You Be Trippin' - International Arrests w/ Sabbatical Tommy | You Be Trippin' with Ari Shaffir

Episode Date: April 6, 2026

Follow Sabbatical Tommy on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/sabbatical.tommy/ YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/@SabbaticalTommy Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/sabbaticaltommy SPONSORS: -Download Cash App Today: https://capl.onelink.me/vFut/7chyhxwm #CashAppPod. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App’s bank partner(s). Prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC. See terms and conditions at https://cash.app/legal/us/en-us/card-agreement . Discounts and promotions provided by Cash App, a Block, Inc. brand. Visit http://cash.app/legal/podcast for full disclosures. On this week's themed episode of You Be Trippin', Ari Shaffir interviews Sabbatical Tommy about his various run-in's with the law abroad. Sabbatical is a renowned traveller on YouTube with stories that will have you sweating. He starts off with his most recent interrogation by the Indonesian Secret Service. Sabbatical also tells the story of how he ended up in a Russian prison for more than 2 weeks. Watch for the stories, but stay for the expert-level travel tips. Case dismissed. You Be Trippin' Ep. 113 https://www.instagram.com/arishaffir https://www.instagram.com/youbetrippinpod https://arishaffir.com Chapters 00:00:00 - Intro 00:04:50 - Indonesian Refugee Camp 00:58:41 - Trouble in Tanzania 01:16:58 - Next Stop, Russia 01:39:15 - Russian Prison 02:13:45 - Other Arrests & Travel 02:34:55 - Outro Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey guys, welcome to today's episode. It's with Sabatical Top, one of the craziest trial laws you love for me. But before we start, I need to tell you about a big project I have. It's a storytelling show. It's back. Ari Shafir's renamed Storytelling Show is back. It's called The End now, because it's the end of it. Me and 22 of my comedian friends each telling a story in front of an audience. It's so good. I just finished all the sound mixing. It's so good, and I can't wait for you guys to see it. Go to Rishafir.com right now to get it. Seven episodes. There's $6 each, which will be available individually, starting April 16, when the show premieres, or you can get the whole season for 30 bucks,

all seven episodes for 30 bucks. However, during the pre-sale period right now at R Ushefer.com, you can get all seven one-hour episodes of the end, the greatest storytelling show ever created, sorry the Moths, for 2499. That's seven episodes for the price of four. Comics like Shang Gila, Tony Hinchcliffe, Ali Sadiq, Ms. Pat, Nate Bargazzi,

Tom Segura, Colum Tiro, Robert Kelly, Duncan Trussell, Sam Talent, Steph Tolliffe, Miss Pat, Steve Simone, Jim Brewer, Ali Sadiq. Guys, it's wild. Stefano. 2499, the entire seven-episode season,

the final installment of Ari Sharfair's storytelling show. Get it right now? Now let's get you the sabbatical time for a nuts episode of this podcast. That was after the World War II, too. they're like, hey, you know, everyone will get behind you if you find some sort of like human rights abuses and then America's still using that. Yeah. They're like, this fucking kid missed his dinner in Syria.

We got to go in there and bomb the shit on them for 30 years. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You just need an excuse. We just need an excuse. It's important. Where you've been and where you're going. This is our race travel show.

Yeah. We're going to talk about travel today. It's you. Welcome to you be tripping, everybody. It's a travel podcast. Every week, almost every week. almost every week I go to a different place with a new guest occasionally well I will tell you it's the only podcast

that stands staunchly in support of if you have internment camps make them camps don't make them facilities to kind of take away their you know it's like you want to be part of like a camp culture if you're a refugee in an internment you put them in a building it's like we didn't even get that experience so if you're going to make a refugee camp make sure to make it tent driven you'll be tripping stands by that Today's guest is Tommy sabbatical.

What's your last name? Do you not have one? Yeah, I don't have a last name. Fair. We call it sabbatical. Okay. A traveler himself, we're going to do a theme this week. You can find his stuff on YouTube.

Fucking great channel, by the way. Stuff's out there. It's fucking awesome. Sabatical Tommy. No last name. That's smart. Yeah. Just dropped it.

I was looking over the coffee shop for you. I'm like, weird. Sheave his beard now. I'll never find him. I was looking at two guys. I went behind one guy. go Tommy Tommy Tommy Tommy and then he was like I was like nope yeah theme one yeah what are we talking about well um I did not choose this path exactly but um I keep getting arrested abroad

I mean you just almost canceled this that that is true yeah that is true we've been talking about this and I sent out a message just in case like are you uh got this weird situation going on in Indonesia and just in case is there any other time we can do this podcast and I was like no but what's going on? I might be arrested let me hold on let me work it out

yeah we did work it out so yeah this is something that people deal with travel where it's like the what we're just talking about like is Cusco safe where it's like the danger from crime and then the danger from the

some of the you know the powers yeah I would say those are like the two main things you would worry about traveling abroad. I don't usually like to tell people this, especially Americans, because they just think the whole world is super dangerous, and it's usually not. But sometimes it is. Sometimes it is. If you do stupid crazy shit like I do, it can be.

Yeah. So. Yeah, whenever they're like, I mean, you know, as long as you're not like a dissident in China, you should be fine. Like, what if you speak out against the government? And they're like, oh, what? No, don't do that. Yeah, yeah.

There's just like a few guidelines. you got to follow. You know, don't go near a border in Russia. Really? Don't go to a refugee camp in Indonesia, apparently. Let's start with that once since you were just there. Right. Because I didn't know any of this.

Right. So what happened was, you know, I had a bit of a stressful year last year. I've been trying to take it easy. And the perfect place for that, I thought, was Bali. Yeah. In Indonesia. Yeah. Just booked a flight over there.

Bali's wonderful. I mean, there's a lot of. Drunk Australians running around, but it's they get a little reckless over there. But, you know, it's got some nice beaches. You can get like a chill hotel for like $20 a night. Yeah. Lovely people. It's got great culture.

And I was having a great time. But not everyone knows this. Bali is not a country. There's more to it. There's a whole country of 17,000 islands called Indonesia. And so I decided to go traveling across the whole country. From Bali onwards or starting somewhere else? So Bali would be like right here.

Yeah. And then you can take like a boat over here. This is called Java, the main island. Okay. And eventually I made my way all the way up to like the furthest point, for this northern, like northwest point. Are these? No, that's a different color.

Um, yeah, that's... Where's the feet? Oh, the ornaments are their own. Yeah, yeah. That shit's actually crazy. There's like one island there with people that have never been contacted. The uncontacted was. Yeah, they just kill everybody that goes.

You know that story of that missionary that went? Yeah. And like Jesus will guide my hand to get these people back to Christ. He met Jesus. He speared them. Yeah, he didn't make it back. I mean, getting speared is like, what an old school way to die. And then like, as is like, like, whoa.

I wonder what the realization is like one like fuck that hurt. to like oh my god did not oh i planned this all wrong right also they were right i should not have been here yeah yeah they really told me damn it let's see travel but i do like these travel advisories because sometimes they're like up-to-date sometimes not yeah um is it safe to go to the on the island i'm gonna guess no i'm gonna guess no let's find out this is so fun What? What? What?

No, come on, come on. What's the uncontacted? What? I mean, this is why he went. It's totally safe. Including solo female travelers. What? Is AI failing again?

Oh, God, sometimes it fails so bad. Google, I thought you fixed it. I think there's another Andaman island. There's another one, right? Probably the one they're referring, so. The bad one is North Sentinel Island. That's what? In there?

Yeah. It's one of the Andamans. That's where you got killed? Yeah. Okay. Is it? That's the spot to go up. You want to commit suicide.

North Sentinel Island? Yeah. You know they didn't name it that. No, they didn't. It's a badass name, though. It is pretty badass. Okay. Here we go, AI.

Let's go. North Central Island, the bait remains off limits to outsiders to protect the Sentinelese. Right. With a history of lethal resistance to intrusions. That was one way to put it. Lethal resistance.

enforced by Indian law to prevent disease outbreaks that could endanger the tribe. I mean, that would be the way to take over. Just go there with one fucking China, just coughing Chinaman. Yeah. Set him free on there. Hernan-Kortez style. Yeah, and then just cool. Nobody's left.

Nobody's left. We gave up one fucking Chinese guy. And now nobody's left. Right. Doesn't say it's unsafe. You can't go. So maybe that's what the guy read. Yeah.

Okay. So you're in Bali trying to chill. which is a nice place to chill hot chicks sometimes sluts too many too many party in Australians yeah have you been yeah I was a couple times

yeah all those things are true I'm gonna make a list of questions for you that I would like to know because you're a good traveler the first one we'll get to it later the first one is who's worse in a hostel Germans or Australians go ahead

but we'll get back to it I'm just gonna make these lists while I'm yeah fair enough Okay. So, wait, am I answering that question? No, we're going to wait. Let's go to there. We're going to get to all these later.

So, okay, back to Indonesia. So I work my way up to this place called Aceh. It's like the far western part of Indonesia. Passed madame there? Yeah. Okay. And this region is kind of interesting because it's like they have Sharia law, you know? One of the best laws.

Yeah. One of the most underrated laws. Sharia laws. It's talked about. Yeah. Rarely experienced. Rarely experienced. Yeah.

It has its upsides. Not a lot of theft. You know, they lose their hands if they do that. Yeah. Downsides, they cane you if you're gay. That's Sharia law? That's Sharia law. Can't cheat on your wife also.

But you cannot? Sadly, no. That's surprising. To be honest, that's surprising. You'd think they'd be like, eh, boys will be boys. Yeah, you could probably, like, bribe somebody to get away with it. But that's also a thing in Indonesia. And also very relevant to what happened to me.

Okay. Because, so I'm just going through that area of Indonesia, and I do make YouTube videos. So I'm trying to, like, show off the province. Show what's going on. Sabatical Tommy on YouTube? Yeah, just sabbatical. Oh, really? Oh, yeah.

At sabbatical Tommy. Hmm. And so I'm going along and also it's very important that I state it this way, by the way. I'm traveling with a partner of mine and she found out that there is a refugee camp for these people called the Rohingya, originally from Myanmar, but they look kind of like Indians and they're Muslim. So Myanmar was like, get out of the country. A little genocide going on. Yeah, yeah. And then they took these boats down to Indonesia, which is a wild journey, by the way. If you look at the map here, it's like going from here. And so they show up, Indonesia's like, yeah, we don't actually want you here either. And they stick them in a refugee camp. So wait, they just didn't want them.

Hold on, I got to get this place on a map. I got to see exactly where this is. Yeah. It's the far northern tip of Indonesia. Like up here? Yeah. Wow. Wow.

I mean, nobody goes there. Not really, yeah. Not like the most recommended tourist destination. Yeah, kilometer not monument. Yeah. I went there, a hotel. It's like they view that as the starting point of Indonesia. Interesting.

Yeah. It's falling apart. I went there. Really? I almost fell off that, like, crane thing in the background right there. Do this one? Yeah. Really?

You went out of that and just fell off it? Yeah. They don't upkeep it for some reason. When you see these things, you're like, I heard about this, you're like, yeah, fuck it. That's a good reason to go. Pretty much. Yeah. That's how I generally travel.

I just go on Google Maps and I'm like, that looks pretty wild. Let me go check that shit out. It is pretty fun just to get a dot or like something like that on the map and then you go, oh, I don't know, it's marked. Or like this, Pongong Gourin Gourke. Yeah. I don't know if you went there. Yeah. If it's got some interesting pictures, I'm like, what's going on?

Okay, so go ahead. So you're up there and you hear it about it? You heard about them? or you had already heard about them? Yeah. Again, like legally, I really have to say, my partner told me that there's this refugee camp. So we decided to stop by.

Okay. Just talked to some people. I didn't think this was a big deal. Yeah. But I could be very naive sometimes. We show up. We talk to the people. They're pretty nice.

They're just explaining the situation. Who's the people? The Rohingya. Okay. So this minority group from me. Amar who uh so you're talking to them yeah you can just walk in yeah there was like one kind of like immigration police there and uh we asked him first like is it okay if you just walk in and talk to these people and they're like yeah it's okay you know i'm not sure if you could like film

but you can go in to talk to them so we do that just talking to the people explaining their situation um it's kind of sad made like a promise to come back was going to like bring some stuff and everything. What? Supplies? Yeah. Yeah. Just like some stuff

for the kids, like some toys, notebooks, stuff like that. Hi, everybody. Ari Shafir here, breaking this today's episode to let you know a little bit about the guest,

sabbatical Tommy. Dude, this guy fucking rules. This guy fucking rules. He's so, he's the best. He's like a real travel. He just seeks danger.

Legitimately, you know, I don't like sharing text messages, but let me tell you, my text through it with him. I ask him, when you put this up, Spadipatin.

Um, He just seeks out danger. It's crazy, Mr. Uh, sorry, message. Okay, and then, because I was about to fly to Dubai when shit kicked off. I might still find a way to get... Well, that, to me, that's like, well, now I can't. I don't know what's going on in Dubai.

I haven't read the news. So I don't really know. I catch whiffs. I thought it was Iran. Did it everywhere? But, um, at that point, if you say shit kicks off, to me, that's like, okay, great. So then we're done with that idea. Shit's kicking off.

Hey, is anything kicking off there? That parties? Like, no, shit. Oh, well, then let's look for another place. Not sabbatical. I was about to fly to Dubai when shit kept up. I might still find a way over or just stay in Thailand. I'll leave the rest out of it.

And then I was like, wait, Dubai? And he goes, I thought it was just, what did I say? Dubai hard to get to now because of Iran? It seems like they wouldn't care. I feel like Dubai looks at Iran the way we look at Canada. He goes, now, dude, Iran is launching missiles of Dubai. What? They closed the airspace of the whole region.

Pretty trippy to see it become an adventure, travel destination. And I go, wow, that's wild. I mean, that's actually a hard way to travel. You don't look at the people at the danger of and said you've got to look at the skies. And it goes, yeah, although I'm fucked up enough mentally to look at the situation and think, It's not as bad as Ukraine when I was there last October. They go fly there next month. The guy's crazy.

Guys, check out everything he does. He's on YouTube at YouTube.com slash at sabbatical Tommy. Cool backdrop. I'm doing it in cinematic. And also, he's on Instagram, but his greatest videos are on YouTube. I mean, definitely subscribe to that one. Almost more than you'll be tripping. Go over to sabbatical Tommy right now and subscribe.

And also he's on sabbatical. dot Tommy on Instagram. Instagram.com slash at sabbatical. Dot Tommy. Dude, his video's fucking nuts. They're all up there. He's got the one that we talked about on this later. About Russia. I'm not going to spoil it for you.

But that's it. Guys, let's get back to the episode. If you check them out, me, all I got is one thing. I want you to buy the end. It's a pre-sale going on right now the whole season for 2499. That begins April 16th on the show premieres. I'm so excited for you guys to see it.

Or why? individual episode for six bucks but six, twelve, eight and twenty. Yeah, what are you gonna get? Me and one of them, two of mine. I did two stories, so two of mine, that's, that's 12. Spend another 12 and get five more episodes. Whatever, do it you know. But there's a link right now.

We're going to R. Shapir.com for that and also go to Rishapur.com or the Creek in the Cave to get tickets to the screener. You're doing an Austin on April 19th. if you're going to buy it by the season and you're going to be it, Austin, maybe wait. Or you can watch it again. This is shit you can watch over and over and over again. Okay,

that's it. Let's get back to the episode. Also, get tickets to that show April 19th. I know it's 5 or 6 o'clock by the time it's come down. It will be up there. On our ratio,ubri.com. Also get at the end and subscribe for you have your watching and listening. Thank you very much, everybody. Let's get back to sabbatical. And at some point after like, I don't know, maybe 15

minutes the immigration police comes up and he's like actually maybe you shouldn't be here so uh you need like a journalist pass and all this you think he's watching or you think somebody's overseeing like who's that guy who's that white uh i think he like made a call to like whoever he needed to call and they make sure this is okay and like it's a hundred percent not right right yeah like this one rohinga dude in the camp was like so you know um Up until now, we've only had like maybe two journalists show up here. And I asked like, what about, you know, like CNN, you know, somebody from America. Have they ever been here?

And they're like, no. We had like one Japanese reporter show up here. By the way, he got like held for like three days afterward. And I heard that and I was like, ah, shit, that doesn't sound good. What? Why did he get held up? But we actually like left the camp that day. Yeah.

That was in the back of my mind for a while. I'll tell you, don't answer this. So I'll tell you what's going through my mind when I hear this. The Rohingya is the enemy-ish of Myanmar, of the Burmese. So if you get to a new place, it's just like we don't, it's like, you know, if you were a Jew who left back then in the heyday, you know, what is the Haiti? Nazi, you know, during the heyday of fucking victimization.

