So ends our Hobo's Southeast Asian Wild Ride.
As you may recall, Jimi's been bopping around from Bangkok to Pattaya, back to Bangkok, back to Pattaya, back to Bangkok then to Kuala Lumpur to Phnom Penh to Siem Reap and back to Phnom Penh. Along the way, he's stayed in the most Spartan hotel rooms averaging around $15 a night, feasted on all manner of exotic Street Food and paid the price with continuous bouts of devastating food poisoning, ending up in the hospital twice, visiting temples and shrines, museums and historical sites, street markets, fancy malls, and, especially in Bangkok and Pattaya, many, many street-viewing bars.
He's traveled by plane, train, automobile, and, for good measure, motorbike, both as a passenger and a driver, and many, many Tuk Tuks.
He met many interesting characters along the way from the evil wizard to several working girls including some ladyboys, a jovial Tuk Tuk driver named Bong and several expats, some friendly, some antagonistic.
Jimi's moods have swung the full pendulum from giddy highs, to the deep, dark psychological abyss of depressive episodes as part of what is likely undiagnosed bipolar disorder.
Jimi's made hundreds in donations, sometimes in just one firesale session and others within a few minutes from a good-hearted moderator hoping he'd use the funds for a full medical check-up. But it wasn't long before Jimi drank through most of this money. And with beers averaging less than a dollar each in either of the countries he visited, that's a lot of booze. Oh, and many, many bottles of Scotch whiskey.
Towards the end, he was forced to stay in the cheapest of hotel rooms, even shared dorms in hostels at five bucks a night.
He accidentally dropped his phone while streaming as he was swimming in a pool and was forced to buy a much cheaper phone that didn't stream too well.
As to be expected from Jimi the Hobo, once he was broke, he became irritated at his viewing audience, complaining that they weren't donating enough.
At one of the temples in Siem Reap, he got so sick and needed emergency transport to the hospital, and feared that his rented motorbike may have been stolen. Luckily it wasn't, the police had just confiscated it as abandoned and it was available for him to pick up.
During one visit to a ancient looking graveyard, Jimi thought he'd hit the jackpot when he saw splayed out on one of the headstones a stack of almost two thousand US dollars in $100 bills. He stealthily grabbed them, yes, desecrating a grave by stealing a token offering left by someone likely honoring their ancestor. Turns out, as is common in their culture, it was play money so his theft was proven to be worthless to him.
This probably put a dark cloud of bad mojo karma on him as he eventually blew through all of his money and was reporting to us he hardly had anything even to eat.
Eventually, he found his way to the American embassy and begged them for a ticket home which they provided.
So Jimi's next stop are to his kids and ex-wife in Albuquerque. He says he's not going to stream anymore. He says he needs to get his act together and deal with improving himself. As a long time viewer of Jimi, I can tell you emphatically that we've been down this road before. We may see a hiatus, but we haven't seen the last of Jimi.
Jimi's Asian Adventure is over but I'm sure there are new vistas for him to hobo around in in the near future.