So, how did you enjoy the turkey and the champaign? We are doing quite well!
Please enjoy the pictures of Arjan, a selection, by going to the same link as the previous one.
And how odd to meet Thai monks in Prague !!!
Thursday, 25 December 2008
Wednesday, 24 December 2008
Prague
Dear all,
Before you start eating your turkey, drink your champaign or … you can travel with me to Prague, capital of the Czech Republic, where I spent 4 days last weekend with Arjan and some friends.
Very pleasant city, situated at the Moldau river - depicted by the famous Czech composer Smetana - , even in the winter when it is cold. Since 1992, the extensive historic centre of Prague has been included in the Unesco list of World Heritage Sites, which proves its cultural importance. It has been heavily damaged during the 1992 floods of the Moldau river, but if you wouldn't know, you won't see it. It contains one of the world's most pristine and varied collections of architecture, from Art Nouveau to Baroque, Renaissance, Cubist, Gothic, Neo-Classical and ultra-modern.
We attended a concert by The Eddy Davis New Orleans Jazz Band, with the famous American actor and film producer Woody Allen at the Kongresové centrum Praha. Personally I saw Woody Allen already playing with the same band in 2002 in Paris and I enjoyed him at that time as I did this time. I find it quite amusing that this odd man is playing in a jazz band. My friends stated that the price (more than Eur 100) was out of range in relation with the quality.
Woody visibly had some problems with his clarinet and was not always playing in tune with the others. Apparently he did not have the power anymore (it was not his first concert this tour) to play it correctly. This is what a Dutch newspaper is writing about this concert the day before in Amsterdam:
http://www.nrcnext.nl/opinie/columnaaf/article2101846.ece/Dit_deed_Woody_All
And who was that little shy girl at the end of the show grasping Woody at his trousers??
We also went to Manon Lescaut, an opera by Puccini, in the Prague State Opera, a beautiful decorated building. The opera was OK (again, if one compares the price <–> quality; less than what I am paying in Paris, and as a result - that is my personal point of view - the setting is also half of what one can expect in Paris): the soprano wonderful, the principal tenor missed - if one could hear him anyway - at the end the high tunes, quite surprising.
You still can view previous albums, but the one you may be interested in, is called "Prague 2008".
If you will visit the site in a couple of days again, you will find some pictures by Arjan, Hans or Harald.
If you wish you can start a 'Slideshow', from which you can choose the parameters yourself.
By accessing this feature via the way I indicated you, you should not receive any publicity spam of Photobox.
I wish all of you a merry Christmas and a Happy New Year !
Before you start eating your turkey, drink your champaign or … you can travel with me to Prague, capital of the Czech Republic, where I spent 4 days last weekend with Arjan and some friends.
Very pleasant city, situated at the Moldau river - depicted by the famous Czech composer Smetana - , even in the winter when it is cold. Since 1992, the extensive historic centre of Prague has been included in the Unesco list of World Heritage Sites, which proves its cultural importance. It has been heavily damaged during the 1992 floods of the Moldau river, but if you wouldn't know, you won't see it. It contains one of the world's most pristine and varied collections of architecture, from Art Nouveau to Baroque, Renaissance, Cubist, Gothic, Neo-Classical and ultra-modern.
We attended a concert by The Eddy Davis New Orleans Jazz Band, with the famous American actor and film producer Woody Allen at the Kongresové centrum Praha. Personally I saw Woody Allen already playing with the same band in 2002 in Paris and I enjoyed him at that time as I did this time. I find it quite amusing that this odd man is playing in a jazz band. My friends stated that the price (more than Eur 100) was out of range in relation with the quality.
Woody visibly had some problems with his clarinet and was not always playing in tune with the others. Apparently he did not have the power anymore (it was not his first concert this tour) to play it correctly. This is what a Dutch newspaper is writing about this concert the day before in Amsterdam:
http://www.nrcnext.nl/opinie/columnaaf/article2101846.ece/Dit_deed_Woody_All
And who was that little shy girl at the end of the show grasping Woody at his trousers??
We also went to Manon Lescaut, an opera by Puccini, in the Prague State Opera, a beautiful decorated building. The opera was OK (again, if one compares the price <–> quality; less than what I am paying in Paris, and as a result - that is my personal point of view - the setting is also half of what one can expect in Paris): the soprano wonderful, the principal tenor missed - if one could hear him anyway - at the end the high tunes, quite surprising.
You still can view previous albums, but the one you may be interested in, is called "Prague 2008".
If you will visit the site in a couple of days again, you will find some pictures by Arjan, Hans or Harald.
If you wish you can start a 'Slideshow', from which you can choose the parameters yourself.
By accessing this feature via the way I indicated you, you should not receive any publicity spam of Photobox.
I wish all of you a merry Christmas and a Happy New Year !
Thursday, 4 December 2008
Tuesday, 2 December 2008
02-12-08 I am back home
Arrival of plane in Paris according to schedule and believe it or not, I got some technical problems to get home by train, as usually according to Paris' standards.
I arrived home at 11.40 am and right now the first wash is turning.
I will go back to work on Thursday 04-12-08; the time in between I will use to recover some sleep, handle my ordinary mail and start with the pictures.
It is cold but sunny in Paris!
Thanks all of you for your support during the last days.
And do not think that the last 3 days - which will be in short time just a bad souvenir, I hope -spoilt my holidays; besides the last 3 days we both spent a wonderful time in Cambodia!
****
Contrary to for instance the German and French government, the Dutch government is not actively cooperating with its national air line company, KLM, to repatriate its compatriots, which implies a tremendous logistic efforts: get authorisations of the Thai authorities, organise ground and cabin crew (actually, KLM flew in 2 crew equips for my flight: the 1st for the flight from Phuket to Kuala Lumpur and the 2nd for the flight from Kuala Lumpur to Amsterdam), organise meals, organise buses + drivers + presence of KLM staff in each bus (actually, volunteers of KLM staff being on holidays in Thailand have been asked to give a hand; funny to see them in their holidays outfit ...); fly in security staff since the security rules at the Phuket airport were unknown / insufficient, get 428 blue caps for all the passengers which we had to put on our head at the Phuket airport in order to recognize each other in the expected chaos, which turned out to be unneccesary happily, etc.
Though I was surprised first of all that little seemed to be done to get us out of the country, realising all of this, I have to admit that KLM did a huge effort and all of that without any help of the Dutch government. I have to say as well that I embraced the local KLM manager at Bangkok when he confirmed me that I was on the plane.
A KLM steward in the plane told us, that KLM decided to organise this first flight - the flight I took - for its image. The steward confirmed that such a flight one way costs Eur 250.000.
On the internet site of the French embassy I see following communiqué by the (French) Ministery of Foreign Affairs :
***
AIDE AU RETOUR DES FRANÇAIS DE THAÏLANDE - ENVOI D’UN AVION SPECIAL
Afin d’aider au retour de nos compatriotes qui ne peuvent regagner la France du fait de la fermeture des deux aéroports civils de Bangkok, le gouvernement français, en complément des efforts menés par les compagnies aériennes, notamment Air France, a décidé d’affréter un avion gros porteur.
L’avion spécial embarquera nos compatriotes qui se sont signalés à notre ambassade à Bangkok, la priorité étant donnée aux situations les plus urgentes.
Le départ de cet avion est prévu de Paris lundi 1er décembre en milieu de journée pour un retour le 3 décembre en début de matinée. Il transportera à son bord des agents du Centre de Crise du Ministère des Affaires étrangères et européennes pour renforcer notre ambassade accompagné d’une équipe médicale du Ministère de la santé et de la Brigade des Sapeurs Pompiers de Paris, et d’appui psychologique de la Croix Rouge Française.
****
Personnally I find the presence of the "équipe médicale du Ministère de la santé et de la Brigade des Sapeurs Pompiers de Paris, et d’appui psychologique de la Croix Rouge Française" exaggerated, because on our flight, there was NO crisis or panic at all!
But this effort is done by the French government, on top of the ones done by its national air line company, Air France.
By the way, at our arrival at Schiphol airport the press was present as well, I happily escaped them, since they did not notice that I was one of the passengers with only carrying my handbag. My suitcase was labelled on to Paris, so not with me at Schiphol.
At Paris - 120 passengers of our flight were French - was no press at all.
The Dutch embassy in Bangkok is publishing this message:
"2 december, 14.30 uur - Hof ontbindt politieke partijen
Het Constitutioneel Hof heeft 2 december de drie de coalitie partijen schuldig bevonden aan verkiezingsfraude en ontbonden. Dit betekent dat de premier per heden van zijn ambt is ontheven en dat een nieuwe regering moet worden gevormd. De regeringssupporters (rode t-shirts) zullen zich vanavond (2 december) mogelijk verzamelen bij het stadhuis (City Hall) van Bangkok. U wordt sterk aangeraden daar niet in de buurt te komen."
I can not assess the consequences of this decision by the court, but I have the feeling that this will worsen the situation.
****
I have been told that the situation at the military airport is a chaos. Tens of thousands of tourists would be there and huge traffic jams of buses / taxis trying to get there via provincial way to this former USA airport from the Vietnam-era.
Following message is published by the Dutch embassy at Thailand : "Ambassademedewerker bezocht op 30 november 2008 Utapao airport gelegen op ongeveer 180 km zuidoostelijk van Bangkok. Op het vliegveld heerste een chaotische toestand met een enorme mensenmassa buiten de vertrekhal. Slechts mondjesmaat werden er mensen in de vertrekhal binnengelaten. In de vertrekhal was slechts 1 bagagescanner en 4 incheckbalies. Er was nauwelijks ruimte om te bewegen. U wordt derhalve afgeraden op de bonnefooi, zonder reservering naar Utapao te reizen. De eerstvolgende Eva-air vlucht naar Amsterdam vanuit Utapao is op 2 december 02.30 uur."
The first - the following flights by Air France will be done from Phuket - special Air France flight from Air France from this military airport was not a big success: there would be only 50 passengers on board ??? Anyway, this time, the French embassy contacted the French passengers for 'my' KLM flight, something which the Dutch embassy didn't do!
Now I read following ANP press release : "De Thaise oppositie gaat ermee akkoord dat de vluchten vanaf de internationale luchthaven Suvarnabhumi van Bangkok worden hervat. Dit heeft een van de leiders van het protest dinsdag gezegd tegen het Franse persbureau AFP. " So the flights from the main airports are authorised to be resumed again, but apparently only starting from 15-12-08.
I arrived home at 11.40 am and right now the first wash is turning.
I will go back to work on Thursday 04-12-08; the time in between I will use to recover some sleep, handle my ordinary mail and start with the pictures.
It is cold but sunny in Paris!
Thanks all of you for your support during the last days.
And do not think that the last 3 days - which will be in short time just a bad souvenir, I hope -spoilt my holidays; besides the last 3 days we both spent a wonderful time in Cambodia!
****
Contrary to for instance the German and French government, the Dutch government is not actively cooperating with its national air line company, KLM, to repatriate its compatriots, which implies a tremendous logistic efforts: get authorisations of the Thai authorities, organise ground and cabin crew (actually, KLM flew in 2 crew equips for my flight: the 1st for the flight from Phuket to Kuala Lumpur and the 2nd for the flight from Kuala Lumpur to Amsterdam), organise meals, organise buses + drivers + presence of KLM staff in each bus (actually, volunteers of KLM staff being on holidays in Thailand have been asked to give a hand; funny to see them in their holidays outfit ...); fly in security staff since the security rules at the Phuket airport were unknown / insufficient, get 428 blue caps for all the passengers which we had to put on our head at the Phuket airport in order to recognize each other in the expected chaos, which turned out to be unneccesary happily, etc.
Though I was surprised first of all that little seemed to be done to get us out of the country, realising all of this, I have to admit that KLM did a huge effort and all of that without any help of the Dutch government. I have to say as well that I embraced the local KLM manager at Bangkok when he confirmed me that I was on the plane.
A KLM steward in the plane told us, that KLM decided to organise this first flight - the flight I took - for its image. The steward confirmed that such a flight one way costs Eur 250.000.
On the internet site of the French embassy I see following communiqué by the (French) Ministery of Foreign Affairs :
***
AIDE AU RETOUR DES FRANÇAIS DE THAÏLANDE - ENVOI D’UN AVION SPECIAL
Afin d’aider au retour de nos compatriotes qui ne peuvent regagner la France du fait de la fermeture des deux aéroports civils de Bangkok, le gouvernement français, en complément des efforts menés par les compagnies aériennes, notamment Air France, a décidé d’affréter un avion gros porteur.
L’avion spécial embarquera nos compatriotes qui se sont signalés à notre ambassade à Bangkok, la priorité étant donnée aux situations les plus urgentes.
Le départ de cet avion est prévu de Paris lundi 1er décembre en milieu de journée pour un retour le 3 décembre en début de matinée. Il transportera à son bord des agents du Centre de Crise du Ministère des Affaires étrangères et européennes pour renforcer notre ambassade accompagné d’une équipe médicale du Ministère de la santé et de la Brigade des Sapeurs Pompiers de Paris, et d’appui psychologique de la Croix Rouge Française.
****
Personnally I find the presence of the "équipe médicale du Ministère de la santé et de la Brigade des Sapeurs Pompiers de Paris, et d’appui psychologique de la Croix Rouge Française" exaggerated, because on our flight, there was NO crisis or panic at all!
But this effort is done by the French government, on top of the ones done by its national air line company, Air France.
By the way, at our arrival at Schiphol airport the press was present as well, I happily escaped them, since they did not notice that I was one of the passengers with only carrying my handbag. My suitcase was labelled on to Paris, so not with me at Schiphol.
At Paris - 120 passengers of our flight were French - was no press at all.
The Dutch embassy in Bangkok is publishing this message:
"2 december, 14.30 uur - Hof ontbindt politieke partijen
Het Constitutioneel Hof heeft 2 december de drie de coalitie partijen schuldig bevonden aan verkiezingsfraude en ontbonden. Dit betekent dat de premier per heden van zijn ambt is ontheven en dat een nieuwe regering moet worden gevormd. De regeringssupporters (rode t-shirts) zullen zich vanavond (2 december) mogelijk verzamelen bij het stadhuis (City Hall) van Bangkok. U wordt sterk aangeraden daar niet in de buurt te komen."
I can not assess the consequences of this decision by the court, but I have the feeling that this will worsen the situation.
****
I have been told that the situation at the military airport is a chaos. Tens of thousands of tourists would be there and huge traffic jams of buses / taxis trying to get there via provincial way to this former USA airport from the Vietnam-era.
Following message is published by the Dutch embassy at Thailand : "Ambassademedewerker bezocht op 30 november 2008 Utapao airport gelegen op ongeveer 180 km zuidoostelijk van Bangkok. Op het vliegveld heerste een chaotische toestand met een enorme mensenmassa buiten de vertrekhal. Slechts mondjesmaat werden er mensen in de vertrekhal binnengelaten. In de vertrekhal was slechts 1 bagagescanner en 4 incheckbalies. Er was nauwelijks ruimte om te bewegen. U wordt derhalve afgeraden op de bonnefooi, zonder reservering naar Utapao te reizen. De eerstvolgende Eva-air vlucht naar Amsterdam vanuit Utapao is op 2 december 02.30 uur."
The first - the following flights by Air France will be done from Phuket - special Air France flight from Air France from this military airport was not a big success: there would be only 50 passengers on board ??? Anyway, this time, the French embassy contacted the French passengers for 'my' KLM flight, something which the Dutch embassy didn't do!
Now I read following ANP press release : "De Thaise oppositie gaat ermee akkoord dat de vluchten vanaf de internationale luchthaven Suvarnabhumi van Bangkok worden hervat. Dit heeft een van de leiders van het protest dinsdag gezegd tegen het Franse persbureau AFP. " So the flights from the main airports are authorised to be resumed again, but apparently only starting from 15-12-08.
02-12-08 Ingrid is back in Europe
This morning I met Ingrid at the Amsterdam Schiphol Airport just between her flight from Amsterdam to Paris. Glad to be back in Europe and not-too-tired of the long flight she is on her way to Paris right now!
So it's not only fairy tales that have a happy ending......
Arjan
So it's not only fairy tales that have a happy ending......
Arjan
Monday, 1 December 2008
01-12-08 EXTRA: Ingrid is on her way to Amsterdam
I am out of the country!!!!
Arrival 1 hour later in Kuala Lumpur, another world after the poverty of Cambodia and the uncertainty at Thailand. We could get out of the plane during 1 hour. Departure for Amsterdam at this very moment, estimated arrival 4.08 local time ; duration of flight 12.10 hours. I hope to be able to sleep a bit; I am awaken since 42 hours. Lot of stories heard of co-travellers, not that catastrophic, but we are all happy having managed to get out of the country in due time.
Situation at Bangkok: Last tourists should have been evacuated from Bangkok's main airport and now one expects very soon the clash between the anti- and pro governists.
Arrival 1 hour later in Kuala Lumpur, another world after the poverty of Cambodia and the uncertainty at Thailand. We could get out of the plane during 1 hour. Departure for Amsterdam at this very moment, estimated arrival 4.08 local time ; duration of flight 12.10 hours. I hope to be able to sleep a bit; I am awaken since 42 hours. Lot of stories heard of co-travellers, not that catastrophic, but we are all happy having managed to get out of the country in due time.
Situation at Bangkok: Last tourists should have been evacuated from Bangkok's main airport and now one expects very soon the clash between the anti- and pro governists.
01-12-08 EXTRA: Ingrid has left Thailand
Plain from Phuket to Kuala Lumpur left at 7 pm local time; part 2 of my way out of Thailand!There is an Air France plain next to ours, but that one can not leave before tomorrow because of compulsory rest time for the crew.
30-11-08 last day at Bangkok - what a day...
This message is again by Ingrid, written from Phuket airport (yes, I arrived!!)
30-11-08
I thought having received an Air France phone no. accessible 24 /24 hrs 7 / 7 days a week, but that was another illusion ... I contacted Florence, whose uncle has some special relations with Air France and who managed to give me a no. which was at least accessible on Sunday between 6.30 a.m. and 22 p.m. i.e. +33892 702 654.
6.30 am French time is 12.30 pm local time, so I had to cancel my boat bicycle tour starting an half hout later. Happily the manager Co insisted that I had to come (he is loosing a lot of business because of the current Bangkok problems ...) and would take care of my Air France needs.
In the meantime I already left the hotel for a walk in the area, what else to do? I wanted to visit 2 wats (temples) nearby by foot. But I have to admit that I did not feel well, it was too quiet on the streets and I felt too European, too visible. And that proved to be true: all in the sudden a crazy young man grasped my breast in a dark alleyway (stupid me to go there anyway ..) and then I had enough of all of it and decided to return to the touristy area of Khao San in the Banglamphu district, the area where my hotel is situated. I sat down in the Starbucks - proof for Arjan of my distress .. - had an espresso, read in my Lonely Planet and tried in an internet café to find a flight to get out of Bangkok via whatever airline. No success and all in the sudden the message of Co to catch his tour. I had little time left to get there in due time, but feeling miserable I said myself "Go for it".
