2019

I stayed in 50+ rooms in 12 countries, in over 30 cities and towns. Here’s a Google map I made of the places I saw throughout 2019. I had the best year of my life, coincidentally it was the first year I’d ever spent entirely out of the United States of America.

Highlights:

*Beaches in Da Nang
*Staying in downtown Ho Chi Minh City
*Three weeks in Cambodia — Otres Beach for two nights, sex then swim, I laughed at the sun, knowing I was peaking
*First arrival in Bali, drinking local Bintang
*Flying to New Zealand, meeting up with my pops, seeing both islands
*Spending three months back in Da Nang, becoming a workaholic/beach bum, drinking 50-cent local beers
*Walking around Berlin, drinking bottles of good beer, exploring the whole city and its diverse neighborhoods
*Mozart/Beethoven statute in downtown Berlin, the Berlin Wall
*Weed chocolate and more beers while exploring Prague
*More beers in Bratislava, Slovakia, exploring a small city, breaking up a fight in a bar
*Exploring more neighborhoods in Budapest, Hungary, seeing the Danube River
*Drinking Turkish coffee and tea in Istanbul, cooking for my girlfriend
*Living in an old house in Antalya, Turkey, overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, cooking in the hot kitchen with palm trees visible from the window
*Editing poems in Belgrade, Serbia, on the little balcony up on the second floor
*Drinking lots of Serbian beer in Novi Sad, having my own place for a week or so, working on music every day for four days straight
*Being back in Thailand, staying around Bangkok, the only white person around, working and drinking beer at night, writing short scripts and poems
*Street food in Bangkok, Thai people
*Spending a month in Bali with my girlfriend, taking a break from work, exploring the island
*Having a modern apartment in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, with a view of downtown every morning and night
*Exploring George Town, Penang Island on foot, seeing the UNESCO streets, art, and eating local food every meal
*Getting back to Kuala Lumpur, staying at another high-rise modern building in Kajang (like KL and Bangkok, pool and living up in the sky in Southeast Asia)

These are some of the highlights. Of course, I’m leaving out some of the fights I got into with the local people, as I’m wont to respond to certain situations with brute anger, like swinging fists.

Anyway, here are some words I wrote last night, up until 2 AM after the fireworks, listening to Less Than Jake:

2019

I started 2019 in Da Nang, Vietnam. I’d been traveling for about 2 or 3 months and my hair was growing long. I’d met a Chinese girl in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and after she spent a month in India she flew back to Thailand and then came to see me. After a few nights, I think we decided to stop using condoms. Probably not the best idea.

But I remember her first night there, we went out to dinner together a few blocks away from the beach at night. She had a tan and she was clearly much thinner. When I took her picture with my cell phone as she was reaching across the table for some spices or chopsticks, she looked guilty. I had this way of disarming her and she didn’t easily drop her guard down with anyone. But I didn’t play games. The biggest reason why she had come to Da Nang to be with me, I couldn’t figure if it were because she didn’t want to go back to China or if the poem I had written for her had had any real effect.

She told me so, on the beach -- after dinner. She looked into my eyes. Guard down.

“You know, I really liked that letter you wrote for me.”

“It was a poem,” I said, lifting a can of beer to my lips, drinking it, feeling good. My arm around a beautiful woman, vulnerable. She was. Not me.

The waves crashed along the beach in the night and dullness, a dull and misty rain.

We quickly decided to visit Ho Chi Minh City, next. Somehow, after breakfast the next morning with strong coffee, a fruit platter of kiwi, watermelon, mango, and passion fruit, I had convinced her to come along with me. It was hot as hell in Ho Chi Minh, and the room I’d booked was much too small for the both of us.

“This isn’t going to work,” she said right away. And that was good. She was speaking up and she got the landlord to change the room for us. Suddenly, we were fucking in bed at night or in the morning or she was going down on me or I was waking up and after sex, she was putting on a little red dress and I took her picture, smiling, both of us. Guard down.

We ate and fucked across Cambodia. Phnom Penh, the capital. A bus from Ho Chi Minh, then a bus from Phnom Penh to the western coast of Cambodia. Sihanoukville, Otres Beach, M’pai Bay on Koh Rong Sanloem island. We got into a big fight there. And resolved our differences when we got back to the mainland, taking a flight north to Siem Reap. We did not go to see the temples, there, at Angkor Wat. It was much too hot and we spent more time enjoying each other’s company, banging. Playing a video game of bowling in bed before our last night together.

