What Is Money?

Isn’t it astounding that money can buy you health, attention, power and many other material and immaterial things? Virtually anything your heart desires, regardless of who you are as a person, can be had if you have money? You could be the most unworthy person in the world, but if you have money, there are few limits as to what you can or cannot have. Similarly, there are some incredibly smart people out there but their ideas never come to be because they simply never had money to realize them.

Money is Divine

Have you ever noticed how many similarities there are between money and God?

  • Like God, money is everywhere
  • Like God, money is in everything
  • All things come from money, as they come from God
  • All things return to money, as they return to God
  • and As with God, if money abandons a person, they are faced with a demise

Whether you believe in God or not is irrelevant. Just replace word “God” with your favourite divinity and the message will be the same. And as for the last point – it is not only persons that can face fast demise when they’re out of money. Companies, cities, even whole countries can collapse just the same if they have no money.

A company – for instance – could be perfectly capable of delivering a worthy product or service, they could have the equipment needed to run their operations and people capable of doing the job, but if there is no money, the company will quickly go under. Even if many of the material and immaterial conditions are met (such as skill and knowledge to perform the job are acquired, necessary equipment and man power are available), for as long as the company has no money, they are headed for a fast bankruptcy. And on the other hand – even if a company has absolutely no skills, knowledge or experience to perform the job, nor does it have the equipment nor manpower – it can still do just fine for as long as it has the money.

Photo: Money - The Last Set of Shackles on the Way to Complete Freedom and Enlightenment
Photo: Money - The Last Set of Shackles on the Way to Complete Freedom and Enlightenment

I’m sure that each one of you reading this knows a person who is running a successful and profitable business because they had such financial backup, they could get anything they desired going. And I’m sure you also know a person who is really good at something and could do very well, but can’t get off the ground because they’re stuck struggling to meet their basic survival needs. How are you supposed to establish yourself if you haven’t had anything to eat for days and can’t find a place to get a good night’s rest in?

It’s that one thing called money – which is often immaterial (nothing but pieces of data on the computers or credit card chips) – that can make you or break you. It doesn’t matter where you stand with everything else – if you have money, you can finance your company’s path to success, but if you have none, even if you have some individual, unique qualities, you may never even get a chance to start.

Never Enough

Another unique property of money is that a man never seems to have enough of it and his/her desire to have more never ceases or diminishes regardless of how much or how little he/she has already amassed. There is hardly any other thing in our lives that would have quite comparable effect on people. It’s possible to get fed up with anything, but money. Even quality sex or Belgian chocolate – if you have too much of it, you’re gonna desire a break, but it never seems to be the case with money. Even a billionaire, a person who can buy anything in this world, would still desire to have more. Just what more could more money get him or her? There could be nothing, yet the desire to continue amassing more money not only never stops, it seems to grow.

No Community Spirit

It is the curse of pleasing others – the insatiable desire to satisfy external impulses, such as social acceptance or status even if it defects our internal needs, which systematically robs the modern generation of women and men off true community spirit. We satisfy our greed by responding to what external sources demand of us. But if you look deep down into the root cause of this phenomenon and compare it with societies where community spirit still reigns strong, you’ll come to realize that it’s money that’s behind this all. Somebody does something for you, you pay them and the transaction is closed. No emotional bonds are created in this type of exchange, only business bonds and business is a dog eat dog world fuelled by greed and ruled by money.

Whereas in a world without money, a world where community spirit still exists – such as in uncontacted rainforest tribes – if you get injured and must stay at home to recover for a few days, hunters will go hunting and gatherers gathering wild edibles and water to have enough food for whole community to eat, including you. Needless to say, when you get better and are able to go hunting yourself, you will dedicate your last breath to ensuring that you return to the settlement with enough food to feed everyone.

That’s the way it goes in real communities, in communities not fuelled by greed and run by money. Hunters don’t just hunt for food to feed themselves and their immediate family. They hunt for everyone. Similarly, gatherers don’t just gather for themselves and their families, bakers don’t just bake for themselves and their families and weavers don’t just weave baskets to trade with other tribes so their own family gets something in return. They do it for the entire community and at the end of the day, the entire community comes together to celebrate another day of life.

This does not exist in the world ruled by greed and run by money. In this world, people lost connection with their deep selves and the community by trading it for selfishness. They all want their house to be bigger than their neighbours’, their car to be shinier than their coworkers’, their body leaner than their friends’ and their connections more influential than anyone else’s. They are obsessed with celebrities because celebrities embody what they desire. They have those big houses, fast cars, pearl whites and prime time mentions on TV. And if you do see anyone “involved in the community”, it is only and solely because they counted on you watching and believed it is a necessary step to take them to their ultimate destination of having a bigger house, faster car, sexier body and broader fame. Blood donors take every opportunity to let others know how many times they’ve given blood, pro bono lawyers love posing with community spirits awards for the newspapers, companies and celebrities donate to affected areas under condition that it is made publically known and the list goes on and on and on.

This in a sense is a natural evolution as introduction of money into any community, even a community with strong community spirit, will eventually destroy that community spirit, simply because if you have money, you don’t need community. If no one from the community wants to help you, you can simply pay somebody else who will. In moneyless communities, there is no room for selfishness. In communities dominated by money, it’s all about selfishness.

Difference Between Having and Giving

The most significant difference between people who live in the world ruled by greed and run by money and people who live in the world ruled by the community spirit is that in the former – the more you have, the more respected you are, whereas in the latter, the more you give, the more respected you are.

In the world ruled by greed and run by money, if you are a wealthy businessman, you likely have powerful connections, have politicians for friends, police chiefs for friends, judges for friends, doctors for friends – you are plain and simple respected as a well accomplished person, even if you’re selfish and evil-at-heart. Whereas if you are poor, you get labelled a nuisance, a bottom feeder, a scum, a filth, a nobody – even if you are a good person who would not hesitate to help another.

In a world ruled by the community spirit, on the other hand, you are the most respected if you are a hunter capable of catching more animals than anyone else – so you can give the community more food, or if you have the ability to heal others – so you can help keep the community healthy, or if you have the skill to paint – so you can immortalize the daily life of the tribe on the walls of the caves – in a world like that, people don’t strive to have more, but to give more because the more you give, the more respect you get and it will be naturally returned to you in the same abundance when you no longer have the ability to keep giving. This is the way it used to be among humans for millennia. Even if you rewound as little back as 150 years, you’d still find this type of community spirit going strong and people gaining respect by how much they gave, not how much they amassed.

There is a pretty good kicker to it – people who dedicate their lives to accumulating financial wealth are gonna lose it all one way or another. Both experts and non experts alike predict a collapse of the financial system as we know it, but even if none of the financial doomsday prophecies were to take place, each of us will eventually perish. We the people are finite. Your money may outlive you, but once you have passed on, all of your investments, all of your bank accounts – every last penny will be worthless to you. You can’t take any of the material things you’ve accumulated with you once you leave the world of the living and your respect aka social status that your wealth has given you will perish with you. The one thing that stays is the memory of those who gave so much while they were alive so it became worthy of remembering.

Money Is Evil

So what is money? The notion that the love of money is the root of all evil has been with us for a very long time. People kill for money, abandon their morals for money and sacrifice their loved ones for money. Governments wage wars on other governments in order to gain control of their land, natural resources and trading routes because that will bring them more money.

From the above it would seem pretty obvious that money is evil as there is no other force in the world which would make people do such vile things to one another. Yet money is a tool which helps us do more, have more and be more. But as is the case with other tools, they have the power to be our tools or to turn us into tools. Money is ultimately not the root of all evil, it is the love of money that’s behind the actions of evildoers.

People Are Weak

Money is not the first tool with capability to turn people into tools. Internet, one of the finest inventions and the most powerful tools to date is also one of the most powerful tools that turns people into tools. So I guess the problem truly is in the fact that we as people are week and allow the tools which have the power to make our lives easier, richer and more fulfilling, to turn us into their tools and obsess over them to a point of insanity. I mean – look at Facebook users to see what tools can a useful tool turn people in.

Let me say it again: people are weak. I’m one of the people, therefore I’m weak. Money can corrupt me just as easily as it can corrupt anyone else. I don’t want to be corrupted. Therefore I choose life without money. I choose life without tools that turn me into tools. Leaving the corporate lifestyle cage behind was easy. Setting myself free from cute little gadgets was much more difficult. Yet both of these combined were nothing compared to the clutches of the internet, especially since internet was my bread and butter. However I knew I would never be really free if I were a slave to any of it. Slavery, regardless of whether it’s self imposed and realized or not, is still just that – a slavery.

It takes extraordinary aptitude to awaken into such self-realization. It takes even more to successfully carry it out. The trick is – an accomplishment of such magnitude puts one face to face with his final challenge; a challenge that tramples them all seven fold – freedom from money. Can a 21st century man, a man like everyone else born in this day and age, a man who lived every day of his life understanding that money is an inseparable part of everyone’s life – can he raise above and unslave himself from the almighty force of money? I’m about to find out.

Gypsies in Eastern Europe

Since I’ve been loudly and proudly referring to the dim-witted imbecile apologists as “sheep“, many contacted me angrily questioning how I came to conclusion that I wasn’t one. Nothing could be easier to prove, so let me get right down to it.

Sheep are dim-witted imbeciles. More than anything else, they lack the ability to see the forest for the trees. With their noses firmly glued to the ground, it’s no wonder they can’t see the plains that stretch far and wide. All they see are stems of grass that fill up their entire field of view. But somehow they believe that being this limited comes with a license to nag. So nag they do. The more limited their field of view, the louder they nag.

The issue of child sex tourism in Cambodia or an outlook on how cheap Cambodia really is are great examples of how lacking their wits are. If you focus on a raindrop that’s right before your face so much you can’t see the ocean that spreads before your feet, and use your limited wits to argue with everyone that your shiny raindrop is the largest body of water in the universe, then there is no better way to address you than by calling you a dim-witted imbecile. But nagging at anyone who dares to tell you that your raindrop is nothing compared to the ocean, just because the majority are as limited in their field of view as you are, makes you a sheep.