So I did and in the taxi I tried to contact the Air France no. Unfortunately after a couple of rings it went dead. I gave Florence my already cancelled flight details for the tomorrow flight and she managed 1) to put me on the flight of December 4th (which according to me is useless, the airport is still blocked and it will take at least 1 to 2 days - and more if there will be a bloodshed if the protesters will be removed - to kick off the operations) and 2) to make a note in my file that Air France would contact me as soon as another Air France flight is organised from the military airport approx. 200 kms from Bangkok.
Florence confirmed me that the flights from the military airport are organised via the embassies. Not knowing which embassy is taking me into charge; I decided seeing both of them physically tomorrow.
Florence learnt that tonight 2 Swiss and 1 Australian flight is leaving from the military airport, but I talked today to a Danish air hostess who confirmed that she is flying out tonight from the military airport with Scandinavian Airlines. But indeed the number of flights from this rather small airport is limited because of its size. She urged me to contact Air France; I will go to see them tomorrow as well. (Florence, again many thanks for all your help; I made you doing overtime during the night ....).
I joint the tour and meanwhile I received Florence's messages which I answered in between the Wats, markets, long tail boats, quite funny. Please click on this link www.covankessel.com and look for the details of Boat Bicycle Tour 1 to see what I did (available in English and in Dutch).
I returned at the hotel around 6.30 pm where I wanted to have a 2 hrs massage. Fortunately, the saloon was closed, so instead I went to a nearby Internet café to work on the blog, read my emails, check the sites of the Dutch and French embassies, and there ...... I found this incredible news :
"30 november, 16.20 - Belangrijke mededeling voor KLM-passagiers
Van KLM is vernomen dat een KLM toestel vertrekt 30/11 12.00 uur NL. tijd AMS- Kuala Lumpur - Phuket (HKT). Verwachte aankomsttijd in Phuket - in principe - is 14.00 uur lokale tijd op maandag 1 december. Beoogde vertrektijd vanaf Phuket is om 19.00 uur lokale tijd op 1 dec. Tijd vertrek onder voorbehoud i.v.m. afhandeling passagiersstroom.Het KLM kantoor geeft voor deze zaak geen apart telefoonnr. af voor aanmelding passagiers, maar stelt dat KLM passagiers verblijvende in Bangkok zich in persoon vanaf nu (16.15 uur lokale tijd op zondag 30 november) dienen te melden op KLM kantoor. Adres: 20th. Floor Vorawat Building 849 Silom Rd. Bangkok. U wordt verzocht uw baggage niet mee te nemen naar het KLM-kantoor. Na melding zal de KLM u verder informeren.Kantoor zal vandaag tot in de avonduren open zijn. KLM regelt tevens busjes. KLM verzoekt KLM passagiers niet op eigen houtje naar Phuket te reizen. GEEFT U DEZE INFORMATIE OOK DOOR AAN MEDEPASSAGIERS VAN KLM."
Same information confirmed at the same time by Patricia, Dutch colleague. I contacted Arjan to find out if 1) this applied as well to Air France flights and 2) if the KLM office was still open (in the meantime it was already 7.30 pm). Yes, both was OK, so I had to run. Running out of the Internet café I could not find the address of the KLM office, back again to the internet café, and again in the street to find a taxi. 2 taxis turned me down for a me unknown reason (one feels itself so disabled if you do not speak the local language ...), so I ran to my nearby hotel to get the address noted down in Thai language and get me a taxi and explain the driver the address. More success, the driver was apparently not happy for a for me unknown reason, but got me rather quick to the KLM office. There, panic again, huge crowd standing outside!! Am I too late?? I ran into the office, get up to the 20th floor and there I understood that other airlines were doing similar solutions, so the people outside were simply waiting for their buses to be transported to the Phuket airport.
Quickly I got the confirmation that I could be boarded, what a relief!! But according to the internet instruction I did not take my luggage and we had to leave in a couple of hours. I left my passport with KLM so that they could arrange my ticket and took another taxi to drive back to the hotel, pack my luggage, take a shower and pay my hotel bill. Back again to the KLM office to pick up my passport and boarding card (a simple KLM-blue coloured card with just a no. on it and a print-out of my connected flight from Amsterdam to Paris).
Everything arranged at 11 pm we had to wait another 2 hours till 1 am 01-12-08 before the bus started to drive for its approx. 12 hours drive.
You can image my relief, I was so happy to get out, even if it is via a long, long way, but at least I can escape Bangkok!!
OK, I have to leave you right now, apparently I have to board for the Phuket - Kuala Lumpur - Amsterdam - Paris flight.
30-11-08
I thought having received an Air France phone no. accessible 24 /24 hrs 7 / 7 days a week, but that was another illusion ... I contacted Florence, whose uncle has some special relations with Air France and who managed to give me a no. which was at least accessible on Sunday between 6.30 a.m. and 22 p.m. i.e. +33892 702 654.
6.30 am French time is 12.30 pm local time, so I had to cancel my boat bicycle tour starting an half hout later. Happily the manager Co insisted that I had to come (he is loosing a lot of business because of the current Bangkok problems ...) and would take care of my Air France needs.
In the meantime I already left the hotel for a walk in the area, what else to do? I wanted to visit 2 wats (temples) nearby by foot. But I have to admit that I did not feel well, it was too quiet on the streets and I felt too European, too visible. And that proved to be true: all in the sudden a crazy young man grasped my breast in a dark alleyway (stupid me to go there anyway ..) and then I had enough of all of it and decided to return to the touristy area of Khao San in the Banglamphu district, the area where my hotel is situated. I sat down in the Starbucks - proof for Arjan of my distress .. - had an espresso, read in my Lonely Planet and tried in an internet café to find a flight to get out of Bangkok via whatever airline. No success and all in the sudden the message of Co to catch his tour. I had little time left to get there in due time, but feeling miserable I said myself "Go for it".
So I did and in the taxi I tried to contact the Air France no. Unfortunately after a couple of rings it went dead. I gave Florence my already cancelled flight details for the tomorrow flight and she managed 1) to put me on the flight of December 4th (which according to me is useless, the airport is still blocked and it will take at least 1 to 2 days - and more if there will be a bloodshed if the protesters will be removed - to kick off the operations) and 2) to make a note in my file that Air France would contact me as soon as another Air France flight is organised from the military airport approx. 200 kms from Bangkok.
Florence confirmed me that the flights from the military airport are organised via the embassies. Not knowing which embassy is taking me into charge; I decided seeing both of them physically tomorrow.
Florence learnt that tonight 2 Swiss and 1 Australian flight is leaving from the military airport, but I talked today to a Danish air hostess who confirmed that she is flying out tonight from the military airport with Scandinavian Airlines. But indeed the number of flights from this rather small airport is limited because of its size. She urged me to contact Air France; I will go to see them tomorrow as well. (Florence, again many thanks for all your help; I made you doing overtime during the night ....).
I joint the tour and meanwhile I received Florence's messages which I answered in between the Wats, markets, long tail boats, quite funny. Please click on this link www.covankessel.com and look for the details of Boat Bicycle Tour 1 to see what I did (available in English and in Dutch).
I returned at the hotel around 6.30 pm where I wanted to have a 2 hrs massage. Fortunately, the saloon was closed, so instead I went to a nearby Internet café to work on the blog, read my emails, check the sites of the Dutch and French embassies, and there ...... I found this incredible news :
"30 november, 16.20 - Belangrijke mededeling voor KLM-passagiers
Van KLM is vernomen dat een KLM toestel vertrekt 30/11 12.00 uur NL. tijd AMS- Kuala Lumpur - Phuket (HKT). Verwachte aankomsttijd in Phuket - in principe - is 14.00 uur lokale tijd op maandag 1 december. Beoogde vertrektijd vanaf Phuket is om 19.00 uur lokale tijd op 1 dec. Tijd vertrek onder voorbehoud i.v.m. afhandeling passagiersstroom.Het KLM kantoor geeft voor deze zaak geen apart telefoonnr. af voor aanmelding passagiers, maar stelt dat KLM passagiers verblijvende in Bangkok zich in persoon vanaf nu (16.15 uur lokale tijd op zondag 30 november) dienen te melden op KLM kantoor. Adres: 20th. Floor Vorawat Building 849 Silom Rd. Bangkok. U wordt verzocht uw baggage niet mee te nemen naar het KLM-kantoor. Na melding zal de KLM u verder informeren.Kantoor zal vandaag tot in de avonduren open zijn. KLM regelt tevens busjes. KLM verzoekt KLM passagiers niet op eigen houtje naar Phuket te reizen. GEEFT U DEZE INFORMATIE OOK DOOR AAN MEDEPASSAGIERS VAN KLM."
Same information confirmed at the same time by Patricia, Dutch colleague. I contacted Arjan to find out if 1) this applied as well to Air France flights and 2) if the KLM office was still open (in the meantime it was already 7.30 pm). Yes, both was OK, so I had to run. Running out of the Internet café I could not find the address of the KLM office, back again to the internet café, and again in the street to find a taxi. 2 taxis turned me down for a me unknown reason (one feels itself so disabled if you do not speak the local language ...), so I ran to my nearby hotel to get the address noted down in Thai language and get me a taxi and explain the driver the address. More success, the driver was apparently not happy for a for me unknown reason, but got me rather quick to the KLM office. There, panic again, huge crowd standing outside!! Am I too late?? I ran into the office, get up to the 20th floor and there I understood that other airlines were doing similar solutions, so the people outside were simply waiting for their buses to be transported to the Phuket airport.
Quickly I got the confirmation that I could be boarded, what a relief!! But according to the internet instruction I did not take my luggage and we had to leave in a couple of hours. I left my passport with KLM so that they could arrange my ticket and took another taxi to drive back to the hotel, pack my luggage, take a shower and pay my hotel bill. Back again to the KLM office to pick up my passport and boarding card (a simple KLM-blue coloured card with just a no. on it and a print-out of my connected flight from Amsterdam to Paris).
Everything arranged at 11 pm we had to wait another 2 hours till 1 am 01-12-08 before the bus started to drive for its approx. 12 hours drive.
You can image my relief, I was so happy to get out, even if it is via a long, long way, but at least I can escape Bangkok!!
OK, I have to leave you right now, apparently I have to board for the Phuket - Kuala Lumpur - Amsterdam - Paris flight.
01-12-08 Ingrid's update
We left at 1 a.m. 01-12-08 by bus before KLM office, 10 buses in total. Approx 12 hrs drive to Phuket, south of Thailand.
Departure 7 pm 01-12-08 KLM flight no KL 8104 (maybe not yet known on internet) - for 1.15 hr to Kuala Lumpur to get some fuel.
Then flight to A'dam expected arrival time 4 am 02-12-08.
Departure 8 am 02-12-08 from A'dam to Paris, arrival 9.30 am, so a hell of a trip.
Delay already previewed and not sure if Arjan & I can meet at Schiphol airport, check in procedure of luggage unknown right now. The Air France flight yesterday evening via the military airport was an horror according to the local KLM manager.
If the massage of my hotel was not closed tonight, I would not have been in due time in the internet café to research the internet site of the embassy, because Air France did not warn me by sms, and I would not have been on this flight.
Departure 7 pm 01-12-08 KLM flight no KL 8104 (maybe not yet known on internet) - for 1.15 hr to Kuala Lumpur to get some fuel.
Then flight to A'dam expected arrival time 4 am 02-12-08.
Departure 8 am 02-12-08 from A'dam to Paris, arrival 9.30 am, so a hell of a trip.
Delay already previewed and not sure if Arjan & I can meet at Schiphol airport, check in procedure of luggage unknown right now. The Air France flight yesterday evening via the military airport was an horror according to the local KLM manager.
If the massage of my hotel was not closed tonight, I would not have been in due time in the internet café to research the internet site of the embassy, because Air France did not warn me by sms, and I would not have been on this flight.
Sunday, 30 November 2008
30-11-08 Extra, Extra - Ingrid is leaving Bangkok
Ingrid has checked in for the bus to Phuket, a drive that will probably take about 12 hours. Tomorrow 01-12-08 7 pm (local time) she will depart from Phuket to Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) and from there to Amsterdam and Paris. This trip will replace Ingrid's initial ticket from Bangkok to Paris (no additional charges).
30-11-08 Extra Extra - news bulletin Ingrid
Ingrid just confirmed that she has been booked on an extra KLM flight from Phuket to Paris leaving 01-12-08, more details about the schedule will follow.
30-11-08 Arjan tired, but home at last
Saying goodbye to Ingrid and leaving her at Bangkok was indeed very sad, but I did not have much choice.
The bus ride to Chiang Mai was - though luxury - very boring. Only highways and every few hours a short stop for drinks, toilet and some longer stops for lunch and dinner. Arrival at Chiang Mai Airport at 21:30 local time, where I had to wait for checking in until 23:00. My flight was bound for take off at 02:30. The situation at the airport was not what I expected at all. It was very quiet and relaxed, in the contrary to the rumours of thousands of passengers waiting for flights to get out of Thailand. Only one special counter for passengers on standby, which had a queue of about 50 mtrs.
Checking and then the waiting began. Boarding started at 03:00 and actual take off at 04:30 (still local time). The 2 hours delay were caused by problems of getting the fuel into the plane. Chiang Mai Airport is definitely not used to handle large planes. I was so tired that I already almost slept before the pilot had pulled in the landing gear of the plane.
The bus ride to Chiang Mai was - though luxury - very boring. Only highways and every few hours a short stop for drinks, toilet and some longer stops for lunch and dinner. Arrival at Chiang Mai Airport at 21:30 local time, where I had to wait for checking in until 23:00. My flight was bound for take off at 02:30. The situation at the airport was not what I expected at all. It was very quiet and relaxed, in the contrary to the rumours of thousands of passengers waiting for flights to get out of Thailand. Only one special counter for passengers on standby, which had a queue of about 50 mtrs.
Checking and then the waiting began. Boarding started at 03:00 and actual take off at 04:30 (still local time). The 2 hours delay were caused by problems of getting the fuel into the plane. Chiang Mai Airport is definitely not used to handle large planes. I was so tired that I already almost slept before the pilot had pulled in the landing gear of the plane.
Saturday, 29 November 2008
Controversial Rice Aid Hailed a Success
Trijnie found following article on the BBC site regarding the aid offered recently in Cambodia:
By Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer - Original report from Phnom Penh - 14 November 2008
The Asian Development Bank and government announced success on Friday for emergency food assistance that was widely criticized by villagers as unfair.
The ADB and government undertook a $40-million emergency food distribution between Oct. 29 and Nov. 5, handing out nearly 120,000 tons to 68,000 poor families in 200 communes around the Tonle Sap lake and in Phnom Penh.
"The assistance is making a very real difference in the lives of Cambodia's most vulnerable, in particular its children," Arjun Goswami, ADB country director, said in a statement.
The aid was in response to rising food and fuel prices that have squeezed Cambodia's poorest, but a number of villagers complained that the distribution was plagued by corruption and favouritism by local leaders.
"Unfortunately, the project's funding simply could not cover all of those families in need of food assistance," Goswami said. "It is understandable that some of those who could not be reached with assistance feel let down."
A statement from the Minister of Economy and Finance called the emergency distribution "highly positive, except in one commune in Kampong Chhnang province, where the distribution was suspended because of villagers' protests."
The ADB and government said they would conduct further investigations into distribution irregularities starting Nov. 17.
"The protests that were mentioned in the media, it's not sure they are true, but we have a mechanism to check," said Vong Sandab, deputy secretary-general of the Ministry of Finance, who was in charge of the distribution.
The ADB has so far received 51 phone complaints of distribution irregularities, said Long Piseth, program officer at the ADB.
By Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer - Original report from Phnom Penh - 14 November 2008
The Asian Development Bank and government announced success on Friday for emergency food assistance that was widely criticized by villagers as unfair.
The ADB and government undertook a $40-million emergency food distribution between Oct. 29 and Nov. 5, handing out nearly 120,000 tons to 68,000 poor families in 200 communes around the Tonle Sap lake and in Phnom Penh.
"The assistance is making a very real difference in the lives of Cambodia's most vulnerable, in particular its children," Arjun Goswami, ADB country director, said in a statement.
The aid was in response to rising food and fuel prices that have squeezed Cambodia's poorest, but a number of villagers complained that the distribution was plagued by corruption and favouritism by local leaders.
"Unfortunately, the project's funding simply could not cover all of those families in need of food assistance," Goswami said. "It is understandable that some of those who could not be reached with assistance feel let down."
A statement from the Minister of Economy and Finance called the emergency distribution "highly positive, except in one commune in Kampong Chhnang province, where the distribution was suspended because of villagers' protests."
The ADB and government said they would conduct further investigations into distribution irregularities starting Nov. 17.
"The protests that were mentioned in the media, it's not sure they are true, but we have a mechanism to check," said Vong Sandab, deputy secretary-general of the Ministry of Finance, who was in charge of the distribution.
The ADB has so far received 51 phone complaints of distribution irregularities, said Long Piseth, program officer at the ADB.
29-11-08 Bangkok - day 1
Departure from Arjan and the rest this morning at 8.40 for Chiang Mai. We were both sad that our holidays had to end - at least for one of us ... - this way; it is very weird that I have to stay most probably for another week on my own in Bangkok.
Do no think that I enjoy this 1 week of extra holidays, because as long as the Bangkok airport is closed, I am not sure when to leave and in a certain stage of this adventure I have to take another decision. Anyway, I will try to make the best out of it, since this situation is completely beyond my control.
I had to do some shopping so that was the first thing I did. Fortunately the (car)taxis are very cheap in Bangkok and air-conditioned, so I will make my life easy and exclusively get around by taxi. Tuk-tuks still exist in Thailand, but are at the same price as car-taxis and they always try to drag you around to their uncle, nephew or friend in order to try to sell you some souvenirs.
Then for hours and hours I sat down in a nearby internetcafe to work on this blog, to read my emails and to get some news from Air France.
I read this morning on their Thai site following message: "Due to the closure of the International Bangkok Airport, Air France had to cancel its flights on November 28th and 29th, 2008. An additional flight has been launched on Saturday November 29th from Utapao to Paris Charles de Gaulle airport. Air France watches the situation and will keep its customers informed on the evolution of its flight schedule for the next days."
Was that the message the woman of Air France wanted to tell me last night?
I contacted Annette and Nicolas to get a phone no. of Air France in Paris accessible from a foreign country, since in both The Netherlands and in France the Air France office is closed during the weekend, even with the exceptional events in Bumbai and Bangkok, unbelievable!! Anyway, Nicolas knew about a toll free number accessible from wherever in the world 24 hours a day, 7 days a week related to the exceptional events in Mumbai and Bangkok and he managed to find that number. Why is Air France not publishing that number on their internet site ??
Anyway, I got Air France on the line and they rebooked my flight once again to .... December 1st, so only a delay of 2 days if .... if the airport is released. If not, it may be possible that they will organise another flight tomorrow evening from the military airport; Air France keeps me informed by phone (what an invention: mobile phone!!). You can be sure, that this time I will pick up the phone whatever the time is !!
