How Cambodia Cost Me Everything After Retiring in Thailand (DONE)
Up until I went to Cambodia, I never thought it would be a country I would visit. And the only reason I was there was because I had retired the year earlier in Thailand, and I was getting very carried away with everything that Thailand had to offer. I was 56 when I retired. I’d been traveling to Thailand for a very long time, and it was always my plan to live out the rest of my days in the country that gave me so much enjoyment throughout my life.
I was so keen to arrive in Thailand that I didn’t even bother getting a nonimmigrant visa from the embassy before arrival, arriving on a standard visa exemption, thinking I just want to get there and I’ll worry about my visa later. Why this is important is because it plays a pivotal part of my story. I was stamped in for 30 days and I headed straight to Pattaya, the city where I felt most at home and most at one with myself, and I felt like I really hit the ground running.
I was out every night in the bars, which is everything I thought my retirement would be. And I did that every single day during my first 45 days in the country the initial 30 day entry and the 15 day extension that I got at immigration. I knew that based on my financial position, I was entitled to a retirement visa, and I just thought it was going to be a lot more difficult than it would have been to actually get it. So instead of sorting that out and just putting some money in the bank I had more than enough money to be able to do that I went to Laos to get a tourist visa, which I should be able to use for the next 90 days. I believe it was a 60 day entry and a 30 day extension. Or was it a 15 day extension? I can’t remember because it’s a while ago, but I was continuing to go as hard as I could in Pattaya.
I was going every single night to the bars different girls, and so much beer. And while this was always my plan for retirement, just living like I was on holiday every single day, it was starting to take its toll on me. The flip side to that was if I didn’t go out, I felt like I wasn’t living Thailand properly. And as crazy as that sounds, it was like if I wasn’t going out, I wasn’t maximizing my retirement. I could more than afford to go out all the time. This was back in 2012 when Thailand was a lot cheaper than it is today. But I think it was one of those cases of “don’t meet your idols.” Thailand was always my idol, the place I wanted to live, the place I wanted to spend all my time in. And if I wasn’t living that particular sort of lifestyle, I suppose I wasn’t actually living how I thought I should be living. And therefore, I felt like I wasn’t taking full advantage of my ability to be where I always wanted to be.
When I had used up those 90 days, I did the same thing again. Still putting off the idea to get the retirement visa because I just didn’t know how easy it actually was. I went to Laos again, another tourist visa, which at the time you could do multiple times without concern. Back in Thailand, hitting it hard, and I did that for another month. Then I met a girl, spent time with her, but before long realized she was only interested in money. And then when that time was up, I just felt like I had a problem with my life.
Some people, maybe stronger mentally, could look at me and think, “Pull yourself together. What’s wrong with you?” But I just felt like Thailand was everything I wanted. I had it. I could do this for the rest of my life because I thought I had enough money to do so. But it made me feel empty. I was drinking too much. I was taking risks. I was doing stupid things. And that was the time I decided to take a bit of a step back from Thailand and reevaluate my life.
Choosing Cambodia in 2013
I needed a new visa anyway. And the talk of the town around 2012 would have been 2013 at this point was how Cambodia was the up and coming country in the region. Many people talked at length about how Cambodia was the new Thailand. Things in Cambodia were even cheaper than they were in Thailand. Perhaps like Thailand used to be 10, 15, or even 20 years in the past. While I was never one of those guys who was too concerned about how a country changed over the course of time, I do like listening to people’s stories when they talk about this feeling of change and how it moved from how it was when they first arrived to when they eventually made it there for retirement. I would consider myself a realist. I know things like that are just things that happen over the course of time. So, I wasn’t too concerned about anything happening to Thailand. I was concerned about what was happening to me, and I was interested to go and look at what Cambodia was like to see if it fit the descriptions that many of my friends and other people I spoke to who spent a lot of time in Thailand described Cambodia as being.
First Impressions of Phnom Penh 2013
2013 was when I landed in Phnom Penh. I’d been to the Cambodian embassy in Bangkok and I even remember the guy who sat behind the counter this little guy with glasses on, wearing a blue shirt, a Cambodian guy, of course. And I can actually see his face now because I applied for a business visa because you could just get it, no questions asked, whereas most people seem to be getting tourist visas. Both visas were only valid for an initial 30 days. But the thought that you could get something a little bit better than something else without having to answer any questions it felt good that all I needed to do was apply for this visa and I should get it without a problem. Again, thinking back to the retirement visa for Thailand, thinking it was going to be harder than it was supposedly meant to be.
From there, I flew out of Bangkok, landing in Phnom Penh only an hour later. And immediately something resonated with me something that I couldn’t put words to or describe. Cambodia made me feel things that I didn’t know I could feel. Maybe things I hadn’t felt ever since I went to Thailand for the first time so many years ago. It wasn’t necessarily about the fact that the country was at a different stage of development to Thailand. I’m not that guy. But the feeling of excitement, almost euphoria, and shock at the same time. And it’s the feelings that saw me moving to Thailand in retirement in the first place. And the feeling that saw me thinking long and hard to myself pretty much as soon as I arrived in Cambodia, that perhaps here was where the dream was and the dream I didn’t know existed. It was a real dream, though, and perhaps I should go for it.