Gypsies in Eastern Europe

Another great way to show how limited minds of the dim-witted sheep are, is by talking about Gypsies from Eastern Europe. I spent substantial amount of time in Eastern Europe and had a fair share of experience with them, as well as with people native to those lands. As with pretty much every place I’ve spent a lot of time in, I found reports on Eastern European Gypsies by other travel bloggers not only misleading, but downright dangerous. If someone were to truly believe what other bloggers are saying and adjust their behavior accordingly, they’d be setting themselves up for a walk down a mine field.

Photo: Screenshot from a YouTube Video Posted by the Romanian Police Who Filmed a One Legged Gypsy Beggar
Photo: Screenshot from a YouTube Video Posted by the Romanian Police Who Filmed a One Legged Gypsy Beggar

I don’t make a point at being politically correct – I make a point at being truthful. I’ve never downplayed anything and never offered half truths to avoid being called a racist, so let me do the same here. To put it bluntly – Eastern European Gypsies are incredibly dangerous, deceptive and always looking to take advantage of others. These nomadic people settled in Eastern Europe because it provided them with everything they needed to engage in a lifetime of crime and get away with it. Had it not been so, they would have moved on.

Generations of living at an expense of others made them expert whiners. They especially like whining to the sheep because sheep are many (significant majority) and lack the ability to see the forest for the trees so simple whinery is enough to fool them into believing that they are not criminals but victims. And guess what sheep do – I don’t need to tell you. You already know that by now.

Gypsies and Sheep

Sheep believe that presenting themselves as righteous warriors who fight for the rights of the oppressed somehow makes them god-like so they seek out the opportunities to prove themselves to other sheep. It’s sheepish to conform – individualism is frowned upon and usually results in exclusion which is what sheep fear the most. They forsake the ability to think for themselves and become expert brown-nosers, aka arse-kissers without a face who bleep when others bleep and jump in the well when others jump in the well.

There is only one thing that could possibly come out of a meeting between a dim-witted sheep and a professional manipulator. Sheep swallow every single bit of the fabricated story and spread the corrupted tale of it to the world. As a result, the ridiculous untruth about discrimination of Gypsies in Eastern Europe caught on and wrongfully painted Slavs as racist bigots. The very group of people who were the victims and themselves discriminated against became the target of international criticism all because wits-lacking sheep sided with manipulators. It’s the nature of the sheep to ignore the real issue if it lacks shock value (seen really well in the above described child sex tourism article).

There are many instances when I wish I could slap sense into a sheep, but when they take victims and label them racists, I just want to kick them in the nut-sack so hard they can’t bleep no more.

History of Gypsies in Eastern Europe

Would it surprise anyone to learn that history of the Eastern European (Slavic) nations is a history of peace? Slavs have always been non violent, hard working people who would rather sing folk songs and dance to beautiful music than march to war against another nation. This inherently non violent nature presented them with many challenges as other, more power hungry nations took them for an easy target, but it changed nothing on their desire to live in peace and grant the same to the others.

Anyone who’s ever worked with people from Eastern Europe can attest to how hard working they are. This can also be seen from how advanced and economically powerful countries like Czech Republic and Slovakia were before the 20th century world wars swept through their lands. Not even the UK could measure up to them at the time. And that’s despite thousand years of occupation and attempted elimination by the Magyars (Hungarians) who did everything in their might to erase their languages and identity from the pool of the living and turn them into Magyars.

This is the story of many Slavic nations – often attacked and oppressed for centuries, but never rising up to march against another sovereign nation to conquer it. They took to the arms when others tried to conquer them, enslave them or undermine their values, and through bravery and determination, they prevailed (sometimes with help from friends), but this only happened as a response to the outside aggression.

Then in 1968, Soviet armies moved in and instilled communist philosophies upon them. Private properties were turned public and everyone was guaranteed a house to live in and a job to earn a living with – unless of course they were found unable to work, in which case they would get monthly monetary support from the government. The government would also assist parents by awarding them child benefits for each child up to the age of 18 years old.

This worked reasonably well since Slavs are naturally honest and very hard working so everyone rolled up their sleeves and got down to work to help recover from the devastation caused by two major wars. Everyone except from Gypsies. These nomadic people saw the opportunity to get something for nothing so instead of moving from place to place like they’d done for centuries, they stopped where they were and started exploiting the system for their own benefit.

Since government paid so much money a month for each child a woman had, Gypsies started breeding in out of control numbers to get as much in child benefits as possible. And since government also paid for the disabled who were deemed unable to earn their own living even if job for them was guaranteed, they all started pretending they were mentally insane in order to avoid going to work but still have monthly income coming their way.

They would not entertain an idea of leaving Eastern Europe after it became apparent that they could get unlimited amounts of money if they just kept breeding and pretending they couldn’t work. So breed and pretend they couldn’t work they did and money kept coming. If they needed more dough, they just made more kids and voila – their monthly allowance increased.

As a result, Gypsies who didn’t spend one day working earned more money each month than Slavs who worked hard every day. You’d think these well funded Gypsies’d live in poshy palaces and wear finest clothes, given the money they got for nothing, but exact opposite was true. They took this money most Slavs who worked couldn’t even fathom and wasted it all within days on booze and drugs, leaving nothing for food or clothes for children.

Aside from looking slightly different owing to their ethnic background, Gypsies are also easily distinguishable from the Slavs by the fact that they always wear old and dirty clothes and their kids suffer from malnutrition. It’s not surprising that to the sheep, Gypsies would look poor, oppressed and neglected. Except that sheep never look below the surface because if they did, they’d see that Slavs, who always look clean, healthy and presentable earn less money than Gypsies get for nothing each month.

Most of the time, the real reason why kids of Eastern European Gypsies look so sick and dirty, and why they wear what looks like pre-war clothes with tears and holes on every fold, is because their parents never try to manage money properly and waste it as quickly as they get it. The use of the “Easy come, easy go” phrase has never been more appropriate. If Slavs can make it through the month with less money than Gypsies get and still look well taken care of, then there really is no excuse for Gypsies not to. But then again, unlike Gypsies, Slavs don’t own 20kg worth of golden chains and rings each.

Needless to say, what follows after all the monthly allowance was wasted is stealing. Both parents and their kids go out to look for supplemental income by robbing people who have to work for their money. Stolen money not only gets them through the weeks after their monthly allowance was wasted, it’s also a way to kill time. Since they don’t need to go to work, they have whole long days to look for something to kill boredom with and a little excitement victimizing natives has proven to go a long way. It also, at the same time satisfies their inbred itch to commit crime.

Gypsies are natural born criminals. They’ve stolen, pillaged, raped and murdered as part of their normal development for centuries, polishing the art of theft to perfection. And since Slavs are by nature non violent and hold a very negative stance on crime, they make for perfect victims. Faced with these professional criminals, the law abiding natives stand no chance.

Days of boredom on end allowed the Gypsies to form gangs and organize their attacks for maximum heist. Kids are often used as lures or agent provocateurs while whole mobs wait nearby to struck at the opportune moment. Heavily outnumbered, robbed victims are often beaten, or in the case of girls – raped. Not even children or seniors are spared. There is simply no line Gypsies wouldn’t cross.

Gypsies did not value anything they were given because it cost them absolutely nothing to get it. Government gave them houses for free so Gypsies destroyed them. Government gave them child support for breeding like rabbits so they wasted it all on booze and golden trinkets. And if anyone dared to stand up to them, Gypsies attacked every member of his/her family and threatened further violence should this be repeated.

The police were the once with the least leverage against Gypsies. It would be very rare for a crime to take place which was not committed by a Gypsy, but trying to bring any of the Gypsy perpetrators in resulted in whole gang of them coming together to complain to the international court that the arrest of their criminal friend was an act of racism and discrimination. They portrayed themselves as victims each and every single time making bringing them to justice virtually impossible.

Matters were further complicated by the fact that these huge Gypsy gangs would unleash unspeakable violence upon the family of anyone who would stand in their way. You lock one of them up and end up with five hundred of them setting your house on fire and beating your kids up to the brink of death.

However the biggest joke in all this are the sheep. All the while Gypsies oppress the majority and exploit their good will, they also take each and every opportunity to show off buildings they got new, but destroyed to let the sheep see what conditions they live in, they’d show their sickened, malnutritioned kids whom they haven’t fed because they wasted all their monthly allowance on drugs, but tell the sheep that their kids starve because nobody wants to employ them, and add a number of made up tales about someone attacking them because they were Gypsies and the sheep swallow it whole with cherry on top, get outraged and instantly label Slavs “racist bigots”. Could you believe the dumbness of those sheep?

Catch 22

Slavic nations opened themselves up to these people from afar, gracefully welcomed them among themselves but all they got in return was exploitation, abuse and crime. While the Slavs worked hard to keep the economy going, Gypsies beat little boys, raped little girls and robbed anyone they laid eyes on. 10% of population accounted for 90% of all crime committed but when anyone tried to point it out, they complained to the international court and the victims took the blame.

Gypsies utterly painted Slavs – some of the most peaceful people in the world – racist just to satisfy their ever growing greed and lust for criminal behavior. And how did the sheep respond? Unsurprisingly… by nagging and crying on behalf of those “oppressed Gypsies” whose life must surely be so incredibly hard in Eastern Europe. I mean, can you imagine never needing to spend a day at work and still get more money than any working man? And how about complete freedom to commit countless crimes and always get away with it because if they tried throwing you in jail, you’d scream “Bloody Racists” until the sheep trampled the system till you were freed?

Cause and Effect

It goes without saying that even the most peaceful nation, when pushed to the limit, would eventually stand up and say “enough is enough”. For 20 years of communist rule, Gypsies exploited peaceful, hardworking Eastern Europeans and never as little as said “Thank you”. Instead, they labelled them “racists” and framed them with lies of discrimination all the while their peers robed, raped and murdered the very people whose money they lived off of. Someone was bound to slam their fist on the table and attempt to put a stop to it.

When the police has their hands tied because each time they try to arrest a Gypsy, whole Gypsy community gangs up on them, threatens them with murder and violence against their children, and complains to the international court that they are racially targeted, then perhaps it’s time to look for solution outside of official ways.

The natural response was the spark of the Skinhead movement. Skins didn’t just come to exist because someone thought it was cool. They were a response of a nation to the exploitation by abusive invaders. Unwillingness of Gypsies to live lawful lives and respect others like others respected them forced oppressed individuals into retaliation.

