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.

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...

the old blue house

It just wrenches my heart everytime I pass through my old neighborhood and get a glimpse of our old home - this lovely blue Khmer house on stilts by Wat Bo Road near the Old Market. With bougainvilleas creeping into the gate and a garden fringed by mature trees, this is the closest my family ever got to "A Year in Provence" sort of living.


Before us moving to this house, this was home to another artist - a French oil painter named Vincent who made masterpieces here for a year. Before that, this was also the home of the founding manager of Artisans d'Angkor - an institution known for reviving traditional Cambodian crafts.


Vincent, the painter moved because he thinks his "artistic" zone is being bothered by the carwash that just opened next door. So we got lucky and got the house for ourselves, sealing a two-year contract for lease.


So then, we renovated the house, planted a lawn and squeegeed our sweat to make the house our home. Spending an arm and a leg to replace the roof tiles, install double walls, fix the ventilation and what-nots, we didn't care about expenses as long as we find our bliss.


And bliss we found. Soon, these empty walls and rooms were filled to the brim with artworks, doodles and handmade furnishings that was brought about by a ceaseless flow of inspiration.


It was also here that our son Freedom had his field day of firsts - the first time he stood on his own two feet and eventually walked. The first words he muttered with sense were also here...



My wife also tried her hand in developing a green thumb where she started her likig for orchids and where we both grew an herb garden - from basil to string beans and exotic shrubs from the Philippines like kadios and alogbate.


This is where we'd spend lazy weekends reading books, whipping out experimental dishes in the kitchen or simply snooze around beckoning corners...


Even our labrador Chockie couldn't agree more...


But the smooth ride ended quite soon. Our landlady, Madam Lada started squeezing us out for more money for loan (I lost count of how many times her son had an accident and how many uncles of hers passed away) or exhorbitant electric billings (up to 400 dollars per month!) that seemed like the GDP of a small, African country!

Finally, one day in May, she asked us to move out as someone already bought the property. She promised us though that she will pay us for our deposit and the money she owes us as soon as she receives the payment from the buyer. Of course, it would take a major intensity 9 earthquake and a Katrina-esque cyclone before she could pluck us out of there but finally, we moved out on early June.

It's been more than a year now, but until now, we haven't been paid back. She still owes us almost 2 thousand bucks and we have tried all sorts of measures to try to get our money back - from doing a diplomatic talk to hiring Khmer staff to negotiate and even calling the police but to no avail. At this point, we've given up, but when we saw the "House for Rent" sign up last month, I began to wish I invented the atomic bomb.

Welcome to Cambodia.