My first arrival in Phnom Penh was really invigorating. And how I would like to describe it and how I described it to people I met and spoke to at the time was arriving in Cambodia, you feel more of an intimacy than you do arriving in Thailand. This was back then. The airport for a start was so much smaller than the airport in Bangkok. There weren’t very many lanes to go through in immigration. There weren’t that many flights arriving. And it really felt like you were entering a country that was well on the map, yet not enough people had understood exactly how fantastic it was yet. Most of the people on the flight with me didn’t have visas and you could get a visa on arrival. But as soon as I was off the plane and I was flying on Air Asia at the time I was already through immigration minutes later, picking up the first words of Khmer that I learned, “Arkun,” which meant thank you.
There weren’t any meter taxis or any kind of services that you’d expect at the more developed airport in Bangkok. And I get it. And I understood straight away why so many people said it was like Thailand used to be. While perhaps they’re not referring to the country itself or the people or how things looked just the stage of development. You walked through the airport. They didn’t have anything like you were used to in Thailand. It was just a very small airport that you walked through, and there were guys thronging around offering you a taxi ride into the city.
I hadn’t booked a hotel and I didn’t know anything about where to stay, but I did know that there was a riverfront area that supposedly had hotels and bars and restaurants and it was a popular place for foreigners. The taxi driver approached me, I told him that’s where I wanted to go, trying to describe this place as best I could. I would later find out that this was known as the Sisowath Quay area of Phnom Penh. The taxi ride was only $7 into the city, and it took a bit of wrapping your head around the fact that they used Cambodian riel as their national currency, but the US dollar was actually used a lot more than their own currency. I think it was 4,000 riel to $1 back then, and I believed it remained pretty similar ever since.
Back then, the roads were not like they are today. When you were driving into the city, you didn’t have anywhere near as many high rises as you do today. You also had to drive on the other side of the road to Thailand, which was also the other side of the road to where I was from. But while that’s not important, it did feel like you were somewhere different and exciting, and that’s how it just felt.
Life Around Sisowath Quay
The taxi driver did drop me off outside a hotel. I think he was hankering for a commission for finding me a hotel, but I wasn’t ready to find anywhere yet. There was a huge, very well maintained block of land I think that’s the best I can describe it as flags from lots of different countries stuck up around the area close to the palace. And then you had the riverfront and what appeared to be a place where people hung out in the evenings after the sun had gone down.
I was immediately shocked by the people selling those tiny shells, which I hadn’t seen in Thailand before. You’ll see them on videos if you watch videos about Cambodia. One thing that I understood straight away was that Cambodia was a lot poorer than Thailand. That was the biggest negative. You could be eating at a restaurant in Pattaya, and the thought of a beggar coming into the restaurant and asking for money would never cross your mind. Yet the first evening, I was having a meal at this little French restaurant right along Sisowath Quay a $6 steak with pepper sauce, beautiful French food, beautiful baguettes, real bread that Thailand just didn’t seem to have. Yet in Cambodia, it was in abundance. But you get these street kids coming in begging for money lots of them, no shoes on. They were really in a very underdeveloped state, and it felt dreadful to see. It was just one of the negatives about Cambodia that you still had to accept at the time.
Aside from hearing about the Khmer Rouge when I was younger, I didn’t know much about Cambodia, but I felt when I was there that I wanted to know a lot more about it. It really felt like there was an energy in the air, a vibrancy. While you could have the same kind of things in Thailand, in Thailand, it felt like it was a lot more controlled. It was a lot more streamlined. And that is saying something because anybody who had never been to Thailand before at the time would go to Thailand and think it was insane. Cambodia was like it was for the people who no longer thought Thailand was insane enough. And it gave them that kick and that fizz that you’re somewhere where anything goes.
When I was leaving that restaurant that evening, I knew what I would have done in Pattaya, which would have been to go to a bar. And that’s exactly what I did that evening going to my first bar in Phnom Penh. I’m not going to say what the name of the first bar was. Let’s just say it was a color and an animal. Think color and animal and then you should be the furthest I’m willing to say, because at the time in Cambodia, you were able to buy what has become legal now in Thailand. It wasn’t legal in Cambodia then, but people looked the other way. I was never someone interested in that particular thing, but just seeing it out in the open so blatantly in a bar in a place where this was supposed to be illegal really made Cambodia feel like the Wild West.
Then I went into a bar next to it where there were lots of girls working and I was immediately sold. The thought of living in Pattaya in Thailand anymore was a sort of thought that you’d laugh at, as if to think, “Who would be so stupid not to grab hold of the opportunities that Cambodia is throwing at me?” Not to mention later on I found out the next day that all I needed to do to extend my business visa that I had arrived on for a whole year was to pay about $280 again, no questions asked. I should be able to do that indefinitely. Why wasn’t Thailand this easy?
The whole time from arriving in Cambodia until coming to this decision was less than 8 hours, and it was the only decision that made sense. I didn’t want to live in Thailand anymore. Cambodia was better. I spent the rest of the week in Cambodia. By the end of it, I was sold on the idea that that’s where I wanted to live. I knew I needed to return to Thailand to get my stuff out of the condo I rented. I’d lose a deposit on that, but I didn’t care. It was so close to Thailand that going back wasn’t much out of my way.
