Wellllllllllllcome back! It’s Friday, 17th July, 2569 BE here in Thailand (Buddhist Era). The feels like temp is 42 and it’s 9 in the morning.

In this issue: My new place, the problem with Bangkok, phones, my thoughts and, of course, the album of the week.

2569 BE↗

Ari is pretty much exactly what I’d hoped it would be. Much more local, authentic and cheaper!

I’m actually staying in a hotel for this month which is good and bad. Bad news first - it’s a little more expensive than an apartment would be (still managed to get the whole month 60% off tho).

Good news - it actually keeps me on my toes alot more which is very helpful. Honestly even just having a lot of people staying around me and on the corridors and stuff is enough to give me the drive that I can’t just slack. Also the daily room cleaning pretty much forces me to be out of my room by 10ish which is a good thing for me because in Rama IX I could quite comfortably wake up late and only leave the apartment after lunch. Then, when I come back, the room is cleaned!

They have this pretty cool (for me) initiative that if you don’t want/need your sheets changed you leave a sign on your bed and then they give you a voucher for a free drink in the bar which I have been using on morning coffees. I feel like sheets being changed each day is massive overkill so I at least get 6 ‘free’ coffees a week.

The only downside with Ari is that it is kinda far away from the centre and the Grabs have shot up in price. Now costing £2 for a journey into centre or up to £4 when it’s raining. While it’s still not awful it means I have tried to stay around the Ari area and the north of Bangkok more in general, exploring new places.

Just a side note - you may have seen on the news that there was a pretty bad bar fire in Bangkok. It’s actually just down the road from me. When I asked someone about it they didn’t seem fussed at all and said it happens all the time in Bangkok which wasn’t very reassuring at all but thoughts are with those involved 🙏

Also I have gotten myself a ‘Rabbit card’, basically their Oyster, for the skytrain which honestly is pretty good (especially in the rain). It’s 40 Baht (£1) for a single ride which is actually kinda expensive for Bangkok, so I only use it in times where the Grab costs over double.

This past week has been pretty medical-heavy. I got my eyes checked, blood tests, one massage and one ‘office-syndrome’ therapy.

You probably know that my posture is beyond awful. I’ve been trying to make that one of my main focuses here in Bangkok due to the large therapeutic offering and general wellness stuff for considerably cheaper than in the UK.

For reference, a vigorous Thai massage (Thai massage means clothes on and using a lot of force apparently, which I learnt recently) for an hour and a half costs maximum £20, which is craaaaazy.

I had researched this office-syndrome place which basically helped to solve exactly what I needed. My neck and shoulders have been doing pretty much all of the work of my upper body and as a result have grown pretty large and are always tight, leading to headaches and the like.

“sabai sabai”. If I could recall the number of times I have heard this phrase from all sorts of people. The optician, the masseuse, the office-syndrome fixer, grab drivers and even my Muay Thai Kru (coach).

It means relax.

I think it basically sums up my aim for this solo-trip. Relaaaaaaaax.

I have no idea why but I’m tense 24/7, I recently downloaded this app called Sleep as Android which basically records sounds you make while sleeping and pretty much all throughout the night I have been grinding my teeth. I sort of knew I did it as I often wake up with a bit of jaw pain and sometimes tiny bits of tooth in my mouth :O

As a result I feel like I’ve been pretty consistently getting shite sleep so I’ve taken to the streets of Bangkok to get some relief.

The Thai know how to chill. Similar to the Chinese, although the work day is long here (12 hours pretty normal shift, esp for hospitality), the work isn’t the only thing they do. There is a lot of chilling involved even while supposedly ‘at work’.

Being told to relax as a punch is being thrown at me by my Kru seems completely wrong. Being told to relax my legs on a motorbike while weaving through traffic seems completely wrong. Being told to relax my body as someone is literally smashing their elbows on my back seems completely wrong.

