Credits

We wanted to give a big thanks to all of those who supported our crazy dream and to those who helped us back home while we were on this journey...

Mom and Dad Sobba (Oscar thanks you too!)
EWEB
Heather
Patty and Rowan

For the quote that gave us confidence we weren't crazy for taking this journey...

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain

For all the amazing people we met along the way that made the journey that much better...

MARSHALL ISLANDS
Alan & Kathy (Arizona & Seattle)
Francis Reimers in Arno (RMI)
Jon (USA living in Kiribati)
Steve in RMI airport (England)

KOSRAE - MICRONESIA
Matt Rote & Meg(Hawaii & USA)
Matt Jr (Connecticut)
Jim & Madison (San Francisco)
Max & Allison (Switzerland)
Mark & Maria (Italy & Tennessee)
Rick (USA living in Palau)

YAP - MICRONESIA
(German couple)

PALAU
(3 Brit neighbors had beer with)
Lawerence & Micheal (USA living in Phillipines)

SINGAPORE
We were lame and drank a lot :)

NONG KHAI - THAILAND
Sven (Sweden)
Kai (Thailand)
Pai (Laos)
Hak (Cambodia)
Ronald & Wilmer (Holland)
Simon (Germany)
Matt (USA)
Chris (USA)
The rest of the openmind crew (Thailand)

LAOS
(couple from Australia had wine with)

CAMBODIA
(3 Brits living in Phenom Phen)
Vy (Cambodia)

MALAYSIA
Pete (England)
Ian & Debbie (England)
Milo (Malaysian monkey 1)
George (England)
Carrie +3 (USA & Denmark)
Mia & Eli (Toronto, Canada)
Joey (Tioman, Malaysia)
Kiki (Malaysian monkey 2)
Bongo (Malaysian monkey 3)
Forbjorn (Sweden)
Mohd (Malaysian braclet guy)

INDONESIA
Dan & Aria(Canada)
Jasmine(Austraila)
Michael(Austraila)
Daniel(Holland)
Tony and Noy(France & Thailand)
Peter & Clair(S Africa & England)
Dan (Singigi, Lombok, Indonesia)
4 locals at pool (Kuta, Lombok)
Adam in Kuta (USA/S Africa)
Paul (Oregon, USA)
Shannon (Perth, Austraila)
Ricky (Ireland)
Amanda (England)
Sabrina (Switzerland)
Rheanne (Perth, Australia)
Ian & Allison (England)
Andre & Katy (Australia)
Angus (New Zealand)
Andrew (New York, USA)
Sudirman (Makassar, Indonesia)
Phillip (Quebec, Canada)
Michael & Caroline (Canada)
Natsir (Toraja, Indonesia)
Steven (Toraja, Indonesia)

THAILAND
Mui & Joe & JT (Thailand)
Andrew (USA)
Bean (Thai)
Kate (Krabi)
All our novice monk students
May (Krabi)

We hope our paths cross again in the future.

Thanks to those who followed our journey through the blog. We hope you enjoyed it! Until next time! ;)

Our Last Few Weeks

It was our final couple of weeks, so the plan was to soak it all in and enjoy every last moment of what has been an amazing trip. First stop was one last weekend on a beautiful beach, why did we say we were tired of this? Koh Lanta is an island in Southern Thailand and is known for being a quiet and secluded getaway. It’s off season here now, so it was beyond quiet and felt a little more like a deserted island. It was a perfect way to enjoy a couple of days relaxing and we got some amazing weather. We swam in the warm water, ate good food, rented a scooter to explore the island and just relaxed. We went on our final dives of the trips and decided to do some cave dives. We dropped down into the water swam through the cave opening and resurfaced in the middle of a series of caves. It was so much fun and with the beautiful scenery on the boat ride out there it was a perfect little farewell to islands and diving for us.

Our own little private beach bar

Our next stop was the chaos of a city known as Bangkok! We were meeting up with Kelly’s sister Whitney for a few days to explore the city and enjoy some shopping. We stayed on the infamous Khao Son Road and took in all the shops, street food and partying that makes this place known. I think we chose one of the hottest days to go explore the Reclining Buddha and the Grand Palace. It was all beautiful and amazing, since we’ve been exposed to all of this culture for so long it was nice to see Whitney experience all of it for the first time. I think we realized just how much of the SE Asia culture had become second nature to us at this point. We hardly even notice the mayhem of crazy traffic anymore. After experiencing some of Bangkok, we were all off to Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand.