Gotcha. And you went here, you're like, oh, it's not a problem anymore. It's not these people. It's there. So I would think that if we get to Indonesia, they're like, yeah well you guys don't hate us here yeah it might be an issue with like relocation and stuff but not like yeah i think that's what they're thinking because like uh indonesia is like the only real like muslim country yeah in southeastern Malaysia too i guess and uh they were just like all right

they hate us for being Muslim in Myanmar let's go down to this Muslim country yeah the biggest the most Muslims in the world yeah not only that but uh Indonesia and especially that region more than any other part of Southeast Asia. They show a lot of support for Palestine. You'll see, like, Palestinian flags everywhere. They're just, like, very pro-Palestine. So they were probably thinking, like, for sure. It's going to be all right here.

Yeah. Let's just show up. Yeah. They thought wrong. They were like... By the way, Muslims are not great to Muslims. They don't have a long history of being awesome to other Muslims. Yeah, yeah.

Probably didn't help that they look Indian. Oh, yeah. The wrong kind of Muslims. Muslim. Yeah, they're just like, yeah, we like Palestinians, but you guys, you're Muslim too? We don't care. So go, okay. Yeah. So basically, yeah, we leave that day. And like I said, I wanted to go out and buy some supplies for the kids and stuff. We go do that. This is where it gets really crazy.

We come back like the following morning. And we're driving over to the cab. You left fine the day before. Yeah. Yeah, we left. It's not like they immediately started following us or anything. But we go back the following day. I had like a rental car. And we drive, by the way, driving in Indonesia is pretty difficult.

Why? They drive like crazy. You got like all these like mopeds, scooters going around. They don't follow any traffic laws. Oh, I can't imagine. Yeah, they got like these tiny two lane roads and those are the highways basically. And everybody's like just trying to pass all the time. It's tough.

it's like New York is nothing compared to this. Yeah, I couldn't imagine. I mean, we always talk about just crossing the road in those places with the scooters. Right. How hard it is. Yeah. Driving in it as a non. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I thought even just like driving a scooter there was bad, but the car somehow is even worse. Because the scooter is like, they don't give a fuck. Okay. Like, they'll go right into you, which is exactly what happened to me. I was like driving this car and no joke, right in front of the refugee camp, two dudes on a motorbike, they just slammed right into the side of my car. I gave like more than enough space for them to go by and for some reason they just sped up and go right into the car. So we got into a bit of a traffic accident there and this causes the police to show up and they're like, wait a minute,

you're American and you're in front of the refugee camp. This is not just a traffic accident. We got some other questions for you. And I end up getting interrogated. Who's this police or military? So it starts off being the Indonesian traffic police, I guess. Best case scenario? Yeah, you would think so. Best case scenario is great of traffic up. Starts off with the traffic police.

And they're kind of chill. They're like making jokes and stuff. Indonesians in general are pretty chill people. Even the police come off as kind of relaxed. But they keep me there for like three hours. They just have like a bunch of excuses. and then they're like, hey, we need you to come to this police station because we got these other guys you need to talk to.

And it turns out they call like the secret service of Indonesia to come and talk to me, which first of all, I mean, it's ignorant, but I didn't even think Indonesia had like a secret service. Well, they've done their job. Yeah, I didn't find out they were secret service. They're like, we're just a service. Yeah, yeah. They're like, we're immigrant.

immigration police. Didn't find out they were Secret Service until like a day or two later. But, and then they just hammer me with like a long interrogation about why did I go to that camp? What were we doing talking to them? What are they worried about? You're going to embarrass them? I think that's what it was mainly. And I want to say for the record, if the Indonesian government is watching, I did not want to embarrass your country.

I love Indonesia. it was my partner that brought me there so i've signed documents really stating this yes um i don't hail indonesia for sure indonesia great country yeah wonderful country for tourism everybody should visit maybe not that refugee camp don't go to that camp but indonesia wonderful beaches wonderful people when i was there was this uh They had, every student learns how many islands they have. It was like 17,146.

Yeah. And that's just a standard. Is that the number? That is pretty much the number. Okay. And then they were like, I was like, oh, 17,000 146. And then they started going because they just had this president of Jacoby. He's not the president anymore, is he?

Yeah, he was the last one. No longer. Yeah, the new one. Okay, great. Anyway, fuck the old guy. He sold off a few islands to China. So everybody there was like, we all learned the same number. And now it's not that number anymore.

Yeah. For fucking 200 years, I've all been saying the same number of fucking islands. He messed it up. He messed it up. Yeah. That's a big deal. You know, they really care about the islands.

They really do. They've gone to war over those islands. Wait, so how were they treated over there? Who, the, the Rohingya. The Rohingya. So. What were there? Do you have pictures of any of this?

Are you allowed? Actually, no. But, I could. Can you show me? I could show you after. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Show me now.

Let me again think. about how to describe this exactly so they have they are in this building that used to be an immigration office apparently it was abandoned and because like the Rohingya just started showing up kind of unannounced it wasn't like a whole plan thing they're just like I think northern Burma too northern it's such a long way to go yeah it's kind of wild they're right on the border with Bangladesh right in the corner so they had to get And Bangladesh is up here.

Yeah, like that, so like the western corner of Myanmar, like right there. Over here. Yeah, a little bit further south, like on the coast. Oh, they're on the coast? Yeah. So that's why they were able to take the boats. So, like, Myanmar was, like, kind of chasing them into Bangladesh. Yeah, and they had to be like, nope, don't go there.

Yeah. And they keep going. I'm sure they lost a couple. That's literally what happened. Like, they just, they actually went to Thailand, I think. And the Thais were like, yeah, no, fuck you. Get out of here. Uh, so they just kept going.

They were like, what else is down there? Indonesia. I mean, yeah, you can't, so you're here. You can't dock anywhere in Myanmar. They'll fuck with you. And Myanmar goes south like this, like pretty far south. Yeah. Exactly.

So you got to go there and then across. In what boats? They just made their own boats? Pretty much. Um, I don't know what the boats look like exactly. I don't know if we could look that up. But, um, they were very basic. On your refugees increasingly risk, dangerous.

Seager. often during monsoon season. Mistake. To escape Myanmar, desperate conditions in Bangladesh. Oh, they're in Bangladesh too. Yeah, they would cross over the border there. Oh, are you kidding?

That doesn't seem wild. By the way, also, typical Indonesian ferry. Typical safety features of an Indonesian fairy. I can back that out. Wow. I mean... Yeah, that's wild. That is, it's hard to imagine.

I mean, also, how bad's the boat where these guys like, we'll just stay out here? Yeah, I think that was like them coming ashore. They don't look happy. Burka, burka, also, get some sun lady. These guys are wearing tank tops. They're dressed for the right fucking vibe. Burka, burka, come on. It's summertime clearly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, they didn't want them out. Naked kid gets it, sons out, guns out. Yeah. Yeah, they want to dress down. Damn, that's shitty. So they took that all the way around? Yeah, yeah, all the way down. I mean, they don't even have a fucking sale.

No, no, yeah, no, it's crazy. I don't know how they did it. How the fuck do they do it? I don't know enough about boats. The commitment of a refugee to get somewhere. Forget I get all the shit about like, well, we can't house them, we can't, like, deal with them. They're just going to change the population.

I don't know, everything. But the commitment alone to get to a place. Yeah. it's insane. Yeah. I have never, I mean, if I'm like the subways 10 minutes later, I'm like, oh, fuck it. I don't even want to go.

Right. It's, yeah, you got to put things into perspective. Sometimes, I'm like, yeah. Okay, so they get down there. So how are they treated? It's like, what's the conditions? Sorry, I keep getting sidetracked. This is interesting to me.

It's all good. I've never heard of this. It's a wild situation. That your partner got you into. More people probably should know about this. Yeah. Because they just know about the media mars. I didn't even know they were in Bangladesh.

Right. Yeah. So I guess they're like kind of like ethnically related to the people in Bangladesh. Yeah. Oh, it's Bangladesh right there. Yeah. Aren't they up here too? I thought they're near the borders of.

I think that's a different group. It is a different group. Somewhere over there is like people that actually look like more Chinese. And I think they speak Chinese still. And they're like, there's like a whole bunch of different groups fighting like a civil war with Myanmar right now. The Junters. It's the most insane. country that people don't really think about that much right now doesn't get the press no no no it doesn't and

also weirdly like both america and china hate the government of me and i'm american china don't agree on many things but they're just like yeah this government sucks yeah i mean it's all military just kind of took over yeah i respect their game too i was there and i was reading all about it while i was there you know when you're in a place and you're reading about the politics and you kind of sort of see it more yeah they're like all right all right fine we'll give back power yeah we will gave up 49% of the government, and to change the Constitution, you just need a 51% vote.

But they're never going to give that up, so you can't do anything. Right, right. Yeah, they always had like that Trump card. So they control everything. And then eventually they're just like, yeah, fuck it. Actually, we're going to take it all back.

Yeah. You enjoyed your freedom, but we didn't care for it on our side. Yeah. And so it became a dictatorship again. Yeah, we were up here. And there were at these areas were like, no, you're a foreigner.

You can't go there. Yeah. I thought, okay. Yeah, you would think China would like that, but it turns out they're like the wrong kind of dictatorship. There's like, yeah, you're not the one that lets us like build shit into the country. Yeah, I heard that about some of the stands too. They're like, they're against Russia, so then they're communist,

but they're wrong kind of communist because they're like, well, we need you to be an ally to us too. Yeah. Yeah, that shit gets crazy complicated. It really does. That's what we talked about with Connor. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it was Myanmar.

But this is a theme one. So let's get back to this. Sorry. A terrible host, by the way. Go ahead. Fair enough. Welcome to the end, everybody. It's a storytelling show.

Me and my comedian friends. We're all telling true and really terrible stories. Into a toddler's face. Wild face sometime. Preet. Regretful. Every STD. Horrible.

I'm going to fuck you up. An amazing story. We just got started. I'm going to stop the tears. You're in trouble. That's going to be a good night. It's going to kill us all. Come about to be fuck.

I. You should be in jail. Hey, man, are you okay? I actually do well. You don't fucking talk to me, okay? I have the disciple of the Lord. Not you missed the spot. How did I get here?

How did this happen? That's a good question. You guys, ready to sign the show? Hi, guys. Today's episode of Ubu Chippin is brought to you by Cash App. You know, your security deserves to be a priority, and Cash App treats it that way. With security lock, Cash App requires a successful face ID or biometric authentication to access to your account. It's like your money is protected by your own personal bodyguard,

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discounts and promotions provided by Cash App, a Block, Inc. brand. Visit cash.com slash legal slash podcast for full disclosures. Now let's get back to the episode. Yeah, what were we talking about? How they're treated? Oh yeah, how the Rohinga treated. So, officially, they are given shelter. And I believe it is the UN C.R. Whatever the UN agency that takes

care of refugees, they're sending stuff. The U.S. aid is sending stuff, I think. Is that the European stuff? As far as I can tell, we're still sending money there. Okay. So that didn't get shut down. And they said they had

like food every day. Give them to them. Yeah, they had a communal shower. They tell me they're like, I'll take a shower at the same time. It's like not more water. Yeah. Yeah.

I'll take a shower at the same time. Yeah. Dude, if you're, can I just stop and say this? If you're an ethnically cleansed people, do not get into a shower at the same time. I would one at a time that every time. Yeah.

Yeah. It's groups, 10 at a time. Don't. You got to think about that one. You got to think about that one. Yeah. they had like a little classroom yeah um they had um so people were like oh really okay they didn't have teachers though they had to like volunteer to be teachers so there's like one dude that spoke

both uh like english and indonesian okay so he was like the main teacher dude i think and um but that was it like they're not really like allowed to leave the camp yeah they gotta get like this pass and it's like very strict and so can't leave kovry because they can't go into the country yeah for whatever reason like indonesians hate them they're just like yeah they're all like thieves and stuff i don't think they actually ever stole anything have they been out of the camps i think they are allowed to go out sometimes okay they're thieves and stuff yeah so uh god yeah they're just uh they don't have the best press in indonesia for some reason but yeah officially they're their their house they're fed um

They probably want them to leave, but yeah, that's their situation. Okay, so then they, so we're talking about the police or the, whatever. So they just, and then they said, what, you can't be talking about this at all? Yeah, I mean, they're being, like, kind of indirect about it. They're also explaining, like, you know, like, these people, you know, like, they cause problems and stuff. And, um. Who, this is the military saying that, the Secret Service? Yeah.

Yeah, they're just basically explaining, you know, why they're still in the camps and whatnot. And that is their official position. God damn. Yeah. And basically, they did not want me, like, at the very least, they do not want me posting footage about it. They said that? Yeah. And, again, it was not my choice to go there.

So. Wow. Yeah. Are you frightened at that point that they're just going to, like, not let you go? I was starting to get pretty worried. Thankfully, again, I don't know how much of this I could put in the episode, but like my partner who's Indonesian,

she knows the ropes, the system, and everything. And she's just like, Tommy, we just got to wait for the moment when you give them money. And I was like, oh, obviously, when is that exactly? Which is not obvious. It turns out you cannot give money to the secret. service, they're going to do their thing. They're going to spend like five hours, seven hours interrogating you and then making their report. It turns out like Indonesia police really like

reports. And they ask you the same questions and they just keep taking reports and whatnot. Because I think it's like they got to fill out what they have to fill out and then kick it back to like, you know, their boss. So I pretty much gave the same stories like the traffic police, then like the Secret Service, then the immigration police. And it's just a little bit of the same story. like one after the other. But they wanted us to stay there until basically we paid off the two guys on a bike that drove into the car. We were driving.

So they're like, yeah, even though it's not your fault, listen. Do something so we know we... We know you come from America. Like, you probably have money. Give these people some money. How much do you give them? Well, end up costing about $2,000 to get out of this. I legitimately thought you were going to say seven bucks.

I wish I could say that. Yeah. It's, uh, this is one of the situations. $2,000. You just built them their own village. I think I did. I think I did. Jesus.

And not all that was to, uh, the people on the motorbike. Oh. So. It's like the Susan G. Coma Foundation. I get like, um, basically we had to give money to someone in power to go and put pressure. on the people on the motorbike to accept the money we were giving them or else they would have held out forever they would have been like actually you're american you should give us like ten thousand dollars

so this is kind of how it works oh my god indonesia yeah and it was uh wrapped up after about three days so really yeah so you just stay there for the where you're staying at this time hotel hostel um are there hostels up there no way no there are no hostels unfortunately But there were cheap hotels. I mean, the hotel costs like $10 per night, so it's pretty much hostile anyway. I mean, nobody goes up there. Yeah. It's, um...

Jakarta's there. Some people go to this a little bit, but... Is there like salt flats or something? Salt mines around here? There's a few cool tourist destinations. Um, if you look at like that little spot of blue, like in, um... Kind of in the middle, like near that city called Medan. Yeah.

Yeah, that's called... This? Lake Toba, and that's where my business partner's from. It's a pretty cool area. Oh, an island. Yeah. In a lake? Oh, almost an island.

It's the biggest lake on an island in the world. It's also the biggest lake on an island. It's fully cut off, right? Pretty much, yeah. There's like a canal. Fullest lake on an island. Oh, because it's on an island. The biggest lake.

Right. Yeah. And you went to an island on a lake on an island. Yeah. That's pretty cool. Yeah, no, it's trippy. Yeah. And it's also kind of unique because, like,

it's, like, one of the few parts of Indonesia that just decided to be Christian instead of Muslim. So it has, like, a different vibe going on. Yeah. And it used to be, like, kind of like a hippie destination back in, like, even the 90s. For some reason, I fell out of favor. But they still, like, have, like, all these kind of, like, hippie-ish hotels along the lakeside. For, like, drugs and stuff? What kind of...

I think people used to do more drugs there. Nowadays, though, it's like, again, the vibe changed a bit. Yeah. There's still, like, some European tourists that go there, but it's like, it's not like it wasn't his heyday. Yeah. I'd just like to say, can I do a quick ad for today's episode? Please do.

Let's just break in. Guys, if you're in, what island is this called? Sam Mocir. Sam Moseer. And you're hungry. Go to a new toalmok restaurant. New Tomok restaurant serving up... The best boss, the best bas, bissikayam, this side of the men.

Mississippi. And don't forget to get some... Get that shit. Get that shit. With fries, crinkle cut fries. Whatever advice, don't eat that lettuce or snap peas. That will make you sick for sure. Also, soups and noodles.

Look no further than New Tomok restaurant. Tell them sabbaticals, Daniel. Now let's get back to the episode. Exactly. Great place. Yeah. Been there myself. Damn, that's so fucking crazy.

