Welcome to Ear Biscuits, I’m Link. And I’m Rhett. This week at the round table of dim lighting, we are asking the question, what happened in Thailand and the UK? And we should know. ‘Cause we were there. Yes and this is a– For the past two weeks we were on vacation. And as is normal, we haven’t talked to each other in any great detail about what we did because we wanted to save it for this and I would say these are as extensive as any vacations we ever been on and as a result, we gotta talk about both of ’em. We’re actually gonna do this over the course of two episodes. Let’s make it a six parter. Over the next six weeks– And I wanna be clear– Rhett and Link slowly and painfully unravel their vacation– We probably could do that but we’re not gonna do that and we’re doing it as two parts not because we’re trying to milk as much as we can, but how can I put this? Something happened on my vacation, the Scotland part with my mom– That deserves– I don’t wanna, I don’t know exactly what happened but I don’t want to short circuit or cut short the– Yeah. That tale. It deserves its own place, its own story and just– It was bad. What happened wasn’t good. No it wasn’t. It wasn’t– It seemed like your– Well this is a teaser. And this is for not this episode, sorry. This is for the next episode– Doing a deep tease. This is for the next episode, so I don’t know how far we’re gonna get with your vacation, my vacation and I don’t want the second episode to just be about what happened to my mom because I’m sure there’ll be stuff that you still wanna talk about, stuff that I wanna talk about, I’m just saying that we’re saving that story for the second one and we’re gonna just kinda cover what happened and explore. We’ll just kinda bop, and we’ll bop back and forth– And I got notes, man. With all the stuff that happened on our vacations. I have notes every once in awhile but– I have notes. This is, I’m gonna be referencing my notes because– Dang, weren’t you there? Yeah but so many things happened. Okay well let me just quickly, I’ll just summarize what I did. Okay move your notes out so it seems like you’re not, so you’re off book. No, this is my side of the table, okay. I could put up a barrier. Hey I’m just trying to help you out, man. Don’t reach across to my side of the table. I’m just trying to help you out. What happens on my side of the table’s my business. And you know what, it stays on your side of the table. Okay yeah, you just reached across and grabbed my notes, man. Well put up a barrier. So we can’t see each other. I mean it’s a podcast, we don’t need to see each other. Except for the video version. There are some podcasts where they’re like in different places in the nation or the world. Those are really awkward though. So– And this isn’t? As you know, I took my family, my family being my immediate family, my wife and kids but also my brother, his wife, their four kids and my parents. This was a long-awaited and planned trip to the homeland of Scotland and the whole idea was to spend a week in Scotland with them which we did, going to three different places in Scotland and then we dropped them at the airport after a week and then just the California McLaughlins continued on down through the UK, stopping into England. Stopping in York and then the Cotswolds, a day in Oxford. It’s so funny that all of the places that you’re naming are so different sounding than all the places that I went. Oh yeah we had definitely opposite vacations. I mean I guess I could have been in like Greenland or Antarctica or something but, and then London which of course we’ve been to and then you spent a weekend and I’ve got some, I got some developed thoughts about London now. Oh yeah? So I wanna compare notes, literally compare notes with you because you spent a week there but– You went to so many places you had to look at your notes to remember even that. Well six different lodgings in two weeks which is a lot. Yeah I’m excited to hear about it. You, as a McLaughlin, you went back to the McLaughlin epicenter with all the McLaughlins. That was the idea, yeah. Then the idea was that was supposed to be special so I guess the big question that I’m gonna ask you now– Oh it was very special. Oh don’t answer. Very special. But was it, let’s find out. Not special, it was special– Let’s find out. In a particular way. Over this and the next episode. Of course you know I’m Thai. Neal is a Thai last name. Right. So I’ve always wanted to go back and get in touch with my– Oh there you go. There’s your motivation. My family. No I just took my immediate family and– Smart, smart. That’s my wife and three children and that’s it. It’s a lot cheaper when you do that, first of all. Oh man. Let me just say, let me just say, I spent more money more quickly than I’ve ever spent. Wow. I mean it was just like, it was like one of those cartoons where I saw a cash register just going– I kept just seeing that in my periphery. Oh man, yeah, I guess I spent some money. Is that what this is about now? Hey man, I spent money too. I’m just saying, I’ve been thinking about it a lot. And you know me, I don’t think about money. Yeah, yeah. But when you spend that much money. That does say a lot. You have to start thinking about it. We took the 14 hour plane ride to, into Hong Kong and then immediately connected to Bangkok. It was not the original plan. I’ll get into that in a little bit. Stayed in Bangkok for a number of days and then we flew to Chiang Rai which is the northern mountainous territory right on the border of Thailand with Laos and Myanmar in the Golden Triangle. We stayed there for another handful of days. Elephants, jungle, well, I won’t, mountains. What I’ll call a jungle but it wasn’t a jungle. What was it, it was trees and– It was just very… Lush vegetation? Lush vegetation. It’s a jungle, it’s a jungle. To me it was but probably technically it was not. It was very nice. What is a jungle technically? I don’t know ’cause I didn’t go to one I don’t think. And then I flew down to Ko Samui. Ko means island. Samui is the name of that island. Ko Samui. So– Samui. So then, so we wrapped up our trip with just the quintessential beach-front, hammock on the beach, coconut in hand, corn cob in other hand if you follow me on Instagram. Good gracious. @linklamont! So that’s how I wrapped it up. Seven flights, yeah, total to get around to all those places once you factor in connections. Oh. But who’s counting? Oh my wife is definitely counting because she has a flight phobia. And I’m not trying to make light of it, I’m just trying to do an Oprah impression, but oh man, she was a champ. She took it like a champ. It wasn’t easy. Mm. When you’re coming into that island, boy we took a little drop out of the sky a little bit. Zhoo-bop! It’s like a little– I will say– A little free-fall. The interesting thing about your family, having someone who has a flight phobia, you’ve had a lot more flight issues than anyone that I know. Like if you go back through the stories of being on a tarmac forever or experiencing really crazy turbulence. Yeah, I’m the reason she has a flight fear. I just haven’t had that, I probably would be scared if I’d had a bad experience but I haven’t ever had anything that I, you know, we’re talking about. Yeah, it is my fault and you know what, she loves me enough to endure it. Well that wasn’t what I was suggesting but that’s what you’re internalizing so– No I’m just owning it. Okay. It’s the truth. You’re not– Somehow it’s my fault. You’re not the pilot so, or the airliner, whoever’s fault it is and I don’t wanna be in legal trouble here, just shut up. So yeah we skipped all around. We did lots of things. I got notes here but I don’t want anybody to see ’em so I’m gonna keep ’em off camera. I just wanted to seem like I remember what happened. Oh you’ll know when I’m referencing my notes. It’s just so I can know when to say what. Not when to say but what to remember. One thing I didn’t do is shave. If you like to acknowledge my beard. I don’t know if you’re– Oh well I’ve– I don’t know if you’re threatened. I’ve already threatened you. I’ve already seen it, and do I look like I would be threatened by a small beard at this point? Yeah your beard is gettin’ large, man. Yeah right. That’s an