Two weeks left in Vietnam

hey what's up guys going to give it a little bit for people to get on here also going to close the window shades how's everybody doing tonight it's uh Friday night in here in Southeast Asia and man it's

a hot hot day today I went out walking tonight by the beach and just super hot and humid like even for what I've been used to so yep just uh trying to sort out where I'm headed to welcome

we got a a guest welcome to the stream tonight tonight may not be as long of a stream because I'm feeling a little bit nauseous I'm not sure if it's what I ate for lunch um I had some

sugar cane juice tonight I don't know if that was it but um yeah just haven't booked my flight out yet meant to do that today meant to do that today hey wow from Alaska I've never been to Alaska

what's it like in Alaska right now oh it's summer so you yeah you're uh you're getting really nice weather up there my grandparents used to go to a lot Alaska a lot back in the 80s and 90s they

really like taking vacations up there they would go on fishing trips in Alaska I've seen a lot of pictures and videos of Alaska it's a beautiful state friend of mine her dad likes to work on these they have

these boats that go from Seattle to Alaska cruises and he really likes to work on those and goes back and forth does those a lot in the summer let's see here 14 oh I'm envious that sounds so comfortable

I live near C San Francisco for a while and that weather sounds perfect hey Christopher welcome to the stream and lay Pub paa uh welcome it thank you so much for joining I really appreciate that you enjoy the

content um I have a video that's almost done and I meant to release it today I'll finish it tomorrow there's just a little piece I need to fix um but it's almost ready to go and yeah thanks so

much for the support lay Pub ptia it's uh definitely the encouragement is greatly appreciated I'm still really early on in the channel uh but yeah the support is just means a lot to me and the encouragement means a

lot to me as well I know there's so much content out there that you all can be watching on YouTube so the fact that you take the time to watch my channel and to engage in the streams is

just really yeah it really means a lot to me I was shocked that even 10 people would subscribe it's mind-blowing to me that we're now past 16 we're around 1,600 50 subscribers is really wild and um yeah I'll

keep keep going forward with the content trying to just do stuff other people aren't doing I there's some topics out there that I could give my perspective on which would be a little bit different but I want to

try to share some stuff that I think just doesn't get talked about as much but yeah I'm I'm jealous um I'm jealous Mark uh that you're enjoying that mild summer weather in Alaska and of course the daylight hours

are very um oh thank you so much for for uh saying that I'm talented I really appreciate that as well um I'm sure that it's a big change for you in the summer compared to the winter where you

have the really long daylight hours that was the first time I experienced something kind of similar to that was last summer when I had a uh I had a day off in Helsinki so I flew from Chicago to

Helsinki Finland and then I had like a day in Helsinki and a night in Helsinki and then flew to Bangkok and it was really shocking to me like the Sun never went all the way down I didn't sleep

great but it was a cool effect I was really surprised looking out the window at 2 a.m. and it was still a little bit light out that would take a lot for me to adjust uh adjust to it

and I'm curious like how do you adapt to that when you're there in the summer in Alaska um I guess you have to probably put up some heavy curtains yeah see that's what I struggle with too Mark um

the land of Midnight Sun unfortunately I suffer from insomnia because of this yeah that's got to be a real challenge for some folks that I'm not sure if you're you're from Alaska if it's something that you just have

grew up having to deal with if maybe you moved up there for work through the um through the military or what that could be um is that something Mark that you grew up with or is it something that

you moved up there to work uh maybe you moved up there through the service military service but I'm always curious like if that has anything to do with it because I I grew up in Tennessee where um we

have for lack of a better term more of like just the standard lower 48 East Coast kind of weather we get four seasons in we have four seasons in Tennessee of course winter spring summer fall um the summer

of course has more Daylight than the winter but I don't think it's such a dramatic um difference between the seasons like you have up there but yeah I definitely felt that in Helsinki I only slept like a few

hours in Helsinki and slept most of the time on the plane to Bangkok um which was nice uh because that that flight can [Music] be I I usually go the Asia route this is the first time going the

Europe route but that flight can definitely kind of drag on when you're going to some place that you are really excited to be going to and you're just like sitting there in that box okay are we there yet

and like usually the last few hours because I'll usually sleep the first eight hours or so that flight and it's let's say it's 11 hours usually the last three hours I'm repeatedly checking the the flight tracker so it'll

show you where on the planet you are in relation to your destination and I'm constantly refreshing that like okay when do we get there when do we get there of course that's not really when we get there we

have to land and then uh depart the plane and then we have to go through Immigration and Customs and then we have to get in transportation and get to where we're staying but it's um yeah it's just a

it's an interesting sensation Christopher says yes some fresh content compared to others my monthly budget Asia videos are becoming TR yeah and Chris um I feel like too those those are moving goalposts and they're not super helpful to

people because like certain costs are unavoidable um everybody's going to have to pay rent in Asia everybody's going to have to buy food in Asia everybody's going to have to pay for transportation and we all do those in

different amounts um rub my camera here that looks better um you know people have live in choose to live in different cities people have different dietary concerns some of us are vegetarians some of us are carnivores some of

us are somewhere in between some like to go to fancy gyms some want to travel a lot within country some don't want to travel at all and some of that stuff like people will say well you just have

to get here and experience it and I agree with that to some extent I think like you really need to be boots on the ground and people say well it depends on how you live and it's like yeah

but it's not really an Apples to Apples comparison um in the US I'm typically like driving a lot if I'm in a smaller City if I'm in a big city I'm not driving as much so there's so much

intricacies to it and you can kind of reduce your cost over time as well if you're um you know once you learn the lay of the land in a certain city or a certain area you get to know

the vendors you can trust you maybe you start to cook more you figured out where you can get good groceries costs are so flexible um and also I noticed too like the big cities aren't that much more expensive

you just have more opportunities to spend money so like in the small town you're not going to have as many fancy steakhouses but if you're in Bangkok or you're in Manila then yeah you've got a lot more of

those um there's not going to be as many like rooftop bars for example in the small town but like rent you know maybe it's a couple hundred dollars more in the big city to me that's it's not it's

not like $200 in a small town or 2,000 a month in the big city it's more like $200 a month in the small town or 400 or $500 a month in the big city I may you know uh

do one but you know the other thing I run into when I talk about budget is some people will say I can't believe you spend that much and other people will say oh I can't believe you spend so

little and that's regardless of how much you spend um some people will say spending any more than $500 a month is living high on the horse and other people will say anything less than $5,000 a month is poverty

um really what I think brings a lot of us to Southeast Asia uh is that you're in this uh oh thank you so much I really appreciate the Super Chat Mark that's very generous of you really appreciate you

supporting the channel I think most of us are attracted to Southeast Asia for a few different things the top one is lifestyle right like just being in a tropical part of the world where you've got beaches you've got

mountains there's not the winter that kind of keeps you inside like I know it's especially extraordinary in Alaska like Alaska has notoriously tough Winters perhaps like I think it's more the case if you go away from the coast

so I hear the strip from and let me pull up a map of Alaska here Alaska we'll just screen share here just to kind of add to this so like if you're from Homer let's see where is Homer

Homer yeah if you're like if you're from if you're in Homer or you're um kind of down here it's a little less rough but the further north you go the more notorious Alaskan Winters are and so that's part

of the appeal and we could just um we'll just pull up Vietnam because that's where I'm at right now whereas if you're in Vietnam the winter is really mild especially if you're not like in Hanoi like if you're

in central or Southern Vietnam then you feel like you've got an extra several months a year some might feel a little bit different like hey I trade that for the summer months where I really don't want to go

out much it's so hot and humid I kind of just stay inside which is a fair point but um you know the the other aspects of it uh I lost my train of thought um H okay so I

I'll I'll try to recollect my thoughts I'll take a look at your comments Mark let's see have to buy blackout blinds moved up here 40 years ago just got used to life here wow um and I'm curious like

uh Mark I I don't know if this is a fair assumption are you somebody who has traveled to Southeast Asia maybe your significant others from Southeast Asia that's really common for subscribers on my channel um but always curious

how people go there I if I lived in Alaska I would want to take some vacation time to Southeast Asia as well in the winter months it would be a wonderful break and an alternative to having kind of

the you know cold snowy weather and the limited daylight hours also a different culture you have to be careful when you're living in that kind of climate to be safe and to not and to limit your time Outdoors

or to really dress up and prepare a lot and so it's probably a little bit harder to socialize in a place like Alaska versus southeast Asia where you know and I'll get into that a bit I wondered how

you survived the air and noise pollution in Southeast Asia well that's kind of a oh welcome GMM welcome so the air pollution is something that I didn't realize would bother me um It's seems cumulative so for the first

few days maybe the first week it's not such a big deal I'm like ah it kind of stinks like kind of like when I go to Los Angeles uh especially like downtown LA which I've spent probably a total

of about a month in La I'm like ah it kind of stinks but after a couple of weeks it starts to accumulate where I get this kind of heavy feeling in my lungs um I I suspect I'm more

prone to getting a cold or some other kind of sickness and it kind of wears on you like I noticed too uh it may it's harder in the gym for whatever like I'm not exactly sure the science behind

it my but my performance in the gym is definitely impacted I feel like I run out of breath more quickly I feel like I just don't have as much stamina I also feel less motivated to go to the

gym uh when there's a lot of air pollution but it's something that I you know where I grew up in Tennessee I'll give Tennessee a lot of credit yeah there's a lot of issues with pollen but the air

quality is generally pretty good um they used to now I talked to my stepdad about this they used to have bad air pollution in Tennessee because they would burn like the fields after they harvested the crop to get

rid of the a waste or the the kind of the trash left over uh they no longer do that so the EPA came came in and there's really strict air quality regulations in the United States these days uh

to like people can be penalized for even just like burning wood in their house like in a wood burning stove so um that's very different than in the north of Thailand where they still do they still have a

burning season um so that's something that I'm having to sort out how I will work around that because I didn't realize it was going to be a priority for me until I actually lived through a season and um

realized that was going to be an issue on a long enough timeline I've also had conversations with some long-term uh stayers in Thailand where they've said you know hey like it didn't bother me at first then I started

to learn it has a negga it could have a cumulative negative impact so maybe one burning season's not so bad do you like what do you think though about going through say five burning Seasons or 10 burning Seasons