(Thanks Annette and Nicolas for your help!!)
Funny to be in an internet cafés these days in Bangkok, since lots of tourists are coming in to discuss the situation and to get some news via Internet. No bother to be interrupted, since Internet is so cheap here. And even business people or right now an American teacher is stepping in. Do they not have an internet connection themselves at home? Well, they could have it, but it is too slow, impossible to get at home a fast connection against a good rate, and since it is so cheap in an internet café, most of the people go to an internet café.
In order to limit my additional charges, I changed for another cheaper hotel - also more convenient situated - booked by the Dutch local guide, who did an excellent job during our stay and especially the stressful last days. He gave me his handy no., so I can contact him any time if necessary. He even invited me to stay at this place with his family at Chiang Mai in order to find a flight from there, but as said yesterday, I prefer to stay in Bangkok.
The hotel is OK and I even ' dare' to walk around; since I arrived after sunset (5.30 p.m.), it is not easy to orientate myself. I bought an updated Lonely Planet from Bangkok; I had only a 1997 version of entire Thailand with me.
Part of the charges of the hotel and food will be paid by the Tourism Authority Thailand, but as long as my stay is only prolonged by 2 days, I will not bother since the charges for hotel and food are pretty low.
Do no think that I enjoy this 1 week of extra holidays, because as long as the Bangkok airport is closed, I am not sure when to leave and in a certain stage of this adventure I have to take another decision. Anyway, I will try to make the best out of it, since this situation is completely beyond my control.
I had to do some shopping so that was the first thing I did. Fortunately the (car)taxis are very cheap in Bangkok and air-conditioned, so I will make my life easy and exclusively get around by taxi. Tuk-tuks still exist in Thailand, but are at the same price as car-taxis and they always try to drag you around to their uncle, nephew or friend in order to try to sell you some souvenirs.
Then for hours and hours I sat down in a nearby internetcafe to work on this blog, to read my emails and to get some news from Air France.
I read this morning on their Thai site following message: "Due to the closure of the International Bangkok Airport, Air France had to cancel its flights on November 28th and 29th, 2008. An additional flight has been launched on Saturday November 29th from Utapao to Paris Charles de Gaulle airport. Air France watches the situation and will keep its customers informed on the evolution of its flight schedule for the next days."
Was that the message the woman of Air France wanted to tell me last night?
I contacted Annette and Nicolas to get a phone no. of Air France in Paris accessible from a foreign country, since in both The Netherlands and in France the Air France office is closed during the weekend, even with the exceptional events in Bumbai and Bangkok, unbelievable!! Anyway, Nicolas knew about a toll free number accessible from wherever in the world 24 hours a day, 7 days a week related to the exceptional events in Mumbai and Bangkok and he managed to find that number. Why is Air France not publishing that number on their internet site ??
Anyway, I got Air France on the line and they rebooked my flight once again to .... December 1st, so only a delay of 2 days if .... if the airport is released. If not, it may be possible that they will organise another flight tomorrow evening from the military airport; Air France keeps me informed by phone (what an invention: mobile phone!!). You can be sure, that this time I will pick up the phone whatever the time is !!
(Thanks Annette and Nicolas for your help!!)
Funny to be in an internet cafés these days in Bangkok, since lots of tourists are coming in to discuss the situation and to get some news via Internet. No bother to be interrupted, since Internet is so cheap here. And even business people or right now an American teacher is stepping in. Do they not have an internet connection themselves at home? Well, they could have it, but it is too slow, impossible to get at home a fast connection against a good rate, and since it is so cheap in an internet café, most of the people go to an internet café.
In order to limit my additional charges, I changed for another cheaper hotel - also more convenient situated - booked by the Dutch local guide, who did an excellent job during our stay and especially the stressful last days. He gave me his handy no., so I can contact him any time if necessary. He even invited me to stay at this place with his family at Chiang Mai in order to find a flight from there, but as said yesterday, I prefer to stay in Bangkok.
The hotel is OK and I even ' dare' to walk around; since I arrived after sunset (5.30 p.m.), it is not easy to orientate myself. I bought an updated Lonely Planet from Bangkok; I had only a 1997 version of entire Thailand with me.
Part of the charges of the hotel and food will be paid by the Tourism Authority Thailand, but as long as my stay is only prolonged by 2 days, I will not bother since the charges for hotel and food are pretty low.
I booked an early bike tour for tomorrow afternoon with a Dutch guy working in Bangkok http://www.covankessel.com/ - the same one as Arjan did at the day of his arrival in Thailand 3 weeks ago - and if I am still around on Monday, I will make a walk with this organisation as well. Also this organisation is suffering of the airport blockade, so may have to cancel the tours. All the Thai I am talking to today tell me that this situation is very bad for the Thai economy.
By the way, on recommendation of the Dutch embassy in Thailand, I registered myself at their internet site (Lija, I gave them your GSM no.), so they know how to reach me or my sister. More news about the actual situation at http://www.netherlandsembassy.in.th/nieuws_en (in English and in Dutch), but do not believe anything what they say: 'tourist would possibly blocked for weeks' is said ...
Again, I do not feel worried, nothing to be noticed in Bangkok itself and Air France is taking us into charge: I am pretty sure that if things are getting more serious, the French government (or the Dutch embassy; my situation is a little complicated) will accelerate its efforts to get us back.
On this site from the Dutch embassy http://www.mfa.nl/ban you can follow the actual developments.
The last official news I have is that the airport has NOT been released tonight at 6 p.m. as said earlier by the authorities. The rest I hear are only rumours (that the government will soon disperse the protesters) and not verified.
I missed this party tonight "De gestrande Nederlanders in Bangkok worden zaterdagavond door de Nederlandse Vereniging Thailand getrakteerd op een borrel met hutspot, kroketten en bitterballen." what a pity !!!
Arjan confirmed me that he arrived at Chiang Mai airport at about 9.30 p.m. local time (i.e. 3.30 p.m. Dutch time), where the situation is relaxed and that he can check in around 11 p.m. local time (5 p.m. Dutch time), so it seems that he is going to fly back to The Netherlands and will arrive over there tomorrow Sunday November 30th somewhere around noon.
OK, time for me to get back to the hotel and get some sleep. I will keep informed my sister if things unexpectedly develop in such a way (for instance that I will fly back tomorrow), that I can not update this weblog. If not, I will come back to you tomorrow. If you do not want to wait for the daily email warning you, that a new message has been published, you can have a look yourself at www.heyikhier.blogspot.com around 6 p.m. Dutch/French time, before that time I should have published my daily report.
Good weekend to all of you.
28-11-08 travel day from Siem Reap to Bangkok - situation at Bangkok airport
Early wake up to leave at 7 a.m. for a long dusty drive from Siem Reap to Bangkok, dusty at least till the Cambodian-Thai border. However, as said before, the road is improving, so everything went quite well as well as the customs formalities. Incredible how bad the roads are in the border place Poi Pet itself; just over the border, having arrived in Thailand, everything was so clean, the roads so smooth, what a difference!
Arrival around 4 p.m. at Bangkok and passing by the airport nobody would imagine that there are serious problems going on ...
In the meantime I tried to get in contact with Air France and Go Voyages (the agency with which I booked my ticket), but no positive result. I phoned with the Dutch and the French embassy in Bangkok to find out what to do. They all recommended to stay in Bangkok and try to get in contact with Air France.
The French embassy informed me that the opening for civil flights of the military airport U Tapao at approx. 190 km from Bangkok is examined in order to reroute all the flights initially scheduled via Bangkok. That would be good news, but so far nothing is definitive.
Via Air France in Bangkok, I got an answer machine informing that my initial flight would arrive 26 hours later as scheduled. Not understanding such, I finally contacted KLM at Amsterdam, who managed to identify my ticket - reassuring ! - and ... confirmed that this mysterious flight has been cancelled.
KLM proposed me to put on a flight for next week, i.e. Saturday 06-12-08; exactly 1 week later than my initial return date.
Well, I took this option, because I can not decide upon what to do else: going to a nearby airport in Thailand (or even Kuala Lumpur) and buy there myself an entire new ticket (for my own expenses; no idea if this will be covered by my insurance since this is a political event; I did not yet contact my insurance to find out). You can imagine that a lot of people are blocked right now and that the information diffused by air lines and embassies are conservatory and sometimes contradictory. Information from other passengers say this, tour operator say that: what to do? The information about the situation at the airport is minor, after all this is Thailand where 30 coups d'état have been done since the last 50 years; so nothing comprehensive is told in the press!
The army is at the same side as the demonstrators, but rumours say that maybe the police may remove the demonstrators.
I certainly do not want to hang around at Bangkok airport - or any other one - for days and days to be put on a waiting list etc.
Unfortunately I did not succeed to talk to somebody from Air France at Bangkok, the office closed at 5 p.m. and they are not open in the weekend and there is nobody from Air France at the Bangkok airport right now. I will go to see them on Monday morning to see if I can make another arrangement, which allows me to return to France a couple of days earlier.
Air France from Paris phoned me last night around 3 a.m., being asleep I did not answer this call. The woman left a message saying that she had to propose me a solution - without telling which one, how stupid of her - but she saw in my file that I organised already another flight. She did not leave her phone no. and I still do not have a phone no. of Air France in Paris, which I can access from a foreign country, very inconvenient!!
Good unbelievable news however for Arjan and the rest of the group: their flight will be honoured !!!!!! it will leave however from Chiang Mai, a place in northern Thailand, where they will go tomorrow Saturday 29-11 by bus with another group of tourists from the Netherlands (Shoestring). Their airline, Chinese Airlines (the Taiwan part) has connections with Chiang Mai, so their flight has been simply rerouted and will leave at the initial time of 2.30 a.m. 30-11 which should bring them back to the Netherlands at the initial time.
It sounds too good to be true: tens of thousands of travellers are blocked and they will leave like nothing happened??? Let's cross fingers that indeed nothing will intervene this wonderful news.
In the meantime I cross fingers as well, that the Bangkok airport will be released as said on the television on Saturday 29-11 6 p.m. local time and that things will get back to normal.
Arrival around 4 p.m. at Bangkok and passing by the airport nobody would imagine that there are serious problems going on ...
In the meantime I tried to get in contact with Air France and Go Voyages (the agency with which I booked my ticket), but no positive result. I phoned with the Dutch and the French embassy in Bangkok to find out what to do. They all recommended to stay in Bangkok and try to get in contact with Air France.
The French embassy informed me that the opening for civil flights of the military airport U Tapao at approx. 190 km from Bangkok is examined in order to reroute all the flights initially scheduled via Bangkok. That would be good news, but so far nothing is definitive.
Via Air France in Bangkok, I got an answer machine informing that my initial flight would arrive 26 hours later as scheduled. Not understanding such, I finally contacted KLM at Amsterdam, who managed to identify my ticket - reassuring ! - and ... confirmed that this mysterious flight has been cancelled.
KLM proposed me to put on a flight for next week, i.e. Saturday 06-12-08; exactly 1 week later than my initial return date.
Well, I took this option, because I can not decide upon what to do else: going to a nearby airport in Thailand (or even Kuala Lumpur) and buy there myself an entire new ticket (for my own expenses; no idea if this will be covered by my insurance since this is a political event; I did not yet contact my insurance to find out). You can imagine that a lot of people are blocked right now and that the information diffused by air lines and embassies are conservatory and sometimes contradictory. Information from other passengers say this, tour operator say that: what to do? The information about the situation at the airport is minor, after all this is Thailand where 30 coups d'état have been done since the last 50 years; so nothing comprehensive is told in the press!
The army is at the same side as the demonstrators, but rumours say that maybe the police may remove the demonstrators.
I certainly do not want to hang around at Bangkok airport - or any other one - for days and days to be put on a waiting list etc.
Unfortunately I did not succeed to talk to somebody from Air France at Bangkok, the office closed at 5 p.m. and they are not open in the weekend and there is nobody from Air France at the Bangkok airport right now. I will go to see them on Monday morning to see if I can make another arrangement, which allows me to return to France a couple of days earlier.
Air France from Paris phoned me last night around 3 a.m., being asleep I did not answer this call. The woman left a message saying that she had to propose me a solution - without telling which one, how stupid of her - but she saw in my file that I organised already another flight. She did not leave her phone no. and I still do not have a phone no. of Air France in Paris, which I can access from a foreign country, very inconvenient!!
Good unbelievable news however for Arjan and the rest of the group: their flight will be honoured !!!!!! it will leave however from Chiang Mai, a place in northern Thailand, where they will go tomorrow Saturday 29-11 by bus with another group of tourists from the Netherlands (Shoestring). Their airline, Chinese Airlines (the Taiwan part) has connections with Chiang Mai, so their flight has been simply rerouted and will leave at the initial time of 2.30 a.m. 30-11 which should bring them back to the Netherlands at the initial time.
It sounds too good to be true: tens of thousands of travellers are blocked and they will leave like nothing happened??? Let's cross fingers that indeed nothing will intervene this wonderful news.
In the meantime I cross fingers as well, that the Bangkok airport will be released as said on the television on Saturday 29-11 6 p.m. local time and that things will get back to normal.
Thursday, 27 November 2008
27-11-08 Siem Reap
An easy wake-up; our meeting for the helicopter flight was only at 9.30 a.m. and I hope that this flight is not the only flight we are going to make this week, because such would mean that our Saturday flight would be cancelled :-( because of the Bangkok airport problem.
Very easy going flight, even though it was windy and a bit shaky. This time the Angkor site from the sky, wonderful. It took us also across Siem Reap to the floating villages on the shore of the Tonlé Sap Lake. During the wet season (June-October) the lake swells from 2500 sq km to over 12,000 sq km. The Tonlé Sap is one of the most abundant resources for freshwater fish and a major source of food for the local area.
Back in town around 10.45 a.m. we decided to take it easy, but such turns out sometimes to be hard in Cambodia... Personally I was not interested, but the 3 others wanted to see a photo-exhibition, unfortunately it took us a long time to find the correct address.
On the way we both find a nice - the only so far - souvenir: a hand painted simple drawing representing a typical Cambodian farmer with his oxen made by a disabled artist, who directly will receive the fund of this sale, which is a good thing. Major problem is how to get this in good shape to our homes...
I (Ingrid) got fed up with walking around, so Arjan & I separated and I installed myself in a cool - important, if the sun is burning - internet café, where I am working on the blog and reading some - the connection is very slow as usual - of my emails before joining Arjan again.
In the evening we were discussing with the worrying situation at the Bangkok airport. We all decided to leave the next day anyway for Bangkok with our own bus, as initially planned, as recommended as well by all the Dutch travel agencies.
Fortunately we did not decide earlier to take a flight from Siep Reap to Bangkok, to gain some time, because this flight was cancelled anyway.
That does not solve my problem, since I have a own ticket with Air France and have to look after it all myself :-(( I could have decided to return to Phnom Penh and try to organise from there a return flight, but I didn't.
In the evening the 4 of us and our Dutch guide had a good diner in the touristy centre (reminded me of Paris' Quartier Latin, but the food was much better) for our last Cambodian dinner.
Very easy going flight, even though it was windy and a bit shaky. This time the Angkor site from the sky, wonderful. It took us also across Siem Reap to the floating villages on the shore of the Tonlé Sap Lake. During the wet season (June-October) the lake swells from 2500 sq km to over 12,000 sq km. The Tonlé Sap is one of the most abundant resources for freshwater fish and a major source of food for the local area.
Back in town around 10.45 a.m. we decided to take it easy, but such turns out sometimes to be hard in Cambodia... Personally I was not interested, but the 3 others wanted to see a photo-exhibition, unfortunately it took us a long time to find the correct address.
On the way we both find a nice - the only so far - souvenir: a hand painted simple drawing representing a typical Cambodian farmer with his oxen made by a disabled artist, who directly will receive the fund of this sale, which is a good thing. Major problem is how to get this in good shape to our homes...
I (Ingrid) got fed up with walking around, so Arjan & I separated and I installed myself in a cool - important, if the sun is burning - internet café, where I am working on the blog and reading some - the connection is very slow as usual - of my emails before joining Arjan again.
In the evening we were discussing with the worrying situation at the Bangkok airport. We all decided to leave the next day anyway for Bangkok with our own bus, as initially planned, as recommended as well by all the Dutch travel agencies.
Fortunately we did not decide earlier to take a flight from Siep Reap to Bangkok, to gain some time, because this flight was cancelled anyway.
That does not solve my problem, since I have a own ticket with Air France and have to look after it all myself :-(( I could have decided to return to Phnom Penh and try to organise from there a return flight, but I didn't.
In the evening the 4 of us and our Dutch guide had a good diner in the touristy centre (reminded me of Paris' Quartier Latin, but the food was much better) for our last Cambodian dinner.
Wednesday, 26 November 2008
26-11-08 News headlines - Bangkok Airport closed
A local English spoken news report on TV this afternoon reported that due to demonstrations the International Airport in Bangkok has been closed. As we both are going to leave from that airport in a few days from now, we actually have no idea if our flights will leave in time. We will keep you informed of any news in progress.
A&I
A&I
26-11-08 Angkor Wat
Wake up at 4.15 a.m., so a short night after a very good Indian curry dinner the evening before. To give you a price indication: we both paid tonight - yes, we returned to the same restaurant - together USD 20. As said before rather expensive for such a poor country in such a simple restaurant; but at least they have free internet access :-).
Our local guide and tuk-tuk drivers brought us in the dark via a short ride from our hotel to our first stop. We decided to do it the other way around as Lonely Planet recommended to avoid the huge crowds and we did well!! How wonderful to discover almost on our own the famous huge faces of Bayon of Angkor Thom, showing up slowly but surely as the sunrise gained importance. Bayon covers a collection of 54 gothic towers decorated with 216 coldly smiling, enormous faces of the Khmer king Avalokiteshvara that bear more than a passing resemblance to the great king himself.
Arjan & Hans went mad by taking lots of pictures, I think both had today their record day.
Toshiharu-san, a Japanese team is (or was, not clear) restoring several outer areas of this temple and I have seen the Japanese support for some other temples around Angkor Wat, too.
The temples of Angkor Wat are a source of inspiration and national pride to all Khmers as they struggle to rebuild their lives after years of terror and trauma.
The Cambodian 'god-kings' each strove to better their ancestors in size, scale and symmetry, culminating in the world's largest religious building, Angkor Wat. The hundreds of temples surviving today are but the sacred skeleton of the vast political, religious and social centre of Cambodia's ancient Khmer empire; a city that, at its zenith, boasted a population of 1 million when London was a scrawny town of 50,000. The houses, public buildings and palaces of Angkor were constructed of wood - now long decayed - because the right to dwell in structures of brick or stone was reserved for the gods.
The Angkorian period spans more than 600 years from AD 802 to 1432. This incredible period of history saw the construction of the temples of Angkor and the Khmer empire consolidate its position as one of the great powers in Southeast Asia. This era encompasses periods of decline and revival, and wars with rival powers in Vietnam, Thailand and Myanmar (Birma).