in-depth conversation for another time. Basically at a certain point, I’m on vacation, I’m not gonna shave. And if I skip two days with travel water and what it does to my face, it makes the hairs harder or something. What? It’s even, it’s harder for me to hack through my beard. And so I’m hacking it one day, I’m like you know what– Travel water? It’s a different consistency, it’s like– Well I know about that, yeah. With hard or soft, it’s a little different than my home water. Well definitely, yeah. I know about that. And it makes my hair on my face– But sometimes, theoretically, sometimes it would make it easier to shave. It made it harder to shave. I’m saying in practice– So this particular travel water– My razor got clogged up. So you just say Thai water. I didn’t have a backup. I didn’t wanna put it on Thai, or Thailand. No no I’m just saying that some water’s soft, some water’s hard. You know when you go on vacation and you start lathering up and you’re like oh the lather’s different. Yeah, yeah. You’re like oh travel water. I know what you mean but– Plus I just wanted, I really just wanted to know how much gray is on my face now? Oh well quite a bit. Yeah. Yeah I’m getting– Yeah yeah yeah. We’re in the salt is beating the pepper at this point. It’s a territory. Is it really though? Yeah, oh yeah. Or is it just the lighting? The salt is– I think it’s 50/50. Yeah well I mean maybe overall but definitely in the most forward facing part, right here, salt is 75%. And I remember when I first started to get facial hair, this is the place where, the place that’s whitest now is the place where I first started to get facial hair and that makes sense. That’s not what happened with me because I’m getting white right here and I didn’t start growing the beard here. On the back corners of your chin, jawline. Right here and then a little bit in the middle. Right under your lip. Which I will say that this is probably, well the mustache is the thing that came in first for most dudes, so– My mustache is like– I’ve got no gray. The blackest part. And it goes down– Yeah os your theory did not, not true, doesn’t work. And it’s blacker right here. Did you know that– In the corners of my mouth. We’ll discuss this– Looks like I’ve got like a horseshoe mustache with a old man growing around it. We’ll discuss this in detail later but– How much older do I look? 12 years, the terminal length of your hair changes based on how far it is from the center of your face so the terminal length of hair right in the middle of your face is the shortest. I’ve been watching lots of videos about beards. Well your hair looks the longest in the middle of your face. No no like right here. So the terminal length of your hair right there– Soul patch. I have not cut or trimmed the soul patch in 36 months. And that’s the terminal length. That’s as long as it’s gonna get. Have you washed it? All the time. Okay good. ‘Cause if you’re gonna wash anything, it should be your butt crack but if you’re gonna wash two things, it should be your butt crack and then that soul patch. But it moves, it basically changes over the course of your face. I don’t think that applies to the hair on your head. But you haven’t researched that. ‘Cause I don’t have really short hair right in the middle, well technically maybe like a widow’s peak is a little shorter. Anyway I learned that watching YouTube videos about beards. You got that baby hair. We’re devoting two episodes to our vacation and we’re going in depth about our facial hair because that’s what we care most about. I can’t keep this thing much longer. It’s itching the crap out of my face. Well you’ll get past that but then you’ll have a white beard. I mean I think– No. It’d be cool, it’s fine. I’ll get glasses. I would just like to know, I would just . I just really wanted to know and now I do. Yeah. And I’m gonna shave this stuff. I think when we’re done with this podcast, I’m gonna shave it off. Oh. How’s the water here? That’s my kinda joke, man. That’s my kinda joke. That’s a very dad joke. Yeah it’s not really. It’s not really a joke. Well no but it kinda is. It’s a quip. It was pretty good. It’s a quip, not a sponsor. Speaking of which– Well occasionally a sponsor, yeah. Let’s get into sponsors, man, just to get that over with. Okay. Is quip a sponsor because that would be really cool right now. Well today the sponsor is us. These mugs. Ear Biscuits mugs, available at Mythical.com for 10% off. 10% off. If you want your face to look older, get a mug and hold it next to it. If you want your face to look younger, drink from it. It’s that magical. And that’s not– Watch if I drink from it, I look younger, see? Yeah. And then when I move it away– Whoa wow– 12 years older. 12 years older, yeah. 52, how old are you? 53. 54. 53. Oh, 53. I’m 41. Honestly I think you just, you look closer to your age. I’d be charitable and say that I think most people would look at you with that beard and be like, oh he’s prematurely gray. I don’t think they would be like, oh he’s old. You look at Anderson Cooper, you don’t think he’s 72. You know what I’m saying? Premature has a negative connotation in every instance that I can think of it being used. Prematurely smart. Okay. Yeah, I’ve never heard that. Yeah, prematurely graduated. I’ve never heard that. Yeah yeah. I’ve heard of a premature– Early bloomer? Premature baby, premature– I’m just saying that I don’t think you look 53. Emission. I don’t think it adds 12 years to your real age, I think it gets you closer to your actual age. I like the fact that you’re backtracking a little bit but you’re doing it within the ad that’s only in the video version. Right. Well I like to reward the people who watch the video version. So for the video version, Rhett actually thinks that I look my age, but for the audio-only version– 12 years older. 12 years older. Go to Mythical.com. We don’t have to say Mythical.store anymore. It’s all one thing now. It’s all one thing. Mythical.com. Go to Mythical.com. Get all types of stuff. Beard oil, we both need that now. Hey, I could use the beard oil before I, for once. Right before you shave it. Yeah. I wouldn’t advise that. Oh okay. All right so let’s get into this. Man, you wanna start? Where did you land? Edinburgh. Edinburgh. That’s how you say it? Well that’s how I say it. Okay, tell me about it. Which interestingly , Jessie raised an interesting question while we were traveling throughout the UK, Scotland and England. United Kingdom. Everyone in our group, me included, had this tendency to when we were not around locals as we were talking amongst ourselves, we would go into our best accents of the region, right, so obviously that started as a Scottish thing and then by the time we were just with our family in England, we were trying to change the way that we talked. And Jessie, and I’m not gonna attempt to do it because it’s not good, I don’t have, it will sound stupid. Not that I’m unwilling to do stupid things but– Do it. It’s okay if you do it. Aye, aye. You’ve got to have some words to go to. Wards, wards, is that the word that you go to, word? Well it helps when– Word. What happens is, you’ll be in a conversation with a local person and then they’ll walk away and then you’ll start talking like, you’ll immediately start talking like them ’cause you just had this interaction with them and Jessie was like, do people do this when they come to America and we just don’t know it? Well– Are Americans the worst at this thing? Now first of all, I will also say that for good reasons, there are certain places that if you were to do that, it would just be immediately labeled as racist. Right, like for instance– Well I did it. I did it in Thailand. Every time somebody, no, I did not do it. You did not do it in Thailand. And I’m not about to do it because it would be right. But I’m– Right? Right and I don’t want to explore the why’s of what that is necessarily but it seems pretty obvious that me as a McLaughlin going back to, quote un-quote, my people, I can go back and I can try to sound like them. Whatever. There are still some groups you can make fun of. I think Scottish and English people are still two of them. So but Jessie was like– But someone from Thailand, someone with a Thai accent, I would like