Imagine living in Saigon and you just began what started off as a holiday romance in PP. Well, if you were single you may want to pursue that romance. Over a few weeks I plugged the moving to HCMC idea to my girlfriend and she accepted. At the time I was living in a plush apartment, however I had my ex ferry me around looking for cheaper alternatives. This was so I could spend more on nice meals out and also put a little bit aside for the future. We found a 4th floor apartment with a large kitchen and large bedroom. It was a third of the price of the previous place. The only downside was we had to walk through the ground floor shop (a hairdressers) to get to the stairwell.

Historically neighbouring citizens have a general dislike for each other. It's mainly political, but even neighbouring countries can feel like a completely different culture or way of life. My girlfriend then/wife now has a Vietnamese grandparent, but even so she had a certain amount of distain for them. As mentioned above we went out every night for seafood and nice restaurants. As time passed we pulled the reigns in and started to shop more at the market and cook more at home.

Whilst I was working my wife would go out shopping or go to street restaurants that she liked. She had made friends with a few locals who frequented the tourist area and may go to a bar for a couple of beers with them. Those locals were Vietnamese girls about her age who she'd met whilst out and about with me. She'd go to market and because of her lack of Vietnamese would get overcharged by some. I'm not one to complain about that, it's pennies at the end of the day, but I thought I'd mention that. She also liked to stay home and cook (of course) and watch porn (she hid that fact up until recently).

So again, my question is how do you think your partner would fit in to life in a neighbouring country? And what would she do whilst you were at work or out with the lads?

We came from her neighboring country to Cambodia, then leaved for my country.
She liked each new country, and found friends in each too.

So....pack & go is what she did, without regrets, except the longer covid delay to go back see her family of course.

Oh yeah : she is busy taking care of our kid while i'm at work. So...yeah : busy & happy.

You, just began what started off as a holiday romance! but for me it did not start in Phnom Penh, but in the Thai capital city of Bangkok and moved on to Pattaya. You could even call it an accidental journey, because of my work comments and contracts, the company I was subcontracting for over many years were very secretive, being that I would only find out where and when my work was next via an email at 4.55pm on Friday evening, to my surprise that last email said "holiday". Now I was looking for the best way of making my time, and up to this point I had no idea how long the holiday was to be, I would only know that again by receiving an email on Friday evenings.
I was looking for a quick flight and visa on entry. Thailand was the outcome, my flight was on Tuesday, so I had time to get things together and read up on the country I had only known from the old movie "the king and I", and also an old friend whom climbed with me in India at one time, but could not afford the airfare to return to the UK, nor travel back overland the way he came in the first place, so he dicided shit or bust he would extend his travels and take a cheaper flight to Thailand, and with his intonations and hope to earn some money in his normal pastime sport of Thai boxing.
You could safely say I got a little hooked on my new destination, after visiting on numerous occasions, and now with yet another new girlfriend (this one was different). By this time, I was managing my work in the UK, and the rest play, holidaying in Thailand 6 months at a time in both countries throughout the year. Life was good, I eventually married my girlfriend, having the village wedding with all its traditional fancies, happy smiling guests wishing us well, the serious time for wedding vows kneeling before the Abbott and monks in fine traditional silk clothing and the heat of the day. Later we married officially and had the Thai papers, that I could take at the time and make official in my own country.
Over the years of us knowing one another in our relationship we had holidayed in many a destination, but never outside of the country. My now wife was showing me round the family’s huge sugar plantation, she was never without money, and it was never that much of an issue between us. We wandered towards the housing blocks were the employed immigrant farmworkers stayed for planting and mainly harvest time. Her sister would drive to the Cambodian boarder to collect the workers. That gave me the Idea, “how about honeymoon at Angkor?”. Soon we were on our first visit to Cambodia, and many times followed, but only that of Seim Reap and the Angkor temples, she wouldn’t travel to any other provenance being afraid of the people. We had good times and good travel, we were also together good friends, at the time things could not have been better.
Although we talked every day when I had to commit to my work in the UK, it was not the same has her being there, I also was never in any possession where I had distrust of her. It was time for her to live the life I was living, half UK and half Thailand, it was the only way for full commitment for both of us I thought.
The first visit to the UK she was only alowed 6 weeks, I presume also my part in that was because I had delayed on the marriage certificate. In this time, she got to know my family and the people around us, also friends who would call me when I was in Thailand, they would also have regular chats with her on the phone, and now she would call and chat to her family members. We would also visit my family and friends, and also some sights. She took everything onboard even in helping me build a new garden fence. She reorganised the kitchen to her liking, also organising dinner parties, due to no shortage of Thai food with several Thai super markets in the nearby city.
Winter arrived in that short visit, we played like youngsters in the white falling snow, something she had only seen in books and movies up to now.
The time soon passed and she returned home to Thailand, I had work for another month, now I had an inside contact who would inform me in confidence of my ongoing contact periods.
But after more visits back and forth, the marriage was not to last, we parted how we started, being that of friends. She couldn’t commit to the relationship in regards coming to the UK. I agreed with her family concerns and also her own commitments,
also my country is not the same has Thailand.
My adventures carry on today.

