Mikes Thoughts

where Jason went

I know I’ve written on this before. Some blog ago. In blog time. I flashed back to late 2021. Then my reality was Mexico. I had just left Puerto Vallarta after 3 months. I had 3 months left. I decided I wanted something completely different. Unique. So I did Merida. Merida is both a huge and small city. It has wondrous big city things like malls. Then there’s beautiful colonial neighborhoods. Charming parks. Beautiful people. I liked living there.

The first time I stayed in this Airbnb that seemed caught in two worlds. There was a group of expats living there. We all gathered mornings to talk and some of us would do coffee later. Others worked online. Jason had been there his entire time. He was coming up on his last few months of a break from work. Then he would go back to truck driving. We kinda hit it off. He was just different enough to make life interesting.

He left early 2022. I left March. He back to Texas and driving big rig trucks. Me to Houston on a visa run. I needed to exit and enter so I could get another six months. I did that and left in September 2022. Back to Cambodia. Back to whatever.

We had been talking about where he could go to reboot from the months or almost year of long haul trucking. I suggested Cambodia and he was game.

Part 2 Cambodia and Jason

He flew over some time after I got back and I met him in Phnom Penh. It was interesting and funny seeing how far our shared geography reached. We always talked about the Airbnb host in Merida. About her daughter. I have vivid memories of poor Mikaela adulting at 9 years old. Her mom would not do kid things with her. No friends. No social activities. Birthday parties. Ice cream things. She sat at the house and looked lonely and forlorn. So she gravitated to us. I liked talking to her and some of her attitudes were refreshing and candid. A favorite saying when her mom asked her to do something was,

Not today

Which left us all laughing. Soon though her mom forbade her to “bother” us. She was back to forlorn status. But I digress. Sorry. It’s age.

So there we were in Cambodia. Often we would talk about those days and the “what if” scenarios. If we had instead gone to Panama. Or Jason had gone back to Philippines. Soon though we settled in to a strange yet funny life in a long stay guest house right at the river. We would do our share of drinking and eating. People watching and wondering. I remember we would wonder,

Why is so and so expat like that. How did he meet her.

On and on. Soon Jason decided he would move to Kampot. I am not sure why. It was this thing that came upon him and he did it. This seemed to signal his departure from Cambodia and in 2024 he left.

And then completely disappeared.

For almost two years no word from him until the other night when I found his email. Email is wonderful. I don’t care what you say. So I sent and he responded and told me a digested version of his years. Two years in Philippines. Not terribly happy but he has tried. He wants something else. Different. Maybe it’s Cambodia again. Who knows.

What I do know is he has up to three years on extending tourist visas. Then he’s done. He needs a cheap place. A place where his little quirks and needs can be met. Cambodia and Vietnam come to mind. There is no retirement visa in Vietnam no matter what all the YouTubers say. So every 90 days you go. Visa runs. Not a life he wants. He likes more of the settled in thing. Cheap apartment. Basic life. Coffee and the occasional rum and coke easily procured. This makes Cambodia interesting again.

Why do I tell you

Well look at it this way. It’s a roundabout story about choices. We all make them and then deal with their fallout. With choices come change. And then we all deal with that too. Many of us tough it out in places that we hate. Where life passes us by. Where we cannot do the rum and coke easily.

I’m not saying Cambodia is a paradise. Nor am I saying it’s the answer to all the questions.

What I am saying is it can be an answer. Choices and changes. Jason deals with them in his way. We all do. Consider what we should do when we retire. Is it more of the same? Why not take a chance on a choice that has an unknown. What you got to lose. I had nothing so I knew my course. It was time to put down those other playthings. Find new toys.

Jason gonna look at his toys. His choices. Take a bad one. Or something else. Our home country is not it for us. We need this edge of life Asia offers. This richness and weirdness. This fit of choice and change.

So the story all comes around. Did you ever doubt it? I did. I never know if they will. I just know I have them to tell.