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| I've exchanged my YG lakeview to the PP river view |
(Some of you reading this may not have a context of what happened with me in the past few months but let's just say I'm a little bit more careful with my mental well-being now).
Cambodia, Cambodia...... can you believe this is my third "tour" of the country? Was here way back in 2000 (when it was totally bad-ass cowboy town), and then again in 2008 and then now, after almost 10yrs in Myanmar, I'm back here. For a country with which I generally have no affinity or emotional ties, I'm surprised to find myself back here again and again and again. Not counting the time we both came back for a visit in 2018.
After breezing through my 14-days of quarantine (TBH, I had enjoyed my quarantine actually. I was like 300% productive and managed to wrap up a lot of work so that I didn't have to drown when I was out of my luxurious jail-time!), I came out discovering for Cambodia, much has changed. But also, some things never changed. Moving from Yangon to Phnom Penh is like doing a 180-degree switch. In Yangon, it was large area, limited living choices. In Phnom Penh, it is small area, unlimited living choices. When I talk about "living choices", I mean stuff like getting groceries, products, access to eateries, amenities, hobby places, good dentist etc, etc... you get my point. For a population of 2.1 million in PP, I just don't get how the hell this small little city needs like a million Starbucks or Cafe Amazon and another million supermarkets and grocery stores. Not to mention malls. Not small ones, large ones! But then again, Cambodia had thrived in terms of tourism, pre-Covid-19. In 2019, the tourism sector had earned an estimated USD 5 billion just from tourism. Of course, all of these came to a devastating halt when the pandemic hit the country. Siem Reap, it seems, is a ghost town now. Prolly the best time to visit if you do not want to be drowned in a sea of hoomans!
Anyway, I missed most of the strict lockdown that was happening here in PP. During one of its strictest 14-day lockdown, I was conveniently locked up in quarantine anyway. But PM Hun Sen was hell-bent on leaving a great legacy - the kingdom is one of the fastest, behind Singapore, to inoculate her population. Today, as I write this, over 90% of the population had been vaccinated, and as of this week, everything is back to BAU - tourism visa will also start being issued again this coming November, apparently. Quarantine period is now 3-7 days for vaccinated travellers. This is good news for a country whose economy survives on tourism - especially for the hotel and F&B businesses. Me? I was also very lucky and had my vaccination done within 2 weeks out of quarantine. Although I had to travel 4 hours away to Praek Traeng village to get my single dose of J&J vaccine. I didn't get a choice of what vaccine I wanted, but it was also a bit of a last-minute arrangement, and I just had to not think - just get it bloody done. Today, some places expect you to show your vaccination card before you are permitted entry into the vicinity.
Some of my favourite eateries from back in the day are still here. In particular, one is the local noodle shop owned by two local Chinese sisters, and the other is the best ever coffee in Phnom Penh. I'm glad that they had survived the pandemic. And what's more - they both still recognised us! In fact, the first thing Mr. Bunareath of the Best Coffee in Phnom Penh said to me when he saw me was: "Why are you so thin now??!!" 😄 Of cos, some restaurants didn't make it. Also, some of the F&B businesses in Siem Reap moved over to PP. I can only imagine how crowded and congested the city will be once everything returns to near-normal levels. And I am not looking forward to it. When it comes to food choices for dining in or delivery, one would be spoilt for choices here in PP. I can almost be transported to different countries throughout the day just by eating - I could be having breakfast noodles in a Chinese shop which is amongst a row of shops that all bears Chinese signages, complete with a Chinese chef, owner, staff and Chinese-only menu, with all other customers speaking in that loud and obnoxious Chinese manner - so you really feel like you had entered China...... and then I could be having lunch at a hole-in-the-wall Indonesian restaurant (Warung Bali 😅) situated in a maze of alleyways that transported me back to Ubud, Bali as I explored the alleys and shops there..... maybe dinner at a no-frills Brussels restaurant owned by a Belgian chef with an authentic Belgian menu, where the decor and vibe brought you back to the terrazzo sidewalks of Europe. In a country with such a diverse melting pot of culture, you can find real authentic food from all over the world - including another one of my old favourites - Russian food. Cambodia has always been very foreigner-friendly. The ease with which a foreigner can live here is amazing. I feel as if this is more like Bangkok now, where you can get whatever you need, be it groceries or OTC medication. Back in those days, I usually had to cart things back from Malaysia!
