a new blog si born!

Siem Reap Life is your virtual window into the latest happenings, the most interesting places and faces, the best bargains for wine, dine and local shopping as well as the most fabulous experiences you can possibly have in Angkor town.

More than a guidebook and definitely not a critique, it is honest, informative and straight out of the heads and hearts of residents. Our blog authors are of diverse backgrounds and interests. Thus, you get a whole collage of point of views and always a perspective you can relate to.
Whether your just traveling through or soon taking up residence, get in-depth and intimate with Siem Reap, check-out Siem Reap Life!

www.siemreaplife.com

best kep secret

I am hopelessly in love with this place, and the whole Cambodian coast as a whole. But me and my wife are definitely head over heels with the city of Kep-Sur-Mer, or Kep in short...


Established by the French as the premiere beach destination in the 1900's, Kep will definitely not win first place as best beach, but the appeal, lifestyle and mood that this place injects is indescribably surreal!


Dotted with countless villas from the French colonial era and the 1960's, the city was built at the time when Cambodia was on its golden years. Now, however, it is a living testament of the dark years of the Khmer Rouge and the Cold War. The grand old edifices that used to stand proud on its seaside avenues are but empty shells and rotting ruins.



The last couple of years however, saw the re-emergence of Kep in the radar of the international jetset. Now, it is slowly rebuilding its arms with a good number of eco hotels, exquisite boutique resorts and small luxurious hotels around.

We first came to Kep accidentally, after I burned out from a very tiring shoot in Phnom Penh. Instead of going back home north to Siem Reap, we decided to make a drive down south and found our way here. We first stayed at Khnai Bang Chatt which we thoroughly enjoyed. But on the next couple of times, we stayed at the rustic Champey Inn by the Rue de la Plage, a stone's throw away from Kep's famed Blue Crab Market.

We are just hooked to this place and are planning to stay here in one point of our lives...

my hiatus ends!

Yes, I'm still alive! And I haven't disappeared from the face of the web... instead, I've sort of silenced my way into making a bang!

I've been working on the following websites for myself, for my business collaborations, and even for my city - Siem Reap, with the help of several amazing individuals!

www.lovenramos.com - my personal voyages through photography

www.artdeli.org - my new cafe/gallery project in collaboration with my friend Jam from Canada

www.siemreaplife.com - the city's first online portal. A collaboration with two amazing friends - Sarah and Philippe that has ballooned into a really fun project involving a dozen other bloggers around Cambodia's premiere holiday gateway.

www.youaremypoetry.com - my friend Don and I put up an Aladdin Cave of sorts (according to Phnom Penh Post) and this is it... this is still a work in progress!

www.spoolworks.net - still not live, but am working on this site day and night. This is my main business bloodline!

We will be launching our city's blog/website, www.siemreaplife.com in a fun party on Sunday, July 25 at the Alley West during the country's first ever Green Market - an organic fair!

family portraits

Our not-so-little boy came home to Cambodia last month with Nanie, my mom and my sister and made our holidays the best we've ever had. It was our first Christmas and New Year altogether so we had to do our portraits!


My son, Freedom, all grown up!


The two of us doing a Lacoste ad!


Family snaps

Our Family! From left: my mom Love, my sister Love Grace, Don - the high priest of Cambodian avant garde fashion, my wife Faith, our son Freedom and Nanie.

shooting the queen and wrestling a llama

Okay, I admit. I need to get a life. I've been pretty stuck with work and the new shop for the past months that I almost forgot the existence of life beyond the office -that's the very reason why I haven't uploaded anything on my blog in like 5 months. I haven't touched my Facebook account since the French Revolution. I haven't upoaded anything on my Flickr account since Alexander the Great last tried conquering India. And my Friendster account (if that thing still exists), has been hibernating since the last Ice Age. It's sort of a llama (yes, the animal) of responsibility that I've been wrestling for the past months.

Recession has hit us pretty hard here that we have to sweat our asses more than the usual in order to make ends meet. And me, grappling with a monster (monsters actually) I've created (a design studio with an army of people to feed, and two shops/boutiques/galleries that we've invested on) have no choice but to be a slave to this llama of choice.

But as I'm hit in the head with the realization that I actually need to go back to things that I enjoy doing in the past before I lose passion with them completely, I am turning around my life by going back to my blog. Again.


