I’ve had my fair share of massages; I consider myself a sort of expert on the subject.  If I were to give out awards for the massages I’ve received, it would look something like this:

Best Massage

Tie: Mui Ne beach massage and Sihanoukville (Cambodia) beach massage

-       note the theme of beaches in both of these. The emphasis was less on “adjustments”, and more on oil and rubbing. The smell of the salt air, the warmth of the sun and the sounds of the waves crashing mere feet from the massage table didn’t hurt either.

Most Painful Massage

Lotus Flower, Bui Vien

-       this was our “go-to” massage parlour in Saigon. I think the woman had a bee in her bonnet this particular day and she took it out on me. I was much too polite and let her continue with the “strong massage”. It was a series of chiropractic adjustments and painful physiotherapy-like moves. I was sore for 3 days afterwards.

Most Awkward Massage

Our Hotel Room, Cat Ba Island, Halong Bay

-       this story sounds bad, but it’s not – trust me. Jen and I were eating dinner in a restaurant on Cat Ba Island. A man approached and started rubbing my neck to demonstrate his massaging prowess. I said I wasn’t interested right then but “maybe tomorrow”. He asked what guesthouse we were staying at, and I told him (a common question). I let him know that I would find him at the restaurant around 8pm the next night for a massage.

At 7pm, he showed up at our room (we were the only ones in the whole guesthouse so not hard to track down). Him and his friend (also a man) then proceeded to give Jen and I massages in our room, on our beds. It sounds scandalous, but it’s not. No happy ending, but definitely super awkward.

Most Unconventional Massage

Seeing Hands Massage, Kampot (Cambodia)

-       while in Kampot, I heard that there was a massage parlour that only employed blind people to do the massages. Intrigued, I decided to give it a shot. The result was a great massage – that knot under my shoulder blade which would have been glossed over by the average masseuse was immediately discovered by my guy and worked out. He felt his way around the table with no assistance, and even climbed up on top for the standard adjustments. A really cool experience!

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In Hoi An I paid a visit to Tiên Hâu, the Goddess of the Sea who lives in Phuc Kiên Temple. She is guarded by two genies constantly peering at the horizon to inform her about impending dangers. Phuc Kiên was built by Chinese migrants from Fujian province in 1757. I thought it was one of the most interesting sites in Hoi An.

Phuc Kiên temple

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San Francisco saw our longest day of test shooting.  We took to the streets and tried to hit the most photo-worthy spots one by one.  Union Square, Chinatown, Coit Tower, the parrots of Telegraph hill and last and most importantly the Mission district bars.

Heading down to Bart in the Mission.

Home of the greatest pork buns on earth.  You can tell they’re awesome due to the giant pictures of Clinton eating one.

Chairs.  In a pile.

High kick if its time for another bar.

Andy gets his game face on.

Street pizza is often better than indoor pizza.  This was quite true this night.


Bars, music, and Landerworld.  A complete night.

More photos and videos from the trip coming soon.  This time from an even rad-er camera.

Anyone who has travelled with me knows that I’m not a big fan of monkeys. But sometimes they are just so damn cute I can’t help myself.

These photos are from Wat Phnom, a Buddhist shrine set on the top of a hill in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

I’ve been quiet these past few weeks, and it’s not without good reason. I’ve taken the dough I made teaching English in Saigon and have been slowly backpacking my way west. Normally I would update as I went on the things I’ve experienced, but I chose some locations where internet was simply not an option. Sometimes there was a cafe available but the town itself was without electricity. Makes things difficult when trying to stay connected with the rest of the world, but I wouldn’t have traded a second of it.

I consider it “JetSetZero with a twist”. I was able to make a substantial amount of money in a short period of time, and instead of continuing to work, I’m gonna blow it. It may seem a bit irresponsible, but that’s life. You have to grab the opportunities as they come, and finding myself in Asia with a wad of dong and some amazing places at my doorstep, I couldn’t resist. Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be posting stories of my adventures.

