Phonm Penh, Cambodia

I am dictating my entry using Google dictating tool on my smartphone keyboard. Sometimes I may make funny mistakes because I don't always look what the tool has created for me. Sometimes it has made really funny mistakes like the nearby town of us has became a suck d##k even though the real name is Sa Dec. Some other obscene interpretations it has also created but I can't remember them right now.

Anyway this Android application is really a nice tool compared to earlier versions of blocking applications that had so many mistakes and black even some basic features, for example editing.

I do not write my block entries on one go but I edit them during several days and sometimes I even may come back to an old entry years after publishing it.

Temperature here is the same ass in southern Vietnam in macomb Delta area where I have been living the past 5 years

I came here from Vietnam because my Vietnam visa expired on 29th of October and I was not granted a new visa without leaving the country.

I chose Cambodia because I can come here without flying. I just took a bus to Ho chi Minh city stayed there in a hotel overnight and next morning took giant Ibis luxury bus to the Cambodian border. There are cheaper options for visa runs but there are not as high quality services like this one. I am using my white cane because my eyesight has been became worse. In general my health is in the state that I feel myself an old man. That's not only negative but I find some positive and interesting in it. I get easily special treatment even on the streets when crossing the road and waving my stick. Now when we crossed the border I did not have to leave the bus but the tour guide that bus company included in the ticket price was taken care of us and she thought I am too sick to work and stand in lines so she just took my passport and make me sit in the bus while others went out to cross the borders.

I had Cambodian eraser already bought online so I did not have to buy a visa on arrival.

Everything was nice and smooth and after about 7 hours we arrived in Phnom Penh. In the bus I was talking to some Indian people, there are also very nice and friendly ladies in the group. I was a bit too shy to ask to add them on Facebook or get their contacts but it may be that we even can meet here in Cambodia because they were staying in a hotel nearby. And I guess they still are.

I have visited Cambodia twice before. First time was from Malaysia where I was developing a relationship with the local lady. Soon after she told me to go away and I went to Cambodia. I had the short relationship there but the next day I told her that I want to go back to Malaysia after I had called the lady and told her I want to come back to her. 

So I returned to Malaysia and was staying with that lady on and off for about 16 months until in the beginning of a 2016 I left her and came to Vietnam and after Vietnam went to Ukraine. I wanted to settle in Ukraine find a relationship and permanent home. I lived in Kharkiv and Kyiv. Was teaching English as a volunteer there. I had to leave the country after 3 months and I spent those in Finland. I was really missing you crazy where I also had a relationship under construction. It didn't work because the lady showed her true nature being too emotional and trying to play games with me. When it starts snowing in Kyiv in November I decided to move to Vietnam where I had a few ladies waiting for me to come and meet them after we found each other on Asian dating website 

But now everything is different, I am different. I am not looking for a partner, not looking for an adventure. Now I am responsible father and I am worried about my son. He is 3 years old and we spent a lot of time together. I have done my best to explain him why I am not at home with him. He is old enough to understand that I am somewhere that I have not disappeared totally so he even can have a video conversation with me using messenger or whatever applications we use for online chatting. 

I am so proud of him. He can tell me what he is doing at home, that he is eating watermelon. He can tell me to come home right now, not leave him alone but take him with me. I just hope he won't lose his hope if he has to wait for me for a week or two before I can get my Vietnamese visa. I am married to a Vietnamese woman but still it is not easy to get Theresa anymore. Some people say that all this is because of they want to get rid of agents that are harvesting lots of money from foreigners the other say that they just don't want pensioners in the country.

Whatever, I cannot help the situation, I have to stay at least for a few days here and those days I can enjoy as well. It will not harm my child even if I enjoy here. It is the other way: if I am happy it gives me more strength to be with him when I am back home again. Just hope it will happen soon.

This is the first time that I am traveling with a CPAP machine. I have been renting this Phillips Respironics more than 3 weeks already and I have used it every night since I got it on October 4th. I feel it has helped me a lot to improve my sleep and that way whole my health and my life.

I have noticed especially while traveling and also at home that my eyesight has became a little worse. I notice it when I have to use smartphone applications like Google maps for finding places or Grab to order a motorbike taxi to a certain location. It is quite hard for me to specify the current address and verify that the destination is correct. I have made a few mistakes because of that.

So I came to Phnom Penh because I was asked to leave Vietnam in order to get a new visa. As I told earlier I am not really on traveling mood. If I could choose I would be at home with my son or at least I would travel together with him. However it was too complicated this time to take him and my wife with me.

As I have been video chatting with my son I feel he kind of understand that I haven't disappeared but I am somewhere and because he was with me inside gone he has an idea where I am and what I am doing. Sending him photos of not myself only but also of different vehicles like buses excavators front loaders I believe will keep him interested and inspired.