to hear them do a Scottish accent. Well that’s an interesting point. That’s not what I was– I’m talking about– Is it wrong for me to say that? I’m talking about the phenomenon of Americans talking in the British or Scottish accent, the English or Scottish accent when they’re in those places and then do people from Scotland and England when they come to America start talking like hey guys! You know when our friend Jaden from Australia does– Yeah. Does his American accent and he always goes into this character. Which has got to be how they perceive us. We go into a character. You don’t seem like a Scottish person, you seem like a character. Like a cartoon. That would be in some play. Aye! You know? It was just an interesting question ’cause I think that we’re probably the worst at doing that. Maybe not though. I know for a fact that many people that I interact with, acquaintances or less, not friends, in Los Angeles, I will be having a conversation. People come into the office who we don’t know and it’ll be for a meeting and I know for a fact that over the course of the conversation, they will start to adopt a southern accent and some people will go father than others and it– It happens with southern accents all the time. It will seem like an impression and I will– This happens with you? Yes. This happens with our wives a lot more than it happens with us. But I notice that people are doing it and I think, do they think that I have been doing an accent for comedic effect at times and then they start doing it for comedic effect. I think it’s just a natural, I feel like that’s a slightly different– But again, these are mostly Americans and I’m interacting with them and– I feel like that’s affecting your accent a little bit to be even more relatable which I understand that and have probably done that but this is more like arguing with each other about who does the best Scottish accent. Like 12 Americans going around doing horrible Scottish accents and trying to say who’s doing a better one. That is, I believe that’s an American phenomenon. I don’t think that 12 Scottish people coming to America sit around, maybe they do. Let me know if I’m wrong but– You’re assuming the worst, let’s hope for the best. Yeah so we started in Edinburgh and then we… The way that I kept characterizing the entire vacation was this is a sampler platter of everywhere, of Scotland and then of England because any particular place that we were at we could have stayed for much longer and I think that the thing that kinda wore on me and even though I tried to prepare myself for this was I felt responsible for the enjoyment of the entire group, right, this was my idea. It was your idea. This was my idea. I’m paying for it. Cha-ching. And I will say big, big thanks to Jenna for being very involved in the planning of this. In fact, there was a runner that people would do something like we’d have a good meal and then my dad would be like, “Thanks, Jenna.” Even though she wasn’t there. Yeah right. You didn’t invite her to come, you just– Right, and she was also instrumental in planning your vacation too so a lot of the specific choices about well this is where we’re going to be was based on her research and her kinda planning that out. Are you setting her up to blame her for whatever the crap happened to your mom? No. No, because that in particular was all my idea, that whole thing. Oh. Where that happened. Okay good. No but I’m saying that– Great actually. Even though I had someone to help us make the decisions about what we were going to do, I still felt like it– Oh it’s on you. It was all on me and so I try to be very– If it goes good, it’s on Jenna, if it goes bad– I try to be very strategic about okay, you got 12 people ranging in age from 10 to like 75. It’s tough what you did, man. And I told Jessie going in, I was like, I am already just committing to not enjoying this. I know that sounds like a very pessimistic thing but I have a tendency to get really excited about vacations and always think that they’re gonna be great and then they can be a little bit hard or disappointing and so I just was like, listen, I’m not doing this for my personal enjoyment, I’m doing it for the enjoyment of the group, which I actually think that even that was unhealthy. I should have gone in with very little attachment to outcome but, and let me just say, apart from that thing that happened to my mom which I’ll talk about, it was an incredible vacation. It was great, but there was this constant pressure of, we gotta go to so many places. This sense of FOMO in every place that we went and then this like, okay, I’ve gotta start planning, okay I have to tell the group that we need to be out the door at 8:30 because we really need to be out the door at nine. Mm-hmm. You know, I had to start kind of adjusting to the way that the group was going to behave. Did you carry around a pole with a flag on the end that had the McLaughlin standard? And we didn’t all wear the same neon t-shirts. It wasn’t a family reunion. How did everybody stay together? Were you leashed? I don’t even know. We didn’t even do a buddy system. Just nobody got lost as far as I know. So give me a rundown of day one if you’re like rattling through thing thing. What’s the first thing you did? Okay well, so, the first thing I did, we met in JFK. They flew from North Carolina, we– I’m not really interested in the airport– Well you’re gonna understand, this is relevant. I’m not just trying to start from the beginning. I made the decision to get first class tickets for the adults in the group. Now there’s six adults in this group. First class international tickets are expensive. But I decided to do this because I was like, we’re gonna fly overnight on Friday night and I want my parents especially to be able to sleep because getting a good night’s rest helps so much with that adjustment to the time change. They didn’t sleep at all. My mom may have slept for like 30 minutes even though we had these lay down seats. It was like she just couldn’t get comfortable so right out the gate, I felt a little bit like a failure. And also it was like, I saw that cash register, I was like oh that was for nothing. You know. Did you go over and lay her seat down, tuck her in? Nope. I’d have tucked my mom in tight. That’s the flight attendant’s job or at least my dad’s. But yeah so they didn’t really sleep, neither of them– Sounds like a lot of people failed. Slept very well. And so we get there, ’cause my idea was like you sleep and then you get there and then we’re gonna immediately– Bagpipes. Yeah play bagpipes, find the nearest bagpipe, start squeezing on it. Right. Begin experiencing the city which we kinda had to do because you couldn’t get to your room until like three o’clock which I think we ended up getting into one room at like one p.m. Anyway, so the first day, first of all, it’s just raining, just torrential raining at times. What’s it rain there, is it like– Water? Whiskey? Travel water. What do they drink in Scotland? I don’t know but I did see something that said today’s rain is tomorrow’s whiskey. I saw that a lot of different places. Hmm well you had tomorrow’s whiskey– They made their whiskey out of rain? But so I was like, and then I looked at the forecast and for both Scotland and England, if you just look at your quick weather app on the phone, it was rain clouds– Whiskey whiskey whiskey. Every single day, every single day, I was like okay. You were on a downward spiral emotionally it sounds like. Well and I immediately was just kinda overcome with this we gotta see everything. Now I wanna talk pretty extensively about the driving because that was a thing but I might throw it back over to you because that was kinda my mindset going in was this weight of responsibility. I just need to know, do bagpipes happen at any point? Just yes or no. Yeah. Okay good. Yeah. I could not have done what you did with planning for that many people. Based on my report from London when it was just me, Christy and Lily, I was a wreck on the train platform. I don’t wanna rehash that but I thought about just having a lottery about who was gonna go with me on this trip just to keep it so I could have a good time. Just logistically, I love my entire family equally. We’re