Reclining Buddha

Grand Palace

Chiang Mai is up in the mountains and not too far from the borders with Laos and Myanmar, it’s known for elephants,  Buddhist Wats, and it’s amazing arts/crafts; so we took advantage of it all. Since it was the end of our trip we figured we could finally start shopping and load up on all the cool stuff we’d been passing up the last 6 months. We even took in ringside seats at a Muay Thai fighting match one night. Every night we found ourselves at either the night bazaar or at one of their famous dimly lit street walks. The atmosphere was always amazing and all of the crafts and arts are fascinating to look at and shop for.

Whitney planned a Wat walk for us one day so we got to see lots of cool temples and statues. Most of the wats are in the old town area which is actually surrounded by a moat to this day and has most the original walls and gates protecting the city still intact. We found it nice being surrounded by monks again, we were really beginning to realize how weird it would be at home not to see orange monk robes everywhere.

Ringing bells in front of the Buddhist temple brings good luck

We also took the opportunity to go ride elephants, way cool! Of course we got the fatty that couldn’t get enough food and would walk two steps and want another banana but I guess I’d eat a lot two if I was 2,000 lbs. There was also a few baby elephants that were cute but clumsy, fun to watch them playing in the river and spraying themselves down with water from their trunks. After that we stopped at a Karon village in the south and then trekked into a waterfall for some swimming. We wrapped up the day by floating down the river on a bamboo raft and enjoying the river.

A 5 month old baby elephant

Whitney and Kelly on our homemade bamboo raft

Taking in the night market

We all had fun in Chiang Mai and got more than our fair share of shopping in, enjoyed as much Thai food as we could take in and took in way too much Chang beer.  Before we knew it our time was up in Chiang Mai and it was time for us to return to Bangkok for our last few days. We stayed in a different area of Bangkok to get a different feel of the city. We were actually shopped out and our bags couldn’t handle much more, so we really just relaxed, got lots of massages and reflected on our trip the last few days. Before we knew it we were packing up our bags for the very last time and on our way to our very last airport….for this trip anyway.

Downtown Bangkok

Final thoughts:

It has been an AMAZING journey for us and we've both fulfilled a dream. We have seen so much, met so many amazing people, experienced many different cultures first hand and took way too many pictures. We couldn’t have asked for a better, smoother, safer or more amazing trip than we got. We had over 24 flights with only 1 delay, no lost luggage, no major illnesses, and most amazingly- no traffic accidents!  It has been a journey in more ways than one and we can't help but feel changed in some ways. We can't believe it's over but we feel ready to come home too... at least we think we are.


"Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living." ~Miriam Beard

Krabi, Thailand

It’s hard to believe, but after 5 months on the road we reached our final destination, Thailand. We have experienced so much on this journey and feel very lucky to have been able do this, so we felt it was important for us to give something back.  We signed up for a volunteering opportunity with Openmind Projects  teaching English to novice monks in the southern Thailand region of Krabi.  We also took this as an opportunity to get use to more of a set schedule before we head back home!

Wat Keaw

We met with a teacher the first day and were immediately given a class to teach. We didn’t even know we’d be teaching that afternoon so hadn’t even made a lesson plan yet and the class was 2 hours long. It went well though and we immediately took to all the novice monks. We usually taught 1 to 2 classes each day that lasted about 2 hours and the monks aren't allowed to take any breaks.  These boys are from the ages of 14 to 18 years old and while they are learning to be monks, they are boys first. They like to talk in class, wrestle around, laugh a lot and get a bit restless after about 90 minutes.  They were all good kids though and we would spend the next 3 weeks helping them with their English and learning about Western culture as well. We played them American music, had rounds of hangman, taught them rock, paper, scissors and showed them pictures of our home and travels. They were always full of both questions and energy. They would try to teach us Thai words and laugh at our terrible pronunciations. They all have nicknames since it’s too hard for westerners to pronounce their Thai names and they somehow decided to give Angie the nickname of Angelina Jolie. We weren’t sure how a nickname could be longer than her real name, but they loved to say it and giggle. Kelly assured them that she wasn’t there to adopt all their Thai babies ;)