It made sense – I mean, you can only rape someone’s sister, bully his brother and rob his parent’s so many times before he snaps and tells to himself: “That’s enough!”. Gypsies kept raping innocent girls, bullying innocent boys and murdering innocent workers for so long, something was bound to happen. And so the Skinheads came to be.

My Encounters with Gypsies in Eastern Europe

I visited High Tatras in Slovakia with an Australian girl I met in London, England. While we were there, minding our own business, we were abducted by a Gypsy looking to rob someone and draw blood. My companion was like all other sheep at first – she complained about racism towards Gypsies based on reports by fellow sheep, but when knife wielding Gypsy attacked us and threatened to kill us if we didn’t give him our possessions, she was forced to sober up and realize that the opposite was true.

There were people around, but since it was a Gypsy who attacked us, nobody dared to intervene. After decades of exploitation, people feared these criminals who operate in gangs and because they don’t go to school or work, they have whole days to improve on their gangster tactics. We were attacked within the train station in Poprad. There were people inside and we had hoped someone would come to our aid – but no one did. It was clear why.

We got off without being stabbed in just the last moment after the attacker ripped our bags we were trying to hold on to off. It was a terrifying experience and it wasn’t the only one. A few days later, in a public transport bus, a group of Gypsy kids boarded a packed bus and started pulling stuff out of people’s pockets. When confronted, the kids ganged up on the victim, spat on her, kicked her and threatened with violence. They always have bigger, stronger accomplices accompanying them so if anyone dared to not cooperate, they would get beat up.

Things like that kept happening absolutely everywhere and all the time. We saw groups of those Gypsies wandering the streets, always looking for trouble. During the day – when all locals were at work, Gypsies provoked lone, out of place individuals to pick fight with them. While all Slavic people were incredibly welcoming, peaceful and friendly, the feeling of safety was always gone when Gypsies were around.

And then we visited Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. Without realizing why, the tensions we used to experience before were suddenly gone and entirely replaced by feelings of complete safety. A few days later we realized that since we came to Bratislava, we have not seen a single Gypsy. We no longer had to always look around us to make sure no Gypsy was after us, or to be aware where they are so we don’t look that way because they could consider it a challenge and respond to it by taking their whole gang that’s been sitting around whole day waiting for something exciting to spark it up and jumping us to see what “our problem” was.

After traveling through places populated with Gypsies, by whom we were threatened, attacked, robbed and several times near killed, a visit to a Gypsy free place was an incredible relief. Turned out that Skinhead movement was so strong in Bratislava, they cleaned their city off Gypsies and no new ones dare to come. The citizens had enough of being pushed around and victimized and stood up for themselves, forcing crime away from their city. The police couldn’t do it, so the citizens took their own safety into their own hands. That allowed us to embrace that notorious Eastern European hospitality and friendliness to the fullest.

After we’d left Bratislava, the danger returned. Never from the ranks of locals. Always from Gypsies. They had whole areas donated to them by the Communist governments in which they built them houses and parks but Gypsies destroyed them all. We passed by several Gypsy communities and could not believe our eyes. Buildings literally ripped to shreds, surrounded with up to a meter of garbage, all windows smashed, doors burnt with burn marks staining the walls, horrible smell everywhere, disease literally crawling all over – it was plain and simple disgusting and they turned it into this mess themselves, after it was donated to them new and free.

We could often see Gypsy areas built next to areas occupied by the Slavs. Same buildings, same size and style, clearly built at the same time, just one occupied by the locals, whilst the other by Gypsies. Buildings in which Slavs lived were clean and well maintained, buildings of Gypsies were ravaged, stripped to bare walls. There was this saying that what was not welded against something unmovable, it would have been stolen by the Gypsies.

Everything the government gave them was ripped into pieces. Showing zero respect for property, Gypsies stole or destroyed anything that could be stolen or destroyed. Then once completely destroyed and looking as if a nuke was dropped on the area, Gypsies would show it to the sheep while forcing fake tears out of their eyes with a claim that that’s how they are forced to live here. The fact that the building was provided to them in brand new condition and that it was them who destroyed it is somehow never mentioned and the sheep don’t ask. They just see a whiny Gypsy living in a disgusting house so it must be the result of discrimination of Gypsies by racist Slavs.

Occupation of Europe

Through criminal behavior and deception, Eastern European Gypsies are often incredibly rich. They promenade themselves in old, smelly, dirty clothes when sheep are around, but we got a chance to see a Gypsy wedding and I couldn’t believe how rich they really are. I was surprised they were able to walk with all these golden chains all over them. Must be a tough life for a Gypsy in Eastern Europe when all they own is $10 Million worth of gold jewelry each.

Another close look behind the veil of poor, discriminated faces of Eastern European Gypsies revealed an even more shocking surprise. Despite the fact that they never spent a day working for their money, many lived in incredibly poshy multi million dollar homes. Shortly after Velvet Revolution (end of Communism in Eastern Europe), they found out that Denmark and other Scandinavian countries had welcoming asylum policies and provided people who take advantage of it with more freebies than even communist governments did in Eastern Europe, so they rearranged their gang structures and spread the activities to other parts of Europe.

In order to be granted an asylum, they presented authorities with fabricated stories of discrimination in Eastern Europe and it worked. Foreign governments provided them with new accommodation, more money for nothing and daily rations so they could enjoy work free lives and focus on exploiting people beyond borders of Eastern Europe.

And so Gypsy gangs with international ties were formed and exploitation on much broader scale began. Seeing that deceiving people with begging tricks worked well, Gypsies from Eastern Europe whose numbers grew through out of control breeding (remember that they got so much money per child – the more children, the more free money) spread into every corner of the old continent pretending they were poor, sick, disabled or otherwise disadvantaged to get money from sympathetic citizen.

One Legged Gypsy Beggar

The video below was filmed by the Romanian police after they’d arrested a one legged Gypsy beggar. It’s Gypsies like this one legged beggar that cause sheep to cry “bloody racists” at Slavic people. Sheep simply can’t see past the tip of their noses so their response is to turn victims into bigots.

I call this beggar a “lying piece of shit” because that’s what he is but apparently, according to the sheep, calling a liar and liar is being a racist bigot myself, so that’s what they call me too. A liar Gypsy uses his race as tool of deception and sheep would jump down the throat of anyone who calls him out.

Good thing is – I know darn well how dim witted sheep are so being called a racist bigot by the lot of them is actually a flattery and a proof that I’m doing the right thing:

Fear of Reality and Its Effects on Travelers

Fear of Reality is a phenomenon that was completely unknown to me until I’ve started this blog. As someone who stands with his feet firmly on the ground and doesn’t float in the world of fantasy, starting a blog that doesn’t showcase the world of travel through the rose colored sunglasses was an eye opening experience. Eye opening because the amount of hatemail I get from people who fear reality so much they jump down the throat of anyone who dares to speak openly about it was so overwhelming, it really made me think and try to come to the core of what causes the travelers be so ignorant and arrogant. The study has lead me to the discovery of fear of reality and how it affects the travelers – the very specimen of human race I’d think would get affected by it the least. The exact opposite proved to be the truth, but let’s look at it nicely from the start:

Photo: Fear of Reality Came Alive on Walking Street in Pattaya
Photo: Fear of Reality Came Alive on Walking Street in Pattaya

Fear of Reality and Its Effects on Travelers

Most people associate the names of exotic countries with pictures of a tropical paradise. Most people who visit those countries return back home telling everyone of wonderful, smiling people who were killing themselves over who will be the first to help a lost foreigner with any advice they may need. And most of those people will stick by their notion that locals from that country are the nicest people in the universe to a point that if someone dares to speak otherwise, they’ll be right there responding without hesitation with the most colorful verbal assaults their brains can produce.

Fact be told, the “most people” I speak of in the above paragraph are the most clueless members of the society who wouldn’t know a rip off artist if it came at them with a signboard above their head and hit them square in the face. As a result, even though they’d become victims of mind games played on them by greedy locals who specialize in taking advantage of naive tourists, not only will they not realize that that was the case, they will be so taken aback by the faux-friendship they had just forged and the fake smile they had witnessed, they won’t even admit for a second that they were ripped off and will assault anyone who dares to clarify for them that ripped off they truly had been.

I knew this was happening right off the bat, I just couldn’t come to the core of why. How could a fake smile hypnotize an otherwise intelligent person to a point that they abandon all common sense and set on a path of complete idiocy? How could someone be so gullible that they would thank a thief for robbing them and stay friends with them so that next time they’re around, they’d offer themselves up for him again?

Fear of Reality Does Exist

At this stage I still didn’t know a darn thing about fear of reality, I was just actively pursuing the truth behind the utter naivety of vast majority of travelers. It all started to come together after I took a trip to Pattaya, Thailand – the largest brothel in the world where an excess of 20,000 hookers operate on any given day of the year, with the number growing by 25% – 50% during the high season months.

Walking around with my eyes open and wits unscathed by the unceasing calls of generally unattractive Thai girls desperate for my money, I spoke with many people on both sides of the spectrum to get a clear picture of what really goes on behind the facades played on by either party. And bit by bit I saw the fear of reality slowly take shape before my eyes.

How Harsh is Reality?

Just as I had witnessed in Cambodia where rip off artists thrive because they found out that putting a fake smile on is all it takes to rip a tourist off who would in turn thank them and recommend them to all of their friends, Thai girls also thrive on naivety of foreigners who fall for them acting as though they were their girlfriends and would continue sending them money even after their return back home not realizing that the girl wiped his taste off her mouth with disgust as soon as she was out the door and thought nothing less of him than a stupid walking ATM machine.

Whether it’s the rip off artist from Cambodia or the money hungry hooker from Thailand, at the end of the day, to them you were just a stupid foreigner who was so naive, you made an easy target and will only be a good source of laughs when they brag about your gullible self to their friends.

Thai Hookers

Despite being openly xenophobic, Thailand attracts massive number of tourists, many of whom are repeat visitors with many relocating to live in Thailand as expats. I got a chance to speak with many expats living in Thailand and even though they are aware of out of control murder rate of foreigners in Thailand (many of whom are killed out of sheer hatred of foreigners with the police hating all foreigners just as much hence supporting these murders or seeing them as justified), they still refuse to accept the notion that Thailand is a dangerous country and continue to adamantly protect Thailand’s reputation by attacking anyone who dares to speak badly about their country of choice? It took a very close look at the way Thai hookers operate to properly understand why they fear reality so much.

