Holidays
Phnom Penh, Cambodia, July 28th, 2014
Salaroche


For some of us it takes three months of weighing options before finally deciding where to first go spend the summer holidays in the company of our girlfriend and then continue our leave of absence on our own for a few weeks while searching on the Internet for a convenient job in some other quadrants of the planet.

I first thought of Colombo, the seaside capital of Sri Lanka, but then I considered that Sri Lanka is a bit restrictive regarding visas for longer stays. In addition, Colombo is obviously a bit far from the trodden path, which makes it a bit expensive to fly out of it towards Europe or back to Southeast Asia’s neighborhood. That meant Colombo was not a good option this time around.

I then thought of Greece, which is a country I’ve been to a couple of times and I definitely still consider one of my destinations of preference. But when I thought of the high cost of living they have over there the prospect of Greece as my next destination ceased to seem appetizing.

While considering Italy, Cyprus, or Spain, I felt a bit disoriented looking at Google Earth on my computer screen, as the world looked a bit blurry under my eyes, but then my girlfriend Nadya said she had never been to China, and asked whether we could meet on the island of Hainan for a couple of weeks. As reluctant as I was to stay any longer in China, I could clearly see that her proposal was the best option for me, so I agreed. And there we went.

In the meantime, Vladimir Putin had escalated his shenanigans in Eastern Ukraine, the Donetsk hooligans had shot down a Malaysian airliner with 298 people on board, and Bibi Netanyahu had decided to once again show the Palestinians who’s the boss in the Levant.

Evidently, the world news mentioned above only come to show how small and irrelevant our own personal difficulties can be when compared to those of greater numbers of other earthlings.

As things turn, I now find myself writing these words on digital paper while sitting at the desk in my room in a small but comfortable hotel in Phnom Penh, the capital city of Cambodia. I frankly didn’t intend to spend not even a single day in this city, but my need to renew my French passport commands that I be here during a regular working day so that I can personally go to the local French Consulate and kindly request to be granted a new one.

Accordingly, this morning, Monday the 28th, I took a Tuk-Tuk ride to the Consulate and lodged my official request to be granted a new Passport. The amount of US$122.00 I paid sort of guarantees that in the lapse of 15 days I will most likely have that International document in my hands so that I may later show the political establishment of any of the 28 members of the EU that I’m perfectly authorized to work and live there.  

By now I consider my holidays to be through. Tomorrow Tuesday the 29th I will once again take a rather-comfortable minibus down to the seaside town of Sihanoukville where I intend to spend the next couple of weeks sending job applications left and right in an effort to land a convenient gig somewhere in Europe or Southeast Asia.

In the meantime, Lady Destiny keeps luring me into her designs, singing close to my ears words quite similar to those sang by Stevie Winwood back in 1968 with the group “Traffic”:

“I'd like to show you where it is
But then it wouldn't even mean a thing
Nothin' is easy, baby, just please me
Who knows what tomorrow may bring?”

(“Who knows what tomorrow may bring” [Capaldi/Winwood/Wood]; Album “Traffic”, 1968) 

And the ship sails on.

Salaroche