I used to live nobody's life and kind of enjoyed freedom of traveling but now it's different. Beside my son I miss at home my own food my early morning walking and exercise sessions. Now I want to have a permanent long-term home that I can work on to improve. I am not a city person. I wouldn't like to leave in an apartment but I want to leave in a small house in countryside.

I also miss my own food and on cooking. I have been vegan for about 17 years now and when traveling I always am looking for vegetarian restaurants. 

Luckily there are plenty of them here in southeast Asia. 

On my first morning my local friend picked me up on his motorbike and took me for a coffee and then for a vegetarian meal in Maitreya vegetarian restaurant. 

This place brought memories from Indonesia and Taiwan as I told before. This picture is from January 2013 in Emei, Hsinchu county in Taiwan where they have Maitreya land with a huge happy Buddha statue.

Money is a problem. Most of us encounter this problem in the phone that we don't enough money by our bills and to buy necessitues for everyday survival. As western person living in Vietnam My money problem in Vietnam appears also the other way: I have money to buy something but I don't know how to get it. I have to beg my wife several times before she agrees to help me and often should I cannot understand what exactly I want. For small gadgets and food items it's easier because I can order them online.

Here in Cambodia I have money problems of two kinds: inside out several times already I don't feel like I want to be travelling but I would like to be at home in state with my son and do something useful for the house, spend my money in renovating his and Even playing mortgage for buying the land.

I really cannot call myself handyman. My carpentry skills are very limited, they wouldn't be successful in Finland where people expect heirlooms to be very tidy and accurately build and renovated. In Vietnam it is different, more relaxed if you want to express it in a positive way. I have been learning by doing. I have started replacing old truck and timber with new one. I have built some kitchen shelving, and now when there is a cat in the house, I want to create a cat house: building shelves and climbing trees in the house in the attic so that the cat can stay at home and enjoy his life there. 

I already built such structures for our four cats in Australia. There it was more challenging because my wife required more tidy quality and it was a brick house. In a wooden house I could do much more and easier. I have been investing some money in good tools which make it more enjoyable to work and the quality will be better.

One of the tools is laser level with measuring tape and traditional bubble level.

Going back to my money problems, financial issues. One of them is currency conversions.

Now I understand the value of Vietnamese dong that is the currency that I am using daily. My income is in Australian dollars and euros so I understand them as well. US dollar is so close to Euro so I can use that approximate conversion. But Cambodian riel is a problem because I haven't been here so many times and haven't got used to the currency. Here you can pay many things in US dollars but they often give you change back in the local currency. My brain still hasn't accepted the value of that currency. They have very small banknotes that look very nice and are decorated with style but the value of them is in cents.

 

I am trying to use Vietnamese dong as a reference. Luckily there is the internet and I have local sim card with enough data so I don't need to worry using all the tools that I can find. I f.

I found a conversion table online. From that I have learned that I should multiply by 6 in order to get approximate value in Vietnamese currency.

Another money problem acquired when I tried to pay my hotel room extension with a 100 US dollar bill. It had a small tear so the hotel did not accept it. They also did not accept any cards but they wanted payments in cash. They asked me to go to market and change this bill with a money changer. My friend here at twice to go to ABA Bank and change it in there. I did and I chose a branch a bit further so I could walk there and at the same time choose a vegetarian restaurant for lunch. 

.First I found that banks ATM and I withdrew $200. The teller  gave me only $10 bills. I walked some more and found a big building of the bank where I could go in and change the money. They checked the serial number and the bill with some special machinery and finally changed it into smaller bills.

Just have to remember not to bring into Cambodia any big Bank notes but five and $10 bills.

US dollar is very rare kind of currency that still is printed on paper and not in plastic. It gets damaged very easily.

That day I was walking a lot, according to google about 13 km. I saw the very Chinese part of the city and had to chat with security officer there. He was Cambodian Chinese. 

Then I went back to the vegetarian restaurant of Mautreya Buddhists. There was another Chinese  Cambodian, the restaurant owner home ICE showed photos of me with happy Buddha. He also asked whether I can speak any Chinese. Meeting with Chinese people made me feel as if I were in Singapore.

Also shop names and signs are in Chinese in the most Chinese area 

There is also construction happening everywhere in the city center. It looks the same here as it looked in Singapore in 2002 when I was walking around the island.

Then in the evening after 6:00 p.m. my friend took me on motorbike to the vegetarian restaurant that I had found in the morning. They are serving vegan pizza. We ordered both of them and they had lots of cashew cheese on top.

How many more days in Cambodia? Will it be really true that I can get my Vietnamese visa at least for 3 months and after that a 3-year temporary residency as they have promised me?

For November I will submit another entry and tell rest of the story. In my Timo Tropiikista blog in Finnish language I have adopted the habits to publish one entry per month that I usually writet during the month and make timed publishing fir the end of the month. I will do the same here as soon as I can learn how to do it using this smartphone application.