The French 'discovery' of Angkor in the 1860s made an international splash and created a great deal of outside interest in Cambodia. But 'discovery', with all the romance it implied, was something of a misnomer. When French explorer Henri Mouhot first stumbled across Angkor Wat it inclined a wealthy, working monastery with monks and slaves.
Moreover Portuguese travellers encountered Angkor already in the 16th century.
With the exception of Angkor Wat, which was restored for use as a Buddhist shrine in the 16th century by the Khmer royalty, the temples of Angkor were left to the jungle for many centuries. The majority of temples are made of sandstone, which tends to dissolve when in prolonged contact with dampness. Bat droppings took their toll, as did sporadic pilfering of sculptures and cut stones. At some monuments, such as Ta Prohm - which we visited as well - the jungle has stealthily waged an all-out invasion, and plant-life could only be removed at great risk to the structures it now supported in its web of roots.
Angkor is declared in 1992 as World Heritage site and international and local efforts continue to preserve and reconstruct the monuments. In a sign of real progress, Angkor was removed from Unesco's endangered list in 2003.
Many of Angkor's secrets remain to be discovered, as most of the work at the temples has concentrated on restoration efforts above ground rather than archaeological surveys below.
Via some other more or less interesting temples we made our way in the afternoon - because of the high temperature, it was hard working .... - to the supposed to be highlight Angkor Wat. But such turned out to be a deception: huge crowds of - mainly Asian - tourists (first time since we are in Cambodia); one of the spines covered with scaffoldings, and for an unknown reason it was impossible to climb all the way to the top. The latter would have something to do with a fallen rock, but it may have something to do with fallen tourists as well: only already in our hotel we heard of 2 - and saw 1 - fallen tourists from the indeed very steep steps of the temples.
We spook to 2 other members of our group and they were as disappointed as we were. Maybe it has to do with the fact, that our day was long and it was steaming hot again, which is quite exhausting. Maybe we were tired of the numberless vendors around the complex trying to sell us for instance fake books. Anyway, the Angkor Wat temple was not our highlight, but we certainly enjoyed the first temple we visited, Angkor Thom / Bayon.
We decided to leave Angkor Wat, as the sunset would be a deception as well. It went very cloudy and even some rain fell down. The return ride to the hotel was rather pretty because of the fresh wind going through the tuk-tuk.
After another Indian curry in the nearby restaurant we had a 2 hours massage by the blind, an interesting experience. We entered a damped and not-so-good-smelling room with about 10 beds after having received by the blind principal able to speak English and who instructed 3 blind masseurs who did a good job. First of all they were sizing our length and before attacking an arm, a leg or our head, they sized it again. They knew very well what they did and found exactly the stiff muscles needing some pressure to loosen. It sometimes hurted, but such only shows - Lija, correct me if I am wrong (and: how was Egypt??) - that some work on it was necessary ; the day after we were still feeling comfortable.
No news about the Bangkok airport, we only heard that a flight programmed for tomorrow from Amsterdam to Bangkok has already been cancelled.
Tuesday, 25 November 2008
25-11-08 journey from Battambang to Siem Reap
We got up early, such in order to practice for our tomorrow mornings early sunrise wake up call for the Angkor Wat temples!
Having no time to visit yesterday Battambang itself, Arjan & I decided to get up very early to explore the city's centre, supposed to be charming because of its early-20th-century French architecture. Indeed there is some of it, for instance the former Governor's Residence with its balconies and wooden shutters, but unfortunately like with many architecture in Cambodia, it is in bad shape because of no maintenance at all, very sad. The French left its former colony in 1953 and one wonders if any maintenance has been done since ... This Cambodia's second-largest city with its approx. 140.000 inhabitants is quite disappointing.
Departure at 7.45 a.m. (a quarter before the official departure time, as said before, we are all very disciplined..), to take the supposed-to-be very bad road to Siem Reap housing the famous Angkor Wat temples. For years the improvement of the road has been stopped by corruption (airlines companies paying briberies to the road constructors), but by foreign pressure the road improvements have finally been started, so things are getting slowly but surely better. It took us till about 1 p.m. - so about 7 hours - incl. 2 drink stops to cover the 171 km, so one can calculate our average speed. And happily, there was some rain, but in general the weather was more than OK, one wonders how long it may take in the rainy season, or if your car - suffering of the terrible road conditions - breaks down.
Arriving in the afternoon, we had to organise our 2 full days in Siem Reap as economically as possible. Our travel agency 'Koning Aap' proposed us an all inclusive organised excursion for an exorbitant price, like all their excursions. Like the others ones, we all turned down this offer. No idea why these excursions are so terribly expensive (this one was over USD 70, incl. the indeed high entrance fee for the Angkor Wat temples of USD 20). Anyway, happily with the 4 of us we manage to organise them with the help of the Dutch guide for much more competitive prices and for this one we even could check the quality of the level of the English language of our local guide for tomorrow. We had to send away the 1st one, because he did not understand our questions, but we had more luck with the 2nd.
Then we went off for an excellent lunch - incl. the for Annette & Auke well-known "death for chocolate" pastry in a nearby coffee shop - before organising a helicopter flight the day after tomorrow morning over the Angkor Wat temples and a massage tomorrow evening from 9 till 11 p.m. by blind masseurs. Well, after all, these are our holidays, so we have to treat ourselves well sometimes :-)))
We walked around in the centre of Siem Reap as well. Back in the 1960s, this city was the place to be in Southeast Asia and saw a steady stream of the rich and famous. After 3 decades of slumber, it's well and truly back and one of the most popular destinations on the planet right now. The life-support system for the temples of Angkor, Cambodia's 8th wonder of the world, Siem Reap was always destined for great things, but few people saw them coming this thick and this fast. It has reinvented itself as the epicentre of the new Cambodia, with more guesthouses and hotels than temples, world-class wining and sumptuous spas.
(Though our hotel is certainly not a 5 stars one, it is one of the best so far. In general we can not complain about the quality of our hotels; the electricity was OK except in the eco-lodge and not having hot water anytime when it's steaming hot outside is not a serious problem, neither).
At its heart, Siem Reap is still a little charmer, with old French shop-houses, shady tree lined boulevards and a slow-flowing river. But it is expanding at breakneck speed with new houses and apartments, hotels and resorts sprouting like mushrooms in the surrounding countryside. The tourist tide has arrived and locals are riding the wave. Not only is this great news for the long-suffering Khmers, but is has transformed the town into a pulsing place for visitors.
OK, I have to break off, I have to get up again in about 5 hours ....
A&I - 25-11-08 Siem Reap - cloudy weather thus not that hot
Having no time to visit yesterday Battambang itself, Arjan & I decided to get up very early to explore the city's centre, supposed to be charming because of its early-20th-century French architecture. Indeed there is some of it, for instance the former Governor's Residence with its balconies and wooden shutters, but unfortunately like with many architecture in Cambodia, it is in bad shape because of no maintenance at all, very sad. The French left its former colony in 1953 and one wonders if any maintenance has been done since ... This Cambodia's second-largest city with its approx. 140.000 inhabitants is quite disappointing.
Departure at 7.45 a.m. (a quarter before the official departure time, as said before, we are all very disciplined..), to take the supposed-to-be very bad road to Siem Reap housing the famous Angkor Wat temples. For years the improvement of the road has been stopped by corruption (airlines companies paying briberies to the road constructors), but by foreign pressure the road improvements have finally been started, so things are getting slowly but surely better. It took us till about 1 p.m. - so about 7 hours - incl. 2 drink stops to cover the 171 km, so one can calculate our average speed. And happily, there was some rain, but in general the weather was more than OK, one wonders how long it may take in the rainy season, or if your car - suffering of the terrible road conditions - breaks down.
Arriving in the afternoon, we had to organise our 2 full days in Siem Reap as economically as possible. Our travel agency 'Koning Aap' proposed us an all inclusive organised excursion for an exorbitant price, like all their excursions. Like the others ones, we all turned down this offer. No idea why these excursions are so terribly expensive (this one was over USD 70, incl. the indeed high entrance fee for the Angkor Wat temples of USD 20). Anyway, happily with the 4 of us we manage to organise them with the help of the Dutch guide for much more competitive prices and for this one we even could check the quality of the level of the English language of our local guide for tomorrow. We had to send away the 1st one, because he did not understand our questions, but we had more luck with the 2nd.
Then we went off for an excellent lunch - incl. the for Annette & Auke well-known "death for chocolate" pastry in a nearby coffee shop - before organising a helicopter flight the day after tomorrow morning over the Angkor Wat temples and a massage tomorrow evening from 9 till 11 p.m. by blind masseurs. Well, after all, these are our holidays, so we have to treat ourselves well sometimes :-)))
We walked around in the centre of Siem Reap as well. Back in the 1960s, this city was the place to be in Southeast Asia and saw a steady stream of the rich and famous. After 3 decades of slumber, it's well and truly back and one of the most popular destinations on the planet right now. The life-support system for the temples of Angkor, Cambodia's 8th wonder of the world, Siem Reap was always destined for great things, but few people saw them coming this thick and this fast. It has reinvented itself as the epicentre of the new Cambodia, with more guesthouses and hotels than temples, world-class wining and sumptuous spas.
(Though our hotel is certainly not a 5 stars one, it is one of the best so far. In general we can not complain about the quality of our hotels; the electricity was OK except in the eco-lodge and not having hot water anytime when it's steaming hot outside is not a serious problem, neither).
At its heart, Siem Reap is still a little charmer, with old French shop-houses, shady tree lined boulevards and a slow-flowing river. But it is expanding at breakneck speed with new houses and apartments, hotels and resorts sprouting like mushrooms in the surrounding countryside. The tourist tide has arrived and locals are riding the wave. Not only is this great news for the long-suffering Khmers, but is has transformed the town into a pulsing place for visitors.
OK, I have to break off, I have to get up again in about 5 hours ....
A&I - 25-11-08 Siem Reap - cloudy weather thus not that hot
24-11-08 Battambang
We hired mopeds for the full day with each a private driver to drive us around the beautiful country side with the warm and friendly inhabitants of the elegant riverside town Battambang. The province Battambang was once Cambodia's largest and richest province; it was on the front lines of the civil war of the 1980s and 1990s. Difficult to imagine such observing the welcoming (we have answered hundreds of 'hello's' by the kids) people met in the villages.
We were pleasantly surprised to see that there is so much to see off the main roads. And off the main roads, means mainly dirt roads, so a lot of Cambodian snow = dust. Every country gets its part of snow; we have learned that there was some white snow these days in The Netherlands!
We have seen many - and visited some of them - wats (= temples) - incl. some killing caves (an ironic variety of the Killing Fields by the Khmer Rouge) -, visited home factories of sticky rice, fish sauce (terribly bad smelling and seeing how it is produced, a reason to never eat it ...), (rice) noodles and rice paper for spring rolls.
The main parts of the temples are destroyed by the Khmer Rouge; efforts are done to reconstruct them, but unfortunately the money is lacking.
We also used the bamboo train, a typical Cambodian curiosity and one of world's all-time classic rail journey. Each bamboo train - also known in Cambodian as a norry (nori) - consists of a 3-mtr long frame, covered lengthwise with slats of ultra-light bamboo. Pile on 10 or 15 people or up to 3 tonnes of rice, crank it up and you can cruise along at about 15 km/hour. The genius of the system is that it offers a brilliant solution to the most ineluctable problem faced on any single-track line: what to do when 2 trains going opposite directions meet? In the case of bamboo trains, the answer is simple: one car is quickly disassembled and set on the ground beside the tracks, so the other one can pass.
All together a very relaxing day, the hardest part was to wash off all the dust ...
The moped drivers were very careful drivers and no single moment we were afraid; even though we were not wearing - though existing in Cambodia - helmets. Sounds pretty dangerous, but we were not driving fast and though traffic looks crazy; there is a certain logic in it, not always understand by us, used to traffic lights - the latter hardly exist in Cambodia - and clear signs.
PS:
Another detail about the corruption in Cambodia: this country is ranking on the 6th place of most corrupted countries (no. 1 is Sierra Leone). How does it come that the population accepts such? Different answers: 1) at election time, the mainly illiterate farmers (representing 80% of the voters) are bribed with presents and money in order to vote for the government party. 2) People are threatened and still afraid. 3) The leaders of the opposition are put temporary in prison ....
Though our expenses for food and drinks are relatively low (often we are paying for a fried noodles with vegetables with coke just USD 3), we are paying much more than for instance in the neighbouring countries Vietnam and Thailand, who economically are doing much better. The reason for such is related to corruption as well: part of the selling price is paid to the authorities as a kind of tax. We in Europe do pay taxes as well, but these are - supposed to be - used for public expenses as medical care, education, infrastructure, roads, etc. In Cambodia these 'taxes' disappear directly into the pockets of the authorities...
PS:
the 'harvest' of the fire hydrants and sewage covers is very poor so far: only 3 fire hydrants in Phnom Penh, somewhere on the road and the 3rd one in Battambang ... Now interesting sewage covers so far, mainly because in the majority of the place we visited there is no public sewage infrastructure ........
We were pleasantly surprised to see that there is so much to see off the main roads. And off the main roads, means mainly dirt roads, so a lot of Cambodian snow = dust. Every country gets its part of snow; we have learned that there was some white snow these days in The Netherlands!
We have seen many - and visited some of them - wats (= temples) - incl. some killing caves (an ironic variety of the Killing Fields by the Khmer Rouge) -, visited home factories of sticky rice, fish sauce (terribly bad smelling and seeing how it is produced, a reason to never eat it ...), (rice) noodles and rice paper for spring rolls.
The main parts of the temples are destroyed by the Khmer Rouge; efforts are done to reconstruct them, but unfortunately the money is lacking.
We also used the bamboo train, a typical Cambodian curiosity and one of world's all-time classic rail journey. Each bamboo train - also known in Cambodian as a norry (nori) - consists of a 3-mtr long frame, covered lengthwise with slats of ultra-light bamboo. Pile on 10 or 15 people or up to 3 tonnes of rice, crank it up and you can cruise along at about 15 km/hour. The genius of the system is that it offers a brilliant solution to the most ineluctable problem faced on any single-track line: what to do when 2 trains going opposite directions meet? In the case of bamboo trains, the answer is simple: one car is quickly disassembled and set on the ground beside the tracks, so the other one can pass.
All together a very relaxing day, the hardest part was to wash off all the dust ...
The moped drivers were very careful drivers and no single moment we were afraid; even though we were not wearing - though existing in Cambodia - helmets. Sounds pretty dangerous, but we were not driving fast and though traffic looks crazy; there is a certain logic in it, not always understand by us, used to traffic lights - the latter hardly exist in Cambodia - and clear signs.
PS:
Another detail about the corruption in Cambodia: this country is ranking on the 6th place of most corrupted countries (no. 1 is Sierra Leone). How does it come that the population accepts such? Different answers: 1) at election time, the mainly illiterate farmers (representing 80% of the voters) are bribed with presents and money in order to vote for the government party. 2) People are threatened and still afraid. 3) The leaders of the opposition are put temporary in prison ....
Though our expenses for food and drinks are relatively low (often we are paying for a fried noodles with vegetables with coke just USD 3), we are paying much more than for instance in the neighbouring countries Vietnam and Thailand, who economically are doing much better. The reason for such is related to corruption as well: part of the selling price is paid to the authorities as a kind of tax. We in Europe do pay taxes as well, but these are - supposed to be - used for public expenses as medical care, education, infrastructure, roads, etc. In Cambodia these 'taxes' disappear directly into the pockets of the authorities...
PS:
the 'harvest' of the fire hydrants and sewage covers is very poor so far: only 3 fire hydrants in Phnom Penh, somewhere on the road and the 3rd one in Battambang ... Now interesting sewage covers so far, mainly because in the majority of the place we visited there is no public sewage infrastructure ........
23-11-08 travel day from Sihanoukville to Battambang
The earliest wake up call so far at 5.30 am for the long drive from Sihanoukville to Battambang. We were not bored for a single moment, since there are so many things to see on the way (paddy fields, children, villages, overloaded ox-carts and cars pulled by mopeds, cattle, wonderful scenery, etc.).
We passed by some textile factories benefiting from an export quota by the USA. Our local guide told us, that the women are earning USD 50 / month, get no (paid) holidays besides the public holidays and are living in miserable small rooms of 2 by 4 mtr with 3 other room mates. We also learnt via our Dutch guide via BBC (finally we receive some outside information; we are also aware of the last Friday's development around Fortis; which rather pleased Arjan : we learnt such via the 8 pm principal NOS 'journal'; yes, we are receiving sometimes Dutch television!!) that the price of rice doubled within 1 year, and the price for bricks for the house construction even multiplied by 6: life becomes incredible expensive for the Cambodian and people - especially in the cities - starting to get underfed, so foreign aid programs have been supported to supply some rice (maybe Trijnie can do a research on the website of the BBC ?).
We also passed by a storage unit of brand new and old cars of the UN (United Nations), surprising. More surprising was that nobody stopped us when we were taking pictures on the compound. There would be also soldiers housed, but we did not see them, so no idea if these were Khmer or UN soldiers.
Arriving just at sunset at Battambang, we picked up the finest restaurant from the Lonely Planet and finally we found the sateh!! with excellent peanut sauce. The promised sateh of the night before did not work out, since there was no meat left anymore: there was an event going on close to our hotel, so there was a huge crowd on the way with numberless mopeds.
PS:
Sihanoukville is told to be as dangerous as Phnom Pehn; fortunately nobody of us has been stolen. The further part of our journey will be quite safe, so please do not worry!
PS: Trijnie, your spider story covers 100 % what we are experiencing in Cambodia; I print it here, it is unfortunately (or fortunately for the Dutch readers ...) in Dutch :
************************************************
Cambodja, net even anders ! -Trouw 21-08-06
Aan het eind van een lange fietsdag komen we aan in het plaatsje Skun. Dorstig installeren we ons in een restaurant voor een open raam met uitzicht op de weg.
We bestellen 2 flessen bier, maar krijgen 4 blikjes, gelukkig wel gekoeld in een emmer met ijs die op een stoel naast onze tafel gezet wordt.
Een meisje van een jaar of tien loopt het restaurant binnen met een grote platte schaal op haar hoofd. Op de schaal ligt een stapel gefrituurde reuzenspinnen. Skun staat bekend om deze ''snack''. In de tijd van de Rode Khmer was er grote hongersnood in Cambodja. In Skun en omgeving ontdekten de inwoners, dat de tarantella's, de reuzenspinnen, eetbaar waren en een goede eiwitbron. Vanaf die tijd eten Cambodjanen spinnen.
Omdat ik in Nederland al luidkeels heb verkondigd dat ik in Cambodja spinnen ga eten zit ik er nu toch wel aan vast. Ik koop twee spinnen en eet ze helemaal op. De pootjes zijn knapperig en smaken naar niets, het lijfje is donkerbruin en smaakt als een zoute mousse. Best wel lekker. Marry probeert een spinnenpootje maar spuugt deze weer kokhalzend uit. Jammer van dat pootje.