Like Thai men, Thai women are inherently xenophobic. They hate foreigners so genuinely it gives them shivers, but they love the money foreigners have so they put on skimpy clothes and go whoring themselves out for some of that dough. Forget all about Buddhism – when they take a whiff of the green stuff, all of the Buddhist principles they pretend to uphold get temporarily suspended (as they do when the craving to satisfy their xenophobic ways takes hold).

As a result, even though you’ll see those Thai hookers join their palms together and bow their heads in a prayer each time they see a temple or a shadow house, they forget all about it when a foreigner comes to sight. Selling their bodies for money is as normal as hatred towards foreigners. And – strangely or not – it is that fact alone that keeps drawing such a massive and steady flow of foreigners to the country.

Thailand is no longer cheap, people are not friendly and never ever smile (just look at the king of Thailand who is a reflection of his people – good luck finding one picture of him smiling). Scam is a daily happenstance and murders of foreigners more than common, though frequently ruled a suicide, a natural cause or an accident (the police is perhaps the most corrupt institution in an already corrupt country, so you can imagine how honest they are). Yet people keep coming back, bringing more and more money to fuel this xenophobic society. That’s how powerful the hooker attraction is.

Interestingly enough – Thai girls are not attractive and they are definitely not cheap. I don’t know how much hookers cost in the western countries, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they were less expensive than any of those Thai prostitutes. Yet people keep coming to Thailand for hookers, including people who have never been with a prostitute before. I tried to come to the root of this phenomenon as well and based on my research, it is because of sheer number of available hookers that can be encountered in any part of Thailand.

You see, many men fantasize about various women. While prostitutes can be had in almost any country of the world, the difference between Thailand and other countries is in the fact that virtually all Thai women are whores. As a result, if you happen to fantasize a Thai girl you casually spot, you can have her if you’re willing to pay. This is not true in the rest of the world. And this is also why many men who slept with a prostitute in Thailand had never paid for sex before and never will after.

Because when you leave Thailand, most of the women you meet will have some level of dignity in their lives so you won’t be able to just have them for money. Majority of women around the world will not sell themselves out just like that so if you happen to fantasize one who doesn’t particularly reciprocate your feelings, the fantasy will remain the fantasy and you will have to move on. But when you are in Thailand, you can turn that fantasy into reality by just shelling out an agreed upon sum of money. Because when money talks, Thai girls bother not about Buddhism or dignity. They like the green stuff and will gladly spread their thighs wide open for some.

And whether men who repeatedly come to Thailand admit it or not, this is really what attracts them back. Thai girls may not look like much, but they are always ready to go with you if you pay for it. And with so many of them offering themselves up before you could ask, you don’t even have to bother approaching them. If back home it is you who gets rejected approaching women, in Thailand it is you who does rejecting because there are so many of them approaching you, and that my friends is what drives mass tourism in Thailand.

How Thai Hookers Cast Light Into Fear of Reality

It was when I was in Pattaya – the biggest brothel in the world when I realized why people fear reality so much. Men love being constantly approached by women and asked to go out with them. But it changes nothing about these women having no dignity in their lives and craving money more than anything else. As a result, as soon as they’d collected the cash from you, they forget all about you and it’s back to hunting another victim. They would be sweet-mouthing you and act like your girlfriends – they’d do anything and say anything only to make you spend more.

Sob stories of them having hungry kids, mother in a hospital, live stock dying from a rare disease or whatever else is appropriate at the moment are commonly used to make the men feel sorry for them and spend more. The ultimate goal is to enchant the man so much, he would commit to helping this poor girl out any way he can and because many men who come to Thailand are hard working business people, when their time is up, they return home but continue supporting their new found girlfriend with funds wired to Thailand from their home country.

This is where it gets interesting. Before the man leaves Thailand, the sob stories get exaggerated to a larger than life extent and the girl presents the man with a way to stay in touch with her. It is oftentimes a mobile phone number, an email address, a facebook account or whether else has been working out for the girl the best. While the man is abroad, she keeps replying to him in a way which makes it sound as if she was his girlfriend.

Meanwhile, though – she continues whoring herself out. She’ll remain relentless until she finds another naive, gullible foreigner who eats her sob-stories with a chocolate topping and when he leaves, she will have another man to reply to as if she was his girlfriend, until he starts sending money from abroad as well, creating a new stream of workless income for the hooker.

Ultimately, she will engage several men like that, so even though each of them only sends her money every now and again, it adds up to being a solid pile of cash each month. Obviously, the men went to their home countries to work hard to make a lot of money so when their chance at another vacation time comes, they will head back to Thailand to be with their girlfriend who “loves them so much” (based on what she says when she responds to him by email).

With so many boyfriends to take care of, the girl will try to “help them” choose the best time to come to Thailand to ensure she’s available. The last thing she wants is for any of her sponsors to find out that they are not the only ones in her life so if a threat of two or more of them coming to Thailand to be with her at the same time looms up, she’d only respond affirmatively to one of them, while presenting the others with all sorts of valid reasons to postpone their trip till a later date.

As a result, when a man does come, he finds his girlfriend all dedicated to him, waiting for him as if he was her only love. This will encourage him even more and he’ll decide that he doesn’t want the girl to work as a prostitute anymore because she’s his dedicated girlfriend so next time he goes back home, he’ll commit to sending her so much money each month, she won’t have to sell herself out anymore because he’ll send her enough to look after her family (remember the sob stories?) without working as a hooker.

He leaves and she continues with her relentless pursuit to engage more and more men in the same way until eventually she gets a monthly wage from about a dozen of them. This is already enough for her to buy herself a nice car and live it up like a king. She would just respond like a girlfriend to messages from all of her boyfriend/sponsors and continue adding new sob-stories about new hardship that had befallen upon her so they could send bonuses on top of her monthly wage. And when they come over for a week or two, she spends time with them, gets them to buy her more jewellery, fragrances, clothes and whatever else her heart desires before seeing them off to wait for another one of them to come for a week or two.

In brief – these girls will pretend to love you like there’s no other man in the world, but as soon as you’re out the door, you’ll be naught more but a “walking ATM” reference when she goes to hang out with her friends to spend your money and brag about how many men living abroad who are sending her funds regularly every month she already has.

It’s a performance start to finish – just like those fake smiles from rip off artists of Cambodia many travelers won’t allow anyone to say a bad thing about. A mind game tailored to take advantage of these men, yet those men love it and keep coming back. And guess what they would do if someone suggested that their bellowed Thai girlfriend was a whore who is just taking advantage of them? They would jump that person and curse them to world’s end – just the way the self righteous protectors of the rip off artists from Cambodia do when I point out the truth about them. How awesome is that?

Fear of Reality Conclusion

To sum it up, my quest to find out why so many otherwise seemingly intelligent and/or well traveled people fail to see the truth and will not hesitate to verbally assault anyone who calls a spade a spade lead me to the discovery of Fear of Reality. While I may not be the first person to have found out about this phenomenon, it is something that I did not know existed so discovering it on my own affirmed me that I have a solid grip on reality and belong to a tiny group of people who are able to see the forest for the trees.

Fear of Reality is a type of phobia that makes people give up sound reasoning for faux feel-good experience. In other words, if you make them feel good, even if you’re only doing it to rip them off, in the end, they will still put maximum weight on the feel-good experience and will completely ignore the potentially negative part of the experience. Because they fear reality, instead of admitting it into their lives, the weak minded individuals will resort to living in a fantasy. It takes a person of exceptionally strong spirit to handle and face reality hence you’ll only find a handful of people who don’t suffer from Fear of Reality.

I’ve summed up the reasons why so many people suffer from Fear of Reality in three steps:

  1. Lacking Observation Talent
    I’m simply shocked by how lacking most people are when it comes to basic observation talent. Let me give you an example. If you ever get a chance to visit Pattaya – the largest brothel in the world, you will likely go for a stroll down the infamous Walking Street at night. This part of Pattaya is full of a-go-go bars and seems pretty dead during the day, but booms into a massive happening when the sun goes down. Thousands of foreigners of all races slalom among touts lurking to catch unsavvy newbs with ping-pong shows offers and underprivileged locals trying to sell stuff nobody with half a brain would buy. Many of those underprivileged locals are very old, crippled women with jasmine pendants hung on their arms approaching you with a smile and a big hope in their teary eyes that you would buy one.

    Virtually everybody I spoke with was aware of them and felt sorry for these old women who ended up having to sell flowery things in a place like the Walking Street, Pattaya only to make a living. Yet not one tourist in Pattaya could read the real truth from their teary eyes. They are not there to make a living or to survive or for any other similar reason. They are there because they are forced to. They are captured by local mafia, beat up and forced to earn a living for the young punks who control (understand – abuse) them. Each of these women have seen way too many winters and most of them have some visible disability. None can speak a word of English or any other language past their own. They skilfully hide their swollen, bloody lips which are the result of treatment the mafia boys manage them with. They are too old and too weak to stand up for themselves and/or to escape the abuse. And no foreigners can see that. All they see is an old woman struggling to survive so she came to Pattaya. So they buy her flowers because they feel sorry for her and want to help her out not realizing that by doing that, they’re helping out the mafia. For as long as abusing old, defenceless women remains a profitable venture, the mafia punks will continue kidnapping more of them, beating them up and forcing them out on the street to utilize their poor looks to entice foreigners into spending money out of sheer compassion.
  2. Inability to Read Between the Lines
    I think the reason I can read people so well is because I’m a photographer. I established myself as one of the world’s most celebrated nude photographers and a successful photo journalist because I was able to see what people are thinking and capture their real selves without pretence. Most people don’t seem to have this talent or don’t have it properly developed. Skilled photographers as well as traditional paint artists would also possess the same ability, but these account for less than half a percent of the population.
  3. Ignorance and Arrogance
    Most people prefer to live in a fantasy world. Reality confuses and scares them. You show them what the real life looks like and they will unleash the savage beast that dwells within them. The best way to prove it is by sending anyone to a reality news website, such as BestGore.com (WARNING!!! – extremely graphic content on that link. Do NOT click unless you’re ready to face the reality. This website does not mess around and tells it like it is – kind of like mine – which is why 99% of those visiting it WILL be offended. Don’t come back at me if you happen to be one because I have warned you. The front page which I have linked is safe, but read the warning on it carefully and click the puppy unless you’re really ready to see what the real life is about).