planning this thing. We were gonna go to Hong Kong for a few days, Bangkok for a few days and then Chiang Rai and Ko Samui but then Christy and I made the collective decision to simplify and spend more time in less places so we cut out Bangkok and we were just gonna stay in Hong Kong ’cause you have to fly into Hong Kong anyway. But then there’s so much political unrest in Hong Kong, for weeks there had been protest and since it’s gotten even more dire. You’ve seen it in the news, sit ins at the airport, protests all throughout the city with Hong Kongers basically– Is that the correct term? Yeah, yeah. Okay. That’s what’s all over Twitter. I just thought you made it up. No, yeah. And– Really? Yeah, Hong Kongers. How ’bout Hong Kongians? Just stay out of it. I mean I just feel like I should help, I should help. Okay well then stay in in a Scottish accent. Hong Kongiers. Oh gosh. That worked. I think it was two days, it might have been 24 hours before we were leaving, I don’t know exactly but it was, we were packing, finalizing our packing and we make the decision, there’s people getting beat up, protestors are getting beat up on the streets of Hong Kong. Yeah, Hong Kongers, yeah. A few days before this so we made the decision to not stay in Hong Kong at all. I’d done all this research for Hong Kong. Oh and it’s– All of this reading, an amazing city. You were excited, I know ’cause that was Jessie’s favorite place that she went when she was over there. And then we decided last minute, we canceled all of that and just booked a hotel in Bangkok and started finding things to do in Bangkok like as we were packing to go to not Hong Kong anymore. Turns out we didn’t have to pack anything different though. So I didn’t have to change that, it was just, but right off the bat, I’m discombobulated big time. Right. I’m in a totally different city than I’m gonna be in. But we get to Bangkok and we were told from friends who had been there that Bangkok is really overwhelming and there’s a river that runs through the middle of it and our hotel was on the river and we were told you can do a lot of river taxis as opposed to just doing street taxis because the transportation is, the streets are just really crazy so the more you can just travel on the river, the better, I’m like that sounds fun anyway. So we get there and it’s late at night so we check into the hotel and we go to sleep, we get up the next morning, we’re like, all right, let’s do some exploring, day one we’re just gonna kinda, we’re gonna get on this river taxi, we’re gonna go up the river or down the river. I don’t know which way. We’re gonna get off over here where the concierge told us that we could walk around and we’re just gonna start walking around. Mm. It was so hot there. I mean, we had just spent a few days in North Carolina the week before filming some stuff and it was more torturous than that in terms of the humidity. It was just– Yeah, did you wear a tank top? I was like I wish I had a tank top. I didn’t even have a tank top. You should have asked me, I would have told you to pack some. I don’t own one, as a policy. There’s a time for a tank top and I think Thailand is the place. I could have gotten one there ’cause let me tell ya, they sell everything everywhere in Bangkok. We’re walking around the main, one of the main attractions which is The Golden Palace was closed because it was the king’s birthday. There’s pictures of the king everywhere. Everybody loves the king! Do they love him or do they have to love him? It seems like they legitimately love this guy. Well it’s effective propaganda. When his dad died, we had a tour guide for another thing that I’m gonna tell you about. We got kinda the lowdown on how they felt about the king and at least from her perspective, she was like, “The king and the queen are like members “of our family, we have pictures of them in the house. “Everyone does. “And it’s not something that’s required.” Heard that before. “It’s not something “that’s required,” this is her talking. “It’s just how we feel about him.” And when the previous king died, there was like months of mourning. He’d been the king from like being a teenager until he was like almost 90, so everybody lived their entire lives just knowing this guy as their king and he’s like on billboards everywhere. How long has the new king been the king? Couple of years. Oh. It was his birthday as I said but when the previous king died, like all of the programming on television changed to be sad or commemorative and everything was changed to be in black and white for over a month. All television shows, they just put the black and white filter on it. If you die, do you want me to continue on with GMM in black and white for a month because I’ll do it. Six weeks. I do not think they worship the king. I didn’t spend too much time digging into this but– Okay well. They’re 94% of the population is Buddhist, okay. Right. So that’s where their allegiance lies, okay. Right, right. But the king is in the mix, let me tell ya, ’cause his pictures are everywhere. Of course the Buddha is lounging everywhere too. Yeah right. Everywhere you go, Buddha is kicking it. I mean, there’s Buddha sitting covered in bronze, big ones, little ones, laying down ones. I mean Buddha will recline. Oh yeah, he will relax. He will, and he’ll just– He doesn’t have a lot of core strength either. Why you gonna be critical of the Buddha? No I’m not being critical, I’m just saying that like, he’s not worried about that. You know? You talking about that belly. I like it. It’s very relaxing to sit like that. You ever sat like that, just let it all hang out? Man I gotta look at my notes ’cause you threw me off, man. You threw me off talkin’ about core strength. Now I’ve told you this story about last time my dad came into Los Angeles, we were driving down the street, I was taking him back to the airport and we passed a Thai restaurant and the sign said Thai food. Right. And he said out loud, “Thigh food.” Hmm. Yeah he did. And so you may be wondering if you knew that story, that’s the whole reason I went to Thailand and I’ve come to grips with the fact that I think the answer is subconsciously absolutely yes. Yeah why not? Because my dad said thigh food, I was like I gotta go get me some of that thigh food. So we’re talking around, it’s blistering hot. The palace is closed, one of the main things to see. It’s a mile just to walk past the outside of the palace. What do you have on? I have on breathable shorts. I got some walkable shoes. Okay so not– With a nice toe box. Not open-toed. No one’s doing open-toed. Yeah, I think Lily is, she’s got some sandals on. All right. T-shirt and other things which I’ll get into later. Okay. But people are on the street, the streets are like Target. The streets are like Walmart, they’re selling stuff everywhere, street markets. There’s a flower market, it’s like the second largest flower market in the world to Holland and they’re like, you go in there, it’s amazing how much stuff they’re making, floral arrangements that then you can take to the temples as… What’s the word? Offering. An offering. Thailand is famous for street food. Oh yeah. They’re like grilling stuff everywhere. Anything you can smell and imagine smelling, you smell. Anything you can imagine hearing, you’re talking honking, screaming, grunting, scraping. You hear it all at once, you smell it all at once and you feel it. You feel everything, you feel the heat. When someone scrapes you. Sweat coming out of places that I didn’t know were places on me. Right. And we walked for a long time. Did you get some of that food? Just random, hey, let’s– We picked up some stuff, like oh there’s a stand that’s just a bunch of pomegranates and you can get pomegranate juice for like 20 cents. Now is there any concern about– 29 Baht to a dollar. So it’s like oh 1000 Bahts, nothing. Just going up, there’s a lot of places, you can’t just go drink the juice of the pomegranate, you’ll end up with crazy diarrhea. But that’s not the case here? Did you look into that, or are you just– I gotta get back to that too but I’m gonna say, I’m gonna say no, not exactly, that didn’t happen. Okay. But you had checked on that. We drank bottled water. You can’t do that in Mexico