Choosing Cambodia Over Thailand
And at the time, I was still a bit apprehensive about this one year visa that was supposedly as easy as it was. So, I decided to do it before going back to Thailand just to be sure that it was as easy as people said it was. It really was. I had it there stuck in my passport for a whole year and it was effortless. Then I walked into a bank and opened an account. I didn’t have to provide anything apart from my passport and my business visa. And I told them the address of the hotel I was staying at. And I just said to them, “I’m going to be renting somewhere soon. I’ll update my address later.” They didn’t say, “Come back later and you can open the account then.” They just said, “No problem at all.” I deposited $1,000. And I also opened up a Cambodian riel account because it felt good having millions in there. Although it didn’t mean I was worth a lot. I was just loving how easy things in Cambodia felt.
At the time, I’m not saying that Thailand didn’t feel easy. It did. But I was starting to understand what all the old school expats were talking about in Thailand in comparison to Cambodia. Thailand used to be like this. And in Thailand, you used to be able to do things like that the things that they were saying that you could do in Thailand back then. This is what you could do in Cambodia now.
I did go back to Thailand, straight down to Pattaya. I had a blowout in the bars, but straight away it just didn’t feel anywhere near as exciting as things felt in Phnom Penh. You can’t say and nobody can say that Pattaya is tame or weak or sanitized, but you can say that after you experienced what Phnom Penh was like back at that time, Thailand really looked like it was tame in comparison. And considering that that’s what I was in Thailand for for my retirement and also the fact that things were a lot cheaper in Phnom Penh and everything about Phnom Penh made me feel what I was feeling, leaving Pattaya at that time was the best I ever felt any time I ever left Pattaya ever since my first time there. It used to be you leave Pattaya, that means you’re going back home, back to work, back to your normal life. And it was an awful feeling. Now I was leaving Pattaya, which I thought was the best place in the world up until then, but I was going somewhere even better.
I’ve had a quick scan through everything I’ve talked about so far. I’m trying to get across just how enthused and excited I was about Cambodia, and I believe I’ve done a good job of doing that. When I got back to Cambodia the following day, stamped into the country, a smile on my face and a smile from the immigration officer. It was like I was welcomed there, and I wasn’t a burden. It wasn’t a burden for me to be there like you felt in Thailand.
At the time, I had a monthly income of $2,200, which I got from my investments. Which, again, at the time was more than enough to live in Pattaya the way I wanted to live. It was a lot more than enough to live in Phnom Penh, I hoped. And I went back to see Sisowath Quay and stayed in a little hotel there. It was only $20 a night, the hotel I stayed at. No windows, though, which was something that took a bit of getting used to. The power went out a few times, but again, it was something that made the country better. It was like you were going back in time a bit. If you ever want to go back in time, I think people tend to look for countries that are at a lesser stage of development. And why so many people are so upset about Thailand today because they went there so as to try to go back in time because that’s what they wanted from their lives and that’s how things used to be. But Thailand developed and progressed and moved away from what they wanted. It was like the guys who found Cambodia felt like that fit straight in.
There was less available accommodation at the time. There was a building boom I’d go as far as to call it a craze with condominiums being built and lots of Chinese investors, lots of people from China coming into the country. And it wasn’t like Pattaya where you had an abundance of options and you could rent anything you wanted. You had to take a bit of time to find a good place, and I settled on this apartment which was just a converted shophouse. It was on the third floor. You had to walk up steps at the side of it to get there. It was done to a good standard. It was in a great location. When I moved in, it was $350 a month. Again, more expensive than I was paying in Pattaya. Not as good as the place in Pattaya no pool or gym but it was Cambodia. So, you put up with things like that because you were somewhere that had everything else so much better about it.
Losing Control in Phnom Penh
That’s how I thought my life would continue forever from there. I didn’t think anything would go wrong. I didn’t think anything would change. And while I said I didn’t expect that in Cambodia I would do the same things as I did in Pattaya, deep down I knew that I most likely probably would do the same things. I was just hoping that I could calm down a bit, settle down, and just enjoy myself because that’s what life’s for at the end of the day. If you don’t do that, what’s the point?
One thing that I really hate when I’m listening to other people’s stories, other guys that say, “I wasn’t in Thailand for the bars. I wasn’t in Thailand for the girls. I wasn’t in Thailand to go and drink all the time.” I was in Thailand for those very reasons. I’d worked hard my whole life. I’d saved hard. And I thought I’d done what I was meant to do. I paid taxes throughout my life. I got married, got divorced, had two kids. They left home and went to university. I’d done my bit. And if what I enjoyed was going out and having drinks and meeting girls, then as long as I’m not hurting anyone, what’s the problem? That’s why I was in Thailand. And I’m not here to lie. The fact that I found the scene in Phnom Penh back then, although considerably smaller than the same scene in Pattaya, it was better in every way and cheaper, and it made me feel like I’d done the right thing.