As soon as I got out of quarantine, I worked on settling into a routine almost the very next day. And a month plus now, my routine had not changed. This is part of my "survival mode", I know. Again, bear in mind, I'm an HSP (Highly Sensitive Person - go Google what problem HSPs face). Hence, need my routines to keep my sanity. MOH sorted out our living arrangements - we had gone to living tiny! We're on long-stay at a hotel, so it's just a room, no kitchen, no extra bedrooms, no nothing. Thanks to the pandemic, the price of long-stay for hotels worked out cheaper than some apartments outside. Not to mention, we don't have to worry about the electricity bills, water bills, internet bills, etc, etc. (coming from Myanmar, you might get a shock with the electricity bills here in Cambodia!). We've both always spoken about "going tiny", and this is our one real test, I guess. I must say, it is working out pretty well. There's a tiny, very tiny refrigerator in the room, and that just means we don't go overboard with our grocery shopping or daily cooking. I bought a multi-cooker, and my God, this multi-cooker is doing wonders. So that's how I still get my meal-prep in without a kitchen! There's not much storage space, so you tend to think twice about buying anything. One of the problems we had in Myanmar was just filling up our living area with more and more things that we thought we needed, but we didn't! Me, I didn't bring a lot of my clothes. So every Monday, it's the same attire, Tuesday, the same, Wednesday, so on, so forth. And repeat the next week. The same goes for my gym attire. I have a planned set for each day! MOH, on the other hand, occupies 2/3 of the wardrobe space. Ugh. Why does he have so many clothes?? And shoes!! Being in a tiny space also means we've had to adjust certain things because there's no place to avoid each other if you fight! LOL! And worse is when one farts. But we adjusted very well to this. Particularly because there's a pool and a gym - so we're also saving on gym membership fees! Uninterrupted power, water and internet is also good for my mental health. I don't have to worry about how to charge every single device for the day in case the power goes off, I don't want to have to worry about not having internet and hence can't get my work done. I never realised this was, in itself, stressful.
I also sorted out my fight training which is a 5-min walk away from where we stay. As fate would have it, my Cambodian coach knew my Myanmar coach - Sayar Sai and Phoe Thaw and in fact, when the 2 had a few months training stint in Cambodia, Coach Bora was the one holding pads for Sai. Now, he's holding pads for me! It had been enjoyable. But it's just not the same, you know. Not that Bora is a bad coach. But in Cambodia, everyone is super business-minded. Here, I feel like I am being trained just as a business number. It's an hour means, it's an hour to the dot. And even before the month ends, a "friendly reminder" to pay up! C'mon, I always pay on time, no need to keep reminding me! Not that they don't push you, they do. They train techniques and etc. But I'm still just a business number. Back at Team PT, I was trained like one of their own. And an hour means it's 2 hours at least! They don't talk money first with you (in fact, I know I've been spoilt because the Team PT people had refused to take my money!). Anyhoo... I was hell-bent on doing my fight training and also hell-bent on not embarrassing Sai and Team PT. And sure as hell, I didn't cos some of the other members at the fight club had asked Coach Bora if I was a pro-fighter and Bora had mentioned: "No, she used to train in Myanmar." 👊
Besides fight training, we've also sorted out our yoga session. This has been arguably painful, but the teacher is really good and patient. We both need this sesh, even if only once per week. Other than that, I don't spend much time training outdoors because the stuffiness of the air here is really next-level. I had forgotten how humid and stuffy it gets in Phnom Penh, even during the rainy season. But the rain here is not like in Myanmar, where it rains non-stop, day after day after day. Here is much like my temper - blow-up storm, and then 5 minutes later, it's done. And the sun shines again. LOLOL!
