How do Khmer wives feel about marrying white guys and then living in the jungle instead of Paris, London, or even Phnom Penh?spitthedog wrote:
Hey, have you ever heard of any white dudes going off in the jungle for awile in the KOW like Ed Stafford but like with clothes and shit?
Some questions about living in rural Cambodia
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i do love going out to the boonies, but when i go its usually when somethings going on KNY, CNY, a Wedding, Birthday etc etctestytesty wrote:Try one of the many village homestays offered in Siem Reap, Battambang, Kampong Cham or Kampot for a few weeks first. Aside from the excitement of KNY you will get very bored without a visit to a city once a week. People go to sleep at the fall of darkness and the food is rice with whatever the family grows or buys from a roadside stall in the surrounding villages.
The novelty will wear off in a few weeks if you don't have a pressing distraction like work or 100 books to read. This is why the majority of village stays are tied to a project like "toilets for orphans" so the foreigners have something to do between 7am and 7pm. The looming boredom is why many villages seem to have almost no one between about 15-30 years old, because they all left for the city to work and play.
longest ive stayed out in the sticks was for a week, and while i hadnt got to the point of being bored, and while i do love being out in the middle of nowhere/stripped back to basics etc, i'd probably start clucking if i didnt have nothing to do ie work
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Where I live a house would cost you between 100 and 150 USD a month a, and I don't recommend to rent a room with a Khmer family. Might sound exotic but by doing so you will sacrifice ALL your privacy, and I'm not sure you could cope with that. I can't.Darzin wrote:Thanks for the advice, that's kind of what I want to do, next year I'll have a lot of online work to do, and figure I may as well get out of the city. Also how much would it cost to rent a small but decent house? And do you think it would be possible to just rent a room from a family as opposed to a whole house? And if so any idea how much that would cost?I've been living in rural Cambodia for over 7 years and, and it suits me well, but that's because I've got work to do that requires nothing more than a laptop and a 3G connection and keeps me busy during the day and provides met with enough money to live a decent live. If I would spend my time here without anything to do I would be bored to hell within weeks (maybe days, definitely not months) and be an alcoholic by now just because the only thing I could think of was lying in my hammock and enjoy the view over a cold beer.
As long as you stick to (the area) around provincial centers you will be fine finding decent housing but don't count on bargains price wise. A decent house where I live will cost you well over 100$ a month (water will come from the well, usually 11 months a year) and electricity is not included. Food will generally be the same price as in PP, not cheaper, unless it's really local food. A lot of food comes in from other provinces and is thus not that cheap.
Those certainly look much better than what I was seeing.Vietnamese tend to build on the ground. I'm not sure I'd describe the traditional stilt houses here as "shacks built on huts". There are of course some pretty-shoddy looking shacks around, some are lived in and some are just used part of the year during harvest or whatever.
Anyway, an average traditional wooden house is often fairly rudimentary, with a large living space and a two or more bedrooms. Most now have concrete stilts, and are often partially built of brick/ concrete, whether it's just the bathrooms or a larger central area.
If you want to go out into the boonies, my advises are:
- Stay close to the provincial center
- Make sure there's a decent 3G service there. The slowest service is available nearly everywhere but useless unless you only send e-mail as plain text
- Find a house with some comfort. You don't need hot water but a toilet that doesn't stink and actually flushes might be nice. Taking a shovel and visit the garden one or two times a day to create your own toilet there might sound romantic, but it isn't. Besides, the musquitos will eat you alive while you're busy. So is a bed with a (good) mattress and decent mosquito net to keep the creepers and crawlers and mosquito out. Electricity is also a must. If the service is unreliable make sure you have a backup system (battery or generator, depending on your needs), especially if you have work to do and deadlines. In the boonies the power can be switched of hours (several times weekly), a day (monthly) or full month (happened to me once) without notice.
- Be careful with bugs and all in the boonies. There's nasty scorpions, pretty large millipedes with a very nasty bite (the large ones look very dangerous, but are easy to spot, get trained to see the babies, just 3-4 cm long but with a bite just as nasty), snakes and.... musquitos. Stock on good anti histamines in case you get bitten.
- Find a house on a decent road. Mud roads are either dusty (and so will your house be) or slippery.
- Get your own transport, a small motorbike will do
- Make sure you have a safe place, preferably fenced so can keep a few dogs to chase the petty thieves and the snakes away.
- Make sure the house has a water tank that's big enough to provide you with at least a full month of water. The well will probably run dry in April / May until the first serious rain.
Tradition, lack of knowledge and price.gavinmac wrote:Our of curiosity, what are the pros/cons of building a country house with wood v. concrete? Would people choose wood if it were the same price as concrete? I would think concrete would be desirable because it's more durable, no termites, etc. Do people not like concrete homes them because they are ugly or get too hot or something?Lucky Lucan wrote: Wood is much too expensive for most to build with now, so new houses are generally made of concrete.
