A few of our photos.

Hey Sam here!

So I just read the L.A road trip blog, and a sense of envy has stricken me so profoundly that I almost wept. That sounds awesome! The list is definately something that should be carried with us!

Now obviously I have taken a lot of photos over the last few months, and none more so than when in America with you guys! So I thought I'd create a little blog where I upload some of the best shots I had of our road trip time in terms of photographic beauty ... and will soon upload a similar one but of shots of us! Hope you enjoy!

This is taken on one of those typically dreary Seattle days,
and this seagull, just gazing into the distance,
reflects the reflective mood I was in that day.

 This is the fire lookout on the top of Mount Pilchuck, at
sunrise after we had spent a wonderful night there,
and before we began our beautiful, although ultimately almost costly, descent.

What better sight can a man have from his front door than this? Immaculate.

 The typical scene at the house. This goes some way to epitmomising
why I fell in love to naturally with this place!

During our trip around the Olympic Peninsula, the quaint and cosy
little streams rushing and trickling through the deep green of the
rain forest creating a magical place indeed. I believe this was
taken on the day of our trip to the midnight hot springs. What a place!

 This is creek falls, near the quite luxurious and hospitable Quinalt lodge.
 It was raining when I took this, and just managed to squeeze the shot out!

This is lake quinalt, one quiet evening whilst we were lounging there.

This shot captures the bleak, monstrous and rural beauty of the
western coastlines of the Olympic peninsula. I got soaked
getting this, but them there beaches, Rialto and Ruby, were fantastic and wild places.

 This was the quite wonderful river bank we found ourselves on one morning,
 having blindly parked there the previous night. It was in Bend, Oregon,
and the climbing, and quaint little ledges and woodland there was just perfect.

Crater Lake. I followed Justin up a perilous little rock face
 to get to the peak of this overlook, and
what a place this is. Breathtaking day of snow shoeing.

 We had an unbelievable time in San Francisco! All of us there together,
and we of course all remember this brilliant moment.
 It just encapsulates our time in that incredible city.

 Yosemite might just be the zenith of landscape photography,
and despite the bleak weather we had there,
 it was a stunning place, and I quite like this black and white shot.

This is my favourite photograph I have taken. This was a classicly
spontaneous little moment, climbing that there mound. It was like a
sentry overlooking its wonderful, sleeping, golden and green landscape.

 I like this shot of Justin. It just captures the vastness of Death Valley.
 It was a brutal and vast place, but ruggedly beautiful at the same time.

This shot was taken near the Horseshoe in Page, Arizona. It was a
beautiful evening (as they generally are in Arizona), and I just loved this desert shrubbery.

Monument Valley is a magnificent place, despite the commercial build
 up there that taints many places these days. But it is a magnificent sight nevertheless.

 Shiprock, New Mexico. A mighty bastion rising from the
plains at sunset, towards the end of our epic trip.

A brief and jumbled synopsis of my time since those heady American days.

This has been infinitely too long in it’s arrival … and I must, first and foremost, apologise for that. It has now been four months since I flew out of San Francisco airport with adventure surrounding me, but three unbelievable friends behind me, and I find myself sitting in a flat overlooking Lothian street, Edinburgh, at 2.36am, drunk as can be on nostalgia for those times. But it is not where I am, it is where I have been, and what my views on our adventures have become, that is important.

So where have I been? Well I’ve been to Asia. The expanse and the freedom of America was stripped of me the day I set foot in Asia … I had been spoilt by the lethargic ease with which we had existed then. But Asia was different, and it wasn’t necessarily worse. I was surrounded by good friends, and the character of some of them there cities was just infinite and baffling, it was sublime. The thing I found with Asia, is that wherever I looked, my eyes tended to just fall, all unsuspecting and naïve, on something absolutely and endlessly charming. Unfortunately this can not be the case in places like the UK and America at times, although at the same time I do believe that literally anything in life may be viewed with fascination and meaning if time and place and the viewers brain do just consider for a while.

But one of the most important things I preferred about America was the fact that I met so many incredible local people, who I could befriend and spend time with, and who could show me their local area … my fellow Hammock Bros being the finest example of this! In Thailand though, although I met some incredible local people who really inspired me … my path was generally a tourist trail. This is not to say thought that there weren’t some incredible times.