Een jong echtpaar komt voorbij met een kinderwagen. Naast de kinderwagen wordt een infuus op wieltjes voortgeduwd. Het slangetje loopt de kinderwagen in.
Na de kaart geraadpleegd te hebben besluiten we weer eens eend te bestellen. De serveerster wijst ons op andere gerechten. Nee, we willen eend.Na een tijdje komt de serveerster terug met een briefje waarop staat: ""hasn't duck"" Grote verslagenheid natuurlijk. Kaart weer geraadpleegd. Fried rice with chicken lijkt ons ook wel wat en dat bestellen we dus. Tevreden gaat de serveerster weer terug.
Na een tijdje brengt ze het gerecht. Het is ….. een gebraden schrielkip op een bord met niets erbij. Gelukkig zitten de kop, de poten en de nageltjes van de kip er nog aan. Ik twee hapjes, Marry twee hapjes en op is de kip.
Als we zitten te eten wenkt de vrouw van de baas de serveerster. Het meisje moet het haar van de vrouw helemaal nakijken op neten. Met grote aandacht worden de neten uit het haar gevlooid, tussen de vingers doodgeknepen en op de broek van mevrouw gelegd. Niet zo'n smakelijk gezicht. Marry krijgt 's nachts prompt jeuk van het hoofdkussen.
Plotseling komt met grote snelheid een ambulance met sirene en zwaailichten aangereden en stopt voor onze neus. De broeders openen de motorkap om de motor af te laten koelen. Ze hebben gelijk geen gesteriliseerde maar vieze oliehanden. Een ontdane familie stapt uit (moeder, dochter en zoon) en gaat in het restaurant zitten. In de ziekenauto ligt een man, slachtoffer van een verkeersongeluk. Hij is gewond aan hoofd en arm. Natuurlijk is ook dit slachtoffer aangesloten aan een infuus. De auto is op weg naar het ziekenhuis. De patiënt wordt alleen gelaten en broeders, moeder, dochter en zoon bestellen een maaltijd. Na 5 minuten zitten ze gezellig te gourmetten. Een tijdje later brengt moeder een kommetje rijst naar haar man in de ziekenauto.
Er wordt afgerekend. De auto krijgt verse olie bijgevuld. Iedereen neemt nog een eetpakketje mee en dan vertrekt het gezelschap weer met loeiende sirene en zwaailicht.
Moe, hongerig en voldaan zoeken we onze hotelkamer op.
********************************
PS: we have a backlog in our weblog because of poor internet connections the last days; we try to catch up slowly but surely!
A&I - Siem Reap (the town with Angkor Wat: the absolute highlight, which we will visit tomorrow!!) - cloudy = bearable weather -
We passed by some textile factories benefiting from an export quota by the USA. Our local guide told us, that the women are earning USD 50 / month, get no (paid) holidays besides the public holidays and are living in miserable small rooms of 2 by 4 mtr with 3 other room mates. We also learnt via our Dutch guide via BBC (finally we receive some outside information; we are also aware of the last Friday's development around Fortis; which rather pleased Arjan : we learnt such via the 8 pm principal NOS 'journal'; yes, we are receiving sometimes Dutch television!!) that the price of rice doubled within 1 year, and the price for bricks for the house construction even multiplied by 6: life becomes incredible expensive for the Cambodian and people - especially in the cities - starting to get underfed, so foreign aid programs have been supported to supply some rice (maybe Trijnie can do a research on the website of the BBC ?).
We also passed by a storage unit of brand new and old cars of the UN (United Nations), surprising. More surprising was that nobody stopped us when we were taking pictures on the compound. There would be also soldiers housed, but we did not see them, so no idea if these were Khmer or UN soldiers.
Arriving just at sunset at Battambang, we picked up the finest restaurant from the Lonely Planet and finally we found the sateh!! with excellent peanut sauce. The promised sateh of the night before did not work out, since there was no meat left anymore: there was an event going on close to our hotel, so there was a huge crowd on the way with numberless mopeds.
PS:
Sihanoukville is told to be as dangerous as Phnom Pehn; fortunately nobody of us has been stolen. The further part of our journey will be quite safe, so please do not worry!
PS: Trijnie, your spider story covers 100 % what we are experiencing in Cambodia; I print it here, it is unfortunately (or fortunately for the Dutch readers ...) in Dutch :
************************************************
Cambodja, net even anders ! -Trouw 21-08-06
Aan het eind van een lange fietsdag komen we aan in het plaatsje Skun. Dorstig installeren we ons in een restaurant voor een open raam met uitzicht op de weg.
We bestellen 2 flessen bier, maar krijgen 4 blikjes, gelukkig wel gekoeld in een emmer met ijs die op een stoel naast onze tafel gezet wordt.
Een meisje van een jaar of tien loopt het restaurant binnen met een grote platte schaal op haar hoofd. Op de schaal ligt een stapel gefrituurde reuzenspinnen. Skun staat bekend om deze ''snack''. In de tijd van de Rode Khmer was er grote hongersnood in Cambodja. In Skun en omgeving ontdekten de inwoners, dat de tarantella's, de reuzenspinnen, eetbaar waren en een goede eiwitbron. Vanaf die tijd eten Cambodjanen spinnen.
Omdat ik in Nederland al luidkeels heb verkondigd dat ik in Cambodja spinnen ga eten zit ik er nu toch wel aan vast. Ik koop twee spinnen en eet ze helemaal op. De pootjes zijn knapperig en smaken naar niets, het lijfje is donkerbruin en smaakt als een zoute mousse. Best wel lekker. Marry probeert een spinnenpootje maar spuugt deze weer kokhalzend uit. Jammer van dat pootje.
Een jong echtpaar komt voorbij met een kinderwagen. Naast de kinderwagen wordt een infuus op wieltjes voortgeduwd. Het slangetje loopt de kinderwagen in.
Na de kaart geraadpleegd te hebben besluiten we weer eens eend te bestellen. De serveerster wijst ons op andere gerechten. Nee, we willen eend.Na een tijdje komt de serveerster terug met een briefje waarop staat: ""hasn't duck"" Grote verslagenheid natuurlijk. Kaart weer geraadpleegd. Fried rice with chicken lijkt ons ook wel wat en dat bestellen we dus. Tevreden gaat de serveerster weer terug.
Na een tijdje brengt ze het gerecht. Het is ….. een gebraden schrielkip op een bord met niets erbij. Gelukkig zitten de kop, de poten en de nageltjes van de kip er nog aan. Ik twee hapjes, Marry twee hapjes en op is de kip.
Als we zitten te eten wenkt de vrouw van de baas de serveerster. Het meisje moet het haar van de vrouw helemaal nakijken op neten. Met grote aandacht worden de neten uit het haar gevlooid, tussen de vingers doodgeknepen en op de broek van mevrouw gelegd. Niet zo'n smakelijk gezicht. Marry krijgt 's nachts prompt jeuk van het hoofdkussen.
Plotseling komt met grote snelheid een ambulance met sirene en zwaailichten aangereden en stopt voor onze neus. De broeders openen de motorkap om de motor af te laten koelen. Ze hebben gelijk geen gesteriliseerde maar vieze oliehanden. Een ontdane familie stapt uit (moeder, dochter en zoon) en gaat in het restaurant zitten. In de ziekenauto ligt een man, slachtoffer van een verkeersongeluk. Hij is gewond aan hoofd en arm. Natuurlijk is ook dit slachtoffer aangesloten aan een infuus. De auto is op weg naar het ziekenhuis. De patiënt wordt alleen gelaten en broeders, moeder, dochter en zoon bestellen een maaltijd. Na 5 minuten zitten ze gezellig te gourmetten. Een tijdje later brengt moeder een kommetje rijst naar haar man in de ziekenauto.
Er wordt afgerekend. De auto krijgt verse olie bijgevuld. Iedereen neemt nog een eetpakketje mee en dan vertrekt het gezelschap weer met loeiende sirene en zwaailicht.
Moe, hongerig en voldaan zoeken we onze hotelkamer op.
********************************
PS: we have a backlog in our weblog because of poor internet connections the last days; we try to catch up slowly but surely!
A&I - Siem Reap (the town with Angkor Wat: the absolute highlight, which we will visit tomorrow!!) - cloudy = bearable weather -
Gefeliciteerd met geboorte van kleindochter !!!!
en groeten aan de ouders van het kind; ik zal het Arjan doorgeven!
Saturday, 22 November 2008
22-11-08
Dear all,
Surprisingly enough we actually had an excellent day today, but it has nothing to do with the beach resort accommodating us. As our Dutch tour guide just confirmed as well, it is quite disgusting to see all those fat Western tourists hanging around with those tiny pretty Cambodian girls... On top of that, there are at the beach a lot of beggars and sales people, something you hardly see elsewhere.
We exactly spent 5 minutes yesterday on the beach and that was already too much for me ...
Happily the NGO's are spending quite some efforts to make clear that the sexual abuse by foreign paedophiles - a serious problem in Cambodia - is forbidden, one sees quite some billboards all over Cambodia inciting people to report abusers. The child abuse is slowly but surely being combated, although in a country as poor as Cambodia, money can tempt people into selling babies for adoption and children for sex. Once in the trade, it is difficult to escape a life of violence and abuse. Drugs are also being used to keep children dependent on their pimps, with bosses giving out yama (a dirty meta-amphetamine) or heroin to dull their sentences. Even more problematic is the domestic industry of virgin-buying in Cambodia, founded on the superstition that taking a virgin will enhance one's power.
In Phnom Penh we saw some suspicious couples as well, though it is difficult to estimate the age of girls; they all seems pretty young till a certain age and then all in the sudden they take in age very rapidly.
I read in a book, that a Western woman in Cambodia (or in Laos, I do not remember exactly anymore) battling prostitution has been threatened so much by powerful people (authorities?), that she had to stop her activities, very sad.
Anyway, the 4 of us decided this morning to escape the beach life, and hired a tuk-tuk for only $ 16 to get us to the other side of Sihanoukville, to the harbour. Named in honour of the then-king, Sihanoukville was hacked out of the jungle in the late 1950s to create Cambodia's first and only deep-water port, considered vital so the country's international trade would no longer have to pass through Vietnam. Well, do not expect a harbour like Rotterdam; again, we are in Cambodia. Though we saw some containers like Marsk, K-line, NedLloyd, it was rather a dirty polluted fishing harbour with wooden fishing boats and people living in miserable circumstances, but ever smiling and friendly. Seeing a child learning with her little brother some English, I sat down next to her to help her with the pronounciation: Cambodians - like many Asians - have difficulties to pronounce the last part of word, so they say ... if they mean ... "
ri - rice
lun - lunch
Khmer Rou - Khmer Rouge
etc. Once you are getting used to it, you manage to understand, but still it remains difficult to understand for instance our Khmer local guides.
On the way back we made a coffee stop at a snake/crocodile farm; Arjan & Hans were making a tour, we the girls do not like too much to see snakes in too small cages; so we assisted to the sitting together of an ugly Western fat man sitting with 3 pretty looking young Cambodian girls.... The place was also owned by Russians, and seeing 3 Hummers, we were wondering what kind of place it actually was in reality ...
Getting back around lunchtime at our hotel, we had a simple, not as good as yesterday's evening diner, lunch at the same place as the day before. Then Arjan & I decided to let us spoil ourselves by a 1 hour Head & neck massage + 1 hour Coconut scrub (Arjan) and a 1 hour Traditional Khmer (= Cambodian) + 1 hour Mango scrub (Ingrid) in the hotel: wonderful!!!!
And all in the sudden it is already evening time! The Dutch tour guide met us tonight with the excellent news that most probably he found a sateh place, owned by a Dutch guy, near to our hotel, that sounds good.
Tomorrow a very, very long 11 hours drive (mainly because of the bad roads) back to Phnom Penh and then further to Battambang.
I like to relate you something about the landmines one unfortunately still can find in Cambodia. Although peace treaties were signed a decade ago, Cambodia's civil war is still claiming new victims: civilians who have stepped on a mine or been injured by unexploded ordnance (UXO). Today, Cambodia has one of the world's worst landmine problems and the highest number of amputees per capita of any country - over 25.000 Cambodians have lost limbs due to mines and other military explosives. Despite extensive mine awareness campaigns, an average of 30 victims are injured or killed every month. This is a vast improvement on the mid-1990s, when the figure was more like 300, but it is still wartime carnage in a country officially at peace.
To make matters more complicated, areas that seem safe in the dry season can become dangerous in the wet season as the earth softens. It's not uncommon for Cambodian farmers to settle on land during the dry season, only to have their dreams of a new life shattered a few months later when a family member has a leg blown off.
A number of groups are working to clear mines, whacking through the undergrowth square metre after laborious square metre.
We have seen some of these amputees begging at Wats (= temples), extremely sad.
I have read a even more sad story about Laos 'receiving' more bombs than Germany and Japan together during World War II since the Americans dropped their bombs on their way back to their bases in Thailand during the Vietnam war; not being authorised to fly them back to Thailand if they did not succeed to drop them in Vietnam.
Since 1997 more than 150 countries have signed the Ottawa Convention banning the production, stockpiling, use and sale of land mines; let us hope that such will erase this unacceptable use of weapons causing so many problems many years after a war.
A&I - Sihanoukville, 22-11-08 - evening time, so temperature is getting acceptable
**
PS: read Arjan's comment published with our yesterday's report!
2e PS voor Trijnie: Compeed is een wondermiddel: alle 3 wonden zijn definitief geHEELd!
Surprisingly enough we actually had an excellent day today, but it has nothing to do with the beach resort accommodating us. As our Dutch tour guide just confirmed as well, it is quite disgusting to see all those fat Western tourists hanging around with those tiny pretty Cambodian girls... On top of that, there are at the beach a lot of beggars and sales people, something you hardly see elsewhere.
We exactly spent 5 minutes yesterday on the beach and that was already too much for me ...
Happily the NGO's are spending quite some efforts to make clear that the sexual abuse by foreign paedophiles - a serious problem in Cambodia - is forbidden, one sees quite some billboards all over Cambodia inciting people to report abusers. The child abuse is slowly but surely being combated, although in a country as poor as Cambodia, money can tempt people into selling babies for adoption and children for sex. Once in the trade, it is difficult to escape a life of violence and abuse. Drugs are also being used to keep children dependent on their pimps, with bosses giving out yama (a dirty meta-amphetamine) or heroin to dull their sentences. Even more problematic is the domestic industry of virgin-buying in Cambodia, founded on the superstition that taking a virgin will enhance one's power.
In Phnom Penh we saw some suspicious couples as well, though it is difficult to estimate the age of girls; they all seems pretty young till a certain age and then all in the sudden they take in age very rapidly.
I read in a book, that a Western woman in Cambodia (or in Laos, I do not remember exactly anymore) battling prostitution has been threatened so much by powerful people (authorities?), that she had to stop her activities, very sad.
Anyway, the 4 of us decided this morning to escape the beach life, and hired a tuk-tuk for only $ 16 to get us to the other side of Sihanoukville, to the harbour. Named in honour of the then-king, Sihanoukville was hacked out of the jungle in the late 1950s to create Cambodia's first and only deep-water port, considered vital so the country's international trade would no longer have to pass through Vietnam. Well, do not expect a harbour like Rotterdam; again, we are in Cambodia. Though we saw some containers like Marsk, K-line, NedLloyd, it was rather a dirty polluted fishing harbour with wooden fishing boats and people living in miserable circumstances, but ever smiling and friendly. Seeing a child learning with her little brother some English, I sat down next to her to help her with the pronounciation: Cambodians - like many Asians - have difficulties to pronounce the last part of word, so they say ... if they mean ... "
ri - rice
lun - lunch
Khmer Rou - Khmer Rouge
etc. Once you are getting used to it, you manage to understand, but still it remains difficult to understand for instance our Khmer local guides.
On the way back we made a coffee stop at a snake/crocodile farm; Arjan & Hans were making a tour, we the girls do not like too much to see snakes in too small cages; so we assisted to the sitting together of an ugly Western fat man sitting with 3 pretty looking young Cambodian girls.... The place was also owned by Russians, and seeing 3 Hummers, we were wondering what kind of place it actually was in reality ...
Getting back around lunchtime at our hotel, we had a simple, not as good as yesterday's evening diner, lunch at the same place as the day before. Then Arjan & I decided to let us spoil ourselves by a 1 hour Head & neck massage + 1 hour Coconut scrub (Arjan) and a 1 hour Traditional Khmer (= Cambodian) + 1 hour Mango scrub (Ingrid) in the hotel: wonderful!!!!
And all in the sudden it is already evening time! The Dutch tour guide met us tonight with the excellent news that most probably he found a sateh place, owned by a Dutch guy, near to our hotel, that sounds good.
Tomorrow a very, very long 11 hours drive (mainly because of the bad roads) back to Phnom Penh and then further to Battambang.
I like to relate you something about the landmines one unfortunately still can find in Cambodia. Although peace treaties were signed a decade ago, Cambodia's civil war is still claiming new victims: civilians who have stepped on a mine or been injured by unexploded ordnance (UXO). Today, Cambodia has one of the world's worst landmine problems and the highest number of amputees per capita of any country - over 25.000 Cambodians have lost limbs due to mines and other military explosives. Despite extensive mine awareness campaigns, an average of 30 victims are injured or killed every month. This is a vast improvement on the mid-1990s, when the figure was more like 300, but it is still wartime carnage in a country officially at peace.
To make matters more complicated, areas that seem safe in the dry season can become dangerous in the wet season as the earth softens. It's not uncommon for Cambodian farmers to settle on land during the dry season, only to have their dreams of a new life shattered a few months later when a family member has a leg blown off.
A number of groups are working to clear mines, whacking through the undergrowth square metre after laborious square metre.
We have seen some of these amputees begging at Wats (= temples), extremely sad.
I have read a even more sad story about Laos 'receiving' more bombs than Germany and Japan together during World War II since the Americans dropped their bombs on their way back to their bases in Thailand during the Vietnam war; not being authorised to fly them back to Thailand if they did not succeed to drop them in Vietnam.
Since 1997 more than 150 countries have signed the Ottawa Convention banning the production, stockpiling, use and sale of land mines; let us hope that such will erase this unacceptable use of weapons causing so many problems many years after a war.
A&I - Sihanoukville, 22-11-08 - evening time, so temperature is getting acceptable
**
PS: read Arjan's comment published with our yesterday's report!
2e PS voor Trijnie: Compeed is een wondermiddel: alle 3 wonden zijn definitief geHEELd!
Friday, 21 November 2008
19/20/21-11-08
Dear all,
It is getting hotter and hotter, and this time we all are very annoyed because of it. Impossible to do to anything meaningful... but I have a lot of stories for you, so there we go:
Trijnie did a research for the spider, I do not know if you read the comment yourself with the previous report: it is a tarantula!! That sounds quite terrifying, and being a person taking out the vacuum cleaner if I see a 1 cm big spider, it is pretty courageous that I was eating it!! I asked Trijnie to find out how they remove the spider's teeth: does a specialised tarantula dentist exist?