There is a time when you're talking of... the law and it really does get wrapped like in Israel it's the military the police were kind of when I was there with the inept they'd always lose like like prisoners they're like all right we have a prisoner you guys transport them and they're like we lost and we're like fucking military coming and grab it back in what were you doing in Israel I was studying I was in seminary oh okay yeah yeah just shifting prisoners around yeah I was getting intel for later incursions I got to I've talked to the Israeli police though really yeah they're very pleasant yeah and by that I mean they're not

pleasant. That's just Israel in general. This is bravado. It's so annoying. Even on the beach. I'll show you all the peddle ball. Yeah. But it's military or police.

And sometimes it's like it goes hand in hand, right? Where it's like the military here is the police. Yeah. Yeah. But there comes a time when you're talking to one of them where you're like, oh, I'm, I don't have any control here. Right. You know, what that kind of hits you.

We're like, this is not up to me anymore. Yeah. And especially in this situation. Yeah. Because our partner was handling most of like the interrogation because it's in Indonesian. And like I've learned some Indonesian, but you know, it's not good enough for like a police interrogation. So I don't even know exactly what's going to. Bahasa, Indonesia.

Yeah. Nice. Thanks. It's a great language. It's not that hard to learn. It's like very simple grammar. Really? Yeah.

I had a chick, an Italian chick. You ever meet a traveler? Like, whoa, you're way better than me. You know what I mean? In what way? Like, you're just a better traveler than me. Like, my first, when I first went to, like, hostels. I have, yeah.

In Myanmar, I met some German girl. She's like, no, yeah, you can sleep at the beach for three days before they kick you out. I'm like, wait, you just sleep at the beach? I'm like, you're just like further along than I am. Yeah. And this Italian girl, we're on a boat going to Komoto and Rinco and whatever. And she was learning Bahasa. Right.

And I was like, what? And I was always doing like the seven words, whatever. please thank you hello no yes one two three you're already ahead of most America food restaurant you know whatever I just like remember those and she was like when she heard new words

you write it down I was like oh wow yeah and then I tried doing that for whatever they spoke in these teamwork so I was going there next and I was like yeah that's it was like inspiring I'm like let me try that but she was learning Bahasa and she could get by kind of it was crazy you can get by

I could get by wow like you go to a restaurant order you're fine I could do that that I could, yeah, just make people laugh, you know, ask for directions. You got humor in Bahasa? Yeah, yeah. It's a, like, pretty simple language to pick up. So you can just be...

How'd you learn? Dual lingo. Start off. Yeah, no joke. And then what I try to do with language, I really love languages, by the way. I'm kind of a weirdo. I try to learn as many languages as possible. But what I like to do is find, like, a teacher online afterward.

Like I diggergumboeal kind of thing? Yeah, and then just force them to talk to me and, like, correct my mistakes. So I did that, and by the time you do a couple of classes, you're pretty much comfortable enough to go walking around, talking to people. That's cool. Where's the store? Don't they're at the end. Yeah, there's those words that I find certain words.

We'll get back to it in a second, but certain words like that I can apply to every sentence. Do you know where it hits you with everything? So you know, you know restaurant, you know bathroom. but if you just go up to someone to go bathroom they go, ugh, what? Or just gotta rest,

like what are you saying? You gotta clarify that. Yeah, do you know where is restaurant? And that's all you gotta say, bad grammar. Do you know restaurant where is? They'd be like,

I got you. I understand what you're saying. If you could somehow get it down to bathroom where. Yeah, bathroom where, then you're like, okay.

That's the gold of ticket. Yeah, you get that where. My friend Dragos told me this. We were both doing, he's Romanian, so his Spanish is already

a little better because it's like Latin-based. Yeah. But his went, boom. ChatGBTGBT T talks to them for 20 minutes a day and says, correct me in English.

Right. And I'm just going to tell you about my day in Spanish. He goes, unlimited patience. Yeah. They never get annoyed. You don't feel like you're bugging them. Yeah. And I got to do it, but I don't know.

I've recently started using chat. Really? It's amazing, actually. Because, like, yeah, you can literally just ask it some weird-ass question. And like, tell me how to say, like, yo, what's up in Spanish in the most informal way possible in Mexico.

And it'll give you that shit. Like without a beat, I'll take like two seconds. Yeah, like, would dualingo ever get when like fat was a word, you know, for cool? Yeah. You know, like, would they ever even get that version of in another country? Or were they like, no, we're not doing that. Like if I used the duolingo version? Yeah, like they gave me.

Yeah, they would never teach you a colloquial, like, fun way to talk. Oh, no, that's definitely true. Sick. You know, they wouldn't be like, Yeah. That means something excellent is sick. Yeah. This is a bit into the weeds, but like with Indonesian specifically.

Yeah. They have like a super formal version that everybody kind of knows, but they don't really speak it. There's like the more slangy, like normal version that everybody speaks. Yeah. And of course, Duolingo teaches you the formal version. So you like learn all this shit. You get there. And then everybody's like, ha ha, ha, you're speaking the formal version.

Let's just speak English. That's fair. Damn, that's so cool you're learning it. Yeah. Big fan of languages. Wait, a couple questions about still about the, if we were on a path, remember me. Yeah, we could go on multiple paths there.

I could tell you about another crazy. What did they eat when they were there? What were they like, was the food there? Did they feed you at all? Did they say come eat with us? At the interrogation. Not the interrogation. In the refugee camp.

Oh, in the refugee camp. They did not feed me at the refugee camp. But yeah, they did get food. I believe it was the UN or some agency at the U.S. and that's giving them food and it shows up like once a day. Did you use their bathrooms? I did actually. You must have.

I did. Yeah, it's a pretty basic toilet. A sitter or a squatter? Was a squatter. Was a squatter. Yeah. But, weirdly, I used to live in China. There's a lot of squat toilets over there.

It's good for your hips and your, uh, sorts out constipation. So, you know, I'm no stranger to squatter toilets. I'm ready wherever they appear. It takes them getting used to, but then you get used to it. Yeah, yeah. You almost missed them after a while. By my end of my China, my first China run, my only China run, it was like, I'm good. But the first three days, I'm like, I want to die.

Yep. China is got a bit of a learning curve. Let's go over there. Okay, okay. So that wraps up the fucking first one, trouble with the law. That was the first trouble with the law. Okay. The most recent.

Okay, you know, Rolf Potts, the writer? Oh, yeah, yeah, Ronald. So we did this thing, this like, this writer exercise where you'll say something, it reminds someone else to something else, and then it reminds another guy of something, and you just kind of keep going around. Yeah. So we'll just do that a little bit, but I was in Myanmar, as long as it's reminding, we were in a place where you weren't supposed to be.

Okay. As a white. And we were just take, there was like, we saw something on a map, a map stop me, of like, the statue. So we're like, oh, let's go to the statue. in town. Yeah. We had to get permission to stay in town because they're like no whites. You didn't move on like the bus is gone. What do you mean move on? We can't go anywhere like go to south. We're like no, we're going north and then they got his permission. We're going to the statue and then a bunch of

fucking military come out with like machine guns and they're like what are you guys doing here? Fun. And like what's these pictures? What are you taking pictures of that for? We're like, are we just like tourists? Yeah. And like let me see the pictures. Delete them. And we're like, okay, where's your passports? I'm like back at our hotel. Let's go. I don't know. Like, no. It's that same thing of like, oh shit, we're like beyond control. Once they start asking for the passports, that's when you get worried.

And that's all that junta, junta, whatever stuff. I don't even know if this is the Myanmar military or a rebel group military or somewhere in between. Yeah, and it was like, we overstepped. And we didn't know we were. We're just like, bro, we're not. It's the same thing. Like, I'm not trying to embarrass anybody. I'm just looking around.

Right, right. Which to them is like, yeah, right, don't. Right. Yeah, they let us off, but it was like, fuck. How long did they keep you for? They made us go back, get the passports. Then I think we got our hotel. So we had to get like special dispensation from a local, like, minister, not religious minister, but like political minister, you know, minister of finance, something like that.

And he's like, all right, you guys can stay. But like, there's one where you're at, that hotel is not going to let you stay. That's too much trouble. This other guy is doing it because he's Buddhist and nice. Yeah. But like he's doing this out of kindness. Right. So they started talking to him and I'm like, I think we might have got him killed.

Then I actually stole his key too for the hotel. I really did it really bad. Sorry, bro. Yeah, we were like leaving the next day. I'm like, ah, fuck. I took the key. It's shit. I went to mail it back where they have no mail system.

Yeah. Yeah, it's just a feeling of lack of control. And then they're like kind of just like, it's just kind of like mentally roughed us up. Yeah, that's the best way to put it. You get mentally roughed up. Hopefully not physically roughed up. That can happen until. Are you scared of talking about this because you want to go back to Indonesia?

Basically that, yeah. Because overall, Indonesia is one of my favorite countries in the world. Like, the people are amazing. The food's pretty good, as you just saw. Again, guys, don't forget. New Tomok restaurant. New Tamak restaurant. Yeah.

Can't recommend it. Give them a five-star review. For real. Tell him sabbatical sent you. For real. Never had a bad experience there until this. So, and it's like, listen, I have sympathy for people that are in a shitty situation anywhere in the world.

Yeah. But I wasn't trying to get involved in that necessarily. You know, I'm not like a war journalist or something. So, you know. What are you trying to do? You're just trying to, like, see what the world is? Pretty much. that is what I know

and I'm like as I said before I love just looking at maps and just looking at random stuff I really love this it's just like when I was a kid

you know I used to have a globe my parents didn't have much money but I was like damn what the hell is going on in like Russia what's going on in Brazil you know I want to know someday so now I have the power to do this and I just like

follow these locations on a map and usually it's like something amazing it'll be like some chill little village and they'll be like hey you want to have breakfast i'll be like yeah i do especially there's no tourists right where they're yeah yeah a lot of places in africa have been like this i've done a lot of traveling in africa and like i'll just show up and i'll be like hey i have a i heard you have like this rare kind of like liquor that nobody knows about where can i find that and then they'll be like i know i'm gonna take you and then like we just go drink this like crazy thing and I'm like this is amazing was that a thing that was a thing

what's the liquor uh there's been like 10 different ones there've been like a coconut one there was a banana one in tanzania banana liquor yes you got pictures of any of this I do I have a video about it that you made uh yes one of my most famous I could pull it up oh really well then I got your I got your YouTube right here yeah I almost got forced into polygamy while I was there Forced Yeah, right, bro. Yeah, right. That is how I viewed the situation at the very least.

Oh, you have it up. Yeah, where is it? Good videos. Videos most popular? Yeah, just type most popular. Okay. There you go, number two. I was forced into polygamy in rural Tanzania.

Four years ago, eight million views. Didn't look fun. On the side of the mountain. And they still continue to do so. today they're known for two things one is being very good of business this is that they frequently get drunk of bananas today I'm going to go and investigate that's the key part damn cool so yeah I did just like get on a bus go out to this village looking for that liquor and it leads to an insane situation what happened here and by the way let me say this that there's there's a I

have all these different kinds of tourism. So like one I want to go is like sauna tourism. So like in Finland and you know they have one kind. They have this weird one in Guatemala and then it's like the Jews have like the schvitz. It's like you know you could like go see different ones.

I just discovered another one. My friend went to Israel showed me the Palestinian tunnels. I'm like oh tunnel tunnel tourism. Yeah. Coochee tunnels in Vietnam. It's kind of like sonnas. Mexican tunnels and like oh that'd be a fun one. But the bathtub liquor. Yeah.

It's in different countries, their own style of bathtub liquor. Here it's moonshine. Right. Yeah, Indonesia was that palm shitter. They do have their own kind of liquor over there, though. Yeah, it's always given in like an empty other bottle. Yeah. I actually in that province where I got stopped because, you know, the whole Sharia law thing,

alcohol is kind of illegal. Number one law. So, of course, they have their own moonshine. And it is kind of a palm liquor, which I didn't try, of course. Okay. But I heard it's pretty good. So you wouldn't got banana liquor? Yeah, in Tanzania.

And it's, um, the, the liquor itself, I don't know if I was a fan, to be honest with you. Okay. Because it's just like, I don't know what it was, but it's just like got banana bits and stuff. Just like, and they like sift up to the top. Who? You kind of got to, like, dodge it as you're drinking it. But, yeah, the story with that one was I just go wandering around this village. I mean, it's kind of more like a town.

It wasn't like that undeveloped. But like the weirdest person ever. I'm just going around, hey, like, you know, I heard about this liquor. Like, where is it? I sit down at this bar to start talking to people. Well, I'm going to play Frisbee in the back. Yeah, there you go. I had to go find like a hat because I got this pale Irish skin.

Yeah. Oh, yeah, for sure. Stop at this bar. This guy, he rules. This guy rules so hard. He knows your film. Zero fucks given. Zero fucks given.

Yeah, I go to this bar and then like the lady working there is just like, hey, I don't know about that liquor necessarily, but I have these daughters and you should talk to them. And this just like leads into like the daughters end up taking me to the banana like beer spot. Oh. Yeah. Nice, bro. It was a big bonding experience. You into black chicks? I mean, I'm not not into black chicks.

but not you don't have the it's not you're not an exclusive guy i have every fever let's put it that i love the world right wait what do they call it is it yellow fever when you're two into asians it is that one yeah yeah yeah okay yeah the one for like black chick sounds got a racist so i don't know if i'd say that one all right moving on you've found a new york hat right there i did that's great of course that's great i have to represent dude i was in china i was at the airport somewhere yeah and i saw a chick wearing in line and airport wearing a new york nix world champions 1997 and i was like when was that yeah no yeah yeah yeah new york is actually like more popular than like america around the world in indonesia too you'll just go everywhere and you'll see

like some dude wearing a new york yankees hat and i go up and i asked them like yo you've been to new york they don't speak english i just like no this hat is cool like you know i like it That sign, that N. Why, whatever. Yeah. Okay, so they take you these two chicks, these two hot fucking black chicks, take you to a bar?

Yeah, it's, I don't know if you can call it a bar. It's like a shack, literally a shack. And they just have these places. And like they serve the liquor there and like this giant cup thing. And it's like meant to be shared. So you just like pass it around. It's almost like a smoke shack or something.

Drinking and passing, drinking and passing? Yeah. just take one pass, give it to the next person, and whatnot. Like I said, it's, like, a little bit difficult to drink, because it's, like, at all, like, whatever it's made of floating around in there. Yeah. But, you know, you'd do it. Especially when, like, as you said, too hot black shakes bring you there.

You're just like, I'm going to roll with this. And that was pretty much the day. Whoa. And what did you get in trouble with? I didn't get into trouble there. No, that was an amazing experience. I have, like, zero complaints. about that yeah wait was this them

this picture pretty much pretty much oh okay cool yeah yeah yeah you have that in your phone yeah yeah that's exactly what it looked like okay afterward yeah all right just went no all right i get rid of this yeah um he's just showing like you know let's get rid of that that won't that won't that won't make it to air that's just for us I feel like that will get to monetize. If you know the YouTube rules, I can almost guarantee you that's not going to be allowed. Yeah. Wait, do you get in trouble with the law there?

Not in Tanzania. Okay. Well, kind of, I mean, another experience I had in Tanzania was these people like stole my bag off a bus. Actually, the literal bus company stole my bag in like a setup, you know. I was taking this bus from Tanzania to Uganda. It's like this like little thing. They're like, hey, this is like the lunch break stop. Everybody needs to get off.

You know, you're just going to be off for like 10 minutes. We'll watch the bags. But they have those. That's a normalish kind of thing. Yeah. We pulled up. Everybody get off. Yeah.

This was my first country in Africa. I mean, this could literally happen everywhere, I'm sure. But like on a border with Uganda, little did I know, like this company is known for that. No, really? Yeah. And so I'm just like, oh, they told me they're going to watch the bags. It'll be fine. so I just get off with nothing but like my phone and my camera to make like YouTube videos

I come back and of course the bag is gone and that sucked without your shit in it with all my shit literally all my shit like all my clothes I used to wear contact lenses got the LASIC since then you said you you took your camera crew with you or that was stolen um thankfully I took the camera yeah and this was before like I started to get bigger on YouTube so like thank God because like that would have fucked me over big time yeah uh because like one of my like what ended up becoming a viral video was on literally the memory card in that camera so thankfully i took that one uh i'm kind of like scatterbrained with this stuff i'm not very organized but uh

same but yeah no in that bag was like my passport my laptop all my clothes oh no they got your passport they got the passport what do you do when what do you like what's the process after it's Gone. Generally speaking, you need to go and find your embassy. But every country... You have your phone. Yeah. So you can locate an embassy. Yeah. The problem was, I don't know if we want to look this up on the map here. Sure.