My time there was too long to properly summarise in an article, or at least a succinct article, but I have included a map that shows my path, and how long I spent in each place. But there is time and space for a few anecdotes and highlights.

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Local river boats in Vang Vieng

Me at the Sonkarn Festival.

My first two weeks in Asia were spent with my family, and as well as Bangkok and Kohn Kaen (where we experienced the incredible Songkarn witgh the locals covering us in powder and water), we spent around five days in Vang Vieng, Laos … an incredible place.  It’s a small town right on a meandering, mystical river that winds its way between sheer misty green cliffs and hills, and small jungle huts adjourn the banks. Watching the locals go about their day to day lives, with children swimming and laughing in the river together, and fathers herding their cattle into the river to cool off, local fishermen humming small boats to and fro, and mothers washing their children’s clothes near the reeds, is a wonderful way to spend time. The town is also a backpackers town though, and my brothers and I spent a lot of time on the river rope swings nearby, and spent time rock climbing in the shady caves set back from the bank. It was a magical time pondering life on the banks of that river … and has planted in me a desire to spend time on a river (Jon, I know Louisiana has some lovely melancholy rivers because I‘ve read Huckleberry Finn).

I spent two different spans of time on the southern islands of Thailand … one with some friends in late April, and once again with my beautiful girlfriend and some other friends in June. Now the islands are of course beautiful, but they are simultaneously a pit of booze ridden tourist destruction, and although there were many great drunken nights, and one where my friend and I found ourselves slugging at one another in a Thai boxing ring at 2am, the crowd going wild (I won with two knockdowns thanks to my quite brutal strength and punching prowess), I found that the most brilliant way to explore and experience the islands was to leave the commotion behind. My girlfriend and I got a number of mopeds out on Ko Phangang, Ko Samui and Ko Tao, me driving with her perched behind me, and we zoomed and travelled to the remotest regions of them, to hidden coves and through Thai villages and forests, and beautiful empty coast lines under the falling sun, and it was completely serene and beautiful. Those days, more so than the famous full moon party and the time spent in the ocean and in bars, were comfortably the most perfect I spent on those islands … they were peaceful and liberating.

Me at rural jungle hut, Railay. We had
monkeys bombing onto our roof during

a storm!

Similarly, the day that a friend and I took mopeds up the coast in Vietnam between Hoi An (a wonderfully quaint town renowned for its tailored clothing) to Hue. Not another Westerner in sight, we raced along the coast amidst the hectic traffic of Denang, wound our way over glorious coastline twists and turns, overlooking the most idyllic coves I have hitherto set my eyes upon. The beauty of that journey could be wonderfully recounted if I had more time and talent, but it would be the sort of writing that would be enjoyed only by artists and romantics, such was the beauty of the moment we chased that steam train through the rich country of middle Vietnam, chased ourselves, as I like to be, by the sinking sun. The character of the Vietnamese cities is endless and mesmerising, with two wheeled vehicles reigning supreme, filling the cities with such a hustle you couldn’t help but get excitable. I have to say I regret not taking more walks around those cities, in a similar way that I would have regretted not exploring those southern islands had I not actually explored them. That is to say that like the islands, they had more infinitely more to offer than I realised. The cherry on the cake of my Vietnamese venture, was the night I spent on a boat in Halong bay getting drunk with a group of splendid strangers. There was a middle aged Parisian woman who told me of France, two wonderfully upbeat Italian twins, and a bear like Canadian brute with a heart of gold. As I stumbled to bed on that boat, it being my penultimate night in Vietnam, I almost wept in awe of where I was, drunk and tiny in a big world. Vietnam is the country I envisage myself returning to most soonly (I believe in made up words if the reader understands them) from the three I went to, Thailand, Vetnam and Cambodia.

Me on moped during the beautiful Vietnam drive.

The outstanding days of Cambodia were spent at the Anchor Watt temples there, a small land of golden mystique, silent temples crouching in the sporadic jungles and plains under the Cambodian sun. It was fantastic perched on those temples, trying to picture life in the 12th century as the native royals and slaves pottered about there. We also visited a small landmine museum there, which was insightful and interesting.