The way I would describe it was that the bar scene back then was a lot friendlier. It was more intimate. It was more laid back. It wasn’t as commercialized. It wasn’t as businesslike. And I think that’s the thing that really made Cambodia that bit better than Thailand. If you’ve been to Thailand, especially Pattaya, and you’ve been in a bar, you walk in and yes, you can have a beer and chat with the girls and have a fantastic time, but you feel like you’re just another customer. You feel like you’re just another payday. You feel like you’re just there to provide profit for the bar and money for the girl. Whereas in Cambodia, it didn’t feel like that. It felt like while this was still true to some extent, it felt more like there were extra things to add on to that. Like the people who you spoke to were more interested to learn about you. The girls that you chatted with were more inquisitive. They didn’t know as much about the outside world. They were more insular. And I found that extremely attractive.
You’d always run into guys who were living in Cambodia. And this is my own personal experience, but at that time when I’d been there for a month or 2 months or a bit longer this is no hint of a lie to say that most of the guys there, I would say 6 out of 10 as a broad estimate, were guys who moved from Thailand to Cambodia, seeking that authenticity and excitement that Thailand once gave. It made you feel like you were part of something bigger, like you were the next best thing to a living stone. While you can’t be an explorer now because the world has already been explored, you can go to places where the locals aren’t yet as worldly knowledgeable as neighboring places.
The bars around Phnom Penh became my life for the next 3 months solid, probably more than that. And that was when I started to lose control. I had my $2,200 a month income which came from my investments. My investments were two houses back at home and I rented them out and that was where my income came from. That income felt so much bigger in Cambodia than it did in Thailand. Yet in Thailand, I was able to stick within budget because I felt like I knew Thailand. There was a sense of familiarity and comfort about it. Although things in Cambodia were cheaper, I was finding I was spending so much more money. That might not make sense on the surface. I mean, to me, it doesn’t make sense until I explain to you why.
If my typical day in Pattaya was waking up at around noon, lounging around for a few hours, watching a movie, playing on the computer, going out for breakfast which would usually be at someone else’s dinner time then I’d go to the bars, have a few beers, maybe meet a girl that I’d spoken to before, and rinse and repeat. In Cambodia, because I found it was as exciting as it was, I was waking up around the same time, but I was immediately heading out, going to a restaurant for a cheap steak or a cheap Western meal because the French food there was so amazing. Then I’d be on the beer so much sooner than I would be in Thailand, telling myself it’s cheaper. We’re talking about a dollar a beer at that time, and everything was cheaper so I can do more of it. But I’m doing so much more of it that I’m spending so much more money. And because of the amount I was drinking and what I was doing and how crazy I was going, I didn’t notice that my liquid cash was about to run out until it quite literally ran out, which was a very scary time.
Leaving Phnom Penh for Siem Reap
Luckily, the rent on one of my places was due the following day, so I escaped. But my liquid cash had allowed to go down to zero because I was so focused on enjoying myself. And I tried to just tell myself to take it easy, to calm down, and be careful. It was so hard because I was having such a good time. When I did get my rent the following day, I breathed a sigh of relief. I wasn’t overly concerned because I did have my assets, but the fact that I’d spent probably more than double what I should have spent for the first 3 months I was there and I wasn’t even paying attention to my money that should have been a warning. That should have had the alarm bells ringing. And in a way it did, because I decided to leave Phnom Penh and head up towards Siem Reap. I’d not been to Angkor Wat yet. And I told myself, you’re in Cambodia. Everybody who goes to Cambodia goes to Angkor Wat, so at least go so you can say you’ve been. And the fact it was close to Siem Reap, which was another popular town, that made the decision to go there a lot easier. It was just take myself away from Phnom Penh and try to get my head back in the game. But it’s not like I’m having a bad time. I’m having the best time of my life. But I was slowly starting to lose control.
To be honest, while there were some good points about Siem Reap, I didn’t really feel like it compared to Phnom Penh. It was a lot more the kind of place where you would see younger backpacker sorts who perhaps weren’t there for the same reasons as me. It was great seeing that temple, although it wasn’t that good. If you’ve been, you can say you’ve been, then do it. But that wasn’t the highlight for me. I just didn’t find Siem Reap as exciting as everything else that was in Phnom Penh. I think that’s the most important thing to say. I was planning on staying there for a while a couple of weeks, maybe even a month just trying to help me escape the sense of excitement I was feeling, like I needed to calm down. But after only a few days, I decided to leave because I just didn’t feel it. I didn’t want to go back to Phnom Penh yet because I hadn’t achieved what I was in Siem Reap to achieve. So, I went to Sihanoukville, which was a little beach town on the Cambodian coast.
Today, that place has become a Chinese city, for a lack of a better description, full of Chinese casinos and properties, and it’s just not the city it was. You could see this was happening when I was there first. If somebody at the time described Sihanoukville, many people would say it’s a dive. It’s a cesspit. It’s awful. There are some people who would say it’s an exciting and up and coming little town. I was definitely someone who thought it was a great little town. Probably because I found a place where the bars were considerably cheaper than Phnom Penh. Beautiful girls, dirt cheap beer. And that’s when you stop noticing time passing.
