Note to self; buy warmer clothes

Note to self: remember to go to the market tomorrow to find a long-sleeved top of some kind, and perhaps a scarf as well. It´s well needed when driving the motorbike in the mornings and evenings, as this season has brought some cool temperatures. Only +19 degrees Celsius this morning.... brrrrr......

Note to self; avoid motorbike driving in bad traffic

Note to self; don´t insist on driving your own motorbike when you´re going out on late afternoon or evenings on Fridays, Saturdays or Sundays. That´s when the Phnom Penh traffic situation is at its worst, so really - you don´t need to expose yourself to that. So far everything has been working out fine, but as the traffic situation gets worse by the week, it´s really unnecessary to expose yourself to that risk. Instead of taking your motorbike; catch a tuktuk or call a cab. You stubborn woman. Photo: Michael Regan

Home, sweet home, part 2

As some of you know, I moved to a new flat in June last year. And I just realised that I haven´t posted any photos of it as I promised you that I would. But better late than never, so...
This is the building where I live. I´m on the top floor, in the penthouse. Which is great, despite the fact that it comes with a lot of climbing as there´s no elevator. For those of you who know Phnom Penh, the street is starting at Sothearos Boulevard and runs westwards, parallell to and one block south of Sihanouk Boulevard.

One of the good things of being on the 5:th floor is of course that it comes with a great view;
The view from the terrace to the northwest, where you see Independence Monument and Wat Langka

This is street 294, seen from the terrace, going west to the neighbourhood Baeng Keng Kong 1...

...and east, towards the river.

When entering the flat (from the left in this picture), there´s a large open space with a combined kitchen- and livingroom area.
From the kitchen you reach the rear balcony, which has a beautiful view towards the north, in the direction of Hun Sen Park and the Royal Palace
And voilá; on the balcony there´s also a washing machine!A modernity that one can´t take for granted here in Cambodia, so I´m very happy for it. In my previous apartment, the clothes had to be washed by hand or taken to a laundry. For some reasons, most washing machines here are installed outside of the building. Don´t ask me why. Another strange thing is that it´s not possible to programme different temperatures on this model. And as it´s connected to a water tap with lukewarm water only; lukewarm washing it is... But it´s still a luxury!

The guest room, waiting for guests to accomodate :-)

From the livingroom, you open the door out to the lovely, spacious terrace...



In the apartment, there´s also a master bedroom, a master bathroom and a guest bathroom as well. But no pictures of those. Some things I need to keep to myself... ;-)

Going once, going twice...

Anyone..?! Oh, come on now, guys! This has to be the offer of the year, and the year has hardly even started yet! Going once, going twice...

Do you see what I see...?

This pic was taken at a nice little restaurant bar in Kep where we had lunch on New Years Day. At the time, I was quite sure that one of the other guests happened to be - a turkey... Do you see it as well? Or it it just me, maybe I had too much to drink the evening before? I mean, a turkey.. at a bar... Well, on the other hand, this is Cambodia...

Happy New Year 2009!

Since I moved to Cambodia, we´ve kind of established a tradition of celebrating the New Years Eve in Kep, a relaxed little seaside town with an outstanding atmosphere and breathtaking sunsets. (Well, this is only the second time actually, but that makes it a tradition, doesn´t it?! ) Anyway...


... from Kep we wish all of you friends and family all over the world a HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Two familiar travellers, perhaps?

Me and Janne in Siem Reap, 22:nd of December 2008

For calling or for walking...?

There was no way I could resist buying these pair of flip-flops for my Apple nerd of a husband when I found them at a market in Saigon some weeks ago.... (Please note that the Apple logo is in gold! Fancy, huh?!)

He got them for Christmas and yes - he wears them all the time...

Christmas Khmer style

Hi there! Long time, no blogging... Sorry for the silence here. A very intense month at work has left no time or energy for blog updates. But finally the holidays are here, so... here we go again!

Janne arrived yesterday for a bit more than 2 weeks holiday here, which of course feels great! We will spend christmas and new year here in Cambodia, as we want to make the most of the time that is left here before it´s time move back to Sweden by mid-April. Can´t believe that I only have less than 4 months left here now.... Feels good and sad at the same time...

