SIEM REAP, CAMBODIA AND THE END OF THE YEAR 2018

After a disastrous New Years Eve party in the home of a neighbour in Havana in 2016, I ha decided I would choose carefully where I wish to be at the end of the year as well as with whom I wish to spend the end of the year, especially the joyous moment of welcoming the New Year.
I couldn't have chosen better: Siem Reap, Cambodia.
It is a laid back town, heavily invested in tourism, the face of which is changing with the invasion of Chinese tourists.
But today and tonight (31 December 2018 and 1 January 2019) the local Khmers claimed their land, their space and spread their natural gaiety..
The joy in the air was genuine, not the Are we having fun yet? kind.

The day began with a nice asian breakfast of Noodles, fruits and a mild tea (wished for Teh Tahrek). A visit to the Computer store resolved the external drive problem I had to deal with for years. When labour of any sort is involved, Asian countries are the better choice for immediate and courteous resolution of your problems (technical for example).
PassApp is one of the most effective application for a visitor to a new city that I have ever seen. Much like other share ride apps, you plug in your location and the destination and the type of vehicle you want : A Car, An Indian Auto Rickshaw or a traditional Khmer Tuk Tuk. Within minutes they are at your doorstep and the rate is extremely reasonable and you have no haggling to do. Polite, timely and very convenient.

(sad to hear about the death of Dr Beat Richner of Zurich who for 25 years provided excellent paediatric services at the Jayavarman VII hospitals. Glad to see that 2 of the 37 dollars collected for one day entry to Angkor is to be donated to the Paediatric Hospitals in Siem Reap and Phnom Penh)
I had the chance to use the APP a couple of times today. A quick visit to a Ceramics place which was rather dull in colour and activity, a national museum which is attached to a shopping centre (possibly owned by the same people). Tourism has grown so dramatically in Siem Reap which converted this sleepy village (somewhat dangerous with many mines in the temple areas) in late 1990s to a bustling mini town with all its advantages and disadvantages, Improvements in infrastructure has not taken priority, but there has been good improvements in the Gastronomy sphere.
A short ride and the lunch was ready. A farm to table, modest restaurant close to the Beyond Yangon Boutique Hotel.

I chose the Vegan choice from the Lunch Specials and it was delicious.
A little siesta before the festivities began and this one has my own individual stamp on it.

 Stephane delapree is a french artist with a special style depicting khmer life and as he says: I may not become rich here but certainly I have a calmer and happier life. I make a point of chatting with him, in a mixture of English and French.

 The streets were already busy and full of people in joyous mood. The next stop was the familiar Leg Massage place where I had the pleasure of a strong massage by Anya, whom I had known for at least two years.

Khmer people are of extraordinarily cheerful disposition and innocent in their thought and behaviour. Here this lady who has a stand making fruit juices and shakes, hands me a little present of fruits and lemon when I stop here for a simple drink of mango or avacado. Tonight the sunset was the backdrop to a tasty avacado shake.

 The little girl from the neighbouring stall became friendly very quickly and we would play for a little while i consumed the fruit concoction.

I checked my BP around 4 pm local time and it was a respectful 140/75. We say "lifestyle" changes knowing fully well that very few have the chance or ability or capacity or income to do so. Here it can come naturally. Easily available food is healthy, you walk a lot and you can also sleep without a schedule.

 How easy it is to walk 20 000 steps here in Siem Reap and that is over 13 km!

(notebook to write, iphone to check whatsapp messages from far away friends and an occasional email.. no Facebook, sorry)
Had a sip of wine or two with the owner of the hotel where I am staying  Beyond Yangon Boutique Hotel, who is also my burmese brother, Ko Maung Maung. He was too tired to wait up to see the new year in, but we chatted about the changes in Siem Reap in the many years we have known each other.
Time for dinner:
Genevieve was the choice and I had already spoken to the owner, who is an australian from Melbourne.

