Mappy April!
Workaway: eat, sleep, help for free / Skiing in Vegas / Vietnam trip / Outsourcing to Bangladesh / Camera pill vs colonoscopy / ATM fees abroad / Are you mad? / Rick Rubin's book / Film by Guy Ritchie
New on MappyEverAfter: Our Vietnam trip. Skiing in Vegas video.
From the Archive: Adventures in free travel: Workaway - eat, sleep, help
Experiment: My first outsourcing attempt - I hired a Bangladeshi girl to put together a video of our travels in Vietnam
Travel: 56 days, 22 countries - Bus from Istanbul to London
Health: Camera Pill and DNA test - Colonoscopy alternatives
Money: Don’t pay ATM fees, at home or abroad (for US citizens and residents)
Watch: “The Gentlemen” a film by Guy Ritchie
Read: “The Creative Act: A Way of Being” by Rick Rubin
Mental Hack: How long do you stay mad?
Just because: Mesmerising (short) videos on Mac Premo’s process of art creation
Note: I will always tell you if I’m getting any referral bonuses and how much they are. There aren’t any in this letter
New on MappyEverAfter.com: 5 Weeks in Vietnam, Part 1 (Saigon)
It’s hard to pick my favorite country but Vietnam is definitely up there. We traveled over 1300 miles (2100 km) from south to north (Saigon to Hanoi, via Can Tho, Dalat, and Hoi An) using local buses. Here’s part one, where we explore Saigon, where Mark becomes an instant celebrity, we see the atrocities of the Vietnam War (or American War as the Vietnamese call it) from up close, and score some free beer. All on a budget of $25 a day (total, for the two of us).
And for those of you who had no idea that there’s pretty good skiing and snowboarding right outside of Vegas, have a look at this video. I shot the majority of it in mid April.
From the Archive: Adventures in free travel: Workaway - Eat, Sleep, Help
We spent 5 weeks volunteering in Laos, teaching English to local farmers, and working on a fundraising campaign. In exchange for working 5 hrs a day, 5 days a week, we got a nice room, meals, and access to experiences we’d not be able to have as mere tourists.
An Experiment in Outsourcing
I was re-reading Tim Ferriss’ book The 4-hour Workweek, where he urges readers to try outsourcing their work. I had hundreds of photos and videos from our trip to Vietnam and wanted to make a video out of them. A perfect subject for an outsourcing experiment, since hired help could hardly do worse than I would.
I signed up for Fiverr, the gig economy darling, found and talked to a handful of girls advertising their video-editing skills, and picked Mariam, a young, Bangladeshi woman. She looked at my footage and offered to make an up to 10-minute video for $20. An average wage in Bangladesh is under $2/hr, so $20 should give her enough time to work and give me the peace of mind that I’m not exploiting her.
We wrote back and forth as she worked, making adjustments, and voila! the final version is here. I don’t travel with a drone so all the aerial shots are stock footage added by Mariam. The video is not really my style (which might be a good thing, haha) but the point of the exercise was to get used to outsourcing tedious tasks, and that was accomplished.
Travel: The longest bus journey in the world
I’ve been on the mailing list of an Indian company “Overland Adventures” for a couple of years now, curious about their progress in trying to organize the longest bus route in the world - from Istanbul, Turkey to London, England. They finally have a departure date, they’re launching this August. Before you get too excited, a single ticket will set you back about $24.000.
The trip spans 12000km (7500 miles), takes 56 days, and crosses 22 countries (including Slovakia, woot-woot). All breakfasts and 30 lunches and dinners are included, as well as some nights in hotels (as there damn well better be, at that price).
I won’t be taking this bus anytime soon but it’s still fun to keep an eye on what’s new.
Health: Camera pill and a DNA test - a Colonoscopy alternative?
As you most likely know, I’m not a medical professional. I’m just someone with a body looking for a user’s manual.