for instance. You should– I didn’t really check on it, I just wanted some pomegranate juice. Shrug. All right good. It’s so hot. I think somebody’s gonna have a heat stroke. We’re just not used to this. Right. My family is wilting and I’m like oh my gosh, I gotta find some AC and they do, there’s malls everywhere too but I was in a place where there wasn’t one of these, they have these huge indoor air conditioned malls that everybody goes to. So I tried to find one on Google and we went to this mall and it turned out to be pretty small but it was like still three stories and it kinda felt like a market kinda thing but it was in, the same thing as outside but inside so not the type of mall that I would picture just saying the word mall. But they had a food court on the top floor. So we’re up there and I’m just trying, getting an iced coffee and trying to get people hydrated ’cause it’s important. Right. And I’m wondering if I’m gonna get recognized in this land and lo and behold about that time, this guy comes up to me. And it turns out he was a local. He was like, “Are you from,” he had a good, he spoke really good English. He didn’t have that much of an accent. He was more of a traveled guy but he was from there originally so I don’t know if he grew up in Thailand but he lived there now. And was from there. And I was like, “Yeah, I’m him,” and he’s like, “Can I get a photo?” He was super nice and he was like, “What are you doing here?” And I’m like– Yeah. People tend to ask that wherever you are. My dad went past the sign in LA. I was like, “No dude, everyone who’s been “to Thailand has told me it’s amazing, “I’ve gotta come and so I’m here and with my family “and it’s our first full day,” and he was like, “No, why are you here in this food court?” Right, yeah, I understand why you’re in Bangkok. It’s a major travel destination. Right, food wasn’t bad in the food court. We recovered and then we hit the streets again and wrapped things up so I can give you more but what’s the next thing that happened on your trip? One of the things I was a little bit worried about was the driving. As you may be aware, you drive on the left side of the road. Okay. So I’m worried about this and it’s not just that I have to drive on the left side of the road, it’s that I’m driving a large van, nine passenger, which that is key for later, van. So it was like this– One of those big white vans. Well it was black. It was like one of those Mercedes vans that there’s three rows of three seats, including the front seat is three rows. I mean it’s three seats. There’s a seat in the middle, we didn’t ever use it. So it’s a big van, driving on the left side of the road and it’s already raining. And I’m also getting out at the airport so I’m not like on some country road. It’s like you’re immediately in it. And thrust. And then and of course I’m driving one van and my brother’s driving an other van. He’s done this before, he’s driven on the left side of the road in somewhere in the Caribbean, I don’t know. Oh in the Caribbean. But he was also like, he said it wasn’t fun and I was kinda freaked out most of the time. I would imagine you’re constantly second-guessing if you’re even in the right place. If you’re going the right direction. Well let me get to that. Oh gosh. So, and then I notice as we go, we go up to the woman at the rental car desk, my brother and I do, and she’s like there’s a big container of wristbands and the wristbands say stay on the left. The same kind of rubber wristbands that we sell. Oh wow. That say Mythical on them. And so she was like, “Take one of those.” So I’m like okay. That’s foreboding. So I put one on my left hand and didn’t wanna really confuse myself and– How could that work? And then my brother is like, well no, then they’re like, “Would you like the additional insurance?” This is always a– Yeah yeah yeah. This is just a frustrating question. I hate that question. ‘Cause you’re like, I don’t know, I don’t think I need it. You know? I think because I have my own insurance– Because my insurance and then I’ve got a credit card. My credit card has something– Your credit card is supposed to have something. It was something on the fine print of that. Yeah so I think I’m okay. I think I’m okay because– Jenna. It’s expensive. Figure that out, please. And also, because of the time change, all the people that I need, my lifeline, Jenna, is sleeping at this point because– I can’t call. This is like the morning right? So I’m just like ah, I’m just gonna go for it because I’ve got the credit card and my insurance and of course the greatest insurance policy is me as a driver. Right? Oh, put that on a wristband. Put that, okay, so you put on the wristband. I’m surprised. Yeah I put on the wristband. ‘Cause that is shame. No it’s not, it’s safety. That’s like, why not put a stamp on your forehead that said dumb tourist. Well it’s a wristband so it’s a little more subtle than that but then I get to the car, and I will say, there was a Mercedes and there was a Hyundai and I felt bad about this but I took the Mercedes. ‘Cause I was like I’m paying for both, the Mercedes and the Hyundai, the least I’m gonna do is get the Mercedes. Okay. But also I had to continue on with my family for another week and I was like okay. A Mercedes can is kinda like a– There’s no difference ultimately. Mine’s a little nicer but really no difference. The seats have massagers in ’em but there’s no difference. And we get into the vans and then there’s another, there’s a large sticker on the windshield that says stay on the left. Stay on the left. I’m like this must be– A thing. This must be an important thing to remember. This must be something that people don’t always remember. If they, something had to happen before the wristbands and the sticker. You drive with your lizard brain a lot, you know? And also in that picture, in that thing on the windshield that says stay on the left is a picture of a roundabout and how to enter and navigate a roundabout. Oh God. So I’m like okay, roundabout. Was there blood on the picture? Was there like– There was blood all over the bumper. So, oh, and then my brother asks the woman who’s showing us to the car, he sees the wristbands and stickers and everything, he’s like, “So, I mean, when was the last time “an American had an accident with you guys?” And her face was like do you really want me to answer that? And she said, “This morning.” So I was like oh this happens and then I’m thinking– She should have said it’s about to again. And then I’m really thinking the insurance thing. I’m like I don’t even know if I’m covered. Oh so you said no. I could enter into financial ruin. It’s like I’m in a Mercedes van here. How much does this thing cost? Hit a Scotsman. He’s gonna sue you. I get in the car. I start it up and first of all, task one is just to back the car into a different space so that everyone can load their luggage into the car underneath this awning. Please tell me you backed up and all you heard was a bunch of bagpipes which you had run over. No, but it felt so foreign, it really did. You couldn’t even back up? No no, it was like man there’s a whole lot of car over there. I’m not used to so much car over there and there’s no car over here. You know what I’m saying, this is like wow. Yeah yeah yeah. That’s a lot to think about that I haven’t thought about over there. I’ve never thought about over there. Now there’s where most of there is, you know? That’s the first thing that happens. Where I’m thinking about, there’s nothing to think about. There’s nothing there. But I keep thinking about that. There’s something where there wasn’t something and there’s nothing where there was something. That was the biggest thing and so you’re like, oh, I have to account for the footage over here so I don’t run into things with the left side of the car because I’m on the right side of the car. I get it, I get it now, yeah. That’s what the brain thinks of. I understand on paper. So we get back in, get everything packed into the car and then I’m like okay Cole, this is the address. This is where we’re going, the address of the hotel. I’m sure we’re gonna get separated. We can’t be trying to be together. That’s smart. We can’t worry about that. That’s the only smart