They told us how they get up at 5 am every day to get their alms (offerings of food), then came back to meditate, eat and then start their day of school. Their English isn’t always good, but we were able to understand things through dictionaries and actions. We would eat lunch with them and were soothed by their prayer chanting before and after meals. We found out that as monks they are not allowed to eat any food after noon, which would be hard when you are a growing boy! When we would see them outside of class they always were waving and coming over to talk to us. The good thing with this is that even if we didn’t teach them that much, we at least seemed to motivate them to try and learn English. We hope that desire will stick with them long after we’re home.

While we were teaching we lived in a house in Krabi and it was nice to have a home base for a change. We really haven’t stayed in one place for more than 5-6 nights since we left so it was great to be able to unpack for awhile.  That said the house wasn’t exactly the same as our houses back in the States are.  It had a kitchen outside with a garden hose as water, one room, no air conditioning in a very hot and humid place, no hot water, and a semi-traditional SE Asia toilet. For those who haven't had the pleasure of experiencing a SE Asia toilet, it is known as a squatter. The name pretty much says it all, you squat over a hole in the floor, use a water squirter instead of tiolet paper and then dump a genorous amount of water to "flush." We  felt lucky to at least have the toilet seat, but we still had to pour buckets of water in it to flush. This means your bathroom is always wet which doesn't seem that sanitary.  We had a bed on the floor and 2 roommates to share the house with.  It was ridiculously hot without any a/c then mix in the dogs fighting all night, the body shop that opens at 6 am next door, and it didn't equal much sleep most nights.



Ugh...the "water bucket to flush system" will not be missed

Being in one place and having a house allowed us to really experience Thai life. We went shopping at the markets, ate at the night stalls and really just took in living in a Thai town. Krabi isn’t a huge tourist destination and it was the middle of the off-season so we got a pretty authentic experience and really liked it. We even started getting to know people around town a little.  We had a great coffee lady that got to know our orders and loved to try and speak some English with us. Since 90% of the population is Buddhist and monks are very sacred here, whenever they found out we were teaching at the Wat they were genuinely thankful. We got to know the small town well in a short period of time and felt less like tourists and more like we were living overseas, which was a different experience compared to the rest of the trip.

We also managed to get a DJ spot on a radio station here in Krabi. Our Openmind contact here in Krabi has a radio station and offered us an international hour slot every night after the news. We were DJ KT and Sidekick DJ Angelina Jolie. We even have little radio jingles now and our voices are on commercials out here! It was really fun getting to talk on the air and getting to play songs we love! Unfortunately the radio station had to move locations our last week in Krabi, so we never really got to do a final show. And no, they didn’t have to move locations because of us…I don’t think. It was a lot of fun while it lasted though! I’m not sure how entertaining we were, but we were always laughing and having fun. Plus we got to enjoy the air conditioned DJ booth for a few hours every day!

During the week if we weren't teaching, preparing lesson plans or DJ'ing we would try to get out and enjoy the town. We would try to escape the heat and find stores and coffee shops that had air conditioning! That said, I'm not sure what we were thinking when we decided to go explore the Tiger Cave Temple in town.  It has about 1,260 steps to the top of a mountain which was supposed to have amazing views and a Buddha stupa. It was so hot and humid that somewhere in the 500 range we had to sit down and catch our breath. We were drenched in sweat with no water in sight and are only rescue was when the monkeys came around to entertain us.  After watching them for awhile, we decided we were okay not making it all the way to the top and started the long descent down for some cold water.

Carefully climbing down the ladder/steps

Even the monkeys were thirsty

We did have weekends off from both teaching and DJ’ing so we would go to the nearby islands and beaches to enjoy the warm water and sun. We got to spend time on Ao Nang, Ko Phi Phi, Ko Lanta and Railay just to name a few. I think more than anything we were enjoying real beds and lots of air conditioning! The beaches were all very pretty and even though this is considered Thailand’s wet season, we got some really nice weather!

