Koh Kong and life
Part of the getting away is doing things different. Here we enjoyed the beach twice. Last night sunset was magnificent. Alin told people how much she loved me. That she waited so long to find me. That she leads in all life things. The people were happy but surprised. One person remarked they had never seen an expat and Khmer couple like us. We are though very happy in life and I enjoy just living a relaxed life with no worries about who decides a thing. It’s actually both of us. Alin tells me everything. I just lean into her love.
So we talked a lot this vacation. At the beach we saw this beautiful puppy for sale and alin was just gonna get it for me. We have no place for a dog. I would have loved to take it home. This made alin unhappy and she wants to do all things that make me happy. Cooking, living, life. Now when we get back she will find a house for us. I don’t know what she’ll do. She leads in this too.
I think what I hoped for coming here was time. Time for us to talk. Live a bit away from arguments and bickering. We did that. We never argue between us. Alin tells me how it will be and it is. I just smile and tell her I love her. She slugs me in the shoulder. Laughs. Touches my face. Tells me the third time today she loves me.
Yeah life. Koh Kong goes away tomorrow morning but memories live on. Cherish the moments, memories and experiences. Forget time and space. And I see that wonderful smile. The one that lights her face and makes my moments shine.
Yeah this one.
Koh Kong day 1
Not your usual travel blog report. We have no idea each day what it is we will do. This morning did not really know until after Khmer soup noodles breakfast next door. Alin then asked if I wanted to spend the day at this small beach she knew. She had not been since 2015 or so.
Yet the beach was so peaceful and vacant. We had all the serenity and peace the beach, beautiful weather, good food and cold beer could manage. I went for walks up and down the beach. Alin visited with a new friend that works at the beach cafe. We took loads of photos and I’m still going through them. I’ll probably just share the entire album instead of individual photos on the blog.
We also had time to talk. Hold hands. Watch the ocean dance along the shore with the tide and current romancing each other. She told me of a friend whose husband or boyfriend buys her all kinds of expensive jewelry. Her friend said I should be doing that. Alin told her,
Mike makes me happy by loving me. The gold and diamonds are in my heart.
So today we talked about what we want in life. How we want a home. How the home will be our connection point in life. How she feels the expensive jewelry cannot take the place of a home for us.
We spent the day talking. Laughing and alin made TikTok videos and new friends. I just wandered the shore. Swam in the ocean. The water was like bathtub warm. Just delightful.
Then back home. Rest awhile. Go for dinner down the street. Suddenly we are both tired. Just want the hotel room. So slowly we make our way back.
It’s tired time now. Everyone enjoy. Do something you don’t plan. I think you make too many plans and lists and todos. Break it all.
You’ll thank me later.
same same but so different
There is this saying I hear in Cambodia when someone talks about things. At breakfast this morning the Khmer waitress took our orders and she’s used to us ordering what we do. She said,
same same but not different
I’ve thought many times of my wife and how her culture has defined and shaped her and how she has done the same back. She touches many people across Cambodia. Many people view her videos on Facebook and TikTok and love them. We go somewhere together and its feels like the veil is pulled back a bit and I see another side of her when we travel. She seems to relax. To sink down into not being here or there. It reminds me before of riding Amtrak trains in 2020 and 2021. How sometimes crossing the Big Sky country I felt I was neither here or there.
With Alin she finds she does not need to be these other things to people like her friends or family. She only has me. Perhaps I am a lot to deal with at times too. But I think we cross that same same line to the different. When we board the bus tomorrow, I think she sees the last limits edging away from her day to day here. The arguments and fighting slow ebb. She told me those people will never be 100% to her. So many same same things for how things work but yet there is the different too. She will still go with them, make sure they have food to eat, do for them. I told her though I was unwilling to help more than what I do. So the different happens. Before we would help them with money, food, time. Now I let Alin know it’s different because of the arguments and issues. Alin let her friend know that this $30 was the last bit of extra money from me.
It just dawns on me how much the same same and the different weigh. So many things are the same no matter where. But all those things seem to have a counter weight attached and drive them to uniquely Khmer values. A family is the same. Perhaps a universal using a tired old anthropological term. What makes up the family though is so different. Family members, brothers and sisters, come from blood and outside but are still treasured family members and loved. Friends might be the same in many ways but Khmer people are very true to friends and will help someone even barely a friend with food, money, water, whatever. You can see how it works on both poles. The same same and the different.
Love is the final one I will talk about in the blogpost. Love is what we all know and can’t define. It is the heart and eyes and soul but love to Alin crosses many lines with me. She holds me in her heart, tells me I am one of three people that matter the most to her. Is love a cultural universal? I think so. But the expression of it is so different. There we go with that word again. What I’ve experienced with Alin with love are things I’ve touched on. Things which seem so ordinary become so important. Her holding my hand crossing a street. Touching my shoulder or back. Caressing my face. Asking me if I am happy. I think these are all things which seem so regular but become major things of love. I’ve felt with Alin the touching, feeling, trying to understand even if I overthink things, all become residents of love.
Amazing? Trivial? Understandable? I just write what I see every day between the journal entries I do again and what I find as we go to breakfast or shopping or in bed together talking. There is the same same. The laughter, tears, touching. There is the different. Exactly how all those things manifest and become distinctly ours.
Finally, my friend P is married to a Vietnamese woman. I’ve asked him if he has noticed these things. For whatever reason, P breezes over all this. He is older and sometimes I think frail and really does not stop to consider just how unique and beautiful all the things are that he has. It’s really too bad. Instead of stopping with the being and doing, he wants some answer to it all. My answer to him on the phone the other day is there is no answer. Just take it. Tell your wife you love her. Take her for ice cream.
