I had been daydreaming about heading off to a place very far away, somewhere completely foreign to me. I was 17 at the time and these desires started to get stronger but I was still stuck in class learning about things I would never apply in real life. So I had come up with a "genius" plan, I would travel the world with my camera and capture everything so I could share it on social media and get paid the big bucks and travel forever!! at the time this sounded crazy because very few people were doing it and half of them worked for national geographic. That same day I went out and applied at every store that was hiring on my side of town, three days later I got a job at Goodwill and it was rough at first it being my first job and all but I pushed through it and saved up every penny for three months until had enough for the trip. After a week of searching I found a ticket from San Francisco to Phuket Thailand with a 13 hour layover in Hong Kong.
Now the long layover was on purpose I wanted to experience all of Asia with the two grand I had saved up but when it came down to booking it my body was overcome with fear and uncertainty. I froze up because I knew there was no one but my self to blame if anything happened. I closed the computer and decided to watch a movie and get back to it later, now I don't know how but I ended up watching The Beach the one were young Leonardo DiCaprio goes to Thailand alone with the desire to find something real, to connect with something or someone and ends up finding a secret island. The moment the movie showed the islands of Thailand I got up and booked the ticket. It felt great afterward I had taken control of my life and made a step towards living the life I always wanted to.
The Day I Landed In Hong Kong
After what the 12-hour flight from San Francisco to hong kong my adventure began. I had to quickly put together a plan to explore as much of hong kong as I could and I had 7 hours to do it. I knew I couldn't afford to take a cab so I decided to hop on a train ( fun fact I've never been on a train) so there was that and everything was mostly written in Chinese and I had no idea where I was going all I knew is I wanted to take photos of the city. Thankfully some businessmen who spoke english told me I should go to central Hong Kong, so I did and it turned out to be the best decision I've ever made it was so beautiful. The city had a romantic essence to it it was so mysterious yet felt safe.
I walked around for a few hours taking pictures until I found a huge Ferris wheel where you could look over the whole city and hopped on with two Germans and on Italian it was incredible.
After a great night in hong kong, I decided to head back to the airport so I could catch my next flight to Thailand.
The flight to Thailand was only 5 hours and the Thai people were so welcoming and kind. But holy f@#k was it a culture shock everything was so different. It took me a week to get used to how things were run there. oh and the beaches? well, I don't even have to try to explain with words, here is a photo I took with my iPhone the first day I got to the island of Koh Phi Phi...
The rest of the trip consisted of renting a moped for 7 dollars a day and learning how to ride it.
Played soccer on the beach with the locals and some European tourists.
I went to an island full of wild monkeys.
I managed to book a five-star villa with a private pool and personal chefs for 60 dollars a night.
I constantly would get lost in tiny villages from driving with out a GPS
I also met my first mentor, a former Buddhist monk. He taught me how to meditate and showed me around the temples
I learned how to wash and feed elephants.
I partied every night...
Then I was hospitalized for three days and almost died from eating on the streets with the dogs and walking around barefoot.
On my last day, the drive back to the airport was the perfect ending to a beautiful journey. The sun was setting over the beautiful Thai city which now felt like home.
I realized this trip had taught me more about life than the twelve years of school I had just finished, I knew this was the end of this trip but it was just the beginning to many more.
link to the film I made while I was there.