No, a wooden house is not cooler than a house of stone if you build a double brick wall. The problem is many stone houses in the boonies are single brick single floor houses with dark colored metal plates as a roof. These are basically an oven.spitthedog wrote:I'm thinking a wooden house might be cooler as it doesn't bake in the sun?
Hey, have you ever heard of any white dudes going off in the jungle for awile in the KOW like Ed Stafford but like with clothes and shit?
Wot would be the likelihood of getting shot by timber smugglers, bandits, drug gangs, or yer balls blown off by a land mine?
I may be some time...
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Darzin, good post but going off topic you wrote it was a hassle to get a 1 yr visa in Nam unless you were working? Can you elaborate as when I was there and asked about it I was told no problems at all for 1 yr (Australian).
Never mind
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Millipedes don't bite, you must mean centipedes?Kachang wrote:
- Be careful with bugs and all in the boonies. There's nasty scorpions, pretty large millipedes with a very nasty bite (the large ones look very dangerous, but are easy to spot, get trained to see the babies, just 3-4 cm long but with a bite just as nasty), snakes and.... musquitos. Stock on good anti histamines in case you get bitten.]
Romantic Cambodia is dead and gone. It's with McKinley in the grave.
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i do find the wooden houses can be cooler due to slightly better ventilation, i think wooden houses cool down quicker than those made of concrete but theres no scientific knowledge to back that up just opinion and could be talking out my hungover arse lolKachang wrote:No, a wooden house is not cooler than a house of stone if you build a double brick wall. The problem is many stone houses in the boonies are single brick single floor houses with dark colored metal plates as a roof. These are basically an oven.spitthedog wrote:I'm thinking a wooden house might be cooler as it doesn't bake in the sun?
Hey, have you ever heard of any white dudes going off in the jungle for awile in the KOW like Ed Stafford but like with clothes and shit?
Wot would be the likelihood of getting shot by timber smugglers, bandits, drug gangs, or yer balls blown off by a land mine?
I may be some time...
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yeah its centipedes you need to watch out for, millipedes are harmlessLucky Lucan wrote:Millipedes don't bite, you must mean centipedes?Kachang wrote:
- Be careful with bugs and all in the boonies. There's nasty scorpions, pretty large millipedes with a very nasty bite (the large ones look very dangerous, but are easy to spot, get trained to see the babies, just 3-4 cm long but with a bite just as nasty), snakes and.... musquitos. Stock on good anti histamines in case you get bitten.]
Mean Dtuk Mean Trey, Mean Loy Mean Srey
Punchy McShortstacks School of Hard Knocks
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Jamie_Lambo wrote:yeah its centipedes you need to watch out for, millipedes are harmlessLucky Lucan wrote:Millipedes don't bite, you must mean centipedes?Kachang wrote:
- Be careful with bugs and all in the boonies. There's nasty scorpions, pretty large millipedes with a very nasty bite (the large ones look very dangerous, but are easy to spot, get trained to see the babies, just 3-4 cm long but with a bite just as nasty), snakes and.... musquitos. Stock on good anti histamines in case you get bitten.]
Haven't seen these bastards for over a year (since I woke up in the middle of the night with one in bed with me: not pleasant), now, today, found a small 3cm one of the fuckers in the house, which quickly met a shoe heel.
I blame K440, TBH.
Massive stalker
I hate those bastards. Don't even like accidentally washing away those tiny ants that make a living in the basin, but those leggy red creeps, stomp on sight.Jamie_Lambo wrote:yeah its centipedes you need to watch out for, millipedes are harmlessLucky Lucan wrote:
Millipedes don't bite, you must mean centipedes?
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seen a couple of biggies out here before, far bigger that the ones back in the UK
its the Human Centipede you need to watch out for though lol
its the Human Centipede you need to watch out for though lol
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Jesus Jamie, wtf was that ^ ...changed my day.
Never mind
Yes, centipedes like this:Lucky Lucan wrote:Millipedes don't bite, you must mean centipedes?Kachang wrote:
- Be careful with bugs and all in the boonies. There's nasty scorpions, pretty large millipedes with a very nasty bite (the large ones look very dangerous, but are easy to spot, get trained to see the babies, just 3-4 cm long but with a bite just as nasty), snakes and.... musquitos. Stock on good anti histamines in case you get bitten.]
https://cdn.theconversation.com/files/3 ... 532869.jpg
But the big ones are easy to spot, it's their offspring that worries me more. Pretty small, but still very capable to leave you with with a very painful aftermath. Even the small ones have teeth long enough to pinch human skin:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... a_fg02.JPG
And yes, these like to spend time in a bed, so it's better to take precautions even if you're not on the bed or you might be unpleasantly surprised when you lay your head to rest. These bastards do not warn, but go the for the bite straight away.
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