Mikes Thoughts

Otres Beach Reprised

We will go back to Otres Beach in a few weeks. My wife has a friend in Sihanoukville she wishes to see. We will stay in the same guest house we have found and loved. Om Home ends up being just about perfect with nice bungalows and food choices. I don’t care for Sihanoukville so we never stay there. Otres has had its share of change since I first went in 2018. The beach though I like.

It’s a long meandering beach which I love to walk along. Still a favorite of Khmer people wanting a place to go away from cities yet close enough to reach. There’s a restaurant there we both like that does nice western food. Going like usual is an all day exercise unless we fly. Prefer to not fly and just do the usual bus or van trips. Definitely not the sleeper bus. Been there and done that.

Since it’s a new year and we both want to do some things; a first one out of Cambodia is hopefully Singapore. I’d like my wife to see Gardens by the Bay and the botanical garden. Also some of little India and the malls and shopping there. I think must have been to Singapore hundred times at least and lived there for a year. I have an old friend that works for Oracle that’s there still. I hope in March when we go he is still there but he’s let me know he may be gone. It has been over XX years since one day we shared big Tiger beers at some Hawker Center and ate whatever different foods we felt like. The next afternoon I left for America again. That put the end to years of working also in India for months at a time. I enjoyed both experiences tremendously. Chennai India was fun and busy. Chaotic and with really good food. I ended up managing an office there which is not an easy affair in India. Even was able to sign checks and was recognized by India as the director of the office. This took months to get done.

Fine little memories! My last real time in Singapore was in 2019 but I could not see friends there. I don’t remember why or why not. So we will go and my wife will see places I remember and others that are new. I can do Singapore for about a week and love it. A year was interesting but by the last tiger beer I was ready to go.

Now 2026

This new year will take me awhile to write. So I will practice with my coffee out this morning and a nice walk. Weather here is just beautiful this time of year. Cooler nights and warm sunny days. More people here now with tourist season going. Just read that Cambodia is getting 5g service effective right now. They’ve been quietly working on the service for a while I think. Where we live is outside the zone now available. It’s live downtown. Really though WiFi here is always good so 5g is a nice enhancement but I don’t just want it tomorrow. It will help Cambodia with its digital stuff. To me, we are way ahead in banking than anything in America. I’ve never had a mobile app quite like the ABA app. It just does everything and I can link it to services I use to pay cashless. From phone to food and transit.

I felt this need to go back to America. I had felt after this confrontation with my daughter there I had unfinished business. I talked with my old friend Paul in Hanoi. He faces the same thing. His older daughters just stopped talking to him. Another person I happened to read said he had gone 5 years. People just stop. Maybe a human response is to go confront them. Ask why. There are also old photos and some other things there. I harbored a desire to get them back.

Paul told me there is no point. Even if the things still exist they hold nothing now. There is no one thing to go back to. America would be disappointing and it would be like last time in 2022 when I spent three days and could not wait to go.

So instead it’s Otres beach. Time well spent now with food and a little beer. Maybe we will go to Kampot on the train after. I’d like that a lot.

Anyways thanks Paul. You don’t read here but you know. The expat life is one of some isolation and some of us become lonely. We turn to things in excess that do not help. It’s the quiet desperation of a life some of us cannot deal with so we absolve ourselves. It’s not a release. It’s not absolution. It’s a moment.

I’ll take Otres instead. And having Khmer family here. Sometimes that road too is bumpy. Show me a road with other people that isn’t.