Transcription
I guess in the end I hit rock bottom. My wife was already there, so at least I wasn't alone. Anyway, for the sake of our sanity, we left the island.
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Feel like I shaved about 10 years off my face. I haven't cut my hair yet, though. It's a big mop. A yellow mop. I look like a twink, which honestly is great because I was considering a lifestyle change.
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So, we left the island. All in all, we lasted about 4 months. It was great in the beginning. Uh, incredible really. And I feel really privileged to be able to see the island and live there before it gets developed. I guess in hindsight things started to go downhill when the weather changed. I thought that uh the rainy season on Kurong would be the same as the rainy season here in Camry, but it wasn't. The rain was absolutely incessant. Sometimes it would rain all day and then it would rain the next day and then it would rain the day after that. The sound of rain hitting the roof at night was absolutely deafening. So, none of us could sleep and we couldn't go anywhere because it was too dangerous to ride the bike. The feeling of freedom that we had when we first arrived on the island gave way to a sense of claustrophobia and we're basically just trapped in our rooms. We couldn't even use the balcony. It was like being back in Broadmore. The few restaurants that were within walking distance of our shack started to close randomly because we were the only customers and that left us without food. And for at least the last 2 months that we were on the island, all I drank was coffee and beer. It offered some escape, you know, at least for my brain. And as the weeks dragged on, alcohol tightened its grip on me and I became paranoid and angry. One night during a particularly intense thunderstorm, I became convinced that my wife was having an affair with one of the local fishermen. And I threw her head first into the mangrove. If it wasn't for the otter, she would have drowned.
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As the rain started to get heavier and heavier and the jungle started to get flooded, various creatures started to come out of the jungle and seek shelter. And some of them started to seek shelter in our shack. First, it was the snakes. And honestly, the snakes weren't that much trouble because they don't make any noise. They actually make excellent house guests. But then the rat moved in. Now, I said in a previous video that there were no rats on Korang. Well, it turns out there are rats on Korong and one of them moved into our shack. This rat would wake us up every single night. The sound of it chewing on the wood sounded exactly like someone was trying to break into the shack. So, I would get an adrenaline shot at like 2:00 every morning. And obviously, that's the opposite of what you want when you're trying to get to sleep. And this rat was creating havoc with all of our stuff. Every morning there'd be some new thing of ours with chew marks in it. And even if the rat had not completely destroyed this thing, I didn't want to take the chance that we would contract some sort of rat disease. So, we'd have to throw it out. I mean, it would be pretty annoying if we contracted like the bubonic plague or something like that in this day and age. So, between the rat and the rain and the hangovers, it wasn't a great recipe for someone's mental health. I mean, sleep deprivation is literally used as a form of torture. So, as time goes on, it really takes a toll on someone's well-being. And it's not like we had the option to give someone a piece of information in order for them to stop the torture. If I could have told the rat some government secret or something so that it would leave us alone, I would have. Towards the end of our stay on the island, if someone would have offered me 8 hours sleep uninterrupted, I would have sold out my own mother.
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As time went on, it also became clear to us that living on the island wasn't really fair to my daughter. I mean, she did make a lot of friends. She was actually a bit of a celebrity in the local village which was great for her self-esteem because she always wanted to be famous like Taylor Swift. That's what she says. But she can't speak Kumai and the local kids couldn't speak English or Spanish. So it was impossible for her to communicate with them. I know she would have learned the language eventually but in the meantime watching her struggle to fit in made me feel really selfish. I mean it's not her fault that her dad's a lunatic.
So, we're back in Chia Rape and honestly, being back on the mainland, it's incredible. All these things that I used to take for granted, I see them now with new eyes. Sleeping in a clean bed with air conditioning and not having to worry that some creature is going to wake me up in the middle of the night, chewing on the wood. It's such a relief. One of the first things I did was actually go to the cinema on the top floor here and watching a movie in the cinema after 4 months without even having a TV. I mean, it was honestly like a religious experience. There's just so much choice here. Bakeries, bars, coffee shops. It's actually been a bit overwhelming after living on the island for so long. Something as simple as buying a loaf of bread would be like a day's mission for us on the island. But here obviously bread sold on almost every street. I used to have to ride my motorbike for 30 minutes to pick up a bag of coffee. There must be 100 coffee shops in Camry. And is there anything that personifies the joy of civilization better than Dairy Queen, the only monarch to whom I swear my allegiance? Long live the Dairy Queen.
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Being back in CM Reap reminds me of all the reasons that I fell in love with this city when we first arrived, which was about a year ago at this point. This place is somewhat of an anomaly. It's poor, but it's safe. It's cheap, but it's modern. And the economy is built on tourism, but the people are honest. They don't try and scam you. It has to be one of the best places to live in the world. And it's good to be back. But, uh, we've been here a year now. And ever since my daughter was born, we try and visit our parents at least once a year. So, that's what we're going to do now. And visiting family isn't easy when half of them are in Scotland and the other half are in Mexico. If you're a Mexican, it's almost impossible to fly to Mexico over the Pacific because both Canada and the United States require visas, even if you just want to transit through the airport. And almost all of the Trans-Pacific flights stop in either Canada or the United States. And getting to Scotland isn't exactly a stroll in the park either. First, we have to get to Bangkok. And I had booked a taxi from CM to Bangkok. But then the Thai military closed all the land borders. So we have to fly. What would have cost me $130 for the taxi is now costing me $450 for the flight. To fly from CMRE to Bangkok, first we have to get to the airport, which is around about a 45minut drive out of town. The new airport is a lot bigger than the old one and there's hardly anyone there. I suppose seeing Anchor Watt isn't really a priority for most people these days. Most people are just trying to pay the bills and get through the day. As I enjoy the smallest Burger King that I've ever had in my life, I wonder if the transition from Cambodia beer to Thai beer will be seamless or if my body will reject it like if you try to do a blood transfusion using the blood of an animal. We arrive in Bangkok and realize to our horror that we can no longer use the five words of kami that we learned in the year that we lived in Cambodia. What little of the Thai language I know was taught to me by a young lady on Kosamui several years ago whom I spent some memorable nights with. Beautiful woman, big hands. I take my first sip of Singer Beer, and to my relief, my body welcomes it with open arms, embracing it like an old friend. Encouraged and still recovering from the grueling 1-hour flight, I have six more. To get from Bangkok to the UK, we have to stop in Oman and change planes. And as luck would have it, the Middle East is currently at war and the skies are full of missiles. Knowing my luck will get shot down and end up washing up on some desert island somewhere. Back to square one. The sense of deja vu will be too much for me and I'll quickly lose all sense of time and place and reality. As my family go hungry, I'll spend my time scribbling time travel theories on the wall of our beachfront cave. And like a chimpanzee accidentally typing the complete works of Shakespeare. I eventually stumble upon the theory of everything. Consumed by the fact that I've just unified all the known laws of physics, I barely react when we're spotted by the crew of a passing aircraft carrier. My wife starts to do her hair in anticipation of being rescued. But the ship doesn't stop and the crew open fire. As I lie in the sand and begin to lose consciousness, I hear the faint sound of Born in the USA playing from the deck of the ship. And I wonder if generations from now, the writing I left on the cave wall will inspire wonder in the people who find it, or will it be dismissed as gibberish or some sort of primitive art left by an ancient Middle Eastern tribe? But then a B-52 bomber emerges from behind a cloud, and I realize it's probably not worth thinking about.
Shway
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is extremely busy today. We're looking for volunteers.