Before I knew it, I’d been there for a month. And again, I got to the point where I’d used all my liquid cash and I didn’t have any payments coming for at least a few days. The fact that I had to go and ask the hotel that I was staying at if it’s okay for me to stay for the next 3 days and I’ll pay you later and I can give you my passport as a deposit the fact I had to do that and they agreed, it should have been everything I needed to tell me to calm down and to relax. You can still do the same things, but just take it easy. I promised myself I would, but again, it’s a lot easier said than done.
When I got that rent payment, another huge sigh of relief that I’d managed to survive. Then I went back up to Phnom Penh, where I thought I was ready to relax and, you know, take a step back. I wasn’t thinking about meeting someone or getting into a relationship. I wasn’t that sort of guy. I preferred my own company. I loved living by myself, waking up when I wanted, going to bed when I wanted, doing what I wanted. But I loved the girls as well. Yet, I didn’t really want to live with anyone.
I spent three days in Phnom Penh. I remember it was those three days because they were three extremely difficult days, hoping to snap myself out of what I was doing. I guess I was already an alcoholic and I didn’t want to admit it, because I was starting to feel the withdrawal of that as the days went by. The third night, I couldn’t sleep all night. And I said to myself, you can go out the next day and then have another 3 days off. You can tell yourself something with the best of intentions. You can promise yourself you’re going to do something and you can believe with all your being that you will do what you say you’re going to do. But doing it is different.
Facing Alcohol Dependence
That first night out after my 3 day break, in a way, was everything I needed because it made me calm down and relax and feel better. On the other hand, it was everything I didn’t need because while I expected to have 3 days off after that, it was clear that that wasn’t going to happen. I was having such a good time and I must have been an alcoholic. I must have been addicted to drinking. But at the time I didn’t think I was. I just thought I liked to drink. I just thought I liked to go out. I just thought I liked to spend time with the girls. But when you’re doing these things and not doing them makes you feel like life isn’t worth living, I guess that’s the hallmark of addiction. And those actions really do have addiction written all over them.
The Desperate Decision
I continued to go out and then I faced the same problem yet again. Only I made a decision that was insane, based entirely on my mental state at the time. Two whole weeks before my next payment was due for one of the houses I rented out, I ran out of money again. No liquid cash. I had a few small Cambodian riel notes scattered around the place I was renting but not enough to buy anything. I had a fridge full of water, a couple of beers, a couple of soft drinks, and boxes of cereal that had accumulated over the time since I’d arrived. You know the case if you like cereal, you go and buy some and have a bit of it. Then you want cereal again, but you want something else, so you go and buy more. I guess that was something that saved me. And I spent 2 weeks not leaving my place, rationing what I had, waiting for my next payment. I was starting to feel so bad because I drank most of my beer in the first few days during those two weeks. And because I was feeling so bad and desperate and like the world was about to collapse on me, I made the decision to sell one of my houses, keep renting one out, and sell one and use that to supplement my income. And that should make the situation better than it currently was.
If I look back and picture myself actually making that decision the time when I got that rental payment, sent the money to Cambodia, actually topped up my phone so I could call the estate agency back at home to list my property it felt like it was the best thing in the world. It felt like it was the best idea and I couldn’t think of anything that would make me feel as good as doing that. Anybody in their right mind, any sane person would look at something like that with contempt because they wouldn’t be so stupid, would they? Nobody would do something so stupid. But that’s how far into the Cambodian lifestyle I was. I was all in. I was fully invested in wanting to continue with the life I was leading. I wasn’t even understanding the kind of negative effects I was causing to myself by doing what I was doing.
As soon as the house was listed for sale, that did give me a little bit of comfort. And I wasn’t going as hard when it was for sale because I had it in my mind that sometime very soon I would be able to do what I want. So I can be careful for the time being. It was quite a stretch as well because I had a tenant in the house. I couldn’t just kick them out and sell the house. So I put it up for sale with a tenant living in it, hoping to find an investor to buy it. From what I was told, this was very hit or miss. But luckily things came good for me. I mean, at the time I thought it was lucky. Looking back, I wish I hadn’t been lucky. But about four months after I listed it for sale, I got the cash deposit in my bank at home. While originally the idea was to leave it at home and get the rent from my other house coming in and send that rent as well as a portion of the sale price of the house every month to Cambodia, giving myself an income of about 3,000 a month instead of 2,200. I just felt so happy and pumped at that moment that I transferred the lot into my Cambodian bank account because I was starting to feel like Cambodia was where I belonged. Cambodia was where I wanted to spend the rest of my life and it only made sense to have a big portion of my assets in Cambodia with me.
At that point, I could have still been saved, but I know there was no chance that I could have done it by myself. I was an addict. I was dependent on drink. I was dependent on being able to go to the bars around Phnom Penh and travel around Cambodia when I wanted to. That was who I was. That’s what I needed to do. It wasn’t just a case of “this is what I want to do.” It was like I needed to do it. And the reason I’m comfortable talking about something like this is because only an ex addict will be able to understand what I was feeling. You can hear people say, “Well, I was addicted to drink.” And the people who have never experienced that, their answer would be, “Pull yourself together. Just stop.” I suppose the same goes for smoking or any drug, but it’s not as easy as that. It’s just not as easy as doing it. Your body’s fighting against you, visibly fighting as hard as it can, attacking you to do these things that you don’t want to do, but you do them anyway because that’s what makes you happy.