I told her I wanted to dye my hair blue.

The last night, we did that. A woman dyed my hair green, instead. She didn’t speak much English.

And I said goodbye to Han Xue with my newly-dyed hair. She went to China and I flew to Bali for the first time.

I spent three weeks there in January, into February. Then I flew to New Zealand, Auckland. To be with my pops. We saw Auckland for a night, drove down to Taupo for about four hours the next day. Stayed there for a few days. He attempted the Ironman race. Then at about 6 AM on a Saturday or Sunday, we drove south to Wellington. Maybe five or six hours. Got into a fight at the airport. Flew to Queenstown after waiting at the airport for five hours. And then drove another hour or so to Wanaka. There we stayed for a few days, our relationship deteriorating facilely.

I flew back to Vietnam, on bad terms with my dad.

Landed in Da Nang, happy as hell -- after spending a night in Ho Chi Minh -- to see Han again. She was waiting for me at the airport in that little red dress! Fuck me.

I had my hand on her thigh in the cab. There was electric running through the both of us.

We got to the villa she’d rented for us that night. And fucky fucky, that’s what we did -- about four or five times in 18 hours. Until my dick hurt.

The next morning, we swam in the pool on the top floor. She smiled, happily as I took her picture. She was wearing her white bikini.

We spent about two months together, fighting sporadically. Having lots of sex. One day in May, I was getting frustrated with working all the time and feeling pressure to please her because she wasn’t working. We got into a big fight when we moved into a new apartment for a month.

She walked away, or I did, rather. After she’d said that I had embarrassed her in front of the new landlord.

That day, I met an Irish kid who was pissdrunk at three in the afternoon. He was some kind of graffiti artist. And I hung out with him and some British punk and other Vietnamese punks. They automatically assumed I was “ANTIFA” because of the color of my hair. I didn’t have any politics.

That night, I got into a drunken fight with Han and put my fist through the bathroom door which was mostly glass.

I cried hysterically at the sink with my fist and forearm bleeding, all those emotions I had kept inside of me for months and years. Finally, vulnerable. My guard was down, completely. I was embarrassed and ashamed, the next day. And we had some more bad fights.

They had sprouted from me purchasing a ticket to Berlin one morning, without considering all that she’d need to go through as a Chinese citizen to get a visa to go to the European Union.

Well, I went alone.

Before we parted in Da Nang, we had made amends, fucking again. Very good. She was sexier than ever.

Berlin was a cool city. I had bad aches after that long flight. I stayed on the floor in the flat of a ritzy neighborhood. Good beers again. (Oh, I forgot to say that Han and I had seen Hoi An, Vietnam, for a few days before we separated.)

After a week in Berlin, seeing the Berlin wall and other touristy spots, I took a bus to Prague. Stayed there for a week. Took another bus to Bratislava, Slovakia. People started giving me weird looks in these areas of Eastern Europe. And Budapest was just as strange. It was very hot. And on weekday mornings, I’d leave the hostel where I was staying -- a huge mistake! -- I saw Hungarian degenerates sitting at sidewalk bars, drinking big glasses of cold beer at 9 AM.

I was glad to leave Eastern Europe in July. I met Han again, this time in Istanbul. Things were a little weird at first but we really enjoyed our first apartment in Istanbul, on the West side. Next week, we spent on the East side, at a place with a view of the water and a terrace. We ate dinners out there and I worked most of the days there, in fact. Turkish coffee was strong and delicious, addictive. And their tea was just as good.

I liked Istanbul, but not at first. The winding streets, the foreign people.

We flew south to Antalya on my birthday. It was hot, palm trees. The Mediterranean sea. I fucked Han overlooking that damn sea in an oldtime three-bedroom place, five floors up. Another good view, I worked in a hot room all week long while Han taught her online classes in the air-conditioned room.

The beach in Antalya was rocky. And there were very few, if any, foreigners. Just Han and I, swimming in the sauna-like heat.

