Mikes Thoughts

Battambang and on

We’ve not been away for a few months it seems. So we decide to take the easiest van ride. It’s 3 hours give or take a rest stop on decent roads. These days the cellular service gives me the whole trip with music or I can stare absently out the window. Seeing how the rice fields give way to small villages. Shops selling food. My wife will do Facebook and TikTok so no need to try talking. Three hours seems a long time to talk to me but for her it’s a standard length. I’m not sure how people do it.

I was thinking about going and ended at Spring Coffee to just sit. Met a Khmer guy that owns a small jewelry shop in his house. We talked awhile. It’s always pleasantries. About life here. My wife here. How I find Cambodia to live in. It’s funny really that so many people do YouTube vlogs now covering what they do. People not here have preconceived notions. I’ve read some who will state,

It’s a third world country.

That’s not true. Many things exist here much like Shakespeare once said about more things in heaven and earth than in your philosophy. It’s true here. Cambodia is not some backwards facing place with no modern technology. There are places along the way to Battambang that gives a view to rural and country life. There is poverty. There are people going hungry. People without decent internet. Where in the world is there a place with all that in place all over the country? That I would want to live in. No place America or other places barang that I see.

I think on this sometimes. This living. How life here can be a crazy quilt of times. How days cease to matter. How time is this clock face with no hands. What I know here is I love the living in Siem Reap. How the city opens up to all. What I want perhaps is living closer to it all. I’ve come to uncertain parity with how it is.

So this little 3 or 4 days is about both going toward and away and finding myself between. Going for walks. Finding small out of the way Khmer coffee shops. Hearing laughter and motos sputtering. City streets and businesses that embrace the sidewalk. A horn honks. A person asks. Coffee delivered on moto.

Is this not all life? Not in some third world place. Just in this place. Right now in spring coffee where the WiFi rules and the coffee does too.

In Battambang it will be Heart Coffee. Only because I always go to watch the city. Spy on it. Feel its urge. It’s slow pace yet hurried. From May this year when we last went it was thus.

Battambang 2025

Outside some place where I just stopped. Found my moments. And on.

So what to anticipate. To want. To need. Well I don’t anymore. There is no upside to wanting things. With things come more things. My wife thinks though I need more shirts. More $3 cheap shirts I wear each day. If she shops for me she will buy 10. Even if I tell her I can only wear one at a time. She will say,

don’t tell me. I will do what I think for you.

So I just go on peacefully. Cheap clothes. Thoughts. Writing. Watching. Pretending to listen to the chatter on the bus. Someone wishes to talk English. So I do. We sputter along like the moto until the other person loses interest and I gain Spotify again.

And that’s the rhythm of going and staying and being. If you can live in America you could easily live here. Imagine paying less for just about everything. Being in a place where old people are valued. Where difference is accepted. Yet it always seems people have some blocker. I think it boils down to fear. Fear of change. Of an unknown that still creeps around your ankles and soul. Bottom to top. Who wants a life spent with no wonder. No uncertainty besides a life in some Starbucks or Burger King.

An expat I met here was convinced its fear. Fear of doing after a life of doing. Even if after making a change you could sit comfortable and wise doing nothing. Having no big things. Not knowing what day it is. Or if time silently stalks you. Making the misery of a life spent with the same.

No thanks I think in Spring coffee or out walking or on the 3 hour ride to Battambang. I’ll take the unknown in this wonder. California is more than thousands of miles. It’s a life away. Soon I’ll enjoy it in Battambang.