That's when you start to you know have some concerns what are the impacts going to be on my long-term health and are there some things that I could do to adjust to that are are there places in the

region that have better air quality so one of the things that I did to deal with the air pollution in changai is that when the burning season started I was winding down a lease on an apartment I had

we can just scroll up to changai here changmai so I was here in the that's funny it still got a marker on there so I was in the northwest corner of changai and I started to notice the burning

happening in like it started kind of early this year I would say mid-February because I would go up and film top of my condo building and each day the city got progressively more and more hazy so it started

off a little bit hazy and then by the end of it I could not see the mountains in the distance and I it it felt rough I I stuck it out for a couple of weeks because I had

planning to do I also wanted to gauge it because some people you'll talk to will tell you ah Burning Season that's overblown it's not a big deal people make it out to be the end of the world and

they're exaggerating and then other people will tell you oh I have to leave it's unacceptable for me I leave every time so I was like well I want to I want to see what it's like for myself because

I can't just assume I can't just take somebody else's word for it either way I want to be able to gauge it and it's different from year to year some years it starts late and goes late some years

it starts early and goes late some years it's not so bad some years it's like much worse I determined it's not for me so I ended up flying down to a city called hot so I flew from the

almost the northernmost point in Thailand the one of the aside from CH chenai down here uh all the way to almost the really at the Malaysia border like I stayed in this city hot y for a month and

the air quality was much better I don't know exactly where the Smoke Gets blown um there was a you know it wasn't like I would I call perfect but it was pretty decent and then it was even nicer

I went up here to secla by the uh by the ocean and this part of Thailand it's um it doesn't get as much like Western tourists so I encountered Malaysian tourists but uh very few like I would I

would see maybe like one or two Western tourists every few days um and up here they've got like monkeys that hang out on this beach it's it's really interesting I I liked it a lot from here I went

to Krabby I took a bus from hot Yi to Krabby and Krabby is got tons of Western tourists so kind of the opposite even though it's like only maybe a sixh hour bus ride where you pass through Trang

um yeah it was you know it was very very busy uh and then that would you know after that I came back up to um came back up to Bangkok as far as no pollution that's the main challenge

I have it's a reason why I am going to be heading out um earlier than expected from Vietnam uh looking really closely at the Philippines I almost spoke my flight today I'm still trying to hammer out logistics because

I've got several people I want to do interviews with in the Philippines but they're in different parts of the Philippines and not only that but where I want to stay longer term in the Philippines for the bulk of

my trip is in a third location so there's an individual in SIU that I want to do an interview with there's a few people in dumag Getti and then there's uh where I want to stay in is in

minda now but uh the Philippines can be a very noisy country um it's you know I I did research on it I was curious like what um because I can be sensitive to noise I I imagine too Mark

that you being in Alaska you're used to a very peaceful environment Alaska's very low population density even in a city like Juno or Fairbanks or um Anchorage these are not mega cities right they're they're mega cities by Alaskan

standards but you're talking about a few hundred thousand people at the most and uh they seem pretty spread out at least from what my grandparents have talked about you know and from some of the things I've seen so

quite different than southeast Asia where you have much higher population density especially in the urban areas so with noise there's a few things that I would recommend that anybody that's sensitive to noise uh some precautions or some steps

that they could take to address that the top one is these uh noise cancelling earbuds these are a lifesaver I use these 247 I mean like sometimes I'll get here in Vietnam I'll get waken up I'll get woken

up in the morning my kids screaming outside in the street and I'm on the third floor too so it's it's loud um or like sometimes the gym across the street will decide ah it's you know time to just

start blasting the music like and so I'll roll over and I'll pop these in I'll pop these in and go back to sleep um that's the first step is having having airpods uh you may have a a different

I've tried different uh Brands as well I've tried the Bose cans the the big Bose ones they just didn't last as long as I would have liked I want to say I wore them out in like a year

and at $300 for them to last a year and they were offering to replace them for like1 15 50 bucks but I'm just thinking like that's you need to make a better product Bose uh just my personal opinion

plus they're not as easy it's hard on these to to sleep because I S I'm a s sleeper it's hard on these they're not meant to have pressure put on them uh it can that's why part of the

reason I don't use these in streams is the putting pressure on them by sleeping like on my side with them in my ears actually distorts the sound it damages the microphone in them um and so whenever I tried

to use these on streams it just sounds super distort super distorted um but you can't you know I can't as a SL as a side sleeper I can't use those big cans on the sides of my ears uh

because it just makes my neck feel weird and like there's a lot of pressure being put on them and then it breaks the seal too because the angle seems to move the what's the word like it moves the

foam cup around to where the seal is broken and then it kind of it negatively impacts the uh the noise cancellation effect another thing I would say is if you can help it going for a condo on a

high up floor I it depends on where you go right the province that's going to be a challenge because the provincial areas in any of these countries are just not going to have very many condo buildings um in

SIU that was what H me as I stayed and I can go and pull this up I stayed at this hotel in SIU and I was pretty high up and it helped uh because you could hear like ambulance

sirens a little bit in the distance but it was so high up that it really helped to mitigate some of the sounds now one night I was staying at this hotel uh like half a dozen drunk construction workers

um and I say that cuz like I just went out to like kind of I see what was going on came back at like 1:00 in the morning and they like they lock themselves out of their room and

they're they're not like they're the thing about the Philippines is yes they can you know it can be kind of a noisy environment they're what's the word they're having fun and they're used to they're just I think it's

just an environment where where it's like a really friendly environment and it's I don't know it's just so it's so different from what we're used to because in in the US we're told you know be quiet be respectful

uh use your inside voice and I think there are people are used to growing up around their families where it's like ah I don't need to hide anything from my family I don't have any personal or private business

that I need to keep on the down low uh so people feel more open to doing that um and so they did wake me up one night and I called the the front desk at the Griffin hotel and

I was like hey there's like this half dozen like you know guys that they maybe had too much red horse and they can't get into the room can you send somebody up to help them out and so they

did they the front desk sent a lady up and she talks to them figures out what's going on helps them back into their room um but I was more surprised than anything because I've you know I haven't had

that habit in a long time when I lived in Nashville something similar happened where a couple of drunk guys got lost and ended up in the base basement of my building which really freaked out the lady that lived

downstairs she was able to talk them out but yeah um what else about noise pollution because that's a really good point U Mark like it's if I had to point at one downside of my like just very high

level about southeast Asia it is just trying to deal with the noise that I'm just not accustomed to although um you know yeah so what else could I say uh if you're in a big city picking a high

up floor having your your uh having your noise cancelling devices I would say also um being willing to change locations I've changed locations before because I felt that there were noise issues um like in Medi in Colombia actually

I stayed at a hotel tell and I can't even remember the name but this was in El lbl uh the really nice neighborhood in medin and I booked the room for two weeks and this was around 40 bucks

a night which back then was pretty pricey for medine and they start doing construction halfway through and I go to the front desk and ask the lady hey can you just move me to a different room like I'm

not offended about this I'm not mad I know you guys have to update the rooms and construction is just part of doing business but um I didn't sign up for that right if you'd let me know that that

was going to be a thing I would have requested a different room at the start of my stay and they laughed and said no so I told them okay I'm going to leave I left and then did a

chargeback for the days that uh were impacted and booked a different Hotel um which was an okay alternative uh and but then this guy started walking down the street screaming poor fa put like please over over and over

again which was really strange because I was new to meden and you know of course mein's got this wild reputation uh but then I found the third hotel and that place turned out to be good uh got along

really well with the owner he was super respectful like he got it he's like you know people are coming to medine to have a good time we can roll over to medine really quick and then I'll try to

get caught up on comments people are coming to medine to have a good time uh for me I was going there because I wanted to work on program and that turned out to be a great decision but I

needed my rest to be productive at learning what I needed to learn but that was see I talked about I talk about it in a recent I was staying here at the Kaza host is this the hotel yeah

this was the hotel okay so I was staying here because a lot of people they find elbl the high-end neighborhood to be a little bit stuffy or a little bit boring um it's pretty steep so like and you

got a lot of like nice buildings there so it's not a place you can really like meet the neighbors so a lot of people move over here to lais or um or to like a stadio and estadio the

they've got the soccer stadium here and that was a great choice I loved medine really shocked me and how much I enjoyed it it's such a cool City but yeah get caught up on comments here um great great

point mark or great question Mark like I could I could keep talking about it but I do want to get caught up on comments but so uh GMM good evening from Bangkok watching you with an ice cold drink

on my balcony in the BKK Bangkok night yeah that's um that's something that'll never get old to me is the balcony experience because in the US I haven't I don't know if have I had any apartments with the

balcony I don't know if I've had any apartments with the balcony um no I did in college I did when I was in college I had my apartment had balcony but you know there's so many rules in the

