Dalama Adventures Tale of two corporate types ditching their jobs and traveling the world for 14 months... check out all photos, blogs & interesting tid bits at http://www.dalama.net

Americaannnn Mannn.... coos the young Thai boy in the hostel next door to us, as Darrin walks over to inquire about wireless service for the third time.  Thailand, like Rio and Sydney, is a great place for people to just "be themselves."  There's a very large gay community and it's a much more open scene than other places.  "Americaaan Maaan, you stay with us, and I'll give you great service and attention, and our hotel is much better, cleaner, nicer beds, and for you... big discount on wireless."  "And your wife.... well, I let her stay too, Americaaan Maaan, but you my Americaaan Boyfriend!"  Competition is fierce for guest houses during the low season, and if you're a keen negotiator, you can work the deals to your favor this time of year.  This hotel worker, the keen salesman that he was, zeroed in on Darrin's key weakness - ah, unlimited wireless access!  The next few days in Chiang Mai were going to be scorchers, and we were in need of a cool place to decompress, get the web photos and blog updated, pay bills and deal with outstanding issues from our insurance, tax and credit cards, so we traded in on our guest house next door with the pool, in exchange for the internet access and a cheaper room.  For three days we traded off sleeping, running errands around town and accessing the precious internet to research and plan our strategy for our next months on the road in SE Asia.  I managed to find the post office, and figure out how to wrap up our "ship home goods" with the special box and string they require.  Although we've now posted several boxes of stuff home from Australia, India, and Nepal, each place has an equally sketchy postal system and process... and as we're sending everything back sea-mail which could take up to 6 months in transit, we're not so sure that anything will actually make it home.  

Over the next three days we were productive, bringing to you all the content from the past month you've just viewed prior to this entry... only leaving our room for the fine street-dining...  mango yoghurt shakes, pad thai, chicken & basil, pumpkin stir fry, and of course, mango sticky rice & bananas in coconut milk.  All this eating and sitting is killing us slowly.  We're now past the point of worrying about working out.  While we do get out and walk every day, and have been active in pursuing hiking and trekking adventures... we're far past the state of being able to work out here and there and have it make a visible difference.  And it's so hot and humid from such and early hour in the morning through night, just the thought of going out for a run makes me sweat buckets.  At this point, it would take several months of dedicated focus to an exercise and proper eating regimen to get us back to a presentable state.  The wonderful thing, we're no longer having to expose ourselves on beaches of San Diego, and there's no cultural pressure to look in shape - and a plus for women - in most of Asia you are covered from shoulder to shin, so it hides the extra pounds, for now, anyways.