To celebrate the arrival of that money, I decided to go back down to Sihanoukville, hoping that I would get more of a high from the fact I had $130,000 sitting in my bank account in Cambodia than I would get from the high of going out and drinking and meeting girls. Needless to say, that hope was only that a hope and nothing more. When I arrived in Sihanoukville, I’d spent the previous days back in Phnom Penh, still going out, drinking excessively, meeting girls excessively like I’d always done. But I’d promised myself a hand on heart promise that when I got to Sihanoukville, I wouldn’t go out and drink. I wouldn’t go and meet the girls. I’d go and sit on the beach and try to pull myself together and try to get back on track. And I did promise myself and I made an agreement with myself an agreement that I felt was set in stone that under no circumstances when I got to Sihanoukville would I break that plan.
When I was on the bus from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville, I was excited to go and relax and just get my head back in the game. Nothing made me think that I would change my mind when I arrived. Even when I checked into the hotel, even when I went to the room and had a shower after that long bus journey, I was thinking about just going out for something to eat and having an early night and then going and relaxing on a beach the next day. I would allow myself to have a few beers. Then, while I did go out and have something to eat just as expected, I did have a beer. I’m really embarrassed to admit that my mind got the better of me. It was just that little tiny little thing that said to me, “Well, it’s your first night. Go out and have a few beers and then you can settle down tomorrow.” I tried to think, “No, this isn’t going to end well.” But in the true sense of who I was at the time, I convinced myself that going for just one night out to celebrate the fact I was there, to celebrate the fact I had this money, that I was going to be finally calming down. I convinced myself that the best way to celebrate that was to go out and have the most wild night possible. I did that. I didn’t keep my promise. And I continued and I continued and I continued a whole month in Sihanoukville before I realized that a whole month had gone.
Selling a House to Fund Addiction
I spent time with so many girls, met so many people, drank so much beer that I made a new deal with myself. And I was getting desperate, I think, because all those deals that I’m making with myself, while insane and stupid and life ruining for anyone looking from the outside, to me it sounded like something that was a compromise. Given my age at the time, given my health, given my family history, I was even thinking I’m most likely not going to live beyond a certain age. I need a certain amount of years. So, okay, if this is what I need to do, do it. Just do it. Take advantage of the fact you’ve got enough money to be able to do it. And eventually, you’ll get to a point when you don’t want to do it anymore. This is what I told myself. This is what I convinced myself.
And what happened next over about 2 and a half years all that money from that house sale vanished, mainly on drink, on meeting girls, and on restaurants and having the best time. I don’t remember much about that time apart from my vague memories because of what I was doing. And I just thought when I came up with the idea that I would worry about it later. Who knows what’s going to happen? I could be crossing the street and get plowed down by a bus. So I needed to worry about things later. The problem is you never think “later” is actually going to arrive. And then later does arrive. Not only are you in a worse position with half your assets an income that while still enough to live an okay life in Cambodia, about $1,100 a month it’s nowhere near enough to continue what I’m doing.
And I knew I needed to actually take a bit of a step back, take control of myself. And while throughout the whole time I’d been in Cambodia, it was never my intention to get into a relationship or to meet someone. I did spend a few weeks with a girl here or there, or a month here or there, but I never felt the need or the desire to do anything more than that. I’d convinced myself now, though, that the only thing that could save me was finding a situation where I can do what I’m doing every single day, but it can’t involve going to a bar or going out. I need to be able to drink and have a girl at home with me. And if that means getting into a relationship, then perhaps that’s what I’m going to have to do. I shake my head as I say that because it’s insane. I know it’s insane.
None of my story is me trying to justify my decisions or the things I did. And I’m not trying to say that I was clever. I was just a man who was desperate, addicted, and was always looking for a solution to a problem that I created on my own. That was who I was. And it was a thought of finding someone and using her to be my escape that brought me back down from this sense of panic to more of a “don’t worry about it” state. As soon as I found someone, she can move in with me. Got enough money to live on, I’ll be good. It’s insane what our minds do to us, but that was my mind. And that was me at the start of 2016.
Because I thought I was going to look for someone to have a relationship with, I continued doing what I was doing before. Although I’d burnt through all that money, I quickly found that I would live for a week and then I’d scrimp and save for the rest of the month, waiting for my income to come. And that’s when I made the most stupid decision of all to sell my other house. Convincing myself that I needed a little bit of liquid cash available because it might cost $5,000 to $10,000 or even a little bit more than that to get to the point of meeting someone, getting to know her, wanting to be with her, and then she can move in. Everything else we needed to do in the meantime. I thought that by selling that house, I’m going to be spending that money, but then it will have been worth it. That’s where I was at the time. So, I put that house for sale.
And over the next 6 months, because it took a lot longer to sell that one than the first one, I was basically at a turning point. Since I’d been in Cambodia, I’d met so many girls. I’d got so many of those girls’ numbers, and I was resorting to calling up girls I knew, buying beer from the shop as cheaply as possible. And now I was able to live within budget just about this is $1,100, by the way. That’s the thing that makes me the most angry about the whole thing because it was clear that at the time $1,100 was enough to live in Phnom Penh and have an okay time. You could rent a place to live. You could go out occasionally. You could meet up with girls. You could drink. But you couldn’t go to the bars every day. You couldn’t be out all the time. It makes me understand just the level of importance I put on being out and being in a bar. I didn’t need to do that. I could have done what I was doing and been a bit clever about it, but it just didn’t feel right. I thought I was sacrificing my life by not doing exactly what I wanted to do when I know it’s crazy.