US couldn't really enjoy it like I'd put a grill out there and want a grill and then the building management would be like hey you can't grill out there you're gonna burn the building down so it's nice to

have a a balcony in Bangkok and you have that warm humidity and you can drink an ice cold drink and you hear the sounds of the city and it's um it's such a lively City it's it's it'll be

one of my favorite cities I think for the rest of my life and it's such a beautiful city I was just talking to my friend who lives in Bangkok last night and she she likes to call me on

her commute home from work because it's a good time she works a lot and her commute is pretty long and so we chat and catch up and I was just telling her how much I miss Thailand and she's

like ah you should come back and you know that's always a hard conversation to have because naturally like that's the comfortable decision for me right I mean I love Thailand it's um there's nothing like it Mark says I

visited Thailand three times 30 years ago it left a deep impression on me um yeah it's it's a you know i' love it if you could expand a bit Mark just share what were some of the things that

really stuck out to you about Thailand maybe some of the cities or places that you went I think the cultural impact is a massive one it's so different from what we're used to in the US as far as

like it's just such an ancient culture where us is much newer country and like much newer traditions and I think the US is a lot more Dynamic too where to me the US feels like an entirely different country

every say five years where Thailand like it's it just doesn't seem to change as much and I I like that a lot has it changed certainly it's continued to develop and grow and more and it's more and more

convenient there's more and more English there every time I go but there's certain things about Thailand that seem to just stay the same uh Mark Thailand is the same country now today it's a modern higher Middle inome Country

my first time was 30 years ago this year wow so you know you guys can tell what a a newbie I am my first Tha time in Thailand was in um spring of 2018 so about about six years

ago so you guys are much more experienced and you've seen the development or the evolution of Thailand over a much longer period of time and I hope Mark that you're able to come back I know I'm sure your

work schedule is demand and that you have different types of obligations but it's such a special place and it's a place that sometimes I want to put in the back of my mind when I'm away because I you

know I was talking to my friend last night about it and I was just going on and on about how much I love Thailand and she finally said you know Thailand is home for you and I I kind

of agree with that it feels more like home to me in some ways than the us because it's it's like the perfect fitting glove or it's like if you go to a tailor and get a piece of clothing

tailored to your Dimensions or it's like you go and get a haircut and the person knows exactly the way you want your haircut or it's um PE tight people are so patient and calm and um yeah uh air

pollution is a seasonal thing hot dry summer months and the burning in Thailand and the neighbors is horrible you go down south to the coast in the sea Thailand is trying to regulate the burning the surrounding countries don't

care it's the sugar cane leftovers that are the worst yeah I believe it GMM I get a lot of sugar cane juice here in Vietnam and it has so much like material left over they collect in these big

bags and it's really uh yeah I can imagine that there there's a lot of material for them to burn through and i' I've heard that as well in Thailand that from friends of mine that like they're trying to

be more oriented toward having clean air and trying to take care of that but that it's you know it's when their neighbors burn it just comes South and there they you know they don't have any uh agency over

that it's really unfortunate because yeah I mean it's yeah it just impacts it impacts people there um jinsa says I hope that's okay instead of saying jnsa jinsa Minden now cool though not often a first choice for many

what is drawing you there uh great question Jin say so I've got a buddy who um used to be an employee of mine um he was my virtual assistant the best virtual assistant I ever had this was when

I was running e-commerce businesses that was kind of my first career before I got into software sales and I hired him to help me process orders in the middle of the night while I was asleep and also to

um also to just do some graphic design and customer Communications kind of a jack of all trades and uh I had to close that business for various reasons but maintain friendship with him he is from here in kagay

and deoro um so originally his family is from other parts of the Philippines his mother is actually from dumag Getti H and we had a funny conversation about that which I'll I'll try to mention um I'll make a

note of that to talk about it after because there I do want to bring that up why okay it's a funny thing to talk about so he is from Kagan deoro and I asked him like how did you

end up there and he explained to me on one side of his family they move there from I think they moved there from Elo Elo uh or uh this island I guess the island would be ilos Norte uh

because his grandfather was working in the logging industry and I don't know if he was a log I think he said he was a driver he was helping to work as a driver and so that side of his

family moved to cdio uh and then his um his mom I don't know what brought her to C or what brought her family to kagay and deoro uh but yeah kagay and deoro is an industrial city I wouldn't

call it like a tourist hotspot by any means there's not really a beach close to town um like where I stayed was next to or like around the corner from a Pepsi Bottling plant and it's uh you know

so it's not like the it's not like the borai it's not like the Bona show Global City but to me what drew me to the Philippines and this sounds crazy I'm sure some uh some people may think I'm

full of it um but it wasn't the dating I just wanted to meet him and to thank him because he really helped me with my business and he also you know I met a ton of people over the

years just like in business and traveling school work and um there's just something about his humility and his work ethic and his EQ I find a lot of Filipino people have a really high EQ they just are very

often in my experience I can't speak for everybody's experience but they often have a very high emotional intelligence um I also noticed that with a Filipino friend of mine from middle school she just seemed to be very advanced

in terms of like her self-awareness and awareness of emotions and um back then I I was really stressed out with a lot of different things part of it just living in the US I'm a more stressed out person

there you guys will notice if you know I do end up going back to the US and say eight or nine months um I will be more stressed out person there unfortunately but uh yeah I just wanted to

meet him and thank him got to know his family and part of me also wanted to see the Philippines because every time we talked he would tell me about like uh different parts of the Philippines and how beautiful

it is and uh you know he also showed me pictures from his life with his family at the time he just had the son more recently had a daughter now uh but there's something like kind of like wholesome

um that I felt was missing in the US and at the time especially I was living in San Fran or I was living near San Francisco which is the opposite of wholesome um it's it's just a very anything

goes kind of City quite literally like most you know there's just it's just a a No Limits kind of City there's all kinds of wild stuff that you see there that you would not see elsewhere in America um

and I'm not going to get too much into that because I don't want to uh I don't want to run a foul of the you know YouTube algorithm but most people are familiar with the challenges in in um

in San Francisco and so you know when I went to the Philippines I was just surprised because like talk to him so so on that trip I I went my plan was originally this was late 2019 early 2020

so this was after I'd done my first trip to Thailand I went to Cambodia to meet a buddy of mine who's working for a bank there at the time and I was like okay so after that I'm going

to go to the Philippines and then I'm G to finish up in Japan and then go back to United States so my atttention for Japan was to see my grandma's Hometown well January 2020 we all know what's starting

to happen I land back in penom pen Cambodia and then you know of course the pandemic happened and um I kept traveling but back to back to here I thought I'll go meet him I'll spend some time in

kagay and deoro I'm I asked about minda now right because a lot of people have heard about stories about minda now they are aware of some of the challenges that have happened in mind now particularly Western mind now

and I asked him about it I was like hey you know I trust you like he had access to big chunks of money like big chunks of my money and never touched a penny and so I'm thinking okay

if I can trust this guy with this amount of money you know I'm I'm willing to trust his judgment he's like no CDO is fine like you know there's other parts of in now that have problems but you

you're finding K guy in deoro and so I thought okay well I'll come check it out and then after we have a week to hang out and catch up I'll take a vacation so I went up to cigan

Island and also spent some time in SIU but in the time that I spent in kagay and duro he introduced me to his extended family we went to his mother-in-law's home in Kayan deoro and I got to meet

his mother-in-law along with his wife and his son and then all these like just family member after family member after family member kept coming through on Christmas and we're drinking red red horse and you know it was probably

the best Christmas I've ever had in my life um you know I'm not going to get into too much in this video my family situation is really messed up and I felt the love there in a way that

you know it just was it made me feel very inclusive I felt like one of I felt like one of them in some ways I recognize I'm not Filipino I'll never be Filipino ethnically or in terms of nationality

but uh you know unless at some point I'm able to work toward that which would be really interesting but I just felt so included and that feeling like never really left my mind or my heart and uh so

after that I spent a week there spent Christmas there and after that I went up to cigan Island which is really interesting it's very different from kagay deoro it's very it's pretty touristic it's not I would necessarily say

very touristic but it's pretty touristic and there's not as much industry there it is more expensive than CDO like CDO being a manufacturing Hub now kaguro has gone up in price because of some of the challenges in Western

mind now a lot of people have moved into cdos so rents have gone up um there's just much more demand for housing but um loved loved cigan and had a great time in cigan went snorkeling saw all kinds

of interesting marine life and it's um I've never been to Hawaii but it reminded me almost of what I would think of Hawaii as like we can uh let's kind of zoom in here I remember walking down a

street and seeing all these just like smiling happy people and they would smile and wave at me and I'm thinking I've never met these people before that was something I had to get over when I went to the