Monks at one of the Ankor Watt temples.

I could write a novel of anecdotes and experiences in Asia … it was a wonderful experience and one which I endeavour to repeat in the future. But most interesting to me is how my travels have influenced my beliefs, just as they did in America. Asia has heightened my respect for local people (although I would like to think that this was very much instilled in me beforehand), and when I heard tourists complaining and abusing local people, local people who’s home these tourists had essentially come to ‘vomit all over’ (in the words of comedy group Unexpected Items who created a satirical sketch on the matter), I began to feel angered and sad about it. I felt like everybody on the islands were too similar, and that many people came for the wrong reasons, me included at times. Asia was wonderful, but I saw it more as a holiday than an adventure at times like these. Asia certainly lowered my desire for a commercial lifestyle even further, and I always ate local cuisine.

The tree in the field behind my garden ...
where my adventure began and ended,
and where I like to hang the hammock and chill.

But the time came for me to return to England, and after a two hour stop in Hong Kong I was once more in the realm of my wonderful home and with my beautiful family, hitting golf balls into the field behind my house, pondering my travels and how I had changed. More words to come soon about how I feel my beliefs have changed, and maybe some ‘Top 5’ lists from in America! I’ve always find it hard to merely document what I have done in writing as opposed to giving it a creative edge … but I hope this gives you guys at least a small insight into where I’ve been etc … hopefully I can tell you all in more detail when plans of further adventures come to life.

Now? Well I’m in Edinburgh finding what work I can grab to have a whale of a time at this Fringe Festival … it’s a magical place and a new adventure, living in another city of outrageous and breathtaking beauty, meeting new people and experiencing new things, learning new beliefs and the like. But that may well just be for another blog.

Peace for now!

Introduction: Frazier

Hey everybody, my name is Frazier, proud member of the Hammock Brothers.


What does it mean to me to be a hammock brother? It means living life the way it was meant to be, living it for yourself, and not for some corporation or some guy who’s dad sent him to a better college than my dad sent me to.

No, that doesn’t me that I have removed myself from society, preaching about how disgusting money is, preaching about the evils of war and greed. I am a big fan of society, I like to involve myself in it, but I don’t want to become a slave to it.

How bouts a little introduction to myself? If you asked my friends who I was, they’d say I’m the China kid, I’ve lived in Beijing for 4 years now and am back now for a couple more. I’m doing the student thing, just finished my Bachelor degree in Chinese Language and Culture. I sometimes like to scare the white folk by speaking in tounges.

I like the different cultures of the world. As I expose myself to more and more I find more and more how much I like the one that I was raised in: A culture that encourages creativity, a culture that encourages individuality.

Some random dazzling facts about myself; I’ve vagabonded in Japan (Hokkaido) for 3 months (on 700 USD, not a lot…), I’ve been on a Chinese game show, I have TTR (ticket to ride) points, I’ve marched in the commi ass parade in Tiananmen square, Beijing, and coolest of all, I've made a group of friends (the hammock bros and then some) that I wouldn't trade for all the booty in the carribean! My friends are my wealth.

Anyways, I’m currently on the Hammock Brothers therapy program. Well, that’s what it is to me anyway. Living in a place like Beijing for so long can tear down even the strongest of us. I’ve lost my sanity at times, sinking into the mindset that many on this earth never escape from. Coming back to America this summer (2010) I found it hard to find smiles coming up on my face, and I had forgotten what I had been like before. I had been back for not very long at all when Jason called me up and said “LA tomorrow, you down?” I said “ahhh, money money…” Jason said “It’s taken care of honey” and I said “quit joking, this s**t aint funny” he said “keys in the ignition and the tank is full” I said “Lets do this s**t, hey give me that red bull” Haha, anyways, I woke up the next day and we were in Venice beach. And the rest is already written history.

