February 26, 2020 to March 3, 2020
Days T24-30: More Life Decisions in Siam Reap
Siem Reap is an incredible amount of fun. It's hard to explain unless you've been here, but it really is a chill and party place. The whole thing exists because of Angkor Wat, but that wasn't the locus of this trip. Most of the time here I hung out on Pub Street and basically hit the nightclubs every night. With a few 50 cent draft beers to get started on the pregame, it's cheaper than drinking water.
During the day, I ended up doing some volunteer teaching at an NGO, basically to train the teachers on the structure of how to do a math lesson. It didn't matter so much about not getting paid, I just wanted something to do and take my mind off all this life uncertainty. Don't get me wrong, I'm loving this extended cycle tour break in SE Asia, but the whole thing feels ominous for some reason. It's like this positive yet strange feeling.
Determined to follow through on making the most of this opportunity, I also got into a routine of doing job search work by the pool. Looking for a job is full time work in and out of itself. In these days were you can be a makeshift digital nomad like myself, it was rather easy to look for work online. I was soon hitting up dozens of schools and targeting my search in Malaysia and Singapore. Talking to a really good friend, the same one who steered me on the correct course in Pattaya, I went with his suggestions.
One application hit the jackpot. Less than five minutes after sending it out, the principal of one of the top schools I picked in Malaysia got back to me and wanted to set up an interview. This was the breakthrough I had been waiting for.
We'll see what actually happens of course, but the fact this took place was a big step forward and this really got the momentum going on sending out more applications. The hotel itself was pure bliss, the Apsara Dream.
Eventually though I changed to another hotel where the cycling couple Ashley and Paul I met earlier were staying because it was a better deal overall which they recommended.
But you know how life is, you move forward two steps and take one step back. For several nights I'd wake up in the middle of the night and just wonder what the fuck was happening and when this whole thing was going to be over with. This 'thing' with the coronavirus I'll admit I didn't even know what it was, but it was causing considerable anxiety. More and more stories and reports came in about lockdowns in China. A mere month ago this whole thing had started and now it was way out of control. A lot of people I knew including my fiancee were all forced to stay at home in some sort of quarantine, and yet here I was ready to throw in the towel with all things China and start fresh with a new job.
Part of me wanted to get back to Shanghai and start teaching again, to get back to normal with fitness classes, tutoring, partying, making sick cash, and everything else I had been doing for the past 18 years. But for whatever reason, I didn't think that would ever happen. Whatever was happening in China due to this coronavirus was going to make a permanent change, that much was for damn sure.
And now what was all this about? The people I love are in lockdown while I'm lounging at the swimming pools. And now with me looking for new jobs and about to potentially land one in Malaysia, this was surely going to be a major source of conflict.
But the thing is I just don't know what to do. I didn't know then, I don't know now. I did the best I could. With the coronavirus and lockdowns in China, the rug has been pulled out from under me. Economic and social life in the city are reduced to nothing. If I did fly back, I would be faced with long waits in the airport, temperature checks, registrations, and a mandatory two week quarantine stuck at home. No matter how much I was missing my former life, it wouldn't return.
[Update November 2022] In a way it's scary how I have a knack for sensing the future. Nobody can predict it exactly, but back then I got a lot of it right. Most of what I said came true except that there was a short period in 2020 and of 2021 where a shadow of the former life could be enjoyed in China. I did eventually fly back there to experience that pandemic purgatory and have regretted it ever since. As for the Malaysia job situation, read on to find out about that.
[Update April 2024] I decided to put an extra entry at the end of this whole journal to expand more on the whole leaving China, the Malaysia situation, and how this all ties into the future journals, even the ones yet to be written. The story is not over yet.
All I can say is that I made the wrong decision. But was there any decision made during the covid buildup in early 2020 that could have been the 'right decision'? I would say no, but maybe God knows the answer to that if he even exists. Speaking for myself, I can say for sure that I made the wrong decision. That is simply because it landed me in the Shanghai lockdown and still facing travel restrictions in late 2022. Those made it not possible to see my father before he died in Canada. Put all this together, a month or so prior to this time I was in Siem Reap meant that it was the last time I would ever see him. That was while stepping out of the house and getting on the flight to Hong Kong which eventually lead to here.
The story is definitely not over. Even after China went back to normal after covid and pretended the whole thing never fucking happened, it left residual effects of massive PTSD and other kind of suffering that I can't shake even to this day.
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With a Skype interview set up in a few days, I figured it best to bike out of Cambodia and across the border back to Thailand in order to use reliable internet. The internet in Cambodia is not up to the task and I'd hate to be turned down for a job because of internet connection issues.
At the same time, the volunteer school in Siem Reap wanted me back to run the children's English club. This would keep me in town even longer, but it's really not a big deal. It's not like I have anywhere to go urgently.
Put all of this together, the plan was to do a long ride to Anlong Veng about 130 km. Then the next day, cross the border into Thailand's Surin province and find a coffee shop with decent internet in time for the interview. That was the plan forward and it was enough needed to get me motivated for the next steps.
Today's ride: 25 km (16 miles)
Total: 837 km (520 miles)
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