The 10 BEST things about Southeast Asia

1. The women

Ladies first, naturally. I am a gentleman. If any man does not mention women as part of the reason he stayed in Southeast Asia then he is either a liar, prefers men or is involuntarily stationed overseas by his employer.

Imagine the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen. They don’t make ‘em like that very often. Well, actually they do. In the beginning I was seeing “the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen” a couple times a day. This is not to say that all Asian ladies are picture perfect – far from it, it’s just there are a seemingly large proportion of attractive women providing almost too much visual stimulation. There are wretched looking folks over here too, but naturally the eyes pay them less attention.

2. The food

Thai food is world renown, Vietnamese food is ngon, Khmer food is alright and the sticky rice in Laos is enough to warrant a visit. I'd go back to Indonesia just for the tempe. And then there is the abundance of tropical fruit and street food that really makes any longing for American cuisine, whatever that is, go away.

3. Motorbikes

There is really no other way to travel. Elbow to elbow with your neighbors and exhaust straight up your nose. All kidding aside, it's truly invigorating. The sunburnt arms and excessively large eye boogers are just part of the price you pay for being able to travel even faster through the crowded streets of wherever you are in SE Asia.

4. The cost of living

I think I paid $700 for my 1 bedroom apartment in Portland, Oregon five years ago. Now I pay $70 a month in Siem Reap. Granted I don't have hardwood floors, hot water or a kitchen, but still. $70 might pay for your electricity bill back home.

I won't even get into the cost of food & beverages or the savings associated with not having an automobile. Regarding healthcare, I remember paying $5 in Vietnam for a doctor's consultation and $20 for a root canal in Cambodia.

I also like the fact that I can alter a t-shirt that I might otherwise give away for about fifty cents. Put simply, things are cheap. I like cheap.

5. The weather

In most places in Southeast Asia, there are two seasons: wet and dry. There is never a winter unless you are living in the north of Vietnam. In actuality there are three seasons: hot, rainy and cool. The hot season being excessively hot, the rainy season being excessively wet and the cool season being absolutely perfect, but excessively short. It usually lasts just a couple of months.

6. Accessibility

It is literally just a hop, skip and a jump to a different country in Southeast Asia. And pretty cheap to fly, which keeps things relatively low budget. Here you fly from Bangkok to Saigon in the same time you might fly from San Francisco to Reno. Cheaper, more exciting, less airport security and prettier flight attendants. New cultures await practically at your doorstep.

7. People-watching

In Vietnam, I could sit outside, especially at night, and watch the world go by with no need for someone to accompany me. Of course, having someone to laugh with at the sights I saw was more entertaining. From three dogs on a motorbike to purse snatchings to insane traffic jams – all part of a day’s sightseeing from the comfort of a tiny plastic chair on the sidewalk. The noises are another story, which can be both enlivening and unnerving at the same time.

8. Cheap beer

In Cambodia, I think of fifty cent draft beer. Anchor, Angkor or Cambodia, take your pick. They’re all equally as bad, but the price is so good, especially when it comes with a free bowl of peanuts. There are better beers, for sure, but hard to pay triple the price even when it’s a third of the price you’d pay back home. In Vietnam, I fondly recollect a bottle of Tiger on the street for approximately 75 cents. A more reasonable tasting beer. Cheap beer makes going out a little easier on the wallet and buying a round not such a big deal. It probably also creates a lot more alcoholics.

9. Fewer rules

I think fewer rules generally apply to a foreigner living in SE Asia. Foreigners can sure get away with a lot, aside from drug trafficking, for which you may get the death penalty regardless of your country of origin. Fines or bribes from not wearing a helmet or not having a license are relatively small and we’re often invisible on the roads whereas the local populace might otherwise be pulled over.

Other examples I can think of include obtaining some pharmaceutical drugs without a doctor’s prescription, buying alcohol, less worry about traffic fines (although perhaps more worry about a traffic accident) and better treatment in some establishments perhaps due to the perceived notion we might be spending more money there. I also like that you can buy a phone and put any sim inside. No restrictions, no contracts, no paperwork, no annoyance!