I guess that you all are quite busy with all the Christmas preparations, only a couple of days to go now.... I´m happy to tell you that the christmas spirit has reached Phnom Penh as well! Yesterday for example, we attended the annual christmas party at my office. This yeears celebration turned out to be the best both me and Janne has ever attended. Very fun, enjoyable and a great mix between Khmer and Swedish traditions. It started out in the early afternoon with a traditional buddhist ceremony with monks chanting for an hour, blessing both the staff and the office and giving good luck for the new year. After that, a delicious smorgasbord was served, with both Swedish and Khmer delicacies; meetballs, cheese, Janssons frestelse, fried and fresh springrolls, mixed Khmer fingerfood, Swedish snaps, etc. Followed by a Khmer version of Santa Claus, bringing gifts for all guests. I got a Khmer hairclip and Janne a "Doiche Gabbana" womens´watch. Now we´re certainly dressed for success! :-) After that, the Khmer dancing started, to the very loud sound of Khmer karaoke. I did my best practising my Khmer style dancing, but left the singing to my Khmer colleagues. As all Khmer parties, it was all carried out in a very warm hearted spirit and finished very early. At 7 pm, almost all guests had left already. It was all great fun, and we really want to come for next years party as well!
(Unfortunately, I don´t have any photos to publish from the party yet, but it´ll come, I promise.)

Today, it was time to do some christmas decorations of the apartment. As we don´t have a christmas tree, the plants on the terrace just had to do. So now all the bamboo plants, bougainvillier trees etc on the terrace are all beautifully decorated with lights, glitter and other kinds of christmas decorations.
Janne decorating our "christmas tree"

To top the christmas spirit even more, we invited some friends over for some christmas treats like glögg, cheddar cheese and gingerbread cookies this afternoon. It sure gave us a taste of christmas!

So it´s christmas is here in Phnom Penh as well - Khmer style..! :-)

Tomorrow we are leaving for Siem Reap, to celebrate christmas at the astonishing Angkor temples. Merry Christmas!

Sihanoukville and Lazy Beach

I just received reports from Stockholm that the first snow of the year has fallen. So I´m posting some photos from warmer latitudes to help you all to feel a bit.. well, warmer... Here are some photos from our trip to Sihanoukville and the island of Koh Rong Saloem that we did by the end of October.

First, we made an overnight stop in Sihanoukville. The hotel we stayed at, the Reef Resort, was a nice and friendly place with good food and a true haven in an otherwise very much destroyed Sihanoukville.

Janne in the pool (where else?!) at the Reef Resort

We were actually shocked to find Sihanoukville in such a state... A very sad experience and so totally opposite to the memories we have from our first visit there 6 years ago. What used to be a nice and quiet little seaside town with beautiful beaches has turned into a very shabby, dirty town and the Serendipity part of Occheutal Beach is covered with garbage and dominated by an overestablishment of shabby backpacker hangouts. Yep; things are changing quickly in Cambodia, just as at so many other places around the world that suddenly becomes popular tourist destinations...

So, after one night in Sihanoukville we were happy to take the boat to the island of Koh Rong Saloem, approximately 3 hrs off Sihanoukville.

Janne on the boat, looking forward to the beach...

After a quite pleasant boatride we arrived to Lazy Beach, a lovely bungalow establishment where we stayed for four nights.
The view from our bungalow

This is truly a great little place, a tropical hideaway from the rest of the world... Very basic accomodation, a bit more basic than we were up for at first actually, but the rest of it totally made up for that; the restaurant with delicious food, the relaxed athmosphere, the two lovely dogs running around, the nice staff, lazy afternoons in the hammocks reading books, swims in the turquoise sea and so on, made our stay there very pleasant and enjoyable. There´s no mobile phone connection or electricity on the island, only a generator running for a few hours in the evenings. Which all adds to the feeling of a hideaway from the rest of the world.

Lazy Beach, seen from the boat

The only drawback was the boatride back to Sihanoukville, as there was a very bad weather on our day of departure from Lazy Beach. Which made it impossible to board the boat from the pier, so we had to swim out to the boat in quite rough sea, and try to climb up and onboard. But with good assistance from fellow passanger we made it without any bigger difficulties. The worst was still to come, though; the seasickness that kept me company for most of the 3,5 hrs it took to get back to Sihanoukville. Next time, I have to remember to bring medicine for that....!