    Fear of reality is obvious from people’s reactions to being ripped off by smiling rip off artists. For as long as the rip off artist smiles and sweet talks to them, the victims will not only not perceive it as a rip off, they will actually think that they were treated like royalty and will verbally assault anyone who tries to open up their eyes and tell them the truth. The truth is the reality and they fear it. They prefer to live in a fantasy – the world without their rose colored glasses is too harsh and they refuse to accept it. If you take their rose colored glasses off, they will jump down your throat and won’t get out lightly. Good 98% of total population fear the reality and will fight to protect their fantasy world from those who stand firmly on the ground. They will always deny the possibility that they’re living in a fantasy and will continue lying to themselves no matter what.

BTW, this post was full of hard to swallow reality. Did it give you shivers reading the facts as they are? Did it perhaps enrage you or make you want to get back at me with verbal diarrhea to show me what a racist a$$hole I am? Yep, fear of reality can make people do that and if you found yourself feeling that way, know that this post is about you, whether you admit it or not.

It is not the purpose of this article to enlighten or change anyone. The sole fact that some people prefer the fantasy world to reality is a proof enough that they are lost causes and cannot be amended. People who fear reality also fear the real picture of themselves and as such are unable to look deep into their own selves to realize which side of the spectrum they fall into. Let me repeat myself one last time – reality is often too harsh to accept. If exposure to it through this article pissed you off, take it as a sign that there might be a whole wide world spread right before your feet, but you’re so focused staring at the tip of your nose, you can’t really see it.

Motorcycle Riding, Gadgets and Traveling Mark

You may have noticed that there has not been as many updates to Traveling Mark as there used to be in the past. There is a very good reason for that. It started several months ago during my stay in Pakse, Laos. Something happened during that stay that made me have a different outlook on the way I do things and subsequent events set me off on a whole new adventure. It all started with my initiation to motorcycle riding.

Learning to Ride a Motorcycle

I have vast car driving experience and have not had trouble staying safe on the road even in countries where driving chaos is nothing short of anarchy. I am also an experienced mountain bike rider having used my awesome Specialized bike as my main means of transportation back in Edmonton since 2007. I love bike riding and I enjoy driving when exploring new areas, but up until my visit to Pakse, I have never ridden a motorcycle.

Number of other backpackers I met in Pakse were renting motorcycles to explore Bolaven Plateau, a nearby stretch of land with beautiful waterfalls and traditional villages. The whole plateau is too large to cover on foot, there is no convenient bus connection and hiring a taxi for the whole day (whole day is definitely necessary to cover such vast area) would add up to being rather costly.

In this case, renting a motorcycle was the most economical means to explore the plateau (despite rentals being unreasonably expensive in Laos). However, it was also the most fun way to explore the area as with a motorcycle you could do it at your own pace and stop where you want and for how long you want without anyone pressuring you or charging you more. It was clear beyond all doubt that renting a motorcycle was the way to go, but how could I possibly consider it, never have ridden one in my life before.

I was encouraged by other backpackers who said that if I could ride a bicycle, then I could ride a motorcycle. Everybody assured me in striking unison that it was easy and that they never used to ride either and learned it in much more dangerous places, such as Vietnam where roads are congested and bike riders speed by default. Despite all that, I felt extremely apprehensive about renting a motorcycle, but continued to relentlessly search for reasons why I should put my fears behind and do it.

One of the best reasons to “learn how to ride a motorcycle now” was that I was in Laos. Unlike many surrounding countries, Laos is not overpopulated so not even in its capital city of Vientiane are the roads congested to a point that it takes you 15 minutes to cross the road. Furthermore, Laos has a reputation for being laid back which is also evident in the way they drive – nobody rushes it on the road so the conditions for one’s first motorcycle ride were perfect: slow moving traffic with nobody minding if you are excessively slow yourself, plus there is not that much traffic to begin with so if you screw up, chances are you won’t cause a jam.

It was clear to me that if I am to try to ride the motorcycle for the first time in my life, I need to do it in Laos. And if Vientiane is not that traffic heavy, then Pakse is ditto not traffic heavy. And when one passes the borders of the city and gets on the highway encircling Bolaven Plateau, the roads become literally empty with only a few vehicles passing by you every now and again. I wanted to do it – I wanted to learn how to ride a motorcycle and I wanted to explore the plateau riding. Motorcycle was without doubt the only feasible way to do it and I knew that there will not be a better opportunity for my virgin bike ride than now. Yet still I felt very apprehensive about giving it a try.

The breakpoint came when I met two American travellers who overheard me asking around about how it was riding a motorcycle for the first time and joined the conversation stating that they had never done it before either but would like to try. We started talking together and this feeling of being on the same boat, each of us having zero experience riding motorcycles but understanding that this was the right place and time to change it, generated feeling that if we do it together, we could support one another and successfully do it.

I think that up to this point, my main issues were that I only had two options I could choose from – either go on a bike ride alone and struggle along with all the challenges a first time rider faces on my own, or join a group of already experienced bikers and feel like an idiot who hinders the group and causes other needless troubles. But if I joined the two guys who were as new to it as myself, I knew that we each would be equally inexperienced and equally slow until we get the hang of it. On our own, each of us would be lost, but together – together we could not only offer moral support to each other, we could also share tips and “how to” tricks should any of us find something difficult. We were the rookies, but we could be there for one another if there was such need. The apprehension suddenly diminished.

So we went to rent a motorcycle each. The beginnings were shaky. First few meters were downright dangerous and didn’t go without mess-ups however nothing major had happened. We made a few slow circles around a block, got a hang of it and proceeded towards the outskirts of the city, riding at a very slow pace but steadily increasing the speed.

By the time we left Pakse, we felt comfortable enough to ride at a speed exceeding 40 km/h and eventually made our first stop where we parked and went to admire beautiful waterfalls. From that point on it was sheer excitement. We got a pretty decent hang of it and rode along passing one another, shouting out of our lungs as we were savouring that feeling of air against our flesh.

By the time we were half way across, we already felt pretty comfortable on the bikes and had no issue handling any traffic situation. We paused to have a meal in the countryside, got off the main road to do some off road riding towards more remote villages and it was all so exciting, the day ended up being one of the best adventures I’ve ever had. By the time we started heading back to Pakse, we were the kings of the road. We owned it, we owned the world and were not afraid to give into it. It was amazing.

Giving Yourself in to the Moment

As we sat in an Indian restaurant back in Pakse after returning the motorcycles, we munched on the food still in awe from how amazing a day it was. Later we realized one thing – we never took a single picture of ourselves with the bikes. We never took a picture riding. We never spent any time focusing on photography because we were so much in the moment, enjoying what we had at the time to a point that pulling out a camera and setting it up would have been a distraction. The enjoyment of giving ourselves into the moment and enjoying it to the fullest was so empowering, there was nothing that could distract us from taking it all in.

And as I reflected on this experience later on, I came to realize that many a time before I focused too much on photography, on setting up a camera and walking away from everything to get that perfect shot, that I may have missed out on opportunities to interact with interesting people, pausing to breathe in the scents of the surroundings, feeling the touch of grass around my feet, living a moment that could have become the best experience of my life. I may have missed out on it because I was too pre-occupied with my camera. Too keen to take a pictures so I put everyone and everything around me on ignore. It took this bike riding experience with two other guys to realize how putting your gadgets aside to enjoy the basics of life can be more fulfilling and enriching.

Slaves to the Gadgets

When I realized this, I took an even bolder step of taking the same look at spending too much time on a computer to blog about everything I did. Keeping the blog updated takes a lot of time – you do it too – and it’s just that time during which something incredibly awesome could be happening in your neighbourhood, but you will not have that experience because you spent that time on a computer. We who grew up in an information age got so used to our little electronic gadgets, we make it part of our every day life, literally robbing ourselves of amazing experiences we could be having interacting with other people. It took me a while to realize that, but I eventually did and now I live my life differently.

I no longer live to take pictures or to blog. I live to enjoy life. It started with my bike trip in Pakse and the experience has grown more and more empowering. I have been though many countries since but made each day an experience, instead of dedicating a good chunk of it to blogging. I took bold steps to set myself free from the rat race of corporate life only to catch myself in a trap of the gadgetry I carried around with me. It’s a different type of rat race, but it’s just as enslaving.

That was and will be the primary reason why updates to this blog have been slow and coming. I’ve known this for many months, I just never got a chance to explain. Now you know. There is one other thing I grew to realize over the months since my Pakse bike trip – money won’t buy you happiness, but not having enough money doesn’t make it any better.

More Money = More Fun

I was a budget traveller for many months and enjoyed it. However I missed out on many experiences because I simply didn’t have enough money. For example, I couldn’t afford to pay for a plane ride over HaLong Bay, or I could not afford to have an experience of swimming in a pool on top of Marina Bay Sands resort in Singapore because it is reserved to their hotel guests and at the time of my visit, such stay was too expensive for me. So I’ve focused a bit more on increasing my passive income and made my financial situation a bit better.

I still enjoy travelling on a budget, but it is much better to travel frugally because you choose to, rather than because you have no other option. I now occasionally treat myself to a stay in a fancy hotel, such as Shangri-La in Putrajaya, Malaysia to keep the joy of being able to afford it alive, or pay for a full body spa treatment to rejuvenate my physical form.

I achieved that by pausing for a few weeks after a time of intensive travelling and focusing on work a little. I returned to Thailand twice and rented a place to focus on work so I can increase my income. It got much better but now I’m still in the process of revamping my bigger site to make it more advertiser friendly and focus on direct ad sales so the revenue gets into super high numbers. It will also make revenue far more stable as I won’t be reliant on third parties but rather have everything under my own control.

I know where my future lies. Life is good and I’m gonna enjoy it to the fullest as I continue my quest of self sophistication through interaction with people from different cultures and backgrounds. I will also focus on growing my passive income and strengthening my financial position to complete independence. Being financially secure is an important part of living an abundant life.

