Australian grandfather Bob Carroll is set to don orange robes and become a Cambodian monk in April.
Baby boomer Bob Carroll is taking retirement downsizing to the extreme.
While others his age sell up the family home, hitch up the caravan and join the hordes of grey nomads on a lap around Australia, the 69-year-old grandfather will be content with just two books, one bed sheet, a razor and a tooth brush.
And the orange robes of an ordained Cambodian Buddhist monk.
Turning his back on over-consumption and materialism of western culture will be liberating, Carroll believes.
"We always look outside for happiness. We don't look inside enough," he says.
The adjustment won't be easy: up at 4.30am each day for chanting and meditation, no meals after midday and long periods sitting still.
Like other monks he will be dependent on the community for food and medication.
As well there are bans on sex, alcohol, exercising in public and strict limitations on social interactions.
Regardless, Carroll is pressing on, after what's been a long road to ordination.
"If I don't do it I won't feel complete," he says.
At 15, growing up in Newcastle in a non-religious family, Carroll bought a ceramic Buddha statue.
"I loved what he stood for ... love and compassion," he says.
At high school he was bullied. Although he didn't know much about Buddhism at the time, he unconsciously lived by its principles of non-violence and altruism.
"Everyday I used to get bashed at school. Everyone said `Stand up for yourself', but I couldn't do it. It wasn't in my make up," he says.
At 20 he had visions of wearing maroon robes and sitting by a river.
"I never told anyone that. It was so far removed from my world at that period. It was such an alien thing. It's something that's been dormant inside of me for a long, long time," Carroll says.
Life happened. He married young, had two daughters by age 21 and worked in tyre sales for a decade before becoming a personal trainer and running a gym for 30 years.
Carroll witnessed much depression, loneliness and unhappiness among his fitness clientele, many of whom appeared to be living successful lives.
They were looking after their bodies but not their hearts and minds. Half the "bloody problem" is communications technology, he reckons.
"Nobody can just sit. They have to reach for their phones. Nobody knows how to just be. Everyone's got 4000 friends on their Facebook, but when the chips are down how many friends actually turn up to help?" he says.
For a year Carroll will live at a Buddhist pagoda in Siem Reap - the gateway to the world famous Angkor Wat temples.
He has called the tourist mecca home for the past four years running the Angkor Bodhi Tree yoga retreat, and separate cafe/guest house with wife Claire.
The pair fell in love with Siem Reap and Cambodia on holidays eight years ago.
A sign on the back of a toilet door at the Red Piano restaurant on Pub Street, promoting a small school run by two monks, changed their lives.
A grass roof hut on stilts was the classroom, the children wore shoes made from inner tyre tubes tied up with wire and used slates.
They didn't have pencils and books.
The couple came back nine times in four years before moving there permanently.
"The Dalai Lama says 'You want to be happy - give, give, give'. It's not a secret," Carroll says.
Their businesses now help support and generate volunteers for four schools including one at Anlung Pi village, where about 300 adults and children live on a rubbish dump.
The schools have proper classrooms with cement floors, art rooms, computers and the teachers are paid a decent salary.
Several teenagers have been trained-up in hospitality, cooking, housekeeping and offered full time work, while others have been sponsored to go to university.
Cambodia's school system is slowly rebuilding, decades on from the Khmer Rouge genocide which wiped out the majority - estimated at about two million - of the educated class.
But poor teacher quality, low student attendance due to poverty, high dropout rates and lack of resources are persisting problems.
Carroll is hopeful that as a monk he will be able to help even more families and children get an education.
After completing his religious training he hopes to split his time between Australia and Cambodia and take people, especially those over 50s, on spiritual tours with volunteering opportunities.
"Everyone needs a reason to get up in the morning," he says.
"Imagine the empty nesters and the women mother-henning these bloody (Cambodian) kids."
Carroll's family are fully supportive of the decision.
Claire is returning to Australia in April to spend more time with her grandchildren and says it saddens her to be going home alone.
"We always used to joke that he was a monk in a past life," she says.
"I understand him. He's very odd, always has been. I love him and will always love him and I just want him to be happy."
Claire worries about the toll it will take on her husband's health and knows he'll struggle with skipping dinner. But she's is adamant he will be a great monk.
Monks get to nap in hammocks in the afternoon.
"He'll love that," she says.
* For more information about volunteering and donating to Bob and Claire's four schools in Siem Reap visit Cambodian Schools of Hope - http://cambodianschoolsofhopeinc.org
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