| Where did you go? | Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, and Malaysia. I didn't make it to Singapore. |
| Did you go by yourself? | Yes. |
| Why did you go? | Why not? I love traveling and was getting burned out on work, so it seemed like a good time for new travels to new places. |
| How long were you gone for? | Two months. |
| Did you keep your job? | No. |
| Are you going to get your job back? | No. This is forward progress, I don't plan to go backwards. |
| How did you pay rent? | I didn't have rent. I lived out of my car for a month before leaving, staying with friends most of the time. It was great! |
| When did you decide to do this? | I wanted to do something like this a long time ago, several years, but I decided to finally do it earlier this year, maybe like February. |
| What's all this about you getting engaged?! | I asked a wonderful Vietnamese girl to marry me while I was in Saigon. |
| What!? You asked some random Vietnamese girl to marry you?! | No, I had known her for years beforehand. This was the right time, the right place and the right girl. :) |
| Did you bring her back to America with you? | No. American immigration is not at all what the poems claim. I have an entirely new outlook on the whole procedure. It's incredibly biased against poor countries and individuals who don't have large business interests in America. |
At the beginning of 2009 it became evident that parts of my life were not going the way I wanted them to. Recent changes at my employer had left my career going in the wrong direction and taking a heavy toll on my spirits. I needed a change. I decided to quit my job and go to Asia for a while. For how long I didn't know, nor did I know what I would do over there, or even where I'd go, those details would be worked out over time. I just knew I needed a change, so I made it happen. Over the course of several months I helped my employer hire a replacement for me and help train him as I planned my trip to Asia. At the end of May I had my last day at my job and on that same day I flew to Saigon via Tokyo.
I had originally planned something vaguely like this... Fly to Saigon and spend some time in Vietnam with my friend Tien. From there I wanted to travel through Cambodia, Laos, back to Thailand, south through Malaysia and down to Singapore, then back to Saigon to catch my plane back to America.
I got to Vietnam and was greeted by Tien and company. We spent a few days in Saigon and then headed back to Tien's home town. Tien sent me off to Ha Long bay for a week but was unable to go with me. I missed her greatly while I was there and on the plane back to Saigon I made a big decision. I asked Tien to marry me when I got back to Saigon. From there I did travel to Cambodia, Thailand and Laos by myself because Tien had no passport. When she finally got her passport I went back to Vietnam where we celebrated our engagement, then went to Malaysia for a week. We spent one final week in Vietnam together with her family and then I came home to make arrangements to bring my fiancé to America to marry me. This is ongoing as of this writing.