Ao Nang beach

Long Beach, Ko Phi Phi

Railay  Beach

Ko Phi Phi

Ao Lo Dalam

Before we knew it our time was up in Krabi and it's getting close to being over in general! The novice monks and teachers gave us a thank you and going away ceremony.  A few of the students got up and sspoke in English and asked us to please come again. It was very sweet, even a little emotional for us, and we really will miss all of them. They bought us some traditional Thai “teacher” shirts and chanted a Buddhist blessing for us before we left. We brought them in Snickers and Coke as our  way of saying an American good-bye. We made a toast and we all clinked glasses, which they enjoyed. We were sad to go and leaving reminded us that our travels really are almost over.

We are now heading on to Bangkok and Chang Mai for our last two weeks and then we’re on our way home! It seems like the 6 months have flown by in some ways and yet at the same time some days it  feels like we’ve been gone even longer! We are very excited to get back, sad for it to be over and mainly just trying to enjoy every last minute we have!

Chok dee (good luck) to all our students and friends in Krabi! We will miss you!

Our lemur friend trying to pose like Kelly's shirt

Tana Toraja, Sulawesi, Indonesia

From Flores/Komodo it would be 2 flights, a couple layovers, and a 10 hour bus ride up into the mountains until we reached the south central Sulawesi area known as Tana Toraja. Not the ideal way for Kelly to celebrate his birthday but Tana Toraja would prove to be well worth it. The adventure started as soon as we landed in Makassar, the large port city. The people were extremely friendly and inquisitive right off the bat. While we were killing time waiting on our bus we took a taxi to a mall in town and when we stepped through the front door the needle on the record literally stopped. Everyone stopped what they were doing and just stared at us, seriously weird but we'd soon find out that here in Sulawesi we were rock stars! We even had one guy talk us up in the coffee shop and then insist he buy our drinks after taking some pictures with us.

We pulled into Tana Toraja just as the sun was coming up and immediately the scenery was like nothing we’d ever seen. The mountains, limestone cliffs, terraced rice fields, weird houses, and albino water buffalos etc, etc, etc were the most unique of anywhere in world we’ve travelled. And the culture, simply out of this world, it's hard to know even where to begin! We weren't sure if we had taken a step back in time or if we had entered the twilight zone some days!

Tana Toraja countryside

 Tana Toraja is best “known” for its beauty and its unique culture/religion. The Toraja people are now mostly Christian, but hold on to their animistic rituals and beliefs as well. The Toraja consider death the most important moment of their lives, the liberation of the soul from the material world. A funeral festival makes it possible for the soul to leave and enter into puya, their idea of heaven where you become a demi-god. But if the dead doesn’t come equipped with enough sacrificed buffalos and pigs from their festival they might not reach the gates of puya. What is even more bizarre is that these festivals are huge and take years to prepare for and the bodies of the deceased are mummified and kept in the house of the immediate family until the festival. It is not unusual to be asked to visit the deceased and have a “conversation” to keep the spirit company until the festival takes place. This strange idea is only topped by the way they bury their dead in caves and suspend their coffins from cliffs with eerie tau taus; or puppets as effigies to the dead. Add to this their love of their sacred water buffalos- which are too revered to work- but are more of a status symbol.  There is also the odd belief that an albino buffalo, which costs more than a car here, brings even more fortune and luck to the owner. Throw in their unusual tongkonan houses with their intricate rice barns and you have just a piece of the Torajan culture.

Traditional rice barn

A beloved albino water buffalo

We set out to visit a site where these cliff graves and tau taus can be seen alongside some rice barns and explore the area.We ventured into the first area and were immediately surrounded by giggles of teenagers that were obviously following us.  One was finally brave enough to ask us for our pictures and when we said yes, oh let the pictures begin. All 12 of them had to have a group picture, followed by each of them having an individual picture with us, followed by a group of just 2 or so at a time, followed by another group picture. About 40 pictures and 20 minutes later we proceeded on with our journey.  That lasted about 2 minutes until the next group arrived wanting all of their pictures with us. The second group happened to be about 20 school age kids that where there on a field trip with their teacher who asked us to come speak with them. We were bombarded with kids shouting their name, “hello”, “where are you from”, “do you like it here”, all at the same time. We ended up sitting down with the group and talking to the teacher for about 90 minutes while about 100 some pictures were taken. The teacher insisted that we come to their village and have dinner with him, he even wanted us to stay at the village for a couple nights or more. We agreed to meet for dinner a couple of days later and while Kelly was getting the directions Angie had a line waiting for even more photos.  It would be a whole family photo, followed by one photo with her just holding the baby, followed by one with all the kids, then all the adults, then just grandma, and then one more picture of her hugging someone. All a little strange, but the people were smiling and having a good time.  We finally broke away and were still trying to make it up to the grave sites we had originally come to see.

