Over the weekend I drove up to Yasothon to check out Bun Bang Fai, Thailand’s unique and often very dangerous Rocket Festival. It’s a 3 day event, with the all-night party falling on the Friday, the parade on the Saturday and the launch of the rockets on Sunday.

The night party on Friday, as one would expect in Isaan, was insane. Huge stages were set up all along the main road in Yasothon with sound systems bigger than the house I grew up in. All the locals were extremely friendly and food, snacks, beer and whiskey were plentiful.

On Saturday the mayhem from the night before was forgotten and a huge parade consisting of music and dancers drove through the city on beautifully decked out floats. However everyone was waiting for Sunday to arrive, the day the locals launch home-made rockets as far up into the sky as they can. The team who’s rocket flies the highest wins a few thousand dollars. I was told that even if there was no prize money involved, the locals would still brave the dangerous event due to the love of the “sport?” and because it’s a part of their culture and history.

Talking of danger, it’s very common for locals to seriously injure themselves and plenty have died over the years due to the rockets exploding before take-off.

So what’s the background story? As this is primarily a farming region, the rockets are sent up to the sky to tell the angles to release rain. Many locals still believe the legand, and guess what? On Saturday it did rain!!

I’m looking forward to returning next year. It was a great festival and comes highly recommended.

While in Yasothon for the Rocket Festival, I drove 100km up to Roi Et to check out the semi-impressive Wat Pha Nam Yoi temple. It was a great day out, but as far as temples in Isaan go, it’s not as impressive as the Wat That Phanom temple.

This is my favourite shot of the day.

Outside the temple these two cheeky ladies were selling sticky rice that’s grilled inside bambo shoots - extremely delicious, and very more-ish!

Kirstie asks;

I was just wondering if you did much planning for your trip or did you just move on and book flights when ya felt like it.

For me there’s nothing more exciting than waking up one day and thinking fuck it, let’s go on an adventure! And that’s pretty much how I’ve traveled all my life.

A perfect example is the time I went over to Japan. I was chatting to a buddy on IM and he sent me a link covering the Sapporo Snow Festival. The festival was to happen less than a week away. Within an hour we had booked our flights.

While sitting on the plane headed for Tokyo, we talked to each other about where we were going to stay… yeap, we didn’t even have a hotel booked up, and both knew nothing about Tokyo or Japan. Luckily for us, there was someone in our row who lived in Japan, and we picked he’s brains on the best places to stay. Upon touch down, we hopped on a train, found a hotel, and as almost always, it worked our perfectly. That trip to Japan is one of the best trips I’ve ever taken.

This might be too much for some, but this is how I love to travel. One of my fondest memories of being on the road was arriving at Saigon airport in Vietnam, just 2 hours after the doctor gave me the all clear of Dengue Fever. I had no idea where I was going to go, but after a week of feeling like shit, I didn’t care. I stood there in the airport staring up at departing flights screen. That’s an amazing feeling. I ended up choosing Bali. Within 12 hours of leaving the hospital, I checked into a 2 bedroom villa, was enjoying great Indonesian food and spent the next few days chilling out in the pool.

There are some negatives to traveling this way. For starters, it’s generally more expensive (especially turning up at the airport to book a flight) and with the lack of planning, you sometimes miss out on events and festivals worth visiting around the time you plan to travel. But the plus sides of spontaneous travel are great, especially the flexibility and freedom.

Are you spontaneous with your travel trips or do you like to plan ahead?

In late February my wife opened up a Wine Terrace in Ubon Rctahthani, and since then we’ve began a long journey of finding food, wine and drink suppliers here in Thailand. It’s easily been the most challenging part of setting up the business, due to the sheer lack of online resources available to help find these companies.

Sifting through heaps of spam on Google, it took my wife 2 days to locate a quality supplier of Australian beef. 3 days for Beer Lao, even though Laos is just a stones throw away from Ubon. As for wine, it’s taken months to build up a list of distributors whom she is interested in working with. My wife is also interested in networking with Artisan food producers and other restauranteurs here in Thailand, but can’t because there’s not a central location online for these kind of folks to hang out.

Many restaurant and bar owners, as with foodies who are interested in buying quality food from independent food producers directly, need a central location on the web to learn, trade and network with each other. I’m confident there’s a good business model here; for someone to manage an online community to connect all these people together. I know i’d use it.

I announced quitting blogging 200+ days ago. I’ve missed blogging. I’ve missed sharing my pictures and writing about the trips and adventures I often go on. So I thought what the heck, let’s get back to blogging again.

I plan to blog simular nonsense as I did before, but with a focus on helping others. Having spent the last 8 years building an income while traveling all over Asia, I want to help the growing number of people who are considering doing the same. The plan is to answer questions you have about living, working or traveling in Asia, via a mix of audio, video and text. If you have a question, you can submit it here.

I originally started this blog to keep my family updated with my new life away from home, yet over the years blogging has turned into so much more than that.

Firstly, I didn’t expect my writing and photograpghy skills to improve the way they have (both are still very dodgy haha!). Yet more surprising than anything; I didn’t expect the network of friends I would build as a result from the blog – which still to this day I find mind blow-ingly amazing. I have been fortunate enough to meet some of you in person, and that is surely the best thing to come out this adventure.

Most people find it hard to quit things, especially good things, yet I’ve come to the conclusion now is the right time to stop this blogging business. It’s the right time for me. Let’s break down the reasons:

You need something interesting to share

Ironically enough, with limited time, I find updating the blog while on the road a lot easier than updating it when I’m based somewhere. When I’m on the road and have just come back from a great day out, it’s fun to sit down and go through the images I’ve taken, re-size them and write a quick post about the adventure. When I’m based somewhere, enthusiasm goes out of the window; I’m a lot more social in the real world and I’m not so keen on writing about stuff that every-day people get up too.