Man Created God in His Own Image

While I know where MY future lies, I do not know where the future of this blog will be. I will make a post here and there, but it won’t be nothing like it used to. If I’m gonna spend the time on a computer, I will spend it by doing the most productive thing I can to reach my goals. And one of the important goals is to have things run on autopilot. To withdraw myself from the equation so I have more time to do things that matter. Life is short, don’t waste it.

My great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom is well underway (Carpe Diem). How is yours?

Present for Ha’s Daughter

After my first meeting with Ha’s daughter, I knew it wasn’t going to be our last. This sort of caught me off guard as all my recent encounters with kids were negative – either trained clowns able to fake-cry on command, going out of their way to get money off of you and telling you to F%$k off if you don’t give it to them, or screaming the entire flight turning an already exhausting experience into a nightmare from hell – so if you even remotely brought up anything to do with kids, I would have told you to keep them as far away from me as possible so nobody gets hurt. But bubbly personality Ha’s daughter was radiating got the best of me.

After I embarked on my third day of Angkor exploring, I took on the Grand Circuit in a counter-clockwise direction with a mandatory stop at my new-found friends’ from the Sras Srang village. The temple of Banteay Kdei was about 12 km away from where I stayed in Siem Reap, and just a corner turn away from the Grand Circuit which made it a perfect, strategic stop to recharge on energy with coconut water and cool off the sweat the ride so far has resulted in. But I also had an extra plan for the stop at Banteai Kdei.

When I first went with Ha to see her daughter, I made a quick stop at a convenience store to buy candy. I thought it would make a kid happy and pre-occupied enough to leave me the hell alone. It did make her happy – beyond happy – but it didn’t keep her off of me, though by that time I didn’t mind. Obviously, buying the kid a simple thing which her mother could not afford to buy meant a world to the little girl. Anticipating my next meeting with her, I thought I was gonna buy something more sustainable and less damaging to her already spoilt teeth. I had to take two things into an account:

  • No matter where in Siem Reap I go, I’d get ripped off
  • Ha was always by my side, except from times when I was at Angkor

I wanted to make it a surprise so buying anything in Siem Reap would defeat this idea. And since any business in Siem Reap would try to rip me off as much as any tout at Angkor Archaeological Park would, there was no benefit to buying in town over buying at Angkor. On top of it all – my relationship with the Sras Srang villagers was nicely developing so I thought I’ll get the best of both world and buy something for Ha’s daughter from them.

As much as I enjoyed the company of the villagers, they were still Cambodians and I was still a foreigner. For them it’s always an “Us Against Them” game so as I kept spending more and more time with them, but buying nothing except a whole pile of coconuts every day, they continued bugging me and requesting that I fall for their sales pitch and spend more money. Under normal circumstances, I would not give in to the pressure of pestering touts (except that one time when the little girl tout who broke into tears after a would-be customer bought from somebody else), but since I wanted to buy Ha’s daughter something anyway, so why not from my new friends? Whom better to support financially than people with whom I was gonna spend several month with (though at the time I didn’t quite know it yet)? So I did just that. It didn’t ease the pressure one bit, but gave me an extra argument to counter theirs with when they tried to force me into buying some more.

Granted, everything they sell at Angkor is a piece of junk. There are basically two types of items you can buy: bootlegs of all sorts and miserable quality t-shirts. I didn’t have many options so I went for a low quality t-shirt. I’m not very good at buying presents so I had to make it easy on myself. The biggest challenge I was faced with was trying to guess the right size for Ha’s daughter. They had children sized tops with elephants on them in both small and medium. I asked my friends to get some four year old girl touts to come over so I can test the size on them. Since Ha’s daughter was the same age and racial differences are minimal between the Vietnamese and the Cambodians, I thought this was gonna help me choose the right size. I ended up going with medium sized top as small seemed as though it was meant for infants. I also thought buying the top that’s a bit too big would be better in a long run than getting one that’s a bit too small. The four year olds grow big quickly, so if the garment is a tad large right now, it’ll fit just fine later. Whereas if it’s already tight, it’s gonna be completely unusable very soon.

My suspicion was correct – the medium sized top was still a bit too big for her, but that mattered not. Both Ha and her daughter were beaming with delight when I pulled the top out of my camera bag and handed it to the little girl. I haven’t seen this much happiness in a very long time. The girl was so excited she instantly wanted to pose for pictures with her new top on. She loved having her pictures taken and as a photographer, I loved taking them. Four year old, but so photogenic and just shining with glamour. Little did they know at the time that this was naught but the beginning. The main surprise of the day was yet to come.

Gallery of pictures I took of Ha’s daughter wearing the top I bought her from the villagers at Banteay Kdei temple is below:

Is Cambodia Cheap?

One of the reasons why Cambodia has grown to become a popular tourist trap is because it’s cheap. At least that’s what most people who visited the country claim. But let’s take a closer look at some undisputed facts before we jump into conclusion and find a more reliable answer to how cheap Cambodia really is (or whether it is cheap at all).

Photo: Instant Noodles - Living on the Cheap in Cambodia
Photo: Instant Noodles - Living on the Cheap in Cambodia

Is Cambodia Cheap?

Let me get ahead of myself and say it right up without beating around the bush – Cambodia is NOT cheap. Just because most visitors are able to spend less money in Cambodia than they would have in, say Canada, the United States or Germany, it doesn’t mean that Cambodia is cheap. As a matter of fact, vast majority of articles for sale in Cambodia are more expensive than in any of the three mentioned countries (or elsewhere in the world). Since no serious manufacturer would open a plant in a country like Cambodia, where quality of workmanship is so low and work ethic nonexistent, very little is manufactured there. As a result, most items of everyday use must be imported from abroad. Personal hygiene products are a good example. Thinking you could buy a tub of Colgate tooth paste for cheap in Cambodia would set you up for a big surprise.

Similarly, good luck trying to buy a Snickers bar for a price similar to that in western countries. Yet don’t even get me started on electronics or motor vehicles. Check out the classified ads for prices of overused, 30 year old beaters. They sell for the price of brand new sedans in Canada. Electronics? Thinking of replacing that broken camera that was stolen while you were visiting Cambodia? Prepare to shell out on average 40% more than you would in your home country.

Genuine Products in Cambodia

But that’s only the beginning. If you buy a camera from a retailer in a western country, you can be pretty sure you are buying a genuine product and you will get a reasonable customer service (sometimes even a time-limited no questions asked money back guarantee) should the product not perform to your expectations. Not only are these unheard of in Cambodia where similar product would cost much more, you would have to consider yourself blessed if you lucked out enough to obtain a genuine product for your money. And if the casing is genuine, than at least some parts of what you buy will be stripped off and replaced with cheap, generic substitutes. That’s real Cambodia so really – it’s not cheap there. The perceived cheapness most people experience is just a skewed reality that camouflages itself as cheapness, but in reality it’s not.

$2 Burger in Cambodia vs $6 Burger in Canada

Since I’m from Canada, the best way for me to compare products available in Cambodia is with those available in Canada. The example below can be used for any other western country, just replace “Canada” with the name of your home country and you’ll get the desired result.

Let’s say (for illustration purposes) a burger in Canada costs $6. Then you come to Cambodia and find them selling burgers for $2. An average person who buys that $2 burger in Cambodia would end up writing a blog post, or telling their friends that Cambodia is cheap. But I’m not your average person. I like to disclose the whole truth to my friends and readers of my blog, not just the convenient part, so let me break the cost of each burger down a little:

Cost of Hygiene

In Canada, even though the burger is perceived as more expensive, you get certain guarantee of hygiene and freshness. If nothing else, at least before a license to handle food is granted, some form of inspection of premises is made (and can be done later on as well). You don’t have anything like that in Cambodia. Burgers can be sold out of a self made push-cart that’s parked with the swine overnight before it’s taken out to carry food. In conclusion:

  • guarantee of hygiene in Canada – some
  • guarantee of hygiene in Cambodia – none

Cost of Safe Ingredients

In countries like Canada, internationally recognized standards and principles are followed to ensure that the food safety requirements are met. The body that’s responsible for the enforcement of these rules is called the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. Before any edibles can be offers for sale, they must first be approved for sale by the CFIA.

It’s important to acknowledge that it is a dog eat dog world out there and everything seems to be about profits nowadays, yet still at least there are some institutions that would remove suspicious lines from shelves of grocery stores if there was a reason to believe they posed a health hazard to the public. This has happened many times and will continue to happen even if it means that the removal of products will push the company that provided them to the retailers to the brink of bankruptcy. Producers know it very well so food safety controls are rather rigorous. In conclusion:

  • guarantee of freshness and safety of food in Canada – some
  • guarantee of freshness and safety of food in Cambodia – none

Cost of Decent Service

The burger itself is merely a part of your experience buying it. In order to have it freshly made so you can munch on it, you must first order it with the server. And here’s where the real difference of a burger in Canada vs a burger in Cambodia comes to place.

Ordering a burger in Cambodia (or anything else for that matter), will undoubtedly require you to have to deal with a Cambodian national and that won’t go without a need to put up with their laziness, attitude and rudeness.

Ordering a burger in Canada requires an interaction with a server who – whether genuinely or by pretense – will usually be nice and respectful to you. This is a western way of life where customer is seen as a person important to success of a business so staff know they need to treat them with respect and dignity or the business fails. There are mood swings and other variables that can make the experience questionable, but for the most part, dealing with business attendants usually results in fair and dignified treatment. You pay $$$ for it, but you get it.

In Cambodia, on the other hand, you can get your burger for $2, but you will be served by a rude local who takes you for a pest. You will have to deal with their slowness as they scrape their feet against the floor pissed off that they have to serve you, you will have to deal with them barking at you if anything is unclear and you request clarification, you will have to put up with them laughing at you and not hiding that they are talking about you while they’re having themselves a good time at your expense and you will have nothing on your side to prevent that from happening.