We made our way up to the caves to see the bones, rotting coffins, and creepy tau taus that reside in the cliffs. It was all fascinating in a really bizarre Edgar Allen Poe sort of way. The tau tau’s are actually hand carved wood made to look like the dead. The families will actually change their clothes periodically to keep the spirits happy. The newest tau taus are even creepier looking than the old ones. While we were taking in the sites and taking photos of the place, everyone else was taking photos of us. I’m not sure which was stranger, them trying to get us to pick up the old bones to pose for a picture, or the fact they were following us around everywhere. We made it to a few more cliff graves and stopped to see the baby graves in the tree. The idea here is that since a baby is still growing, if you bury it in the trunk of a living tree it will continue to grow.

Graves suspended in the cliffs

Cliff graves with tau taus

Posing for pictures with rotting coffins and bones

A tau tau of a recently deceased

A baby grave tree

A hillside with over 40 tau taus

We somehow got invited to a funeral festival the next day, which seems weird since we obviously didn’t know the person, but in Torajan culture, the more at the funeral the better it is. So we ventured out to the festival and had no idea exactly how graphic and foreign it would be to us. When we arrived the area was filled with pigs tied to bamboo poles squealing and water buffalo tied to trees with no idea what fate lies before them.  The first thing that happens at a festival is that the coffin is hoisted onto a platform and will remain there for the whole festival, which is about 5 days. I must say that it seemed like they were having some difficulties getting the body up there and we were half waiting for a dead body to come rolling out.  They got it up there though eventually. We then went to have coffee and greet the family of the deceased, something that is customary, and found out whose funeral we were attending. Apparently he was the village chief who died when he was 90, some 10 years prior. That’s right, for 10 years he has been “living” mummified in the family home awaiting his festival. After we drank some coffee and stared at the family for what seemed like an adequate amount of time, we excused ourselves since it was about time for the water buffalo to be sacrificed.

Hoisting the coffin up with bamboo poles

One of the many pigs being brought in for sacrifice

I’m not sure exactly why we thought we wanted to witness this, but it seemed like something we should see. They lead the water buffalo out, which is worshipped in their culture, and you could see the love these people have for the animal. They were petting it and the kids were leaning up against it while it calmly stood there. Then they reached for a rope and put it around the front leg of the buffalo and it was almost like it knew. It got a little tense and shifty and then a guy pulled out a huge knife and raised the buffalos neck in the air. There was a quick gesture, a terrible smell, sound of blood splattering on the ground, a gasping sound and then the thump of the water buffalo hitting the ground. It laid still for a few minutes and then gave one final attempt to breath and get up before it slowly died. It was all very graphic to us and yes Angie was crying. We understand that to them death is not to be feared, and though they love the buffalo, they are giving it as a gift, sending on to help their loved one get into puya. It all was rather graphic and just a little up close and personal for us. We even thought about becoming vegetarians for a minute. Luckily it was only the one water buffalo sacrificed that day, on the 3rd day there would be 20 sacrifices in a row. Nope… not even considering coming back for that, plus we still had pigs all around us that were on the slate to be sacrificed next. It seemed like we were in a slaughter house already, I couldn’t even imagine more blood and bodies.

Kids in traditional dress bringing in the water buffalo

The sacrificed- before they began to butcher him

The rest of the ceremony was an endless amount of guests walking in behind traditional dancers  and offering their gifts of pigs and water buffalo to the deceased’s family.  It is a very precise business in which the weight and number of offerings from a family are recorded and checked with past records to make sure they gave back the amount that was given to their family. So basically it’s more of a pig for a pig, than an eye for an eye in this culture. It was interesting to watch for a while and when we thought we had had enough culture for the day we decided to head home. On our way out we were stopped though and invited in by yet another family for some coffee and treats. We were then told we couldn’t leave because the water buffalo fights were coming up and we surely didn’t want to miss those.  This just keeps getting weirder by the minute.