My wife loves travelling and seeing the world outside Cambodia. She especially loved our time in Japan and Europe. While I was working for Air Asia, she and I moved to KL and stayed there for a few years. We stayed in Bukit Damansara. We both liked it there but I didn't particularly enjoy the long drive to KLIA which I had to do hours in advance of a flight for briefings and a full range of other preflight checks.

When a spinal tumor was discovered in me, she and I moved to Germany where I had surgery in Heidelberg. She also enjoyed her time there and after I recovered, I showed her most of Germany. No issues with adjusting to food. She loved German comfort food (Linsensuppe, Erbsensuppe and other Oma cuisines). She was at home with our Sunday coffee sessions with Kaesekuchen and Kirschtorte. We would go to our neighborhood Edeka and she literally would forget to buy rice.

In Japan, we stayed in Sapporo. Snow and seafood were always highlights of our time there. She would cook snow crabs Kep style which went well despite the absence of green peppercorns. All in all a good time despite the reservedness of the Japanese and some language related issues.

We also stayed in Thailand for about 2 months (in Hua Hin). Again, no issues. She quickly made friends, both locals and Cambodians. I bet she'd adjust just as easily if I were to move with her to Laos or Vietnam, except now we have a little boy which changes plans a bit.

My gf will go anywhere except Vietnam. She says Vietnamese are bad people, despite the fact that they saved Cambodia's ass from the KR. And she won't even eat pho from that stall on street 136, which I love.

Phnom Penh Pal wrote: ↑Thu Jun 17, 2021 11:40 pm
So again, my question is how do you think your partner would fit in to life in a neighbouring country? And what would she do whilst you were at work or out with the lads?

I was ready to answer the question, until it was divided into 2 questions, twice. Took me back to my meiosis days.
In answer to the headline question; she would accept, say she'll miss me and tell me to keep in touch, while I would have the car loaded and backed out of the garage, before you google "kegs and dancing girls for hire".
She would probably find it lonely at first, trying to make new friends. Believe her. But by the time the plane lands she will know the locations of the Aman and Six Senses "Job Centres" Resorts, where she can start "mining" and pick up a job very quickly. Particularly, with the flattering reference I gave her, for her servicings, whilst employed in a Domestic Prostitute capacity, on a generous salary of, all. "I would like to take this opportunity to vouch for the honesty and loyalty of Thingy, I really would. We got along well (except when she accused me of cheating, and I would say she was starting to sound like my wife) with others, and she taught me that vasectomies actually, only change the colour of the baby. Yours forever (no-backs!), Wazza "Doug" Richman"
Q3. Mark.

I grew up traveling. From the time I was 2. We never stayed somewhere longer than 5 years. Must have changed 7 to 8 schools in that period. Some of the best times of my life.

Love for travel and change plus a dislike for nesting is something I gravitate towards and protect quite strongly. So, it's highly unlikely for my GF to not enjoy traveling. We'd have not clicked in the first place.

It's a dealbreaker for me.

However people change over the years, and you can get entrenched in the responsibilities of a long-term relationship and they prefer some familiarity and stability and then you realize the person you married is not the same person you wanted to live with. I'm at that stage with my other half after she refused to move to Bali with me in 2019 after I had secured a much better deal there than we were enjoying in KH. Covid has helped my relationship though since we rarely have chances to argue about moving.

Let's see once travel restrictions lift...

Oh, how the pandemic has interfered with some or most of our actions and lifestyles. For someone of a free spirit and the yearning, needs of freedom and travel, it now puts the person in a situation of what we may referer has being that of a forced state of limbo. Trapped and encaged, even with time's of official forced self paid confinement too safeguard the people of the country you may be privileged to visit. This by a natural virus that is free of world travel with its help and passage from host to host has it finds the freedom to travel to lands we may too have hoped to have made a first visit or revisit.