10.  More freedom

By more freedom, I simply mean having less tie me down. I don't like being tied down unless it's foreplay and she's hot. I like simplifying my life and not receiving mail, not having a mobile phone contract, not having auto or health insurance, although I admit I should have health insurance. Call me stupid. I like being free to go where I like and pick up whatever job I find along the way. I may not be climbing the corporate ladder as I’m supposed to be, but I am not agonizing about making my next mortgage payment, car payment or filing through insurance documents. Little if any paperwork. Oh and how could I forget, but no taxes! That doesn’t apply to everyone working in SE Asia, it all depends on who you work for and how much you make. Clearly I do not make that much, but enough to live comfortably and well above the status quo.

There are mosquitoes in my cranberry juice!

The fuckers at my biweekly omelet sandwich/mango shake restaurant tried to pull a fast one on me this morning. My sandwich came already prepared, which you think would be a benefit, rather than letting me slice the baguette, shake in the pepper, lay in the slices of cucumber, tomato and onion, cram in the oily slightly browned two egg omelet, squeeze in the chili sauce and cram it all in with the knife before cutting the rather-large-for-one-dollar sandwich in half with the chili-stained knife.

What was so fast about it you ask? Well, for one, assembling the beast of a sandwich had become a morning routine of sorts. Something I looked forward to. It took my mind off the flies circling overhead and the dirty cat on the floor waiting for an opportunity to take a bite when I looked away for a second. They also put mayonnaise on it, which I despise. Perhaps most importantly though, they reduced the egg content. Cramming in lettuce this time with all the regular fixings trying to hide the fact there was one less egg, I don't like that kind of business. Just raise the fucking price and keep it real rather than disguise it in order to fool the customer.  Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. I shall not get fooled again.

Just to clarify, biweekly as stated above is meant to mean twice a week. Just checking Dictionary.com, it appears to have two definitions: 1. occurring every two weeks. and 2. occurring twice a week. How the fuck can that not possibly lead to confusion? Perhaps the difference between American and British English. Annoying, yes.

Ok, now that I've got that out of my system, I can relax. It was the fastest I've ever consumed the aforementioned rather-large-for-one-dollar sandwich probably because there was one less egg to masticate. The mango shake was rather delicious, but I slurped it up and requested the bill with my lips still suctioned to the straw. No tip for you! Now I'm sipping perhaps the best cup of coffee in Siem Reap at Central Cafe. The waitress asked with a quivering lip or a tear in her eye, I couldn't tell exactly what was wrong, if I wanted milk, which I didn't. I like her more for displaying such emotion even if she was trying her best to hide it. I hate to see people sad though.

My coffee is now cold, but it still tastes good. I reckon that's the sign of a good cup. Or maybe it's cause I put sugar in it. Yeah, that's probably more like it.

The last two movies I have watched, both over the span of the last 48 hours, contained the song It Never Rains in Southern California. Weird. They were Greenberg featuring Ben Stiller and Melancholia featuring Kiefer Sutherland amongst others. Both movies I will likely forget in due time and re-watch at a later date and say Oh fuck, not this agaaaaaaain! A bit odd that I don't remember hearing It Never Rains over the course of the two part Melancholia. Just happened to see it listed in the credits. I always watch the credits or fast forward through them just in case I miss something entertaining. In the end though, they are rarely worth watching, truth be told.

Getting back to this post nearly nearly seven hours after it was born. I've since watched another movie, this one entitled In a Better World and gone for a jog and now I'm drinking a tall glass of cranberry juice and eating peanuts at dusk listening to Once There Was a Hushpuppy from the Beasts of the Southern Wild soundtrack. You really should have a listen and maybe even watch the flick, but the score is the best thing about it. Ok, I'll stop promoting it now. But seriously, it makes me feel like I'm in love and I like that. Maybe that's why all the waitresses at this place look so pretty. I might order a second cranberry juice just in case I have a urinary tract infection.

Seriously, this music is so fucking good. I feel a bit impolite wearing my headphones in a public place, but I am sitting alone so fuck it. It is nice to hear the overhead tunes, the traffic below (because I'm not in it) and the chatter of others (from afar). Now I can just put the headphones around my neck and pretend I'm a DJ.

