Vault: They Left Everything Behind And Now They're in Asia

0:00This is Byard Winthrop, founder of American Giant. We make all our clothing right here in the U.S. with American cotton and American workers. Get 20% off your first order when you use code giant20 at american-giant.com. The Burt Show! You can follow along with Mandy and Brian's journey around the world. We started talking to him six months ago. Can you hold a leaf for six months? No, I can't. And they are keeping a really great blog with some fantastic pictures on it. At Mandy and Brian.com. But you can link over from our website at q100Atlana.com. And let me just read you two entries that made me laugh yesterday. Okay. I think they're both from Mandy. Dear hot shower. While Brian and I were on vacation from our vacation, I was introduced to you. And I just wanted to let you know, I think I'm in love with you. You make me feel so much cleaner than your evil twin, cold shower. I will miss you when we take our six hour bus to a 13 hour train.

1:00Because even though I spend all that time sitting, I somehow manage to develop a funk so strong, I'm afraid to raise my arms. I will miss you in Bangkok when the tube-tube drivers won't leave us alone about about going to a ping pong show and the memory of what those girls did with their lady parts makes me feel dirty. I will miss you when my legs start looking like Brian's and I know it's time to shave again. I hope to see you again, hot shower. The sooner the better. I'm afraid I can't live without you and your hot steamy goodness. You're most adoring fan, Mandy. That's funny. That's funny. I could not do that. Hot showers like the best. I know. I hate cold showers. I would rather go without a shower. Yes. Then a cold shower. Yes. I hate it that much. Jinx. Somebody buy some. Somebody cook quick. It says it's been over six months that we've been traveling and here are some random quantities. 14,661 pictures I have taken. Wow. 1225 pictures I have taken of monkeys.

2:01Clearly, I have issues. 35 books I have read. 28. Longest consecutive hours spent in transport. That involved a plane. Two buses. Two shuttles. One train. One taxi. Six. Greatest number of people seen on a motorbike. Five pairs of sunglasses. Brian has lost or broken. Four pairs of flip flops. Brian has lost or broken. Three monkeys that hit Brian. One tiger that hit Brian. One stray cat that hit Brian. Brian is having a tougher time than man is. Hey you guys. How you doing? Hey. Hey. How are you? What's going on? I'm good. I don't know. So so good to talk to you. How are you? I'm less ready to go home now that we are moving again. And we have a plan. And I mean, right now we're sitting in a bungalow on the beach. So I, there's really nothing to complain about here. Have there been nights or days where you seriously said to Brian, you're like, let's get out of here.

3:01You know what? I know we had a plan, but I'm ready to go home. I miss my family. Yeah. Well, like you said, like when we were in Bangkok, we were just not doing anything. And I remember before we left my dad said, if you, you know, go do this, have fun, enjoy. But if you ever reach a point where it's just not fun anymore, you can always come home. And so I just reached that point where like this isn't fun. We're just sitting in this room all day. And yeah, we've seen all of these things. And so it just felt like we're not doing anything. And and so I've, yeah, there was definitely a few late night phone calls like my best friend and one of which, you know, ended with me like really unsure if I was even going to stay or not. And then of course they have the Indian Conflict had our passports. And so I couldn't have gone home even if I wanted to. So luckily at this point, I have taken my mind in them. I am looking for a degree and having something to do. I feel like a lot of it now is we kind of go around and we just look at stuff, but I'm looking for nicely experiencing and living somewhere for a while. I think a lot of people have this fantasy to do the same thing you guys are doing. Just drop it all.

4:02I mean, and then just go travel and see the entire world. Who hasn't had that idea? What's the, what's the one thing that most people don't know about traveling this consistently that you would warn them about before they take a trip? Oh gosh. I would warn them about lots of things. I mean, you have to have an incredible amount, it doesn't matter where you're going, but especially here in Lake Asia, you have to have an incredible amount of patience and expect that you're trained, your bus, your boat. Nothing's going to run on time. It will probably break down, just deal with it. I mean, just get over anything that you can't control because you can't control it. As far as like money and things like that, I've found that, Brian and I don't fight over money like I thought we would, but because we have a limited supply of money, I find myself feeling really guilty, and even we spend like a safe line amount of money. So it kind of takes the fun out of doing big things. Like we've talked about going diving, but it's like, oh, but diving so expensive. I don't know, we could just snorkel, it's cheaper. So, and then, I guess part of what I'm experiencing now is

5:06if you do it for too long, like, if you're not assuming the wow factor goes away, like at first, we were like, oh my god, we're floating down the river in Indonesia, and you know, look at this gamble, and I think there's a monkey in that tree, and now we're like, uh, monkeys, you know. Some of my hair, they put my hair, they stole my sunglasses, and so we're not quite as like, no, this is the greatest thing I've ever seen now. And so like I said, sometimes it feels like we're just, I mean, the things we're seeing are amazing. Don't get me wrong, but it just kind of feels like we're just going around and like, oh, look at that, oh, look at that. So, for a long time, you have to, it's a different sort of traveling than taking a vacation. And Mandy, I'm curious, because you guys are carrying everything you own on your backs, everywhere you go. Have you ditched a lot of stuff that you started out with? We just in Bangkok kind of clean things out, because one, like you said, I mean, I'm so sick of all of the clothing. I've brought them so tired of where, again, it's kind of looking dingy.

6:06And also, I mean, we're used to being really warm, and so when we had the Europe, I think it's going to be like shockingly cold. Like it could be 60 degrees, and we're going to be freezing. And so we bought a couple pairs of jeans, and I bought a sweater, and so we're kind of preparing ourselves, or it's not going to stay hot and tropical forever. And you can't like, I know when I go on vacations, I always seem to like have everybody in mind to buy gifts for when I get back. You can't accumulate that kind of stuff, right? No, it kind of, it affects what you buy, because we find ourselves wanting to buy things. They're really easily shipped home, or really easily carried, so things always have to be flat. And we're going to be gone for so long, and going to so many places. Like, yeah, I want to get something for everybody here, and Brian, get you ready. Well, we're going to go to, you know, we're going to Egypt next, and then we're going to go to Europe, and there are things to buy there, too. So, you don't have to scratch everyone off your list right now. And the relationship with Brian, everything has been strong. You guys leaning on each other,

7:07everything going the way you thought it would. For the most part, I mean, when I was, well, we were talking, I was ready to go home, and we were bored, and we were a little at each other's throat, because I think we were just sort of taking it out on each other, because neither one of us was happy, and so it's like, I'm not happy, so I'm not fun to be around, and he's not happy, and he's not fun to be around, and that just kind of escalated, so. Oh, yeah, and he said he could be out of there. And he said he wanted to break up with you. That thing says there was that. Right, and then there was that. That thing hasn't done that again. I suggest to get a rundown. What's coming up for you guys over the next couple of weeks? Well, thanks to the Bangkok Airport being closed. Still we've been, now that we've gotten out of there, we don't really know, but we're heading down to a fallen poor. We're killing some time on the islands for now. And then the eighth, we fly to Cairo. We're going to spend about 10 days in Egypt, and then we're going to fly to Athens, Greece, to meet a friend of mine for a few days, and then after that, we start working on,

8:08like you said, on a farm on this Greek island. It's fantastic. I mean, she's riding in such a way, both of them are doing such a great job, and all the pictures are fantastic. Also, go online and check them out, and you can sort of take the journey with them at Q100Atlanta.com. All right, Mandy, we will talk to you in a couple of weeks. Okay. It's good talking to you. Yeah, you guys, you too. Bye-bye. That birds you.