It’s inexcusable that we still die of colon cancer, one of the most preventable of all cancers. But it’s also understandable that we’re not eager to undergo a colonoscopy, with its long prep, the whole tube up your rectum business, and anesthesia (unless you’re the humorist David Sedaris, who positively enjoys the experience - starts at minute 56).
Mark and I have used Cologuard in the past, a test that looks for altered DNA. The problem is that it mainly detects cancer when it’s already present (with 92% accuracy) while it detects only 42% of pre-cancerous polyps. Hence it should be done every 3 years, as opposed to every 10 for a colonoscopy.
Another kid on the block is the Capsule Endoscopy - a camera the size of a big pill that you swallow. It takes pictures on the way through and out of your digestive system. This Danish and Scottish study found it to be even more accurate than a regular colonoscopy, especially in finding small polyps (another study here). Both the prep and the follow-up involve a laxative as the pill needs to get all the way through before it loses its charge, otherwise the lower part of your colon won’t get photographed.
If your doctor is willing to offer one of these tests and the insurance is willing to pay for it, you’ll need to have a regular colonoscopy anyway if they find anything suspicious in your innards. Still, I think it’s an exciting alternative.
Money - Don’t Pay ATM fees
I’ve had the Charles Schwab Investor Checking account (not an affiliate or referral link, just a regular, public page) for about a decade and it saved us hundreds of dollars in countries and situations where cash is king and credit cards are not accepted (think street food in Asia, small guesthouses, etc). ATM fees can really add up in these situations. Some banks charge $10 for every withdrawal.
The Schwab checking account has lots of perks: the ATM fee rebates (as a lump sum at the end of each month) are unlimited, there’s no foreign transaction fee, no account maintenance fee, and no minimum to keep in your account. You need to open it as a package with a brokerage account, which I did but never used. I just transfer some cash to the checking account and carry the debit card whenever we travel.
The one bad thing I noticed is how low their interest rates are (currently 0.45%, which is 1/10 of what you can make elsewhere) so I only transfer as much as I immediately need into this account.
There are many banks that claim to reimburse your domestic and international ATM fees, but there’s often a catch. They either cap the amount at $10-15/month, charge foreign transaction fees, or require you to keep a few thousand dollars in your account at all times.
As always, do your own due diligence.
Watch: The Gentlemen
'The Gentlemen', directed by Guy Ritchie, and starring Matthew McConaughey, Hugh Grant, Charlie Hunnam, Michelle Dockery, and Colin Ferrell is an absolute blast, Richie returning to the Cockney gangster films that put him on the map and McConaughey being... well, McConaughey. It’s a comedic match made in heaven, with a stellar supporting cast, and witty British repartee at its best. All buds, no dust.
Read: Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being
This is my hubby’s recommendation. I haven’t read it yet but it’s next on my list. The Creative Act: A Way of Being by the legendary Rick Rubin is a beautifully written book on the creative process. Rubin's artistic prowess goes without saying, but his ability to clearly, concisely, and beautifully share that with us in this book is a salve to the aesthetic mind.
Mental Hack: Notice how long you stay mad
“The next time you feel a negative emotion like anxiety, or fear, or anger, notice what happens next. How long do you stay in the grip of that contracted state of mind? How long is it useful to feel this emotion when responding to whatever challenge has appeared in your life? It's not that the goal is never to feel these emotions again, they're signals that there's something worth paying attention to. But how long must we let the alarm bells ring? With mindfulness, you see that these emotions begin to evaporate the moment you notice them. And then you can respond to whatever's happening in the world without being miserable.”
-Sam Harris, Moment in his Waking Up app
Just Because: Mesmerising (short) videos on Mac Premo’s process of creation
Not only do you get a glimpse into an artist’s mind but they are so beautifully shot and brilliantly edited that you won’t be able to peel yourself away. Here are two of my favorites (so far):
On making art from shit laying around:
and this one on making a Bunt Machine and a subsequent play. Don’t know what a bunt machine is? Neither did we.
and here’s a link to his equally awesome website:
So there you have it. Hope you didn’t limit your April foolishness to just a day.
Be Mappy,
Mags
