Visiting, living, and the shame of not seeing the sights

I am about to make an illogical statement:

I have serious travel inertia.

This might sound odd coming from a girl who has, multiple times, upped and moved to a new country or state, knowing one or no people at the destination city, and recently jetted off to the other side of the world on a one-way ticket.

But let me explain.

Having now been in Phnom Penh for over two months, I'm starting to get the questions about where I've been and what I've seen, inside the city and country, and outside. Today -- National Museum? No. Tuol Sleng, the genocide museum? No. The Killing Fields? Not that either. What about around Cambodia? No. Thailand? Laos? Vietnam? No, no, and no.

They all happen to be on my list of things I'd like to see, sure. It does seem a bit silly to be in this region of the world and not go voyaging, and especially the things in Phnom Penh, and I do feel a bit guilty about it. Sometimes I see the tourists flocking around Wat Phnom -- which I have to go by every day on my way to work -- and I reliably think, I should probably check that out too.

But in reality, unless there's a good opportunity or I have serious reason to want to do so, I don't. My excuses are the usual -- no money, don't want to go alone, don't know where is good, don't know how to organize it. All of them are perfectly well solvable and avoidable.

And yet the fact remains that, unless the opportunity comes knocking, the chances of me actually organizing a trip to Vietnam by myself, for example, are pretty darn slim.

I don't really know what to do about it. Like I said, I feel kind of guilty that I'm in the region and just doing my thing in Phnom Penh, but maybe that's just it -- I'm not really here to visit. I came here to work, and to make stuff happen. I'm doing that. I came here to live. I'm doing that too.

I suppose it all works out in the end. I've noticed it enough, though, to realize it's just something in me. If I have good reason to go, I do, in somewhat spectacular fashion. If I don't, I don't.

For better or for worse, I guess...