Content goes stale quickly

I started blogging when I had just opened up my first company and office in Bangkok. Mentally, I was still a kid. I don’t agree with half of the stuff I published back then. Dear I say it, I think I’m a little more grown up and mature now. There’s also a few guides I have written, which are also out of date. This is why travel guides, both online and offline, are so shit; everything changes so quickly.

My focus and priorities have changed

This time last year I was an affiliate marketer who traveled a lot with aspirations of getting into physical goods. Today I’m a guy who has a bunch of affiliate sites, is totally addicted to getting fit, has been shattered from losing 2 of he’s best buddies and is now looking to settle down and build a family. Oh’, and I can’t ignore that I’ve just inherited a telecoms data company that has over 600 staff.

Unexpectedly, you could say I’m now moving into what I’m calling the “next chapter” of my life. And this is why I’m announcing I’m quitting blogging today; I’ve decided to keep the next chapter of my life private.

I will keep semi-active on Twitter, publish foodie photos to my Instagram account from time to time (I love this app!) and may even guest post on other blogs (or start a new non-personal blog) in the future. But as for keeping My Egg Noodles alive, I’m done.

I just want to end this chapter by expressing heart-warmed thanks to everyone who has left a comment or reached out to me since I started this blogging adventure. 85,000 visitors so far this year and 2,269 approved comments – that’s a lot of you to thank!

I’m really excited to announce that I have finalised and confirmed both the venue and the speakers for the first and only Asian Sourcing Event, and tickets are now on sale!

It seems like such a long time ago I was at the Hong Kong Mega Show, thinking to myself how cool it would be to have an event like this that I could personally attend and learn from. It feels great that it’s finally a reality, and I’m happy to announce the following details:

The Speakers

I’m really pleased the 2 speakers I was hoping to speak at the event saw the value and committed straight away. Both have heaps of experience in the sourcing business. They share the same vision as me: that one can learn more in a 2 hour face to face conversation versus reading through hundreds of sourcing blog posts.

Mike Bellamy will cover “The fundamental principles of sourcing in China: Common pitfalls and best practices” and Renaud Anjoran will cover “Quality control tips, tools and templates for audits and inspections”. Head over to the site for more background info on both Mike and Renaud.

The Venue

I visited tens of hotels and meeting rooms while on my inspection trip to Hong Kong earlier this year and got a good feel of what venues were not suitable, ones that would make do and a select few that were perfect.

As I kind of expected, the 3 hotels and function rooms that ended up on my short list were the most expensive, yet it’s never been my aim to skimp and save. I’ve always envisioned this event to be high quality; from the speakers, to the food, networking, learning, service… even to the ambiance.

This is why I chose the Grand Hyatt Hotel – the only hotel attached to the Hong Kong exhibition and convention centre (where the Hong Kong Mega show is held). The decor, food, service and view (oh’ my god – the view over the skyline is mind blowing!) is guaranteed to blow all of the attendees away.

Who should visit

If you want to learn more about the opportunities of sourcing products in China, this event is for you.

If you want to learn from experts in the know and want to network with like minded businessmen people, this event is for you.

If you want a great meal in Hong Kong with unlimited alcoholic beverages for a very reasonable fee, this event is for you.

I really believe that if you operate an online business and have a targeted audience you can sell physical products. The profit margins available on the products showcased at these sourcing fairs are mind blowing. Likewise, if your an affiliate marketer, you already know that the key to growth is being on the other side of the chain; to have hundreds of affiliates promoting your goods and earning a profit from each sale.

Considering the cost for a nice meal at a high end restaurant in Hong Kong, I think the rates we have set are very reasonable. I can’t put a price on the networking and education aspect, but would guess the value from not making a critical mistake could potentially save thousands of dollars.

Here’s a $50 discount code!

If you want to attend, use the code myeggnoodles for a $50 discount off the ticket price. There are only a few early bird tickets remaining.Click here to get your ticket now.

Earn 20% commissions

If you have a website or mailing list and think your users would be interested in learning more about the event, sign up for our affiliate program here. We are offering 20% commissions on both the early bird and standard tickets.

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If you have any questions regarding the event, booking tickets or plan to attend, please let me know in the comments below!

The Ubon Candle Festival is one of the most anticipated events of the year here in Ubon and was held yesterday. Features includes huge wax sculptures, a parade, boat race, beautiful traditional Thai dancing, a fair and wax sculptures from teams visiting the festival from out of Thailand; mainly Brazil, France and Nepal.

The Ubon Candle Festival wasn’t as impressive as the Sapporo Snow Festival, yet it was a lot of fun hanging out for the day and I would recommend visiting the festival next year, especially if you are already in Thailand.

I’ve wanted to start a podcast for a while now, and as I’m getting into sourcing products and e-commerce, interviewing those in the know is as good a good place to start.

My first guest is Dan Andrews, co-founder of a product design company based in San Diago. Dan also runs the Topical MBA – a paid internship with a difference, and is the co-host of the Lifestyle Business Podcast.

Listen to learn dan’s views and advice on:

• Designing products to market

• Shipping and packaging products from China

• Marketing products online and offline

Products and services mentioned:

Solid Works - Random Show - Foodzie - Drupal - Ubercart - Paypal - Optimizely - Crazy Egg - Visual website optimizer

Product Design with Dan Andrews by myeggnoodles

I appologise the sound quaility and the strucutre is a little flaky (I didn’t even ask Dan where he could be found online!) – however I hope these will fall into place over time.