It’s been a long time since my last update, but since I’m heading off on a fair bit of travel, I figured I’d at least put something down in words — even if just for my own sake — as a memory of the journey.

Me and Matt are at it again. After 11 years, we’ve finally had the opportunity to take some time off and go travelling. Matt’s getting married in December, so we figured this trip could double as an extended stag do.

Our plans came together earlier this year when we decided we’d like to take a month off and do a motorcycle trip somewhere in the world. We landed on Thailand, as there are still parts of the country we’ve never ridden through before. The rough plan: hire bikes in Bangkok, head northeast, see as much as we can along the way, then ride up north to Chiang Mai before looping back down to Bangkok. A very loose plan — we weren’t sure how much of it we’d manage to achieve, but we were just excited to be back on the bikes together after such a long time.

Over the last decade, the two of us have travelled through plenty of countries using all sorts of transport, and we’ve had some incredible adventures together. But life has moved into a new chapter — busier, fuller — and we no longer have the luxury of taking six months or a couple of years off. So, this time, we’ve settled for just one month.

Things have been pretty hectic over the past couple of years. Matt started working with me at Fortified Construction, which has been awesome. He’s an excellent builder and a huge asset to the team. There was a big push this year to get a major job wrapped up before we headed away, and as you can imagine — being both boss and friend, trying to get all the admin and stress tidied up before disappearing for a month — it definitely added to both the pressure and the excitement.

We managed to get all our ducks in a row before heading off. Not everything was perfectly wrapped up — a few of our bigger projects were still on the go — but my business partner Julian stepped up to handle things while I was away. Thankfully, there are two of us to share the load; I wouldn’t have been able to do this without him.

Fast forward several months from the initial booking and bits of very casual planning, and we had our date locked in: 12th of September.

We flew via Singapore and spent two nights there exploring the city. I’d never been before, and it blew me away — such a cool, clean, vibrant place. We managed to visit two casinos during our short stay. The first night, we hit Sentosa Island and had a thoroughly enjoyable time at the roulette table. I walked away with a decent win, which was a pretty exciting start to the trip!

The following day, we took a bus tour around the city, ticking off all the sights and hopping off here and there to wander around — slowly getting used to the heat. We noticed the Formula One was only a few weeks away, which was awesome to see, as we both love watching Drive to Survive.

Singapore seemed to fly by in a blur of late nights and little adventures — including a second casino visit, this time to the Marina Bay Sands, which I’d always wanted to check out. That boat-shaped building is just as impressive in person.

After that, we flew over to Bangkok, where the first couple of days were all about admin: sorting out tailor-made suits for Matt’s wedding, and getting our motorbikes organised. We definitely took advantage of the $10-an-hour massages to rest our weary bones after all the travel — and the hectic few months leading up to it.