From Gulfcoastcommentary at Substack:
Cambodia is good.
I’ve written carefully about high honor culture of Cambodia and Japan, and “natural law”at my post “Cambodia: Poor, But Has a Beautiful "High Honor"Culture.“
And why would I ever return to a IMMENSELY corrupted, dangerous country of NO HONOR, NO BROTHERHOOD and no integrity? Why would I return to a nation seemingly determined to destroy it’s superior white, European culture because somehow that’s racist?? Please see or re-read my post Everything is Being Destroyed in One Generation: Our Culture, Our Country, Our Money and Capitalism Itself.
Here, they don't have a powerful central govt to screw-up everything. Most importantly, the people here have not been led into insanity by corruption, endless lies, unending laws, where everything is failing. Sure, I hear there is corruption in the Cambodian government. But the government is far away and irrelevant to the vast majority of people here.
The US once largely had this until after WWII, Now, It’s has since been overrun and taken-over by corruption, criminals, fools, do-gooders, incompetents, sociopaths, psychopaths, Karens and money-grubbers after WWII. Even Eisenhower recognized it in his warning of the MIC (military industrial complex).
But self-righteous do-gooders have been undoing our original ‘natural law’ and freedom for a very long time. I highly suggest that you have a read of Sam Jacob’s post found here: Self-Righteous Activism and Coercive State Power Trends Toward Totalitarianism for the long view of our republic’s decline due to self-righteous do-gooders. Also, please have a look and share one of my most important posts at All Rule and Government Are Evil to the Core when 'Natural Law' is Abandoned or Subverted.
The women here have not been indoctrinated in Feminism and definitely are not batshit crazy like so many in the States and they AREN'T in positions of power. The men here haven't been feminized by batshit crazy mothers influenced by lesbian and Marxist-inspired women's"liberation." Families here, although poor, are having lots of wonderful children who are always bouncing around, laughing, playing, shouting, running and having fun—giving this place a hopeful and joyous feeling. I found out that the women's maternity hospitals are free for women--which tells me alot. I think it's great! Remember, they are still trying to recover from a homocidal genocide by the Communist maniac Pol Pot.
A local family I know here, who run a coffee shop and BBQ in the evenings, just had their 4th child and she was in the hospital for 4 days. They are so great! I was traveling with a 1 troy ounze pure silver coin with me, and when I saw the family was back at the shop after having given birth, I gave it to the dad for "good luck." It was like a birthday gift. He immediately and excitedly took it to show his wife who was still in bed. The local tuk tuk drivers, who are my friends that frequent the same place, told me that the young mom had "shut down the factory"(how cute is that??) --- so 4 kids is enough for them. That may explain why the mother was in the hospital for 4 days--maybe she had surgery or had her tubes tied.
I’ve met some super smart foreigners living here. My friend Mark, who grew up in Louisville KY, and I went out & about last night, starting with 2 for 1 cocktails, then wandering along touristy Soksan Road. It was fun. It gets very lively at night in the heart of the touristy areas. I did pretty well to avoid high inebriation by sticking to occasional draft beers. I "scooted" home on my scooter at about midnight.
I love my scooter! I rent it for $60 per month. It's very zippy and has automatic transmission. I think it has the acceleration of a Tesla and it gets 115 miles per gallon of gasoline.
I've been caught in the rain quite frequently the past several months and have several flimsy rain coats, that sort of work. Sometimes I don't even care if I get wet. Screw it! Once you get wet, you can't get any wetter! Heck, it’s not a cold rain, it’s tropical rain.
A couple times I've come back to my room soaking wet, but I peel off all the wet, dripping clothes and sneakers and put them in my washer machine for a 10 min spin cycle (only) and put them on a drying rack in my balcony.
My glorified studio apartment is $300 per month plus electric— which is running about $45 per month. Below are some pics: (please go to the Substack post to see all the pics in a convenient photo gallery.)
For many more recent pictures of Cambodia, refer to my recent post Pictures From Siem Reap Cambodia. Now, some other topics:
Money
The money here is both US dollars and Cambodia Riels. They are entirely interchangeable. Merchants might even give you a mix of US and Cambodia notes for change. The exchange rate is very stable at about 4100 Riels per US dollar. A cup of expresso cafe latte costs 4000 riels or ~$1. Local meals are about $3 but “foreigner food” is more like $4 to $10 — more if you have a bar tab. Happy hour prices here are $2.50 per cocktail and $0.75 draft beers.
