Mikes Writing

Weekend follies

Last night I sat over where I drank beer. And I drank some beer. I heard some American people talking at the restaurant. It is kind of a gathering spot for tourists and expats. One of the people was this YouTuber that I neither like or hate. I think it runs neutral. His expat retiree advice channel has a few thousand subscribers and I guess regular viewers he will meet for the beer out and then talking. He was sitting right next to me and I guess I knew it but I prefer to not really engage with some barang people if I can help it. He was mentioning it is very costly to get health insurance here if over some magical age like 60. It depends if you use a Cambodian company for it. There are at least two of them. Both have been around for some years. At one point I got a quote from one and it seemed reasonable for the coverage. So I let him know he should go look at them and then see what he thought. Another barang person on an expat forum uses one of them and likes it. He was astonished or surprised or whatever it was that he was. Then they all left.

The person with him just got here some months ago so the bloom is fresh. The "everything and everyone here is wonderful and I love it here" bloom. I guess I lost that a long time ago. I feel that Cambodia is a great place to retire. To go live some final years or go have some fun. Go do both. It's not utopia or paradise. It is a nice place. Like I've written here before given some choice this would not be it for me and I would not have met my wife if Vietnam were a choice. Always that was when I started thinking on how I ended here...

I lived here a spell before the pandemic and ended up cavorting around Cambodia for months wherever. Find a place I want to see. Go there. I always liked that kind of moving around. Vietnam was really good for it too.

It seems like whenever I ended at a place I really did not want to be I would bail for Siem Reap or Saigon. One time to KL. The escape hatch was always open so I took advantage then of cheaper prices flying around. The bus was never an issue either. Here in Cambodia, it's an easy way to just go. I always found it comfortable and whether the driver spoke English or not never seemed a deal. He would make sure we all knew we had reached our destination or we were just stopping for a rest break.

It was never my intention getting here in 2022 to just sit in a place. Put down the "roots" and find my place in some retirement scene here. When I left a decade or so ago, I never had it in mind to find a place to settle. I had settled too long in America. I needed the change. The way to reboot, rekindle, find that life did not need to be about what do I do next.

like now

I still dislike the whole "next" thing. It hems us in. Limits us and makes us declare a thing. I would rather just invent a new now then invest in trying to figure out next. This has become really obvious in what I do now. Or I guess what I don't do. One YouTuber I like did a video here on what he has done the last two weeks. Gleefully he announced he accomplished,

nothing.

Now that's the idea folks. Why spend time pretending to find things to do next when it's really our time in life to spend our moments doing whatever we damn well please. There's no next. Maybe a lot of Cambodian mentality eludes me sometimes but their idea that it is Now I love. My wife would say,

yesterday is gone. Tomorrow is not here lovely. We have now.

So that's the picture I am painting here with my little beer hangover. So let's see where this goes. It's gonna be coffee time out. Do I dare say "next"? Okay I dare. I do know I will walk and think and stop maybe for a fresh pastry on the walk. I'll feel that wonderful sense of collision of then and when.

coffee time down some street

First was the stop for pastries. This street stall has the most wonderful freshly made pastries. Always the same for me.

Now the day has this beautiful warm feeling but never doubt rain comes back during this season. So I walked and enjoyed. The little beer headache pushed to the back in favor of blue skies and these truly majestic clouds that seemed to want a comeback.

Down to Summer Coffee. Probably the most elegant place on this side of town. There are lots of upscale boutique hotels around yet not many barang people stop here.

I'll walk after this. Maybe this becomes a two blog post day. Time will tell.