Starting Over in the Kingdom of Wonder: Why I Moved to Cambodia at 55
Starting Over in the Kingdom of Wonder
There is a strange moment that comes when you realize almost everything you own can be reduced to a few suitcases. For most of my life, I followed a fairly traditional path. I worked, built a career, bought homes, accumulated things, worried about the future, and assumed life would continue along roughly the same road.
It didn’t.
My divorce changed the direction of my life in ways I never could have imagined. There was a period of time when I felt like I was simply trying to figure out what came next. I prayed to God for answers. Eventually, retirement appeared on the horizon, and with it came a question I had probably avoided for a long time:
If I could start over, what would I want my life to look like?
The answer eventually led me more than 8,000 miles from home.
To Cambodia.
Don’t believe all the reports. Cambodia is one of the safest countries I have visited.
Leaving Everything Behind.
People often talk about moving overseas as if it is one long adventure.
There is certainly adventure.
But there is also sadness.
Before I left the United States, I sold almost everything. My house was gone. My truck was gone. Furniture, possessions, and pieces of a life accumulated over decades slowly disappeared or are now sitting in storage.
Every sale made the move a little more real.
But the hardest things weren't the things I sold.
They were the people, and one very special cat, I had to leave behind.
Leaving my parents was incredibly difficult. At this stage of life, you become very aware that time is not unlimited. They are getting older and need a bit of help at times; just being there for moral support. Moving halfway around the world means knowing you can't simply jump in the car and visit.
And then there was my cat.
Anyone who has ever truly loved an animal understands that they become part of your family. Walking away from her, even knowing she would be extremely well cared for by my parents, was one of those moments when the excitement of a new life collided directly with the pain of leaving the old one behind.
There were plenty of moments when I wondered:
What am I doing?
But underneath the sadness was something else.
Hope.
For the first time in a long time, I wasn't simply maintaining the life I had built.
I was choosing what came next.
Cambodia Kept Calling Me Back
This move wasn't completely spontaneous. Cambodia had already begun working its way into my life.
My first trip came in July.
Then I returned again in December.
By the third journey, something had changed.
I wasn't really coming to Cambodia as a tourist anymore.
I was coming home.
Each trip showed me a little more of the country. The traffic and energy of Phnom Penh. The quiet countryside. The coastline. The food stalls with insects to eat. The markets. The temples. The incredible hospitality of the Cambodian people.
Cambodia can be chaotic, beautiful, frustrating, peaceful, confusing and welcoming, sometimes all within the same hour.
There's a reason Cambodia calls itself the Kingdom of Wonder.
You never quite know what is waiting around the corner.
And eventually I realized I didn't want to experience this place for two or three weeks at a time. I wanted to know what it felt like to actually live here.
JFK to HK…….
16 hour flight from JFK to Hong Kong. Total travel time to Phnom Penh from Pennsylvania….29 hours!!!
The Long Journey to a New Life
The journey itself gave me plenty of time to think about that decision.
Sixteen hours in the air to Hong Kong is a long time to contemplate your life choices.
Somewhere over the Arctic, surrounded by hundreds of strangers and staring at that little airplane slowly crawling across the map on the seatback screen, it occurred to me just how far away I was going.
After landing in Hong Kong, I had a layover before boarding another flight for the roughly three-hour journey to Phnom Penh.
When the plane finally descended into Cambodia, this trip felt completely different from the others.
There was no return ticket hanging over the experience.
I wasn't counting vacation days.
I wasn't trying to cram Cambodia into an itinerary.
This was life now.
And strangely, that realization felt incredibly freeing.
J Tower 2 in BKK1 District
This was my home base for week one. A two bedroom two bathroom condo overlooking the city.
My First Week Living in Cambodia
My first week as a Cambodian resident; or at least someone attempting to become one; was spent in Phnom Penh. I rented a condo in J-Tower 2 in the BKK1 district.
It was a beautiful condo on the 26th floor overlooking the city. Oddly, the first person I met in the elevator was an expat from Arizona who actually lived next door. In that moment, I felt less intimidated. Others, had actually done what I had.
Before heading to the coast, there was some adulting to do.