Had a really cool chance of photographing Cambodia's Queen Mother recently as official photographer to her state visit to the Artisans d' Angkor.


Cambodians stood in unity to welcome Her Royal Highness, Queen Norodom Monineath Sihanouk in Siem Reap last week.


As the queen mother and the king father are these days, based in Beijing, China, their return to Siem Reap is truly a momentous occasion. They were greeted by an immense throngs of people from all walk of life.


The Queen Mother, originally named Paule-Monique Izzi, was born from a French, Corsican, Italian father and a Cambodian mother.


That explains her lovely bi-racial features... and her uncanny resemblance to England's Queen Elizabeth II.


At Artisans d' Angkor, she was presented with a gift of a finely carved gold leaf encrusted Buddha statue for her inspiring help to the project. In return, she presented everyone with gifts too!


But the clincher was when she asked to do an offering to the presented statue. She asked her staff for incense as offering, but no one in the crowd had a match to light it up. As everybody rushed to find her a match, I came to the rescue by offering her my lighter. She gladly accepted it, smiled and gave it to the Royal Protocol Officer (that's him lighting the incense with MY lighter) who gladly gave it back to me after the ceremony.


She left afterwards on board the Royal Benz #003. She wowed the crowd with her remarkable royal presence. And I, being scorned for being a smoker, learned one valuable lesson that day. Smoking can lead to royal connections.

I think I'll put my lighter up for auction on Ebay pretty soon. That may just be the end of the recession for me...

11 reasons why i havent blogged in ages

1.Did photography work for a New Zealand Magazine

I was commissioned by a Kiwi Magazine in Auckland to shoot Dean Williams, who used to be a big media personality in New Zealand before moving to Cambodia to open a funky cocktail bar called Miss Wong.






2.Sent my son to school for the first time

Yup, he’s officially a student at the International School of Siem Reap as we’ve been trying to convince him for the longest time that he is NOT Yet an adult.




3.We’re building a new store

We’re expanding and we’ve just opened a new store at the Alley West called POETRY. It’s a total lifestyle experience offering Don’s clothes, vintage finds, original jewelry from designer friends like Jor-el and Tita Jaki all the way from Iloilo, Philippines and a gallery for my work on “words” as well as for other up and coming artists based in Cambodia and the world over.








4.Opened up a solo exhibition at the Angkor National Museum

The Saffron Spirit makes its way to the Angkor National Museum alongside the kingdom’s ancient treasures. I couldn’t have been more thrilled!




5.Prepared for a trip home

Spent two weeks in Iloilo picking up pieces of my childhood memories and rebuilding our home after the devastating flood last year. Most of our family pictures were gone and my paintings and artworks have vanished into oblivion, but all is definitely not lost…



My mom, lost 90% of her garend and plants which is her source of life and income... but she has moved on quite well....




We had a reunion with relatives on my mom's side so we are slowly rebuilding our connections and lost memories.... all the lost pictures, books and what nots would have to be relished again... on a new perspective....


6.Turned another year older in Cambodia

Celebrated my 31st year of existence on this planet with family and friends. I actually shared the birthday week with Vincent, one of my photographers and good New Yorker friend Elizabeth Kiester.




7.Am being featured in a magazine with two great friends

Fah Thai Magazine, Bangkok Airways’ inflight magazine, is doing a feature on me, Don, and Elizabeth on our efforts to make Siem Reap the next best fashion destination in the planet. Hehehee.


8.Did a load of wedding shoots and temple shoots

Work work work. Need I say more?


9.I’m helping redesign the National Museum in Phnom Penh

One of the projects I’m really looking forward to do! Got in through the help of American friends John and Narisa McDermott!


10.Did a Suitcase Sale

One of the cool stuffs we’re doing on the Alley West…


11.Prepared for my sister’s graduation

After 4 years of gruelling tuition payments, and other miscellaneous out-of-this-planet expenses, my sister Love Grace has finally finished her Nursing degree...

The ceremony in itself was more suffering that you could bear than 4 years of school combined... the graduation lasted almost 7 hours and the keynote speaker spoke for more than 2 hours! To top it off, there were almost 500 nursing graduates alone! There were around 300 honor graduates (cum laudes, summa cum laudes and magna cum laudes)... the reddeming point is that my sister got an award for outstanding nursing graduate from the Baptist Church Organization in Ohio. She also got a loyalty medal for going to the same university from kindergarten.