Philippines is I thought okay Z is nice to me because we work together my buddy's name is zyell we've worked together we know each other but all these other people why are they being so nice and I was

just so skeptical because you know in a city like San Francisco if somebody's being nice to you they probably have an ulterior motive it's a very like Cutthroat kind of City thr kind of place and yeah they just

were like interested to see a foreigner there and happy that I was enjoying their country and um okay that's Google is acting up a little bit here here we go so this is cigan we can go through some

of these pictures I'd never seen anything like it in my life and to this date it remains one of the most beautiful places on the planet that I've ever seen and I share this with you now because if

the channel grows to a certain point I may talk a little bit less about it because it's like it's um it's just so stunning like it's it's like nothing I've ever seen before the uh I've talked a bit

about it on some stream before but you have um like places like this the giant clam Sanctuary where they're doing ecological restoration and they have uh these clams in different stages of life and the colors are mindblowing it's

um it's really incredible so I'm going to get caught up on comments here um but yeah great question jensa um what we find a little bit different picture maybe we could pull up a picture of heok kok uh

yeah that's a nice picture um Okay so M I prefer the 3M silicone simple ears washable and reusable works at the range and streets I have a pair uh like a knockoff loop ear plugs that I got on

Lazada that uh they work okay I should probably use them more often but yeah earplugs are a big help Mark says 30 years ago I went on a trip in changm Province and rad elephants saw fields of flow

poppy flowers built the bamboo raft with my guide and went down the river on it wow that's um that sounds incredible and you got to see changai before you know uh you know that seems like a throwback right

you got to experience and see some things that may be harder to see or experience today and back when there was less tourism like I you know changmai is uh definitely gets a lot of Tourism and it's you

know people are still very friendly and hospitable but back then I think you would have stood out even more as a traveler um that's so interesting uh yeah I'm not quite filtered out of Vietnam yet brown puppy I

mean it's there's a lot of natural beauty I am starting to adjust in some ways more to Vietnam but you know it's a situation where maybe it's just not the right time for me I'm open to coming back

in the future maybe seeing something different or experiencing something different but uh it's you know it's just not exactly what I'm uh accustomed to Mark if you go today things will be different you recognize and in the same

time a country more modern and forward than America and Western countries yeah I definitely agree with that um Thailand feels like even though it's very traditional in some ways feels like living in the future compared to the United

States not so much certain parts like there's parts of America that are still awesome um I'm a fan of Colorado for example Colorado is beautiful and very peaceful and in some areas very safe feeling especially like in the

western part of Colorado I lived there for several years and it's still got kind of a small town Vibe uh but yeah other parts of the US not Not Great by the way if everyone watching could give us

a thumbs up that definitely helps to distribute the video to more people um let's see yeah I mean like with the Philippines it's I think it's all about the nature it's not the cities are okay but I look

at them more as business centers they're more centered around industry and uh you know things like business process Outsourcing Information Technology health care and the real like I would go as far as to say the Philippines more than

most countries I've been to and I'm normally not a provincial guy like in most countries I stick to the cities because that's just what I'm used to like I grew up in a city but that that's a country

where you have to go to the provincial areas you have to see um the nature is gorgeous and I think the country is on the up and up and it's going to take off to the extent that these

areas will be so much more popular in the future that it may be more challenging to enjoy them they may be more crowded so with the Philippines I would say like it's all about the nature not I and

the cities are okay to me I can I can take them reli them you know they're they remind me in some ways of American cities and so there's a little bit less of that Intrigue if you know being

totally transparent um but the na the N nature is like incredible I mean there's nothing like this kind of tropical island vibe in the US except for Hawaii and yeah let's see GMM was an 18-year-old Backpacker 30 years

ago totally lost in Southeast Asia stay three Minds I bet that was a life I know it was a life-changing trip for you GMM you got to see and experience a lot of different things you probably never experien

and um in your home country and just cultures and yeah uh brown puppy you have a wholesome spirit always a pleasure to listen to your streams thank you so much I wasn't always this way I definitely had a

wild side when I was younger but um worked that out of my system fortunately uh Mark says I am a baby boomer um let's see I hope you find peace in Asia um what is your top regret in

life any advice for younger generation um where are you now brother still in Asia best thing with Manila is when you leave that City uh there are so many better places in the Philippines over a thousand islands that

are populated yeah I would agree with that GMM um I don't often meet a lot of people that are all about Manila um most of what I hear is I've got to live in Manila because my job is

there I've got to live in Manila because my significant other is there I've got to live in Manila because not so much like I'm thrilled to live in Manila um people like BGC I do find that people like

Bona fasio Global City but and and maati as well is popular but but um you know it's it's just a super big crowded Asian Mega City uh yeah versus like you know this might as well be on another

planet I mean seeing the fog coming through the trees and the vines hanging down able to interact with with the controller and yet I was actually there and ex like it just so it's such a surreal place it's

it doesn't feel like reality that's the best way I could put it this is something I want to see was a historical uh cemetery and there was an earthquake and it sunk um what else and there's like there's

uh you know activities all around the Island where here we go this is probably the most famous part or one of the most famous parts of this island is white Island and it changes shape it it changes shape

over time that's a funny picture but the snorkeling here is incredible like you don't even have to load up with dive gear I was when I was snorkeling here I could see clown fish and there's very few people

that come here for whatever reason I it may be that it's out of the way you do have to fly there individually like it's a little bit you can take a ferry from the mainland but it's not the

easiest place to access which makes it all the more like you know I mentioned if the island felt like a video game but it also felt personally I don't know this may sound like egotistical but like almost tailored

to me like I could go out here and unlike beaches I've been to in Florida or even in Mexico there's not tons of crowds there's not uh a stereo system pumping music there's not people trying to sell you

stuff um you can buy you can rent an umbrella there but it's just a very kind of a private experience in a way and I can't imagine like this kind of experience in the US you know it's going

to be crowded with people people talking super loud people trying to sell stuff you're going to pay $800 a night for a hotel um there's going to be rules there's going to be you know probably cops everywhere like

it's it's just not going to be the same kind of experience and it may change you know I I see the Philippines as being on the up and up and going to continue to improve and attract more and

more tourism especially with the passport Bros movement the digital nomad um scene like it's you know starlink really opens the country up in a lot of ways to people who otherwise might select other countries for internet challenges um

but yeah you can see I mean it's just so beautiful and it's it's kind of hard like there's not a lot of underwater pictures here but it's and the temperature is really nice too um but also you can

go out I wouldn't say super far but like the water doesn't get so deep that you feel sketched out so you can really like take your time and explore I went out there several times and enjoyed it every

time and the sunsets are gorgeous and by the time the sunsets you're worn out I'm going to plug in my charger here but you're I I was really worn out it was um another another comparison it reminded me

of some of the places I've seen on The Sur on the show Survivor if any of you have ever watched the Survivor show it felt like a a softer version of that because on that show they really like

dress it up and they're showing these people and these horrible storms and having to go to the bathroom outside it's not like that it's um it's kind of soft around the edges so GMM do you recommend SIU or

should I go to Dag Getti or something I'm going to be checking out dag Getti on my next trip dag Getti is definitely priority I didn't go last time um even though I was talking to Paul on on

Facebook I was like hey Paul I know you've been in the Philippines for a year or two his channel was pretty small back then I want to say he was under 10k subscribers and he uh maybe even like

around 7,000 subscribers wasn't very big and I think he was still getting his bearings like he'd been there for a year maybe or so but it wasn't you know I don't know if he'd met maybe he was dating

May at that point but uh I told him you know I'm gonna hold off on dag Getti because I want this full immersion experience and I'm afraid if I go to dumag Getti there's so many foreign tourists there

I it may I don't know if it would impact my experience but I wouldn't necessarily what's the word I'm looking for I want I want full immersion I don't want my experience to be impacted by people saying this

or that I want to like see it for myself come up with my own conclusions and I know dumag Getti is always going to be there it's always going to be a popular place and I'll always be able

to go there but some of these places in the meantime before I can come back may become super popular and may change much more um P Brown puppy work and live in Bangkok for 15 plus years travel all

over southeast Asia and work um Mark says no real regrets in life that's good to hear Mark I wish I got to know myself better before getting married that's good advice as well like I um I can really

appreciate that and that's something that I'll take to heart I'm a bachelor but you know going to the Philippines that might change it's uh as far as my dating experiences in Southeast Asia go I think I felt the

best connection to the Filipinos that I dated um one because of English right I mean there's less room for error as far as communication goes but too just because like culturally you know once again High EQ like they

understand me I feel like better than um probably most other women that I've dated I don't know if I can narrow it down to one thing but it was it was kind of like odd almost how how well

