From Zwolle to Phnom Penh – Ramon Flicks the Switch in Cambodia

By: Gabi Yetter

When people come to Cambodia, they usually take a while to settle in.

Not Ramon Stoppelenburg.

Ramon arrived in Phnom Penh last September, found a place to live in three days and within six months was the new owner of the city’s only movie house.

This may not sound like a great feat but Ramon took a slightly different path to most. He did it with no money.

As the king of networking, he flung out the net, built it – and they came. That’s how he does things. His global escapades began in 2001 when he launched the website LetMeStayForADay.com asking people to invite him to their homes from his base in Amsterdam. The concept flickered and caught fire and Ramon received 3,577 invitations from 77 countries. So he hit the road for 26 months, staying with strangers who soon became friends.

Uneasy Money

By: Roy Simson, first published in Jakarta Expat

Gambling, like prostitution and corruption, is an age-old vice that is part of Indonesia’s culture. Despite being criminalized in the 1970s, the gaming industry is flourishing, thanks to protection from crooked politicians, military officers and police receiving a cut of the profits.

From maids buying Rp.1,000 black market lottery tickets, to Balinese betting passionately on cockfighting, to tycoons staking thousands of dollars on a roulette wheel spin, gambling appeals to a broad cross-section of Indonesians, although most are wise enough not to squander their money on illegal games of chance.

Opponents of gambling argue that it can cause financial ruin, divorce and moral decay. Supporters claim the government could be earning at least $1 billion a year to fund public infrastructure if gambling was regulated and taxed. Neighbouring Singapore is forecast to earn $6.4 billion from its two casinos this year, putting it on par with Las Vegas.

Bali sets the stage for ASEAN

By: Ed Caffin

From November 19-21, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations will have it’s 19th summit. In several meetings on Bali, the ten memberstates and 5 gueststates discuss the regions economic and cultural issues. As the chair of ASEAN in 2011, Indonesia also hosted a summit last May in Jakarta. Now, for the third time in ASEAN-history, Bali sets the stage for a giant logistic operation.

It isn’t easy to organize a summit with 15 heads of state. Especially not when the president of the United States is one of them. Logistic material required for president Obama’s vist only, required no less than 40 U.S. government flights (!) arriving on Ngurah Rai international airport this week. With the arrival of these planes and these of other heads of state, delays of commercial flights are expected.

Snapshots of 21st Century Burma/Myanmar

Text & photo's by: Antares

I first visited Burma in 1984 with my 13-year-old daughter in tow. Those days tourists were only issued a 7-day visa but we ended up staying 8 days because our Burma Airways flight to Kathmandu was delayed 24 hours and the airline put us up an extra night in the Strand Hotel, a colonial relic with musty charm.

Burma in the 1980s was pretty much a timewarp reality – everywhere you looked you would find buses and jeeps from World War Two still plying the mostly untarred roads outside the urban areas. Coca-Cola was mercifully unavailable – except, perhaps, at the swankiest establishments.

My second visit to Burma (now officially known as the Republic of the Union of Myanmar) was in August 2011. This time it was an even shorter stay, even though tourists are now issued 28-day visas, so I didn’t venture beyond a few streets in Rangoon (now Yangon).

Thierry and the Chocolate Monggo Factory

By: Angela Richardson, first published in Jakarta Expat

What do you get when you mix a Belgian man with Jogjakarta, the love of chocolate and a sprinkle of determination? Monggo is what you get. Some of you may have spotted ‘Monggo’ chocolates at your local supermarket and sampled its sweetness, but the story behind its success is bitter sweet.

This tale’s version of Willy Wonka is Thierry Detournay, who interestingly enough had no previous chocolatier experience and is instead trained as a social worker and psychologist. Upon his travels of Southeast Asia in 2001, Thierry decided to try his luck in Indonesia. He ended up in Jogjakarta and due to its lower cost of living, remained there to this day.

Best new WWW ideas in Indonesia: a Top 10 of Indonesian internet-ideas

By: Emma Kwee

Apps and other web ideas sell like hotcakes these days. Despite low access to computers (most people use their smartphones or internet cafes), Indonesia is the second largest in terms of number of Facebook users and fourth largest nation when it comes to Twitter users. In Indonesia, with its 238 million inhabitants, internet developments seem to go at an even faster rate.

New so called Tech start-ups see the light every day. Group buying (i.e. sites that offer special deals at local stores with a minimum amount of customers) prove an especially powerful business venture. Power house Groupon is, just as in many other parts of the world, the largest of these sites. It has recently snapped up Disdus.com a Jakarta based group buying site with special deals in Jakarta, Bandung, Surabaya, Bali, Yogya and Medan. Webshops, market places and social networking sites are also still on the rise. Here some more good new sites and apps:

A Tale of Sand: A Hidden Ecological Struggle in Yogyakarta

By: Reyhard Matheos

Sand defines the life story of those who live along Kulon Progo's southern shoreline. Up to the present day, this sand has nourished thousands of souls along the coastal fringe of Kulon Progo regency, Yogyakarta province. The story starts before 1942, when coastal dwellers were already trying to turn the sand into a source of sustenance.

Those that live from the sand are called cubung, a derisory stereotype which means backward or inferior village people, prone to sickness. And in fact, in past decades, the combination of the sun's heat and strong blasts of wind meant that many inhabitants experienced diseases of the skin, respiratory system, stomach or eyes.