Greetings fellow Steemers
Wow, my friends told me about this site and I thought it seemed too good to be true, but here it is and here I am - unsupervised and ready to Steemit!
My name is Carly, I’m 34, and I hail from North London. However, I’ve lived in South East Asia for almost three years now. It’s truly breathtaking here. I currently live in Siem Reap, Cambodia and work as an English teacher to 22 beautiful Khmer children aged between 4 - 6 years old. Cambodia has been my home for just over two years, but that compass needle is spinning in my head again so I’m growing ever more excited about my next move.
But where to? In classic Carly style it’ll be a last minute decision. Do I throw a dart at a map, flip a coin, monitor exchange rates or just take the next available flight? That’s the beauty of packing a bag, leaving my 9 – 5, and deciding my own life rules.
Before I moved to SE Asia I lived and worked as a Nanny to these two rascals below in Leiden, Holland. Holland was intended to be a springboard to see if I could survive on my own and five years later (yes I got a little carried away in Holland - well you know wink) I decided to take the big jump and move across the other side of the world. Wow, was that the best decision I ever made!
I studied hard for my TEFL and through pure chance met my soul sister (who is a Steemiter too, @amy-goodrich and her husband @menta) on the same course. We hit it off and they told me about their dream to move to Kampot, South Cambodia. I’d never heard of it, but the fact that we both wanted out of our mundane lives and to be free to roam, she was in, and we were off. I went home to London, had one last Christmas with my family and hopped on the plane.
Strange things with weirder people
Goodbye 2013, hello 2014! I moved into my mate, Baz’s place on Koh Phangan. Baz is a DJ there and boy did he show me a good time! It was just in time for the New Year’s countdown so we headed to Koh Samui as he was playing a set there. “5,4,3,2,1 Haaappppy New Year” bloody hell I had done it. I thought I would stay there for at least 6 months, however age was creeping up on me and I only lasted two months! I got to go to some amazing parties and danced all night long till the sun rose. Best time ever!
I reserved the right to some down time and packed my bags early and headed to Koh Tao. Now, if you ever get the chance to go here - DO IT! Seriously, never turn down an opportunity to go here as it is completely stunning and has something for everyone, it really does.
The “Puke Bus”
From there I travelled around Thailand and Northern Thailand was, by far, one of my favorite destinations. There is a secret spot – becoming less secret sadly – called Pai, three hours from Chaing Mai. You do have to go there by what is lovingly nicknamed the “puke bus”, as it is three hours and 762 corners through the most windy roads I have ever been on, but when you start the final decent into Pai you realise it was all worth it, it is a hippie heaven, full of live music and great adventures. * (also, see my next post about this stunning place in more detail) But the show had to go one, so i headed to Cambodia and landed in Siem Reap....
Siem Reaped
I took one step off the bus and was smitten. Wow! How had I not been here before? I was hooked. I spent my first night wandering around Siem Reap with my jaw on the floor - there were bars open all night, live music and dancing everywhere. Kampot is quite sleepy so arriving here was like going from the Outback to Las Vegas!
Enter @Jbones, set phasers to STUN!
Minding my own business sitting at the end of the bar, this gorgeous, bearded, tall (I’m only 5ft) guy walks in, I’d had a few bevs by this time and thought to myself ‘I want that one’. I made him my mission for the night. Hahaha, I did not even get a chance to make my move as he walked in, ordered a beer and came straight around and spoke to me. Heart literally pounding out of my chest, head screaming ‘play it cool Carly, play it cool’ I tried my best to, well, play it cool.
I took him to every cool bar I could think of and luckily one of my mates had just opened a Pirate Metal Bar in town just above a tattoo parlor, what better place, I thought! Two floating coffins later (13 shots of infused rum and rice wine) we went back to mine, and he has stayed by my side ever since. (The Pirate Metal Bar will be another post as its freaking awesome and deserves its own Steemit post!)
Lalala Love, rainbows and candy floss.....NOT!
We have been together over a year now and every day is magical, I’m not going to sit here and type lalalala love, rainbows and candy floss as there have been some hard times and he has taught me a lot; mainly how to put a motorbike together.
We have traveled round Malaysia, Laos, Thailand and Australia together. I got to drive a car for the first time ever in Australia, well you don’t really need to learn when you have tubes in London and bikes in Holland.
I rode my first ever motorbike, well I started off with a 50cc, which kids learn on but I was still impressed. And can only turn left but I did it!
Now we are back in Siem Reap waiting for the next big adventure, getting tattoos and drinking rum till Christmas comes and we travel to the UK to visit my family. It’s Jason’s first ever cold Christmas and I can’t wait - no board shorts, sunglasses and BBQ’s for him this year!
And so that’s where we are at now. I finally got together with Amy and Jan, we are all living our dreams in South East Asia and you can too. Book that ticket, say goodbye to loved one (to be honest I see more of my family now with weekly Skype chats than I did living there) and get on that plane, you won’t regret it, I promise!
My Life Motto: I hope to arrive to my death, Late, In Love, And a little drunk - Atticus
Look out for more posts in the future... my next one is about the ONLY Pirate Metal Bar in Siem Reap....
Hi, thanks for the long and private blog. I will read it later with some muse.
I'm happy that I am one of the first upvoters (profit :)
I was living several months in Seam Reap in a little room just a mile away from the center. Only 60 dollar a month.
Here you can see me hitchhiking to Seam Reap:
All the best!
Oh cool, yes sorry it was a bit long... and i had to really cut it down!. Will take a look at your video, thanks for being my first comment (and not tip) Carly xx
Nono, it's cool, I am just curating, other people want it long!
Really nice to know your story @graphotism, so romantic !
See you at @angkorhub for the first Steemit meetup or the Pirate \m/ Bar
Yeah Carly, good read. Cool seeing people on the interwebs reveal their true selves a bit, without superficial facebook posts, and realizing I know that girl! Much love. See you around the Reap soon. This is Tim btw.