Thank you, Cambodia

Lucy Bloomfield
Aug 25, 2017 · 3 min read

My partner (business bae too) and I recently spent three weeks in Cambodia. It was one of the most beautiful periods of my life and I want to share why.

My travel through Cambodia came at a period of my life where I felt very anxious and uncertain. Besides the usual new country anticipation, I’d come to a fork in my career path that I thought had been so carefully paved and straight.

It couldn’t have come at a better time.

There are always many factors at play when you travel to a new country. The people, the pollution, the WiFi speed and more make up the entire experience in a country. Cambodia ticked all of the usual prerequisites for someone working on online, and so much more.

Cambodia… even writing the word leaves me yearning for the country once more.

Eastern philosophy has always resonated with my own intrinsic belief system and when I spend time in Asia, particularly South East Asia, I’m transported to complete acceptance of all that is.

There’s something about the way the people are in countries where Buddhism has been a practiced religion for centuries. They walk slower and they’re more open to interactions with strangers. There’s trust, general happiness and peace in places you don’t expect. People who perhaps don’t have many reasons at all to be content with what they have, are.

You feel like a queen when you live in developing countries. The living standard for locals and foreigners is incomparable. Services which are exclusive to the wealthiest in Australia are suddenly freely available. Maids, cooks and masseuses can all be yours. But somehow, just being in a place that has less, makes you want less.

It’s therapeutic to strip back your desires for a life that’s more simple.

The recent history of their communist dictatorship sits just below the surface — a scar that’s still pink and itchy. I don’t think Cambodia has found its feet after the devastation of the Khmer Rogue, but I have a deep hope that it’s people will build Cambodia into something new.

Looking back, it’s really the people that moved me. All of them strangers — or more truthfully, I am the stranger in their home. But every interaction was open, sincere and with a lingering gaze that let me know they wanted to share a connection with me. It was beautiful.

All of these pieces of Cambodia, tiny fragments of what makes up a country, created a unique environment that unsettled me to the point of feeling settled. Cambodia washed away my normal life, my problems and my fears and replaced it with true perspective on my immediate problems, and the direction that I want to take my life.

I’ve always thought travel is essential to be a compassionate human.

It allows you to feel, see, hear and experience another society’s problems by taking you out of your own. It can break your heart and leave you crying at the cruelty and finality of life. Seconds later, it can fill you with hope and love once more.

I will never forget what I saw and felt in this beautiful country. Thank you Cambodia, for giving me clarity.

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Lucy Bloomfield

Written by

I co-founded a skin care company (Trefiel) that awoke a passion for self-respect and business. Now I talk about that more than I do skin care.

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