thing you’ve said. ‘Cause someone’s going to make a mistake so forget this whole staying together thing. Put the address in– You hit someone, I don’t wanna see it is what that is code for. And mistake number one was I just pull out of the rental car parking lot and then I see two large trucks coming at me– What? In two lanes and I’m like, I’m going the wrong way. Already? But hold on, I wasn’t on the wrong side of the road. I was still in the airport so I’m not out on the highway. Okay. I had gone out an entrance only thing– Because I didn’t understand that the, first of all, they have so many– Don’t blame it on the signs. No they have so many signs that– You went out the in. Explain but the sign didn’t say no exit, it just was a symbol that I didn’t understand and it looked like I could go. You know what that symbol means? Well I know now, it means don’t go that way. Don’t enter. But you know what, in America it says– Mind the gap. Wrong way which, that computes to me. Wrong way, okay, I won’t go that way. Again, they were going like five miles per hour ’cause we were all still in the parking area kinda situation so I was able to just turn around. So then– I go out the correct way and within 100 yards, come to my first roundabout, and again, I haven’t read, I didn’t do any research. I had all these plans of like I’m gonna watch a YouTube video about adjusting to this. I’m gonna go on my son’s Forza, is that the name of it? Yeah. Game where I’m gonna drive on the left side of the road. Of course I didn’t do any of that so I’m just facing it in the rain, oh, the windshield wipers, they’re on this side. Of course they are and so I pull out, I see the roundabout. I’m like I don’t know exactly what I’m supposed to do here but I can kinda see from my directions that I’m supposed to go around it and then head off in this direction. I get into the roundabout and I’m like, I think that, I’m looking at the navigation and then I’m looking at the roundabout, I’m like, then I kinda get disoriented and I just take one of the spires off of the roundabout. You just crapshoot. The one that I thought was the right one. It was the wrong one and I’m like I’m already screwing up. It went into just a self parking lot. Well that’s good actually. And so which also had another roundabout. First of all– In a parking lot? The roundabouts are everywhere and let me just say that after two weeks of doing this, well I would say, I had somebody tell me three days, you’ll adjust. I would say it happened earlier than that. There were no more close calls. Even the rest of that trip of driving into Edinburgh, going through multiple roundabouts, by the time I got to the hotel I was like, this isn’t going to be that difficult. It wasn’t until we went to the Highlands, so after being in Edinburgh for a couple of days and I basically just drove to the hotel, left the car, parked at the hotel and then took public transportation all around the city so it wasn’t like I was driving all around the city. The real driving started when we had to drive across the country up to Glencoe which is basically the gateway to the Highlands so the Scottish Highlands that you’ve seen in postcards and that kinda thing. Okay. There’s a little town called Glencoe that is right inside the Highlands but not, like you could go for hours and hours and hours to go up to Loch Ness and all that which we didn’t end up doing. But that trip of driving up there, driving across the country then driving into the Highlands, that was when things got very real because not only are you on the left side of the road which I’d kinda gotten used to, the roads are like comically narrow. Ah. Unbelievably narrow, like why are they so narrow? You’re asking yourself the entire time. They got a lot of space, right? And there’s no shoulder at all on most of the roads so you know how first of all, our roads are a little bit wider than the car. Especially when I was in the van, it felt like it was just as wide as my van– In America– And then there’s no shoulder. If we don’t have a shoulder, there’s a sign that says no shoulder. Yeah. That’s how far we go. They just let you know when there is a shoulder. That’s what signs say. It’s the other way around. But you’re driving through the Highlands and then there’s like a 700 year old rock wall on the side of the road that’s right up next to the thing. Right up next to the shoulder. There is no shoulder. And then there’s another rock wall on the other side. Oh. And then there’s these semi trucks, they gotta drive. They gotta drive up there to the Highlands somehow. They’re a little bit narrower than what we would have in America but they’re still massive, giant trucks with large trailers behind them and those guys are basically, I don’t know how they do it, they’re fitting in this very small spot and then the tourists’ buses. Mm. Buses and buses of tourists were coming up, same width, and then what was happening initially is I would move over a little bit just instinctively to not hit them and I would hit the little, I would go off the road. My left wheel would go off the road and then I’d be like and have to get back on. And then Cole and I were constantly checking in with each other and we had both kinda independently discovered you kinda have to lean into the oncoming traffic, you know what I’m saying. You just overcome your tendency to wanna pull away and you just lean in a little bit, like my mirror– Like you– My touch– You steer it to ’em or you just– Yeah yeah– Your head leans. You’re sort of mentally– Mentally– Leaning but you’re also turning a little bit so you’re hugging that line. And you’re grinding your teeth and you’re puckering your anus. Oh yeah, very very tight the whole time but I’d say by the end I was actually having fun but the biggest difference that I noticed– Just embracing death. There was absolutely no way that I was going to fall asleep while driving because you had to be so on top of– Everything was working. Everything, you were so engaged, whereas here, you’re just like the road is 40 feet wide, there’s extra lanes, there’s a shoulder that’s as wide as the road itself. You just basically just go to sleep. No one’s gonna fall asleep at the wheel there ’cause you’re so engaged. But I– I’m so glad you didn’t hit anybody. And while I’m up in Glencoe, I’ll move on from driving and throw it back to you but while I’m up in Glencoe, which by the way, one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. Very much reminded me of Kauai, a place that you’ve also been. Hawaii. In terms of just these incredibly green giant faces of mountains that don’t, there’s some that have trees and some that have no, there’s not a tree on it. It’s one of the most beautiful landscapes I’ve ever been in. And driving through that, well trying to navigate and look and enjoy the scenery but also not run into the tourist bus, that was a little harrowing. But while I’m up there in this little town, I basically find out through Jenna that no, I’m not covered, I don’t– Oh. My insurance does not cover this. And my credit card, the fine print on the credit card says, has all the exclusions and one of them is nine plus passenger vans and I have a nine passenger van. So I’m up there and I’m like I got no place to go. I get to physically go into one of the locations so I’m like I gotta make it into one of these locations without wrecking. You’re teetering. But thankfully, Jenna was able to talk to people that handle our insurance stuff and they were able to get it and basically give us a temporary policy until I could get to the next location so that I would be covered by insurance. So that put me at ease a little bit and eventually I was able to stop at one of the places and pay the fee but anyway, I didn’t wreck. Just went off the road a few times, went the wrong direction quite a few times. And here’s one hot tip, going back to the roundabout. When in doubt on a roundabout, keep roundin’ about, ’cause all you’re gonna do is circle around. Right. Don’t exit just because. Well and let me tell ya– It’s a circle. I am pro roundabout now, in fact– When in doubt, keep roundin’ about. I’m all about the roundabouts now. I think that it’s a superior way to navigate than a traffic light. Yeah, okay, whatever. On