Irreverent, informed and downright eclectic crime fiction and reportage from Southeast Asia and beyond
As I am currently the Daily Telegraph’s Bangkok expert, I will be taking part in a live web chat on Southeast Asian travel destinations on Wednesday the 7th of December from 12.30-2pm. London time of course.
I was recently in Siem Reap, Cambodia, on assignment for Silverkris Magazine (Singapore Inflight). Every year the roads around the Angkor temples are becoming more clogged with traffic, which, as many studies have shown, slowly destroys the foundations of these magnificent monuments. To escape traffic fumes and crowds, some tourists opt for the humble bicycle [...]
Roving Asia expert Ron Gluckman recently reviewed my book Sacred Skin for the Wall Street Journal. His review was shortened for the Journal publication but has now turned up in its full length glory on Ron Gluckman’s website. The review also covers another soon to be published book on the same subject, by Bangkok journalists [...]
‘Blood’s dirt,’ he laughed, looking away Far off to where his wound had bled And almost merged for ever into clay. ‘The world is washing out its stains,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t like our cheeks so red: Young blood’s its great objection. But when we’re duly white-washed, being dead, The race will bear Field-Marshal God’s [...]
Sacred Skin, my book on Thailand’s sacred tattoos, with images by Aroon Thaewchatturat, a current bestseller in Southeast Asia, has been reviewd on a blog named Free Tattoo Patterns Online who had this to say: “…Vater has a long history of writing about the subcultures of this part of the world and talks with authority [...]
Kathmandu offers much more than ancient shrines and palaces though the city does have a surplus of those and there’s a temple on almost every street corner, Buddhist, Hindu, often something in between. But beyond religion and age old tradition, the city in in flux, straining towards its own definition of modernity, with only the [...]
Kathmandu is booming, slowly. On my walks around the Nepali capital, I encountered, hung out with and spoke to these wonderfully friendly and accommodating people, a few of the city’s two million inhabitants.
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After a seven year break, far too long, I am back in the heavenly city for a few days. Kathmandu has grown into a little urban monster but once the shock at the congestion has worn off, the Nepali capital unfolds as a multi-layered, booming mountain town, quite happily bouncing between tradition and modernity, in [...]
In this month’s issue of Geographical, the magazine of the Royal Geographical Society: Reviving the spice of life Pepper from Cambodia’s Kampot region was once world renowned, but the industry almost disappeared under the Khmer Rouge. Now, a new initiative is helping to reinject some spice into Kampot’s growers. Luke Duggleby photographs. Tom Vater reports