Egor Homakov

Eurotrip 2013

After 6 months in Asia, before N months in the US I decided to go to Europe for 3 months (26 June - 24 Sept).

Vienna is the starting point. Also I plan to visit Amsterdam, Prague, Frankfurt, Paris and big cities in between.

Since Europe is 2-4 times more expensive than Asia I must follow some budget limit. Namely $33/day for accommodation, $3000 + $4000 for food and fun = $7000 for the whole trip. Let’s see how it will work.

Plan A: interview in US embassy in Moscow on June 11, trying to get austrian visa, if they reject trying to get quick spanish visa. (I don’t have booking of all 90 days, but I need to present it)

Plan B: if they also reject I calmly say “fuck you” to all of them and go to Thailand again.

Preferences: I like busy and modern cities (as Frankfurt). On the other hand I enjoy relaxing and cheap cities with great cultural background (Lisbon maybe).

If you traveled in Europe and can recommend me something specific what I should visit — would be happy to hear your experience.

When you’re 20 years old

(I’m 20, horay!)

it feels you are still 17

your achievements are smaller than anticipated when you was 17

and no shit given about that

you prioritize new friends and travel experience over money

you understand that you’ll sorry about it in 25+ (but not sure)

extra weight / appearance is somehow the last thing i care about

also, i am not going vegan, neither quitting drinking alcohol. 

Russia is not my homeland anymore and I expect the next come back in 3-5 years

those 6 months in Asia were the first cool thing in my life

well, what’s going to be second?

random photos.. beware i am a terrible photographer:

When you you go to the club on your own and say you’ll meet your friends inside

whenyouliveinberlin:

Inspired by ojhannes

Saigon, Singapore, Hong-Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok

I am fond of the big cities with exciting skyscrapers, airports, subway systems, futuristic parks. This makes me feel freedom. Population threshold is 5mln. 

Relying only on my experience, I might be terribly wrong in some ideas because I did not live in these cities for years.

Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), Vietnam.

In fact this is not the capital of Vietnam, but I haven’t been to Ha Noi (it’s cold there). Saigon is just the biggest city of Vietnam - population reaches 10 mln.

Prices: it doesn’t look expensive at all. 300 USD should be enough for a decent accommodation (not too decent, i didn’t notice much of condos).

Comfort: dirtyish. there are nice parks but usually just horribly looking local buildings and more nice-looking hotels. Vietnamese food is delicious, I used to order Pho if i’m way to hungry to wait some grilled fish/squid/crab.  Vietnamese coffee (with condensed milk) is a must-have experience. Strong but sweet, everybody drinks it like everyday!

Weather: Seems not rainy at all. Not too hot. I spent 3 months on Mui Ne and didn’t experience a single rain! Can you believe that?

Freedom: Welcome to socialism. I’m kidding, there are Burger Kings, StarBucks(only one, big one) and anything else. I’m fan of Highlands Coffee.lovely place, has many prospectives but not as advanced as other cities. Let’s give it another 3-5 years and check out again.

Singapore

Europe-lovers will love it too. Someone obviously cloned a little German town and put it below of Malaysia. Population is 5-6 million but I didn’t notice many crowded places (I spent 4 days here). I visited Orchard on Christmas.

The cleanest and safest city in Asia (others say Hong Kong is number 1 but i dont buy that).

Freedom. While you are restricted to not drink and eat in MRT (Fine is $5000, ZOMG)

Hong-Kong

HK demonstrates us prosperity and luxury in all aspects. Sport cars, mind-blowing buildings and boutiques. From victoria pic to star ferry, every place is must visit for tourists.

Also taxfree and very business-welcome city. You should buy an Octopus card and you can buy stuff in 7/11 just swiping this card.

HK is SAR (special administrative region), a different country, only politicly belongs to China. No firewall and other bullshit. 

Probably the most expensive city in the world. Minimimal rent starts from $1500.

Kuala Lumpur

Besides Pentronas and KLCC there is nothing to look at in KL. Not interesting for tourists but quite comfortable for long stayers. I could get lots of Indian food and Chinese too for affordable price. Public MRT is good but messy. Every line is owned by different companies, this is annoying.

Don’t take religion here serious. Nobody cares about Allah and stuff, girls wearing “paranja” choose new hot dressing in boutiques and eat in mc donalds. People say it is not safe enough in KL, pickpockets etc. Probably I could live here several years.