I've been eating a bit more, managed to gain back 2kgs, hopefully, muscle weight and not all that sugar I've been consuming, and my sleeping is a bit sounder - though I still wake up at an ungodly hour. But I try to lie there in bed till it is actually time to wake up. However, my sleep "aggression" hasn't quite gone away. It's a little worrisome for MOH, who has to sleep next to me. He has caught me on video many nights where I am pounding his side of the bed with my "lethal" elbows and hammer punches. 😅 What he tries to do now is get the aggression out of me first, calm me down before he climbs into sleep. Honestly, if all these were not recorded, I would not have believed a single word he's saying. I have absolutely zero recall of such incidents the next morning! I guess, mentally, I probably still have a lot of anger in me, I dunno. But whatever it is, he can sleep either with his eyes open, or he can wear a helmet. His choice. LOL!
I said that some things never changed in Cambodia, right? We can find skyscrapers and modern development everywhere, but sometimes, I still feel that the people here just see a bloody $$$ sign on your forehead. There are a million apps for booking your rides. One afternoon, I placed one on of these apps. I can see there were about five tuk-tuks hanging around, but none refused to take my ride (which was at the cost of USD 1). So, I walked towards where all these tuk-tuks were hanging out, thinking I'd do the manual thing by booking directly with the driver. Guess what? They asked me for USD 5 !! Do I look like I am stupid or what? So this remains the same for me - they want quick wins, easy wins. Nevermind that the tuk-tuk sitting around not taking any passengers = zero income. They just want one ride that will rake in their entire day's income. All the tourists who used to pay such kind of sum are all gone now, and they still sit around thinking I'm willing to part with my USD 5 for no good reason. Sigh. And also - snatch-thieves are rampant here. No handbags, no funny sling-bags, be aware of your surrounding - pretty unnerving having to remember these after not needing to for so, so, so long.
After nearly 10yrs in Myanmar, returning to Cambodia - there's one thing that I am also not used to - in Myanmar, your local colleagues or new colleagues or friends or whoever, would ensure they took care of you cos you're a foreigner in their land, and they know it might be a little difficult to navigate the peculiarities of Myanmar. In Cambodia, even though you travelled the 4-hour plus with the locals to a strange province, they really just leave you absolutely alone. Stopping at a halfway point for food and toilet break during my trip for vaccination, the locals really couldn't care less whether I ate or not. They weren't unfriendly, don't get me wrong. But if it was Myanmar, the first thing they'd do before they even went to place their orders would have been to check if that idiot foreigner wanted something to eat, or if he or she was comfortable. They'd already tell you where's the toilet, etc, etc and asked if you're hot, do you need water, drink, what do you need, please tell me. That's one thing that is starkly different between the Cambodians and the Myanmar people. So strange right, when I first arrived in Myanmar, I was not used to this over-hospitality. Now coming back to Cambodia, I find they lack warmth. Some in the hospitality industry here are warm and friendly. BUT - I cannot shake off the feeling that I am still just a business number. Because they're always asking you to rate them on Google, please. Why only 4 stars? Why not 5 stars? (I never give anyone a 5-star rating! Nobody is perfect!) And don't even get me started with the language. Almost every time, if I needed to speak to a local Cambodian who couldn't speak much English, I would end up speaking in Burmese! Some of the Khmer words are now coming back to my brains. Slowly, I guess, I'll pick up the language again.