Traditional dance performed as guests form to give gifts

Girls in traditional Toraja wear

We learned that no buffalos would die or get hurt during the fights; we couldn’t handle any more blood for the day. You could still hear the squeal of the pigs that were being sacrificed, about 30 of them alone that day. So, we stayed for the water buffalo fights and were glad we did. The water buffalo have fighting size and weight classes and you could even bet for money on who was going to win, this is still a funeral right? They basically lead two water buffalo out into the arena and put them face to face, once they make eye contact, it’s on! There is a lot of grunting, showing their teeth, pawing at the ground and then some locking of the horns and pushing. Pretty soon one gets scared and takes off running, out of control and into the crowd none-the-less.  People do get hurt watching these matches, but before they start everyone has to give their verbal consent that they are aware of the dangers and won’t hold anyone responsible.  We were pretty sure a verbal ok wouldn’t hold up in the US, but we are talking Indonesia here and anything goes. While seeing these huge buffalo wildly run into the crowd, we realized that while the running of the bulls in Spain had always been on our list of things to do, we can probably cross that one off now. I think we probably fear death a little more than the Torajan’s.

Water Buffalo fights

We left the festival only to witness numerous pigs waiting/being sacrificed and saw them butchering the ones who had already been sacrificed. There were was a line of  pig heads nicely lined up along the path. There also seemed to be a water buffalo holding area where numerous animals had no idea of knowing what was in store for them. It was a bit humbling, and while a very exotic and unique experience, we had had enough sacrifices in one day to last a lifetime.

The next morning we had to be up early to go out to the village to meet our new friend Natsir. We rented a scooter for the 35 minute journey and realized we had been in SE Asia too long since we were actually willing to drive on the roads. It was an easy journey out to Natsir’s village and it was beyond beautiful there. He lives in a village up on a hill with the terraced rice fields everywhere below. He wanted us to come out to help teach English and help better the lives of the Toraja kids. He teaches English at the local school and while he doesn’t have much money, he uses all that he has to build a school at his house that he calls “Little England.” He really believes in higher education and believes that learning English is the best way to give the kids a chance at a better life here.  He spends his own time and all his money funding his own classes for the kids. He has 4 of his own kids that were incredibly sweet and we really took to the 2 boys.  Two of his boys have cleft lips and he doesn’t have the money to have them fixed, but realizes even if he did the money would be better spent on teaching them English.

Steve, Natsir and Kelly enjoying the awesome view!

Angie and Natsir's sons enjoying the soccer ball we brought them!

The classrooms of "Little England"

We spent the day cooking a traditional Toraja meal in bamboo tubes, luckily they had killed and plucked the chickens before we got there. We roasted the tubes on the fire, played with some of the local village kids in the classroom, and enjoyed the beautiful scenery.  We helped him put together a pamphlet in English to help attract tourists to his school to teach English. We were kind of sad that we had already signed up to volunteer, because these seemed like the perfect fit for us. We were loving the people of Indonesia in general and the beauty of Toraja would have kept us satisfied for weeks!  After a long day of eating and talking we sadly had to get on our way. We agreed to tell everyone about his place.  All he really wants is someone to interact and help teach English, for nothing in return. He doesn’t want money to stay at his place or even to help with food, just people willing to stay and help. He was a very generous guy with a huge desire to help his community. If there’s one thing we found consistent with all the people we met, it was that despite all their strange beliefs, they are all very down to earth, non-judgmental, intelligent and higher thinking people. For example, they bury people in cliffs so that farmland isn’t used up for future generations and they really hope to be an example to the rest of Indonesia of how Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, etc. can all live together peacefully. Cool place and even cooler people! We hope to make it back one day!

Cooking the bamboo tubes over open flames

We got so much culture and great memories out of our Toraja stop, but it was time to go. We were sad to leave and yet ready for our fame to be over at that same time! It was another 10 hour bumpy and long bus ride back to the airport and then on to Bali where we'd spend our 2 year anniversary! We enjoyed an upgraded room for the weekend and even splurged on a bottle of wine! Sadly our time in Indonesia was finished! We loved it here and were really sad to go! One more stop for a month in Thailand and then it's home! Wow, where did the time go?