March 10th 2025, Kampot, Cambodia

Hostel dorm $5. Gym pass 1$. Sauna/Steam/Col Plunge $4. Fresh coconut $0.75. You can start your morning healthily and energized in Kampot Cambodia for about $10! I woke up and started my day just as described. I got a nice work out at a local gym and afterwords spent an hour at the sauna house. I have already said this but I love this routine. Going to the sauna and cold plunge gives my mind such clarity and my body much energy. At the sauna I met an older Canadian gentleman who lives in Kampot. I asked him his story. He moved here 5 or 6 years ago after he divorced his wife. His brother is a surveyor and told him about Cambodia. He married a Khmer girl and they live in Kampot. He rents out his house in Canada and it is enough to survive in Cambodia. He told me that sihanoukville, a coastal port city near Kampot, was where most expats used to live. 6 or 7 years ago the Chinese came to invest and build and starting building huge buildings and casinos, some never finished to this day. The expat community picked up and moved to Kampot and made it vibrant ever since. Also, Cambodia is the first place I see where prices are listed in dollar ahead of the local currency. Cambodia uses the US dollar (USD) alongside its local currency, the Cambodian riel (KHR), mainly due to historical, economic, and stability reasons. After the Khmer Rouge regime collapsed in 1979, Cambodia's economy was in ruins, and trust in the Cambodian riel was low. The United Nations and international aid (especially from the US) flooded the country with US dollars in the 1990s, making it widely accepted. It has been a while since I have seen a US dollar and handled it so frequently! A note on economics. I haven't written about economics in a while wow! I have been too busy being a hippy backpacker. I bought a coconut today for 3000 riel, or 75 cents. In Koh Rong at a local shop I bought a coconut for 5000 riel, or $1.25. Also in Koh Rong, but at a resort hotel I paid 12,000 riel or $3 for the same coconut! This is a classic case of price discrimination, where businesses charge different prices for the same product based on the consumer's willingness to pay. Ok back to my day. After the gym and sauna I found a viber cafe and got a poke bowl and finished my taxes. I had to download a VPN to access coinbase to upload my crypto returns. For some reason coinbase is blocked on Cambodian wifi. A quick refresh of what a VPN is: A VPN (Virtual Private Network) is a tool that encrypts your internet connection and hides your IP address, making your online activity more private and secure. I took me a while to get the right documents for crypto tax returns but I finally did it. After lunch and taxes I went to contemplate my mortality at the local 7-11. Well I did not go there with this intention, I went to get a water and protein shake. I ended up sitting at the 7-11 counter next to local Cambodian elementary school girls and it gave me some real perspective. Here I am a 24 year old American sitting at a 7-11 drinking a water next to elementary school Cambodian girls. For a second I thought what the hell am I doing. However, this is all the beauty in travel. There is no membrane separating cultures now. We can diffuse with ease like Osmosis Jones. Remember Osmosis Jones? It is only 1600 here at the time of writing this. I will probably chill and read and go to the night market later. Thanks for reading!