(Khmer Chicken Curry )
Had a chance to chat with the pleasant owner of the place and we exchanged bits of our australian pasts.
He is genuinely concerned about his staff and the people living near where he obtains his vegetables.
Walking towards the centre of town, the surge of humanity was the force and i was truly happy that instead of few tourists drinking and singing loudly out of tune songs with beer bottles about them, the place was full of young and not so young Khmer people truly having a good time. Music blared and bodies swayed.
I could honestly say that this was one of the nicest end of the year celebrations that I have attended. Thank you Siem Reap..

 Even some Hijab clad cambodian cham muslims were part of the celebrations. Despite the large crowd, nothing untoward happened, people were very well behaved.

A BIRTHDAY PARTY AT THE BRISTOW LIGHTHOUSE HOTEL BY THE SEA IN FORT COCHIN KERALA

One becomes aware of the cohesiveness of the staff here at the HOTEL, which has come home to me while I am in Fort Cochin. (to me to include Ernakulum as Cochin is sacrilegious!) 
The General Manager is very genial and the Operational manager very efficient in his tasks. (Mr R and Mr A) and Mrs AM at the front desk is always helpful. In the kitchen and in the dining hall the strong presence of Raghavan from AP and SriKanth from Trivandrum are felt under whom another group of  younger ones are becoming competent. Everyone is friendly from the janitor to the security guard and not to forget our dear drivers. They are Hindus, Christians and Muslim and they seem to get along all fine. 
The hotel reflects the philosophy of its owner Mr VG who lives in Bombay and the day to day operations are under the control of Mr R the GM and Mr A the operational manager.
Today there were less busier than the other fiesta days so they decided to toast two of the workers , a tamoul who is aptly named Lenin and the driver from Saudi junction called Manolo by me (Manuel). After the morning rush had faded, they brought out cakes and presents and the two of them got literally creamed and thrown eggs at and in general made to smell something out of the ordinary.
Every one joined in and it was a pleasure truly shared by all.

FOOD INSECURITY AND PRE DIABETES .. YET ANOTHER SOCIAL CONNECTION FOR INCREASING INCIDENCE OF DIABETEES

I have always maintained that DIABETES  type 2 i a social disease and its ravenous increase world wide is the confirmation of the social influences on its prevalence.
I am in Fort Cochin on this Noche Buena and it does not seem congruous to talk about this subject but I had been reading on some of the research this morning, while relaxing after an Ayurvedic massage.
Food Insecurity is an universal problem, taking the extreme in places such as Yemen or Bangladesh, to many countries in the world. In the developed countries USA Australia and such, there is a fair amount of Food Insecurity, especially among those who are immigrants, marginalized or oppressed. 
The study quoted below is from the USA and I happened to be associated with some of the marginalized groups in the USA.
While marginalization, oppression and racism and social exclusion may go hand in hand with poverty and other social indicators such as immigration, isolation and unemployment, I have ben observing groups of people who are marginalized but not quite accepted by the society for various reasons including self selection to be separate from the major culture: Mexican Americans, Filipino Americans, South Asian Americans.. and have noticed the higher than normal rate of Diabetes type 2 in all such groups..despite some of them being fairly successful economically. 
This is something to think about..

Here is the article

Published in Diabetes

Journal Scan / Research · December 20, 2018

Associations Between Food Insecurity and Prediabetes

Diabetes Research and Clinical Practice

TAKE-HOME MESSAGE

• The authors of this cross-sectional research study investigated the association between food insecurity and prediabetes and sought to identify subgroups for early clinical intervention. NHANES data for years 2005–2014 from 25,814 individuals were analyzed. The association between food security status and laboratory-confirmed prediabetes was examined using multivariable logistic regression analysis adjusted for age, gender, race, and BMI. Participants with low/very low food security were 1.35 times more likely to have prediabetes compared with those who had full or marginal food security. Younger individuals (age, 20–34 years) with low/very low food security were 1.5 times more likely to have prediabetes compared with food-secure individuals.
• Food insecurity is positively associated with prediabetes, and the association is stronger in younger individuals. Food-insecure young adults should be targeted for early clinical intervention to prevent the poor health outcomes associated with diabetes.

