Kampot Capers

Hurricane

Hunkered down in my $70 room sheltering from Typhoon Nora. On Wednesday the 28th of September it slammed into Danang after killing 6 in the Philippines a few days earlier. It reached the peak classification of Violent Typhoon with wind speeds of 255 km/h. Like most of SEA, Kampot was caught in the wash. The half dozen water buffalo roaming around outside the room bore the brunt of it, poor buggers.

Intrepid

I've been thinking about how I'm content to "rot in Kampot" these days. Transient adventures no longer necessary. However, I still like to voyeuristically follow thrill seekers on youtube - blokes like Ed March - as he rides a Honda c90 from Alaska to Argentina. An inspirational lad who forewent a lamestream life in pursuit of awesomeness.

However, he promptly cut the journey short in Beunos Aeries instead of making it all the way to Ushuaia at the southern tip of Tierra Del Fuego. Nobody was expecting an abrupt ending like that, but, he'd simply had enough. I gave a wry smile as I totally got where he's coming from, having experienced travel-fatigue in the past.

Conversely, there was a new 25yo lass at my last job who flew Saigon - KL - Phuket - Saigon during a long weekend. Madness. Back in my day I twat-packed at far more sedate, less ambitious, levels. Curious to know how much of an impression 12hrs in KL left on her?

Chill

These days I'm more than happy to imbibe sunsets from a $5 hammock on the balcony.

Sometimes Simon, my antipodean neighbor, joins for a chat. We have much in common: taught in SEA for donkeys, speak Thai/Vietnamese and covered much of SEA on solo motorbike trips of epic-ness. We value peaceful solitude and our easy-going interactions whisper low stress. Canny lad.

Routine

I appear to have slid, unwittingly, into a routine I haven't given much thought about - it just, kinda, evolved.

Monday and Friday are gym days. I get to speak Thai with Chea who picked it up working in a Koh Chang bar. 22 years younger but happy to tolerate my linguistic blunders as I attempt to read Khmer fitness posters. His impressive physique a result of his dedication to gym-rat-edness.

One for the Thai-o-philes here, there's a few lads engaged in Muay Thai (มวยไทย) training. Only it's called Kun Khmer (គុនខ្មែរ) here. And it differs slightly from its Thai offshoot. Interesting.

I sometimes jog around the Olympic Stadium at sunset (stretching the meaning of Olympic to its elastic limit here like). The jungle-clad hills of Bokor National Park provide a backdrop to the eye catching Buddhist style pagoda. The clean air, open space and serenity invoke feelings of relief and gratitude as my mind drifts back to the noise and filth of Saigon's sea of concrete.

Thursday and Saturday is Jim & Lilly's. Their English scran is cheap, filling and delicious. I haven't bothered too much with western food in SEA as I often find it to be an expensive disappointment. But not here. Sometimes I even get to watch a resurgent NUFC with Jim and Terry.

Le Badger's Derriere

John hangs out at J&L's too. A lad from Durham who's lived out here for decades. He has two sons from a local lass but what impresses me the most is he ran a bar in Koh Kong - now known as Khemara Phoumin - the town Armin and I visited in Nov 2008 (with the ultimate chicken farm - if you know, you know).

After that he ran a bar called The Badger's Arse. Best. Name. Ever. We reminisce about our Geordieland childhoods and how the relentless march of technology has trampled over coal fires, net curtains, itchy blankets, ice on the inside of windows and quarter-punds of bullets. Hard Midget Gems were the best, closely followed by Army and Navy.

Feline Noir

He drinks 8% Black Panther. The cans take me back to the 90s, reminding me of ships, submarines and Jackspeak (aka Royal Navy slang). If one was to generously pepper one's utterances with Jackspeak, one would be known as "Jack as fvck".

A good example of Jackspeak is the oft-marginalised "Black Catting Bastard". A BCB is a sailor who out-exaggerates everyone else, at anytime, on any topic.

Example: if you can bench 60kg, the BCB will claim 70kg. If you've done a 100m bungee jump off a viaduct in Whitby, he'll have done 200m over a volcano in Peru ... naked. That kind of thing. However, when BCBs invariably veer into the realm of fantasy, they mutate into Black Panthers, a bigger and blacker cat, which is black-catting irony in and of itself is it not?

Someone could make a killing supplying crates of this shit to the RN.

ខ្ញុំរៀនភាសាខ្មែរ

Any early-retiree will tell you aesthetics are important. So I wasted no time in improving the room's feng-shui with a child's Khmer alphabet poster. I can read basic words but struggle with speech. I can't get the Thai words oot-ma-swede. Getting there, slowly.

Blekfat Battle

In the red corner we have the $5 Rusty gourmet gap filler. In the blue corner we have the $6 Magic Sponge gastronomic gut buster. They're both good, but if I had a gun to my head I'd have to go with the Magic Sponge. The Alaskan host's infectious mood will have you leaving with a smile plastered across ya boat.

Expenses

The 8 weeks of June/July in Kampot were very enjoyable, however, the main focus was to lay the groundwork for September and the commencement of ER2@48 for real. This involved organising a visa, opening a bank account, buying a bicycle and sourcing a room. It all went to plan and paved the way for a seamless transition from working simp-drone to chilled-retiree.

I changed the last of the VND to USD and flew out of SGN with $800 in cold hard cash. Still have $400 a month later.

What? $400 for the whole of September?

Aye, and I wanted for nowt.

The room was $85 ($70 rent, $8 elec, $1 water, $5 wifi, $1 tip) leaving around $10/day which is plenty for a teetotal celibate monk.

However, it's not all rainbows and unicorn farts. To say "2022 didn't use lube on my investments" would be a gross understatement. Stocks, bonds, real estate and GBP have all taken a beating. My stocks are worth less than I put in. However, you can't keep AWOL down - I'm not fkn selling - I'll ride out the economic turbulence and continue this life of leisure in the tropics.

Sabai Sabai