So I get to my Hostel which wasn’t a bad choice after all (I thought nothing would beat the guest house I stayed at in Siem Reip) but this one comes pretty close actually, has a restaurant and bar and a good atmosphere, and it has a pool, this is the first hostel I know of with a pool, and in this heat even just looking at a pool is a sight for saw eyes.
Any ways after settling in I decide to take a stroll, they suggested that the river side road was a very nice walk, so I thought after a long bus ride instead of wasting the rest of the day why not take a walk, and I did, and boy was I glad I took that walk.
It was such a beautiful walk with the river on the one side of the road and a whole lot of restaurants on the other side of the road. But the atmosphere was just amazing, I don’t know if maybe it’s because it is a Friday night or if this is what it is like everyday.
But there were families out with their kids playing that game with two funny tennis rackets and a wiered rubber ball with a sort of net on it (I think it’s called badminton or something). There were groups of boys playing soccer, there were people just sitting on the wall and chilling out, and then there was this group of people that were doing Ti Bo, or Ti Chi or one of those group workout things that you find in gym studios back home, and they were like just doing it next to quite a busy street and on a river walkway that is used by many (who said you need to have a gym membership fee). Absolutely fascinated I continue walking and not far away I find this row of exercise machines, the sort of type you would find in the gym, and people are actually using it. Gyming out in the open air with a beautiful view of the river, now that’s really amazing, makes you think, do we really need those gym memberships that most of us possess, or is it just a money making scheme? Personally I think a gym out in the open is a lot more healthier, not just physically healthy but mentally too.
I also realise that while I think our life may be more luxurious back home here it is more fulfilled, more alive I can’t explain it exactly but people here seem to have more meaning to life. While they live a lot more simpler life than ours I envy them because they seem to understand the importance of little things in life that bring great happiness, like being with family, playing with kids, parks full of kids playing outside, when is the last time you saw that back home? They seem to get more happiness from their simple way of life here while the rest of the world is living comfortably, but we all so caught up in the rat race of trying to get more money to be more comfortable that we forget to stop and enjoy the little things in life, that make the biggest difference.