Abstract

AIMS

The primary aim of this research was to investigate the association between food insecurity and prediabetes and to identify specific subgroups for early clinical intervention.

METHODS

Cross-sectional data from 25,814 participants were analyzed from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey for years 2005-2014. Multivariable logistic regression was used to explore the association between food security status and laboratory-confirmed prediabetes. All models were adjusted for age, sex, race, and body mass index.

RESULTS

When compared to participants with full and marginal food security, participants with low/very food security were 1.35 (95% CI: 1.17-1.55) times more likely to have prediabetes. Younger individuals with low/very low food security had a greater likelihood of prediabetes, 1.50 (95% CI: 1.19-1.81), when compared with their food secure counterparts.

CONCLUSIONS

Food insecurity at any level, whether low or very low, is positively associated with prediabetes in the U.S. general adult population. Food insecure young adults, particularly those aged 20-34 years, should be targeted for early clinical intervention.

WISHING YOU A GOOD NOCHE BUENA IN WHATEVER PART OF THE WORLD YOU ARE 

MERRY CHRISTMAS OR WHATEVER ELSE YOU ARE CELEBRATING TODAY 

FROM THE FESTIVE ATMOSPHERE OF FORT COCHIN WITH ITS LARGE CHRISTIAN POPULATION AND THE OLDEST CATHEDRAL IN INDIA 

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL OF YOU 2019

MY FIRST TRIP ON GEORGIAN AIRWAYS PARIS TO TBILISI TO TEL AVIV

I do not make my travel plans far in advance and this time of the year is dreadful for spontaneous travel.
I wanted to go from Miami to Brussels, spend a few days there and on to Tel Aviv to spend a couple of days before going to the East.
It was difficult to get a comfortable and convenient flight from Miami to Brussels. Once that was settled I wanted to to Israel and the airfares on direct flights from Brussels to Tel Aviv had taken a steep rise..
Fortunately using some of the travel apps, I saw a fare from Paris (just one hour and ten minutes by train from Brussels) to Tel Aviv which was very reasonable. The only catch was that it was on Georgian Airways. Georgia is a country which has a soft spot in my heart, ever since I learned from medical school days that I carried a special HLA that was found only in Georgia!
The Uber driver in Brussels arrived in a shiny Mercedes Benz car and was a well dressed (and adorned with the necessary gold watch) from Guinea-Conakry. We got along fine from the very first moment, as he proudly announced that Sekou Toure the Independence hero of Guinea-Conakry was good friends with Fidel Castro.
The temperature outside was zero and the traffic jam was not that bad for the hour of the day and I prepared mentally for the long wait at the CDG airport in Paris.
Brussels airport may have some redeeming features but on this morning, I was happy to get on the train (a TGV to Marseille the first stop was the Paris CDG airport). A comfortable ride and soon I was at CDG airport.
Georgian airlines along with Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan airways, share Terminal 2 D. The best thing about Terminal 2 D was the immaculately clean toilettes..The eating and imbibing choices were limited and it is a crime in Paris not to eat well or drink well. Plus they did not have a lounge which was easily accessible. 
A long wait and ha.. welcome to the ex-soviet union citizens who have not learned the art of civilized waiting in line but demonstrated their impatience with shoving and cursing the agents. The fact that the agents who came very late to the counter, sauntered in would be a perfect description, as if they were listening to some music from Burkina Faso or Algeria and later told me that it was her first time working for GA! But she was pleasant and for an additional 25 Euros got myself the first row seat with no one sitting next to me. For a 4 hour flight, it is well worth it.
The customs/security check was not that difficult or cumbersome and soon I found myself looking for the Priority Pass Lounge inside Terminal 2 D non-schengen area. 
A pleasant french maghrebian passport control officer let me through. Imagine my horror when i got to the crowded waiting room of eager ex-soviets waiting to go home .. the lounge was at the entrance to passport control, BEFORE you clear it.
I went back in despair, spoke to the same french maghrebian agent, who allowed me to leave the area and go up to the lounge. Thank you, heartfelt thanks.
