Well I left Byron Bay on January 15th 2009 for what I expected to be 5-6 week trip across Asia working with our youth venture capital fund www.YSEI.org and this year’s 10 fellows. I started out in Malaysia and have been working with projects in Thailand (way up north near the Laos border), Sarawak and the Philippines (north and south).
5 weeks has turned into 5 months and I’m now in the Southern Philippines, on a small island, in the middle of a big typhoon with no power and a flood roaring past the front door. I’ve got two broken ribs from a little surfing mishap on a big wave but otherwise in one piece and rolling. These things happen.
Our outsourcing company already has customers from New York to New Zealand and combined with my non profit work I’m going to be on the road more than ever before next year. I estimate I’ll probably be in at least 20 countries over at least 3 continents from Jan - Dec 08. That’s on planes, motorbikes, boats, jeepneys, trains, horses, trikes and all other kinds of transport you can possibly imagine. ie I’ll be pretty much in the ‘field’ so to speak! Seeing as I chew through laptops every year I’ve finally taken the plunge and bought a full-assault, rugged laptop from Panasonic. It’s called a TOUGHBOOK…and that’s exactly what this thing is TOUGH…TOUGH….TOUGH! It kicks ass and I’ve been bush-testing it in the Noosa hinterlands over Christmas.
I’m sitting in Kuala Lumpur International Airport writing this post and thought it appropriate to write about flying cheaply. I’ve met a fellow surfer from the Gold Coast and he has paid almost 3 times the price of the same ticket that I’ve got.
