Whatever goes up must come down

I sit in the plane to Bangkok Airport with a smile on my face, my skin tingling with anticipation. Whereas two years ago, I sat in the same plane fighting to hold back my tears.
My head is racing so bad I can’t focus on the movie I’d like to watch and I keep switching between reading, watching, eating, and stretching.
The first thing I do the moment I land in Bangkok, is get my hands on a sticky rice mango. I knów like that stuff a lot so without paying actual attention to it I stuff it in my mouth on the way to the business class lounge. You read that correctly, business class. To be honest, I didn’t fly on luxury purely because of the fact that it was on my bucket list. Long story short, I missed my actual flight and ended up paying four times the actual cost of the flight. Which was obviously still better than going through all the hassle to get into (bad-luck) Bangkok and spend a night there.
On the way to the lounge I make a mental note about how much my dad will appreciate the great variety of fruits this side of the world has to offer. You’ll love it dad.
In the lounge they serve everything from finger foods to Pad Thai and black label whiskey, so in a weak attempt to make up for my extra expenses, I desperately engorge myself in all of it and end up overeaten and drunk the moment I enter the plane.
Great way to meet your new employer.
The moment I sit down in first class, which is empty, I get offered a drink and get a choice between steak and salmon. I order water and salmon thinking that’s the smart thing to do, I need to hydrate my body and the healthy fats in the salmon might help me feel better after my body takes care of the alcohol intake.
Next thing I know, I wake up on Phnom Penh airport with my meal and drink still in front of me and the airplane close to empty.
Whoops.
I shake off the dizziness and make my way through customs, where I’m greeted by my employer and his wife with a warm and welcoming hug. The take me to my hostel where I check in at 11 pm, drop my stuff and plunge into a deep sleep. I plan on slowly exploring the city the day after.
I was wrong.
The days that followed packed more experiences than I’d normally go through on a good month.
I meet a girl, Sabine, who’s been living here in Phnom Penh for a couple of months now. Our meeting is no coincidence. A colleague of mine and a friend of her connected us, and as her credit card got stolen, I brought it along with me.
We clicked immediately. The night quickly evolved into catchy jokes, philosophical ideas and drinking with the prince of Cambodia (which is obviously, very rare on a first day if any).

The day after Nafthali (a friend from my hometown) checked in to the hostel and as we were invited to a night out with Sabine and her (awesome) friends, we decided to check it out. Imagine hanging newly opened cocktail bars, 20$ unlimited drinking, pro-soccer players, models and photographers and you’ve got an idea why we ended up watching the sun come up from a hotel rooftop. *
The days afterwards Nafthali and I kept pushing the tempo. I’d be working from 8 am and come back in to the hostel at around 8 pm, after which we’d eat whatever we’d feel like. The prices around here allow you to do so. In fact, cooking and eating at home costs about the same.
With Naf eating sushi approximately twice a day, we basically ended up at the sushi bar every night. The enormous amounts of soy sauce jacket up my sodium levels to a point I looked like a puffed up balloon. Afterwards, we’d typically drink and party with the rest of the backpackers, sometimes ending up in Pulse, a club packed with backpackers and prostitutes. I was warned about this fact, but decided it was probably overly exaggerated.
Naïve as I was, I danced around the club thinking “wow, these people here really like me!”.
So the moment I got into contact with a deaf/mute Cambodian girl, which I felt sort of sorry for in a way, I still thought our short moment of awkward hand-feet based form of interaction was friendly and sincere.
Up until the moment she grabbed my phone and typed in “25$, Boom-boom”, that was. I told her not-deaf friend I wasn’t really into prostitutes and he nodded back with a smile. In that way in which you can tell someone has no idea what you’re talking about.
I was very strict about keeping my nights short. I was slightly obsessed with getting my 8 hours sleep in every day to be fully functioning at work. And even though I’d get in early every day, I’d keep waking up in the middle of the night. The time difference, endless new impressions, meetings and drinks took its toll. So the moment I ended up on the fifth night alone in my room, sobbing with my face in my hands. I missed everything and everyone, especially a place of my own and my family. Which made sense. So I cried all I needed to cry and decided it was time to readjust my focus to the basics.
Work, Sleep, Nutrition, Sports. The very things that are the foundation to my identity.
So the past couple of days I’ve been doing nothing other than that. I’ve found a great place to work out, stacked my fridge with nutritious foods and spend most my spare time reading.
At this moment, I open up my bottle of San Pellegrino and prepare to continue watching Entourage and I realise two things.

1. My life is looking pretty much like Entourage
2. Damn I miss my Entourage