We have to forgive the French for their arrogance and ignorance of the world outside their culture and language and total disregard for the world at large and the implicit belief that France still leads the world, erroneous as it may be and obvious to the rest of the world. 
I forgive you, dear French people, I shouted to myself, as I downed my first flute of Champagne (no Prosecco in France, my darlings! this is not America). 
A few things to nosh, and Perrier water and i was satisfied and felt liberated from the food that may come my way on Georgian Airways..
The boarding process was less traumatic and less unruly even though there was some roulette to take seats. A cunning russian? with a french passport sneaked into the rows (which requires 25 euro payment) and enjoyed the comforts and was extremely polite to me and I congratulated him on his luck.
The flight took 4 hours, and the crew was doing a turnaround so you can imagine how tired they were ..they would have worked more than 12 hours before they get back to Tiblisi.. mmm.
I was able to get some shut eye and we were already over the Black Sea and soon enough began the descent into Tiblisi International airport..
The situation for transit passengers were comical enough. You were to put your carry on luggage on an x ray machine and go through an electronic gate.. nothing much happened. Nobody seemed to know the next step. A pleasant young woman collected our passports and reappeared just minutes later with our boarding passes. Most of the transit passengers were going to Tel Aviv including a trio of very loud religious Israelis. After a long wait near the other end of the machine, we were given the okay to go up to the departure lounge. 
Tiblisi(loves you, signs every where) is a small International airport with the usual duty free shops and some eating choices. I had the chance to enter the Prime Class Lounge(thanks to PriorityPass) and every body seemed friendly and welcoming despite the late hour (around 4 am) of the night. 
The Lounge was pleasant, very few people in the lounge. A very slavic looking young lady made a lovely cup of cappuccino. There were some minor offering which included Georgian cheese. 
So the wait time at TBS airport was a pleasant one. 30 minutes before the flight time, the gate of departure was still unassigned. Boarding process was without mishaps and the Embraer 195 aircraft was only half full (or half empty?).
I had an empty seat next to me and I slept the entire two hours of the journey to Tel Aviv.
We landed fairly early Israeli time, which is two hours behind Georgian time. The plane was parked in the old Ben Gurion Airport and the deplaning was by stairs and the transfer by bus seemed to take for ever.
I was first in line at the Foreign Passport section of the Immigration. A pleasant young man, looked at my passport and asked, what is your full name.. I pronounced it as clearly as possible. He asked, are you Jewish? I said, I was. He smiled and handed the passport back to me.
Within minutes the luggage was spewed out by one of the carousels and I was out to the familiar arrival area and this time I did not have to wait longer for the train. ATM machines on the wall to provide your shekels and to the train station adjacent to the exit, and an unsmiling ticket agent gave my ticket to Haifa.
Waiting at the platform no 2 of the Ben Gurion Airport Station, I felt so good
to be back in Israel, for the fourth time this year
to feel the energy of this most innovative nation on the earth
to feel part of this miracle of  human history
I enjoy people watching in Israel where people from all over the world are gathered.
I took a deep breath, of the fresh morning air of Israel and got into the coach that would take me to Haifa 

FIRST TRIP OF 2019 HAS BEGUN THE JOURNEY TO THE EAST

I am waiting to check in to Georgian Airlines counter which does not open for another hour or so at Terminal 2 D, the poor cousin to the other luxurious terminals of Paris CDG airport. Minimalist in design, serving mostly the airlines that fly into CDG from the former soviet Union, I saw logos of Azerbaijani airlines and Turkmenistan airlines and the airline I will be flying also one of the outcomes of the fall of the Soviet Union.  The Airline of the Republic of Georgia..
I have always had a soft spot for two Caucasian republics  Armenia and Georgia.. I had a chance to visit Armenia once before, and I look forward to visiting Tbilisi and the other parts of Georgia in the future.
The first journey of 2019 has already begun for me, even though we are still in 2018, but I left Miami on the 13th December and will not be back in Cuba until the 9th of January 2019, qualifying this trip to be the first trip of Year 2019 and it is shaping up nicely.