Annette, I received your email and your comment via the weblog, so you did both right!
Then I communicated following info. via a private email to Toshiharu-san and Florence : "The Killing Fields of Choeung Ek I was talking about in a previous report have been recently privatised and is now controlled by a Japanese company. Part of the deal involved upgrading the road, which is now surfaced all the way, but many Khmers and foreign observers alike were deeply disturbed that a foreign company was permitted to exploit Cambodia's tragedy. "
Toshiharu-san likes to know what is meant with ''exploit Cambodia's tragedy". First of all, I was citing my guide book Lonely Planet. Secondly, I can imagine that it is surprising to observe that a foreign company is controlling a museum so deeply related to Cambodia's tragedy and that such should be rather controlled by the country itself (by a private company or by the Cambodian government). By no means it is a critics related to the relation between Japan and Cambodia. Personally, I think it is a good thing that the museum is exploited by a foreign country and one 'rich' as Japan is, in order to be sure, that the testimonies of this tragedy will be conserved. Such is not sure if it would have been maintained by the corrupt government, in which still former Khmer Rouge members are present.
19-11-08
Last morning in Phnom Penh. At breakfast we were seated at the same table as a Canadian investigator appointed by the UN (United Nations), who just flew in the day before to cooperate with the Khmer Rouge tribunal hearings which are finally starting. Pretty sure that he will not have enough time in this year to finish all of it...
Around lunch time we were seated next to a Dutch man, former professional soldier, and since his retirement 10 years ago working as a consultant in Cambodia. This time he was accompanying a team of the German army involved with the classification and storage of 'safe' weapons of the Cambodian army and the destruction of the 'wrong' ones, i.e. the dangerous ones.
I was surprised to notice that the German government is still supporting the Cambodian government, since I understood that for instance the Belgian and the Dutch government withdraw themselves since the constitution of the democracy in Cambodia is too slow and the government is doing too little about the corruption. The Dutch consultant answered me, that the reason is different: apparently the person responsible in the Netherlands seriously disliked his counter-party in Cambodia and decided to close the funding-tap!
Well, the truth will be somewhere in the middle!
One thing is sure: there are numberless NGO (Non Governmental Organisations) in Cambodia and especially in Phnom Penh. Another personal observation: lot of health clinics and other projects supported by NGO's look like deserted... pretty sad to see.
Another observation: lots of the land cruisers cruising around in Cambodia are made by Lexus, Japanese car producer!
Anyway, after our breakfast, the 4 of us went to the Special Market, Psar Thmei, in Phnom Penh. The huge domed hall resembles a Babylonian ziggurat and some claim it ranks as one of the largest domes in the world. There again interesting exhibitions of all kind of meats, interesting to see that early in the morning ...
Unfortunately it was here that one of our group members has been stolen that same morning from her camera by a passing motor rider. As our Dutch guide said, it happens once at all his trips in Phnom Penh. The saddest thing for her was that she lost 900 pictures, well, if that is the saddest, then it is pretty OK ... She told that she had alike experiences in Rio de Janeiro (threatened with a knife) and Columbia (foolished by false police men). So anyone thinking that travelling is fun !!!
From this market we started a walk through the centre of Phnom Penh, which we liked a lot, because it allowed us to see and taste other parts of it than only the touristy highlights.
We passed again by the Royal Palace, the sun was shining this time and then it looks different, beautiful. Interesting to mention is that the Silver Pagoda, part of the Royal Palace, was preserved by the Khmer Rouge to demonstrate its concerns for the conservation of Cambodia's cultural riches to the outside world. Although more than half of the pagoda's contents were destroyed under Pol Pot, what remains is spectacular. This is one of the few places in Cambodia where bejewelled objects embodying some of the brilliance and richness of Khmer civilisation can still be seen.
We also made a stop at Hotel Le Royal. From the golden age of travel, this classical colonial-era hotel is one of Asia's grand old palaces, in the illustrious company of the Oriental in Bangkok and Raffles in Singapore (which I visited in approx. 1997 just for having a drink). Between 1970 and 1975 many famous journalists working in Phnom Penh stayed here, and part of the film 'The Killing Fields' was set in the hotel (though filmed in Hua Hin, Thailand).
We enjoyed here the best cake ever we had since our stay in Cambodia: delicious!
Worth and sad to mention: the railway station: nowadays there are no passengers services at all anymore in Cambodia, only merchandise transport. Very odd to visit such a deserted railway station.
At 1.30 p.m. we all left Phnom Penh heading for Kep.
The woman stolen from her camera managed, without giving any bribery to the police, after 3 attempts at different police stations to report the theft of her camera, necessary to claim the loss from her insurance.
20-11-08
Kep is a seaside resort and was founded as a colonial retreat for the French elite in 1908. The Khmer Rouge were known to harbour a particular hatred for the town and the destruction they wrought was nearly total. Today, dozens of Kep's luxurious pre-war villas are still just blackened shells, poignant reminders of the long years of Khmer Rouge rule and civil war. Inhabited by squatters, the mansions - remnants of a once-great (or at least rich and flashy) civilisation that met a sudden and violent end - have a post-apocalyptic feel.
Besides of that, in general I dislike seaside resorts and especially when I am travelling: I am not sitting 10 hours in an airplane to sit down on a beach. Anyway, do not imagine a seaside resort like Saint Tropez, after all we are in Cambodia, so the place unfortunately was quite run down. Our hotel was pretty OK, but the efficiency of its staff was - let me resume - memorable.
We arrived after the sunset, so no time to explore the village (big word for it..). We decided to have dinner at the hotel. Kep being famous for its splendid seafood, we all ordered crab, but also that was a deception.
Next morning, courageous as we were, the 4 of us went off for a walk in the Kep National Park, without a guide. The area is fully demined, so no danger. In the contrary, on the other side of the mountain there are still many mines, so impossible to hike their on your own. It was hot, hotter, hottest, incredible. Anyway, on the top of the only 154 mtr high hill we met 3 nuns living their on a pretty isolated place who kindly invited us in their best Cambodian (impossible to communicate, but with some smiles you come a long way) to visit their simple Wat (= temple) and enjoy some delicious fruits, which we have never eaten before. No idea what it was; it had the shape and the structure of an avocado, but the skin and content was bright orange, and containing 1 big and 1 little nut. Anybody any idea??
One of the nuns invited Sandra and myself - no entrance for the 2 men! - to admire the pictures inside their squat and we understood that the pictures were taken during their visits to Japan, Tibet, Taiwan,.... but we had difficulties to believe that these 3 poor-looking women were visiting all these countries. Well, that is certainly due to the lack of language comprehension!
Surprising to see all those indeed stripped off villas on our way. After some false starts, Kep finally seems to be rising from (or among) the ruins. According to the Lonely Planet, it's getting popular again, especially on weekends and holidays, with the wealthy elite of Phnom Penh. For me it is difficult to imagine, that even if you are driving a SUV, you are willing to drive for 4 hours over bad roads to go to such a basic place with nowadays not so nice beaches.
We came back at our hotel around 3 p.m., exhausted and so hot, so hot.... But refusing to hang around at the resort, Hans & I continued (flat) walking to the Crab Market, a row of wooden waterfront shacks. We made a reservation at a restaurant, highly recommended by the Lonely Planet, and there we were eating a delicious squid (Thai) Tom Yam soup and some steamed vegetables.
Just before we were arguing for about an hour with the hotel about our bill ....
Slowly but surely we are both eating meat and fish, and so far so good, no serious tummy problems. Apparently today (21-11-08) just one of us out of the 15 would have some minor problems, so such is pretty good.
21-11-08
Off again to another beach resort - yes, these days are definitely not my lucky days ... - at Sihanoukville, the closest thing you get to Costa del Cambodia. For the time being the city and its sandy beaches remain pretty laid-back.
And here again, it is hot, hotter, hottest. We were planning to get out tomorrow for another hike in another National Park but if the weather is staying like this I am afraid, that we will remain the full day in the swimming pool, varied by a massage and some delicious pastries we have already found this afternoon.
Right now I am sitting in a simple friendly Internet café just in front of our nearby 4-star (Cambodia's stars..) hotel, where the Internet connection is not working right now, and unknown when the service will be resumed: welcome to Cambodia! At least it has a swimming pool, so Arjan is very happy! It seems to have a TV with some foreign channels like BBC, so maybe I can see what is happening in the world, first time so far!
Enjoy all your weekend; I may come back to you tomorrow since I am foreseeing that I will be very soon bored at this beach resort ...
A&I - 21-11-08 - Sihanoukville, sun-is-down; possible-again-to-breath!
It is getting hotter and hotter, and this time we all are very annoyed because of it. Impossible to do to anything meaningful... but I have a lot of stories for you, so there we go:
Trijnie did a research for the spider, I do not know if you read the comment yourself with the previous report: it is a tarantula!! That sounds quite terrifying, and being a person taking out the vacuum cleaner if I see a 1 cm big spider, it is pretty courageous that I was eating it!! I asked Trijnie to find out how they remove the spider's teeth: does a specialised tarantula dentist exist?
Annette, I received your email and your comment via the weblog, so you did both right!
Then I communicated following info. via a private email to Toshiharu-san and Florence : "The Killing Fields of Choeung Ek I was talking about in a previous report have been recently privatised and is now controlled by a Japanese company. Part of the deal involved upgrading the road, which is now surfaced all the way, but many Khmers and foreign observers alike were deeply disturbed that a foreign company was permitted to exploit Cambodia's tragedy. "
Toshiharu-san likes to know what is meant with ''exploit Cambodia's tragedy". First of all, I was citing my guide book Lonely Planet. Secondly, I can imagine that it is surprising to observe that a foreign company is controlling a museum so deeply related to Cambodia's tragedy and that such should be rather controlled by the country itself (by a private company or by the Cambodian government). By no means it is a critics related to the relation between Japan and Cambodia. Personally, I think it is a good thing that the museum is exploited by a foreign country and one 'rich' as Japan is, in order to be sure, that the testimonies of this tragedy will be conserved. Such is not sure if it would have been maintained by the corrupt government, in which still former Khmer Rouge members are present.
19-11-08
Last morning in Phnom Penh. At breakfast we were seated at the same table as a Canadian investigator appointed by the UN (United Nations), who just flew in the day before to cooperate with the Khmer Rouge tribunal hearings which are finally starting. Pretty sure that he will not have enough time in this year to finish all of it...
Around lunch time we were seated next to a Dutch man, former professional soldier, and since his retirement 10 years ago working as a consultant in Cambodia. This time he was accompanying a team of the German army involved with the classification and storage of 'safe' weapons of the Cambodian army and the destruction of the 'wrong' ones, i.e. the dangerous ones.
I was surprised to notice that the German government is still supporting the Cambodian government, since I understood that for instance the Belgian and the Dutch government withdraw themselves since the constitution of the democracy in Cambodia is too slow and the government is doing too little about the corruption. The Dutch consultant answered me, that the reason is different: apparently the person responsible in the Netherlands seriously disliked his counter-party in Cambodia and decided to close the funding-tap!
Well, the truth will be somewhere in the middle!
One thing is sure: there are numberless NGO (Non Governmental Organisations) in Cambodia and especially in Phnom Penh. Another personal observation: lot of health clinics and other projects supported by NGO's look like deserted... pretty sad to see.
Another observation: lots of the land cruisers cruising around in Cambodia are made by Lexus, Japanese car producer!
Anyway, after our breakfast, the 4 of us went to the Special Market, Psar Thmei, in Phnom Penh. The huge domed hall resembles a Babylonian ziggurat and some claim it ranks as one of the largest domes in the world. There again interesting exhibitions of all kind of meats, interesting to see that early in the morning ...
Unfortunately it was here that one of our group members has been stolen that same morning from her camera by a passing motor rider. As our Dutch guide said, it happens once at all his trips in Phnom Penh. The saddest thing for her was that she lost 900 pictures, well, if that is the saddest, then it is pretty OK ... She told that she had alike experiences in Rio de Janeiro (threatened with a knife) and Columbia (foolished by false police men). So anyone thinking that travelling is fun !!!
From this market we started a walk through the centre of Phnom Penh, which we liked a lot, because it allowed us to see and taste other parts of it than only the touristy highlights.
We passed again by the Royal Palace, the sun was shining this time and then it looks different, beautiful. Interesting to mention is that the Silver Pagoda, part of the Royal Palace, was preserved by the Khmer Rouge to demonstrate its concerns for the conservation of Cambodia's cultural riches to the outside world. Although more than half of the pagoda's contents were destroyed under Pol Pot, what remains is spectacular. This is one of the few places in Cambodia where bejewelled objects embodying some of the brilliance and richness of Khmer civilisation can still be seen.
We also made a stop at Hotel Le Royal. From the golden age of travel, this classical colonial-era hotel is one of Asia's grand old palaces, in the illustrious company of the Oriental in Bangkok and Raffles in Singapore (which I visited in approx. 1997 just for having a drink). Between 1970 and 1975 many famous journalists working in Phnom Penh stayed here, and part of the film 'The Killing Fields' was set in the hotel (though filmed in Hua Hin, Thailand).
We enjoyed here the best cake ever we had since our stay in Cambodia: delicious!
Worth and sad to mention: the railway station: nowadays there are no passengers services at all anymore in Cambodia, only merchandise transport. Very odd to visit such a deserted railway station.
At 1.30 p.m. we all left Phnom Penh heading for Kep.
The woman stolen from her camera managed, without giving any bribery to the police, after 3 attempts at different police stations to report the theft of her camera, necessary to claim the loss from her insurance.
20-11-08
Kep is a seaside resort and was founded as a colonial retreat for the French elite in 1908. The Khmer Rouge were known to harbour a particular hatred for the town and the destruction they wrought was nearly total. Today, dozens of Kep's luxurious pre-war villas are still just blackened shells, poignant reminders of the long years of Khmer Rouge rule and civil war. Inhabited by squatters, the mansions - remnants of a once-great (or at least rich and flashy) civilisation that met a sudden and violent end - have a post-apocalyptic feel.
Besides of that, in general I dislike seaside resorts and especially when I am travelling: I am not sitting 10 hours in an airplane to sit down on a beach. Anyway, do not imagine a seaside resort like Saint Tropez, after all we are in Cambodia, so the place unfortunately was quite run down. Our hotel was pretty OK, but the efficiency of its staff was - let me resume - memorable.
We arrived after the sunset, so no time to explore the village (big word for it..). We decided to have dinner at the hotel. Kep being famous for its splendid seafood, we all ordered crab, but also that was a deception.
Next morning, courageous as we were, the 4 of us went off for a walk in the Kep National Park, without a guide. The area is fully demined, so no danger. In the contrary, on the other side of the mountain there are still many mines, so impossible to hike their on your own. It was hot, hotter, hottest, incredible. Anyway, on the top of the only 154 mtr high hill we met 3 nuns living their on a pretty isolated place who kindly invited us in their best Cambodian (impossible to communicate, but with some smiles you come a long way) to visit their simple Wat (= temple) and enjoy some delicious fruits, which we have never eaten before. No idea what it was; it had the shape and the structure of an avocado, but the skin and content was bright orange, and containing 1 big and 1 little nut. Anybody any idea??
One of the nuns invited Sandra and myself - no entrance for the 2 men! - to admire the pictures inside their squat and we understood that the pictures were taken during their visits to Japan, Tibet, Taiwan,.... but we had difficulties to believe that these 3 poor-looking women were visiting all these countries. Well, that is certainly due to the lack of language comprehension!
Surprising to see all those indeed stripped off villas on our way. After some false starts, Kep finally seems to be rising from (or among) the ruins. According to the Lonely Planet, it's getting popular again, especially on weekends and holidays, with the wealthy elite of Phnom Penh. For me it is difficult to imagine, that even if you are driving a SUV, you are willing to drive for 4 hours over bad roads to go to such a basic place with nowadays not so nice beaches.
We came back at our hotel around 3 p.m., exhausted and so hot, so hot.... But refusing to hang around at the resort, Hans & I continued (flat) walking to the Crab Market, a row of wooden waterfront shacks. We made a reservation at a restaurant, highly recommended by the Lonely Planet, and there we were eating a delicious squid (Thai) Tom Yam soup and some steamed vegetables.
Just before we were arguing for about an hour with the hotel about our bill ....
Slowly but surely we are both eating meat and fish, and so far so good, no serious tummy problems. Apparently today (21-11-08) just one of us out of the 15 would have some minor problems, so such is pretty good.
21-11-08
Off again to another beach resort - yes, these days are definitely not my lucky days ... - at Sihanoukville, the closest thing you get to Costa del Cambodia. For the time being the city and its sandy beaches remain pretty laid-back.
And here again, it is hot, hotter, hottest. We were planning to get out tomorrow for another hike in another National Park but if the weather is staying like this I am afraid, that we will remain the full day in the swimming pool, varied by a massage and some delicious pastries we have already found this afternoon.
Right now I am sitting in a simple friendly Internet café just in front of our nearby 4-star (Cambodia's stars..) hotel, where the Internet connection is not working right now, and unknown when the service will be resumed: welcome to Cambodia! At least it has a swimming pool, so Arjan is very happy! It seems to have a TV with some foreign channels like BBC, so maybe I can see what is happening in the world, first time so far!
Enjoy all your weekend; I may come back to you tomorrow since I am foreseeing that I will be very soon bored at this beach resort ...
A&I - 21-11-08 - Sihanoukville, sun-is-down; possible-again-to-breath!
Tuesday, 18 November 2008
17/18-11-08
bericht voor Trijnie: probeer niet eens te begrijpen waarom ik dat soort onzinnige vragen stel, maar ik heb inmiddels uit betrouwbare Vlaamse bron begrepen, dat het een fabeltje is, dat Belgen nog steeds waterkonijn in restaurants eten.
En wat die andere vraag betreft: daar gaat het ook goed mee!
Dear all,
Finally a normally working, having a normal keyboard and very cheap (0,5 $ / hour) Internet connection, inside and one just opposite our hotel! And I can see again! I changed one of my contact lenses 2 days before departure and my eye-doctor was right when he warned me, that I would have difficulties with reading, which turned out to be very true 1000s kilometres from home ... So tonight I got within 1/2 hour a pair of good reading glasses incl. solid box for only $ 42.
I continue with yesterday 17-11-08 morning. Very disciplined we left 10 minutes before official departure time. Our group turns out to be the more and more weird, no homogeinity at all, but it does not bother us at all. We form our own group of 4 often accompanied the evening for dinner by the Dutch guide.
Long drive on not so good road from Kratie to Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital. Some stops on the way for drinks and lunch, and also because of a technical problem with the bus, which fortunately was fixed very quickly. The stops are always interesting, lots of things to see (people, seriously overloaded cars, rice fields, ...), friendly people, not pushy at all and often ready to be taken for a photograph.
Interesting stop at spiderville Skuon, where huge deep-fried spiders are offered for a snack. We both tried a leg, it tasted quite nice, but when I tasted the hairs of the leg, I had to spit it out .... Our local Cambodian guide ate it all, incl. the body, aaarhhh... And believe it or not, after being caught, they got their teeth getting out in order avoiding from being bitten ... No idea what the name of this species is, maybe a nice question for Lilian!?