Embrace the same same.
And the different.
Koh Kong tomorrow
Pretty excited to be going early. Today though got things to do. First breakfast at the bakery cafe down the street. We need something besides Khmer soup noodles. Then back home awhile until my barber opens. Then a haircut and beard trim with Mr Dasa. Wonderful, skilled barber that is a precision machine and has great English skills as well. He will take an hour making everything just so. No hurry with Dasa.
Then off for a walk downtown. Time to cruise the steps. Find the going. Stay away from expats. I will probably walk over by Wat Damnak area because I love the Wat area and small stores and restaurants. Then slowly make my way home.
Got to get our one bag we use for few day vacations ready. Pack some stuff. Watch alin try to pack more stuff than what she needs. She has looked at me before and said,
What the fuck? How much stuff you put in here honey?
I just laugh. She gives me the look like she will punch me.
Later it’s dinner and then evening at home. We don’t go out at night. Definitely not to pub street or bars. Alin would prefer to buy beer and drink at home. I don’t care for the places downtown.
Meanwhile this morning we have these short power outages. Like a minute long. Just enough to freak out our WiFi router. It often wants a restart.
Moving along
Soon we will do breakfast. Everything happens with food for us at breakfast when alin takes blood pressure meds. Breakfast probably between 7 and 730.
Then there’s Koh Kong. A cheap hotel for four nights. Close to water and downtown. With AC. Nothing planned there. Mostly going to just go. Both of us like the movement. This though takes longer. 5 hours to Phnom Penh and leaving there soon as we can. Then a minivan for another set of hours to Koh Kong.
Photos to come. Lots of my wifey. Some beer to drink. Food to eat. Laughs and teasing.
Finally next month we go to see mum in the province. All the days are belong to us.
Changing it up
It is always fun when we sit down in Temple Coffee and decide to make changes. My wife had this rather loud altercation with her friend and the result was the friendship suffered irreparable harm. They argued for an hour at least in Khmer. What the result of this was is a change. We decided we want a home in downtown Siem Reap where we can reach coffee shops and bakeries and restaurants easily. Where I can walk each day. Where I can have a dog.
The other change was Koh Kong. Instead of going in a week, we go in two days. I think this change was caused by the argument as well. Alin just had enough of it all today so we went to the bank, got some money, decided to just go.
All this decided as we sat at Temple Coffee and Bakery enjoying the AC. Alin relived the argument and it just made her mad again. She has this basic strength of purpose that I would never want to cross. If she feels someone wronged her, that’s all it takes with her. On the other hand if someone does good, she will go out of her way to tell the person and whoever else that too.
One of the best things is the trust in her with everything. I have found her to be honest, direct, and protective of our money and possessions. I don’t know how other Khmer women are but for me I just let her deal with all the money, bills, property stuff and I enjoy life. She also cares at every step for me. Worries if I seem unhappy and cooks like crazy for me. Just having her in my life makes this change the best. I waited so long for someone and to find her, love her, respect and admire her makes my life wonderful. Probably in the end, one thing I enjoy always is hearing her tell me each day,
Lovely, I love you
Then she snuggles next to me, touches my arm or face, tells me how happy she is just to be right there with me.
I have another friend P that is married to a Vietnamese woman. I don’t know how their relationship is but I think ours has some unique advantages. Khmer women are tough and strong. Stubborn and kind. Sometimes vulnerable and argumentative. There’s a song I listen to by Van Morrison most of the time.
Says it all but I’ll add a photo too because my wife is beautiful, sexy, warm, and she holds me close at all times.
I will always feel blessed and lucky to have found this warm, wonderful creature to share my life with. Smiles, cold beer, food, sex every so often. Is there nothing better in all of life to change it up to?
Walking the dance
Today is Sunday. Decided to walk even a different way. It’s humid out so I think it’s gonna rain at some point. The walk today was meandering. Like the dance sometimes that keeps me just being and not accomplishing. I don’t want to watch the steps go by or the place advertised. My wife told me today to go enjoy my day. So I did a thing which always foments that. An iced latte at Noi Cafe. This stop refreshes and rejuvenates. Gives me a comfy big chair and a fan pointing at me. The cute Khmer girl asks if I want the usual. She is rather flirtatious I think. I smile and tell her I’ll do that. Her smile grows and she says thanks in Khmer.
I also take the break to think over the morning. Up at 220am. Kind of nodding off awhile until 430am. Then awake. I got fed up with personal writing aka journaling. I felt I had done it and been there. In retrospect it was what my wife accuses me of sometimes. Overthinking. Journaling became an excuse to indulge in replaying earlier moments. Their language. Their repetition. Their dark bell tolling.
Now I sit with a fan swirling. Turning the air around. And my thoughts also turn around. It’s that kind of Sunday. I’ll walk until I stop.
The dance of life seems often littered with responsibilities, goals, tasks, things. Why? Why is it we let our dance become so encumbered? I think we like misery. We like to complain about some time management app or schedule or timeline. I used to read on different timelines how irritated people would get about these apps. Wanting another one. Complaining about the present one. No wonder their dances are so dark. They seek to master time. Don’t they know time is not really real?
Alin never asks what we will do next. We never truly know. Life is not about next dances. We have the eternal dance now but we seem enamored with next and previous. The operative word is “now”.
And now for me is a coffee shop with a iced latte slowly dwindling. My dance has steps I have not seen yet. But I don’t need to fuss them out. When I meditate now is being. Being is accepting and becoming happy.
Just be happy in your dance. Why fret over the steps.