A Visit to Wat Toul Tom Pong

Cambodia is predominantly Buddhist. Throughout Cambodia -- in every city and small village -- exists a "Wat". A Wat is religious hub and serves many purposes within Cambodian culture. In Western parlance, a Wat is roughly a Buddhist church. Well... somewhat. The only similarity between a church and a Wat is that it houses religion. Beyond that, a Wat lives, breaths and behaves like no church.

To begin with, a Wat is not only a place for worship, but sparse but clean communal accommodations for Monks and others.

A Cambodian in sudden dire straights, at any hour, can always find counsel, food and lodging for a day or two at a Wat, seldom longer, unless one provides valued services Monks need in exchange for bed and food, without pay.

What I really like about religion here is you don't need to go to Wat on Sunday. Instead, Monks make house calls... everyday. You make a donation of food or funds, receive a prayer. 45: seconds later you are blessed and good to go for the day.

Monks returning to the Wat from a morning of gathering resources and delivering prayers.

Some Wats are hundreds of years-old and no longer viable and need to be replaced. Quality old growth timbers of old Wats are carved into life size human interpretations to be sold or introduced to a new Wat.

When I die, I want to be cremated. As a developer, being buried seems like a bad use of real estate space to me. These are chambers where bodies are burned. Sad, but a fact of life.

How are these for stairs?

Wolf Creek Ranch Goes on the Market.

After two years of design and development, Wolf Creek Ranch is now ready to go on the market... just in time to be in the depths of the deepest United States economic downturn in over 80-years.

In the last huge American economic crash of 1929, we had far more domestic unemployment than this current instance. However in today's recession, we have pulled far more of the world down with us than in 1929.

As a small, high-end developer, International buyers have increasingly become important clientele over the years. The fact our misfortunes in the United States have effected high net-worth folks around the world makes my sales efforts on projects like this more challenging.

Even in good times, marketing to the world leisure audience interested in multi-million dollar land for second-homes is tricky and expensive. Now, the stakes are even higher.

Last Fall, as our American economy felt like it was in a free-fall, I thought of putting Wolf Creek Ranch on the shelf - to go on the market 2010-2011.

Come Spring/Summer 2009 - I couldn't curb my enthusiasm. The property looks great and I decided to launch a new web site and buy a modest amount of media in these difficult times.

You may take a look at our work product at www.ranchatwolfcreek.com.

Miss Land Mine Beauty Pageant

Beauty Pageants have never been of interest to me ... until this. This Pageant is different. Untold tens of thousands in Cambodia bordering Lao, Vietnam and Thailand - even today - step on one of millions of remaining land mines. Horrible but treatable in the first-world, but more often than not - a death sentence, here in a frontier country like Cambodia.

While women with hands and/or legs blown-off are odd and emotionally awkward to take in at first, soon I started to understand the true beauty in these contestants. The beauty is having a big body part removed and still moving forward with dignity.

Enthusiastic about this project, I began work with Chean Long to develop a proposal to do still and video work for this very unique pageant. Out of the blue, the pageant called Chean Long asking to quote for just what we wanted to do. They came to us before we had a chance to come to them. We were ecstatic.

Then a week before the Pageant, kaboom. The Cambodian government said such a pageant was a 'cultural problem' and not good for Cambodia.

My belief is tourism is at the core of Cambodia's denial of this pageant. Wicked things have happened recently here in Cambodia and all the leaders, when they were young, saw it all, but want to put it all behind them. Understandable. Not good for business.

Sensitive stuff. We keep an open mind and encourage Ministries in Cambodia to do the same. There are some beautiful stories to be told about exceptional Cambodians.

Cambodian Army Shooting Range / Part 1

Not long ago, a local Khmer friend told me an Army Base outside the capital of Phnom Penh had an enterprising side business going on. Well...what on earth are they doing?, I asked. "You can shoot a bunch of big automatic guns and blow stuff up" was his reply. What kind of big guns? Blow-up stuff - with what? I asked. "Anything they have. Depends on your budget" he said. I was interested.

My driver, Sok Phea, began the rather large task of researching how to get to this Army Base outside of town, fringing the countryside. Finding things for the first time in Cambodia - even in the Capital - can be a real task. In town, street names are important, but often numerical addresses are useless. For God knows what reason, numerical addresses can rise and fall and rise again in the same block; 'Even' and 'odd' numbers can even be found on the same side of a street. Directions are all landmark based. You may ask, 'well how do they deliver mail?' There is no mail service in Cambodia. Monthly bills are delivered in person by the bill issuing company.

With direction details somewhat at hand, I recruited a couple good friends to join me in this adventure. Long and Terick. Long is a photographer, Terick owns a small ice cream manufacturing and distribution company.

Sok Phea at the wheel, we arrive in the vicinity. Knowing we are close, we make several more enquiries to locals along the way and given helpful hints and make our arrival. Upon our arrival, Phea tells the guard the purpose of our visit. Enthusiastically the guard gives us landmark directions of where to go further for a couple of miles now that we are inside the base. As we follow our base driving instructions, there are dozens of overgrown and fallow arduous training stations, clearly unused for years, if not decades.

Terick and I ready to take care of business.

Shopping Khmer Style

There are some very good grocery stores in Cambodia that cater exclusively to wealthy Khmer and foreigners. These stores have an extensive selection of goods from around the world, particularly Australia, France and the United States. These are the stores I do all my shopping.

Just for the fun of it, my good friend Chean Long and I went to one of many several outdoor markets in Phnom Penh where the vast majority of Cambodians shop. These markets tend to be just filthy -- but the stock is very fresh. As I have mentioned in earlier blogs, these outdoor markets have no refrigeration. You need electricity or ice for that. Both are too expensive for the beef and fish mongers. The good news is highly perishable commodities are caught or slaughtered that morning. Perishables are most expensive between seven and nine a.m. Prices go do down as the day burns on. Leftovers are taken home by the vendors and sold at rock-bottom prices to folks in the neighborhood where they live or bartered to pay weekly rent payments.

Enjoy this short video, "Shopping Khmer Style".