This trip was therapy for me. We did "The List" (mentioned in Jason’s Blog), which forced us to leave our comfort bubbles that to many people is a small jail cell, and interact with a lot of really different people from all different walks of life. There was also one night that I’ll never forget. We were killing time waiting for a couch surfer to get off work, when Jason started doing a balancing act on a hand rail, walking back and forth on it. He said, “Frazier, hit this up!” I hesitated. As we get older (I’m 24) we find ourselves getting lazier, not willing to do anything that doesn’t have a monetary award, and I was in one of those moods at the time. But Jason insisted, and before I knew it I was balancing on the rail as well, walking forward on it, then going backward. Then we did a harder rail, where losing ones balance might result in a pain in the ace to say the least. But I did it, and I remembered what life used to be about, taking slight risks that have the reward of creating memories. Anyways, I felt the healing effects right away, and the rest is history.

Now after hanging out with and becoming a hammock brother, I am ready to go back to China and tackle life before it tackles me, before it takes me down.

Backpacking the San Juan Islands

Grab you're backpack; we're headed out the door for an inexpensive adventure to Orcas Island - the largest of the San Juan Islands, located in the wester part of Washington State. This trip was like a hybrid between backpacking Europe and going to Maui; only it's a $12.50 ferry ride! Once on any of the islands - ferry travel is free between the islands and back to the mainland - and since we're arriving on foot and plan on hiking and hitching around the island our travel expenses can't get any lower!

Our journey begins by getting dropped off at the ferry terminal in Anacortes, WA. We had planned on going to San Juan Island but it was a two hour wait and the ferry to Orcas Island was boarding so we paid our fees and jumped aboard. As a sailor, there is no better way to visit a new place than to pull into port! Arriving on the island at the ferry terminal is like traveling back in time when we didn't have all the security at the airports - warm embraces between friends and family and everyone is glad to see each other and I'm sure most feel fortunate to have made it back to the beautiful island they call home. 

We crossed the street and took our packs off and enjoyed a few cups of coffee at the Orcas Hotel & Cafe  and studied the map to get our bearings. We got focused and decided making a sign with our destination on it would increase our odds hitchhiking - and it worked like a charm! Within 5 minutes a lady stopped and waived us over. She owned the 420 Studio on the island and was a very informative tour guide on our 10 minute drive to Moran State Park, a 5,252 acre park with five fresh water lakes and over 30 miles of hiking trails. We were dropped off at the main beach of Cascade Lake and it was bustling with people enjoying the sun, swimming, and grilling on the BBQs. We set up our hammocks, threw on our swim suits, turned up the music, and jumped in the water. It was such a nice summer day and we knew we were where we were meant to be!

We eventually got an itch to start exploring and found a trail that went around Cascade Lake. We hiked for a few miles enjoying the view from the cliffs above the lake and found a perfect spot to call home for the night. 

When hammocking you don't need a nice tent site so we figure why pay for one. Our strategy has been to hike down a trail until you find a grand view with trees that are appropriately spaced and setup around sunset. As the saying goes - it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission - but we trek lightly and are well intentioned and always try and leave an area nicer than we found it. 

We flipped our cardboard sign over and inscribed our next destination 'Olga'. We didn't know it at the time but this sign would become quite the souvenir of the trip because by the time we left it was capable of getting us to all of the popular spots on the island: East Sound, Doe Bay, Moran State Park, and the Ferry... It worked so well that we joked about selling them to tourist as they arrived off the ferry. Thumbing a ride on islands has been great in our experience - and on Orcas island we never waited any longer than 5 or 10 minutes. It became so easy that at one point we decided we could use the exercise and backpacked to our next destination... and after four miles we were discussing if we should hitch the rest of the way as a truck was zooming by and Justin half heartily threw a thumb up the last second and the truck squealed to a stop before his thumb made it all the way up... Our backpacks are the equivalent of lifting the hood of a vehicle... it's easy to see our intentions and it can be fun testing different strategies of what works and what doesn't when it comes to hitching a ride. Justin jokes that you've reached the pinnacle of hitchhiking if you can get a limousine to stop.

We stayed three nights and spent a combined total of $100. We feel fortunate to have had the time to explore such a remarkable place and we plan on returning to the San Juans for a thorough exploration of San Juan, Lopez, Blakely, and maybe a few other islands as well.