We spent two weeks in Antalya. Experiencing the touristy downtown and a local area with Russians too. I was getting tired of traveling.

Then we flew to Belgrade, Serbia. The place was nice, living room, big bedroom … Han laid in bed right away. I can remember another day, her lying on that bed. Naked. And I was in the living room, sitting on the couch, watching the TV. I saw her ass. It looked good and big and smooth. I went over to her.

“Goddamn you,” I seemed to say.

“What?”

She was so fucking beautiful. And when we fought, a few days later -- her period approaching -- it was like my heart was being ripped from my soul. Her walking up the street in a fashionable outfit like a feminist abstract painter, ponytail in tow. I walked around Belgrade with a tall can of beer.

“Fuck her,” I said to myself.

Then we went to Novi Sad together, northern Serbia. There I’d end up staying for about five weeks because we kept fighting and it could not be resolved. So I decided to get my own place. She kept with her previous plans that I had abandoned, and went to Bosnia.

I kept to myself.

After a few weeks in northern Serbia, I flew to Bangkok. Relieved to be back in Southeast Asia.

Still, I missed Han. And after a few weeks, maybe two or three, we were making plans to see each other again.

And when I got to see her, after a month or so, she was wearing a short dress that she’d bought in Novi Sad. Black, light green, orange. And she was wearing a fedora. Her hair had been chopped off, short. She was skinny. Very. Maybe about 90 pounds.

We went to an art museum together. It was stange, at first. But I didn’t back off, I made sure to touch her whenever it was appropriate. And I walked away from her when I felt that would be best.

When we left, it started raining. We decided to eat together.

She went on and on, getting comfortable, about her experiences in Bosnia. I listened, intently. She couldn’t make up her mind if we should spend the night together. I said fine, okay.

She said, okay. Fine.

And when we got to her place, she tried on the three shirts I’d bought for her. She was ecstatic.

I fucked her really good that night. And again in the morning.

Over the weekend, she cut my hair out on the balcony. I felt like I had my girlfriend back, she really cared about me. And I felt the same about her.

We stayed a few nights at a place together in Bangkok. We had one bad fight. She got bit by a stray dog, or what we thought was a stray dog, and so we went to the hospital together to take care of that. And that, unbeknownst to me, would become a theme for the next month or two of us traveling together.

We flew from Bangkok to Bali. Spent two weeks in Legian, near Kuta and the western beaches where all the tourists went. It was October. We ate well, had great sex and spent each night watching TV, talking to each other, laughing. Happy.

Then we took a taxi to Ubud. Stayed there for two weeks. I enjoyed riding the little Honda scooter. Bought a camera. Took pictures. And possibly got Han pregnant, after fucky fucky all the time. Because I was on a work break and by then she was only teaching about three classes per week.

It was the first time I had taken a REAL vacation in about four years. Maybe longer than that.

Anyway, we decided to go to Malaysia. Or at least she had decided, and there was quite an ordeal just getting her visa.

She was sick on the plane. And I knew why, instinctively.

Kuala Lumpur for two weeks, a modern apartment with a spectacular view of downtown.

Hospital visits.

Han left for China within a week.

My heart was broken.

I carried on, nonetheless. It helped, in fact, to be on the move. I took a five-hour bus north to Butterworth, which was a ferry-ride away from Penang island. I stayed on the island, in George Town, for about a month.

When I was taking the ferry, staring out at the sun and water and buildings on the horizon, I knew by then that I didn’t really know what the hell to expect. I could stay for a few days, or maybe I’d never leave for the rest of my life.

I explored George Town more than I’d explored anywhere else, all year. I was good at walking. And it was therapeutic for me.

And now I’m writing from a 24th-floor apartment, about 15 miles south of Kuala Lumpur. I have my own place, cooking has become my daily routine again, I’m still drinking these damn expensive beers (in Muslim countries, Turkey and Indonesia, too), and doing laundry in my own washer out on the balcony.

I saw the fireworks tonight. From the 39th floor.

I’m filled up with each of these experiences, for the rest of my life. The stars in New Zealand were my favorite.

I could walk outside, in between beers, and pissing into the Earth -- I’d look up to see the projections of the past, the future unknown.

And what else is there to life, anyway?

Cheers to that.

See you in 2020.