I’m hoping soon I’ll understand what they mean but relax is something I have heard all throughout my life and have to pretty much constantly drop my shoulders and jaw all throughout the day so I know what they are saying is true I just need to get to the stage where it’s subconscious. If anyone has any tips for this lemme know lol

One thing I have also started doing is completely redefining (at least trying to) my relationship with my phone. A small but super impactful step I have taken in my battle with endless scrolling is leaving my phone outside of the bathroom when I go to use it. It’s actually already shaved off tons of wasted time and is probably wayyy more hygienic.

In fact, you know how back in the day they used to have loads of shoe cleaners on the street? Why aren’t phone cleaners a thing? You could pay like 50p for a super quick but thorough clean orrrrr maybe the cleaning service could be part of a coffee shop? They clean your phone while you wait for your coffee?

I just feel like our phones have an absolutely disgusting amount of shite on them. A magnet for germs, mine probably has covid26 chilling on it somewhere.

We wash our clothes and stuff pretty consistently (i do try) but never our tech. I wonder why that is…

I’ve started to leave my phone at the hotel if I know I am only going to be out for a little bit and it already feels so freeing. I can’t listen to music, I can’t fall back on my phone to avoid awkward moments or filling up any spare time with scrolling.

One thing I’d like to start doing is a completely free phone day once a month. That’s only 12 times a year but it feels like it would be so beneficial. Maybe if all goes well I can extend that to once a week. Realistically we do need our phones for pretty much everything but I’m fairly sure I can arrange it so I don’t need it at least once a month, surrrrely.

Moving back to the actual journey and less the journal part…

If I could have one gripe about Bangkok, it would most certainly be the traffic. It is awful. Genuinely fucked, no other way to describe it.

Even on a grab moto, we can be waiting at traffic lights for upwards of 10 minutes each cycle. People have enough time to get out of their cars or off their bikes, into 7/11 and back out again and still have time to finish eating whatever they bought.

The BTS is decent but as I said before it’s expensive for Bangkok levels.

The Grab moto is the only saviour here. Choose a car or, God forbid, a bus, and you’ll be waiting until rainy season is over before you get to your destination.

That alone is enough to put me off living here long term to be honest. Although it’s probably alot better if you stay around your neighbourhood but where’s the fun in that?

I’ve been speaking to a few locals who have mentioned that Chiang Mai is considerably better in terms of traffic although the place is pretty much unlivable for a few months during what they call burning season.

Bangkok is still super cool but yes I think it may be time to start looking elsewhere to be honest, feels sad to say. I’ve been looking at Vietnam and Indonesia at the moment (definitely not Bali lol). However, before I ‘give up’ on Thailand, I would definitely like to check out Chiang Mai and further down south to see if it is any different there.

Who knows though maybe I will find some way of getting used to it or some travel tips and tricks for Bangkok that will make it a little easier. I’ll keep on the lookout!

That being said, that is literally my only issue with Bangkok. The heat is oppressive but I signed up for it and kinda love it now to be honest.

On the flipside, the best thing about Bangkok and Thailand in general has got to be the people. So friendly and light-hearted. The ‘Wai’ that they do (basically a bow-like gesture, with different levels depending on who they are doing it to) is so much more than just an action, it’s baked into their culture and everyone shows respect to each other, no matter where they sit on the ladder or social hierarchy.

I’m thinking I might start another section of JOAJ called book of the week. Only problem is it takes me like 3 months to read one book but just to keep you all updated I have started reading arguably the most classic/iconic book (apart from the Bible probably), Homer’s Odyssey.

The timing is pretty much perfect as well, Christopher Nolan is releasing his depiction of the Odyssey (today actually!) and it features the one and the only Travis Scott which is super random but can’t wait to watch it after I have gotten through the book.

I am also considering starting a sort of goal/aim of the week as well. While this is primarily for me, maybe it can give some inspiration to you guys to do it too. My one for this week is to make the first move in a situation. Whatever that situation is, saying hello to the Barista first, asking something first etc. etc. I’m trying to teach myself to talk to random people more basically.

That’ll be all for this week! I hope you are all well, have a swell weekend :D

Thought↗

It’s so hard to find that balance between truly living in the moment and planning for tomorrow. It’s impossible to ignore the future, there’s always stuff coming up and, if there isn’t, you should plan stuff so it comes up.