our second full day in Thailand, I had signed us up for a day trip out to Ayutthaya which is the original capital city of Thailand. So it’s built in the, I think this was… Well I know ’cause I’m looking at this now, mid 14th century, so 1350, you’re building all of these wats which is the word for temple, out there and if you watched Mortal Kombat the movie, 1995– Oh, big fan. The opening scene, fight scene is there. Oh really? And man, I gotta tell ya. I love me some ruins. Man, you would have loved it here too. Did you go to Stonehenge? I told you to go to Stonehenge. I can tell by the look on your face you ended up not going. I didn’t go, I have good reasons. All right, I respect ya, you had a lot to do. I have a stone phobia. Wood man got stone phobia. So they got this entire city that was, it was taken over and it was ransacked but it wasn’t completely destroyed and so a lot of these, you can look on my Instagram for one of my only two posts was a selfie I took there. That was a lot of fun to go there. Like I said, 94% of the population is Buddhist. It’s actually a requirement for all men by age 20 to serve as a monk for six, six weeks? No, longer than that. Three months. Hmm. But it’s voluntary and some people do it for much less, maybe even just a day or two. So that just goes to show you about– It’s required but voluntary. You have to do it for some length of time. I think from a practical standpoint– It’s expected. It’s expected. Okay. Is how it ends up shaking out, you know. Yeah. And there’s so many temples. There’s tens of thousands of temples all over Thailand and these ruins are ruins of some of those original temples that then around Bangkok you see the modern form which is basically the same except very fancy and ornate. Right. You can’t miss these temples. Literally they’re everywhere, but also, some of the most famous things to see in Bangkok, not in Ayutthaya where we saw the ruined older versions of the temples, is to see these temples. So we didn’t go to any of the temples. It’s the thing to do but we didn’t do it. Yeah, we kept saying we’re gonna go visit this temple. We went on the river and we would see the temples from like a block away or something and they’re absolutely amazingly ornate and I really wanted to see ’em but we just didn’t, there was so much to do when you factor in shopping and like– Air conditioned malls. After day one and how I burnt my family and wilted them, we ended up not walking around too many temples or any temples. Well it’s interesting because the equivalent are the giant, old ornate churches of Scotland and England that we actually ended up going in quite a few. Cathedrals? Yeah so there’s St. Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh. Of course we did Westminster Abbey in London which I think you had seen as well. And there is a point where you’re kinda like okay, this is absolutely incredible, the level of craftsmanship in this place is just– Detail. Bonkers. But once you’ve seen Westminster Abbey, it’s like okay, I’m gonna go into another one. It’s gonna be, basically they took the same approach. I’m not saying that, by the end of the trip I was like I don’t need to see any more of these ’cause I feel like I’ve seen it. But the interesting thing, and it sounds like you experienced the same thing. There’s a whole lot of this sensation of going into a place and being like, this place was built in the year 1050. This was built in the 11th century or the 10th century or whatever. Yeah. And then you kinda just be like, man, this place is old. And you kinda just sit in the oldness. There’s like a lot– Which is, that’s fun. It is but I– Until it’s not anymore. Well no, we would just do it everywhere, it’s like, this is the oldest bar in all of the UK. And you go in there and you’re like, man, this place is old. Yeah. Nod your head a little bit. You’re like man. Being in such an old place. I knew that’s how the kids would feel. That’s why, I mean the temples are a little– I enjoyed it, I’m just saying that it’s a phenomenon to just go to an old thing and just talk about how old it is. But the ruins were more fun because you could walk on, they let you walk on it. A lot of it you can just walk on and walk off and stuff and there was one that we could still go inside and again, there’s not much in there but it’s like, and then they’ve got all these old Buddha statues that are like falling apart, you can see the skeleton is made out of wood and it’s exposed and then it used to be bronze, very ornate. So I really loved Ayutthaya. That was totally worth the day trip there and then getting carsick on the way back, trying to figure out why my ATM card wouldn’t work for three hours. Did you straighten that out? Straightened it out, yeah. But we took a canal tour. There’s lots of canals off of the main river in Bangkok and that was a lot of fun, being able to see a lot of the houses and a lot of the temples that are off of the main drag and these monitor lizards swimming in the canals that are like six feet long and their trunk is bigger around than my trunk. Just swimmin’. They’re not safe, right? They have venom but they, if they were to, they might hurt an infant or a toddler. But they’re in the park there. They’ll eat turtles and dead fish and stuff like that but it was cool to see ’em. I thought it was a freakin’ alligator and then it started climbing up the stairs into somebody’s backyard and it was a frickin’ monitor lizard. I call it a Komodo dragon but that’s not what it was. Komodo dragons, they’re dangerous for real. It wasn’t a Komodo dragon. But then that night, that second night, it hit me. It hasn’t hit me. Digestively, you know what I’m saying? Yeah. I’m not having any movement. You talk about getting the pomegranate juice or eatin’ the street meat or– How many days? This was the second, well the third night. Right, okay. Like I have not gone. That’s a problem. This is like summer camp all over again. And I’m, I gotta do something about this. You didn’t take your fiber with you? Didn’t take my fiber with me because I’ve been drinking my breakfast smoothie religiously with some flaxseed in it and I don’t take fiber anymore. And I took my breakfast– Travel though. Smoothie pack but I didn’t take my flaxseed. That was a big mistake, man. Yeah. And you know, with my anxiety I think everything– You gotta remember that your beard grows in white. Yeah, everything puckers up. You gotta worry about that fiber. Everything puckers up, like you drivin’ on the cobblestone streets or wherever you were. So then I’m going down to the drug store and I’m like, man, I gotta get the old enema. I gotta get the– So you went straight to enema. Like, I, Christy– Hold on– Christy had a bunch of these stool softener pills. Yeah there’s a few steps before enema. I’m just saying, there’s a few steps before enema. For like 36 hours before that, I had started taking stool softener pills, like two, three at a time. Nothing, and I could just feel that there was like– Oh gosh. I was getting bottom heavy. It’s just not good, man. So we’re at the end of, we’re in the middle of the street and we’re trying to find a pharmacy and nothing’s in English in the pharmacy and it’s like they’re not gonna draw a picture of an enema so it’s like– You gotta demonstrate. You take like a Barbie doll in there and say this is what I– Yeah I did bring a Barbie doll so that I could communicate with people. That’s great. What did you do? This American going up with a bit of a Barbie doll like doing that motion, it’s like what am I asking for? That’s true, you are in Bangkok. You gotta be careful. So I brought you back a souvenir that’s very special to me. Hold on, it’s not the turd is it? Look at that, this is what I found. Give ’em a little ASMR there. Now open it, it did have some English on it. It’s a little pack there. You want me to open it? Yeah, it’s for you, it’s a souvenir. It’s the thing that meant the most to me on my trip. Hold that up for the people. It’s a lollipop. Now this is an infant or baby enema which is the only thing I could find. This one doesn’t– What’d you double, triple up on these? Yeah, the other ones that I bought had a bald-headed baby’s picture on it so I was like well, I guess I need to get three so I