Mikes Thoughts

Battambang day 2

This starts with coffee in our room and the usual confusion which comes with traveling with another. I don’t think I will ever like going with someone else as much as I liked my wandering self. I wrote on the first day here which set the stage for three days of whatever.

When we do go I wonder how my wife adapts to suddenly not having her social connections for the mornings. She has no tea and talk time and she hungers for it I think. I not so much. I can’t imagine if a barang lived next door or down the street I would voluntarily spend hours seeking words with that sage person.

When we go, it just heightens the sense of how her fabric of life gets twisted slightly when it’s changed. How each of us is so different with how we act and react with people, places and things. Then when they all change how it all becomes. This limited day 2 reverie.

Anyways we will go down the street later for coffee at the place she likes and I put up with. Then because she has to eat with her blood pressure and sugar issues she will do soup. I won’t. She will likely find plenty of people in the market to replace those at home. I will wait and go later to the coffee shop I like.

Heart coffee and steps

I don’t like particularly the coffee place here we go to. So why go. Then for my wife it’s soup and social time. For me it’s room time. Alone. I’ll take it. Going to go when it feels right. Not when it’s time to talk. Just as an aside or whatever because things always pop into my somewhat strange mind when I write on other things.

Why do people insist when retiring to Thailand simply replicating all the stuff they had back where they came from. It seems odd to me that people populate their lives with stuff. I watch this one retired guys journeys in Thailand and one of his friends must be a hoarder. He has stuff. And more stuff. Things like campers and multiple motorcycles. Seems like life circles around things for them. I left all that behind when I left. I found simply having things meant I wanted more of other things. There’s no real point to it besides being able to do it. Like collecting things like watches. Why? Or having multiples of things. What I wanted after about 2014 was less. Not just physical stuff but mental as well. Minimalism is really a joke to me. When I left I did not want less. I wanted none. People need a label to call what they do. They find influencers who proclaim it. It gets a following. Monetized. Instead of doing that jive why not do nothing. It’s not ever really nothing. It’s the nothing more. I want nothing more than the nothing now I have. I look at things and wonder why. What is the thing that sucker punches people about having some and then finding it’s more of some. I lost what some would call everything when I divorced. Home. Furniture. Many elements of family. Even some friends. What I learned was that even with all that there is no guarantee of happiness when for me it comes from within. Can’t fit much stuff within. It’s already crowded in there. It’s a wondrous thing that what I truly value inside takes no space. Memories, moments, experiences do not need to be recharged or deleted to make room for more. And we don’t have to apply some bullshit tag of “minimalism” to justify it all.

Nothing is easy to just live with. I won’t do cars and homes and stuff. There’s no point in it. There’s nothing I gain or want from 10 watches or 3 motorcycles and a camper.

People that retire here seem to vary too. A few people just want replacement things for all they had before. Others have sworn away from that life.

Just stuff to wander over. Figure out. Walk on. Back to wherever I was before.

Oh yeah. Coffee out. And my second day in Battambang. Maybe you were wondering when I would segue back. I never know. I just go.

Back to this and then walking

So slowly I am finishing with this and going to that. I feel sorry for some people here. Their lives are tough. The separation between food and hunger here seems slim sometimes. I always initially feel I will not give money but when I look at what I have and that line dividing us, 1k riel or $0.25 seems a small line to cross. So I did.

This blog post should have the mental meandering tag applied. It’s always this way when I start one thing. It then leads to another barely connected to first or not at all. This is how the vaunted first brain operates. Don’t need a second.

Anyways today’s walk is sponsored by the words “random” and “wherever”. Like life for me pretty much.

So I walk and disengage. Find roads I have not done and take more of them. End up wandering in a circuitous fashion back to the river which then takes me back to the central market and then to our hotel. Nice jaunt reinforced by photos.

End the walk with some fresh cut pineapple and chili. Whole pineapple $0.75. Life’s good and I think I’ve wandered in words and steps enough. Here’s one scene from today in my album. Battambang shines in its own slowed down way.

buddha

I love finding temples I have not been to on roads I know not. I do look on Google Maps. This temple is this one. Beautiful and serene place.

Tomorrow our last day. I want to walk across river from one bridge to other and then see the beautiful old colonial buildings.

See you down the road for our last day in Battambang town.