But I'm basically on the whole opposite end of the country. Right. Yeah, that's the thing too. You're not near an embassy. If you're in Kansas City, you're like... Yeah. How would I find an embassy? Or whatever version of that. Yeah. Where is this, Tanzania? Tanzania, yeah. It's like

It's the country where they filmed The Lion King Pretty much Yes I'm up there With the lake Speaking of Lakes That's Lake Victoria And then you will see

That it is very far From the capital city Which is Dar Salam And if you want to go to the embassy You gotta go all the way back there Darcelah Oh yeah you're fucked So what do you do?

So what sucked was like I was in like this kind of like limbo got involved. And they tell me, like, we're looking for the bag. Do you call them? Are you like, hey, what the fuck? My bag stolen?

Call the cops. Eventually, I somehow got in contact with the police. I turned into like a real Karen on the bus. I was just like. It works. It does work. You got to do it. It does work.

I was like, hey, listen, I know, like, the employees of this bus stole it. Like, we need to, like, stop the bus. They ended up, like, stopping the bus and, like, questioning people and everything. But, again, it was, like, a. pretty like slick operation. They'd already got in the bus, got in the bag over to somebody else. Gone.

Yeah, they fenced it. I don't know what the hell they did with it. But the police were just like, all right, we need more time to look for it. And that sucked because like I have, again, like no passport,

no clothes, no contact lenses. So I'm like practically blind and shit. And in this part of Tanzania, there was like, nothing. You're not going to find, like, new contact lenses.

You're not going to find a new laptop or anything. Damn. So, yeah. I just end up like finding like a hotel. I have to like hang out there for three or four days. And I'm just like naively hoping. Would they let you in with their passport to the hotel? Yeah, that wasn't a problem.

Okay. I'm just like naively hoping the police are going to find this bag. And then it got kind of weird because I was like, then it got kind of weird. Well, I mean, I'm thinking like, all right, they told me like you're supposed to bribe the police in Africa. But like that situation. They're not holding you up.

Exactly. Like that situation never, like, became obvious. The bus company should bribe them. You shouldn't be bribing them. I was, like, really confused about the whole bribing situation. How do you do them? They're so difficult. Like, when's the right time?

You don't want to offend anybody. Yeah. If they're like, are you, like, it's just like when's the right time? I love in the movies where, like, take out, like, your license with a bunch of money. Like, oh, here's my license officer. But are you trying to bribe me? Like, no, no way. Believe me, there's an art to it.

There's an art. They usually, you have to like somehow hint that you're in trouble. And then they'll be like, well, you know, I need like a coffee. Maybe you can buy me a coffee. Or obviously with a New York accent. They'll say like maybe you could buy me dinner. Yeah. Buy me dinner.

Just, you know, buy us food. They'll have like some variation of that. And but I would still be like, okay, let's buy you food. I wouldn't be like, but I would just give you the money for the food. Right. Right. Like, all right, where are we going? This is cool.

I'll talk to some locals while we eat dinner. Like, no, buddy, you're not invited to the dinner. We're shaking you down. Right, right. Yeah, I mean, from what I remember in Tanzania, it wouldn't be like that much. It might be like 20 bucks. That's a country where you could literally give like 20 bucks. But the thing is also like, I want to know how, because like they're hoping for the white whale with like, here's a thousand.

You're like, no, it's I wanted $3. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. you do have to and you can't show them all your money do they have like a code of ethics about how much to shake these people down for

like just give me 20 and get on your way I mean some if you have multiple hundreds so they're like I think I can get all that some are nicer than others in this situation this particular situation I did not end up giving a bribe

because like by like the fourth day I'm like calling them up and this is where I'm trying to feel out like where do I give the bribe how do I ask for that and so like I start to like ask these questions like is there anything i could do to like speed this process up you know

i was just thinking like maybe they have the bag and they're just you know but they're just like no no there's not really anything else just sit there you know just hang out yeah right so you're saying it right is there anything i could do off the books that could assist with this yeah i was very confused by the situation i don't know if they actually wanted a bribe or not and like you can't push that hard because they might like try to fuck with you about also up there are they even worried about tourism where they're like we got to protect tourists we got to stop the people from doing it or are they like we don't have enough tourists to make this issue for us it's not a place tourist would go very often so they're just like yeah we're not maybe they're not used to asking

for bribes from tourists maybe that was like a new situation yeah so anyway i never got my bag back had to find a very rare flight from that region back to the capital city how did you pay for it you had your wallet i did have my wallet too yeah i forgot to mention that thankfully stuff gets like your wallet and stuff gets or if you get held up they take everything you're like am i just dead how would i get to that does suck i don't think i've ever had my wallet taken so yeah that's a pretty key one if there's anything you should try to hide or like sew into your shorts or some shit make it your wallet yeah it's like when you go take a shower and a hostel you're like i'm not taking anything of value with me i've got to assume it's going to be there where it's all locked up

but if it's come back and it's all gone you're like yeah now i just got to be in favor time like can i use your phone lock your stuff up for sure yeah yeah yeah do not be like that naive american i don't know about everybody's cool here yeah yeah because it's like say it may not be the locals it may just be like some tourists or whatever oh it's always gonna be other tourists yeah yeah yeah you just some opportunist sure yeah yeah you never know so they do they ever help you do they ever find it um no they never get the bag back so what do they say where they do they It's like, they, well, basically after that phone call where I was trying to figure out, where do I give the bribe. Yeah.

I just, I was just like too frustrated. I was like, I don't understand the shit. I'm never going to get the bag back. So this sucks, but let me start the process of like getting everything back. So I take a flight, as you can see, it's like an 18 hour drive to get back there otherwise. That's not even like, that's from the closest city, like Mwanza. So it's like actually like a 24 hour drive. journey. But I get back to the Capitol City. It takes like a week to get a new passport.

There's like literally, I think maybe one or two eyeglass shops in the whole city that could give me contacts. And they were like these kind of weird contacts that you got to like wear for a year or something. Maybe that's not weird. I don't know. But I used to wear like the dailies. So did that. I had to buy some new clothes. You're pretty tall, right? That was a difficult. Yeah, I mean, it is Africa, but weirdly, it's a short part of Africa. Like, I don't know how the Tanzanians feel about that, but there's a lot of short people there. So, but I did find some shirts.

And after that, after I finally got a passport, I was like, all right, not doing a bus journey. I'm just going to fly directly to, like, the capital of Uganda, which is Kampala. Yeah, I see it right there. And I'm not fucking around with this anymore. And you were just done? Yeah, no, I was just like, I'm just going to go to. Uganda and hang out and go to a music festival or something. Oh, nice.

Hell yeah. Yeah. Uganda's a great country. You like Uganda better. I mean, you didn't have the better. Have you been back to Tanzania ever? I'm actually going to go back this year. Revenge on the country.

Make it a good time. Exactly. Exactly. I've been to Tanzania twice. So it's a great country. It's... You've been there to the Ulu-Guru Mountains? I have not been there.

Where is that? Right to the north, right there. Right in the north. Okay. Got to put it on the list for next... This guy's cool. Who's there? He has been there. Oh, he's going to rap?

Hold on. I think I might as to hit. I guess it's a music video. This is exactly the vibe you can experience when you go there. I mean, they don't look uncool. Yeah. Damn, it looks beautiful. You're a hiker?

It is beautiful up there. That's not far from, like, the Serengeti. You probably heard of that. Yeah. Mount Kilimanjaro. My dad climbed it. Oh, nice. In his 80s.

Hell yeah. Did you have to pay money to climb it back then? Possibly. Yeah. I was like pretty broke when I was there. This is before the YouTube took off. So I was like, they wanted me to pay $1,000. A thousand?

Yeah. They really hiked it. Dude, the mountain's in good shape. I'm not going to ruin it. Yeah. Yeah, I just like basically did a hike around the mountain. Oh, it's down in the south. Sorry, it's not upside of north.

It's near Daris Halom. uh the ulu guru yeah i guess so yeah interesting okay but yeah in spite of that i love tanzania okay highly recommend it okay i got i got a shakedown story for you i was a small one then we'll get to your next maybe russia maybe somewhere else this is right um Ecuador somewhere in the north i was there for a six months i had to get a three-month visa and then renew this during COVID time. So they were like renewing visa. But you had to go to the back to the Yia Kilo to like get a renewal.

Okay. And I did. And that comes with driving abilities. And I was driving me and my buddy. And it was just checkpoint. Military slash cop. I don't know. Yeah.

And they're like, all right, let's just talk. Like, can I see your license? Oh, you're not Ecuadorian. Right. Can I see your permit to stay? I go here. They go, oh yeah. But this is like four and a half months old.

It's a three month thing. I'm like, yeah, we got renewed. We got a word a month and a half ago. It says right here. They go, yeah, but you can't drive after three months. And I was like, no, they, so my buddy was doing the talking. He was more fluent in Spanish, but more of a dumb fuck. And I knew immediately what was going on and he had no clue, which is,

dumb American is such a great card to play, either Karen or Ditsy Blonde. Dizzy Blonde, Rennon, as he calls it. But, like, so he's just like, No, we're allowed to drive here. He goes, and the guy just keep going. The cop goes, ah, this isn't good. It's not good. And he was like, why?

We went back to the Capitol. We got the thing stamped. And he goes, yeah, but it's only three months. They go, no, they said it's for six months because we got it renewed. I just come on, man, this isn't good. This is not good. Yeah. And he just kept going, what do you mean not good?

It's stamped. I don't know what to tell you. It's stamped. The guy's like, I don't think it's allowed. It's like, he just kept playing dumb until the guy eventually the cop was like fucking just all right just go and he goes what was that guy's problem i'm like you didn't have any clue he was trying to shake you down and he goes oh yes that makes sense but i wasn't going to tell him like give him 20 because we had to open up our wallet with 200 in it

yeah so you never show that yeah never showed they had to be like hold on i have five dollars on me you can't really do it that way right right yeah playing dumb is a good way to get out of it but sometimes you're like I will pay you tell me how much and I'll decide if I will pay you or not right right you do want to set like a baseline you know you don't want them to like set the anchor yeah you'd be like yeah five bucks but you don't want to fend them you don't spend them if they're like no it's okay you're like damn shit I said one fuck I was traveling down uh Baja california and Mexico yeah I don't even know where Mexico is that's actually right here that was split yeah split there and there

and everybody warns you like if you're coming from San Diego like you know the Mexican police they give me a little corrupt down there

so just watch out do you know be a good driver if you do get pulled over the going rate is about $50 it's good to know what that going rate is

yeah it is helpful to know that so it's like if they do get into a negotiation with you you can just start off with like maybe

like 30 yeah you know the range yeah otherwise you start off with 100 and they're like we got this guy for five yeah yeah no they're like oh gold mine yeah thankfully i didn't get stopped though i keep waiting for like mexican corruption and whatnot i've been very lucky with mexico yeah i mean maybe i don't think i'm that good of a driver so sometimes you kind i feel like especially now that you're doing better you're not like living like hand-to-mouth yeah

it might be fun to be like i'd love to get shaken down for like 50 bucks it's worth it yeah just have the experience uh-huh oh it's what's like in mexico yeah i've had this experience in africa and in the China. Chiang Mai went the wrong way. Just like on a moped with the wrong way. Saw it, I mean a quarter of a block. I realized, oh, it's one way and then turned out. Oh, no.

Chegmy is famous for that shit. Yeah. He goes, listen, you can go to town hall and do this. Or you can just, we can do it now for, for 500 bot. Right. Which is, by memory, how much is that is that ish? 500 bot. I think that's about like $15.

Okay. And I was like, fuck that. No way you're shaking me down. It should only be 400. And you're shaking me down clearly. This is such a dumb fuck move. I mean, to get it from 15 to 12. And I was like, no way.

And he goes, all right, well, then I got to hold your license. And I'll take it to town hall. And you pick it up there. Or again, I mean, it's up to you. I could write it up or we can just take care of this now and you can keep your license. Right. And it's 500 bought.

I mean, I spent like five hours. dealing with the fucking town hall traffic department getting it back paid the 400 yeah what a dumb fuck move not to just take care of it right there rookie mistake such a rookie mistake i mean in his mind he's like bro first of all you don't have to pay it to the guy just give it to me it'll save you five hours for three dollars just do it i'm not even charging you 100 bucks yeah oh what a dumb fuck move and i'm sitting there and they're just like as they're processing it's like You can tell they're almost surprised, like, but didn't try to shake you down?

Yeah. This is like inconvenient for us and you. Yeah. I feel like this is a mistake like we would all make going abroad. Because, you know, it's like we kind of have a functioning legal system in America. Or at the very least, you can't really bribe the cops there. So that's a very foreign situation. We can't imagine that.

And we think like we're all good people. So, you know, if we go to another country, you get stopped in like Tanzania. or Mexico or Thailand, and you hear something like that, and you're just like, I'm not going to do that. You're crooked. Yeah.

This is immoral. No, no, no, no. I'm going to do this the right way. I didn't do anything wrong. Yeah. And then if you stay abroad long enough, you're like, damn, an idiot.

Like, that's the way to do it. But there's also, like, in New York, you're going from Long Island or New York, there's like a $30 fucking toll. Did they put that into place now? Well, that's the congestion checks even more. But, like, except for, like, the Williamsburg Bridge.

Yeah. It's too slow. But like the other bridge is like you go toll or down here. But Brooklyn Bridge is toll. Right. The tunnel is toll. Yeah. Or you go to somewhere in Mexico where there's no toll, but there is a, uh, your light is a little too dark.

I need $5. Yeah. And they're like, all right, it's the same difference as a toll. It just seems wrong. Right, right. Right. When it pops doing it versus an official easy path situation. Yeah.

But it's just the toll system. It's like you're white. We need five bucks from you. Yeah. To pay for these rules. You have to give too much money to the car. tell you know we have to like make the tax revenue somehow yeah all right where else you got trouble with the law or military trouble with the law or military um well i would say the biggest uh and worst

was in a little country called russia well i've heard of it yeah um that's not to scale but look how fucking big it is yeah i'm really gonna it's a big country i've heard it's the biggest country in the world. I'm going to really make myself out to be a real naive American by the end of this podcast. But I decided to go to Russia last year. No. You could get in? Tim Dillon said he couldn't get in. Really? He tried to go. I don't know how hard he tried it. He definitely doesn't have the know at all in this. That's the wrong word. The intelligence, the experience, the travel experience you have of like land borders and shit like that and how to ask twice. Right. Yeah. I just brute force my way into these situations, which is that is not the country.

Where'd you go? How'd you get in? So you can get a visa for Russia, still. You can? Yeah. Isn't it funny when you hear everything that says one way, then you look it up and you're like, no, you're can. Yeah, yeah. It's actually not the hardest visa to get.

What I mean? My friend, Bobby went to Cuba. Literally every, this was in this past year. Yeah. I don't know when October-ish. something like that, December, something. But everyone was like, so would you have to fly to like Brazil first, then there? I'm like, no, we flew from America.

Like, no, that's not allowed. I'm like, oh, it is. And they're like, there's flights a day from Miami, another 20 from Houston. Yeah. And people are like, no, that's not how it works. I'm like, I know. I also thought that. So you can go to Russia.

Yeah. Wild. Okay. I thought it was trippy, though. I assumed it was going to be, like, incredibly difficult. And, you know, the Russian embassy is closed in America. But they have kind of like, I don't remember what they call it, but there's like some office. Consulate?

It's basically, it's not even a consulate. It's like the visa agency. But it's like a front for the Russian embassy. Okay. It's no longer there. And- You should find the agency. You still need an embassy, I mean.

Yeah. You still need an embassy to be operating. There's Russians here. Yeah. So it is, it feels like. slightly sketchy because you have to mail your passport. To Russia? To this place.

To this agency. But still, you're like mailing your passport to Russia effectively. That's what it feels like. And it's not cheap. It's like $500 because you've got to basically pay them. And they just hold it for like a month. And they don't give you like a time frame when you're going to get back. They say maybe a month.

Okay. And I travel a lot. So this was actually really inconvenient. Yeah, right. I had to hang out in America for a while. Do some traveling within my own country. Wait, have you ever heard this? Somebody just gave me this as a travel tip.

Two passports. Actually. From the same country. Yeah. I just got this, actually. I'm like, I can't let this happen again. You're allowed to have two passports? It's true.

Yeah. You got to have like... You don't say I'm claiming it lost. How do you do it? You got to give a reason for it. And this would qualify as a legit... Yeah, it's like, I love these. Sometimes you're like, you're like, you don't have to lie.

You can actually tell them the real truth is actually the reason. Yeah, yeah. You know, or if you get unemployment, like, oh, what should I lie? I'm like, say you're unemployed. That's why it's there. Like, oh, okay. Yeah, exactly. So you can just be like, I travel a lot.

