The Big Five Oh

Stunning

Fifty orbits around a burning sphere of hydrogen. Fifty arbitrary time-units as an impermanent coalition of quarks and electrons, gravitationally bound to an encrusted sphere of liquid iron. In a form conscious not only of its existence, but also of its ultimate demise. Beholden to, and limited by, seemingly universal physical laws. No choice in the matter - simply thrust into the glaring light of being, endowed with only the evolved faculties of a primitive ape. It's all so mind-bogglingly bizarre.

ER2@48 - a year in

So then, aye, a full year of early retirement in Kampot. Has it been everything I'd hoped? Spose so aye. Can't overstate the gratitude I feel to be unencumbered by the trivial and mundane. Free of petty managers, mono-dimensional colleagues and insipid grind. A visa not contingent on thumbing-in-and-out of a prison. No longer a number on a ledger. A whole year. Free.

17 years, Man and Boy

Bokor Sunset

Laid in the hammock observing sinister cloud formations over Bokor. Next door's fluffy dog on my lap. As the seasons shift from hot/dry to cool/wet the sky is often pregnant with electrical energy. Distant arcs of lightening, count the seconds, 15, so roughly 5km, a while yet before hammock-evac.

Rotting in Kampot

Lotus pond sunset

Tech

June 2023 marks:

• 1 year in Kampot
• 17 years in SEA

32 when I left, 49 now. The social and technological changes have been staggering. The early blogs were hastily cobbled together in internet cafes - normally in an hour. Phones didn't have cameras so the 2006 - 2009 era is light on pics. I had a habit of drunkenly losing USB sticks and cheap digital cameras - most of the photos back then were courtesy of transient girlfriends.

The Xi'an Glimpse

Feeling an overwhelming sense of gratitude to be here. To be alive. It's been a surreal few weeks.

It may have inadvertently started when a Manc septuagenarian began to (randomly) recite passages of Othello while downing cans of Black Panther. Auld Dave's as tough as they come having spent decades as a boxing coach. The last thing I was expecting was a broadside of Shakespearean prose as I scoffed me pie n chips - tremendous.

Don't go chasing Waterfalls

Loving Kampot. Seven months here. The blink of an eye.

Kampot-time flashes by whereas Saigon-time wades, waist-deep, through putrid sludge.

How? Simple. Physics tells us that time dilates depending on an observer's relative velocity and/or location within a gravitational field. Clearly, Saigon must be orbiting a massive black hole at incredible speed giving rise to its lethargic clock.

Was grateful to visit TWO waterfalls on the back of antipodean Simon's AirBlade - like shit off a stick that thing. He rented "The Pumphouse" back in the day before escaping to Kep. A most convivial companion - perfect for splodging up jungle streams and clambering over slippery rocks to reach the refreshing ទឹកធ្លាក់វាលពួច.

49 times around the buoy

Progress

Lying in the hammock enjoying the evening chorus of croaking frogs and chirping crickets. Not a breath of wind - palm fronds motionless in the still air. Winking stars dot the blackness - incomprehensibly distant. The moonless night rendering Bokor Hill invisible. Perfect. I feel ridiculously grateful to be here.

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.

ER2@48 - pulling the trigger.

Starter

September 2022 and I've only written two entries this year. Shocking. Saigon literally extracts the creativity from your soul. Meanwhile, I'm stunned to see the hit count approaching 500,000 ... quite something considering this blog is essentially the aimless ramblings of an eccentric loon.

Kampot - 16 years in Asia.

BinYenh Guesthouse

Was lucky to get the first week of May off, so spent it back in Mui Ne. Magical. Same room. Same routine. Rinse and repeat. Daily 9km walks along a NATO standard tropical beach - palm trees and strikingly blue sea. Destination: Teen Cafe and its prominent viewpoint.

Retire@39 fail. Retire@49?

I haven't written for a while. Truth is there's not much to write about. I'm simply grinding out the lifeless-life of a sector-7g worker drone, in a spirit-crushing urban hell-scape, stacking as much $Dong as I feasibly can in order to not have to do this again. I mostly spend the time daydreaming about my time in Battambang, Chiang Mai, Nepal and the many epic motorbike trips I enjoyed in rural Thailand. Treasured memories, getting harder to evoke, elusive, like grasping for smoky tendrils near a ceiling fan. Man, I couldn't be further away - in both spatial and temporal domains.

Amor Fati - Luxury is weakness

Sunday afternoon, December, 31C. Lovely, doubt I'll ever tire of tropical winters. Cocooned in a windowless bed-n-bog - insulated from the traffic - both the horns (aaahh) and the filth, though the air quality is treating our lungs to a rare day in the green.

You never know what's round the corner

Got double jabbed. I didn't want to get vaxxed but I do want to travel. Government overreach around the world has been terrifying. Some Europeans are protesting but compliant Asians have bent over and taken it - no lube. The Army starvation lockdowns in HCMC were brutal - the worst on earth!

For this too shall pass

Today's title is culturally appropriated from ancient Persia, reflecting on the ephemeral nature of things.

HoChiMing had already been locked down for 3 months when they decided to bring the Army in. We can't leave our homes - not even to shop. If the coof doesn't get you - starvation and depression will. Welcome to the planet's most draconian lockdown.

Lockdown blues

Eight weeks off - good.
In lockdown - bad.

HCMC has entered the mother of all lockdowns whereby we're only allowed out to the nearest grocery store. Given that I live in a windowless bed-n-bog, I've been eating anything that doesn't need cooked.

Dreams of clean mountain air in Dalat quickly evaporated leaving a residue of ham sandwiches and youtube.

15 years in Asia

I left England 15 years ago today. The 12th of June 2006 to the 12th of June 2021. My last sight of Blighty were the remote Shetland Isles slipping away on a bleak southern horizon. The ferry was making its way north, through the icy Atlantic to Torshavn - the capital of the Faroes Islands.

