Mikes Thoughts

Kampot dreams

Kampot 2023 dreams

Since we’re leaving in a few days, it is time to start the wholesale Kampot blogging. I’ll be writing the week in a series of daily blogposts. Like my Battambang writing, I hope to give a little glimpse of our time there. We used to have a barang friend that lived there but J is long gone. We’ve gone many times and done the tourism things as well. So I opt to do the things I enjoy. Walking and trying to not go shopping and then a new coffee place each day. We will go to a favored restaurant one day for a slightly belated birthday dinner for me. I’ll drink some and eat some. Sit almost at the river. My wife will talk to her family there. I’ll be both part of and separate. Much like regular life here for me. I always feel friendly to Khmer people but just distant. I don’t know why. It just is. I feel often worse around barang. There’s something about most of them I can’t take.

So I don’t.

I will let this go a few days and write more leading up to the 17th and our minivan rides. Let each day give me perhaps some new Kampot dreams. Maybe look at Google Maps for places and things I will walk to.

I like writing the places. Reminds me of some daily blogging I used to do around Hanoi and when I went to Taiwan. On some other service. With other words.

Birthday boy

Waking early of course. Sleep lousy. Seems fitting. Today I will wander to a favorite coffee shop kinda close. I am hoping to have their almond croissant and an iced americano.

I started writing the daily thing early. I have an iOS automation that creates the file at 5am. Ready for me to add words with no boundaries. Today especially. I feel I look today in all directions. This life now in Cambodia. The years spent doing whatever. It’s all open to write on.

I’ve found what it is for me that brings my measure of happiness. But also sadness. Life is not a single sided coin. Cambodia has given something I never thought to have again. So on the birthday I just write. Some things I’ve lost. Like the coin that slips between the fingers. But many more are found. There’s not a thing to be done because trying to find it makes no sense. Like trying to find what happened to some family things from then. A person wrote he had not heard from his family after moving to Southeast Asia for years. They just stopped. It was sad for him but he also knew he had to live his life the way he wanted. Some things are just not destined to last. Their half lives spin away and little memories get more and more colored by how our moments now move.

I was thinking on how often I write to the blog just the other day. I have no metric. No desire but the words to come and right now it is daily or more often if I wish. On the birthday perhaps it is also reflection. How I look back on yet another year. Birthdays are made for journaling I think. Writing reflection blog posts. Going to Kampot in a few days. And coffee out. So that’s the segue.

coffee out

Down a street and coffee. The day seems so beautiful out. Cool breeze takes me down national route 6 to a side street where Spring Coffee lives. I’ll sit here in obscure comfort. Slowly work the iced americano. We will go out tonight for dinner. And maybe a birthday beer or so.

Then tomorrow is “hurry up and wait” time. I’ll go do some things that don’t need doing and ignore others. I guess I don’t do much for myself these days. My wife buys my clothes. Cooks for me. Makes sure we have just enough things. Since I don’t do most things I guess most are hers. It dawned on me this morning that our life now has carefully replaced some broken and dysfunctional things in the way back machine.

Those are the kampot dreams and more. Let our little adventure begin. See you down to highway.