Once the boat set off, everything shifted.  I arrived back on Koh Phangan and headed straight for the scooter rental place I’d used before.  They recognized me right away and were incredibly welcoming: “Here’s a better bike for you — same price as last time.”  I couldn’t believe it — the scooter was an absolute beast, and yet, sure enough, it cost the same.

Things kept improving.  I rode over to the bungalows I’d booked, and they turned out to be even better than my last stay: quieter, more comfortable, with a softer bed, and a beautifully minimal beachfront vibe.  Just a few simple chairs facing the ocean.  There was no fake music, no staged performances, no families chattering about their short vacation windows, no one snapping endless selfies. Just an open, peaceful beach.

The only catch?  The timing.  The guy at the hotel grinned and said, “Welcome — but you just missed a wicked party last night.”

Koh Phangan was totally more my vibe.  Samui and Phangan couldn’t have been more different. What struck me as oddly chilling yet strangely divine was standing there, looking back across the water toward Samui and seeing the whole island drenched in rain.  Just two days earlier, I’d been at Sun Sea on Samui, looking toward Phangan and seeing the exact reverse scenario play out back then.

Sure enough, Rob texted me: “Man, this rain is insane. It dumped all over the property and flooded the pool. You got out just in time.”

After a nice sleep in the bungalow, the next day was pretty much a do-nothing day.  It was about as Thai-style as you could imagine.  And yet, strangely, it turned out to be surprisingly productive.  In fact, I got more meaningful things done than I would have if I’d been at work back in China. I couldn’t quite wrap my head around that.  

So, I hopped on the scooter, rode over to 7/11 for a cappuccino, then had a solid American breakfast next door before pulling up a chair on the beach. The mission for the day was to tackle two supposedly straightforward questions:    

- Where the hell is that $30k cheque my bank back in Canada claims they mailed to Bangkok after finally agreeing to surrender that ridiculous cash-value universal life insurance policy?  (For clarity: not to be confused with the expat whole life policy I cashed out two years ago.)

- And once I track down that cheque — what am I going to do with the $30k? 

I could probably live comfortably for years in Thailand on just that cheque, keeping the midnight run going indefinitely when combined with my current funds.  But I was already thinking several moves ahead: the eventual close of this half-year sabbatical (even if it was unplanned) and returning to the teaching world again. Bottom line — that $30k was destined for the market.

***

The way this journal is unfolding, there’s kind of a “spoiler alert” that I’m hesitant to include if I stick strictly to chronological order.   Because if I do, it’ll give away the ending too soon.  So, here’s what I’ll do:  eventually, I’ll add a key section written after the fact, where I explain what I did in early April. Here’s a little clue for you, dear readers:  you might be wondering how I suddenly ended up in Dubai after catching a flight from Taiwan to Bangkok in early April.  Hmm, it looks like there’s a missing week in the storyline, isn’t there? That’s your hint. But for now, let’s get back to the story.

***

I ended up spending nearly the entire morning on the beach mapping out what I was going to do with that $30k:  more specifically, how I’d get it into the market and which markets to target.  It was probably some of the most important strategic work I’ve ever done, rivaling what hedge funds or quant teams sit around obsessing over.  And yet there I was doing it barefoot on the sand in Koh Phangan, a one-man operation, and it all felt as natural as breathing. I didn’t even notice the hours slip by.

Through an absolutely exhaustive conversation with AI, I came to a breakthrough:  that particular $30k was better off staying out of the U.S. markets and instead targeting emerging markets.  This was a true game changer.  I was fully in the driver’s seat, the whole strategy was my own creation,  and yet it felt like I now had a second brain working alongside me. I already had enough capital and exposure tied up in the U.S.; it was time to deploy this fresh tranche of capital into the emerging markets.

The next big question, though, was: which ones?

Not knowing where to begin, I spent hours reflecting on my early trading journey nearly two years ago.  The conversation veered towards all those success stories from swing trading Hong Kong small-cap stocks.  But then a sobering realization hit me:  back then, it was really just a mix of skill, luck, and timing to actually make profits.  If I had held onto any of that junk long-term, it would have wrecked my portfolio.

On top of that, the sheer barriers to entry for Hong Kong stocks — the insane lot sizes, the capital flight, the political pressure — had effectively pushed small players like me out of the game.  Hong Kong just sucks for long-term investing now; there’s no other way to put it, and it genuinely made me sad to acknowledge this.  It has absolutely everything to do with China’s long-term collapse and their creeping encroachment on Hong Kong.

So, Hong Kong would only get a tiny slice of this capital.

Where else, then?

Singapore emerged as the next best choice — it’s the rising financial hub, after all, so it deserved a bigger allocation. Next up:  South Africa, which I gave an even larger tranche, thanks to its rich mineral exports and the surprisingly friendly policies towards foreign retail capital.

By this point in the conversation, it was emerging (pardon the pun) that each emerging market would serve a specific niche for my capital — niches the U.S. alone couldn’t cover.  Hong Kong would be financial services, Singapore would represent the banking sector.  South Africa would cover minerals.

But the largest tranche of capital?  That was headed straight for the Middle East — specifically, Saudi Arabia and Israel. These markets offered specialized exposure to Islamic banking, air defense, cutting-edge software, and, of course, the world’s most famous black gold:  oil.

I was honestly amazed at how everything was falling into place.  This capital deployment strategy wasn’t just a market move;  it perfectly aligned with my personal narrative.  There was no denying it: the Middle East, and more specifically the Gulf countries, are the future. (You’ll see how it all ties together when I eventually fill in that missing section from early April.)

Even months, or really years, before that historic visit President Trump made last week to meet with Saudi’s crown prince, I could already see it happening:  the region was transforming.  Add to that all the deals and growing cooperation between Israel and its Gulf neighbors, it just made perfect sense to allocate the largest portion of capital there.

Once all that planning was wrapped up, it was definitely time for a scooter ride.  But I had to pause and appreciate the butterfly effect that had led me here.  This whole Middle East investment and career arc had been jump-started by a 78-year-old retiree I had randomly met in Pattaya during a bike trip back in early 2024.  Long story short, he was the one who convinced me to leave China and consider moving to the Middle East.  But really, he was just the latest link in a long chain of serendipitous encounters.  

I wish there were a way I could go back and find John, just to tell him how much he influenced me.  But we never exchanged emails or social media — it simply wasn’t his generation’s style.  For all I know, he might even be gone by now.  I truly hope he’s still alive, but maybe, in his own way, he saw himself as fulfilling a particular role: to deliver this one piece of life-changing advice and then purposely vanish.

The second butterfly effect? This entire capital deployment plan now hinged on a single cheque — the one Canada stubbornly insisted on issuing — and that cheque was probably lost somewhere in the mail. Or maybe, just maybe, it was already waiting for me in Bangkok. I was only a few days away from finding out.