Cambodians are very rude in general and nothing makes them happier than misfortune of another. This is true of all of them, including the monks. Even a monk will laugh his ass off at you if you bought a bus ticket with a dedicated seat and the seat is taken by somebody else even though it should belong to you. But then again, just because someone shaves their head and puts on a saffron robe, it doesn’t mean they become any less of a Cambodian. Afterall, Cambodians don’t get ordained for monks out of sheer interest to become a better person and do good. That’s not why they do it. They become monks when there are benefits for them in doing so – for example if becoming a monk will save them from going to jail or if it provides them with free education. But as soon as it becomes clear than the benefits of being a monk are over and leaving monkhood would be of more benefit, you’ll see them gone and back being their usual selves.

Cost of Customer Service

Shopping in Canada comes with some customer service. If you have any form of post purchase issue or complaint, there usually is a dedicated customer service representative, a manager on site, or if all else fails, at least bodies like the Better Business Bureau. Once money is spent, you still can often get either a replacement or a refund should something be wrong with the product purchased.

In Cambodia, once money is spent, consider it final. There is no accountability whatsoever. You pay for a silver pendant and find out it’s just some cheap metal – tough luck. Not only will there be no one to take care of the issue for you, you will be laughed at, mocked, pointed fingers at and threatened if you try to stand up for yourself.

I learned all about Cambodian customer service after my cell phone was stolen. I called Metfone’s customer service in a bid to cancel the number that went with the stolen cell phone. Since thieves got my phone, I at least wanted to make sure they couldn’t take advantage of the credit I had on the SIM card. But dealing with Metfone’s customer support revealed the true face of Cambodia.

Not only is calling Metfone customer service from Metfone phone numbers a paid call, their representatives are typical Cambodians – rude, self righteous bastards with holier than thou attitudes. Basically, after hours of wasting money being put on hold and passed from one person to another, I was told that everything was my fault for not paying attention, that they’re not there to take care of such requests and was called names for bothering them with this bullsh1t.

Cost of Enjoyable Experience

Let me get back to those burgers. One of the most important differences is that even though you would have spent $6 for your burger in Canada, you could sit in a facility where you could enjoy your bite without someone blowing smoke in your face, chewing with their mouth open so the leaves fall off the trees it’s so loud and disgusting, or being bothered to no end by beggars ready and willing to tell you to “f%$k off” or call you “stingy” if you refuse to give them money while they’re turning your dining experience into a nightmare.

Which Burger Was Cheaper?

Yes, you did need less money to buy a burger in Cambodia than you would in Canada, but it was not cheap. If you look closely at what you’re getting and how much you sacrificed and put at risk (including your health which will catch up with you one day, whether you like it or not), you did in fact overpay by shelling out those two bucks.

Cambodia is NOT Cheap

Cambodia is by no stretch of imagination a cheap country. Considering what you receive for your money, it is in fact ridiculously expensive. If you were to sacrifice all the good things Canada protects you as a consumer with, you could live in Canada for less than in Cambodia. Go sleep in a ditch with rats in a really dangerous part of a ghetto, eat filthy leftovers dumped in the bins by spoiled kids and you’ll see that Canada is really cheaper than Cambodia.

Why Is Cambodia Perceived as Cheap?

It is only because some people lower their standards of acceptance and willingly put their personal safety and health at risk that they are able to stay in Cambodia and spend less money than they would in their home country. And then they go around telling everyone that Cambodia is cheap, while conveniently leaving out the details of why exactly it seemed cheap.

One more time – if you take into account what you get for your money, Cambodia is a bad, bad value for money and an overall expensive country. Unless of course you take personal abuse, health hazards and endangerment of life as acceptable standards. Then it is cheap but that way it can be cheap in any country, including Canada.

Invaluable Advice

The best and the only way to avoid the mistreatment Cambodia greets visitors with is by not going to Cambodia. Khmer temples can be visited in other countries (such as Thailand or Laos) and outside of that, by giving Cambodia a pass, you won’t be missing out on much.

But if you absolutely must visit Cambodia, then stock up on everything you will need beforehand. Food and drink should be the only thing you’d buy locally but avoid buying them from local businesses that don’t have prices visibly posted. Instead, head over to larger chains (such as Lucky Mall) which are now starting to pop up all over the country to keep up with the demands of growing numbers of foreigners.

Scamming foreigners by selling them worthless counterfeit products is a very common and widely practised way to profit. While in most cases it would mean the loss of money, Cambodians push this a whole flight of steps further and won’t wink over potentially killing someone if it leads to easy income. For example, Cambodia is a global leader in sales of fake malaria pills, and that’s a serious threat to health that could easily lead to death. Imagine you’d buy the malaria pills in Cambodia and thinking you are protected, you’d go exploring Angkor Temples and get bitten… I can’t stress this strongly enough – stock up on everything you’ll need before coming to Cambodia and never leave purchases of anything that could affect your health or life for Cambodia. Ever!

Cambodians don’t believe in earning a living through hard work. They either want handouts or easy income through scam or theft. I said it many times before and will say it again – you can’t be 100% alert 100% of the time. Sooner or later, after a long tiring day you’ll let your guards down for a second and with dozens of con artists hanging around waiting for that opportune moment, one is bound to notice and take advantage. This will make your stay in an already expensive country even more costly and as it turns out, of all the people with whom I spoke (and who comment on my posts), virtually everybody had something stolen in Cambodia. A lifetime commitment to thievery makes them very skilled thieves. They also work in teams and know how to distract an unsuspecting tourist to make the pull successful. The only safe way to avoid it is by not going to Cambodia at all. By taking a risk and going you stand a very solid chance of becoming a victim. You have been warned!

End of a Career as a Prostitute

Visiting Angkor Wat was a big item on my Bucket List so I was glad that after more than a week of being in Cambodia but being unable to go see the ancient temples due to daily downpours, the weather improved and I got a stretch of several consecutive days of sunshine. It was getting kind of weird because I continued to teach English at the Preah Prom Rath Temple every day and my students kept asking me the same thing they ask every foreigner (Cambodian way to start a conversation to eventually swerve it into an attempt to make money off you) – “how do you like Angkor Temples?” I could only answer by saying: “I don’t know, I haven’t been to Angkor yet.” And everybody would stare at me with gaping mouth cause it seemed like I’ve already been there for ages. I assured everyone that it is my foremost interest to do a thorough exploration of the Archeological Park, but I wanted it to be a memorable experience so I patiently waited bad weather out.

Then the day the weather improved I met Ha so on my first hot and sunny day in Cambodia, I just looked around realizing that this was to be my opportunity to see Angkor at last, but instead I’m spending my time with a girl I met in a bar the night before. That didn’t bother me one bit, though. Angkor temples have been there for centuries. I knew they wouldn’t run away and as I kept getting to know Ha a little better, I was truly glad I got to spend some quality time with her. Then I got to meet her daughter and everything inside of me changed.

I still wanted to pursue my dream of visiting Angkor Wat at the earliest suitable time but above all else, I had to keep my wits with me and never take anything for granted. I mean – there was not a slightest sign of lie in Ha’s eyes or voice, but she was still a girl I just met in a bar. I can read people really well, but I never place all my bets on one card. After a nice day spent together with Ha and her daughter, a day I would have made my first day at Angkor had I not met her, I told her that the following day and each day thereafter, if the weather was nice, I would leave early in the morning and head on my bicycle for Angkor. There would be no knowing when I would come back, and I still wanted to continue with my English classes in the evening, but come nightfall, I’d definitely be already kicking around Siem Reap so if she was up for that, we could hang out together then. My thinking was – if we are meant to meet again, we will so there was no reason to put Angkor off any longer.

After my first day at Angkor, I went to check if Ha was at the Temple Club but didn’t see her there so I left only to be halted by her friend (aka another prostitute on a lookout for a customer) who noticed me at the very last moment and sent Ha after me. This was the only night after the night I met Ha when she tried her luck as a prostitute in a bar. It didn’t work out, nobody picked her up so she went with me and told me that the following day, even if it’s nice again and I end up going to Angkor again, she would just come straight to my room to spend the night with me instead of trying for any more customers in a bar.

I was plain and simple the worst type of guy she could have ended up going with on her first night out as a prostitute. She didn’t want to sell her body, but needed money for her daughter and this was her only option. The feelings of not really wanting to do that were suppressed by the necessity to provide for her child. But then I came along and not only re-ignited those feelings, I made them so much stronger she could no longer suppress them. This was the end of her “career” as a prostitute. With that however, I unwittingly took upon myself the responsibility to provide for both of them. I was on a budget to begin with, but I could see that every penny spent on food for those two girls was money I could not have spent any better.

Photo: What Life Does Future Hold For These Two?
Photo: What Life Does Future Hold For These Two?

I gave Ha a little bit of money each day so she could buy the most necessary groceries to keep them from starving while I was gone and when I was around and went to visit Ha’s daughter, I always bought her some sweets and treats. The joy in that little girl’s eyes made the money spent so worth it. But the more time I spent with them, the more I learned about what they have and are going through and it kept bothering me beyond belief. Ha and her daughter were betrayed by the whole world. They could not stay in their homeland of Vietnam because little girl’s wealthy father had his men after them and out there in the foreign lands there was just no reasonable way for them to make any money. What chance for a normal life does anybody like them have?

In The End, It Was All About Money

I enjoyed my English class profusely. The class was lead by a Buddhist monk with great command of English (the best English I’ve heard any Cambodian speak – I’m guessing he must have gotten scholarship to study in an English speaking country, but I never actually asked to know for sure) and the students, who came from all walks of life were a wonderful bunch. Anyone was welcome to attend the class, but after the class, students paid the Khmer teacher (the monk) 500 Riel (there are 4,300 Cambodian Riel to a US Dollar) each. This didn’t apply to monks. Monks don’t pay.

The students also didn’t have to pay anything to me. The 500 Riel fee for the Khmer teacher was a regular per class fee they’d have to pay regardless of whether I was there or not, but there was no extra cost for the class with me. However, I had to make something very clear right from the get go. Unfortunately, being a foreigner, the first and foremost thing each of the students saw when they looked at me was money. It was really disappointing and it took me a while to eliminate it. Lesson after lesson, either during the class or right after it, various students would approach me with seemingly personal questions, but they always swerved into business solicitations. It would typically go about something like this:

Student: How long have you been in Cambodia for, Mark?
Me: Only for a little over a week now.
Student: How do you like it so far?
Me: It’s very hot, hotter than anything I have previously experienced but I drink lots of coconut so it’s manageable.
Student: Have you been to Angkor yet?
Me: Yes, I went today. It was my first day and it was amazing.
Student: Would you like a tuk tuk for tomorrow?
Me: No, thank you. I have a bicycle and I enjoy riding and exploring at my own pace.
Student: Where are you staying?
Me: In Prom Roth Guesthouse, right around the corner from here.
Student: I know a better guesthouse, can get you a special price.
Me: Thank you for your offer, I may take a look at it later but for now I’m happy with this one.

