Kampot

Arriving in Kampot we found the most beautifull place called Rikitikitavi, only to find out that it was fully booked :-(. However, that didn't stop us from having breakfast, lunch, dinner and great cocktails on the 1st floor terrace!The place is owned by and English guy and his Dutch lady who turned out to come from our lovely hometown Leiden!

Kampot is old colonial style, and just plain old colonial. Most buildings look like they have been build by the French and that . the last maintanance was done by the French, French style ;-). Probably, the romantic touch and old city will be gone in a few years when 'development' (sounds too positive doens't it?) has taken over

From Kampot, we took a motorcycle for a 25km ride to Kep, the old sea resort, turned into ruins during the Khmer Rouge period. Here we had a coconut on the beach and met a group of young munks, with their photographer friend. I was invited for the photoshoot (girls and munks is not a really good combination) and Anna took some pictures of us as well. No swim, but it was good seeing the sea again after being in a hot country for a couple of weeks without a sea breeze.

Phnom Penh and the killing fields

Phnom Penh is not a big city, nor a great city. A lot of low rise buildings. After a six hour bus drive from Siem Reap, we were dropped in the centre of town. All the places on the quay that the lonely planet advised were full, so we decided to pick one of the not advertised simpler hotels overlooking the river. However, the room was cheap ($23) with a balcony overlooking the river and no (visible) bugs! While having dinner, we were (again) confronted with the poverty of Cambodia. Although we knew the children selling stuff on the streets of Bangkok and Saigon, the selling is different in Phnom Penh. In Bangkok a lot of kids go to school and sell stuff to foreigners. Here, the kids looked poor and were really pushing for each sell. It is not easy to explain, actually I don't know how to explain it, but this was 'real' poverty, the kids were really, really poor and needed to sell stuff. This is poverty and this is feeling guilt. The next day it got worse when we visited a temple and were stormed by kids poiting at their (empty) bellies to explain they were hungry. The touts and pimps were waitinga couple of meters away to take way the money...What to do? You know that if the kids don't make enough money, they may be beaten or not given food. But by giving them money and buying stuff from kids, you reenforce their function as an economic means, something to make money on. The rational thing is not to give anything and to deprive the pimps of income from the kids. When the kids don't make money, there is no use in using kids and the kids could go to school etc etc. However, this also means depriving the kids of food and who will send them to school? At first we didn't know, we then we gave some kids a little. Finally we decided to go for the rational way and not give anything to the kids. However, by going to places like the friends restaurant, an initiative to teach street kids how to work in a restaurant (they have other projects as well), we tried to at least help them a little. It remains a difficult issue though, especially if you walk past the Phnom Penh Cars shop, with all luxury cars including Landrovers, Hummers and Jaguars.

A visit to Phnom Penh just isn't complete without visiting the XXX prison and the killing fields memorial. The memorial is at the place where they took the prisioners from Phnom Penh, to execute them. Man, women and children.

Cambodia part I

First things first, after arriving in Bangkok, Anna needed her nails done...Actually, I needed a massage and we ended up with a footmassage, followed by a pedicure.... However, Bangkok was just a start, the real trip was Cambodia!

The trip from Bangkok to Siem Reap is notorious. On Khoa Sang Road travel agencies sell tickets for the 'scam bus', for 500 Baht (11Euro) they'll transport you all the way from Bangok to a guesthouse of their choise in Siem Reap. However, cheap has a price. Instead of travelling for 6 to 8 hours, it takes 12 to 16 hours, and instead of paying 1000Baht or $20 for a Cambodian Visum, you'll pay double. So we decided to travel independent. We took the 'normal'/1st class airco Thai bus to Aranya Prathet for 420 Baht, where we changed into a tuk tuk to the border for 80Baht. Here, the troubles or complications or fun or whatever-uoi-call-it started. First the tuk tu drove us to a Visa Office, whose services we politely refused. After all, a visum at the border would cost $20 and they charged us 1200Baht which is roughly $35. >When we tried to explain this to another couple, the gentlemen from the office started waving goodbye and told the tuk tuk driver to drive away. Which he promptly did. Then however, we faced a dilemma when he drove us to the Cambodian consulate. Here, they charged us 100Baht for the visum, still more than at the border, but it was the consulate......so we fell for it. We paid a little more and 5 minutes later we got our visa. We hopped bac into the tuktuk for....another stop at the visa office, "do you need taxi in Cambodia, very cheap only $30!" We thought no way, but if we had known....

At the consulate we met two Finnish guys and together we crossed the border, only to find out that a 'tourist bus' offered by the 'Ministry of Tourism' was waiting for us to take us to the bus station where we could take a taxi or bus. Anna checked with local law enforcement and it turned out to be ok. NOT! Yes we did board the bus, and got out 800 meters down the road to find out that we had fallen in the hands of the local transportation mafia. Another couple had refused the bus, and tried to board one of the 'normal'taxis, but a nice gentlemen told the taxi drivers not to take them, so they ended up with us at the station. Here we were told a taxi was $60 for 4 people. After a lot of haggling outside, we finally paid $40 for three (including a Swiss guy we had met) and headed in a Toyota Camry towards Siem Reap. AT the stop (the one a the picture) we heard from another couple that they had paid $100 for a taxi for 4! Instead of a scambus, we ran into a taxi scam :-). But in the end, we did make it to Siem Reap, as you can see on the pics below... oops, me in the fancy bed is actually me being ill and therefore we fled to the Meridien Hotel in Siem Reap, with the most kind and friendly hotel manager in the world. Graham Thank you again!

