I should also have done this - "the good life"... I'm sold but they ain't.Felgerkarb wrote:Once you dispense with the false premise that living in the West is "the good life", it becomes easier.
Death stalks the Walkabout
The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people.(Marx)
- vladimir
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Don't tell them, the more people know, the more will come here and eventually it will be just like home.Typhoon wrote: It's very difficult communicating this lifestyle choice to family and friends back in the west
Phnom Penh is like NY or London now compared to 10 years ago, people payng $250 for a room, ' boutique' hotels, scores of travel agents, inflated prices, more aggressive tuk-tuk drivers/ dealers etc.
We should market it negatively, and enjoy it for longer.
ירי ילדים והפצצת אזרחים דורש אומץ, כמו גם הטרדה מינית של עובדי ההוראה.
- Jacked Camry
- Is the World Outside still there ?
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Hi Dice - sorry for your loss. And congratulations on maintaining your equanimity and perspective, it's hard to do when someone you really love goes for the big sleep. I personally would be delighted to bring you on a tour of bars of Phnom Penh to compare pool tables should you have the chance to wash up on these shores. And I think it might bring you further closure too, so highly recommend. Of course, keep KiR's excellent listing of caveats in mind if you do, we can't be responsible for completely paring the family tree!Dice wrote:By comparison his heart attack in a somewhat dodgy hotel in Cambodia seems positively normal, and I am comforted by the fact that there was a decent pool table in the vic inity; it's exactly the sort of thing which Mike would have thought a great deal more important than the presence, or absence, of whores of whatever variety.
After all, everybody dies but crappy pool tables are a cruel and unusual punishment; should I ever make it across the 6,000 miles between London and Cambodia I will check with you on which hotel I should book. And thank you once again; I very much hope that you will all avoid the pitfalls of expat life and have a great time...
- Falcon Randwick
- Damn, I just saw my Internet Bill !
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A prophesy come all too sadly true...
gavinmac wrote:And this will totally happen to KiR. He's already been living in Cambodia for over 10 years. It takes a toll on a guy. I'd say it's a toss up whether KiR lives another ten.
Like Potato Stars on facebook. We're likable...
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...and make your ears hate you by listening to us here
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- Starving Pelican
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This is the quote of his which I was thinking about yesterday. Sadly prophetic. It's even sadder in light of his conscious effort to lead a healthier, more productive lifestyle.keeping_it_riel wrote: 1) I feel many of us make a pact when we move here and that is a knowing acceptance that we won't make old bones. It's a trade off. Simply don't move here if you want to live to advanced old age. Khmers don't, and neither do we.
Lol, there's the humour I always enjoyed.keeping_it_riel wrote:The thoughts btw apply to male expats really so feel free to switch off if you don't have a hairy arse.
When I ran a business we used to employ an old Pommie chippie called Charlie. He was actually younger than I am now but was an ex merchant seaman, junkie and alcoholic. But he always turned up for work and did his best. In his younger days they would hide smack in the cistern of the toilet on site and shoot up all day!
Anyway we had a big job at the airport and one afternoon Charlie asked to go early to put new tyres on his Falcon. He told us that these tyres might outlast him.
He never turned up the next day! We found him dead in bed about 1PM. We had another chippie, Colin who was Scottish and did his time on the Clyde ship building. Collie retired at 65 on the button and within three months was diagnosed with an awful cancer. He went back to Scotland for the farewell tour but was buggered. He died less than two years later.
There is a lesson here. No one lies on their death bed and thinks- I should have worked more.
Anyway we had a big job at the airport and one afternoon Charlie asked to go early to put new tyres on his Falcon. He told us that these tyres might outlast him.
He never turned up the next day! We found him dead in bed about 1PM. We had another chippie, Colin who was Scottish and did his time on the Clyde ship building. Collie retired at 65 on the button and within three months was diagnosed with an awful cancer. He went back to Scotland for the farewell tour but was buggered. He died less than two years later.
There is a lesson here. No one lies on their death bed and thinks- I should have worked more.
- horace
- I can not turn my computer off ...
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I haven't worked more than 3 hours a day since 2007 and don't intend to work anymore once next year is out the way, gonna enjoy my life before i kicked the bucket not to say that i haven't enjoyed every moment since i left school 35 years ago.
k440, something to do when you're pissed.
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- Bark plop plop bark woof woof
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I've never been quite so wild here but KIR spells it out. I'm stuck between loving living here and knowing I will cut 25 years at least off my life by staying and not building a career back home. Essentially I'm at the point where the end will come sooner than I expect in Cambodia because I imagine myself living to 80+ by default because all my family did. The reality is I probably only have 20 years left, not 40, unless modernity comes to Cambodia in a big way. I'm thinking about going back to Thailand just because it seems I could live out another 10 years with not much difference except for beer prices. Or going home to create something over 25 years and then go out with a bang with full pockets rather than empty ones.
It's funny that Cambodians go to the West for an easier life and we go the other way for a harder one, just to taste some power and freedom.
It's funny that Cambodians go to the West for an easier life and we go the other way for a harder one, just to taste some power and freedom.
Ii reminds me of something a black South African guy told me in London many, many years ago (during the Apartheid era) which has always stuck in my head as a great description of the difference between the wealthier(?) and the poorer(?) countries.Hard to know how to define them exactly seeing as SA is quite a rich country in the books.
He told me he wanted to go back to South Africa. I questioned him as to why. Surely you must be glad to get out? What about the violence (he had already told me he had been beaten by the police).
His answer was "In South Africa they beat me on the outside, in England they beat me on the inside".
He told me he wanted to go back to South Africa. I questioned him as to why. Surely you must be glad to get out? What about the violence (he had already told me he had been beaten by the police).
His answer was "In South Africa they beat me on the outside, in England they beat me on the inside".
K440 : Lucky cheese for the gentry; poultry and death for the peasants.
"Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman. Believing what he read made him mad."
"Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman. Believing what he read made him mad."
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