Day after day, lecture after lecture my students would be approaching me with offers clearly directed at making money at me. It only confirmed what I already knew – for a Cambodian, a westerner is nothing more than a wandering cash cow. It was a dog eat dog world in Siem Reap, though. Millions of tourists keep coming year after year, but for each tourist, there are dozens of relentless touts out there. Tourists are pushed beyond their limits and forced to lock in, disregarding any and all locals trying to approach them.

Needless to say, any foreigner who’s been in Cambodia for more than 5 minutes will be so fed up with aggressive touts, they will not accept any more locals into their personal space. As a result, locals know that their chances at striking a successful conversation with a random foreigner on the street are minimal. They simply know that each foreigner, regardless of how long they’ve been in Cambodia, has already been jumped so many time by locals (and each time it was solely for the purpose of making money at them), they have had enough of it and will just beat each next one off without listening to what they had to say.

Siem Reap is overflowing with money hungry Cambodians who wish to skin every foreigner that comes into view off every single dollar they have, but are unable to get to them because their boundaries were already crossed and all locals are already seen as aggressive, money hungry machines that don’t stop at nothing to get their dollars. And then they see me, standing right in front of them, within the walls of the same room, looking straight into their faces instead of looking away to avoid eye contact (in Cambodia, if you make an eye contact, it is perceived as an invitation to let them sell you something) and talking to them without them struggling to get to me. So what do they do?

That’s right… I threw myself right in the viper’s nest. Each of my students had the most seemingly helpful advice for me, because apparently if I buy from anywhere else but from where they say I should, I will buy badly. It went on like that for a few days until I could not take it anymore and made myself clear in front of an entire class. I said the following:

I come here to help you study the English language. I do not take any money for it and I do not expect any. I am here because I enjoy the lectures and like to share the knowledge. However, I do not like that you see my presence as an open invitation to sell me something or get commissions for me. I volunteer my time to help you improve your English speaking skills, but I must ask you to respect me and stop looking for the ways to make money at me all the time. Whatever the type of business you are affiliated with, whatever the type of services you offer – do not solicit any of it to me just because I make myself an easy prey by coming to your class.

Sadly enough, my class was not a part of some overpriced school so anyone was welcome to attend. This was a good thing on one hand, because not many Cambodians can afford to pay $400 per semester for a fancy classroom with a fly-by teacher. Classes like the one I joined allowed people without a sponsor or with lower income levels to still get some education and improve their chances at scoring a better paid job. But because it was so open and affordable, it left me exposed to endless solicitations. In the end, it was all about money for them. You offer them a finger, they don’t just take whole hand. They’ll take all of you.

Job After Suicide

While I could say my mission to make a suicidal girl feel better so hopefully she’ll never consider killing herself again was successful, I found out two days later that both her and her sister were fired from the ice factory. Because of her suicide attempt, she was unable to show up for work and when their boss found out that she attempted suicide, he fired them both. Hard to blame him – who wants to have to deal with people with suicidal tendencies? Tough for the girls, though.

Suicidal girl went back home to the village, while her sister stayed to try to look for a different job. She was gonna start to learn English so she has a wider field of possibilities but needed to fill the gap while she was jobless and came knocking at my door the following day. My English class student who introduced me to her came along as an interpreter and it all ended up being one embarrassing ordeal.

She came to me to make some money and was ready to do anything to “deserve” it. My student explained to me that her father is still ill and needs money but now that both sisters are out of work, I was her only option, because I was the only foreigner she knew. Then he just got up and said he was gonna leave us alone and started walking towards the door. I had to vehemently halt him and explain to him that this is not gonna work and neither her nor him should have considered this an option. I asked him to translate this to her:

“I understand you need money for your father, but you will have to earn it with real work. And you have all you need to do it. Don’t give up, it’s just one job lost and that job sucked anyway. It was wearing you out too much and paid very little. It’s good you’re out of it, but now you need to collect yourself and get out there to find yourself a better job. In the meantime, I won’t give you any money because I follow a strict policy on hand-outs, and I want you to walk out of this door the same strong and proud woman you were when you walked in. But I don’t want you to be hungry or have nowhere to sleep. When I go to eat, you are welcome to join me and I will pay for food you eat. If you can’t afford to pay for an accommodation, I will pay for your room until your first salary. If your new job requires you to purchase certain clothes, we will go out and I will pay for what is suitable and fits you. But every day you will have to show me where you went to apply for a job and what the outcome was. You will also have to show me the plan for the following day so I know which other places you are going to apply for a job with.”

I do not do handouts. There are way too many Cambodians out there already who are used to getting handouts and as a result – do not do anything to even try to get a job and improve their lives. They make the skill of asking for handouts their lifetime profession. I follow an example from the bible. Instead of giving the needy free fish, I will teach them how to fish. Encouraging the culture of handouts does Cambodians a great disservice. What they need is someone to teach them how to be responsible for their actions and pro active about their future.

The girl who came to sell herself out – quite possibly for the first time in her life – was saved from her own mistake and sent to become more successful than she’s ever been before. She scored a well paying job the very next day and I hooked her up with an English class for beginners. All this was possible without losing her dignity, she only needed someone to kick her in the right direction, instead of making her used to getting money the easy way… no matter the cost.

Unlike her sister who went back to the village, this girl stayed in Siem Reap so I got a chance to meet with her on a few occasions again. We had this common understanding which went without saying that we will never talk about the day she came to me and will treat it is if it never happened. I’m positive that she has a good future ahead of herself and I wish her the best of luck.

Rich Cambodians

While 12 million Cambodian live on less than $1 a day, a handful of people are extremely rich. There is no middle class in Cambodia – only too many extremely poor and a few extremely rich. The Rich Cambodians are richer than can be explained in words. Prime Minister Hun Sen, who took control over Cambodia by mercilessly removing anyone standing in his path became the youngest and wealthiest premier in the world when he was only 33 years old. After killing more than million people, Hun Sen is right up there with world’s most vicious dictators, second only to Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin.

By privatizing Angkor Archaeological Park to keep near a billion US dollars in direct revenue it generates a year for themselves, and by illigal logging and further exploitation of country’s natural resources to keep billions of dollars these generate for themselves, the corrupt government of Cambodia strips their own people of any share in wealth historical, cultural and natural resources of Cambodia provide. These resources should and do belong to all Cambodians, yet the revenue, even though it’s more than one could fathom ends up in pockets of the rich. In a country of estimated 14 million people, a few dozen are extremely rich and extremely powerful. The rest are either barely scraping it or completely unable to make ends meet. Let’s take a closer look at rich Cambodians:

British “The Sunday Times” recently published an article on children of rich Cambodians and high lifestyles they get to live. Their parents are the senior officials of the world’s most corrupt government with pockets so fat they don’t know what to do with all that money, so their children get to spend it. And as is obvious from the article, they do enjoy the privileges of wealth and are not afraid to flaunt it. You can check out the full article on the following link:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article7023700.ece

There are two countries in Cambodia. One is real Cambodia – full of underprivileged and impoverished people whose first thought of the day is the worry about whether they will have enough rice to feed the family with today. In this Cambodia, 8% of children die before the age of 5 deprived of medical care and any real chance to live decent lives.

The other Cambodia is the country of the rich. It houses a handful of people who keep billions of dollars generated by illegal logging, smuggling, land grabbing and corruption for themselves. Through systematic exploitation of historical and natural resources which should benefit all of Cambodians, this handful of people strips the public of any share of the profits their resources generated and finance their super high lifestyles with it. These rich Cambodians made themselves untouchable as military, police and justice system are all controlled by them to do as they are told.

Children of Rich Cambodians are sent to study at prestigious foreign universities and are given all the money in the world to enjoy themselves any way they please. They wear military VIP stickers on their car’s dashboards which gives them complete immunity. The police won’t touch them and if they get involved in an accident or other dispute, it will always be that other party’s fault.

The life of Rich Cambodians is sweet. Living in heavily guarded Tuol Kuok district in Phnom Penh, rich Cambodians have all the money in the world and keep the power tightly among themselves. Meanwhile, foreign governments keep sending more and more funds which Cambodian government relies on when planning their annual budgets. Why would they bother including money generated by Angkor Archaeological Park or extensive deforestation into the budget? Foreign governments blindly send them money, so they can keep profits from Angkor and illegal logging for themselves. Afterall, their children like to drive half million dollar cars and go on exotic vacations countless times a year.

Cambodia has vast gas and oil deposits but has not started exploiting those yet. Oil rich economy could send a wrong signal to foreign governments that the country makes enough money and doesn’t need donations to plan out a budget anymore. Whereas by keeping the majority of its population below the poverty line by stripping them of the profits generated by their historical and cultural resources, Cambodia appears poor with slow economy so leaders of western countries spinelessly send support funds to strengthen the Hun Sen’s iron grip over the country.

Hun Sen doesn’t have any formal education, yet he’s planned this one out well. Khmer Rouge is dead, but his new, modern version of it with complete control over a nation including merciless removal of any and all opponents puts Khmer Rouge to shame. And while Hun Sen’s opponents are being silenced, his loyalists grow richer by the hour. Ordinary Cambodians have no chance at real freedom for as long as this corrupt government is in power. But with their firm grip over country’s military with all generals being close allies of the prime minister, it would take international military intervention to remove this totalitarian government from power. However, seeing how Hun Sen has it all well played out, it’s not gonna happen anytime soon. He keeps 3/4 of his populace extremely poor so foreign countries feel sympathy and instead of coming with force to remove the dictator, they send annual fundings that reached one billion US dollars in 2009.

Meanwhile, ordinary Cambodians are driven from their lands at gunpoint by government controlled soldiers or military police. Rich Cambodians have it all, the rest of the population has nothing at all. I wonder how much will foreign donations grow into by 2010. Yet the saddest part is – chunk of my own taxes will be in it!