I think they ought to give awards too for those who endured the entire ceremony...

a home for holidays

Of late, most hotels have been bombarding us with overused lines and cliches such as "home away from home", "your home in + name of place", "feels like home" and all that crap that goes with it... even big chains with 300+ rooms define themselves as a "home" when all you see is actually an impersonal, factory type accommodation that sells itself to busloads of toruists from wherever. What the...???!!!

A coffee friend of ours (people you meet over coffee or you run into coffee shops) asked my team to visit their home here one day and see if we can help them market it as a holiday home. Meaning, they live there but they accept a small number of guests to try out their home and sample their lifestyle.


They call it Amatao - a marriage of Japanese sensibilities (the wife is Japanese), southern French flair for the simple yet out-of-the-ordinary things (the husband is French) and of course, Khmer lifestyle since their home is in Cambodia.

Located in the Cambodian countryside 30 minutes away from the city center and overlooking Southeast Asia's largest lake, Amatao is a collection of several house structures, mature gardens, ponds and a green tiled pool.

Inside, each "house" is crowned by large, muslin draped beds and wooden beamed ceilings. Bathrooms are also large and airy. As this place is stuck in the middle of a ricefield, spectacular views are on hand in every corner.

Right down below the main house is a dead giveaway of its Frenchness - a temperature controlled wine cellar with its collection of vintages and new world favorites.

There are reading nooks everyhere, and corners where you can lounge with your ipod.

There are also massage rooms near the Japanese garden and an outdoor bath to watch the stars while wash out life's worries away...

The tea house in the Japanese garden is also a great place to hang around and be lazy. As the owners are also avid gardeners, an orchidarium housing rare Cambodian orchids and plant species is a great showcase, as well as a rose garden with French roses blooming around.

When they first told us about the concept of different cultures and styles coming in together, we thought that it was too much of a hodge podge of things, but seeing them altogether as an amalgam of their personalities turned out to be a rather interesting mix! The biggest draw though is the fact that it is a real home open to guests - not a hotel that hard sells itself to any Tom, Dick and Harry. They cook for you, their personal house help tend your needs and their own kids wander around and help serve you...

Just outside is a real cambodian village where people live in houses on stilts, where people still graze their goats and cows and where things haven't changed for the past decades (except perhaps for the occasional mobile phone laoding centers!)...

I wish we have more places like these around, and if we have saved enough money hopefully (which will be a million light years from now), we would love to build something like this...

Donations are now accepted...

if life is a car transmission...

On our last trip to Phnom Penh, we took our 1992 Toyota Camry for a supposedly 6-hour spin from Siem Reap to Cambodia's capital Phnom Penh on an almost 400 kilometer stretch of good road. We've done the road trip countless times already so we know that before each trip, a complete car check-up is necessary. So we did, and off we went! With me were the Spoolworks Team (my design studio) - Brewster, our graphic designer who was on the wheel and KC, our creative sales director who was our beat boxing specialist at the backseat.

But an hour to the trip, we keep on losing our speed until the clutch couldn't hold it anymore...


Turns out our transmission finally broke after all those years of hard work. So what do you do when you have more than 300 kilometers to go?

Well, you start pushing of course!



Or better yet, sit back and inhale the best of the Cambodian countryside...


Or savor those seemingly dilapidated towns which seem to be trapped in the 60's...


Make friends with the brown-eyed locals...


or perhaps ride the moto with some monk brothers....


maybe settle down the pavement and enjoy a bite of green mangoes...


or stop by some houses for a drink or two...


Maybe enjoy a smoke or a puff by the roadside...


or do a full-scale fun streetfighter-inspired photo shoot...


or finally concede that we needed a new transmission afterall!


So for 35 bucks, we were pulled by a rickety Khmer Rouge - era truck to the nearest town which was another 30 kms away. We managed to find a decent hotel, had some dinner and woke up early the next day to find a car shop. A day and 400 dollars later (roughly 20,000 pesos), we got back our car and raced to Phnom Penh with a "brand new" second hand transmission tipping the 130 km/hour scale...

Then the radiator leaked and overheated. But that my friends, is another story of course...