Angkor Wat, Cambodia, JT 7

Last weekend we had our annual Boys Trip. We actually call it 'Jamie's Trip', after our friend Jamie who died in the Bali bombing in 2002. He was one of the founders of this trip back in 2001 when we went for the 1st time.
That first trip was to Lake Toba and since then we have been on 7 trips together.
The boys are Butch (Dorothy), Tom (Slug), Gerardo, Scott, Scotty(Assman) ,Rob (Grandma) and myself

All of these trips have been in Indonesia, but this year we decided to broaden our horizon and we picked Angkor Wat in Cambodia as our destination.

Angkor Wat is supposed to be one of the 7 wonders of the World and is the largest temple complex there is.

The temples are located near the town of Siem Reap.

It was definitely a memorable trip and the whole temple complex is truely amazing. I have seen quit a bit of impressive temples ( Palenque, Chichen Itza, Tikal) , but this one for sure beats the lot.








This was also my first visit ever to Cambodia and probably wont be my last. Siem Reap is a booming town and was surprisingly nice. It has lots of nice restaurants and bars. There are internet cafe's everywhere and it has quality hotels. You can still see the french influences from the old colonial days everywhere.

As soon as you leave the town though the poverty hits you in the face. It's is definitely one of the poorest countries that I have ever seen

Rob and I brought some clothes and toys to hand out and we were almost attacked by desperate kids trying to get their hands on something. They have absolutely nothing! It was sad, but also another good eye opener for us. It makes you realize again how fortunate we and our kids are and how lucky we are that we were born on the other side.....

Fashion Show

Our kids love to dress up and get fancy. The especially like it when they can wear our clothes and shoes. Are all kids like that? I guess so!

It's absolutely hilarious to see them doing 'the catwalk' in our house and showing their outfits.


Here is Noah modelling a fine pair of black leather high heel boots. The shoes are very comfortable to wear in the house and to play in the sandbox. He also wears a light blue GAP shirt and not wearing pants is only recommended in the tropics or in summer time.

Ayla is showing some work from our new summer collection. She is wearing a fancy light blue sleeveless shirt with beautiful lacy edges. The attraction of this outfit is the rainbow hat to get you in a real summer mood.

Sue's Birthday

I know it's a bit late....but I still need to add a posting about Sue's birthday from a week and half ago. I guess things got busy last week.

Here we go.....For Sue's birthday we went out on Friday night to an Italian restaurant with some friends. It was a nice relaxing evening and a good way to catch up.


Her actual birthday was on Sunday the 11th.
For Mother's Day last year, Noah and I made Sue breakfast in bed and he liked this so much that he wanted to do this again for her birthday.
So here we were at 6AM, cooking up some eggs and toast and making coffee in the kitchen

After we finished cooking and making coffee, we woke up Ayla and the 3 of us went to the bedroom to surprise mama.

We didn't have a party on Sunday, but we did eat the chocolate birthday ice cream cake, the highlight of the day for the kids, with our friends the Murgies and their kids.

Klompen

All Dutch kids walk on wooden shoes, dont they?

Isn't that what a lot of foreigners think about us? Well.....it's not exactly like that anymore. Very few kids actually wear them nowadays.

But we are keeping the old tradition going and both Noah and Ayla love to walk on 'klompen'. (Clogs)

Unfortunately Noah has outgrown his and we need to buy him a bigger pair this summer. Ayla wears hers all the time and walks in and around the house all the time proudly, showing off her wooden shoes.

I guess they love the sound of them.......or maybe it is it a genes thing after all....??.

BANJIR

Banjir is the Indonesian word for FLOODING!

Since last Friday torrential downpour has hit Jakarta. At night it rained like never before for hours and hours.

We woke up on Friday morning with 2 bathrooms flooded and a swimming pool that had almost disappeared into a small lake in our garden.

Our minor problems were nothing however compared to what other people had to deal with. At 6 AM our driver called to let us know that he couldn't come to work because the area where he lived was completely flooded. At some places the water level had gone up 4 meters!!! Can you believe that?

A good friends of ours had 2 meters of water in their living room and just managed to save most of their possessions by moving it all upstairs.

At 7AM the school emergency phone tree was activated and we heard that school was closed for the day. The school was not flooded, but it was just impossible for a lot of people to get to the school. Also traveling was in some areas very dangerous because of the flooded streets.

As a result of all the flooding phone lines went dead, power was out at a lot of places and of course Internet connections were out as well.

On Saturday and Sunday it kept raining, but not as much as before. On Monday morning we found out that school was closed for another day. The water levels had gone down, but this time the problem was the fresh water supply. Apparently there was no fresh water available on campus.

I used that Monday to go with Sofia(Noah's nanny) into her kampung to look at her little house and the damage that the water had done. A lot of people were driven out of their homes and lost most of their possessions. Her house was not flooded anymore but they had lost a lot of their belongings. The lower areas of the kampung were still flooded.

It was amazing to see how these people accept their fate with smiles on their faces. They even allowed me and encouraged me to take pictures, which I was a little embarrassed about. They could have easily thought...what is this rich 'buleh' doing here taking pictures of our misery?

According to the official reports, as of now about 350,000 people are homeless in the city and 20 have died. It just never stops here does it?

Guess what the weather forecast is like for the next few days? RAIN !!!

In case you want to see / read more about the floods you can also check out Scotty and Rob's blogs. Just click on their links on the right side.

The Zoo

One of Noah's favorite outings is the zoo . We have been at the Jakarta zoo many times and I have to admit, that when you go really early in the morning at 8 or so it is pretty enjoyable. At that time it is still pretty cool, pretty clean and quiet. After 10 o'clock during the weekends it gets crazy with herds of locals swamping and littering the place. It's really annoying to see what a mess people make of this place ( and most other public places). I guess proper education about cleanliness hasn't reached Indonesia yet....




Of course when you are a buleh ( which is the word here for stranger/ foreigner/ white person) you often get a lot of attention in public places. We are used to it and usually just ignore them.


Noah's favorite animals are the crocodiles, the lions and the tigers.

Noah goes down the drain

Just wanted to share this funny picture of Noah with you all.
He is laying in a soapy bath tub and doesn't it just look like he is being sucked down the drain together with the disappearing water?

Credits to Sue for taking this awesome picture!