It's awfully darn comfortable here, not to mention 'cheap'. I can see why it would be easy to just say, 'what the hell, I have everything I need here, why travel?' Many many people do it that way, the snow birds who come year after year and make Chiang Mai their winter home. At the moment I'm into a very mellow groove, walking, swimming, cappuccino, reading, music and delicious food. (And I could live quite comfortably for $12 a day, everything included. The reason it's so cheap is that I don't drink, don't smoke, don't partake of the 'adult opportunities'. Why leave? Why deal with buses, trains, visas, backpacks, beggars (which I here are omnipresent in Cambodia), loneliness, danger (maybe), and all the uncertainty of the road? Because I want to, plain and simple.
I've been checking off the items that are keeping me here, and today I'm in the midst of spending some time with Oh for the first time in the two weeks I've been here. Sunday is her day off and we made plans to meet, have a meal or whatever, talk and get some 'closure'. That last one is my agenda, I don't know that it's part of the landscape here, but I want to feel some sense of completion. We met at 3pm at a restaurant, she showed up exhausted, could hardly keep her eyes open. 'What you want to talk about?' Uh nothing at the moment. Are you hungry? She had a couple of coffees to wake up and I asked if I could buy her a massage. She was resistant... 'Nothing free, Richard'. like I was using the offer as a hook. Oh yeah, she's charming first thing in her morning.
But she's hurting, working very hard, consistent back and shoulder pain, so it made me happy to see her get the massage that she needs. I got a one hour massage and she is in the middle of her two hour massage, God bless her. She deserves it. We'll grab some food afterward and then say goodbye. Feels right, I want to do something nice for her. So Mr Big Shot is forking out $15 (for both massages... plus whatever tip she wants to give her masseuse). I splurged with a $3.50 tip for mine, it was a great massage.
I got a message from Lan Anh, my Vietnamese friend, who tells me that she's going to be attending a conference in Bangkok in about a week's time, and if I'm there, we could visit. That would be really cool, so my inclination today is to plan on a trip to Bangkok, one or two nights there, a visit with my friend, and then a cross border van ride to Siem Reap in Cambodia. Siem Reap is the home of Angkor Wat, one of the true wonders of the world, and that will be my first stop in the country. So if things hold to form, I'll have about a week here to enjoy this paradise, book a train ticket, then get the laundry done, pack it up and hit the road.
Oh seems OK, not bitter toward me for breaking up with her. She went through some heartache, I'm gathering, but seems beyond it and into her life... hard work, fighting off the guys, smoking and drinking and saving the day for Taew, who needs her badly. In our brief conversation, Oh said that 'we are in two different worlds, I smoke and drink, and you don't'. I think she's fundamentally right. It's a relief to just let her do her thing, not have any attachment to any behavioral outcomes, because it wouldn't work anyway. People have to do it the way they do it. Live and let live. I'm feeling the closure piece taking shape.
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