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CURRENT STORIES |
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LAOS' BEST KEPT SECRET: COFFEE
/ by Tom Greenwood. Lao Arabica has long been one of the coffee world’s best kept secrets. The beautiful Bolavens Plateau near the southern town of Pakse is blessed with a cool climate, its volcanic soil is enriched by millennia of tropical rainforest and does not require fertiliser: it is a coffee planter's dream, evidence of...
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ROYAL CREMATION IN BALI
/ by Rio Helmi. Some 250,000 people have gathered in Bali to attend a royal cremation, said to be the biggest in 30 years. The bodies of the head of the Ubud royal family, who is widely respected in Bali, and of a lesser relative were cremated near their palace along with 68 commoners. Gigantic papier-mâché pyre towers carried by...
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MARTIAL ARTS FOR GOOD OR BAD
/ by Tom Greenwood. In East Timor, martial arts are a nationwide cult. Almost every young person belongs, or has loyalties, to a group. Some groups are rooted in the bitter struggle for independence from Indonesia. Some tap into traditional magic, some have Catholic leanings or openly side with political parties. To its critics,...
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SAVING CHINA'S VANISHING LI VILLAGES
/ by Luke Duggleby. Hainan is China’s Hawaii, a tropical island paradise, and mass tourism has brought prosperity to islanders since the 1980s. But in the mountainous interior, some villages have barely joined the modern world. The inhabitants are ethnic Li, a minority group on Hainan that has long rebelled against China’s...
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BOUTIQUE BEIJING
/ by Natalie Behring. Going to Beijing? Forget about the Great Wall or the Olympic Games, China’s capital has much more to offer. And while the 798 art district may grab the headlines, other names like Houhai or Nanluoguxiang are fast becoming synonymous with trendy. Old hutongs are filling up with chic restaurants and boutique...
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THAILAND'S TEA COUNTRY
/ by Luke Duggleby. High up in the remote mountains of Northern Thailand sits a place of aging warriors who survived desperate battles, a onetime den of opium traffickers, a community that could have been plucked right out of China. This is Mae Salong, which has emerged from its hard and unsavoury beginnings to flourish as the...
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INDIA'S SAFARI LODGES
/ by Leisa Tyler. Tigers in Bandhavgarh were once so prolific it was traditional for the ruling Maharajas to kill 109 during their rule in order to bring peace and prosperity to their people. Today there are only 3500 tigers left in the entire country; some experts estimate only half of this figure. Copying the model which made...
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PRIVATE RELIEF MISSIONS IN BURMA
by Claire Beilvert. It is now more than 6 weeks since Cyclone Nargis swept across the delta region of Burma. Many of the people whose lives have been devastated by the storm have received no aid, whether from the Government or from the aid agencies that have finally been given limited access to the affected areas - mostly in...
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AFTER THE CYCLONE
/ by Suthep Kritsanavarin. It has been a month since Cyclone Nargis swept through Myanmar, leaving an estimated 134,000 people dead or missing and more than 2.4 millions without shelter. Yet the ruling junta is still hampering efforts by the international community to deliver much needed relief to the population of the Irrawaddy...
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