I think I’m learning, slowly, to just yeeeeeeet myself into situations. They are never as bad as you think they are. If they are as bad as you think they’ll be then you already know what the result is lol.

I don’t mean being reckless, or maybe I do tbf, but just living like you are in a free-roam game because you kind of are. We made all of the rules up, there are no set rules.

Obviously I am not about to go and do something immoral, but a lot of these ‘rules’ aren’t actually rules, just social constructs that break down the more you travel and see that they don’t hold up all over the world.

I think the UK in particular is super context-based in terms of conversations and the like. You often need to read between the lines to understand what people are saying (or maybe that’s just me lol), which isn’t a problem and can make for some great humour but it can also end up with almost red-tape in conversations. Levels of bureaucracy: You can’t do that, you can’t say that, you aren’t that person, etc etc.

It’s only when you see the other perspective of people, which we see as being rude in the UK who ignore these constraints (maybe rightly so tbf) that you see just how tangled up we are in how we ask for what we want and stuff.

Something I have been trying to do is actively annoy or just confront someone each day. Most of that has been online where it has been super fun ragebaiting people on linkedin but also just being more direct in person. It’s funny I see this as ‘annoying’ the other person. I’m not talking about being actually rude I’m just talking about not beating around the bush and saying what you mean straight away.

It has been so hard to do. Feels so against my nature and really jarring but also very freeing. I have only done it like two times because it takes a while to build up and cooldown but the hope is it becomes more natural.

Basically, my aim is just to become as honest as possible. Sure you can frame stuff in a nicer way but I have found myself telling so many white lies trying to do that. “Oh it’s fine, I wanted my coffee to be cold anyway…”. Sometimes things aren’t that deep but sometimes they are.

White lies hurt the person telling them the most as they hear them all the time. Over time, you come to realise that your actual personality and tastes may just be a lie and when you don’t stand for something, you fall for anything.

Someone pls argue with me in a reply I wanna get my confrontation in for today :D

In all seriousness though, becoming more honest and intentional is something I would like to do. For the sake of everyone else but also myself. I’ve been realising just how damaging it is to your own self-confidence and image to not really be sure of what you want and not saying your true feelings.

That being said, I sincerely hope you all have a good weekend!

Album of the Week↗

Travis Scott - Owl Pharaoh - 2013↗

I really wanted to put Future’s new release ‘The Real Me’ here this week but, in all honesty (see! I’m trying already), I wasn’t a massive fan of it. Maybe it is one of those albums that will grow on me over time but for the moment I’m not sure.

Staying on the rap scene though, it is only right if I include at least one Travis album in the Album of the Week section. Even if you think Travis is just Fein, Sicko Mode, Goosebumps and Highest in the Room, I want to take you wayyyy back (don’t mean the song lol, although that is a banger).

His previously vaulted/copyright banned mixtape ‘Days Before Rodeo’ was finally released on major streaming platforms last year (having been up on Soundcloud since 2014).

If you stay on Soundcloud and scroll down just a little further you will find one hell of a gem, ‘Owl Pharaoh’ Travis’ first ever mixtape/album. This is back when he used to go by Travi$ Scott.

The whole mixtape is someone, new to the scene, trying to get attention by creating some incredibly unique sounds.

Two tracks always catch my attention. The very first one, Meadow Creek, I feel like it’s the perfect start to what this project is all about - Trav getting out of his house and experimenting, doing things he wants.

Somehow one of the least streamed Travis songs ever, Drive (ft. James Fauntleroy), is one of my favourite Travis songs. I love the start, setting the scene of changing the radio station, cycling through different musical tastes and then landing on the actual song which just delivers so strongly.

I could genuinely go on all day about Travis’ songs but I’ll stop here. If you enjoyed Owl Pharaoh, I’d recommend just going through his albums chronologically, so Days Before Rodeo next. Also check out Travis Scott unreleased playlists on Soundcloud, there is so much material that he hasn’t been able to get sample clearance for and it’s all on sc.

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