suit/tied a tie: 0 (this one's for Kip)
  • Times worn close-toed shoes: Twice (to hike a mountain and to prevent leeches)
  • Missed flights: three (all Kip's fault)
  • Pairs of flip flops worn out: 5
Second favorite 1 of 7 photo:
Kip makes a new friend in the Philippines.

8 comments:

  1. Congratulations you two wanderers!! Serious inspiration. We're living out of suitcases, but not out of Colorado for a couple days. Cheers to you!

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    1. Thanks! You two are wanderers yourselves! Can't wait to hear all about the adventure!

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  2. Love! Keep on feeding our minds and souls back home.

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  3. Congrats to you and Liz, loving the entries. Waiting to edit videos when you bring back the footage!
    Cheers

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    1. Hey JB we've got lots of videos for you to edit. Thanks for offering! (you were offering, right?!)

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  4. Wait, is Kip taking special beard-growth-impairing hormones?? Are you plucking? You have no facial hair and it's been 150 days with no shave?!?

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    1. While Kip's beard growing skills (or lack thereof) are widely known, a lady in Malaysia who gave him a $3 haircut tossed in a free beard trim with her clippers...thus the well-groomed look.

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Thanks for reading and commenting!