No fancy place, but Aza on ice in leiden

Finally it's cold enough for some real ice experience.
---this email was sent from my blackberry

Anna and Ilja in Israel

This is a lazy post, just a slideshow of the pictures with some text, but it is post.

Israel: restaurants and food

This is actually a post based on two trips. My first trip was at the beginning of September. This was a business trip to The ICT Counter Terrorism Conference. The second trip was at the end of September together with Anna to visit Adina and Dan's wedding and of course to enjoy a nice week of vacation in the Holy Land. This post has two parts: first some restaurants and finally some night clubs.

The Old Man and the Ocean is a fish restaurant in old Jaffa. It's an Arab restaurant filled with Israelis enjoying good food for a low price. I've been three times to this place and every time the food was good and the atmosphere typical fast Arab: sit down, you get the 20 salads (meze like) including humus and falafel, a guy comes up to take your order and before you know it, there is a giant fish waiting on you plate. They serve a very sweet but nice lemonade with the food. The last time was somewhat different though, although it had nothing to do with the food. When we took a taxi from the Sheraton Moriah (shitty hotel, better go for the Sheraton Tel Aviv which is $20 more, but triple the value), we asked the driver if he knew the place. He said yes, but immediately stopped the car to ask his colleagues at the hotel who gave him some directions. Then we took off and at 30 Shekkel on the meter I asked him if he knew where we were going, and he said, yeah sure. However, we ended up on the top of the modern tourist part of Jaffa. After some talk and talk, we finally decided to leave the car, since he apparently had no clue where the restaurant was located. However, after we left the car he came after us and demanded money, so much that we attracted the attention of the police. But after explaining the situation, they send him away. Walking around in Jaffa, we waited and waited for a taxi until Tel Aviv’s most shabby cab driver showed up who knew exactly where the restaurant was and who charged us 25 Shekkels for the 5 minute drive (roughly triple of what it should cost) however, we had reached our destination!

Benny the Fisherman is a fish restaurant located in Tel Aviv’s old Port and is a restaurant just like the Old Man and the Ocean, but more oriented at tourists, fancy and double the price. The food was good, but without an Israeli with you, they may try to rip you off. My first visit with Dana was just fine but with Anna, they doubled the prices of the fish.

Diana (Tel 077-5156168/04-6464343) is supposed to be one of Nazareth’s best restaurants. When Susan and I arrived in Nazareth, we just could not find it. Eventually, a friendly man told us that the restaurant had moved and showed us how to get there: he got in the backseat of our car, brought us to our destination and left….just a very nice guy indeed. The restaurant is indeed nice, falafel with sesame around it, very tender lamb and an excellent wine list. The second time I visited the place with Anna and instead of sitting in the nice garden (which was too cold at the beginning of October) we sat in the restaurant where they used the airco like it was still the middle of the summer. Probably better to eat here in the summer.

Tapas and Tel Aviv makes a great combination. Anna and I visited two: Tapeo and Champa. Tapeo is a more popular upscale restaurant. The tapas look beautiful and taste great! One guy makes the cold tapas behind the bar. Champa is a rather new place with no tables and no wine list: they only serve Cava, the Spanish bubbly wine. However, the Cava they serve is good and cheap (50 shekkel a bottle which is around 10 Euros) and the simple tapas taste great! Just a pity that the Cava is so good in finding a short cut to your head, doesn’t it Anna? ;-)

Tel Aviv nightlife

Tel Aviv has a great night life scene. Getting in is easy for a foreigner (so it seems). With both Susan at the beginning of September and with Anna at the end of September, it was a piece of cake to get into a club. Just say hi to the selector and she would waive us through.None of the clubs charged any entrance fees. Drinks were between 40 and 50 Shekkels for a mix (GT or wodka red bull)

The first club for me to visit in Israel was the Clara a.k.a. Fashion Club. It’s located opposite to the XXX hotel in the direction of Jaffa, next to the dolfinarium. First floor has a mix of club house and ‘90s remixed while the 2nd floor is a rooftop club with more relaxed house. The view over the sea is great. Crowd is somewhat younger and the guys are a little more trained and into tight outfits than in the rest of Tel Aviv. Too bad the club closes at the end of September for the winter.

Zizzi Tripo is an excellent club in the basement of 7 Karlibach St. Club house is the music and the crowd is 25-35, so I felt right at home :-). Below a compilation of three short clips I shot with my wonderfull Nokia N95 8Gb.

Apartment 98 (98 Dizengoff St., second floor.) is a nice place, but we ended up here when the party was apparently at its end. The place is really a club in an apartment building. Nice touch is the Mini Cooper they’ve built in the place. To get to the second floor, you have to use an old and crampy lift.

Uptown (old port) turned out to be my favorite. The hardest to get in, not the best music (house mixed with popular, 80/90s and some Israeli music) and clearly regular DJs (the second Saturday, the mix really resembled the first when I heard Cela Cela again) it did have a great atmosphere with a large outside area. Below a short phone movie shot at September 12th 2008.