I connected with them and how they could see through my uh you know guy guys like they're trying toig like if they're trying to impress a woman or they're trying to attract a woman or they're trying to like

connect with a woman they may act like an idiot or like I don't know how to they could just see through that and they could they had some way of like seeing the real version of myself and it

was they would call me out on it sometimes and it was it was just really funny a lot of funny experiences dating Filipinas uh the southeast Asia Asian head office is here in Bangkok that's awesome GMM I would

love to chat with you more at some point I understand if you're want to be private about it of course not only do we have have a number of people watching this stream now but we'll have people watching

repeat but I'd love to know more about how you found these opportunities in Bangkok because certainly it's a it's a dream for a lot of people to do that I can see why you wouldn't want to disclose how

you worked your way into that position I'm sure you have a unique skill set that it um you know allows you to have that kind of opportunity but also live in this part of the world Thailand is the

place to be most people have to wait until retirement to live in Asia and such sounds like you had a good life um uh [Music] see uh getting caught up here on comments uh I hope you have a

young girlfriend not every day a stranger would wish you such things I see many Boomers with 30-year-old wife and new children it's like getting a second chance in life something you can't easily do in America um yeah I

agree BR puppy I think it's uh you know the the world is America can be kind of harsh and lonely and I support anybody that finds love whatever age it is as long as it's between two consenting adults

then you know I support it like I know people want probably want to know my opinion on age Gap uh my parents had an eight-year age Gap I know of other people in Middle Tennessee that have 10y year

age Gap I I believe as long as both people are of the age of consent and of right mind too right like you know Life's Too Short if people find happiness in that who am I to judge like

's there's I I feel like there's much more pressing problems in the world um is it ideal no there's certainly challenges that can come with that I think the people that engage in those relationships are probably aware of

a lot of those challenges would I engage in that and I don't think so because I I don't know like I just I don't know if it's for me but yeah um Mark says after two divorces I found

my peace with women I now live in peace without daily drama that's certainly Fair too is there still attractive young women in the Philippines are they working abroad I think there's attractive uh you know women in all the

countries in Southeast Asia I mean the Philippines has a population around 100 million and so that's 50 million women and let's say 2 5% are tooo young and 25% are uh you know above the age that you'd consider

then that's 25 million right let's say half of those 25 million are in relationships already or don't meet your qualifications for whatever reason they's still 12.5 million uh and like most guys can only handle one lady at a

time so you know odds are out of 12 million women if my calculations are correct or accurate then I think there's still plenty of single ladies out there I know my buddy is telling me hey you need to

get over here and I'm happy to introduce you to different women in my community some of his co-workers are pretty cute actually but uh let's see yeah nothing wrong I agree uh brown puppy that sounds good brother sounds

Blissful yeah and that's something that took me a long time to get to that point because when I was younger and I I haven't been divorced but I've had several long-term relationships and that might as like I don't

know I don't know if I want to say might as well but felt like getting divorced like people I'd been with for several years and a lot of shorter term relationships that also ended in heartbreak and I'm so

happy with myself at this point that to me a relationship is like icing on the cake I don't have to have it to be happy can it increase my happiness I think it can increase or add to my

happiness it's not something that I feel as unhappy about as I did when I was younger where I was thinking I've got to be in a relationship I've got to have a girlfriend oh my gosh it's the end

of the world if um and that's not to disparage people that have a hard time with breakups I know breakups can be really hard but it's something that I'm I'm Happ about with myself is that I understand myself

better now than I did 10 years ago and I'm happy with myself I'm happy with the life that I've uh been able to make in many different ways and I don't I'm I've tried to get get better at

not looking for external sources of Happiness when I reach my 40s or 50s I will have many children with many women in the Philippines brown puppy you should just maybe pick one lady like um that that can definitely

caused some issues jealousy is a thing or can be a thing in the Philippines I know uh when I dated one Filipina after she headed out she left a container of baby powder in my bathroom um I didn't

know what that was about I thought she legitimately like forgot it and so I tried to contact about how I could get a back her and then I find out it's they're kind of it's a way for them

to kind of um the phrase I've heard that I don't I don't like the energy that comes with it but mark their territory but basically say like this is my man and it's a way for them to I

don't know like they I think they're thinking hey if he sees a different woman and she comes over she's going to question about this um it also sets up the next interaction like hey I forgot that let's hang

out she was really disappointed that I you know when I was leaving and she wanted to spend more time with me I had other priorities and things to do but um I didn't understand their culture either at that

time like I do now I've spent a lot more time trying to understand Filipino culture and uh things that back then I didn't understand at all and I found were I just couldn't wrap my head around it like

in in the west we have to be kind of clinical in our thinking and low EQ in some ways just to survive like because of the pace of society and I've grown a lot since then and I really

appreciate and admire some of those qualities that I didn't really understand back then thanks so much for the thumbs up brown puppy East is on the rise yeah Manila is is not uh you know there's it's just not

for me but I'm going to have to fly through minila when I go back to the Philippines the uh most of the flights route through Manila and so I'm trying to sort out how I'm I going to do

that because the flight that I'm looking at lands at Manila at about 2 am no about 3 I think about 3:00 a.m and the flight to daget is at 6: a.m. and so I have to get through sec

and customs and then take a bus to the domestic terminal which I had to do in SIU last time which anyway um I mean yeah it's it can the the cities can can be a bit congested uh Philippines

Island how do you get [Music] food uh internet is really slow so when I was there five years ago yeah the internet had me banging my head against the wall I need the Internet um for many different reasons

banking of course as a content creator that's super important uh I was starting to get into content creation back then a little bit and uploads were taking days literal days and if anything interrupted them I'd have to start

the process all over again the internet is much better these days I've been in touch with my buddies I about it and he said we have starlink we're also getting PL DT fiber optic um so that's an option

so they've dramatically improved the internet infrastructure in the country I'm sure it's not perfect but I think it's coming a long way because there's just so much there's just so many advantages to have a good internet in that

country it's it's spread out transportation is mixed you've got different vehicle options it's not a place that you there's no place that you want to be without internet but it's definitely a place that benefits a lot from internet

as far as food I just go to restaurants I didn't cook when I was there uh this time around I'll probably do some cooking there's an ad running so I'm G to take this opportunity to drink some water

so I just would go to restaurants like the Philippines is more expensive than the mainland so I'll be spending more money there than I spent in Thailand or in um or here in Vietnam I expect to spend around

30% more I think that it'll 20 to 30% more is probably about what it'll cost me I do plan to cook more because where I'm going is a is kind of the is an agricultural Hub in the country

and my buddy was telling me all this interesting stuff that they because like when he and his friends get bored at work they just go fishing or or uh they just like Harvest fruits and vegetabl like it's just

he it's such an Eclectic place but he's like yeah after work me and my co-workers just get together and drink red horse and we go fishing and then we cook the fish uh or like some of my co-workers

have farms and so they just bring fruits and vegetables and we cook that and uh mind now that's something that I think a lot of people don't maybe know about mindel is it's the agriculture uh Hub of the

country it's where you've got it's hard to notice from above but you've got this like large amount of agriculture land and uh I would say it's perhaps the most food independent of the three regions you've got the north

the Central and the South I think the south is the most food independent where they can produce the most and that's where I think it you probably have more variety of local ingredients the cost is probably a bit

less and uh yeah I mean it definitely takes some adjusting too um brown puppy every island is different in infrastructure economy and living and they have many different languages that's one of the main things holding the country back

economically yeah that's a fair point when you've got different languages different dialects the country was in part formed by uh the Spanish in the past and so it's yeah it's just a very diverse country different people look different

also you have some Chinese influence like one of Z's grandfathers is from China and so uh he's got some Chinese Heritage um and yeah like it's you've got different there's filipinos with like Japanese backgrounds like I uh met

one I didn't meet with her in person but I met her on a dating app there who's half Japanese half Filipino there's Korean Filipinos uh one of my co-workers at my last company back in California his girlfriend was

half Korean half Filipino there 's Filipinos that are half Indian half Filipino you've got of course a lot of Americans from the service that have children there so you've also got like Filipinos that are half Western um and

half Filipino Marshall Butters I'll throw this down here because I found some of his blogs to be nice Marshall Butters did a he's right now he's exploring mind now and I think he was in pan which uh you

know it's one of those areas that people have mixed feelings about but he met a woman who's I think half German I think her F she has a German father Filipino mom uh and so you've got very out

on face value people think oh it's all Filipinos or Filipino but there's interesting differences in the Philippines between different people um let's see what's your recommended Island I would like to be in a city with a lot of

ladies seu do meetti um the bigger brown puppy for dating I think the bigger cities are going to be your best bet because you just have more people more options do meetti I would say is not going to

be a great option because there's so many foreigners going to do meetti now you're just not really going to stand out and it seems like a city more oriented toward families and people in relationships than it does from

people looking for Rel relationships not going to not going to say you can't find a relationship there just from what I've been reading about it it's a place that is more geared toward um you know couples like I

said Mark says for some reason I just cannot get excited about Filipino food it seems to be heavily meat oriented um I am curious uh Mark like it's uh what is your preference um like I would definitely I

think you uh make a good point about that like it is very much a a meat and potatoes uh kind of place like what kind of um stuff are you eating in Alaska I bet Alaska has really interesting

food Cuisine I know that there's um you know if you're a seafood person there's a lot of interesting Seafood up there that's different than you know what we get in the lower 48 as far as like the uh

you know burgers are popular pork is popular I I like the the Filipino food but I'm also odd in that I I grew up Asian so I grew up also eating a lot of what you could call westernized

Asian food so similar to how Chinese food in America is not traditional Chinese food it's Chinese American some of what my grandma served growing up would be the Japanese equivalent so there's dishes in Japan like takoyaki um okonomiyaki

tempura that are fusions between Japanese ingredients and then Western Styles so that's Filipino food isn't a far cry from that but I also understand like I totally get why it's you know some people don't really care for it