I got to send my passport out. And in the meantime, I'm traveling another place and I won't be able to. And they'll be like, okay. Exactly. Yeah. I think they know that like some countries hold you up with the visas. Yeah, if you work for USA or something like that, like you're bound. Yeah, they're like you want to go to Congo. Oh, well, I mean, we don't recommend that, but okay. That's going to take a while. Here's your second passport. It may take a while to get. Actually, just getting another passport in America is surprisingly annoying and complicated. Like, it could literally take like three months or something, but you got to like, I think you can pay more. You can throw money at it. Yeah. You can throw money at it.

You can always throw money and stuff. And then you could shorten it down to like two weeks, but it's still more complicated than that. You have to call this agency or something, and you have to, like, time it just right, like within two weeks of when you plan to go to the agency. I just did it. Oh, you did? Yeah, and it's like, hey, I need it on a rush. And then they go, okay, when's your ticket somewhere?

Also, oh, should I say this for travel tips? I do a travel tip at the end, but I'll just do it now. You can get a ticket, do a screen grab of that ticket, and then cancel the ticket. if they need you to be proving that you have a ticket somewhere or like a way out also. Sometimes you're like, I'm going to go to this country for like,

I don't know who knows. And they go, we need you to prove that you're leaving. Yeah. Yeah, you just pay for a ticket on United. Yeah. Immediately cancel,

but get that email. Yeah. So anyway, yeah, but they were like, I would never do this, but you can't do this. They go, when are you leaving town? I go, I don't know,

in this month. They go, no, that's too far in advance. You're like, ugh. Yeah. And you have to just, it has to be within two weeks.

Yeah. Yeah. And then you've got to get a ticket for, I don't know, I just made it a plausible place. Right. You know, Kusco, Peru, I think. I was like, somewhere where it's, whatever. And then I was like, I need a passport, cancel that flight. Right.

Yeah, no, there's actually a lot of countries that'll require this for the visa or even just like to get into the country. They'll be like, yeah, you need a flight out. You fly out. Or stuff like that. So there's actually literal websites built around this. They don't always work. To fake it? Yeah.

I think one is literally called like fake flight. ticket or something, which is what it implies. But I think they get shut down. So it's like whack them all. I'm giving you my travel tip. Put it in there. I'm fucking locate it for later. We're going to do a book of travel tips.

You could do either one. Yeah. Just get the flight on there and cancel. Every airline gives you 24 hours. They do, yeah. Just screen grab and go. They don't have to prove it. But the thing is you're like, sometimes you're going to India.

You're like, I don't want to be done. I might take a land thing over to fucking wherever, Thailand or Laos or something. Yeah. I'll decide later or I might go to fucking Bangladesh instead. Yeah. Let me go, you know, but they're like, no, it's not allowed. Bullshit. Anyway, okay.

Right. So back to you. Sorry. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, two passports. Oh, that's two of them. And the Russian agency. So, okay, thank you.

Thank you for hosting for me. I do need the help. Yeah. So why'd you go? So mainly, I've always wanted to go to Russia. Okay. I mean, it's the biggest country in the world. It's like, I mean, it's Russia. It's, you know, there's, forget like the current political situation, what everything that's going on. This podcast is 100% apolitical. We don't talk about it. We're not interested in that. It's just a cool country. You know, it's like Moscow. It's got like all the Soviet history. Do you think of Muslims went there because they thought it would be full of mosques and then, and then realize it was Moscow was spelled differently than Moscow? I haven't heard that way. That's, that's pretty wild.

could believe it could believe it so stupid all right sorry yeah pretty much retarded yeah you know

you could take the trans-hiberian oh yeah did you I did yeah once I eventually got there

I was just like hell yeah you got pictures of that I do I do videos yeah

um do I have pictures my problem is because I make these videos I always forget to take pictures oh really yeah okay

but I could pull up a video you don't pay for YouTube premium you know it's shitty they don't just give it to me wow let it be known what a cheap mother F turn it sideways oh that's cool you know give it back my betting getting off the train at like four or five in the morning it's bright light out yeah and this is just like a little city do you jump on and off do you have like a pass to go on and off good off for a couple days get back on i was trying to buy something like that but um i'm very like last minute yeah i didn't know where i was going same way yeah i didn't know where i was going exactly that's why it's fun to be like i might just get off here we'll see yeah did they

have that they probably have something like that okay like a trans-syberian pass this was like a city called olmsk they told me it's like the indianapolis of russia or something in what way and like What's crazy about Russia is like in all these little cities across the country, they'll all have like some crazy history. Like in this particular place, I found out that they like deported all these Germans there. So they had like this big like German Russian community. And most of them like left. They went to Germany after the Soviet Union fell. But they still had like a little community in a town.

So I was like, I'm going to go check this out. Okay. Yeah. So how did you get in trouble there? No, it's okay. Okay. I want a picture of you on the train. Yeah, on the train.

I think I can get one more. Keep this going. This train party going. What? There we go. Can you just, is it like a cool train like here? Like where you could look at the window and like get the landscape and stuff? Oh, yeah.

I mean, yeah, you could watch the landscape as you go and by. I love a train. They got like a restaurant car. It's, no, the train. Is that tobacco? Tobops. What is that? That says comrades, actually.

actually tovarie you speak Russian especially after this story you all just I'm gonna have Russian pretty good so yeah yeah so anyway the trains are awesome but my mission was to go from Russia end to end and once I finally got there I was like very excited and like when I first arrive I was gonna enter into Russia by land and you pretty much have to do that i think there's a way to fly into it from like turkey or something but otherwise because of the sanctions the borders with europe are like very close yeah there's no flights so i went to uh estonia which is uh yeah i have my friends from there he's a homosexual well there you go yeah but he's like a homosexual and like a weird where like he sucks off guys

at glory holes only oh perfect yeah i didn't know they were known for that yeah but there's spray at my face but there's a way to say that in Estonian you see that's what happens when you get freedom and capitalism Russia they don't have that they have no homosexuals okay but yeah so I crossed the border from Estonia into Russia and at first I thought you know that's gonna be the most like fear-inducing experience ever I thought like if they're gonna get me it's gonna be right then you know and especially because to cross that border it actually takes a crazy amount of time like eight hours after border yeah for real like you show up there from estonian or right here exactly close city is st petersburg yeah which is where i went after

and um so you have like this long line it's basically all russians trying to cross back into russia and it's actually mainly the estonians that are holding everybody up because they don't actually want people to go to russia and they don't want people bringing like euros to russia and what happened to me was, I get just to like... Because they hate them? Pretty much. Like the war and everything. Also, I bet a lot of Estonians right on the border are looking for glory

hills or suck off dudes. Yeah, that's, oh. Like Ari Maddie says like a lot of them are like, that's like their main. It's hot springs or whatever, hot baths and glory hole suckoffs. Yeah, it is a place where men get into saunas with each other. So it is kind of an ideal location. I didn't even connect the two just right now. Yeah.

Wow. Okay, so go ahead. Yeah. So you're on this line And it takes like eight hours I finally get to like the Estonian side of the border And they take Yeah go ahead

You're coming from Russia into Estonia No from Estonia into Russia So what do you mean you're to get to the Estonian part of the border You get like the Estonian Russian border Just like this line is just so long So you get up to the line Yeah the actual like passport control customs Yeah eight hours

Yeah and so the Estonians Take me into a room and they want to interrogate me. But not in the way you might expect. They're like, listen, we don't think you should go to Russia. We've heard reports that foreigners, you're American, they get to like the other side of the border and then the Russians just keep them there for like 24 hours,

asking them questions, trying to verify them. We recommend you don't go. Now, retroactively, I might have taken that offer. nothing happened at this particular spot but can I critique the Estonian border police for a second you want to have that talk before the eight hour wait once you're invested through an eight hour wait

you've heard this no no I agree with this oh yeah I feel you yeah then it's like no dude I already put in a lot of time here if you say hey first of all you shouldn't go there it's bad news whatever also you got eight hours before you're even allowed to like figure out if you can go that's when you go you know what maybe fuck it yeah no no joke seriously I thought like I've invested too much into this like

this is how I feel like high level nightclubs in Berlin when they get there and if you're dressed like this they're like obviously no but they make you wait in line for three hours to get to the top and they go no and you're like you couldn't have seen me in line back there with my propeller hat go hey you zero chance you may as well

just go enjoy your night fucking Germany fucking Germany I thought they got rid of the rules yeah you know refugees welcome but not in line at Very nice. Thought they got rid of the lines.

So go ahead. So, yeah. So they tell you not to go, but you're like, fuck it, I'm going. Yeah, yeah. I was just like, yeah. So yeah, then there's like this bridge that separates Estonia from Russia across the bridge. Weirdly, the Russian side goes very smoothly. It's very fast.

There's like one Russian border guard who's like, you have Kamara? Let me see Kamara. Ah. Looks at it for like two seconds, gives it back. They're like, welcome to Russia. And that was it. I was like, is it really, were they lying about this in the West? Like, is it really that easy?

Do you know what the bridge is called? What's that? Do you know what the bridge is called? Friendship Bridge. The city is Narva. So it might be the friendship bridge. I don't know. Yeah, that must be it.

The friendship bridge. There you go. Wow. Yeah, this is the main route into Russia. They didn't sound friendly at all. Not a lot of friendliness on that border now. Okay, so it takes your camera. Yeah, just for like two minutes or something.

Not threatening at all. She looks through it or just looking at it? He literally just looks at it. It doesn't even look like, do you have anything bad on there? Yeah. And I had heard, like, obviously, something crazy was going to happen. Russia's the number one of the repressive regimes. Not in terms of, like, total quality, but like they're the gold standard for.

Yeah, they're good at it. No rights. You don't know what you're allowed. Yeah. The military and the police can do whatever they want to you. They can. They're the kings. Yeah.

Yeah. No, they're very good at that shit. You're in the fucking show right now. You're in the NBA of this. They've been developing the system for, you know, like 100 years. So anyway, like I crossed to the country and like I said, nothing bad happens. I'm just like, wow, Russia is kind of cool. I go to St. Petersburg.

It's awesome. I'm just like. I mean it's difficult like in Russia because of the sanctions you don't know how to like use money you have to like bring dollars and euros into the country and then like exchange it and then get a bank account and you have set that up it's like a bit of a learning curve but once I figured that out I was like wow this is cool go to Moscow again fucking awesome time I just and I just started taking the train across the country and um just stopping in all these little cities having a really cool trip this is what real not real trouble that's a bad word but like

this is what the kind of travel when you're like long-term traveling it's just like you just stop in a random city yeah yeah not about going any not seeing my fucking kremlin yeah it's just stopping in a random city this is what it's all about yeah you know just stopping a random place be like what's going on here so um my goal was to get to the other side of russia this place called vladivostok which is like the far eastern side of russia yeah it's right on the border with north korea and China. That's how big Russia is. And you've got to go up over and around.

Yeah. So it's a little bit convoluted. Eventually, I cross into Kazakhstan, go through China, and then come back into Russia. Oh, that's how you did it. Yeah. Wow, so you cut through. It's like this side. Okay.

I went back in. And that's where the problem started. Because... So now you're crossing over the border again? Yeah. Doesn't China have good relations with them, though? The Chinese gave me no problems. I mean, I've had like a few run in Chinese police, but nothing like this.

At the Chinese customs, they're just like, yeah, waves me through. But then on the Russian side, it is very unusual for an American to be crossing that border. From China into... Basically, like, our two... Wait, you went Kazakhstan and then through China? yeah so all the way through China yeah that's uh you like got into Russia there and left it for most of it yeah wow that's the trip that uh Connor me a small brain American did did together yeah and then uh of course uh I kind of did this one on my own decided to go back into Russia um yeah no like so

going back into Russia from there it's just very weird for an American to be crossing and like I kind of thought about that I was like yeah I probably looked like a fucking spy right now. I'm trying to cross in and like, should I be doing this? But I, you know, I got this little trip. It was so great the last time. I had no problems.

Yeah. And immediately, like, at this border, already, like, the Russian border police are taking me for extra questioning. I get an interrogation for, like, two hours. And this time, they do, like, the full deal. They're, like... Then these are, like, soldiers. I think they're either border police,

or possibly like KGB. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Okay. That's exactly it. Yeah, that's what they were trying. Okay, okay, good to know. I think some of them might have wanted it also. You know, it's a little unclear.

You guys did this whole trip together. That's really cool, though. Yeah. Cool friendly thing to do. Yeah, yeah. You mean the one through Kazakhstan and China? Yeah, I mean, all of it. Oh, no, that was awesome.

Yeah, that whole thing. That was cool. Yeah. That's where I saw. Yeah, that was a joke, but this is like back to like, that sounds like a sick. trip to like, were you guys already friends at that point? Yeah, yeah.

Well, we became friends. Or friendly. Yeah, we weren't like that friend. We weren't that friendly yet. But this, I mean, how long was this trip? Through China. End up being about like 20 days. Yeah, so that's it.

Now you're friends. Yeah, no, for sure. When you travel with somebody like that, you either hate them or you'll become friends for life. Yeah, you really can. You can easily hate them. Yeah, yeah. And if I don't like a person and I'm traveling with them, I will find an excuse to get off it.

Yeah. It's so hard to get away. Yeah. Because you're both like, well, we're going on this hike for 40. Like we're both going to the same place. Oh, it's a hike. Yeah, that's going. Nothing else is happening.

We're stopping day to day or on this. If it's a group, sure, you can just like, I'm out. That guy's annoying me too much. Yeah. But like, you're just stuck with them and you realize, oh, I hate them. Yeah. Yeah, no, those are the worst. And then you're like, I just got to make it to the end.

And then at the end, like, all right, I'm going to another country. I'll see you. Where you're going? See you. That would happen to me more often when I, like, studied abroad in, like, college. You just get paired up with, like, these people that you don't know that you hate. But, like, they're just annoying. And they're just, like, complaining about shit that's, like, really not that bad.

Like, I can't get my favorite cereal here in Hong Kong. Like, all right. Try being in China. You can't use Google. far away. You're like, like, God,

don't go at all. Yeah. Like, just stock- planning stuff. Yeah. So. Where did you guys meet

here and then went together or he went from, he wasn't there at the Estonian border with you? No, this was way after that.

This was, there's a little country there called Kyrgyzstan. Awesome country, by the way. Heavily recommended. Okay.

And, yeah, we just agreed to meet up there in like this place called, well, no, we didn't meet up in Bishkek. We were in Osh, a place

called Osh. Where is that? Romania? No. No, it's Kyrgyzstan. Wait, is this the trip that we're talking about, or is this another trip? This is the trip that we did across China, and we started there. We crossed into China from there. So this is not the one you went from China and a lot of Oostok.

It's a bit confusing, but afterward, I go into Russia. Okay. Because I'm like, it was part of a bigger trip I was doing across Eurasia. I started off in Ireland. and I wanted to eventually make it all the way to like eastern Russia. I was going to end the trip there. It was like ocean to ocean, Atlantic Ocean to Pacific Ocean. Cool.

Yeah. Very cool. Yeah. Ended up having to finish it in Japan instead. But yeah. So wait, so what happens? So you're at the border and then what? Yeah.

So at that border, they start like interrogating me for like two hours. And this time they were like... You were American in China, coming into Russia. That'll do it. They must have been like, look, I'm sure China didn't stop you, but we are. Yeah, yeah. They're like, well, they, I mean, honestly, they don't trust the Chinese either.

Oh, interesting. Yeah, that's like kind of hush, hush, but. Interesting. Yeah, they, uh, kind of, there was an interrogation later on where I could tell they were trying to find out if I was a Chinese spy. Like, they were like, you speak Mandarin? Do you? Yeah.

I lived in China. Yeah, like I said, I'm pretty weird. But like I did live in China for a while. And you kind of need it. Not a lot of English spoken in China. I've gone in trouble. I just like languages. I'm like, yeah, I've got to learn that shit.

So, but in Russia, that's pretty weird. They're like, that's very suspicious. We just imagine Americans do only speak English? What's going on with that? So they started asking for my phone. They want to see the hidden photos folder. And I'm like, oh, no. come on that's my nudes yeah come on bro

don't delete them at least like I gotta use that later where's your tip-pix folder right exactly you know please please and then like I get the phone back like two hours later and that's like open and I'm like guys what were you doing with this shit I think you left that open

they're harding the good ones took like pictures of shit they're like oh porn is blocked in Russia right now. They kept taking screen grabs of the view with those two black chicks in Tanzania. I don't have that. I don't know what you're talking about. So yeah, they just asked me and it's just a surreal experience by the way because like there's this one KGB dude who's just like you have a YouTube channel. Okay, can you sign like an

autograph? I want to give it to my girlfriend. I'm like that's weird. Because I have a YouTube show. You're not a fan just because I have a YouTube channel. He doesn't know who the hell I am but he's just like you have a YouTube channel you're American that's kind of cool I'm gonna take your your signature I mean everybody the rest of the dudes were pretty serious but this one guy was like guys he was like the nice guy he's like guys come on he's like a YouTube guy like relax yeah yeah and so they kind of this was more like they're breaking my balls but they eventually let me in are they aggressive at you or are they like they're being mean and tough like you shut up you sit there like all right we got to talk to you they're not like

horrific they're not like smacking me around or something but they're pretty stern you know like the default Russian expression is pretty stern you know right right they don't really smile a lot yeah it said they smile if they like you or something but uh you see your chicks i wouldn't smile either but uh yeah they're just like asking me these questions there's probably like a set list of questions they have to ask and we just go through the list and finally they just after a while they're like okay you go in and i thought like that was the end of it i thought everything was cool yeah it sounds like it yeah you would think so it was the end of it but from that point forward i started to get worried i was like well this is this is the shit they told me about so just a couple

a few days later, I take the train again, and I show up in this place called the Jewish Oblast. I don't know if you ever heard of this. This is a city? This was one of the places they originally proposed to be the site of Israel. And it's kind of wild. It's just like way the fuck over here, like in eastern Russia, Siberia, and they're just like, we're just going to give this land to the Jews. That could be like the Jewish state. Yeah, there you go.