Sunset over Boeng Kak, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

In a brief behind the scenes update Jed and I are just now flying back from a trip up and down the coast of California.  We’ve been testing some exciting new camera gear you’ll be seeing in upcoming seasons of Jet Set Zero Quito and meeting up with the crew. We’re working on a video to tell the tale and show off the beautiful new look of the filming style, but  in the meantime here are some selected shots that help tell the story of the trip.

The new gear, in a big pile and just waiting for us to take it out.

We’ve spent a lot of time looking at how we shoot the show, and we decided it was time to try something new.  Also buying new stuff is pretty awesome.

The open road calling.  We landed in SF, headed down to LA, then Up to San Louis Obispo, then SF again, then finally to Grass Valley, Nevada City and back to SF.

After landing in SF and taking a quick nap it was straight out onto the open road.  Highway’s 5, 1 and 101 were where we spend most of the next few days shuttling between CA’s most fun-time cities.

Jed enjoys some coffee.  Then we head out on another day of driving.

We drank more coffee thank anything else.  So much coffee.

Everyone celebrates Daylight savings differently.  This was our choice this year.

I lied.  We drank more whiskey than anything else.

Walking back from shooting on top of Coit tower.  Also, it was a day for shades.

San Francisco was one of our longer days, but provided a lot of gorgeous opportunities to put the camera though its paces.  We’ll be posting more of the video and photos as soon as we’re not uploading them from 20,000 feet.

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When I visit a town, I love going to the market- or farmers’ market as you might call it. It is always a frantic area to explore with new sights and strong odors.
In Hoi An, I unfortunately missed the early tidal wave of conical hats getting off to the fish market at five o’clock in the morning. But I smelled freshly picked aromatic herbs, looked at yellow rice noodles used for traditionnal dish ”Cao lau,” and ate delicious shrimp dumplings poetically named ”white rose”.

Freshly picked aromatic herbs.

Vietnamese brooms and baskets.

The fish market of Hoi An.

Making sugar cane juice: ''nuoc mia.'' Yummy!

Drinking nuoc mia.

Hoi An.

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LE MARCHE AUX POISSONS DE HOI AN

En terre inconnue, j’aime toujours me balader du côté du marché. Il y a une frénésie indescriptible de couleurs, d’odeurs, de visions nouvelles.
A Hoi An, j’ai malheureusement manqué de peu la marée de chapeau conique arrivant au marché aux poissons à cinq heures du matin. Mais j’ai humé les herbes aromatiques fraîchement cueillies, regardé les nouilles de riz jaune utilisées pour le plat traditionnel ”cao lau”, et dégusté des raviolis à la crevette portant le poétique nom de ”rose blanche”.

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During my Têt holidays, I decided to visit the center region of Vietnam. I had an amazing time.

I left Saigon on a sleeping bus.During the 22 hour long journey to Hoi An I met Yuliya, from Belarus and Sam, from Australia. We got along very well and decided to visit Hoi An together.

The streets of Hoi An.

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Many Vietnamese women are fascinated with my ”yellow hair” and ”white skin,” as they say.

Like this old woman at the bus stop, who kept staring at me. She mumbled something in Vietnamese. I shrugged, to tell her that I didn’t understand what she was saying. Then, the woman sitting next to me said. ”She say you are beautiful.”

Jet black hair.

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The Vietnamese eat rice in so many different forms, it truly is amazing: fried rice, steamed rice, rice noodles, rice vermicelli, rice paper, fried rice flour, sticky rice, rice cakes, rice soup, rice pancakes, rice doughnuts… I’ve even found a place that makes young rice ice-cream!

Consequently, they cook rice in different ways. One method consists of spreading rice that’s already been cooked on a newspaper and let it dry outside on a roof or on the ground, under the sunlight.

Drying rice on the roofs.

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