…I’m gonna climb it.

Just a note, this is pretty much a short essay on thoughts that came to me in the park and while running.

If there’s a Mountain

I got out of work a little early today, so I decided to go to the park early and get my workout done and out of the way with. However, when I got there I felt compelled to sit down a park bench and think. So that’s what I did.

As I sat there I asked myself, “How did I get here?” I am sitting at Lumphini Park in the middle of Bangkok in 95 degree heat during February while back home there is likely several feet of snow and certainly below freezing temperatures. So how did this happen? How did I get from Chicago, 134 days ago, to this park bench in Bangkok?

It’s a pretty easy answer, to be honest. Anyone can read through my blog to see the different places and modes of transportation I took to get here. But I guess my questions more lies in why rather than how. So why did I decided to do this? Why do I decide to do a lot of the things I do?

The more I thought about the why of my journey the more I started to think about the why of everything in my life. Why do I truly decide to do anything I do? My first initial answer to the why of this trip was, I simply felt compelled to. It was one of those deep down, better do it or you’ll regret it, type of feeling that made me just know this is what I should be doing. I have a lot of those feelings, but I’ve never really contemplated them.

Now, with this sudden realization, I am looking at some of the biggest decisions and “mountains” I’ve climbed in my life and I’m suddenly racing back to them and asking why?

Looking back, as a kid you don’t really get to make a lot of your own decisions, so some of my first memories of these “mountains” I decided to climb surface in high school. Wrestling was the biggest mountain, by far and away, I decided to climb in high school. Then in college, for whatever reason, I felt compelled to graduate in 3 years. I thought, “why not?” I also felt compelled to climb as quickly as I could in my college athletic department as well. It was in college that I felt compelled to go to Nicaragua alone at age 19 resulting in my first backpacking experience. On this trip, however, the major compulsion was to get in a Muay Thai ring; not just as an artifice or gimmick, but to really mean it.

Now, with these previous “mountains” in my head I really start to question the why for each one. If anything I determined my biggest goal in life is to be all that God created me to be, and if by my own sheer laziness or lack of effort I fail to squeeze any amount of talent and ability from the gifts I was blessed with than it would only be a shame and considered a loss.

So to me each of these “mountains” came with the same goal, but maybe different initial motives. Wrestling just seemed like a given since my oldest brother, Clifton, wrestled. Graduating college early seemed a given as well, because if I could put in more effort why wouldn’t I? Taking 4 years would have been like climbing a mountain in a blizzard, but instead of hurrying and summiting quickly to minimize time in the storm deciding to take a casual stroll up instead. Well, maybe not that extreme, but you get my point. When I consider trying to climb the ladder in my college athletic department, I’m not quite sure what my motives were. I hardly know what I want to do with my life now, so it surely wasn’t to achieve a dream or goal of being an athletic director. While parts of me may like that Idea, my conclusion is that this mountain got climbed simply because it was the only “mountain” in front of me. The trip to Nicaragua was an attempt to push me outside of my comfort zone and climb a “mountain” of personal development.

After running those thoughts through my mind I think I am finally ready to tell you why I am sitting here on this park bench in the middle of Bangkok. I ended up half way a crossed the world with 20 new stitches and a professional Muay Thai fight under my belt simply because I needed another mountain…

I mentioned early I still am not entirely sure what I want to do with my life, so what’s the point in rushing up a mountain that might not have the view I’m looking for? I know parts of me still wondered what athletic talent and ability I still had to prove. I am obsessed with being all that God created me to be, and it sure would be a shame to be 60 years old and wonder what if.

The real reason I have been missing from home and been gallivanting around the globe is because it seemed like the best mountain at the time. And, truthfully, it still seems like the best mountain. While I’m not at the top yet, the views along the way have been nothing short of breathtaking. From here I have nothing else to do, but continue climbing. I’ll let you know when I get to the top….

Not a whole lot. I’ve been pretty grounded this past week just staying in and watching way to much Netflix or working. I do like to make it out to the park for some nice runs and workouts, though. I did make a couple trips for visas, and I had one good adventure to a rooftop.

