How We Met: Chase & Bhavya’s Story

Hey everyone! Welcome to our very first blog post! A lot of you have been asking how Bhavya and I met, so I thought I’d share our story with you.

Since I (Chase) am the one writing this post, I’ll start with my side of the story. My name is Chase Cohn. I grew up in Stuart, Florida, and went to Florida State University. After graduating, I took a job as a financial advisor with a large multi-family office and worked there for two years. I enjoyed my work, but the urge to travel and explore was strong, and I eventually decided to take a break from the nine-to-five and experience something new. I packed my bags and headed to Sri Lanka to meet up with a friend who had been traveling Southeast Asia for four months already.

After two amazing weeks in Sri Lanka, I found myself in Indonesia. I spent a month backpacking across Java, hiking mountains, exploring waterfalls, visiting factories, and then took a ferry to Bali, where I stayed in a hostel. It was there that I first met Bhavya. We introduced ourselves, but we didn’t hang out much at the time – he was deeply focused on a coding project.

A few days later, I packed up and left the hostel, traveling around Bali to all the popular spots for backpackers. I spent two incredible months exploring Indonesia, and by the end of it, my visa was about to expire. But I wasn’t ready to return to the States just yet, so I decided to do a “visa run.” Visa runs are common among expats in Bali, where tourist visas last only two months. Typically, people will head to a nearby country like Malaysia or Singapore for a few days before returning.

I chose Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, because the flights were affordable. I was there for three days, and on one of those nights, fate seemed to intervene – I ran into Bhavya on the streets of Kuala Lumpur! This time, we really hit it off.