Most people here have an ABA bank account (a Canadian/Cambodian bank) with a phone app to pay for purchases or to transfer money to/from others. Virtually every establishment accepts immediate payment thru the ABA App. You just scan the store’s QR code, usually on every table or counter, enter the dollars and cents amount on your phone and send. The merchant receives the money right away and the app updates your balance. It’s very handy. Credit and debit cards are also accepted at most places.
As of last week, I now have an ABA account here and I used the Remitely App recently to transfer $1100 from my US checking to my ABA debit card/account. Opening the Cambodian bank account was extremely efficient and quick. I continue to paying my monthly rent with Remitely, where I send my rent money to my Apt owner’s bank account.
All of my funds and checking are at Fidelity. Suddenly, after a month or so here, I was unable to log-in to Fidelity as they wanted to send me an authentication code to my Texas phone number (and only my Texas number—which I obviously can’t access). This happens too with most of my US credit cards too, especially for internet purchases including flights. None of these companies allow me to update my phone number to a Cambodian number either. At first no one at Fidelity knew how to fix this, but their website got me in the right direction.
To fix my problem at Fidelity, I had to add a 2nd int’l telephone number to my Fidelity account and download a “VIP Access” (2 factor authentication) app to my computer. Then, to set it up, I had to have a telephone conversation with a Tech guy at Fidelity (long distance call on my Cambodian phone) after I had downloaded the app. Long story short, he called me on my Cambodian number and their computer algorithm verified that my voice was really me in the long distance card. Now, Fidelity internet site just asks me my VIP Access code during log in, I type it in on-screen and voila, it works! Don’t ask me how it works! I have no idea!
Every US credit card occasionally asks to send a verification code to my Texas phone number for certain internet purchases, including air fares via the internet— which is a non-starter. That’s why I opened an account and transferred money to my Cambodian bank (with my Cambodian address and local phone number.)
Grab, Nham apps work fine with US credit cards as do grocery and nearly all other in-person transactions here.
One additional note, I did update my travel destinations on each of my credit/debit cards to alert them to my foreign activity before I left Texas in April.
IPTV (Internet TV) Entertainment
My landlord recently installed a Samsung UHD Crystal Smart tv in my place. I quickly populated it with my Youtube, Tubi, Amazon Prime video, Netflix, etc once my young Cambodian friend changed the language from Thai to English.
Then I got the idea to subscribe to an IPTV account. To do that, I purchased an Amazon Fire Stick at the local electronics store and plugged it into an HDMI port. Then I subscribed by email an IPTV provider (there are so very many) and they emailed me the installation info to load it to my Fire Stick. The Fire Stick is a little computer entirely on it’s own. It just utilizes your HDTV for display purposes. I paid $30 for 3 months of (to get started) to Cheetah IPTV.
So now I’m getting 24,000 TV channels from around the world, 82,000 videos on demand with many in 4K and 8K. Also it has 14,400 TV Series including PPVs, Disney+, Amazon, Netflix, Discovery, Apple+, Showtime, Paramount, Peacock, Nickelodeon, MLB and other TV series from across the world (but mostly US, EU and UK). It even has 100s of adult channels and movies.
Sim Cards
From my traveling in SE Asia last year, I have multiple SIM cards from 4 countries. I have a Cambodian provider called Cellcard. It’s $6 per month and I get 60 Gig of internet data, international calling, local texts. The internet speeds here are 22 Mb/sec downloads from my residence Wifi, or 11 Mb/s from my mobile data source. Unused phone internet data is rolled over to the next month. If I call internationally, I use a prefix 177(country code) and the foreign number. I think it’s about $0.10 per minute. The prefix for calls to the US is 1771-(area code and number).
Grab, Nham and Ride hailing apps
I used Grab for ride hailing when I first arrived here (and also in Vietnam). But then I rented a Honda Click scooter for $60 per month here in Siem Reap, so I use the ride-hailing apps now mainly for food ordering and delivery.
