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....!

That perfect gift?!

As Christmas is coming up soon, I thought I should provide a good suggestion for what kind of gift to buy for that special someone who has everything already;
How about a "Niske"-bag?! Anyone?! I can pretty much guarantee that the person you have in mind doesn´t have this one already.
Available at the Binh Tay Market in Ho Chi Minh City.

Heading to Ho Chi Minh City

This week, there´s the big, annual Water Festival here in Cambodia. 1-2 million Cambodians are heading to Phnom Penh from all of the countryside provinces to enjoy the boat races on the river, the fireworks and all the other festivities that are going on. It´s a nice party atmosphere, but incredibly crowded. You can´t drive anywhere in the central part of the city or on the river side, most restaurants and shops are closed for the holiday, so unless you are very much into watching boat races and just loves crowds of people, there´s not very much to do but to stay inside and watch dvd for a week. Which I´m not intending to do, so instead I´m taking the opportunity to go to Vietnam for a few days. I´ve never been to Ho Chi Minh City (previosly Saigon) in southern Vietnam before, so that´s where I´m going. On tuesday afternoon I´m catching a bus from Phnom Penh that´s supposed to reach HCMC in five hours, but I guess we´ll have to see about that.... I´ve actually never herd anyone being overly enthusiastic about HCMC so I don´t have very high expectations, but it´ll be interesting to see this commercial hub of Vietnam. And also to compare it to the very different city of Hanoi in the north, as the two cities are supposed to be eachothers´opposites when it comes to character. And of course; a change of environment, some good shopping, Vietnamese coffe, delicious food, art galleries and lazy afternoons at atmospheric cafés reading a good book, will be very nice..!

The infinite rainy season

Seems like we have an infinite rainy season this year... There´s just no stop to it. By all means, it should´ve stopped nearly a month ago, but instead it´s increasing. And on top of this, the temperature has hardly dropped at all. So to summarize; instead of dry and cool as should be the case this time of year, it´s wet and hot. Can anyone explain this, please?! Louise?! Climate changes? Well, whatever the reason, the consequenses are the same; almost every evening I´m stuck at the office after working hours, waiting for the rain to stop before I can take my motorbike and drive home on the flooded streets of Phnom Penh. A very unusual November-scenario, for sure...

This wet and hot climate gives a good breeding ground for the dengue mosquitoes as well. There´s a bad outbreak of dengue fever in Ho Chi Minh City (read: Saigon) now, which is situated only approximately 300 km from here across the Vietnamese boarder. And where am I going on vacation next week? Right; to Ho Chi Minh City, of course...

Well, I guess I shouldn´t complain. Needless to say, there are of course so many people in this country who are effected a lot worse from the rain. For example in the province of Rattanakiri in northern Cambodia, where the infrastructure is very poor and roads hardly exisist at all. The rain turns the already weak road network into flooded mud basins, making any kind of transportation very difficult. Below are some photos from a fieldtrip I did to Rattanakiri last year to visit one of our partner organisations who work in that area. It turned out to be the most adventurous road trip I´ve ever done, and I learned a lot about the challenges that many Cambodian NGO:s are facing when working in remote areas during the rainy season... And I´m deeply impressed by the work they are carrying out all year around, goal-oriented and untiringly in all weathers and seasons facing very difficult conditions..;

The "road" to one of our target areas. The road is flooded like this every rainy season, and it´s not uncommon for vehicles to get stuck so bad that they never get out of there. On the side of this mud basin stood several abandoned lorries who had been stuck there since last year.

Our car is stuck....
...again and again...

But we had a very skilled driver, aged 19 who had driven on these roads for 10 (!) years already, who managed to get us out of the mud every time. (He´s kneeling beside the car on the second pic from the top)

The situation was a lot worse for these guys, who got stuck one late afternoon, had to stay overnight in the car and still hadn´t managed to get out of there when we passed again the next day... I always think about them when I see this photo and hope that they eventually got out of there somehow, without having to leave their car behind...

A great man, a great day

Today is a great day...! Barack Obama will bring change, hope and peace. He will make this world a better place. Congratulations, mr President!

Actually, it already feels a bit easier to breathe, doesn't it...?! :-)

Going to the beach....

On Sunday morning, we´re heading to the coast for a well deserved holiday. We´ll stay one night in Sihanoukville first, before taking the boat to our main destination; "Lazy Beach". On the island, there are no telephones, no internet-connection, no television, no modernities what so ever. Just a long, beautiful beach, the ocean and us with a pile of books. The food and drinks are supposed to be excellent, which of course is a bonus as well. So we´re looking forward to a lovely, relaxing week.
So long!