Prices are somewhere between Bangkok and Singapore. Clean and affordable.

Bangkok

Thailand is the most visited part of Asia by backpackers, IMO. So almost every tourist will be here someday. My first impression was not good, it was too hot and dirty near National Stadium. After 6 months I came back and liked it. Affordable, many condos with various facilities, many places to go out.

Can be called the most comfortable city in SE Asia, if you acclimatise to humid and hot weather you like it. 

Moar photos of my half a year trip.

I’m heading to Moscow on April 23 and starting to think about the next trip.  Previously I was thinking about UK/US but retarded and humiliating visa policy of these countries pisses me off - I’m completely not welcome there.

So here is what I think about: Seoul, Ha Noi, Tokyo, Osaka, Beijing, Shanghai, Macau, Taipei. +suburbs. Final destination is Bali, will stay there for 3-6 months. Maybe I will visit Borocay on Philippines too.

P.S. what I clearly not going to do is to stay in Russia. This is most likely the last time I come back (gotta exchange my domestic passport). 

P.S.2. Fucking visas fuck you i fucking hate you.

Commit that changed my life.

Originally it was a prank intended to prove insecureness of the default Rails configuration. It was a dirty “dick move”, the most scriptkidd-ish and silliest attack I ever did. There are many reasons to blame me and this action, but the story is out of date - year has passed.

Some apologies that should have been said a year ago: Sorry, Github, it was very kind of you to reinstante my account. Sorry, Rails Core Team, for my childish behavior and thanks for understanding, everyone.

Frankly, until 4 of March I did not know a lot about web security.

At least it was clearly far away from my main interest: programming. 

But then I instantly understood how exciting security can be. 

Pure art! When you find a major flaw in a popular website you understand nothing is perfect and everything is possible. You start to believe in yourself

It made me super curious about web security. In the following months I read a lot on random topics: OAuth, browser security, OWASP and ruby-related things. 

I did some contributions in 2012. I plan to work & study harder in 2013. My decision is to finally switch to security. Yes, it looks like I am not a programmer anymore. I am a security researcher.

Mostly web for now, but I do my first steps in other fields too.

I would like to share my experience doing consulting — you can hire me.

Changes in real life are nice: I left St Petersburg, Russia. I see no future for myself in my country and I am open to changing citizenship and seeing the World. Spent 2 months in Sofia, then my German working visa got rejected and I decided to start traveling around-the-world. 

Hong-Kong, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, at the moment Mui Ne in Vietnam — now it’s 5th month in South Eastern Asia. Going back to Bangkok in 4 weeks. 

I plan to travel to UK/the US this summer badly, as a tourist (hope no visa issues will come up, it looks like i need an invitation to be sure).

I am going to craft groundbreaking security goodness and work harder to establish my own small business.

Yeah, even a single git commit can change the whole life quite dramatically. Cheers!

Backpacking. Nothing Exciting About It.

I see a lot of backpackers: young people in their 20s(rarely 30s) travelling in South Eastern Asia.

Over and over

In fact if you’re english speaker, every day in a hostel will be a Groundhog Day. You hear such dialogs from all corners:

- Hey, where are you from?

- Canada/England/the US(pronounce proudly)/Europe(usually germans or scandinavians - I love them)

- Where are you going and what did you visit?

- Thailand/Malaysia/HongKong/Singapore/Vietnam/Cambodia/Indonesia etc(put them in two groups randomly)

That’s pretty much it. Oneday it will become annoying you get tired and start trying to avoid such conversations. 

Degradation

That’s what I see. When you can live in comfort conditions for $1000/month it’s easy to relax, drink beer at 1 PM every day and enjoy your life. Especially when you travel spending your parents’ money. Life is as simple as possible. No office, goals, debts to pay and family. It’s very hard to keep yourself in shape and keep learning. Take calendar and strike all the months you live this way. You didn’t achieve anything - so you didn’t live these months.

If I ask a backpacker about his occupation he looks at me like I’m mad. “I’m so young, i don’t know what i wanna do. kinda business or maybe i will take photos for living”.. “Shut up, stop wasting mom’s dollars and get a fucking job maybe?” - that’s on my mind.