First came the process of getting my retirement visa sorted out.
I was asked to give my passport to a travel Agency that does visa services and one week later I had my retirement visa. It was super easy.
Then came something equally important for actually living here: opening a Cambodian bank account with ABA. It’s an absolute must if you live here!!
Neither of those things sounds particularly exciting.
Nobody makes a travel video called:
"YOU WON'T BELIEVE THIS BANK ACCOUNT!"
But those little moments were important.
Opening a local bank account, getting the visa arranged and learning how everyday life works were signs that this wasn't another vacation.
I was establishing a life.
Phnom Penh is an amazing introduction to modern Cambodia. It is loud, crowded, rapidly developing and filled with contrasts.
Luxury towers rise above street vendors. Modern coffee shops sit beside traditional markets. Tuk-tuks weave between SUVs, motorcycles, bicycles and seemingly anything else capable of moving down a road. And; I mean ANYTHING.
Then, eventually, it was time to leave the capital.
My destination was Kep.
Local traffic jam…….
You can always count on a few visitors looking for a palm fruit treat.
Life in Kep
Kep is almost the opposite of Phnom Penh.
Located along Cambodia's southern coast near the Vietnamese border, Kep is quiet, green and relaxed.
The mountains rise behind the town while the Gulf of Thailand stretches out in front of it.
There are fishing boats in the water, monkeys in the trees, tropical plants everywhere and some of the best seafood I've ever eaten.
Kep is famous for its crab market, particularly its blue crab served with Kampot pepper.
Life moves slower here.
Much slower.
And that was part of the attraction.
After spending decades living according to bells, schedules, work calendars, mortgages, meetings and deadlines, there is something incredibly peaceful about waking up and realizing that your day doesn't have to be dictated by a clock.
That doesn't mean life here is perfect.
Living in Cambodia is very different from visiting Cambodia.
Things don't always work the way you expect them to. Language can be a challenge. The heat and humidity are real. Infrastructure can be unpredictable. You learn very quickly that the phrase "I'll just run to the store and get one" doesn't always apply.
But those challenges are also part of the experience.
I didn't move here because I wanted America with palm trees.
I moved here because I wanted to experience a different way of living.
And Then There Is Kea
Of course, there is another very important reason Cambodia became home.
Kea.
Relationships are never simple, and ours certainly required both of us to take chances.
We came from completely different worlds.
Different countries.
Different cultures.
Different languages.
Different life experiences.
Yet somehow our lives crossed; thanks to a mutual friend in New York.
Kea has helped me in ways that would be difficult to completely explain.
When you move to a country where you don't speak the language fluently and don't completely understand the culture, even simple things can become complicated. She has helped me navigate countless situations that I probably would have struggled through on my own.
But what matters far more than translating a conversation or explaining how something works is the relationship we have built.
Finding love required sacrifices from both of us.
For me, it meant leaving behind nearly everything familiar.
For her, loving an American meant accepting all the complications that come with two people whose lives began on opposite sides of the world.
There are immigration questions.
Family responsibilities.
Cultural differences.
Future decisions.
And thousands of miles separating Cambodia from the people I love in America.
Love doesn't magically erase those things.
You simply decide someone is worth working through them with.
And I believe she is.
I’m no longer just an American. I’m an expat! I’m a Riel American!!
From Xpedition Xterra to Riel American
This new chapter also meant it was time for another change.
For years, my travels and adventures lived under another name.
But that name belonged to another chapter of my life.
This one needed its own identity.
That's how Riel American was born.
The name represents the two worlds that now make up my life.
The riel is Cambodia's national currency.
And I'm still very much an American.
I'm not pretending to become Cambodian.
I'm an American learning how to live in Cambodia. I’m making mistakes, discovering new places, learning the culture, meeting people and hopefully understanding a little more about this country every day.
That's what Riel American will be about.
Not luxury travel where everything is polished for Instagram.
Not pretending life overseas is perfect.
And not telling everyone they should sell everything and move to Southeast Asia.
This is simply my experience.
The good.
The frustrating.
The funny.
The beautiful.
And occasionally the completely ridiculous.
On my morning bike ride…….at least when it’s not raining!!