Planning a Relationship to Change Course
I probably sound like a complete idiot, but I’m not holding back. I’m not trying to hide anything. I’m trying to be a beacon of warning to anybody who feels the onset of addiction or feels like you need to do something that isn’t actually beneficial to you. If you recognize a feeling similar to this yourself, that should be something to tell you. But if you feel like you can’t do anything about it yourself, you really need to seek help.
The Relationship
When I finally got that money for the house again, I managed to sell it with the tenants in line, which made it better the fact that I didn’t even think about the moment I was living off the income when it provided just shows how desperate I was. But that was who I was back then and told myself it was time to start looking for someone. Why I didn’t use the previous 6 months to look, I have no idea, but that wasn’t part of the plan. And I wanted and almost needed an excuse. I was definitely looking for an excuse as to why I needed to go out all the time. And I started hitting the bars again. Let’s just say I spent about $12,500 diving headfirst back into that life.
And I felt like I was the luckiest man alive when I was in Sihanoukville and I met a girl in one of the bars there who, in a way, was just like all the other girls I’d met so many girls yet there was something about her, or me at the time, or my mental state at the time, that kind of said she’s the one. I don’t know what it was about her really at the time that made me think that. I couldn’t point to how she looked or how she talked or who she was or her personality or anything that was much different to any of the other girls, but it just seemed like she was the one at the time.
I thought the best way to show my interest was to splash around money to make it look like I was a big man, like I had a lot of money, and like I was a good provider. She was very sweet and a really nice person, but she was from a very, very poor family. I mean, it’s difficult to describe if you’ve never been because you can think “poor” and you can think about a guy going into Tesco and buying Tesco brand meals to save money. That’s not poor. Poor is the poor you saw there. And I felt for her, but I found that what we needed together just worked, if that makes sense.
I spent a bit longer than planned in Sihanoukville, seeing her every day. And I told her probably a month after meeting her that I liked her and I asked if she wanted to be my girlfriend. I told her I wanted her to move in with me and go to Phnom Penh. I think she knew I liked her or appeared to, and I felt that she liked me in return in whatever way she liked me. I know it wasn’t your typical “girl likes guy” kind of thing because she was younger than me and everything that went along with it, but I thought that we could go well together. She would help me to calm down and to settle down and to conserve my money, and I would help her to no longer have to live in poverty. I thought it was a fair deal, not really understanding that people were people regardless of their financial situation.
When she was on the bus with me back up to Phnom Penh, I felt like I had cracked the code, like I’d escaped this never ending cycle that I couldn’t escape before. I had escaped it and now we just spend sensibly $8 or $900 a month we should be good. That’s what I hoped.
Arriving back in Phnom Penh with her, I felt like I’d returned home, but I felt like I’d returned home a much stronger and more capable version of myself. Feeling like I’d found the reason I was going to be able to escape this never ending cycle. I knew I would need to give her money every month because she had a few responsibilities in terms of her family, but we were talking about a very marginal amount. She agreed on $150 a month, which again I thought was very fair. She moved into my place and the first night we did go out for a meal just a cheap meal in one of the local markets and a few beers, local style, not any of the bars where girls worked. I didn’t feel that urge anymore to go out to the bars. I still felt the urge to drink at home and to drink with her. I guess one of the reasons that I was so drawn to her was that she seemed to like a drink as well and again, maybe not the best combination. Two people who liked to drink a lot.
Life Together in Phnom Penh
That’s kind of what my life became and, by extension, hers. While we spent the next I can’t remember how long, it wasn’t a year but quite close sticking within a budget that should be okay, I just replaced the bars with drinking at home with my drinking partner. What I felt was starting to get quite bored doing this. She liked a drink, but it didn’t define her. It got to the point where I’d ask her, “Can you go and buy some drinks from the shop?” She started to say, “Maybe we can have a break.” And then I would get angry with her, saying, “No, this is what we’re doing. This is why you’re here.” And I would say such awful things to her that make me feel angry with myself that that was who I became.
I told her things like, “I only asked you to move in with me so you could help me to save money. I only asked you to move in with me because I thought you would do what I wanted you to do because I’m giving you money.” And I can’t believe what I was saying, but it was like for some reason I just expected her to be at my every beck and call and do everything that I wanted her to do because I was giving her $150 a month. I thought she was going to give up her feelings and give up hope for $150 a month. And I really hate myself for that. And I hope you understand. I’m not glorifying this.
And although I did manage to stay within budget when I was with her, we were drifting apart because for a start, she was in her 20s and she deserved a better life. She deserved somebody who could perhaps take care of her more. But at the time, I always looked at the flip side of that. If she wasn’t with me, she’d be working in a bar, making less money, and her prospects weren’t much better. I always thought I was right. I always thought that I was the one with the money, therefore I was right. Even if I wasn’t right, I thought I was.
