Irreverent, informed and downright eclectic crime fiction and reportage from Southeast Asia and beyond
The definitive Bangkok novel has not been written yet. But The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi, a dark and fast-moving Sci-Fi novel set following the reign of Rama XII, gets pretty close. Local hacks should take note – this 500 page tome is light years ahead of the rather tepid Bangkok Noir genre. The dystopian [...]
In 2005 and 2006, photographer Aroon Thaewchatturat and myself traveled across Rajasthan, India´s popular north western desert state to visit some thirty heritage hotels. The two trips led to the publication of a photo book in Germany by Reise Know How Verlag, naturally called Rajasthans Palasthotels. To finance this venture we published stories on the [...]
I just found a seven year old feature of mine called Seven Years out of Tibet, the story of Tibetan refugees stranded in Nepal, published by Asiatimes Online in January 2004. For this story, we visited the Tibetan Buddhist shrine at Bodhnath and interviewed monks who had walked from Tibet to Nepal to find themselves [...]
Sacred Skin – Thailand’s Spirit Tattoos, a new book published by Visionary World, photographed by Aroon Thaewchatturat and written by Tom Vater, will be out on July 1st. For now, here’s a sneak preview of the book on the publisher’s website. Find info on the book, its authors and the publisher, as well as a [...]
In this Rock’n’Roll double bill, published this month in Traversing the Orient Magazine, Tom Vater reports on Metal Postcard, the Honk Kong independent label that is home to Cambodia’s finest rock band The Cambodian Space Project and the garage punk noise from Bangkok that is Pussy & The Learjets, while Detroit home boy Scott Nicholson [...]
William Young, the CIA agent who is credited with allegedly discovering Long Cheng in northern Laos, a remote valley which became a top secret CIA air base in 1965 – and soon after the busiest airport in the world – shot himself in Chiang Mai, Thailand a few days ago. During the making of the [...]
Visionary World Publisher Hans Kemp has created a short film on Khong Khuen, the trance state entered by Sak Yant (Thai Spirit Tattoos) devotees at the anual Wai Khru festival at Wat Bang Phra, a Buddhist temple west of Bangkok, last month. Watch and marvel and travel to the very heart of Thai culture, far [...]
I published the following story about Provence, a wine growing region in southern France a couple of years ago. At the time of writing, I was just getting to know the protagonists of the text. I stayed in touch with all of them. Eric Bouletin continues to grow excellent wine and Junko Takase continues to [...]
Sign of the times, I suppose. In another effort of shameless self-promotion, I have created a Tom Vater facebook page about my writing, which will run new and old stories, some of them culled from this blog, others from other online sources. If you are on facebook, join up and read interesting stuff about Asia [...]