There are a lot of Chinese in this country - and I don't mean Chinese like myself. So, I try to avoid them. But sometimes, they're unavoidable. There is one Chinese couple living on the same floor as us and is constantly fighting and banging doors everyday and throwing things. I'm like, here we go again. Don't they ever feel embarrassed or that they could be disturbing others? Anyway, MOH and myself have basically got nicknames for a lot of the people who are also doing long-stays in this hotel. There's the "Shameless Fatt Kuok Lou" because he's always "diu diu feng" with his little birdie hanging out by the poolside. There's Mr. Tsunami, who, when he swims, creates monster tsunami waves, so it wrecks up all my timing and shit and for whatever reason, loves to swim like right NEXT to me, almost touching shoulders! WTF. (in order to avoid him, I swim earlier!!). There's Alice in Wonderland. There's Tony "Ton-Ton". There's Astro Boy. So many. Ya, that's what we do at the poolside after we finish our training session. LOL! In terms of foreigners, again, please don't get me wrong, but the type of expats here hasn't changed since back in the day. A friend and I were also talking about this. And also a topic I discussed with MOH as well. Let's put it this way - expats who chose to live in Myanmar understands a lot of the "luxury living choices" they have to give up in order to live there and for those who really choose to do so means they want to, and they want to do something back for Myanmar. Here, it is easy-living for expats. It's like a Bangkok or a Singapore, with less restrictions. In terms of governance and sustainability - I better not even say in case I get hauled-ass! I even feel that the locals are less empowered. I mean, the general line for expat business owners is: "If you want to get something done well, you better do it yourself." And this I am directly quoting an expat business owner here. There's an overall sense that the locals here have less hunger in terms of wanting to learn. Digital marketing-wise, believe it or not - Myanmar was years ahead of Cambodia despite the head-start this country had. Unfortunately, Myanmar is now reduced to being close to a failed state. The hardwork of everyone put in during the last 10yrs all gone down the f***ing drain.
As mentioned earlier, I've been spending almost my entire day working. My training usually finishes by 8am and by 9am, I'm ready to start my day. I can now call myself a digital nomad, although I've been working remotely since even before smartphones happened. I don't even know why it is a fad now. The moment mobile phones, lap tops and WiFi happened - it already meant that you are mobilized to work anywhere! Anyway, yeah, it's been good to keep myself so busy with work. But the one thing I don't enjoy is all that video calls. Sometimes, it annoys me greatly. Mobile working is not about making video calls after video calls. That's not productive. But anyway, that's not the point I was talking about. Point is, I trust myself as a digital nomad because I'm so f***ing disciplined. I also see a bit of an opportunity in the near future for me to travel away for a bit. A lot of countries and cities are offering digital nomad visas now, and once travel resumes back to near normal, this might be my next course of action.
For now, I still don't have plans. I literally wake up everyday, train and my brains process only the workday or the work week ahead of me. I also have very little motivation to meet people or talk to people. In fact, at the hotel where we stay, I've found a backdoor entrance / exit and I use that just to avoid the front desk, so I don't have to say "hello" to hoomans. The hotel staff are very nice, polite and accommodating to requests - though I've literally made none since I've been here. But it's Cambodia, where tipping is a culture and when you tip, you get better service. That's just that. Business number, remember? I've caught up with some friends, especially with my previous team here, the two Cambodian boys who are literally old men now (OMG, I don't even believe it myself! The years, just flew by, eh!) but that's about as much as I am willing to do. Mostly also not motivated to meet people or make new friends because I don't want to have to talk about Myanmar. If I don't want to talk about Myanmar, 10 years of my life is gone so, I'd rather not talk to anyone, really. Aside from my video calls, unavoidable greetings with some of the hotel staff or ordering coffee from my favourite roadside coffee stall, I generally don't interact with hoomans. I've been keeping up the calls with my girls, Sharm and Anu though. It's just nice to be able to talk to them, even if it was for 2 minutes. These days, we're all bit busy, but we keep the group chat somewhat alive. I am always grateful that they were there for me when I needed them to be.
I guess, right now, I'm more focused on me for now. I am also not particularly gung-ho about exploring PP. I mean, been there, done that - three times now, so if I see it, I see it. If I don't, I don't. That's in general, how I feel at the moment about PP. There is one thing I have yet to do - and that is to visit the kids from Happy Tree. Used to spend every single weekend with them and the last time I met them was in 2018. They're all grown up. Now that things are all opened up, it'll be time to make that trip to go see them again.
In my head, PP is a stop-gap. But I don't know what is next. I'm thankful to be alive and healthy after a bit of an ordeal in Myanmar. So, the only thing to do is keep my focus on my work and take it day-by-day.