Around 5 p.m. we arrived at Phnom Penh. The name of this city has definitely a magic name for me. I was a teenager during the Khmer Rouge horrors, and I remember the news stories about it, but it was for me in a far away Asian country and here I am, 30 years after the end of the Pol Pot regime, in the city where it all started on 17 April 1975. Because of heavy traffic, and even traffic jams inside the city, we arrived slowly and we gradually noticed the change of the country side into modern buildings, still often varied by wooden simple, very simple, houses. Such also in the city centre, with dirty, very dirty streets.
After having checked in in our hotel, we went off by tuk-tuk (4 wheels moped taxi) to an Indonesian restaurant: having 3 Dutch in our group not living in the Netherlands, we were dying for some sateh with "pinda"-sauce... What a deception: it was closed! Next to is the FCC, the Foreign Correspondents' Club, famous beyond the borders of Cambodia, where we enjoyed a - for Cambodian level - expensive diner with my first wine and dessert during this trip.
We were seriously warned for bag snatchers and pickpockets, so we left our belongings in the hotel safe and stayed closely together while returning home. Armed robberies do occur in Phnom Penh, but are rare and I reckon that by taking the same precautions as in Paris or in Amsterdam, things are not that worse. The only serious problem is, is that the police is not protecting tourists, so it is better to avoid any problems ....
18-11-08
The 4 of us we organised a long day. We hired for $ 25 a tuk-tuk for the full day, who picked us up at 7.15 a.m. to get to the Royal Palace (still used by the King and his wife; those private parts are not open to public). That was a little too early so our tuk-tuk driver, Mr Ba (or something like that ..) brought us to a wonderful coffee place, finally my first serious espresso! Cambodian coffee is quite terrible to drink.
We tried again at 8 a.m. and this time the gates of the palace were open (official opening hours are not always respected). Unfortunately it was a raining a bit and later on even more serious (and today we have been told, that a serious storm zone is approaching us from Thailand) so the yellow, red, orange colours of the roofs of the buildings of the Royal Palace were not that vivid. This palace is compared with the Bangkok's one, but we reckon that the latter is much more interesting with much more variety. It can be that the grey weather influenced our appreciation. Absolutely highlight is the Silver Pagoda, with 5000 silver tiles weighing 1 kg each; the life seize gold Buddha weighing 90 kg decorated with thousands of diamonds and the Emerald Buddha, believed to be made of Baccarat crystal. The latter we do not understand, because for us Emerald is not the same at all as crystal. Lilian, another search for you?!
Beautiful Throne Hall as well, still used for instance for ceremonies as the presentation of credentials by diplomats.
Having read a lot before our departure to Cambodia about the Khmer Rouge horrors, we of course had to visit the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek. I am sure that some of you saw the impressive film " The Killing Fields" showing in a very good way the incredible happenings of that era. We hired a guide during our tour of this museum or rather just a field with some holes of the excavated mass graves - because of a lack of money, 43 out of 129 communal graves have been left untouched - and a glass Memorial Stupa showing the skulls of more than 8000 victims. Fragments of human bones and bits of cloth are scattered around the disinterred pits. It is a peaceful place today, masking the horrors that unfolded here less than 3 decades ago.
After this rather emotional visit, frankly commented by our guide, who was too young having lived itself this period, we needed a break, so we went to a nice restaurant for a good lunch.
The restaurant was just in front of the Tuol Sleng Museum, the formerly High School taken over by Pol Pot's security forces in 1975 to be turned into a prison known as Security Prison 21 (S-21). This soon became the largest centre of detention and torture in the country: 17.000 people held at S-21 were taken to the killing fields of Choeung Ek. Altogether, a visit to Tuol Sleng is a profoundly depressing experience. The sheer ordinariness of the place makes it even more horrific: the suburban setting, the plain school buildings, the grassy playing area where children kick around balls; rusty beds, instruments of torture and wall after wall of disturbing portraits of tortured victims conjure up images of humanity at its worst. It demonstrates the darkest side of the human spirit that lurks within us all.
We also watched a powerful documentary made by amongst others the French TV channel FR3 about the true story of a beautiful woman and a regional Khmer Rouge leader, who are made to pay for their love story considered as a crime with imprisonment and execution at S-21 prison.
Oef, that was tough.... and what I got out of it as being the worst thing that even nowadays still exists the distrust among the Cambodian population. As maybe said before the today's Prime Minister Hun-Sen is a former Khmer Rouge soldier and corruption is overwhelming. However people are not ready for a change, out of ignorance - people on the country side hardly receive any proper education - but also out of fear : maybe the next leader is even worse than Pol Pot!
We ended the day with a visit to Phnom Penhs boulevard Sisowath, interesting, but not really after all we have seen today....
Dinner tonight right at the corner of our hotel. I left Arjan and the other 3 right after this dinner to write this blog but before I had a talk of over an hour with 2 taxi drivers waiting for our hotel and speaking extremely well English, and one of them even French. I was surprised that both are not having a better job. Well the reason of that is very simple: corruption! If you do not have the right connections, you will not have the right job.
One of them told that he witnessed this afternoon a car accident, caused by a big car - number-plated RCAF Royal Cambodian Air Force - to a simple bicycle; the car did not even stop, because nobody will bother the RCAF ... One of them was very pessimistic about their near future, the other more optimistic, but I do not see how things may change in the right direction as long as the present political leaders remain in power.
For a poor country as Cambodia, the number of huge - in Europe very - expensive cars is impressive and one should not wonder where the owners get the money from.
OK enough serious considerations, time to get some sleep. Tomorrow morning we are planning a visit to the Central Market and a Lonely Planet walk in Phnom Penh, before heading off to our next destination!
A (I am afraid that he is already sleeping right now) & I - Phnom Penh, 18-11-08 - hot
En wat die andere vraag betreft: daar gaat het ook goed mee!
Dear all,
Finally a normally working, having a normal keyboard and very cheap (0,5 $ / hour) Internet connection, inside and one just opposite our hotel! And I can see again! I changed one of my contact lenses 2 days before departure and my eye-doctor was right when he warned me, that I would have difficulties with reading, which turned out to be very true 1000s kilometres from home ... So tonight I got within 1/2 hour a pair of good reading glasses incl. solid box for only $ 42.
I continue with yesterday 17-11-08 morning. Very disciplined we left 10 minutes before official departure time. Our group turns out to be the more and more weird, no homogeinity at all, but it does not bother us at all. We form our own group of 4 often accompanied the evening for dinner by the Dutch guide.
Long drive on not so good road from Kratie to Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital. Some stops on the way for drinks and lunch, and also because of a technical problem with the bus, which fortunately was fixed very quickly. The stops are always interesting, lots of things to see (people, seriously overloaded cars, rice fields, ...), friendly people, not pushy at all and often ready to be taken for a photograph.
Interesting stop at spiderville Skuon, where huge deep-fried spiders are offered for a snack. We both tried a leg, it tasted quite nice, but when I tasted the hairs of the leg, I had to spit it out .... Our local Cambodian guide ate it all, incl. the body, aaarhhh... And believe it or not, after being caught, they got their teeth getting out in order avoiding from being bitten ... No idea what the name of this species is, maybe a nice question for Lilian!?
Around 5 p.m. we arrived at Phnom Penh. The name of this city has definitely a magic name for me. I was a teenager during the Khmer Rouge horrors, and I remember the news stories about it, but it was for me in a far away Asian country and here I am, 30 years after the end of the Pol Pot regime, in the city where it all started on 17 April 1975. Because of heavy traffic, and even traffic jams inside the city, we arrived slowly and we gradually noticed the change of the country side into modern buildings, still often varied by wooden simple, very simple, houses. Such also in the city centre, with dirty, very dirty streets.
After having checked in in our hotel, we went off by tuk-tuk (4 wheels moped taxi) to an Indonesian restaurant: having 3 Dutch in our group not living in the Netherlands, we were dying for some sateh with "pinda"-sauce... What a deception: it was closed! Next to is the FCC, the Foreign Correspondents' Club, famous beyond the borders of Cambodia, where we enjoyed a - for Cambodian level - expensive diner with my first wine and dessert during this trip.
We were seriously warned for bag snatchers and pickpockets, so we left our belongings in the hotel safe and stayed closely together while returning home. Armed robberies do occur in Phnom Penh, but are rare and I reckon that by taking the same precautions as in Paris or in Amsterdam, things are not that worse. The only serious problem is, is that the police is not protecting tourists, so it is better to avoid any problems ....
18-11-08
The 4 of us we organised a long day. We hired for $ 25 a tuk-tuk for the full day, who picked us up at 7.15 a.m. to get to the Royal Palace (still used by the King and his wife; those private parts are not open to public). That was a little too early so our tuk-tuk driver, Mr Ba (or something like that ..) brought us to a wonderful coffee place, finally my first serious espresso! Cambodian coffee is quite terrible to drink.
We tried again at 8 a.m. and this time the gates of the palace were open (official opening hours are not always respected). Unfortunately it was a raining a bit and later on even more serious (and today we have been told, that a serious storm zone is approaching us from Thailand) so the yellow, red, orange colours of the roofs of the buildings of the Royal Palace were not that vivid. This palace is compared with the Bangkok's one, but we reckon that the latter is much more interesting with much more variety. It can be that the grey weather influenced our appreciation. Absolutely highlight is the Silver Pagoda, with 5000 silver tiles weighing 1 kg each; the life seize gold Buddha weighing 90 kg decorated with thousands of diamonds and the Emerald Buddha, believed to be made of Baccarat crystal. The latter we do not understand, because for us Emerald is not the same at all as crystal. Lilian, another search for you?!
Beautiful Throne Hall as well, still used for instance for ceremonies as the presentation of credentials by diplomats.
Having read a lot before our departure to Cambodia about the Khmer Rouge horrors, we of course had to visit the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek. I am sure that some of you saw the impressive film " The Killing Fields" showing in a very good way the incredible happenings of that era. We hired a guide during our tour of this museum or rather just a field with some holes of the excavated mass graves - because of a lack of money, 43 out of 129 communal graves have been left untouched - and a glass Memorial Stupa showing the skulls of more than 8000 victims. Fragments of human bones and bits of cloth are scattered around the disinterred pits. It is a peaceful place today, masking the horrors that unfolded here less than 3 decades ago.
After this rather emotional visit, frankly commented by our guide, who was too young having lived itself this period, we needed a break, so we went to a nice restaurant for a good lunch.
The restaurant was just in front of the Tuol Sleng Museum, the formerly High School taken over by Pol Pot's security forces in 1975 to be turned into a prison known as Security Prison 21 (S-21). This soon became the largest centre of detention and torture in the country: 17.000 people held at S-21 were taken to the killing fields of Choeung Ek. Altogether, a visit to Tuol Sleng is a profoundly depressing experience. The sheer ordinariness of the place makes it even more horrific: the suburban setting, the plain school buildings, the grassy playing area where children kick around balls; rusty beds, instruments of torture and wall after wall of disturbing portraits of tortured victims conjure up images of humanity at its worst. It demonstrates the darkest side of the human spirit that lurks within us all.
We also watched a powerful documentary made by amongst others the French TV channel FR3 about the true story of a beautiful woman and a regional Khmer Rouge leader, who are made to pay for their love story considered as a crime with imprisonment and execution at S-21 prison.
Oef, that was tough.... and what I got out of it as being the worst thing that even nowadays still exists the distrust among the Cambodian population. As maybe said before the today's Prime Minister Hun-Sen is a former Khmer Rouge soldier and corruption is overwhelming. However people are not ready for a change, out of ignorance - people on the country side hardly receive any proper education - but also out of fear : maybe the next leader is even worse than Pol Pot!
We ended the day with a visit to Phnom Penhs boulevard Sisowath, interesting, but not really after all we have seen today....
Dinner tonight right at the corner of our hotel. I left Arjan and the other 3 right after this dinner to write this blog but before I had a talk of over an hour with 2 taxi drivers waiting for our hotel and speaking extremely well English, and one of them even French. I was surprised that both are not having a better job. Well the reason of that is very simple: corruption! If you do not have the right connections, you will not have the right job.
One of them told that he witnessed this afternoon a car accident, caused by a big car - number-plated RCAF Royal Cambodian Air Force - to a simple bicycle; the car did not even stop, because nobody will bother the RCAF ... One of them was very pessimistic about their near future, the other more optimistic, but I do not see how things may change in the right direction as long as the present political leaders remain in power.
For a poor country as Cambodia, the number of huge - in Europe very - expensive cars is impressive and one should not wonder where the owners get the money from.
OK enough serious considerations, time to get some sleep. Tomorrow morning we are planning a visit to the Central Market and a Lonely Planet walk in Phnom Penh, before heading off to our next destination!
A (I am afraid that he is already sleeping right now) & I - Phnom Penh, 18-11-08 - hot
Sunday, 16 November 2008
Kratie 16-11-08
Dear all,
Another hot day, though I am getting used to it. After the 4 comfortable trips to Japan and Australia I was afraid that I could not stand any longer the heat and humidity of Asian countries, but I still manage to accept it. And though Cambodia is most probably the poorest country I ever visited, I appreciate the kindness of the people. As our Vietnamese guide told us yesterday (that was already in Cambodia): the people in Vietnam - doing economically quite well lately - are not smiling anymore; whereas the people in Cambodia are poor, but smiling. He has no intention at all to return to Vietnam.
Things in Cambodia are getting better, very, very slowly. Still a lot of corruption , bribery, intimidation by the political leaders. Though Internet is extremely slow (256 KB), it is available.
I was afraid for the dusty dirt roads because of my contact lenses, but though there are many of them, which we use as well with our bus, I did pretty well so far. And so far only 2 nights without electricity is not so bad. The place I am sitting right now - Internet café annex restaurant for Western tourists - is full of insects, but so far in our rooms we found - and killed! - only a few cockroaches (not sure about the spelling: cafards in French; kakkerlakken in Dutch) .
Today a morning off. We went with the 4 of us - often we spending our 'free' time with 2 singles of our age sometimes accompanied by our Dutch tour guide ; with the other 10 co-travellers we have hardly anything in common - to the island Koh Trong opposite our hotel with a - of course - simple ferry. We made a walk on our pace, took a lot of pictures of children, longhouses, rice fields and a ... marriage! Guests from Phnom Penh came over, high educated, thus speaking English and French, and they kindly invited us to have a talk with the bride & broom. What a contrast: those well-to-do Cambodian people in the environment of this very basic island. We have been invited tonight for the party on our side, but Arjan is certainly not going to eat the meat, he saw it being prepared, not that hygienic..
On the same island was a Vietnamese floating village: simple wooden houses floating in the river. Unimaginable how people can live under such circumstances.
This afternoon we went all of us for an excursion with a boat to watch the endangered Irrawaddy dolphins and lucky us: we have seen them! Nice boat trip with lots of fishermen. On the way back we made a stop at one of the numberless temples, where a service was going on by the local rowing organisation, who just won a championship. The long rowing boat was brought in to the temple and the sportsmen were singing and making (simple) music. A monk was leading the service. Lots of monks everywhere, but for me - Ingrid - not always possible to communicate - if they speak English - since they are not supposed to approach women. Happily the interpretation of such is pretty large!
Nice sunset over the Mekong river tonight.
Tonight diner at the same place as yesterday, there is hardly anything else acceptable for our Western stomachs. But good - and cheap - food, so such is OK to us. The service is slow, and the meals are coming one by one: I was served first and finished already before the last one was served: Cambodian - like many other Asian countries - do not understand that we order each a meal for ourselves and want to pay for ourselves: often Asian share all the meals in between them and split the bill in equal parts..
Tomorrow off to Phnom Penh, with lots of other adventures!
A&I - Kratie, 16-11-08 - hot
Another hot day, though I am getting used to it. After the 4 comfortable trips to Japan and Australia I was afraid that I could not stand any longer the heat and humidity of Asian countries, but I still manage to accept it. And though Cambodia is most probably the poorest country I ever visited, I appreciate the kindness of the people. As our Vietnamese guide told us yesterday (that was already in Cambodia): the people in Vietnam - doing economically quite well lately - are not smiling anymore; whereas the people in Cambodia are poor, but smiling. He has no intention at all to return to Vietnam.
Things in Cambodia are getting better, very, very slowly. Still a lot of corruption , bribery, intimidation by the political leaders. Though Internet is extremely slow (256 KB), it is available.
I was afraid for the dusty dirt roads because of my contact lenses, but though there are many of them, which we use as well with our bus, I did pretty well so far. And so far only 2 nights without electricity is not so bad. The place I am sitting right now - Internet café annex restaurant for Western tourists - is full of insects, but so far in our rooms we found - and killed! - only a few cockroaches (not sure about the spelling: cafards in French; kakkerlakken in Dutch) .
Today a morning off. We went with the 4 of us - often we spending our 'free' time with 2 singles of our age sometimes accompanied by our Dutch tour guide ; with the other 10 co-travellers we have hardly anything in common - to the island Koh Trong opposite our hotel with a - of course - simple ferry. We made a walk on our pace, took a lot of pictures of children, longhouses, rice fields and a ... marriage! Guests from Phnom Penh came over, high educated, thus speaking English and French, and they kindly invited us to have a talk with the bride & broom. What a contrast: those well-to-do Cambodian people in the environment of this very basic island. We have been invited tonight for the party on our side, but Arjan is certainly not going to eat the meat, he saw it being prepared, not that hygienic..
On the same island was a Vietnamese floating village: simple wooden houses floating in the river. Unimaginable how people can live under such circumstances.
This afternoon we went all of us for an excursion with a boat to watch the endangered Irrawaddy dolphins and lucky us: we have seen them! Nice boat trip with lots of fishermen. On the way back we made a stop at one of the numberless temples, where a service was going on by the local rowing organisation, who just won a championship. The long rowing boat was brought in to the temple and the sportsmen were singing and making (simple) music. A monk was leading the service. Lots of monks everywhere, but for me - Ingrid - not always possible to communicate - if they speak English - since they are not supposed to approach women. Happily the interpretation of such is pretty large!
Nice sunset over the Mekong river tonight.
Tonight diner at the same place as yesterday, there is hardly anything else acceptable for our Western stomachs. But good - and cheap - food, so such is OK to us. The service is slow, and the meals are coming one by one: I was served first and finished already before the last one was served: Cambodian - like many other Asian countries - do not understand that we order each a meal for ourselves and want to pay for ourselves: often Asian share all the meals in between them and split the bill in equal parts..
Tomorrow off to Phnom Penh, with lots of other adventures!
A&I - Kratie, 16-11-08 - hot
Saturday, 15 November 2008
13/14/15-11-08
Hi all,
I am sitting with a torch in my mouth in a sticky Cambodian city with extremely slow working Internet connection, welcome to Cambodia!
13-11-08
With the ferry we left Khong Island for a transfer day. First stop at Khon Phaphang (water) Falls, Laos' widest in the Mekong river.