I it took me some more digging to find what I what I like to eat the Philippines it's not a case like Thailand where you walk down a street and you're automatically going to find a good restaurant anywhere

in the country in the Philippines I relied on Google Maps a lot more you see me even using it here just to to go through like some of the places I enjoyed but I would just Google good restaurant

near me or Italian food near me I found a really great Italian restaurant here in caman it's still open actually let me it's near the airport yeah okay I think this is it uh it was a little bit

pricey it's like across yeah it's across the street from the airport but it's uh super fantastic like the owner Italian I don't know where they get the ingredients but it's like it's what you'd expect if you were in

the west as far as Italian food goes which shocked me because I was thinking I'm here on this remote island in the Pacific and I'm eating this delicious like they were hand making the pasta it was amazing um

so you can find really good food there I think you're GNA have to dig more for it I think you're going to have to be checking reviews I think you're going to have to be maybe going out of

your way maybe being more open to taking cabs to different neighborhoods or different parts of the city uh and even then you might not find exactly what you're looking for I I don't know exactly what your pallette prefers

I will say it did feel at times a bit challenging to find the same variety of fresh vegetables I'm used to in the US in some cases their supply chains can be really fragile and so like I think

they had an onion shortage last year where the onions skyrocketed in PR um I think they also had a I don't know was a potato shortage but sometimes their supply chains can be impacted by inclement weather um and

things like that so that's something else that can make it a little bit challenging there but that's fair that's fair Mark I mean you're you're definitely not alone in that regard there's a lot of people that feel similarly

about Philippines food they feel feel like it's not what I'm used to it's not something I can adjust to uh you I think you do have it often where expats and their Filipina significant others will meet up they'll

get together and all the expats will be having Western food like they'll be having things that they're more accustomed to and then all the Filipinas will be having more Filipino Cuisine and so you see that dichotomy and I

think plenty of restaurants too I noticed they have like a Western food section where they'll serve pizzas and they'll serve burgers and you know that kind of thing and then they'll have a Filipino section where they're serving what

the locals are more accustomed to uh I really liked the kinow like which is just like Ceviche that was probably the best dish I had there I'll type it in the chat that was the best dish I had

and uh we can here I'll I'll pull up um tried ciche or if you like sushi um then this is very similar it's uh they do raw fish and then they put citrus juice and vinegar and onion and

sometimes they do pepper Ginger it's probably my favorite dish in the Philippines and I could eat it every day I ate this a lot in California and except they you know they call be in California because it's got

the influence from Mexico but it's functionally the same dish right uh I met most ladies in Elo Elo just talking and flirting Elo Elo has no big bar area or red light area there aren't many expat men there

I need to look into Elo Elo because everybody seems to be talking about it these days um but like I shouldn't say everybody a lot of my kind of Social Circles seem to be talking about it because they're

not super into the the red light scene and they're looking for kind of more chilled out places places too that aren't as transient like I think the red light scene is naturally transient where you got people coming in

for vacation and going out people in Elo Elo seem more settle down you see that Philippines life that guy Canadian Gentleman Just opened a bar in Rus city which is on the same island as Elo Elo but uh

you know so he's all the way up here it looks like probably the Second City of the island but yeah I like his uh I like some of his content um one thing with yeah life is sure I

definitely agree brown puppy one thing with women GMM says one thing with women in Southeast Asia is that they're considered uh old and weird and almost discarded if not married with a child before they're 30 there are many

uh women who would be considered left over most Southeast Asian countries that's a a fair point GMM it's it's definitely a different Dynamic than in the United States where the average American is I think 38 now the average

or the median American is like 38 39 years old so uh very different than some of these countries in Southeast Asia where especially the Philippines where the median person is I think 20 let me look that up 25

so the median Filipino is almost 15 years younger than the median American and that's more extreme in like uh San Francisco where the median has got to be higher than 38 like it's got to be 40 plus um

I mean wandering around San Francisco like there's no you know there's no there's few 38 year olds that could afford to buy a home there so um you know and pay the property taxes and the maintenance and the

upkeep Nicholas says any interest in visiting or living in subsaharan Africa at some point in the future um yeah probably not anytime soon Nicholas mostly for well for a few reasons uh one I've I've I've got uh I've

got to prioritize some other places right now uh two it's the cost just to be fully transparent a lot of people uh several people have asked me about that actually in my comment section can you talk about Africa

I've been to Africa just Morocco so that would be north of the Sahara I'd like to go to Rwanda at some point I also like to visit South Africa at some point and perhaps Nigeria as well the challenge

there is the one of the there's a few challenges there one of the top challenges is the cost so it's not uh it's not economical to go to Africa I found that the flights are expensive the accommodation is

expensive um and those two combined make it to be quite pricey so for somebody who's more interested in like budget travel or at least semi concerned about budget um then it's it's a harder sell right like and not

just me but also quite a bit of my audience they're you know they're seeing $50 a night or $60 a night hotels in subsaharan Africa and they're comparing it to Southeast Asia where they can get a hotel for

say 20 $30 a night and uh if they're going for a month right that's a thousand bucks or more they're looking at the flights the flight uh you know the flights are more expensive so those are kind of

the challenges there I think that as subsaharan Africa develops more and grows more I think it's like those are some of the fastest growing economies in the world then there will be more interest there there will be more

people wanting to go there as their tourism infrastructure builds out and they figure out more things like they what's the word they figure out different things that might to the experience like build on top of what they already

have as far as things like Safari experiences ecotourism is also really big and Rwanda I know Walter's world one of my favorite channels they love Rwanda um and they try to tell a lot of people to go there

because a lot of people think that Rwanda is still going through some challenges and it's not that country has moved Beyond and in some ways as much as they can has moved on from a lot of the conflict

that plagued that country in the past but yeah great question um a lot of people are curious like would you go to Africa you know one day in the future when um my budget's bigger and I've seen some

other things that are really high priority for me right now then I'd be happy to go I did date a woman who's half Liberian and she told me like her family's got a house there and was telling me

I should go check out sometime uh so you know that that could be a thing as well let me check where Liberia is I think Liberia is also north of the Sahara I could be wrong there no no

it's I think it's sub okay so it is subar I didn't realize it was U exactly where it was but let's see um what's your salty Krabs what's your monthly budget in Vietnam so that's a great question salty

crab I'm here like Vietnam is definitely more economical than Thailand I would say it's more it's probably the most economical country in the region or one of them this month I'll you know it's been a really lowcost month

it's I also haven't been able to spend money here that I on things I need to buy so there's some things that I I need to purchase some medicine I need to purchase some medicine that I I can't

find here I checked probably half a dozen pharmacies in dang none of them carry what I need I also need to buy some clothes I can't find the clothes that i' would like to buy here in dang so

this month it'll probably come in at around $800 including the week I spent in Thailand so the first week of this month I spent it in Thailand um but yeah I just found it hard hard to spend money

here um so I normally would probably spend closer to $1,000 maybe $1,200 but a lot of the things that I intended to buy that I budgeted for haven't been able to make those purchases so I'm gonna have to

roll that money uh into the next month and make those purchases in the Philippines if I can find them there I regret not making these purchases in Thailand I was a little bit worried about um you know are

they are these uh things that I need to bring can I take them you know are they transferable from country to country do I want to you know traveling out a one backpack you have to be cautious about

like how much stuff you pack like am i g to be able to fit everything in my backpack so yeah that's something I'm kind of kicking myself about I should have bought several of these things in Thailand because

I'm going to pay uh potentially through the nose for in the Philippines just due to Imports and scarcity and you know all that stuff like probably less demand in the Philippines for some things and also Thailand manufactures a

lot so some products that are made in Thailand they may not be made in the Philippines so that's that's you know you live in you learn definitely something I'm I'm learning from there been a really great learning experience

in a lot of different ways GMM says I think the Philippines is the most mixed country in all of East and Southeast Asia and the most westernized um yeah I think it's the most westernized my buddy chin he

uh he visited the Philippines and he said it felt like America to him he actually went to college in America and he uh he said that he felt that the Philippines you know it's it's definitely it definitely feels

much more American than any of the other countries I've been to in Southeast Asia even more so than Japan and Japan feels pretty Americanized in certain ways but in the Philippines like you just see so many references to

American culture there's also you know there's a lot of veterans there a lot of retired veterans living there you've also got the military bases there it's uh you know it's the English is also there people also love the

NBA there which was really interesting to me my Philippino friends know more about the NBA than I do and it does it does feel like very diverse in a lot of ways just like you see a lot of

PE like people look different from one another throughout the country Mark says a lot of seafood and mousse meat in Alaska but we produce a lot of barley potato berries and greens in the summer yeah that's going to

be really interesting like you do get a lot of that variety that [Music] it's I think it's it is harder to get some of that variety I will say mark one thing that was uh that I did find

in kagay and deoro which shocked me was a fantastic Sal restaurant I was not expecting it at all but I did find a really good salad place let's see here I I'm was it I don't know if it

was at SM it might have been at smcd it would kind of make sense because SM is the high-end Mall chain it's it was a really great salad though and it was really refreshing because I hadn't had a

salad in a while and uh I was you know around that time I was just using to having solids much more often berries not so much berries are expensive in the Philippines like blueberries are expensive strawberries are expensive

