Cambodia Contemplations…

Written October 13th ‘09

Today was a big day, it was heavy. Lots of things have been going on and lots has been on my mind but today it compounded quite a bit. Today, I decided that I don’t think I will stay here, I tried to figure out what I will do next, I visited a horrific genocide museum, almost ripped my hair out by saying no to so many tuk tuks, and witnessed way too much lose at the hands of drugs. It was just one of those long days.

So first things first, I think (being the operative word as always) that I am going to keep going and not stay in Cambodia. I am excited to see Cambodia as a traveler but im not digging the living life here gig. I read a bit about Cambodia before coming here and one of the constants was that women should not walk alone at night. Me, well being me, figured all those girls were just being babies and I would be just fine. I was wrong. In the backpacker areas you can totally do it, but im not living in those areas and not too interested in visiting all that often. I have walked around a bit at night and I don’t feel safe, nothing has happened but Im beginning to think that is more luck than norm. Even if it is one hundred percent safe, I don’t feel that way, and it takes a lot to put me out of my comfort zone enough to make me admit it.

I can hack a lots of things and a lot of places, its not that I cant do that here but I am just not interested. I don’t want to “hack” anything right now, im looking for a nice and easy calm life at the moment and I don’t know if Cambodia will offer that to me. I want to have some fun, have a social life, go out for coffee in the evening and have some quiet time just for me (it is insanely loud here, either that or I am getting really old). I came to the other side of the world to relax and I keep forgetting that fact lately. But really, who is kidding who? One moment I want to stay in Asia and work, the next moment I want to go home unpack my bags and settle in, and the next im thinking about moving to BC or heading somewhere else. Ahh I wish my mind wasn’t constantly in overdrive.

Today two guys in their early twenties left my building the same time as me. Both of them fairly good looking, both looking pretty straight edge. But as my eyes ripped them apart (like I find myself doing with most foreign men around here) I stumbled down to their arms and feet which were bruised and bloodied with track marks. It broke my heart. Probably two guys coming to Cambodia for a little vacation, traveling, and partying and they took it too far once and happened to get stuck. My mother often likes to remind me of how worried she gets about me traveling, and instantly I thought about their mothers, their families, how they are probably a little excited and a little worried about their sons going off to travel. How they have no idea that while they imagine him posing with Buddas and temples, he is really locked up in his house shooting heroin and keeping company by a revolving door of prostitutes.

India was a place with so much poverty, too much pain, and too much corruption, I have never experienced anything to that extent. It was addicting though because in the midst of the mess there was such a joy. The same children whose parents dug their own childs eyes out, or cut off their legs just so they could bring home more money were also the children that had the biggest smiles and the deepest laughter. That attitude encouraged me that the mess my eyes see, isn’t such a mess when my heart feels something so much more beautiful. Here it isn’t the same, and when there isn’t laughter everything else seems to magnify. The smell of bodily waste on the street suddenly becomes stronger, the mass amounts of garbage lining the streets is more frustrating the step over, the constant noise and movement of the city is more distracting, and the endless empty stomachs begging for food seem like an impossible feat. Maybe it is me, maybe it is my attitude, possibly it is my heart telling me I belong somewhere else, or perhaps it is my excuse, but either way when I flip the coin lately I am hoping Cambodia isn’t my tails.

Oh and for the record, tonight as I write this I literally just watched the man living on the floor above me (floor three) pass down a bucket on a rope to the ground for his dealer to put drugs in because he was too high to walk down the stairs. Keep in mind I am in a decent area with one of the few “secure” buildings around. So yeah I can “do” Cambodia but quite frankly I am more interested in traveling it and then moving on. When I actually figure out my plans, ill fill you in, until then I will continue to file through my endless options and hopefully come up with something soon.