got three and I squeezed two up in there first night and I sat down and they had this, there was a trash can in front of the– Hold on, what about the toilet? I went back to the hotel room, I sat down on– You got confused. I sat on the toilet. And oh my gosh, nothing, just pain. Yeah you should have gone two or maybe three or four. I went two. Pain, man, and I grabbed the, I had this little trash can, I grabbed that and I tried to create a Squatty Potty situation and then Christy’s like walking in like I need to wash my face before I go to bed. I’m like now’s not a good time! How many times– She’s like you look like you’re about to rocket into space. How many times did you reference Chip in this? Oh don’t use his last name! Damn! Our friend from college who shall remain last nameless. Okay. Chip B. Okay. He spent months in China and then he ate too much rice and didn’t go and– It’s a legendary story. Oh man, I mean he had like a 12 hour bout with like, he had a baby. Someone actually adopted his turd. After– It was that big. He took it to the local adoption agency. I was so scared that that was gonna happen to me. It was a painful night and then the next day, nothing. So then the next day, so two days later, I’m in the same situation again. I’m gonna quit holding this by the way. That was not used. It was in a sealed package. Yeah, it’s still got the top sealed on it but by the time we got to our second destination, we left Bangkok and we went– So nothing came out. No it did eventually work. Oh okay. But then two days later I’m doing the same thing again. It’s just like my lower GI– You’re eating a lot of rice, right? Rice, noodles. Rice and noodles, yeah, you gotta balance that out. Meats. But– Not a lot of fiber in any of that. Not a lot of fiber. But I became, it’s like it shut down. My intestines just shut down. They froze. So these bulbs became very special to me. And I had to go buy more, I had to go buy more and I had to go buy more. You have to be careful how, you can’t just become reliant on enemas. Well let me tell ya, by the moment I got home, I went up to my toilet, totally good, totally fine. It was like my body knew, it’s like my butt knew when it hit my seat, everything was fine. You know what– Just loosened right up. I’ve switched to the fiber, the gummy fibers. Fiber gummies. Yeah ’cause you’re regressing. I’m using infant bulbs and you’re using infant fiber. They taste good, I just took three a day. No problems, man. ‘Cause my diet was a lot of meat, a lot of meat pies. And bringing a fiber mix is, that’s problematic on a trip. It looks like drugs. TSA makes you open it up, tell ’em what it is. So that was the highlight of my Bangkok trip was these little bulbs. I’ll talk about Chiang Rai and Ko Samui when you talk about your mom. I’m not saying you’re done with anything else you wanna say here but I’ll save all that stuff for the next one. But just to summarize Bangkok for me, as overwhelming as it was in every way, I think it was very memorable to, I felt like we really experienced the city, walking around and we did sign up for a food tour where a guy walks us around and gets us to eat food from places on the street that we probably wouldn’t have had the guts to eat on our own. We ate this papaya salad that he helped them make it not too spicy ’cause they could really torture an American. Right. And then we’re eating this pork and rice thing and everyone’s like oh this is really good. And then we walk around the corner to where he got it from ’cause he just brought it around the corner to us and it was just a bunch of pig’s feet hanging up. It was a pig’s feet and rice place. I’m glad we ate it first because– You’ve had pig’s feet though. I know but I don’t elect to have it. But it was great. And then he’s like, he kept taking us on shortcuts and he would say, “I’m gonna take you on a shortcut “through to this next street market,” and it would be this back alley where it would just be dark and rats running everywhere. He’d be like, “Don’t worry about the rats. “It’s very clean here.” The rats clean up everything. Even the other dead rats and dead cats that we would see in taking these shortcuts. Very clean dead cats. He emailed me afterward, he was like, “Please write a TripAdvisor review,” and I’m like, you know what I’m just– You thought the dead cats– I’m just gonna email you some constructive criticism about when my family didn’t feel safe but just to help you out but I’m not gonna do this publicly or on a podcast. Yeah right. And he was gracious for the feedback but the food was great, being in Bangkok was a great experience and I just think that we soaked it in and then we moved onto more resort life which I’ll get into in the next installment. Well I think we can wrap it up there. I’ll cover just a couple other, other details of things that happened but it really kinda, my trip has definitely been over shadowed so to speak by what happened to, yeah quit licking the enema, please. What happened to my mom which we’ll get into. But before we go, Rec in Effect. Something that actually was very useful on the trip. It’s something that– Gummy fiber. Locke pointed out to me was this website TheTrueSize.com. Which I know that seems like it could be a few different things but what it actually is is it’s a world map. Let me show this to you. TheTrueSize.com. So it’s a website where you type in a country so I’ve typed in United Kingdom and then you can take it and you can move it all around the world to see how big it is compared to something you actually know. Oh. So we had this argument, how big do you think the UK is and I said, I think it’s probably from Georgia to Virginia, I said that before and of course, it tells you how big it is. But it also takes into account this, I can’t remember the name of, there’s an effect, basically like, okay Greenland looks massive on a map, right. Like the global wrap effect. Yeah but there’s a specific name for it. I think it’s the global wrap effect. And so let me put in Greenland. I kinda wanna know how big Thailand is. Well let me show you this. So like okay here’s Greenland. It looks huge. Looks massive but when you bring it down– Oh it gets, dang. It gets– It gets little, man. It gets tiny. So basically that effect that is, it’s the whole idea of you’ve got a– Stretching it. If you try to take the skin of a globe off, it won’t lay down flat so basically as things move towards the poles, they get exaggeratedly large on a flat map. I think Thailand will go from the bottom tip of Florida up to Washington DC. Okay so– ‘Cause Thailand’s kinda long, it’s got this peninsula down there. I put Thailand in here. Let’s see Thailand. T-H-I-G-H. There it is. Okay. Now drag that over to Florida. Such a redneck thing to do. How much bigger is Thailand than Florida? Oh my goodness. Way bigger. What, what you’re dragging it over the UK. Where are you? No the UK’s already there ’cause I– Oh it stays. You can create a new Pangea. You see that? Did you start at the tip of Florida? No, put the tip of Thailand at the tip of, there you go, and now did that go to Washington DC? It goes almost exactly to Washington DC. Okay well see, ’cause I’ve traveled all over that land. And of course if you move it up here to the poles, I mean look how big it gets. Look how big Thailand is. Thailand’s as big as Greenland. It’s not. You’re subverting the use of this thing. Okay, your rec has been in effect, man. Yeah TheTrueSize.com. TheTrueSize.com. For those of you who are very interested in the true size of a country and how it coordinates to where you’re at or other places in the world. #EarBiscuits, let us know if you wanna contribute to the conversation in any way or correct anything that we said or things that we should have done that we didn’t do. I’m sure you wanna do that. Oh, you should have done this, it’s like how are we gonna feel? When am I gonna go back to Thailand now so don’t do that. And then next week, we will find out what the heck happened to Rhett’s mom. To watch more Ear Biscuits, click on the playlist on the right. To watch the previous episode of Ear Biscuits, click on the playlist to the left. And don’t forget to click on the circular icon to subscribe. 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