That's the name of it. That's the region. The Jewish. See, they got like a little synagogue thing. Oblast. Yeah. Why, were there a lot of Jews there? No, I think they all left.

Unsurprisingly. But they still have like, yeah, a little architecture like that, like a little synagogue and stuff. Wow. I thought it would be kind of interesting to visit. Yeah. But if anyone is watching this and considering going there, my advice would be do not. Do not go to that place. Do not go to that place.

because they have police that really don't trust foreigners. And they're like really hoping to get like a spy. So in this region, little did I know, there's like a law in Russia that you cannot be within 20 miles of a border. And I get... Really? Yeah. 20 miles?

Yeah. What if you're... Oh, there's no border towns. There are border towns. This is why it gets really confusing. So I got arrested for that at some point. For being within 20 miles of a border. Yeah.

That's a lot of miles. Yeah, it's a wide area. And yeah, there you go. They got fish. Yeah, okay. It might be irradiated. Sure, just talking to her cell phone, smoking a cigarette. Yeah.

So I got stopped. That law, if you get arrested for that, it's not. What border you next to? China. Still China. Okay. Not Mongolia. Not Mongolia, yeah.

It's like that little thing right there. This little. No, like the other side. Oh, it's up here. Yeah, right there. That's it. Oh, yeah, so it's just China. Where they used to put the Jews.

And, um... I mean, they must have, like, swarm that fence to China every Christmas. They must have really. We got to get out of here just one day. Yeah. We'll come back. Yeah. It's a pretty wild region.

Like, um, you actually had both, like, like, you actually had both, like, Jews and just Russians trying to escape the Soviet Union and they'd go into China and so like up until World War II they would actually hang out in that region of China. There's a place called Harbin. Harbin. Harbin. Yeah. And they still have like these like synagogues and Russian stuff in that city but then like World War II happens the Japanese came and they're like all right maybe we'll go somewhere safer now. Hold on. I want to see the Chinese restaurants. restaurants here. I think they do. If I remember, I

can't remember. It's right to the border. Yeah. Come on, do it there. Why do they fucking do this? What's the name? Place called? You could type in a place called Lenin Schoier, which is like Lenin then S-K-O-E.

Yeah, there you go. Okay, right there. That is also where I got arrested. No, okay. So what happened? Anyway, I get arrested. and it's supposed to just be like basically like a $5 fine it's like one of those things where they're just like

don't do that again or maximum like a 48 hour like jail sentence like in the local like town jail or whatever so but that one gets more intense also why because

I don't know like how this happens but somebody like in the the KGB they're called the FSB they're called the FSB now gets informed that there's an American on the border with China and they show up and then that's where things get wild because they start interrogating me they start giving me the whole thing like

why are you here why do you know these languages and these people are not joking these people are serious they are not fucking around at all these are the super serious people and it was like one dude in particular you could just tell like this dude was trying to like move up the ladder you know like he wanted to get this he He wanted like an American spy right there. That's a get.

Yeah. Like that's like, he's like, he's getting like move to Moscow. Yeah, he does that. 63 home runs. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, they're just,

they're not fucking around. They like film the whole thing. They're taking notes. And it just, things just get progressively shittier. Like they start, they're like, oh, hey, Thomas,

we need to drug test you. So we're going to take you to this hospital. That's like a couple, couple hours away. Not sketchy at all. Oh, my God. They, uh, they drug test me. And this is horrifying, by the way.

The, uh, the test throws like a false positive for meth, which, uh, as fucked up as I am, I've never taken meth before. Oh, buddy, you got it. It's the best. You think you like weed. Yeah, I know. I'm not. I'll take it to the Orgboos, Leningstkaya, Tarb Hospital?

Uh, no, no, they don't have a real hospital in that town. They go to, um, pictures of this one. So it's not. Yeah, there's like a bigger city in that oblast. I forgot the name of it. But the hospital is there. Wow. Yeah.

And so I'm thinking like, did they? That's a made up false pause. That's not even the thing went off. I'm thinking they literally just like planted drugs on me or something. And I'm starting to get scared of shit. So. They can just hold you. Yeah.

And go, he did drugs here. We got to fucking deal with them. Yeah. Because I think almost every Russian, American held in Russia story starts all. with like oh yeah they found like weed or something they found like a pen they found like whatever briny grinder yep yep just give us a reason yeah yeah yeah i was really worried about getting grindered yeah um dude you're black or ready quit with the weed to be careful it's not i'm not saying it's right that this happens but you got black with wheat and in russia yeah

what a fucking cool chick to take yeah yeah i mean come on now yeah that was good much oh oh oh that of it much. So they're fucking false positive on meth. Yeah. Yeah. And then they send me back to like the jail. And they're just like, oh, don't worry. Everything will be over soon.

I'm just, that's, yeah. This gets even crazy. So remember, like the initial charge is just like 48 hours. So for what? For being near the border within 20 miles of the border. So they can't hold me for more than 48 hours, according to their law. So they actually let me out. according to their law.

Yeah. It's like, yeah. They let me out, and I have like this big relief. I'm like, oh, this is over. Great. What they do is after I had to, like, pay this fine, they're like, okay, listen, you got to get back to the town where you left your passport because I had like an Airbnb. I left everything in there.

So we're going to, like, get this taxi for you, and they're going to take you back. And I get in this taxi that they got for me, and it's really weird. It's like this lady who's not making eye contact with me. Like the dashboard mirror is like angled in a way. I can't see what's behind me. And they just like drive me back in silence. It's like really creepy. We finally get back to like the capital of the Jewish oblast,

the place where I left all my stuff. And they literally had set up like a sting operation for me. Like I'm not kidding. What? Like six police officers were just like waiting for me at this Airbnb and there's a guy already filming There's like they found like a translator to like yell stuff at me and then they like basically say listen You refuse to give your passport so we got to take you back to the police station I get wait wait yeah

But you're like no let me just get my passport for you I've it all happened like so quickly and they did this by design. Yeah, obviously. They don't actually want me to get the passport. That's so crazy. You're like, okay, I'm going to get it. And they stopped you and go, well, you're not giving it to us? Break down how it went.

So you get out of the cab and then what happens? I get out of the cab and they actually drag me out of it. So you're like getting out and just they all swarm you and like grab you? They all swarm me. Yeah, they treat me like a criminal. And yeah, again, this is getting freaky. So they claim because. immediately the next day

like a trial was set up not scary at all and I get shuttered in there and I find out at that trial like I am on trial because I did not present my passport and my YouTube videos were offensive to Russia

so and the trial was over in like five seconds what they're like here the charges to charge go ahead and do it yeah I wasn't given a lawyer it actually is possible to have a lawyer in Russia. I found that out later, but they kind of didn't really make that obvious. Yeah. I don't know if the lawyer can actually solve it, but you can't have one.

So, yeah, and what is one of the scariest moments of my life, they're just like, okay, you've got to go to jail now. And the sentence was for 15 days in, like, actual kind of like light prison. and they also gave me like this giant fine that I was supposed to pay like for the YouTube videos. For just having them in the past? Yeah, yeah. Because I had released a couple videos of my Russia trip, which... From that trip, like while on that trip. Yeah, and keep in mind, like I said, I had an amazing time in like Moscow and stuff.

So I'm just showing like, hey, guys, look, Moscow was kind of fun. This is what Carlson did. Yeah. Kind of the same video. Like, look, you can go to a grocery store and get this. Yeah, yeah. It's not exactly what you think. Yeah.

they were just looking for an excuse because like I had something in the description of the video like yeah everybody thinks about like the invasion of Ukraine but you know what's actually going on in Russia and they're just like he called it an invasion that was stupid

for sure but you would not have even thought of that it's just what it's called here yeah yeah I was supposed to call it the special military operation I fucked up wow you didn't get the memo

no no so like and again this all happens super quickly they put me in a van i get sent to a prison like immediately and imagine you can imagine what i'm thinking at this point i'm like i'm about to be on the news you know like i'm about to be one of those people like they got an american like they're gonna like set me up for something it was just like scary as hell so the census was like four 15 days So I thought maybe it's going to be over like 15 days. Like maybe. The problem is this, the FSB, like the KGB, keeps coming back with like these requests.

They're like, we need to take him to be drug tested again. We need to like take his luggage to check it for drugs. And I'm like, Jesus Christ, they're trying to find something. To add on. Yeah, yeah, maybe they're trying to plan something. Yeah, I didn't like. The drug testing would be like, no, I've been in your custody. There's no way I could do it.

anything yeah but that on your on your on your in your luggage is a good way to do it it's like yeah yeah that was I think that was the one they were hopeful they really thought they're gonna get me with that shit because um you know like when you check into the prison you have to like I still had like you know my bag I carry around when I'm traveling so they have like a room you're like supposed to leave all your belongings and stuff so as I'm checking that in again it's almost like a sting operation like all these like KGB guys show up And they're like, okay, we have him now. Let's take a picture.

It's like one of those pictures, you know, they were preparing to, like, put in the newspaper or some shit like that. Did you smoke weed in Russia? Oh, fuck no. You did not. Fuck, no. Did you get it presented to you at all?

No. No, but I do have an interesting story about that inside the jail. Okay, keep going. Yeah. So they take the luggage. They have me sign all this stuff. They take this picture. And I, at this point, I think,

I'm fucked. They're just, they're gonna fucking do something. I'm gonna be in jail for like 10 years or something. My life is over. Fucking scary. Thankfully,

I am not stupid enough to do drugs in Russia or China, which was the last place I was in. Yeah. Had nothing questionable. I've done marijuana and cocaine in China. Impressive. Thank you.

Impressive. I'm not even a coke guy. I have never done any drugs. in China. Okay. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Just want to put that out there. Anyway, I did not sleep for like four days, I think. In this prison? Yeah. What's the prison like? You didn't take any pictures of that. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't get to bring my camera. What's it like cell? Just a regular cell, room? It's, um, the only good thing is like because basically everyone, like all the men are like being shipped off to like war or whatever or and there's just like a lot of migration from these areas to

moscow there's very few people there's very few criminals so i had at first like a jail cell to myself nice yeah it's not too small yeah did everything to do but like i had a lot of space to walk around and whatever there's like uh just by yourself do you have a book that's kind of funny like the only book I had was like an English textbook made for like Russian fifth graders. Oh, okay. Because I asked this translator, do you have any books you can give me to read while I'm in there? She's just like, okay, yeah. It was nice.

Like, she tried to find something. But that's like all she had, at least in English. So eventually I got like a dictionary of like Russian to English or English to Russian. And I was like using that to learn Russian while I was there. So I was like, yeah, what's the word for don't beat me? Now, please, please, no more. Please. I'm not a spy.

Yeah, so I start off there. It's not like to over punish you for being a spy. You're just not a spy. Yeah. So it's like, this isn't even like the wrong response. I'm just not a spy. Yeah, yeah. No, exactly.

It's kind of a binary thing. It's just, I'm not. I don't work for the CIA. So yeah, I'm in the cell. It's, I don't know what like, prison cells in other countries are like, but in Russia, they have like this big, like, red light above the door that stays on the whole time. So it's just like always light in the room. So that, I guess they have like a security camera and they want to see what you're doing

all the time. And there's just like always somebody going by watching what you're doing. There's like a smelly toilet in the room. There's like a little desk thing and then they'll bring you like food a couple times a day. Yeah, prison stuff. They don't let you out that often. often. They'll let you out into like this little, it's like their version of the yard is just like this kind of like cage thing. Yeah. And it's like about, it's about as big as this room. Okay. Even smaller. Yeah. And they just put you out there and they say, yeah, you can walk around for a bit. This is outside? Yeah. In a cage. Okay. And this was a Russian winter. So of course, it's snowing. It's like horrific. What are you wearing? Did they give you a jumpsuit or do you wear your own clothes?

No, they actually I don't know if they did this to save money Or it's just like a thing But they You wear your own clothes Okay They'll check it first To make sure you can't like

I don't know Shank somebody or like Strangle somebody with like The cords on your sweatshirt But I had like one sweatshirt And that was my coat And I'm just like Of course

Like you're in there like the whole day So you're like desperate To get out there for anything So I'm like okay Yeah I'll walk around a cage For like an hour Oh my God

Yeah Oh my God. Anyway, like, the weird thing with, like, the weed is, like, after a day. Because initially they tell me, like, it's not going to be so bad. You're going to be by yourself. You know, you're going to have, like, your own jail cell. The second day, without warning, they just, like, move me to another cell with, like, this Russian guy who's, like, in his 50s. He was there for drugs, I think.

And this guy, I mean, he's a nice guy and everything. No problems whatsoever. But, and I didn't even think about that. this at the time, but he would ask me like these weird questions. Like just completely out nowhere. You'd just be like, Thomas, let's talk about drugs, you know? Have you ever done weed? You know, what do you think about weed? Just like in this way that I'm like, why are you asking this? Like, this is kind of weird. Whoa. Yeah. And like, the trick you. Yeah, some people think like this guy was planted there or he had like an agreement. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. Yeah. I like either.

He was already in jail for drugs. Like, well, let you drop easier if you get info out of him. Or I think he's just in the FSB. Yeah, like, we're going to dress you like what we think a drug dealer might look like. Yeah. Put you in there. My bet is, like, he might have been there, yeah, for, like, the initial charges. And they're like, hey, we'll make this agreement with you.

And, like, you know. Bring us the big white whale. Yeah, bring the big whale. The big white, the American spy drug dealer. Yeah. But thankfully I end. So what did he said? What did he, like, what did you say to him?

Yeah, they play, like, I mean, you know, I had not, again, I had not done drugs, like, on that trip. Like, it'd be insane. And I was just like, no, no, I've never done weed in my life. No, why would I ever do that? You know, I'm just saying, yeah, I don't like it. You know, I don't like to smell. You just said, no, I'm not even like, I haven't in a while, just go, I've never done it. Yeah.

I didn't even want to risk saying in a way like, oh, you know, maybe when I was, like, younger, you know, in America. No, I was just like. That's everybody's mistake. Yeah. Being more honest. you even need to be. You don't need to tell them anything.

And then when the cops in the movie's like, we'll go easier on you. If you're like, it's not even up to them how easy they go on you. It's the courts. So just go like, nope, didn't. Like, that's a joint in your hand. Like, it's not mine.

Like, you're alone. You're like, it's not mine. I don't know. I've never seen it. Yeah, yeah, not for real. It's just, you know, say what you got to say. Yeah. You know, like, don't say any more than you need to say,

I should say. So, yeah, I'm just like, no, I don't do drugs. Of course not. Drugs are bad. and time passes again it's like 15 days and eventually like the luggage that they took it comes back you know just of course the police don't go back and like bring it back they just like bring it back with like a note and it says everything's okay you can have your stuff back and after 15 days um you were there for 15 days 15 days yeah

Yeah, so in a prison? Yeah, this is like 17 days in total. With a caged, like walls, just like the regular prisons where you can hold on in America? Or is it just a room? It looks kind of more like an insane asylum. It's just like this big iron door. And there's like a little opening that they'll open up and be like... Step back.

Yeah. And then you get food. Exactly, one of those. Or if they need to yell at you, they'll say something. So, yeah, where is that going? So yeah, after 15 days, KGB shows up, they hand me a piece of paper, and they're just like, we want you to sign this. This basically says you're going to be deported and you're going to leave the country for five years.

You're not allowed to come back. What? Yeah. And at that point, I was like, I guess that's the best. I could help for it right now because, yeah, don't want to be here on any other charge. They kicked you out. Yeah, they kicked me out. And even that was stressful because, like, even after I get out,

because eventually, like, with some friends help, I eventually get a lawyer and the lawyer, like, appeals, like, the whole thing. But you can't actually appeal it. You know, it's not. You cannot. This is, you know, like, this is not something. They're not going to allow you to lose. It wasn't like, not going to allow you to win this.