I don't know if I even saw raspberries in the Philippines pineapples are reasonably priced mangoes are uh they're considered an expensive fruit for the region but they're still much more reasonably priced than what you'd find in the mainland

us or the lower 40 8 one of those Alaska phrases but yeah probably you know probably much cheaper than Alaska so I'd say go for mangoes pineapples what other what are some other fruits durian but durian I don't

know if I'd recommend durian for you durian is an acquired taste it's not it's not for everybody it could be pretty stinky it's really popular in mind now though there's definitely duan's a popular one there um let me

look it up popular fruits now mango Stein so mango is one of my favorite fruits and I can I can show that on the screen here mango so this is mango stain this is probably my favorite fruit in

the region I tried some here in Vietnam a few nights ago and it was pretty tasty it's just like how do I explain it it's like it's reminds me of lemon and pineapple and something else combined into one

fruit and it's sweet I prefer it to lii which is uh lii and rambutan which are both related to it it's just got it's a more it's got more more of a sour flavor it's like sweet and sour

as opposed to just sweet like lii or a rambutan and I I bet too Mark in Alaska I bet you can do a lot of canning up there I bet you can do a lot of like food preservation

where even if the growing season may not be as long as in some parts of the lower 48 then you're able to use pressure cookers and you're able to store vegetables and you're able to make a lot of

different things up so that even though you might be a season you could still enjoy a lot of different varieties that just either don't exist or sell out very quickly because that's something that a lot of people do

notice in the Philippines is that they you know they I think Mark's mentioned this a different Mark um has mentioned this in some of his streams where if he sees a certain brand or variety of soup he likes

the store he'll buy 102 cans because he's saying you know I don't know when I'm going to see this in stock again I don't know when this you know when this will be back I don't know how often

they're expected to get a shipment of this I better just go ahead and get it while I can you don't see that in Thailand from my experience Thailand there's you've got tops which I found tons of variety there

there's also Gourmet Market in Thailand there's also western style like I can't remember the name of it there's a place in patio that carries Western groceries in all each of the cities where there's a large Foreigner population then

they have usually multiple grocery stores that seem to be really consistent about getting stuff in I'm not sure if it's I'm not sure if it's that in the Philippines some of that stuff has to be brought in on

boat where in Thailand it just they just fly it direct to Bangkok um I was surprised like all much of the salmon in Thailand for example came uh comes from Norway so they uh you know when I was

looking at salmon throughout the country it was kind of funny to me because Norway very far away from Thailand um and there is seafood in Southeast Asia but for salmon in particular I think it's just more economical for

them to import farm raised salmon from Norway so like whether I was in the south of Thailand or in changmai or in Bangkok a lot of the salmon I was having or if not all the salmon I was

having was actually imported from Europe um I still can't get over that for some reason in my mind it just like it's just I don't know um yes a lot of women do canning at home we also smoked

our salmon and make salmon jerky and that's such a healthy snack like it's you know that's if that's one other kind of complaint I have in Southeast Asia is that there's you know the jerky scene is not as

developed or popular here some places I go you go to the snack section and it's all like chips and cookies and that kind of stuff like you know it's okay in moderation but it's not you know it's not

the healthiest right and so having like more veggie or meat oriented snacks I think is just a healthier way uh to do things especially like if you're you know if you're not if you're not Super Active like depending

on your lifestyle difference in Southeast Asia versus the US like um and depending on where you live in the US too right like I'm I'm sure in certain places people are more active than other but if I'm just

chilling at the beach all the time and maybe I'm swimming a bit um but I'm not really exerting myself a ton it's you know it's potentially more damaging to eat an excess of snacky kind of stuff compared to

more calorically dense stuff like salmon jerky or kale chips is one of my favorites I really like kale chips yeah that that's just my thought on that is wow okay I had had no idea Mark that there are

Korean immigrants in Alaska that's so interesting like I need to get up there at some point that that is really cool I love kimchi and kimchi is a great snack it's super healthy it's also can be spicy you

can also add a lot of different stuff to it like I like it when they put the carrots in there like sliced carrots um the peppers it's it's nice to mix with stuff too like I like having kimchi

with egg um I like kimchi on a burger I like kimchi is like a if I can't find Sauer craut for whatever reason I like kimchi and like with like a sausage like a chicken sausage or this this

conversation's making me hungry um but uh yeah the kimchi is fantastic and I think it's a great alternative I need to keep an eye out for kimchi in the Philippines because I know a lot of Korean people like

to vacation in the Philippines and that you know that could be something I could enjoy uh you will fit right in here in Alaska Anchorage school district has over 150 languages spoken I had no idea it was that

International that's that's fascinating it makes sense so right because you've got some really major industries in Alaska you got oil and gas you got the military you got the fishing industry you've got what else Alaska those are the

top three that come to mind um but also tourism you've got a lot of people that go up there for tourism I know one of my favorite YouTubers Gabriel traveler gold mining wow okay yeah gold mining is a

good one Gabriel actually went to University of Fairbanks and he talks about his time in Alaska really with a lot of love I think it was his first extended time uh or one of his first extended times away

from his home state of California that's so cool I had no idea there were that many different people up there and it also makes sense though mark because I noticed that that's really common a lot like there's a

there's a chunk of uh expats or there's a chunk of guys that are kind of in the expat Social Circles or online communities that they married a woman from the Philippines and they live in Alaska um so it's

not like I'm in a lot of different groups that are catering to expats in Phil uh Philippines people and it's not uncommon for me to see a Filipino uh a Filipina posting in one of these xack groups and

she's actually based in Alaska with her American husband so that that's really interesting I never never put that together but it's I guess it's it's kind of a little bit similar to Hawaii and that that regard and that

Hawaii has something kind of similar going on uh it Alaska in some ways could almost be like an island right because you're separated from the lower 48 by Canada it's also you know you've got to fly up there

for most people or take a cruise ship up there most people I think are not doing the drive um although I have had some friends that have done the drive and they really had a good time they recommended

it for me the drive from Seattle but what what's everybody getting into this weekend anybody have any fun weekend plans I think my plan for this weekend is to finalize some of my uh travel plans I've got to

make a decision half of me wants to push out for a bit more time in Vietnam because I don't you know it's like on one hand I am ready to move on on the other I want to give

it a fair chance and it's probably going to be you know a while before I have the opportunity to come back because there's so many different things on my plate but I know that there's um there's some important

work for me to do in the Philippines and so I am kind of torn right now but I've got to make a decision fortunately I've got a buffer my uh Vietnam Visa expires in October so I've got a

strong buffer there the host of the my host here of for this apartment has told me you can stay as long as you want you're a great guest so that's reassuring as well after I wrap this this stream

up I may go and go out for walking a bit more um Mark says learning Thai reading basic Thai this weekend I'm about to finish my online Thai class with Duke language school this month awesome so you're really

doing some solid preparation there that's something I wish I did more of is practicing more of the language like it's it's a challenging one um how uh how long is your your tie class like it's uh it's so

helpful it's so helpful and Tai people like really seem to light up when you have some basic taii and I think they I think they on some level they know how different taii is from English and they can

appreciate that you're making the effort and my Tha friends are always helping me pick up little bits and pieces so that's such a great idea Mark I think that just you know next time you come to Thailand I

think that that will I think that will add a lot of depth to your experience wow three hours every weekday for a month with Duke that's that's an intensive class that will definitely help you make Headway there and

connect with the locals really well and too I help I find that it helps navigating some basic everyday situations with ease like for me before I had basic tie like a little bit I Tai is very basic and

rudimentary there were certain interactions where I'd have to oh okay let me let me pull out my phone and pull out the translate app and try to figure out what I'm going to say and type it in and

I'm holding them up right because in a service situation like a waitress is trying to seat me or a wait uh you know waitress is trying to or waiter is trying to take my order then they're standing there

kind of awkwardly like okay you know I I've got other c not in a rude way but they've got other customers to attend to they've got to put people's orders in they've got to get food out to customers

and so having a little bit of basic words to communicate with them is so helpful and they can understand like enough English that you know say just a moment or a one moment please they can understand that but

um yeah being able to talk a little bit more can be helpful and one of the things that I found was super helpful is asking how much which is a tower I cop so it's like a how much

please um so asking how much that way you're clear on the pricing and I found Ty people to be transparent about pricing uh but asking them that like so you know up front how much you expect to pay

for something can be can be super helpful we'll probably uh wow when I leave Alaska I don't plan on returning back so I need to get some tie on my mind so you're thinking like long-term permanent move that's

um yeah that's really intense like you know but I could understand it like if you move to Alaska from somewhere else for different opportunities then you had to when you made that move you had to move on from

your previous life or your previous lifestyle your previous experience um that's a major change but I'm sure that you're doing a lot of you're I'm I'm sure you're doing your due d diligence you're obviously investing a lot of

time and learning time and I don't think you'll regret it and it's a situation too it's like the big thing about it is it's a reversible decision right like not to say that you'll change your mind but uh

you still have of course plenty of contacts in Alaska friendships you spent so much time up there um you could go abroad for six months a year for whatever reason ah you know it's not for me there's nothing

stopping you from going back not to say that that would happen but like I I feel like in life we worry at least for me anyway I've worried too much about perfectly reversible decisions like people are saying oh

what if it doesn't work out in Thailand I can just fly back to America that I have still have my US Passport over there I'm a US citizen uh I you know follow the rules back home and so

there's nothing that would stop me from ending my trip early I could fly back next week if I wanted to um and so knowing that that's in my back pocket and I know you have the same in your

back pocket it's just such a sense of relief right simultaneously it's also nice to have all of your loose ends tied up where you're thinking okay I don't have to go back like I still have a storage unit

