Irreverent, informed and downright eclectic books and reportage from South Asia and beyond
I attended a Thai festival at Bexleyheath in South East London last weekend.
Much to my surprise, one of the performers on the festival stage was the fantastic Georgia from Bangkok´s equally fantastic Ad Here Blues Bar. Georgia did some Blues and Jazz standards for a crowd of several hundred Thai and local punters…a great day [...]
Rainer Krack and Tom Vater’s Thailand Handbook, published by Reise Know How Verlag in Germany and currently in its 14th edition, has been published by Bezdroza in Poland.
And I just got a copy. The book looks great, photo reproduction is good, and it´s a 100 pages slimmer than the ever-growing German edition.
Tom Vater polowe swego [...]
I tried to buy a weapon in a Wal-Mart supermarket in Lubbock, Texas, a few years back. I wanted the genuine American experience. I´d traveled thousands of miles for this. I almost managed.
These are the two guys that prevented me from becoming a devil´s reject on their parking lot with a semi-automatic cross-bow or some [...]
The excellent instrumental surf guitar punk band The Klong Riders recently performed a nostalgia set at The Overstay, formerly a brothel, currently a squat, scuzzy guest house and sometime concert venue in Bangkok, Thailand. Plenty of beer spilled on the cracked linoleum floor, plus sonic terror and an audience as enthusiastic as a castle of [...]
“In the morning, when I wake up, I drink a coffee and I read the paper. What is today’s bullshit, today’s lie? I never believe anything that’s written in the papers, they’re like cartoons. They’re entertainment. They don’t tell the truth.”
Former massage parlour kingpin Chuwit Kamolvisit says Thailand’s political establishment remains as hypocritical and divided [...]
The crowd surges forward. The singer, a 40 something skinny white guy, screams into the microphone, which has been taped to the top of a camera stand. The room is so hot that water drops from the ceiling. The linoleum is coming off the floor in long torn rolls of dirty plastic. The drums thud [...]
Every month, Rolf Potts, author of Vagabonding, interviews a fellow travel writer about the nuts and bolts of our trade.
The extensive Q&As are published on his website. This month, it’s my turn.
Read the full interview here!
The conflict between the Thai government and the Red Shirts - the former backed by a lose interest group that includes the military, royalists, part of the capital’s business community and right-wing fringe elements, commonly known as the Yellow Shirts, the latter a growing and motley collection of often paid supporters of fugitive former Prime [...]
One of my images of a Red Shirt demonstration in early April, a few days prior to the first serious riots in the nine week show-down between protesters and the Thai government, ran in The Daily Telegraph’s education pages in the UK in early June.
At the time, I think it was April 4th, the mood [...]
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