We continued to the Laotian-Cambodian border. We already had our visa and with a $ 1 bribery each, the formalities went quickly.
Good lunch stop at a wood-smugglers hangout on the way : our local guide told us that the locals illegally cut wood and in order to escape the police they are ready to kill people standing in their way if they drive with their speeded-up car. Such a car was parked next to the restaurant ....
The road conditions are getting less: the infrastructure in Cambodia - one of the poorest countries in the world - is bad. Sometimes we crossed bridges with big holes in it; if the driver is not paying attention to it ... anyway, our driver is very careful, so not a single moment we were afraid.
We stayed for 2 nights in an eco-lodge 6 kilometres from the small village Banlung: electricity only from 6 pm to 9 pm; plus limited solar energy; unfortunately not working anymore the 2nd night. No hot water and not so clean bedsheets.. Banlung is in North-East Cambodia, not so touristy. Excellent dinner in the village.
14-11-08
Beautiful weather again, not humid. With 8 of us and a local guide we went out for the day to visit some ethnic minorities: Kreung, Tompuon and a Chinese settlement. We drove with 2 land cruisers, compulsory for this time even more terrible road conditions; roads with big holes, mud, etc. Unimaginable how to drive here during the rain season.
With a small boat - happy that we did not fell in the water - we crossed the Sesan-river to go to Vengsai. Interesting to visit the cemetery of the Tompuon animists (they believe in spirits); so no Buddhists; they bury their deaths. After fix periods they organise a memorial service with music, mourning and food. We were invited to assist to one of these (very informal) services. They also decorate the tombs with wooden sculptures often representing human beings.
Simple lunch on an island in the river with chop sticks made on the spot from bamboo shoots.
Surprising to see that the Chinese settlement was much tidier than the Laos villages: like in lot of other places in the world, the Chinese people are in charge of the business.
With 4 of us we managed to organise a taxi at the eco-lodge, i.e. the manager authorised his staff to use his car to drive us to the village to enjoy our best dinner ever (of these holidays) for $ 17 for the 2 of us. In Cambodia we pay everything in $ and if any change in $ is available one gets his change in $; if not you get your chance in riel = the local currency : 4.000 riel = 1 $.
15-11-08
We were supposed to stay another night in the eco-lodge and to walk around today. However, since it rained yesterday evening, walking would be very tough, so we all decided to shorten our stay with one day and to leave 1 day earlier for Kratie. To get there we partly had to take the same road of 2 days ago. Lunch stop in another unknown place, but fried rice or noodles with vegetables is always acceptable.
Arjan & I started eating pork, chicken, beef and fish; but such stays an adventure in these countries. We visited this morning the local market of Banlung and we decided definitely not to eat any snail: they were laying down in the full sun.. No further details about the conservation and treatment of fish and meat; let me resume it by saying that it is colourful...... So far, so good, everybody in the group is doing fine.
Our Dutch guide however was invited yesterday morning by the boss & his family of our Banlung guides and enjoyed a local breakfast. Well he did not enjoy it at all: though he is used to the local food, he said that it was uneatable: the leftovers of the good parts of any animal; stuff like that. I saw our local guides eating beef stomach for lunch, interesting, but not for us!
We arrived in Kratie around 4.15 pm, so some time left to explore the city by foot (sunset at 5.30 pm). There is supposed to be a rich legacy of French-era architecture in the (Mekong) riverside town counting 79.000 inhabitants, but we qualified it as being very sad: run out houses, bad streets, muddy, poor looking.....
Our hotel seems to be OK and this time we really appreciate such after 2 days in the 'jungle' without electricity.. It is humid here, we are now sitting in a bar with our Dutch guide and 2 fellow travellers. I hope they made a restaurant choice: I am ready for some nice food!
A&I - 15-11-08 - Kratie, sticky & humid
(Trijnie: geen eten of drank; maar wel een andere lokale verrassing. Het ziet er goed uit; advies opgevolgd!)
I am sitting with a torch in my mouth in a sticky Cambodian city with extremely slow working Internet connection, welcome to Cambodia!
13-11-08
With the ferry we left Khong Island for a transfer day. First stop at Khon Phaphang (water) Falls, Laos' widest in the Mekong river.
We continued to the Laotian-Cambodian border. We already had our visa and with a $ 1 bribery each, the formalities went quickly.
Good lunch stop at a wood-smugglers hangout on the way : our local guide told us that the locals illegally cut wood and in order to escape the police they are ready to kill people standing in their way if they drive with their speeded-up car. Such a car was parked next to the restaurant ....
The road conditions are getting less: the infrastructure in Cambodia - one of the poorest countries in the world - is bad. Sometimes we crossed bridges with big holes in it; if the driver is not paying attention to it ... anyway, our driver is very careful, so not a single moment we were afraid.
We stayed for 2 nights in an eco-lodge 6 kilometres from the small village Banlung: electricity only from 6 pm to 9 pm; plus limited solar energy; unfortunately not working anymore the 2nd night. No hot water and not so clean bedsheets.. Banlung is in North-East Cambodia, not so touristy. Excellent dinner in the village.
14-11-08
Beautiful weather again, not humid. With 8 of us and a local guide we went out for the day to visit some ethnic minorities: Kreung, Tompuon and a Chinese settlement. We drove with 2 land cruisers, compulsory for this time even more terrible road conditions; roads with big holes, mud, etc. Unimaginable how to drive here during the rain season.
With a small boat - happy that we did not fell in the water - we crossed the Sesan-river to go to Vengsai. Interesting to visit the cemetery of the Tompuon animists (they believe in spirits); so no Buddhists; they bury their deaths. After fix periods they organise a memorial service with music, mourning and food. We were invited to assist to one of these (very informal) services. They also decorate the tombs with wooden sculptures often representing human beings.
Simple lunch on an island in the river with chop sticks made on the spot from bamboo shoots.
Surprising to see that the Chinese settlement was much tidier than the Laos villages: like in lot of other places in the world, the Chinese people are in charge of the business.
With 4 of us we managed to organise a taxi at the eco-lodge, i.e. the manager authorised his staff to use his car to drive us to the village to enjoy our best dinner ever (of these holidays) for $ 17 for the 2 of us. In Cambodia we pay everything in $ and if any change in $ is available one gets his change in $; if not you get your chance in riel = the local currency : 4.000 riel = 1 $.
15-11-08
We were supposed to stay another night in the eco-lodge and to walk around today. However, since it rained yesterday evening, walking would be very tough, so we all decided to shorten our stay with one day and to leave 1 day earlier for Kratie. To get there we partly had to take the same road of 2 days ago. Lunch stop in another unknown place, but fried rice or noodles with vegetables is always acceptable.
Arjan & I started eating pork, chicken, beef and fish; but such stays an adventure in these countries. We visited this morning the local market of Banlung and we decided definitely not to eat any snail: they were laying down in the full sun.. No further details about the conservation and treatment of fish and meat; let me resume it by saying that it is colourful...... So far, so good, everybody in the group is doing fine.
Our Dutch guide however was invited yesterday morning by the boss & his family of our Banlung guides and enjoyed a local breakfast. Well he did not enjoy it at all: though he is used to the local food, he said that it was uneatable: the leftovers of the good parts of any animal; stuff like that. I saw our local guides eating beef stomach for lunch, interesting, but not for us!
We arrived in Kratie around 4.15 pm, so some time left to explore the city by foot (sunset at 5.30 pm). There is supposed to be a rich legacy of French-era architecture in the (Mekong) riverside town counting 79.000 inhabitants, but we qualified it as being very sad: run out houses, bad streets, muddy, poor looking.....
Our hotel seems to be OK and this time we really appreciate such after 2 days in the 'jungle' without electricity.. It is humid here, we are now sitting in a bar with our Dutch guide and 2 fellow travellers. I hope they made a restaurant choice: I am ready for some nice food!
A&I - 15-11-08 - Kratie, sticky & humid
(Trijnie: geen eten of drank; maar wel een andere lokale verrassing. Het ziet er goed uit; advies opgevolgd!)
Wednesday, 12 November 2008
Khong Island 12-11-08
11-11-08
The train journey went very well. The half hour too late departure has been caught up during the night. It was not as colourful as I am used to in India, no conversation with local people - which is anyway hard because we hardly meet any people talking English - this is also due to the composition of the train cars; but it was clean and well organised. Arjan slept pretty good and I think I slept maybe 5 minutes.....
At arrival in Ubon Ratchathani, a bus took us to the Thai-Laotian border at Khamsing Pathoumxath, very simple border place; everything went quite smoothly. An other - Laotian - bus took us down to our next place of stay. On the way we made some stops for money change (for a day we felt almost like millionaires with the Laotian "kips" ....), lunch, and a visit to the Wat Phu.
Wat Phu is a small temple often compared with the Angkor era sites in Siem Reap (Cambodia), the famous ones we will visit later on this trip. Nice to visit this quiet place, hardly any tourists. We could get used to the very steep steps, frightening for Ingrid, but left alone by Arjan :-(( she had to go the way down on her own and she did it!!
To get there we had to take another simple van and a ferry to cross the Mekong river. The way back on the ferry was quite a surprise, we took a very simple ferry - certainly not authorised by the European security reglementation - a kind of wooden motorised "vlot" (sorry, we do not know the English word..), fun!
Another 2 hours of driving and another ferry to cross the Mekong again to get to Khong Island, 1 of the 4.000 islands of Si Phan Don.
So far the quality of our accommodation is OK, large rooms, good beds, electricity, this time no hot water. Today we could join an excursion, but being the single full day of our stay in Laos, we decided to spend it on ourselves and rented a bike to tour around the island. Pretty tough on too small bikes in over 30 C, but absolutely worth to suffer the 50 km! Lots of temples, monks, beautiful scenery (the rain season just finished, so everything is very green), rice farmers busy harvesting, buffels, ducks grazing the rice paddies, school kids yelling Sawadee (= Hello). That was so cute that Ingrid fell from her bike which frightened more the school kids than herself. She is doing fine, some superficial scratches ...
Tomorrow off to Banlung where we will stay for 3 nights, probably overthere no Internet.
A&I - Khong Island - hot & bright blue sky !
The train journey went very well. The half hour too late departure has been caught up during the night. It was not as colourful as I am used to in India, no conversation with local people - which is anyway hard because we hardly meet any people talking English - this is also due to the composition of the train cars; but it was clean and well organised. Arjan slept pretty good and I think I slept maybe 5 minutes.....
At arrival in Ubon Ratchathani, a bus took us to the Thai-Laotian border at Khamsing Pathoumxath, very simple border place; everything went quite smoothly. An other - Laotian - bus took us down to our next place of stay. On the way we made some stops for money change (for a day we felt almost like millionaires with the Laotian "kips" ....), lunch, and a visit to the Wat Phu.
Wat Phu is a small temple often compared with the Angkor era sites in Siem Reap (Cambodia), the famous ones we will visit later on this trip. Nice to visit this quiet place, hardly any tourists. We could get used to the very steep steps, frightening for Ingrid, but left alone by Arjan :-(( she had to go the way down on her own and she did it!!
To get there we had to take another simple van and a ferry to cross the Mekong river. The way back on the ferry was quite a surprise, we took a very simple ferry - certainly not authorised by the European security reglementation - a kind of wooden motorised "vlot" (sorry, we do not know the English word..), fun!
Another 2 hours of driving and another ferry to cross the Mekong again to get to Khong Island, 1 of the 4.000 islands of Si Phan Don.
So far the quality of our accommodation is OK, large rooms, good beds, electricity, this time no hot water. Today we could join an excursion, but being the single full day of our stay in Laos, we decided to spend it on ourselves and rented a bike to tour around the island. Pretty tough on too small bikes in over 30 C, but absolutely worth to suffer the 50 km! Lots of temples, monks, beautiful scenery (the rain season just finished, so everything is very green), rice farmers busy harvesting, buffels, ducks grazing the rice paddies, school kids yelling Sawadee (= Hello). That was so cute that Ingrid fell from her bike which frightened more the school kids than herself. She is doing fine, some superficial scratches ...
Tomorrow off to Banlung where we will stay for 3 nights, probably overthere no Internet.
A&I - Khong Island - hot & bright blue sky !
Monday, 10 November 2008
Bangkok 10-11-08
Hi all,
An hour left before the departure of our night train from Bangkok to Ubon (border place between Thailand and Laos) , departure time 20.30, expected arrival time 7.30 tomorrow morning if no delays happens, which seems to be quite frequently.
Both Arjan & I had a good flight. Arjan made yesterday with the group a bike tour through the city (Chinatown, klongs = canals, alleyways, ...) before returning to the hotel (very convenient, unexpected luxury one!), where I waited for him. I arrived 5 hours after Arjan's flight and made a short trip on my own to Vinanmek Teak Mansion, the world's largest golden teak building. Getting dark at 17.30 I wanted to be back before in the hotel being afraid to get lost such a very 1st day after such a very long flight. I could not find a taxi, but I knew that the hotel was close by, so I returned by foot. And yes, it is hot, and yes it is humid, but that's part of the deal: better to accept it, than to complain about it.
After a good night sleep, we've made a relaxed day by visiting some of Bangkok's highlights, like the Grand Palace, amazingly rich and colourful decorated, the Wat (= temple, remember this word) Phra Kaew showing the Emerald Budhha, the Wat Pho - the largest and oldest temple of Thailand - exhibiting the largest declining Buddha of Thailand. We were pleasantly surprised by the perfect condition of all the buildings and statues. Because of the decease of the sister of the King of Thailand - the longest reigning king of the world since 61 years - a period of mourning has been declared for 3 months so not everything is always open. The King's sister seems to be cremated in 3 days, so we are leaving just in time, before the city gets crazy.
At arrival tomorrow morning we have to travel another 7 hours, quite exhausting all together.
Our tour guide seems to be OK, a young Dutch man married to a Thai woman, living here, speaking the language,.. Personally I hardly met the other group members, time enough this night and tomorrow during the long voyage!
Stay well !!
Ingrid & Arjan - Bangkok Nov. 10th 2008 - hot & humid even at 20.00 !
An hour left before the departure of our night train from Bangkok to Ubon (border place between Thailand and Laos) , departure time 20.30, expected arrival time 7.30 tomorrow morning if no delays happens, which seems to be quite frequently.
Both Arjan & I had a good flight. Arjan made yesterday with the group a bike tour through the city (Chinatown, klongs = canals, alleyways, ...) before returning to the hotel (very convenient, unexpected luxury one!), where I waited for him. I arrived 5 hours after Arjan's flight and made a short trip on my own to Vinanmek Teak Mansion, the world's largest golden teak building. Getting dark at 17.30 I wanted to be back before in the hotel being afraid to get lost such a very 1st day after such a very long flight. I could not find a taxi, but I knew that the hotel was close by, so I returned by foot. And yes, it is hot, and yes it is humid, but that's part of the deal: better to accept it, than to complain about it.
After a good night sleep, we've made a relaxed day by visiting some of Bangkok's highlights, like the Grand Palace, amazingly rich and colourful decorated, the Wat (= temple, remember this word) Phra Kaew showing the Emerald Budhha, the Wat Pho - the largest and oldest temple of Thailand - exhibiting the largest declining Buddha of Thailand. We were pleasantly surprised by the perfect condition of all the buildings and statues. Because of the decease of the sister of the King of Thailand - the longest reigning king of the world since 61 years - a period of mourning has been declared for 3 months so not everything is always open. The King's sister seems to be cremated in 3 days, so we are leaving just in time, before the city gets crazy.
At arrival tomorrow morning we have to travel another 7 hours, quite exhausting all together.
Our tour guide seems to be OK, a young Dutch man married to a Thai woman, living here, speaking the language,.. Personally I hardly met the other group members, time enough this night and tomorrow during the long voyage!
Stay well !!
Ingrid & Arjan - Bangkok Nov. 10th 2008 - hot & humid even at 20.00 !
Saturday, 8 November 2008
08-11-08
Dear all,
My suitcase is packed, so I just have to close my front door behind me to really start this trip, a new adventure in a new Asian country: Cambodia! My plain will take off at 19.35 from Paris Charles De Gaulle airport; Arjan his plain left already from Amsterdam Schiphol airport at 14.35.
I will arrive tomorrow after an 11 hours flight in Bangkok (Thailand) at 12.25 local time (time difference of 6 hours). It is not my first stay in Thailand; I was there in 1999 for a 3 weeks trip, this time I will stay only 1 day before continuing by night train for 2 days in Laos. I spent in 1999 a very good day at my own in Bangkok at the end of those holidays. Being in such a big rather unknown city at the start of a holidays is something else and quite impressing: besides of the rather rude change of climate, it always takes me some time to feel comfortable in such a different environment, culture and living standard (exception: Japan; there one can drop me wherever and I will feel OK!). I will meet Arjan only in the evening at 19.00 in the hotel, so I have to spend some time on my own. Do not worry, I will find my way around!
Difficult to say how frequent our reports will be. The infrastructure in Cambodia seems to be rather poor, electricity is not always part of it or guaranteed, so right now I have none idea about the presence and quality of Internet cafés which we need to keep this weblog.
I hope that the financial crisis will recover during our absence, things were tough last month and even this week, but it needs to recover one day, doesn't it!?
Oh, just to make you longing for better days: weather forecast Bangkok tomorrow sunny and 30C, humidity 89%; Phnom Penh coming days sunny and just below 30C, humidity 75% …
Amicalement, Ingrid - Courbevoie - sunny day
My suitcase is packed, so I just have to close my front door behind me to really start this trip, a new adventure in a new Asian country: Cambodia! My plain will take off at 19.35 from Paris Charles De Gaulle airport; Arjan his plain left already from Amsterdam Schiphol airport at 14.35.
I will arrive tomorrow after an 11 hours flight in Bangkok (Thailand) at 12.25 local time (time difference of 6 hours). It is not my first stay in Thailand; I was there in 1999 for a 3 weeks trip, this time I will stay only 1 day before continuing by night train for 2 days in Laos. I spent in 1999 a very good day at my own in Bangkok at the end of those holidays. Being in such a big rather unknown city at the start of a holidays is something else and quite impressing: besides of the rather rude change of climate, it always takes me some time to feel comfortable in such a different environment, culture and living standard (exception: Japan; there one can drop me wherever and I will feel OK!). I will meet Arjan only in the evening at 19.00 in the hotel, so I have to spend some time on my own. Do not worry, I will find my way around!
Difficult to say how frequent our reports will be. The infrastructure in Cambodia seems to be rather poor, electricity is not always part of it or guaranteed, so right now I have none idea about the presence and quality of Internet cafés which we need to keep this weblog.
I hope that the financial crisis will recover during our absence, things were tough last month and even this week, but it needs to recover one day, doesn't it!?
Oh, just to make you longing for better days: weather forecast Bangkok tomorrow sunny and 30C, humidity 89%; Phnom Penh coming days sunny and just below 30C, humidity 75% …
Amicalement, Ingrid - Courbevoie - sunny day
Thursday, 11 September 2008
Cambodia
Cambodia, our next destination, departure November 8th! A bit of Thailand and Laos as well.
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