Oh, you showed new info. Yeah. It's like, we decided what we want to give you. We charge you with. Yeah. Yeah. I had this lawyer who actually, like, looked at the case report and he's just like, They actually made like a fuck ton of mistakes.

But like, it was just unwinnable. Wow. So even after I got out, they were like, we can't let you leave until you like formally lose this case, like your appeal. So they brought me back to the court. And I had to like spend another day in that town just like losing this case all over again. Lenzkaya.

The capital of the Jewish Oblast, which I think is, I forget the name of it, but it's, it might just be called like. the capital of the Jewish oblast. Oh, that's what it's called. Yeah, beer will be john. Wow. Yeah, they got that. I got the Lennons.

A little synagog. Of course, the Lennon. The Lennon is a blizzard. So they let you out, then you have to do your appeal, and then they go like, all right, beat it? What do they say after that? So after they finally have me lose the appeal, they're kind of just,

they don't like say, like, you got to get out, but it's like implicitly known. Like, I got to get out. You got to, yeah. The problem is. So what do you want to be there for anymore? They're just going to get you again. Yeah, the problem is like, because I was just in, like, prison, I overstayed my visa.

And so that becomes a new problem. And I got to go find a way to, like, get my visa canceled, say that I overstayed and get, like, a new exit visa that would allow me to leave the country. So I spent, like, the whole night doing that, trying to get that set up. It's, like, very nerve-wracking because I'm like, are they going to try to. try to like use this to arrest me again you know like i finally come back the next morning get the visa and then i just like book it i'm like i pay like the first taxi i can find like take me to like the nearest big city which is called kavarovsk it's one of the biggest cities over there and they had a flight that day to like this random city in china and i'm just like fuck it i am on that

flight. Yeah. So I, like, got the ticket booked. Everyone on that flight is, like, a Chinese worker that have been in Russia working on some project, and they're just going home. Yeah. And, uh... Really?

Yeah. Oh, it's like the, like Mexican immigrants. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Yeah, it was kind of like that. Although, I don't know, it's not exactly like that. I think they brought the Chinese over because they're just like, maybe they're better workers. We trust them to build this shit more

Remember crazy people The movie Crazy People? Yeah With Dudley Moore maybe It was just like an advertising agency He goes he's nuts He lost his mind So then he started doing like real advertising

Yeah And he goes He was talking about Japanese cars Like Had Sony products Like their engineers are shorter So they can get closer to the product They're making it

Yeah exactly Yeah It's uh Yeah we like them better Um, whoa. Yeah, so that was the... And then you got over the border of China, okay? Yeah, that was the happiest flight of my life.

Yeah, I get... Oh my God. Yeah, man. Like, when you land, you're like, thank you for not turning this around. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there's like this... You were seeing The Last King of Scotland? Uh-uh.

That's actually about Uganda. With the cross-eyed guy? Yeah. His name is? George Whitaker? Yeah, yeah, exactly. That dude, yeah. But, like, at the end of the movie, like, the dude has been, like, tortured.

and he's like trying to get out of the country and he just miraculously gets on this flight that's like leaving and he's just like looking out the window like oh thank God that's how I felt that's how I felt yeah

I like the whole time I thought for sure I'm fucked political prisoner yeah those guys they came back like in North Korea like we'll give you back we'll give you back we'll give you back

we'll make sure you're brain dead because it 100% look like that kind of situation I might have and you're like I'm not even doing anything yeah I even pulled down a post I mean, I might have got lucky because, like, I was literally in there.

Doesn't sound lucky. Like, I mean, not in that sense, but in the sense that the election happened, like, while I was there. Which election? The only election that matters. Like, the U.S. election. Okay. And so Trump literally gets elected. And the whole time I'm in the prison, the warden and, like, the officials, they don't speak a lot of English, but they're like,

Trump victory. We want Trump to win. They like Trump. They like Trump. In Russia, they think Trump is like favorable. Why? To Russia. I mean, I guess like he came off that way.

Okay. Right, right, right. I mean, he comes off as like a fair negotiator, like with Ukraine. I don't know what it is exactly. But it's possible that helped because they're just like, we don't want to piss off Trump by like arresting another American now. This is like really bad timing. So they're just like, let's just deport them.

You know, let's just get them out of here. You've been deported. Yeah, yeah. Was there any thought you had of like, well, now that I'm out, I want to stay? Or they're like, you're going? No, there was zero thought that I wanted to stay there. There was like, I hope to go back to Russia someday. Like I said, are you afraid now of like, I'm in the system now?

I mean, there's a lot of awesome people in Russia. Like, before this, I had an awesome time. but that was fucking scary. Might be the scariest thing that ever happened to me on life. Oh my God. And yeah, I'm gonna wait like a decade

or something, minimum. Forget the five years. I might just not go back. Yeah. I mean, I get wanting to go with other places to go where they might not be like if he comes back, grab him for sure.

Yeah, yeah. They said, do they say, don't ever come back or do they say? No, they didn't say that. You just have to leave. Officially they said, you're a band for five years. Five years.

Okay. Okay. And that's in writing? It is in writing, yeah. When you were in the prison, the questions. What do they feed you? How often do they feed you? That's one question.

And where did you shit and piss? So you have like a toilet right in the room. Okay. Yeah. So you got to like do that in front of like your cellmate and everything. Got like a little shitty sink. You have the shit in front of him? Yeah.

Pissing I get just turn your back. Yeah. Yeah. you get used to it you have like conversations oh yeah i'd be like come on man and you're like i got a shit like oh it stinks yeah yeah there's a way you can angle yourself you really with the view of the bunk bed yeah yeah yeah um yeah the food would come in um the food was surprisingly like actually not that bad oh okay yeah they'd give you like bread Russian bread is not bad they give you like this soup and stuff so you just mix the soup with the bread and like yeah

Yeah, you're like, okay. It's one of the few things to look forward to them. Was it? And how often do they come? They gave you three meals a day. Three squares? Yeah, three squares. Did they, was it good?

Some of them were pretty nasty. Like it'd be like this weird meat dish, like ground up meat or whatever. But when it was like the soup and the bread. Yeah. Because like that's the one thing that cook really well. Like soup, borsh, you know, that kind of thing. Oh, yeah, good point. Yeah.

So when you like take something, whatever, where you're like, that's good. Yeah. Oh, okay. The only problem was. Yeah. Like when I first got there, again, thinking back to like what happens to like people in prison in Russia, I was like, what if they poison me? You know, like I seriously had this thought.

I was like, maybe I should not eat the food, you know? Whenever I feel like that, I feel like it's like a horror movie where like the monster gets like more and more powerful. Like, what if they poison me? Like, okay, so if I don't eat the food. Yeah. They're just going to find another way to kill me. Right, right.

You know, it's not like they tricked you into, let's take you into the woods. Like, I'm not going with you. Like, then I'll shoot you. you here. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It took me a little while to calm down on that, but like the next day when they moved me to the south with the other dude, and he's just like, you know, eating it, no problem. I'm just like, okay, I'll risk it. I'm hungry. Was it filling? Pretty much after, more or less. I mean, like, yeah, I could have eaten more calories. I'm a really skinny dude. Like, I can eat a lot, but it was all right. And you are able to,

get stuff into the cell if somebody brings it and then they vet it so I don't like in my luggage I had like a few random stuff like oatmeal so you asked to have it yeah I asked to have it and they give it to you like a day later or something after checking it so what did you do make oatmeal in the soup or did you get hot water yeah they'd give you hot water could you get coffee they would give you one glass of coffee a day so there's that it's all very interesting I wouldn't have I could see it going any which way either treat you very well or like Like, no, starve you, you get a cockroach if you can catch it. Right.

This is not like, this was prison, but they basically have like, I guess like a light version for like the light offenders. And then they have like the gulag prison where it's like you're six dudes to a cell. You're doing hard labor and whatnot. That's where pussy riot went to like a gulag. Yeah. Eventually their relatives like we don't know where they're at anymore. I believe the Wall Street Journal guy that got arrested. he was sent to, like, more of a gulag.

Goulog is a terrible name. It's a pretty nasty sounding name. It's, uh, so if they actually got me for drugs, that's where I was going, like, for sure. Yeah. That's where I would have been. Damn. All right. On that note.

So those are pretty much the places you got in trouble with the law. Yeah, yeah. There's a few more, but. What else you got? breeze through him I'll breeze through them real quickly yeah because that was the most intense I went through the most recent

so you could argue the other ones were actually not as bad as those two so there was one time I was in Kenya this is kind of wild and it's in a minute audience he goes to a lot of places so this is a small percentage

of the places he's been where he's gotten in trouble I get around for better or worse Kenya, which is right next to Tanzania. I'm in like Mombasa. You got a black chick thing for sure. Anyway, go ahead.

You're in Mombasa? You ever heard of Mombasa? It's on like the coast. It's a pretty cool city, but after this, I won't be going back. They have like this, it's a Muslim city. It's supposed to be a Muslim city, but there's like a church. So like, I don't know. For my video, I'm just filming random stuff.

And because I filmed this church, they're like, why is a white guy filming a church in Mombasa? This is weird. He must be a terrorist. So I could stop for that. I got asked for like four hours. Like, you must be a terrorist, right? You know, there was this other, weirdly,

there was like this other white lady from England that went to Kenya and then, like, joined this, like, Somali terror group. It's like the most random thing. I don't know if you heard of it. I remember that. Yeah. This is like this lady. And she looks literally like a pale, like a, a,

female version of me. I mean, you just got to, when you see those stories, like, oh, you just, you got to get dicked right. You got to get one good dicking. And I'm sorry that you haven't had one in a while, but that's definitely the result of that. And like, she was going to Africa, you would think, like. That's what she's going for a good dicking. But no, she just, he goes to join a terror group.

Like, she did it all wrong. Terrorized that pussy is what you should have wanted. Exactly. Someone terrorized his pussy. Yeah, so she fucked it up for all of us. Yeah. For everybody. So they, what do they do?

That was another one of those situations where I was like, when do I give the bribe? I just like, it's like after four hours, they finally start saying like, hey, maybe you could buy us dinner and everything. And like at that point I was like, can't I go now though? I'm like, do I still have to pay you? Like, I don't know. I gave them the dinner money anyway. I don't want them to have an excuse that gave me longer. So that was one.

another one and me and Connor actually went through this one together in China we're up on the North Korean border and tense border yeah you know

it's just a relaxed one okay are they cool with North Korea or no no no no it's a weird relationship they have they go from being like really cool like best communist friends

forever like, we don't like Kim Jong-un, and we really wish he would step down, so we're going to put pressure on him. Anyway, there's this one part of the border where North Koreans, like, frequently cross, because, like, the river is very shallow, and it's not that, like, wide. And for most of the border, actually, it's, parts of it are almost like a tourist attraction. You'll see, like, a bunch of Chinese tourists there, taking pictures and stuff. This part of it is not.

It's, like, you're not supposed to be. supposed to be there. So they saw us taking pictures like this border outposts immediately into a police van. They're asking like, what are you doing? You know, like show us the pictures. Okay, delete them. We just want to let you know that this is not allowed in China. And basically what they're saying is like you can delete this shit or you're going to Chinese prison. I mean, of course I'll delete it. You can just delete it for me. You have to control my phone. Yeah. Yeah. So. I was appreciative, at least. They just gave me that option.

Yeah. They didn't immediately go to like the stick. Yeah. So, yeah, we did that. They drove us back to our hotel. And we're just like, okay, we'll get out of here now. We're not going to go back to that, Tom. Yeah.

Yeah. It's like you're not even doing anything. Usually it's like when I fear trouble, there was once in Indonesia. I was driving back. I met some people. from I don't know where Seattle. Yeah. We hung out for a few days.

You know, we just meet somebody. You're like, now we're friends for three days. Natural. And they had an Airbnb way up in the mountains. So I was like up there and we got fucking lit up drunk. And I'm driving back my mohead with no, mophead with no helmet. Yeah. Drunk.

And I come up to a checkpoint for traffic. And I'm like, well, this is why they, I would go to jail. Justifiably. Yeah. You know, driving drunk with no helmet on. It's like, I should be in jail. And I just get there I'm like, play cool, play cool

And I get there I'm like I go yeah Okay go ahead I'm like But like you haven't done anything wrong in these places Yeah

Yeah You haven't like procured weed You haven't fucked a hooker You haven't stolen anything I'm not saying I've never procured weed Yeah but that's not what you got in trouble for

Sorry I didn't mean to tell you I mean to tell you I mean that Don't make me out to be uncool here You know But none of these are what you're getting in trouble for Yeah You're just getting like

You look like I don't know you look like trouble to a cop yeah no that that is the crazy thing it's like and i like when i introduce these stories to people that i don't know and like i start saying like so when i went to prison i hold up let me clarify like i didn't actually do anything it's you got to explain the whole thing damn not recommended bro it's hilarious all right well do you have any tips for getting out of trouble if ever you're in these situations so um Yeah. I'm got to, as much as I hate to say this, because I highly recommend going anywhere.

I would even say you could still go to Russia, but only go to Moscow. Like, just fly directly there. There's tourists. Where there's a lot of tourists. Exactly. That's where I expect you to go. Do not go anywhere. Like, don't get off the beaten path. That is not the country to do it. Interesting. That was stupid of me. That's a good travel tip. When going to Russia, go where the tourists go.

Don't call attention to yourself. Like, why would you be here? Yeah. Russia, Moscow, St. Petersburg, that's it. China, same thing. China's a little more open. But, you know, don't. I've heard of Vladivostok, though. You probably can go to Vladivostok.

Can't confirm it. Yeah. But it is a big city. Damn. Probably you could stay in the big cities and you'd be all right. Who's that, Kyrid, Korea, that's Japanese. So Japanese islands go right up to Russia there. And then that island in the,

US that last like yeah that's crazy that's way further west than most of that part of Russia yeah I never realized that until recently we literally got America all the way up to here yeah I just went to Anchorage and and Ucriiagvik the north and I was talking to some like radio reporters nice and they're stationed out there just doing reports on like fishing communities yeah but it's like the flights get canceled non-stop because everyone speaks Russian all the names are Russian it's American It's a trippy thing. Yeah.

It's so far out there. But to be honest, those are some of my favorite places. Yeah. Like when you have like two weird cultures like coming together, you know,

like, Mongolia's like that, half China. Have you been Mongolia? I have been. Nice. Love Mongolia. Damn,

that's what I really want to go to. You gotta do it. Yeah. Ride a horse over there in the grasslands. Yeah. Genghis Khan style. Yeah.

Start a new fiefdom, you know? Yeah. Just going to evade China again. I'm going to pull out like a big speeder. I'm going to come up Ganga's cock.

Yeah. And I'll see if I can take over. Yeah. That's all you got to do. Where do you want to go? You haven't been. Is there any places that's calling you? Like, I gotta fucking get there.

Oh, for sure. For sure. I have this annoying ambition of getting to every country. Okay. I would love to just go everywhere. This was I was going to say before. That guy, that travel writer, Rolf Potts, Smalley Brainy is going to take his class, his writing class this summer.

And I've taken it. And just a writer I know, but he's like, there's an idea called psychogeography. It's just something that gets you moving around. Okay. Something. So for Henry Rollins, it's going to record stores. So when he goes to Russia, he's like, let me find the local record shops. He just gets you moving instead of like, I don't know, nothing.

Yeah. Or you follow like when he's in Paris. He'll be like, let me follow that black cat that's everywhere. And then just like take note of it. Right. Getting to every country is a great one. Yeah. It's just like it'll make you go somewhere.

Yeah. I don't know why I have this, but I don't know. I just have like a, I just have like this insatiable urge to just keep moving. Like I get like kind of bored. I'm just in one place for till long. Yeah. I don't know if this will ever go away, but it's just fun. It doesn't matter.

Yeah. If it does or doesn't to survive. Yeah. And I don't know. How many have you been to as of right now? I think it's something like maybe 80. How many are there? 193

officially Let me ask you a question about this then You want to go to every country You're up to 178 Yeah And then the inevitable happens That Scotland breaks off from the UK It becomes their own country

Yeah You've been to Scotland already I actually haven't Oh okay But no no I get the hypothetical Would you now have to go back to Scotland If you had already been there? Oh sure

Yeah Because it wasn't a country before Even though I've been there Yeah No This is probably literally happened for some people because he had like Sudan that broke off into South Sudan. And that's a fucking war zone now.

So like that's a little trick here in Scotland. Yeah, how can you get there and like North Korea? That's the hardest one actually. North Korea? There's actually like this conference that I went to. It's just for like all these crazy people that want to go to every country. Yeah. And whenever I meet an American, often they'd have like 192 countries on their belt.