I do not like to rush through my journeys nor begin them that way. A leisurely morning at my sister's house in Miami , on a nice Miami day fit for December. My flight to Brussels was from Fort Lauderdale to London and then on to Brussels. I tried to change it to fly to Paris, I am so glad I did not because I would have arrived amidst a Air Traffic Controller Strike as well as a Railways strike and it would have been difficult to get to Paris and then to Brussels.

For those of you who may not know, if you hold AMX Platinum Card, they give you 35 dollars rebate during the month of December when using the card for UBER drives. So a $55 drive from Kendall in South Miami to Fort Lauderdale Airport cost just $20, taking into consideration that it is 44 miles/70 km away!
FLL is a poor cousin to MIA, the airport I normally use. FLL gives competition to MIA and has very strong points about some of the airlines fly there. Unfortunately it is also the HQ of SPIRIT airlines, the most disliked airlines in USA.. to each his own.
British airways has just one flight a day, in an ageing 777 aircraft to LGW London Gatwick. 

I was surprised how short the flight was on this day. Just 7 hours to get to London! The two cities that I like equidistant from Miami   London and Buenos Aires... ha what delightful differences..

On checking in, an extremely sun tanned European blond lady pushing into Senior category who was absolutely ignorant of simple things like putting in my TSA pre check number, but I was pleasant and patient with her, and was very pleasantly surprised when my boarding pass showed that I had been upgraded to First Class.. Luck was with me on this day.. (hope the rest of the trip too..)
There was NO lounge at the International Terminal and the food and drink offerings were on par with Omaha, Nebraska..ah well.. you live and learn..(at least not that cold)

The well worn British Airways was waiting for us. The boarding process and departure all had some clinical precision and steeliness to it. Sadly noted that most of the FAs were older. I have nothing against age or flying or working as a FA, but having seen the world of Flight Attendants, you definitely get a more spirited and friendly service from a younger FA regardless of their nationality.

Seat 4 A was comfortable!
The service on board was rather clinical and without smiles and I said to myself: Hey AA American Airlines, you have a competition on your way down as a Bad Airline Service from your sister airline, British Airways.

The dinner service was swift and once it was over the presence of FAs were rare.
I am a fan of Qatar Airways and I would have flown Miami to Doha to Brussels if I could have organized such a ticket but all my tricks of Frequent Flying did not help me this time, at this very busy time of the year..
Arrival at Gatwick was quick and the Immigration officer had the required frown on his face. Within a few minutes I had collected my luggage and waiting at the bus stop to take the National Express bus to Heathrow airport for my connecting BA flight to Brussels 

In just a little bit over one hour, through the motorway as the sun was coming up, we arrived at Heathrow Terminal 5 of BA.
I was accommodated on an earlier flight and surprisingly enough the Security was not as rigid as I remembered them to be.
Being an Emerald level flier of the One World alliance (both on American and Qatar), one privilege is the First Class Lounge at Heathrow Terminal 5, South and i have been here many a times and it has always been welcoming. I enjoyed being there until it came time to leave to board the flight to Brussels.

I slept all the way to Brussels. I had a nice breakfast at the Lounge (a British breakfast mind you.. minus the beans, sausage etc..) and did not miss the BA inter european offerings.

The arrival at the Brussels airport was smooth, collected my luggage and went downstairs to get on to the bus that would take me to the European Quarters where I would spend the next four days.
The temperature was around 0 C around 30 F but there was no rain or snow or wind. A quick walk from the bus station along my favourite avenue of the area, ave Archimede, and viola..
The first part of the Journey ended with the familiar sight of the park ..