It's dead easy and ridiculously cheap to order food delivery here. There's an enormous variety; really anything you can imagine-- Western, Asian, Thai, Khmer, pizza, BBQ.
It works so well. Each of these delivery apps show the status of your food order. It’s almost always delivered by motorbike and a little icon on your phone map shows the driver coming your way. Everything is paid by credit card including tips, so there’s no fumbling around trying to find change. You can tip the driver on the app and give him a rating of one to five stars all on the App and it works perfect via my credit or debit card. Delivery persons almost always young men or boys on motorbikes.
Fitness and Health
I joined a gym for 3 months at $27 per month in advance. It’s called Angkor Fitness.
I'm trying to increase my protein for my workout regime. So, sometimes in the evening, I'm pan frying a chicken breast or a pork loin chop and then I'll order-in fried rice and fried spring rolls or a stir-fried dish to accompany my home-cooked protein. Most local meals here cost $3 to $5 (plus bar tab) at a restaurant or delivered, so I save a bit if I'm cooking a meat/protein for myself at my apt. I’m more interested in boosting my protein than any worry about money.
My gym has a cute, little restaurant for coffee, tea, breakfast and lunch items. They also have a nice salad bar with a very nice variety; crispy, par-boiled vegetables like green beans, carrots and broccoli, gourmet-quality mixed leafy greens, shredded cabbages, cherry tomatoes, big chunks or whole chicken breasts (steamed and fried), hard boiled eggs, chunk tuna, and more! I get about 1 pound of salad/meats/veggies in a to-go container and usually take it right home to put in the fridge. It costs $4 per pound and IT’S SO WORTH IT. It's really a meal. I have store-bought French dressing, but also I just bought some oil, vinegar, dijon mustard and garlic and Cambodian peppercorns. Soon I'll be making my own salad dressings, or augmenting the store-bought ones.
Long story short, I often get a salad that goes well with my own pan-fried pork loin/chop or chicken later in the evening from the salad bar at my gym's restaurant. I’ll make cocktails in my unit too and sit out on my balcony. Now I can watch a huge variety of movies and shows too.
Imported food products/items are really expensive. One thing that is surprising is that Western spirits are much cheaper than in the US presumably because there are no "sin taxes?." I got a big bottle of Jim Beam for $12. Absolute vodka is $9 as I recall. I bought the smaller Absolute bottle for $8-ish, maybe $9. All the fruit juices and mixers, tonic and other liqueurs are all here like Tequila, Triple Sec, Kahlua and Vermouth, lots of wines and Port wine.
In the morning I'm having cereal with fresh milk. Grape Nut flakes and a French branded Muesli works for me! I'll make a pot of Lipton black tea with milk when I'm not headed to the gym---like I did this morning.
Oh, I had a dental cleaning and check-up. It was great. The cleaning was $10 plus a fancy panarama X-ray for another $15. I’ve been sick with a tough cold and went to a local clinic with a doctor---including some analgesics, cough medicine and it cost $7 or maybe $10 ——I don't even remember. My local medical clinic cost about $10 to visit with a doctor---including some analgesics, cough medicine.
Oh, and I refilled all of my US presciptions including alprozalam at the local pharmacy. You just go in and ask for what you need. I got 90 days supply for my 3 medications. It was plenty cheap and dead easy. I had bought my pill bottles but it was only useful to show the counter clerk the information about the medicine names. The cost was similar to US co-pay prices under my Aetna Medicare prescription coverage back in Texas. No bureaucracy, no bullshit. Oh, I will recommend to go to a pharmacy that is air-conditioned as I don’t know how heat affects certain medicines.
I use Google Translate App a lot and recommend it for all of your travel. Google maps with it’s direction finding capability (even for walking or biking trips) is excellent. It’s saved me a lot of anxiety. I have 100s of highlighted locations here in Siem Reap on Google maps, so I can quickly find my way to any place!
OK, let me run for now. I hope you like this kind of post. I think I may be moving on from writing posts about the disintegration of The West and cultural problems. I’ve been writing about serious stuff (or attempting to) since 2012. I think there’s something like 1500 posts, so I’ve put some of them in an index.
Check out my Index called Essential Gulfcoastcommentary Index for 2023 (and prior). I did it for you! You’re welcome! I guess I’ll do one for 2024 later in the year.
Ciao!
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