On Koh Phi-Phi an american backpacker got very drunk(party hard - why?) and literally pee-peed in the corner of full 24 beds dormitory. Everyone was shocked and I was about to smash into his face but decided it would be too “russian” of me. 

BTW Sorry, but I’m Russian

Nowdays, being russian is not cool(и некруто быть русским). It’s a shame. If american think his country is the best I think the opposite about mine. Usually I avoid ‘from’ questions or respond that it’s a secret but my stupid accent is obvious.

People ask about Pussy Riot case, current situation, putin etc. I don’t want to associate myself with my country because of it.

What You See is Not What It Is

I met a journalist in Chinatown of Kuala Lumpur. We started talking about rainy weather and later went for lunch. He made a very good point: backpackers talk about smiles and happiness everywhere missing obvious - not everyone is happy. He told me that people are smiling because “whites” have higher status and have money. “if you see other asian you wonder about his education, job, income, car. If you see white guy in crocs - you are trying to look happy and ready to help”. 

Actual progress

If you are going vagabund you might be thinking about improvements at everything: career, relationships, friends, experience. IMO you won’t get anything of it just by flying to a new place every month. Don’t take it for granted, you will barely get new experience if you will not seek them by purpose. Seeing places IS NOT experience. You can see them online on Google Images. Yep. Traveliving is not any different from normal living. Warm climate, cheap products, sea - but nothing else.

Wanted to change yourself by “seeing the world”?. Sorry for ‘hurting’ your feelings and dreams then. You won’t get what you’re looking for in the trip. So: don’t search it in cheap tropics, or anywhere else - search it inside of you.

P.S. I am NOT a backpacker. I’m rather a flashpacker. I don’t have a backpack actually: just 2 small bags. I don’t travel on cheap either: my average spendings are $3000/month. But I do same and visit same places so I know it well.

P.S.2 I don’t mention pros of traveling, there are too many. I love it anyway. Photos

Some personal updates

I didn’t really enjoy Phuket(weak infrastructure), so I went to Phi-Phi(2 days) and then to Krabi. 2 weeks on Ao Nang(Krabi) were a good rest. Eventually I had to leave Thai. 30 days were over and in addition I was starving for new cities. Now it’s my 4th week in Kuala Lumpur. If I will migrate to asia in next couple of years - KL is my choice.

Offtopic or Why I’m Damn Happy I Chose Programming

The first freelance job(2007) is still fresh in my memory: there was a guy, he needed ‘news engine’ written in PHP. I just learned how ‘mysql_query()’ works and knew how to implement it. One table, couple of forms, couple of pages. Next 20 minutes I’ve been thinking: $8 or $10? EIGHT OR TEN bucks? My final decision was 10, but the guy responded “$30 if you can do it”. This is how I earned my first $30(I was 14). That clearly was a moment when I switched to ‘freelancing’.

Now $30 will barely be considered as price for any programming job. But in 2007 I thought 30 bottles of beer for 100 lines of code, it is awesome! If you ever wonder, my favorite beer was baltica 3. Now I prefer hoegaarden and franziskaner though.

2 years ago I had no idea how and why I will travel in South-Eastern Asia without any borders, parents, companions, completely free.

And, the funniest thing, I never thought anybody would call me a ‘hacker’.

Airports, flights, bus stations, chinese and indian people, skyscrapers and temples, exciting landscapes, completely new food and beverages. VS Office, education, college, homework, tests, cold winters, multiple duties… Should I have chosen the latter?

Could I do it being a doctor, a lawyer, whatever onsite-only job? Hardly.

current status

28 Nov - 22 Dec Kuala Lumpur

22 Dec - 26 Dec Singapore

26 Dec, 3 months - Mui Ne. I am going to stay in Viet Nam and study kite surfing. Looks like a good plan

When I get older I will be stronger..

So far I like Asia. It’s dirty, it’s friendly, it’s hot, it’s vibrant, it’s crowded and funny.

Wifi and 3G are far from perfect but more or less stable.

So I spent 10 days in Hong Kong, just finished a week in Bangkok and now heading to Phuket to become a long-stayer. (on Krabi or Koh Samui maybe).

must-visit for next months: Bali(indonesia), Kuala Lumpur, Singapore.

I will go home after April 15(and be on songkran in Bangkok 13-15 Apr)

Check photos!