Sadly, that relationship ended. And that was when I had to tell myself, “You’ve got two choices. A sensible choice or a crazy, stupid choice.” But I didn’t define the two choices I had to make at the time as such. The choices were look for somebody else and see if you have more luck with her, or return home and get yourself back to a sensible frame of mind. Unfortunately, I thought the sensible choice was going to meet somebody else and try again. So, that’s what I tried to do.
At this moment in time, after she left, I had about $80,000 sitting in my Cambodian bank account. And considering that not very long ago, I had two houses fully paid off, giving me $2,200 a month income, it was a very bad position to be in. I kept thinking, I’ve still got $80,000. I only need to meet the right girl and everything will be okay. It scares me to think that I didn’t look at the amount of money I had and think this isn’t enough. Go back home. Okay, you might not want to, but go back home. Get your head together, get better, and you can always come and try again. In a way, that would have been admitting defeat. That would have been failure. And I didn’t want to choose failure. If failure was going to come, in a way, I felt like it had to be thrust on me against my wishes and out of my control. I think that’s the reason I continued going headfirst into this idea. Complete lunacy, diving into oblivion without knowing I was.
I was a regular of the bars around Phnom Penh. And I didn’t leave Phnom Penh thinking that going somewhere else would give me a better chance. I decided to just stay there and meet someone there. Perhaps I didn’t really want to meet anyone. I just wanted an excuse to be able to burn through the rest of my money. It was like if I had an excuse to be able to do this, then it wouldn’t be my fault if things went wrong. But if I do this willingly, then I won’t have any excuse. And if I look back, I wasn’t even trying to meet someone. I was just using that as an excuse.
After the Relationship Ended
It took me 18 months to burn through the rest of my money. All that $80,000. All of it. Every single last cent of that money gone in 18 months. If you think about the fact I was only paying $350 for the rent of my place, most of the time I was only eating basic cheap food with the occasional French meal every now and then when I wanted something more substantial, that meant that most of that money the biggest portion of it went on drink and spending time with the girls. I was convincing myself that every time I was spending time with a girl, that perhaps she could be the girl I would eventually settle down with. So, it was a justifiable expense that in any other situation or circumstance wouldn’t have been.
When I say that all my money was gone all of it, every last bit of it and even when I only had a couple of thousand left, enough for a plane ticket, I still clung onto some kind of false hope that something was going to fix things for me, something would get better, I would get better. And it was that false hope that I clung on to that saw me go all the way down to zero.
I spent 3 days not getting out of bed, struggling to cope because I hadn’t had a drink for those days. I didn’t have any money. That was when I had to make the most embarrassing phone call of my life. I had to call my eldest daughter asking if I could borrow some money for a plane ticket home. I didn’t tell her the whole truth about how I’d become addicted to drink and the nightlife around Phnom Penh. I didn’t tell her how I’d sold those two houses and lost all the money. I didn’t really tell her anything apart from that things had gone wrong, that I’m okay so you don’t need to worry about me, that I need to come home and I don’t have any money. She stepped in and lent me the money.
This is where I don’t know if I should be truthful. I asked for $1,000, so she sent me whatever pound amount that was. It landed in my account in the UK. Then I sent it to my account in Cambodia, and I went to buy a plane ticket. I didn’t make it to the place I was going to buy the plane ticket from. I went into the bars. 4 days later, I had multiple missed calls from my daughter and also my son and even my ex wife, obviously worried about me. I broke down in tears. And that was another time when I did that. But that was the worst time of my life. I was in a mess and I knew it. And I actually had to call my ex wife, whom I hadn’t spoken to for such a long time. And I had to tell her the truth and asked her not to share the whole truth with our kids. She didn’t send me any money. She actually bought the plane ticket for me. So I didn’t have the ability to be stupid.
I eventually returned home. I did find help. I did get better. And I did repay the money I borrowed from my daughter and ex wife. And as of today, I am in a much better place.
Final Warning
It will be very easy for anybody listening to my story to judge me, to call me stupid, and to call me an idiot. And you have every right to call me that and think of me like that because I did some stupid things. Some people are wired differently to others. And I think I was wired in a way where I’m not able to control myself. And it just so happened to be that in that part of the world there were things going on that transpired against me to bring out this part of me that when I was living life felt so good, but it caused me so much heartache and stress and pain.
I haven’t left home since because while I am in a better position today mentally and financially, I’m happy to say I haven’t had a drink ever since returning back from Cambodia. We’re talking over 6 years. I just don’t trust myself to go out again and to do anything other than continue life as it is because I’m very good at convincing myself to do things I shouldn’t do.
I’ll leave you by saying it only takes one moment of madness in 1 million moments of your life for everything to go wrong. One in a million. Everything can go wrong. 999,999 things could go right. But if only one thing goes wrong, that one thing, if blown out of proportion, could bring everything else down. If you are someone who can succumb to a moment of madness, I would say avoid Cambodia, Thailand, Southeast Asia, and countries like that at all costs. I’m not alone in the things that happened to me. It happens to many people. Don’t ridicule people like that. I’m telling my story only because I wouldn’t want this to happen to anyone else.