My first visa related trip was to this massive government complex. It was huge with offices for about any government related endeavor you might be after. It took me a while to even figure out where to go to get my Thai visa extended. Then there was some photocopies of my passport and current visa that I need done and they told me that photocopies were done on the first floor. So I went to the first floor and asked a security guard who didn’t speak much English, but he told me to follow him to the 7th floor. On the 7th floor they told me that I could get copies done on the first floor…

After some more wasted time I finally did get my copies done and then I waited for an hour and a half and then got my passport returned with my extended visa. I can now stay another 30 days in Thailand, even though I only plan on being here two more weeks.

My other visa expedition took me to the Russian Embassy. I stopped by earlier in the week to ask a few questions. I was under the impression that citizens of other countries must apply for a Russian visa in their own country of residence only unless they had a work, retirement, or some special permission to stay in Thailand over 90 days. I don’t have any of that so I just wanted to check. I was told that I could apply there to get my visa!

With that surprise I had to put together my visa application. First, you have to pay $15 or so to some Russian tourism company to “sponsor” your travels to Russia. I did that and then filled out an online application. Then I “figured out” my flight in and my flight out of Russia as I have done for my Thai and Chinese visas. However, this time I also had to come up with a medical insurance document. They want you to have at least $10,000 of coverage or something like that when traveling in their country.

I do have coverage under my health insurance in the US, but they don’t have a nice tidy little form that shows coverage in Russia. Through my insurance you have to look for in network care or pay out of pocket and then submit a claim to be reimbursed. I have a $10,000 credit limit on my credit card so its practically the same amount of coverage, but I didn’t think the Russian’s would but that explanation. So I did the best I could to come up with some supporting documents from the insurance company and I hoped the lady at the consulate would be pretty lax about that policy.

Fortunately, things went smoothly and I’ll be picking up my visa on Friday! When I submitted it, the lady just looked like didn’t care at all. She didn’t ask a single question. She also only charged me $75 for my visa. The minimum price for a Russian visa of any type for a US Citizen is supposed to be $160. I think, since there are way more British people applying there than Americans, I got charged the British visa price. I’ll take that nice little discount!

“How much do you bench?” – “I’m up to 34 inch rims now!”

Working out at the park is always fun, especially since you always see something different. They have all these weight rooms, well I guess it isn’t a room, that are just out in the open air in the middle of the park. They feel pretty old school and there is everything from free weights and barbells to machines and weird contraptions and benches with tires for weights. It costs 20 baht (63 cents) for a day pass. So I enjoyed lifting weights there especially with the older Thai guys because they love joking around.

Most often I just go to an area with a lot of pull up bars and gymnastics like stations. There are often younger Thai guys built like Olympic gymnasts doing flips and tricks off of the pull up bars. That is always really fun to watch as they try to out do each other with their tricks.

Another fun thing about the park is the hundreds of old people doing Zumba type classes. There are also hundreds of people running laps around the 2.5km trail around the outside edge of the park. That’s always a run run to, just because there are so many people there running with you.

On Sunday, since I don’t have a church in Bangkok, I went and sat at the the spot pictured above overlooking the pond and listened to some church sermons for my Sunday worship. It;s nice just to relax and enjoy the atmosphere there.

On Saturday night, I went exploring with a friend I made to some rooftops overlooking the city. It was pretty adventurous, and for a while it looked like it might rain which was trouble since there were lightning rods all over that roof! But things tamed down and it was all good!

We stayed and watched the sun go down. It was cool to watch the city change from it’s day time form to a sparking city skyline right before your eyes as the sun dropped. Honestly, I’ve always had a healthy respect for heights, but challenging that fear really makes me feel alive. My heart was pounding most of the time, but I couldn’t help but smiling!

Next blog update should be about me narrowing down and figuring out some travel plans. I just got my taxes filed and my return isn’t as big as I anticipated so I’ll have to work with the budget I got. Until next time, God bless!