Mikes Thoughts

beer and then

It’s about sitting at beatnik bar now. The place we met. I knew earlier today I’d go. After the big ole shrimp and curry. When I sat in the room looking at those four walls. Not really a sentence. More like punctuation. Some kind of end of a thing. Beginning of another. I sometimes think won’t go for beers out. Then my wife tells me,

You need a break from home. So go.

So I do. I go. It’s a PassApp ride and a first stop. I won’t stay here. It’s not like it used to be. But I’m not either. Change just wraps around the days. I’ve felt at times beleaguered and isolated. Like the house grows the walls tall. I feel sometimes both free and imprisoned. Like the song,

Walking contradiction. Partly truth and partly fiction.

I think when the beer is upon me and sometimes before it’s the default state of life here. We cannot be included. We don’t have the ingredients to be Cambodian. Everyone knows but expats here still will say to just wait. You will acclimate. Meet Khmer people. Join in. Become part of. This has felt made of unobtaineum. So it’s easier to just accept the differences. My wife is different and I’m different and we live differently. Some people here will live on $700 a month. I feel sometimes it’s possible but it does not give a life you would want retired. I don’t know what the cost of living is here. I figure it’s whatever you spend in a month. For some time in Hanoi I lived on $5 a day for food. It was not a requirement or need. I wanted to see what I could get. I ended up with more food in a day than I could imagine. A bowl of pho. Coffee, banh mi sandwich, beer.

After some time I stopped. Then I walked to Foodshop 45 for Indian food. I rejoiced. I could do a thing. Just because I could did not mean I should.

If I did $10 a day here and made $700 a month, enough left for rent. For perhaps a once a month splurge. This just occurs randomly to me because people here do that. Many leave a thing somewhere else that’s untenable. Something where hatred and jealousy are the norm. Maybe they used money somewhere else and got something back that made them go. No matter. They end up here. Life becomes maybe more here. Definitely different. Could you live on $700 a month?

I think on these things with my new beer at a new place. Sitting and watching tourists and expats mingle. Look at our life. We live far past that boundary.

Some other people come here before pensions kick in. They have savings. To me, that’s scary. Once the dollar is gone there is no replacement. No new money in weeks. I think a person must be disciplined or they face burning out. Having maybe enough to barely get back to a California or Florida that don’t want them. We are the lost generation. Get old and not wanted in one place. Decide to go and still cannot get the pension. Have to wait. I cannot imagine those hours. Those years. Painful. And hoping.

I see these people on YouTube. They made a choice and then another. Who can really blame a person for bad choices? It’s what we’re made of.

Cambodia is precious metal in many ways. They take people and give them a chance. A place they can live. Even on $700 a month. What would you advise someone to do?

I’d just have another beer. Be thankful I don’t live like that. I know of people that do. You can never hold a person wrongly until you know how their shoes take you that mile. Or longer. A lifetime.

Here perhaps they wait. A time will come. When this money also comes. Then life will become better. I wish them well. I’m thankful to only have what I have.

That’s the story of beer and then.