The mood lighting is now on. Triangle Bar is where it's at, for sure. Just nobody to enjoy the mood with. Where art thou my pretty waitress? I'm kidding, I'm not in the mood to babysit. Just make eyes and look away when they feel sufficiently uncomfortable. I can't decide between another cranberry juice or pack it in and go get a vanilla brownie ice cream before dinner. Why not? I think they say chunks of brownie in one's ice cream improves vision, don't they? And my vision is a little blurry at the moment. Like carrot juice, but better. Depends on your mood, I guess.

Oops, starting to see mosquitoes in the shadows. Fuck the cranberry juice! The pretty waitresses seem to be helping other customers anyway. Now what, another movie I suppose. As long as it doesn't contain It Never Rains in Southern California it'll be alright. An ice cream, dinner and a movie, alone I might add (no money, no honey) is an almost perfect trifecta. Ok, the mosquitoes are ravenous. I'm out!

The procrastinating Cookie Monster

The guy next to me sounds like the fight fixer in the Snatch. Kind of resembles him too although slightly less scary looking. But the voice alone is enough to turn heads. The woman across from me looks like the kidnapped Vietnamese child turned forced underaged prostitute in the film Holly. Weird how everyone starts to resemble someone if you watch enough movies. And lately, I've been watching a lot of them. Catching up I guess you could say. I call it procrastinating.

In the past week or so alone, I think I've watched fourteen movies. Some days just one and other days three. One in the morning prior to hitting the cafe, one in the late afternoon and one after dinner before bed. It's called killing time. I'm pretty good at that these days. That doesn't include the thirty something movies I've downloaded since I've been in Cambodia and other stack of borrowed dvds last month. Some recent titles include The Descendants, Liberal Arts, Moonrise Kingdom, The Dictator, Careless Love, Old Boy, Attack the Block, Albatross, Perfect Sense, Ruby Sparks, My Week with Marilyn, In the Land of Blood and Honey, Audition and Holly.

Now what to do? I've finished checking my junk mail, perusing Facebook and eating my snacks. This is boring. I should be thinking about what is next, the upcoming chapter, but I can't. I'm so lazy, unmotivated, unambitious and in general, so blah that I can barely move. Aside from getting up, sitting down, biking over here, biking over there and sitting in front of my laptop. I'm still waiting for that lightning bolt of inspiration to tell me what to do. In the meantime, I'm making a die to roll with destinations instead of numbers. Hanoi, Saigon, Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, Bangkok or return home? And if I land on the latter I'll do a best of five rolls...

My eye is a bit swollen. Perhaps another case of conjunctivitis? Hooray! Good thing I just touched it, hopefully spread it around a bit. Ok, no more complaining. I just got three new old t-shirts. The best kind, really. One had to be tailored for 75 cents, a slight price jump from the standard 50 cents. I was appalled originally, but surrendered without an argument because I was feeling weak. And well, he did a good job so I might return again in the future. I love finding cool secondhand clothes that fit, but if they don't, I love being able to make them fit for nearly nothing.

I'm just rambling now. I think the Bible group has returned. It's nearly time for me to make my exodus to the lower level. And then go get some lunch. I think tofu lok lak is on the menu today. However, the wait is typically atrocious even when I'm the only customer. Last time, I walked out on them. You take the order and you place the order. You don't go out on the street bullshitting with other customers trying to keep everyone happy and wanting to come back again. At some point, you have to keep your eyes on what is in front of you. Oh wait, I'm complaining again. I really have to work on that.

Time is ticking and another day is half over. I need to start ticking. I need a jumpstart or a shock from a defibrillator. Or maybe just a solid push from behind. Or a slap to the face. Maybe the pharmacy has what I need. Do you have any pills that give you drive? That inspire? That make you creative? That give you passion? That make you love? That illuminate the darkness? That make you want to be someone? To do something? No? Hmmm. Ok, thanks anyway. I'll keep looking. Maybe I'll find it in the tofu lok lak. It might be just around the corner. Just have to stop closing my eyes and turning off my brain. The never-ending story continues...