I keep back in the US and part of the nagging sensation in my uh head is that okay um eventually I'm going to have to sort out that storage unit and you know that's that's kind of a regret

of mine because obviously I'm paying for it but also uh there's all this junk that I don't need that I haven't used in years that um yeah so that that's something that's on my mind I may you know

buy a cheap house in Tennessee uh where I'm from I originally from Tennessee and just get a a truck rental and move all that stuff into the house and then I've got a home base back in the states

that I can keep in the meantime um Mark says at my age Thailand is my last stop after Thailand will hopefully be having I hope so is wmark um and you know I think it's a great destination I

think it's a place that you've been there several times so you know what it's about you also um you also have the advantage to the internet right like you can watch Vlogs like mine and then there's also many

other like there's tons of great Vlogs out there like you have so many advantages that somebody going to Thailand even 10 years ago or 20 years ago wouldn't have you can be so much more prepared like with your

language classes you're you're really set up for Success there and you can do a lot of comparison too with your research like I'm not sure what your target destination is in Thailand but you know if you're you're in

that exploratory mode not only can you go back to changai which is a wonderful City but you could explore all over the country like maybe during The Burning Season you go down to hot y or secla um maybe

check out Chen Rai like one of my closest friends in Thailand she's from Chen Rai and that's top priority next time I'm in Thailand is I want to visit changra I should have done it on this trip but

I I just love changai so much I kind of lost track of time and I'm thinking why do I need to leave changmai it's just such a nice city it's like the perfect City it's one of my favorite

cities in the world but uh you have so much Variety in Thailand there's just so many different places and it's to me it feels bigger than it is like a lot of people talk about how big the US

is but to me there's so much that same like I lived across the United States I lived in mostly between Tennessee Colorado and California you have the same businesses in each of those States like you've got in California

I would go to Costco just like I'd go to Costco in Colorado just like I'd go to Costco and Tennessee um go to Sonic Drive-In in Colorado just like Tennessee Walmart is the same in each of those States

like Walgreens is the same in each of those States um in Thailand different parts of the country feel can feel very different from one another and so you have so much variety there and it's so perfect for taking

like weekend trips like you might think you know I really like being based here in the north but I want to go take a weekend down at the beach and that's something that's so easily doable where door Todo

like you could be you could probably be door too in like three or four hours like from the time you get in a cab or a grab taxi from your condo to the airport and then fly and then

get through security and then uh take a cab to the resort or the condo that you're staying at the beach and like you know three or four hours probably it's hard to say it would depend on how far

away from the airport you're staying and and a few other factors but it really lends itself to having these getaway trips like a number of the people I know in changai they're they talk about how they love living

in changmai because it makes them appreciate the beach more that if they lived uh by the beach if they live by the ocean then they wouldn't um you know it just wouldn't be as meaningful so um yeah Taiwan

would be cool I know one of my subscribers Jake he uh he went to Taiwan to start off his trip in South in Asia and he had a great time he posted some blogs from there and it's uh

it's supposed to be like really great uh yeah it's supposed to be really great I haven't been there myself except for a laor but uh I've heard a lot of people compare Taiwan to Japan like as far as

culturally it's supposed to be similar it's also very developed I've heard public transit is really um really great there I think I think that's a great DEC decision but yeah we'll we'll probably wind down here in the next

few minutes because my my voice is starting to get pretty horse but uh it's been such a great stream tonight I'm so glad that you were able to join as well Mark I know you've been subscribe to the

channel for a while it's so nice to be able to chat with you and I get to understand your journey better and understand like what you're looking for in your next um the next phase of your experience and

it's ah it's just so nice to talk to people about Thailand because I try to talk to people back home about Thailand people have never been to Thailand and I feel like I sound like a crazy person sometimes

where I'm talking about oh and then this mountain is here and then the food was great and then the people were nice and they were just looking at me like dude what are you going on about but then

you actually talk to people who have been to Thailand who would consider living in Thailand who who a piece of their heart is in Thailand I don't know how else to put it um it's just so meaningful and

I think it's especially meaningful because you have the contrast right you've put in the work like you've had a lengthy career uh you've made a lot of sacrifices to work hard to to achieve your financial goals and now

it's time for you to enjoy the fruits of your labor and uh you know Thailand's a great place to do it I think it's I think it's still maybe the best value for money country I've ever been to

it's not the cheapest country I've ever been to um but every yeah it just like to me I enjoy it so much I don't understand why it's it's not more costly as far as being very safe Everything feels

very it's predictable and it's unpredictable like I think sometimes in the US life is too predictable where things are so organized and streamlined you can basically predict every day for a very long time in the future uh and

you know in some countries it's too unpredictable it's so chaotic people feel nervous Thailand bridges that Gap very very well Mark says I have to see doctors a lot at my age so being able to complain and tie

is crucial I like I like that sense of humor mark That's you have a great sense of humor about it and I think that's a good point too where you can connect with them and I think too like

Tai people are very respectful of older people in general but I think that that might make them think of you as like their uncle or like uh their Uncle equivalent right like oh this is like I'm taking care

of a family member um I found the dentists and the doctors that I saw in Thailand because I have some autoimmune issues and also have had some dental work done there they are very kind and caring like I

think they I think that they understand you know I think some people get this impression oh everybody over there is jealous of you because you're an American and uh they're jealous it's like no I think they see people

come from the West that have stress related health issues and maybe not even just stress related just health issues in general and they see like a lot of Western people have put in the work to be able to

live in a place like Thailand they've had lengthy careers uh they've made sacrifices they've done jobs they didn't necessarily want to do maybe they've had management that didn't always respect or or see them eye to eye um yeah

trauma related yeah I mean that's how I feel like I I have trauma related issues um not just psychological but also physical even in my age and I got this sense of empathy like I even had uh one

of the Thai doctors that I saw she you know like we were talking about my autoimmune issues and she was like you are really stressed back home like I can just tell based on certain uh things like she

empathized with me so much more than the empathy I like the reactions I got from American doctor she like really she was surprised that I was having these issues at my age and uh was just so considerate and

she was old enough to be my mom but she was still like really really kind considerate this was this one I saw in Pia and she told me like you got to figure out a way to like lower

your stress and manage your stress and my stress has come down a lot being in Southeast Asia and I've you know that's part of why I'm interested in a career pivot that's something I'm going to be doing in

the Philippines when I talk to some of these expats that are uh at retirement age and in the same bracket as yourself and ask them like can we sit down and talk about careers because I need to change

my career path and find something that I understand all jobs are stressful to an extent but my grandfather he had his my maternal grandfather he had his first heart attack at 38 years old and uh you know that's

six years away from me for me so um Mark says I don't want to end up in American nursing home yeah I don't blame you at all Mark I think that there are really tragic places and they can

be dehumanizing in many ways I think that in America there's this I don't know like if it's a philosophical thing it's almost like we we've gotten what we need out of you now just just go away you know

we you've you produced as a young person and now that you're we've worn you down we've gotten you know this production out of you it's uh it's a meat grinder in some ways it's a meat grinder I don't

know that it always has was it was always that way I think that's something that's changed in recent years I think there was a time in American history where uh older people got more respect and there was more

gratitude shown to them for the sacrifices they made to build because a lot of people think America's just developed it just happened overnight no it took many years of American people working very hard and sacrificing a lot to

actually turn it into a developed country putting in the infrastructure putting in the roads putting in the housing uh building the businesses that could Supply the resources needed to support a massive population it's it took a lot of

work from a lot of people to make it into what it is Mark says I think you will make a great teacher in Bush Alaska thank you so much Mark yeah I'll have to look into that I've got

several different options on my plate and I'm going to do probably a mega proon list of each of them them and sort out which ones um which ones make the most sense but yeah I think I'm gonna wrap

it up uh at this point because my voice is really starting to go but it's been a wonderful stream uh getting to chat with you Mark and getting to meet with you I really appreciate your support um and

you know your encouragement I definitely you know uh it makes all the difference in the world to me knowing that my content is helpful for yourself and for other subscribers as well um yeah thanks so much for your

support I hope to see you again on here soon uh we'll see how things go in the Philippines signal can be spotty there but I'm G to do my best to sort it out that's still a couple weeks

out so I've got several more streams between now and then um but I hope you have a lovely weekend I hope you have an enjoyable weekend and your tie lessons continue to go well I think you're in for

um I think you're in for a wonderful experience thanks so much everyone uh just a uh notice for everybody watching the repeat of this if you're watching the rerun of this giving us a thumbs up helps with the

algorithm if you want to see more content like this please subscribe to the channel down below and comment you know what do you think about these streams is there anything you want me to cover in the next stream

and we'll talk to you soon bye-bye