I was 32 then. 47 now. I didn't plan to stay away this long, it just happened. Let's take a peek through the murky telescope of history at this roller coaster.

20 types of western teacher in Asia

I’ve taught in Asia since 2007. During that time I’ve encountered a whole spectrum of characters in a wide variety of roles. I’ve taught in Taiwan, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam and China. I’ve taught online, in language centers, in government schools, in international schools and even as a private tutor. I’ve seen it all.

21st Century Diogenes - a tribute

Not many people in life leave an impression. There’s been three men that have had a profound impact on how I view the world. Armin (Austria) whom I met in Malaysia in 2008; Joe (Australia) whom I met in Thailand in 2014; and Dave (Wales) whom I met in Cambodia in 2019. They’re similar in some ways yet as unique as can be in others. The underpinning characteristic they all share, other than speaking foreign languages, is that they most certainly do not follow the Nietzschean herd.

Pedagogical BS

Flow

I haven't written much lately. Working 50hrs/week impedes the flow of creative juices. Weekends are for recuperation. Additionally, there's not much here to inspire a man with an adventurous soul. This is hardly the Himalayas, Borneo or the Mongolian Steppe. This is Ho Chi Ming - a chaotic city of 10M souls. Why would humans willingly subject themselves to this much noise and depressing concrete? Is the gr$$n stuff really that powerful?

Celestial Maneuvers in Mui Ne

As the earth completed another arbitrary orbit of our star, I spent the time reflecting on 47 years of sentience. The older one gets the more meaningless everything becomes, to the point of laughable absurdity. Life certainly seems to be a cosmic joke. Extended periods of suffering punctuated by moments of joy. The universe exercising its dualistic nature, happiness can't exist without pain. Light without dark. Once basic needs are met, the best one can hope for is contentment, whereby both bliss and suffering are attenuated, and a vanilla state of being is achieved. The middle way as Buddhists might say.

Urban wage slave

Waffle

Me little blog has racked up 300,000 clicks. Who'd a thunk?

Megalopolis

Starter

I'm writing this from a poky little bed-n-bog on the 4th floor of a small hotel in the pulsating heart of HoChiMinh City. It's taken some getting used to, the noise, the building shaking when a truck rumbles past, the horns, the perpetual white noise of traffic, music blaring from bars.

Did I mention noise? The last place you'd expect to find an AWOL Geordie.

Stop moaning. What've you been up to?

Batshit in Battambang. Vacuous in Vietnam.

Well, well, well. I'm sat at Incheon Airport, a mere 35km from North Korea. WTF am I doing here? Good question. It all started back in April where a confluence of events conspired to chart a new course for my erratic life.

Why I'm celibate and teetotal

Insignificant

I'd like to go a little off-piste today. Throw out some thoughts. I've been reading Nietzsche and Jung from the comfort of my small tropical apartment. It's somehow affirming to see some of your ideas stated succinctly in rational text. It's also jarring to see other beliefs disabused by those same texts. Either way it's always a worthwhile endeavour to re-evaluate your philosophical positions. Let's dive right in.

Early Retirement and Minimalism in Southeast Asia

Chilled

Early March, 1pm, well over 30-deg-C. Or, Harry Reddaz, as we'd say in the Royal Navy. I'm sat here, in glorious solitude, sipping a poolside coffee under the shade of a rainbow-coloured parasol. Rainbow? LGBTQ? From the West?

Not a twatpacker to be seen - they must be visiting the bat caves or something. Motionless palm trees remind me I'm in the tropics - mint.

The coffee's minging though - like mud.

Battambang Bliss

Early retirement

Russel

Been thinking about me old mate Aussie Russel who passed away a few years back. Sad.

One day, circa 2012, we were sat drinking Leo in his dream retirement home when I asked if he missed working?

New decade. New life.

Coin

Christmas night. Battambang. 32 deg celsius. A vindaloo settling - aye, there's an Indian here! Sat in my new apartment mulling over the last 3 months of retirement. Feels like a lot has happened since quitting the last spirit-crushing-teaching-job in Chiang Mai. I had $4,300 in a Thai bank on PDR (pay-day-runner) day. I now have $2,500 in a Cambodian bank. So $1,800 spent. Or $600/month. However, much of that was on unavoidable expenses. Let's take a look:

Battambang

Visa

Can't tell you how happy I was to see this in the passport. A one-year multiple-entry retirement visa. Haway the lads!! It's mind boggling that Thailand is so hostile while Cambodia rolls out a red carpet.

No 90day reports, no TM30s, no border bounces, no waiting for hours in immigration - ever, no landlords involved, no spirit-crushing jobs, no financial obligations.

Simply pay $300. Forget about it. Enjoy life in the tropics. 12 months later, pay again. Simple. Sabai sabai (Khmer style).

After my latest dealings with Thai immigration I'm sat here thinking I should've jumped ship earlier.

Cambodia 1

Cities

Felt sad leaving the rice fields of HangDong. Had an awesome October cycling around the sticks. And not being at work. Caught my first ever Uber to ChiangMai Airport. Spent my final Thai weekend in Krungtep Maha-Nakon (Bangers).

Financial Independence Retire Early (FIRE)

I've had a few questions asking how it's possible to retire early having lost $225,000 in 2014 at the age of 40. While that's true, this post examines how I bounced back.

The first thing to note is that I started with nowt. My parents (both passed) were far from affluent. I'm not complaining - I had a great childhood. Just stating a fact. I left school at 16. Joined the Royal Navy. Was trained as an Electronic Engineer and served on HMS Coventry (Balkans conflict 1994) and HMS Victorious (a submarine designed to rain nuclear horror on innocent civilians).