And the one they were missing was North Korea. because like it's actually illegal for Americans to go to North Korea by our own government like the US government said you cannot go to North Korea or else we will arrest you in America when you come back for going yeah Henry Rollins has been there Michael Malice just went we did an episode about it oh nice Michael Malice went they probably went back in the day maybe yeah because this all happened after Otto Warmbier how you pronounce his name the dude that took down the poster when he came back whatever they're like hey no it's actually

fucking with us to yeah when he came back. Oh yeah, they probably went before that. Not conscious, yeah. Yeah, the U.S. was like, that's not acceptable. So we're not going to let anybody go to North Korea. You could get in, though. It's possible.

You could do a border run at least from like China, just like step over. Would you count that for places like that? I was looking for that, but you can't do that. That is not a border you could do. When you have these countries, like I visit these countries, do you have a line of like, that doesn't count? Like, if I'm in a layover in a country at the airport,

I'm like, I'm not counting that. don't count that shit but if you get out and like two hours in a place a couple days something eventful so you have to call it on your own like decide if this was eventful or not yeah it's it's tricky i would say if you at least do something meaningful in that country make a memory yeah make a memory meet some people i don't know at least go to like a restaurant or something there yeah i used to say like a few days but then i'm like i've had like a one day in a place where i've gone out drinking people gotten laid, got rushed back to the airport the next morning. And I was like, I was there for like 11 hours.

But I did way more than I've done in place where I've been for four days. Yeah. So I'm like, I'm going to count that. Yeah, yeah, no. You definitely can. And then other places like airport, hotel, sleep, leave. And I'm like, how am I counting that? Yeah.

I mean, I was in the Baltics right before Russia, which is like those three little countries right on. Papua New Guinea? You've been? Not quite the same one. But I did? I have not been a popping beginning. I want to go.

Where's the Baltics? Where have you been? It's right next to Russia. Right next to St. Petersburg. You see it over there? Yeah, those three. Of these countries, Estonia, Finland. Yeah.

Belarus. Not Finland, but those three. Belarus, Lovia, Lithuania. Yeah, those all used to be part of the Soviet Union. Yeah. Now they're independent. But anyway, I was going through those, like, real quick. But I still tried to, like, do something.

Yeah. You know. You're there. Hang out in Lithuania, like, see a museum. Because you know that thing of people going like, I've been to every country, you're like, you didn't go to one. You're like run in, do it, go out. Those are just border runs. I'm kind of a purist, I would say.

Yeah. You know, like I don't want to be that guy. Yeah. Yeah. So how many of it's 80 something now? You've got a long way to go. Yeah, no, it's a while to go. I'm like, if there's one continent, weirdly, that I want to go to every country in, it's Africa.

I actually really enjoy traveling in Africa. Wow. It scares me. Yeah, it's kind of, well. It shouldn't, but it really does. Well, some countries could be pretty intense. I'm not going to love it. There are some countries you probably should not go to it,

unless you're trying to go to every country. That's the thing. I don't know the difference enough. I can tell way more, even though it's way smaller in Europe, I can tell way more the difference in a country there than the difference in the country between Kenya, Congo, Central Africa, Chad. Like, I don't know the details.

So that's what everyone does blend it all in the one giant continent. Yeah. But, so that's what scares me. Lack of information. At any given time, there's probably a bit. about five to ten wars going on in Africa. You get a warlord. Yeah.

Not great. You just got to keep track of like where those are happening and don't go to those countries, you know? Yeah. There are some countries that I would recommend for everybody. Tanzania. Just don't take the buses there. But Tanzania is great.

You know, it's got Zanzibar, it's got beaches, Russian women, you know, like it's a fun place. You ever into East Timor? I have been East Timor. That is a cool one. That's a cool one. Let's do that. Our next time we do an episode.

I've been the, there too we can both talk a lot about it hell yeah that'd be a fun one yeah speak portuguese because nobody's been there no yeah i mean not nobody but you know what i mean i know what you mean it's kind of a little thing there's not a lot of reason to go there is not it's really not but that's why to go there yeah um all right well hell yeah was there any other place you got in trouble you wanted to talk about that we forgot uh no i think those are the major ones okay um I've probably been arrested somewhere else. I'm losing track.

Have we got arrested in America? I've been stopped by the cops. But it was like kind of like... For what? Having a black friend? You know, I was like college. Are you drinking in there? Are you being too loud?

Like that kind of shit. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's fine. It's part of growing up. That's almost the cop's job. It's like just put a little scare in them. Yeah.

And then let them go, obviously. Don't do anything, but make sure they're scared. Yeah. been stopped by like the border police and their dicks, honestly. But I think everybody goes through that. So, okay, here's the last one I just remember. So I was doing a bus tour all the way through here. Yeah.

And some of them here, once we went this way up through Detroit and then to Toronto, and we're going over this land border here. Yeah. The bus driver, Paul, is like we can go the popular one or we can go like kind of an empty one of the two land borders. It'll be faster, but it's like out of the way. So we'll be driving more. We're like, let's sit in traffic.

That sucks. Let's go to the other. Yeah. Anyway, he goes, all right, let's go there. Let me fill up for gas here. Last one in America so I can come back without having to fill up in Canada. Yeah. For I don't know what reason.

And he goes, all right, guys, I'm stopping here if you want to get out and piss. By the way, just so you guys are aware, we're going over a land border to another country. So, you know, this is not a kind of thing. You want to have any drugs in the bus. I'm sure you're already aware of that. But definitely don't, right? There's no drugs in the bus. anyway, so I'm going to go pee and stuff.

So, there shouldn't be any drugs in the bus. Like, oh, right, loud and clear, and there's plenty. So I was like, guys, we got to get rid of the drugs. The weed for sure. And they're like, what do we get out? We'll find weed in Toronto. It's readily available. We'll find it.

We can go to store. It's really not difficult. The Coke for sure get rid of, I don't know if you'll be able to find any or not for the coakers in the group, but it's a land border. We're like, all right, let's clean it all up. There's barely any left anyway. Ketamine, beat it, get rid of it. and so then he Paul goes all right generally they'll just like say let me see your passports stay on the bus we're fine yeah

I've had it happen I've done this thing 50 times I've had it happen once where they get you off but like it's once and it's fucking it's like Willie Nelson where they're like we're definitely gonna find weed they get our passports like everybody off the bus like he goes all right it's fine and then he goes they just want to like check your passports inside and then they go we need the keys of the bus we're going on Paul's like this is weird I was like all right well I was like There's always that fear of like, did I waste the drugs when I could have kept them. You know, when I got into China, I got rid of all my edibles on the plane. And then they go, right this way, you're right through. And I'm like, ah, I could have got him. I know it's not worth the risk, but I could have, in the end, I could have had my edibles on me.

Yeah. So I was like, well, guys, at least we fucking got rid of the drugs. I have never brought edibles to China. This guy who deals with TikTok. And then two of them go like, I mean, we moved them. And I was like, what do you mean we moved? I'm like, well, we're not going to throw out the Coke. And I was like, bro, are you crazy?

Like now there's two border. I'm like, where is it? It goes, it's just on the bed. Yeah. I mean, is it even a way? Like, we took it off the desk in the back. We put it on the bed. I'm like, in what?

Like, in a baggie. I'm like, bro. And our fucking video guy were like, hey, just so you know, like, you're doing, you did this and we're reporting you. I'm the show. you're not the show so we can afford to lose you yeah and you're i'm not taking the rap for this and they were on there for like 45 minutes wow yeah we're like they're searching our shit and they're finding the drought so they come out and they're like all right thanks go ahead and we're

like fuck i mean that was good coke that sucks you're like let's let's do the rest of the weed and the coke that fucking sucks yeah it does but it was fine the point is yeah most of these things see more dangerous than they really are they are you end up getting away although i don't know that time in russia sucks how many days are there total that was 15 12 sucky uh 19 19 days in a prison yeah across all of it yeah damn that blows yeah no that really sucked that's a whole like most countries you do for less than that right yeah yeah that was uh what an experience it turned into like a full study abroad you know got to uh get the dictionary I hell yeah

I'm there nice so you got out there yeah we got out there the roads still look like that when were you there just two years ago okay yeah the roads

were still that was their chief thing they had to fix we gotta get the roads yeah yeah that's it like everybody helped pull this truck out of the mud that was every day

like I just drove here yesterday on the way it was fine like well it's washed out now still not a priority all right sabbatical this was fucking great man thank you guys again I'm gonna put shit earlier

but check them out on on YouTube YouTube.com slash what is this? It just kept doing sabbatical. Sabatical Tommy. At sabbatical Tommy is on Instagram at sabbatical.com.

Yep. Okay. Look at this. What a fucking cool follow. You don't devote much time to Instagram, do you? No. It's kind of like my second thing. Went to Palestine during the invasion. Oh, that's interesting. I'll watch that.

Yeah. you've been all right cool yeah if you just want to watch videos by a dude that has no common sense you have no comment that's what you need like I wish I could go there but I'm too scared and you're just born without it

yeah yeah just too much curiosity yeah yeah all right buddy it was great meeting you no when I'm done travel let's do another one or if you're in uh somewhere I'm gonna be we can do one out there somewhere That would be awesome.

Yeah. And it's also very possible. Yeah, okay. I'll tell you my, like, route when we're through up there. If you're ever in like the Central African Republic, you know, we'll set that up. Okay. Okay. What's thinking about that one.

Yeah. You know? I heard it's nice this time of the year. Yeah. I mean, you've got to get out of the cold. Yeah. All right. Thanks, buddy.

Yeah. Nice to meet you. Satya. Yeah. Fucking ruled. It's dedicated to Brittany. It was dedicated to Brittany Griner. Rest of peace.

Well, that's the episode, everybody. Hope enjoyed it. That was, man, sabbatical is a lunatic. Like a legitimate lunatic. You got to check out his channel. Every video he makes is just like, it's like he just can't have like a nice, like he's unable to have a night.

You think it's in a cinematic mode. Does it look cool? Does it make the backdrop look cool? Those are you watching on YouTube? If you're not watching this podcast on YouTube, you're messing out. Because this is a real fucking video. visual, along with audio podcast.

Anyway, I'm in cinematic mode. Yeah, I texted him to tell him when this is like, hey, what do you got coming out? He was like, hey, did I get into Iran right now? Just go to resort, bro. I mean, there's no one. Like, if I brought up Putakana, DR, you'd be like, I don't even know. Like, what are you even talking about? To be honest, what are you been talking about?

Go check them out on YouTube. It's YouTube.com slash at sabbatical Tommy. That's S-A-B-B-A-T-I-C-L-T-L-T-My. Or on Instagram. Same thing. It's Instagram.com slash sabbatical dot Tommy. S-A-B-B-A-T-I-C-A-L. Tommy's going to have a new video about Indonesia coming soon.

And like, listen to these videos. Just everything you does in a chat. Just look at it. Just videos by popularity. Okay, here we go. African kid sees a white guy. Thinks he's a ghost. Four years ago.

I was forced into polygamy in rural Tanzania. I was kidnapped in the Brazilian slums. The Yakuza takes me to the hostess club in Japan. The hood in Japan is definitely not what you expect. I met a family of Nazis who fled to Argentina. Ah, I probably met him. Walking into Japan's most feared jacuzza slum, we escaped from a village of cannibals in Uganda.

There's no more men in Russia. Does this after you kids still think I'm a ghost? One year later. These ill bellies are shooting each other. Life in West Virginia. These are all just great, great videos. These are all just great, great videos. And if you go home on his thing, you can see video we're talking about him getting arrested in a Chinese border here.

This one. Second one, looking for the devil. No. So this is the most. Okay, imprisoned in Russia, accused of being a spy, full story. Number 214. Leave a comment. All right.

He was stuck. Produced by your mom's house network. It's edited by Alan Kaffee. Thank you to them for put this together. And guys, sabbatical. He's got to come back off. Please reach out to him. Send him a DM on Instagram saying,

please go back on R.E's show. Dude, we sat after this podcast and just... Was it before? I honestly don't remember. Just shot the shit about travel for so long. It's just like, it's fun when you meet a like-minded guy. And that's who he was. His buddy, small-brain American,

not as much of a danger seeker. This guy just, like, goes for danger. pretty crazy. It's pretty wild. Looking for the devil worshipers in Iraq. Iraq can try to stop him getting. Everybody thinks this country's fucked up. Getting robbed by a 10-year-old in Romania. Oh yeah, to Romania. That's my people. I hope this is getting me up here. That's it, guys. Have you gotten the end yet? Have you purchased the end? Go to rashvary.com right now and you can get seven episodes of the end. Guys, it's

Seven episodes series, one hour each, or $6 each. But it doesn't come out until April 16th. So right now, until April 16th, you can get a deal on all seven episodes. All seven, one hour's episode. It's not a special. It's a season. 2499. That is pretty much, if you're right before April 16th, seven for the price of four.

Communians including Tom Segura, Colum Tiro. See if I can do it off my head. Jim Brewer, Steve Samoa. Nate Bargazzi, Stan Soder, Sam Talas, Aetolam, Shetolov, Joe List, Mark Norman, Christa Stefano, Miss Pat, Nate Bargazzi, Tony Hinchcliffe, me, Duncan Trussell. Did I say Joe List? Did I say Robert Kelly? Did I say Jim Brewer? What am I missing? Jordan Jensen Roy Wood Jr., Ali Sadiq If I were you, I would get seven

For the price of four But you can wait to lay versus a date Then buy individual episodes for just $6,000, but I mean, get yourself a deal And support me, the biggest fucking hole in my heart For the last whatever years We'll always shapiro.com right now I buy tickets, buy a thing

Also, I'm doing a screener It's a follow on a long tradition I'm doing a screener of this two episodes of it at the Creek in the Cave in Austin, Texas, April 19th, that's bicycle day. Don't call out of acid. Do ask it afterward. We're going to pick two of the episodes. I'll do a Q&A. I did, so for Jew, that was two tapers ago.

I did a whole week, whole week of shows in Austin and the Creek and the Cade. Great, really help me. Try it to be together. Joe Rogan came out. It's really cool. Sorry, Hinched Edgar. And then, for America's sweetheart, I was like, what would you have some of my? did a screener of it. Did a Q&A, set it up, did a Q&A afterwards, and it was a lot of fun.

Everyone just ate popcorn, drank, and watched together, watch a stand-up comedy special. It's kind of like a movie theater, but much a lower budget, more in line with who I am. A low-budgeted, dude. And now I'm going to do it again. April 19th at, I don't know if it's 5 or 6 p.m.,

check out R.shabria.com, or go to the Creek in the Cave.com. It'll be a 5 or 6.5. Yeah. Check them out. I don't know what tickets are. Yeah. 45, 35. I don't know. Something like that. I actually have no idea. That's it, guys. Next week's episode, Robert Kelly and I are going to be talking about his trip to Guatemala. And that's another one where you really want to subscribe to this podcast because the bumpers I did in there are, well, you'll see it. I did it from Guatemala.

Guys, it's been a lot of money. Stuff that never really comes back to, right? and that's why I'm kind of broke right now I legitimately have kind of broke pause real quick I mean keep filming but like that's another reason to get the show I didn't even make my money back flying out 23 comments paying them all

with actual hotels getting all paid for the actual show so I'm fine but like it's two reasons to get the show the end it's great it's great get to support me going

end around on YouTube sensors and network sensors saying, I don't like this guy, or I'd rather you have more of this checkbox, so less than that checkbox, shit I don't even want to get into? And also, you get me out of, dude,

I had to go to fucking Latin America at this, but I couldn't throw my New York break. Not true, but, uh, true, but not true. Anyway, guys, that's the episode. Tommy, you're a fucking lunatic. Please come back.

Um, whenever you can. Let's do another episode. I'll save it for whatever. You're on your writing a book, dude. Come back. Guys, reach out. Send him a DM. Tell him you want him to come back.

He'll be more likely to him. He's a cool guy. I'm also a cool guy. Take up in the Fells report. Bobby Kelly next week. You'll be tripping. You want to watch that one on YouTube or on Spotify video. And that's it, you guys.

The week after that is not sure. Wait. Oh, shit. Next week is at 13th. And then the show comes out. And then after that, I think we got a Nate Bargotsie episode with Joe. list and Louis cats altogether talking about a three-way trip that they all took um who else we got Duncan trussles coming soon I got to do a longer pod with Aramati about my trip a lot of good stuff

coming please subscribe tell a friend about this podcast and guys that's it I'll see you later solid episode really solid episode this is what this is I need more travel bloggers like him who else leave in the comments that's a good one to leave in the comments because I think it got I found out of him from you guys leaving comments. Who else? Well, my best. I mean, him again, small brain again. Anyway.

Hi, everybody. Thank you. Oh, do'svadaña. I don't know, say goodbye. Wait, salud? No, do'svadaña? Fuck, I don't know shit.