Irreverent, informed and downright eclectic crime fiction and reportage from Southeast Asia and beyond
There have been media reports of a fight between Sherpas and climbers on the slopes of Mount Everest. Not surprised. Rich white men without compassion or mountaineering experience have been throwing dollars at the world’s highest mountain for a couple of decades now and the atmosphere at base camp is one of sloth, luxury and [...]
German climber Ralf Dujmovits took pictures of 100s of tourists on the slopes of Everest in May. Some died on the mountain, due to overcrowding, inexperience and crass commercialism as The Guardian reports. The entire Everest region suffers from tourist overkill. And the locals, for the most part, are frozen out of the financial equation [...]
For all those armchair travelers who are worried about missing their creature comforts in exotic places…do not despair. Trekking in the Everest region between Lukla and Everest Base Camp , one passes shops like this one almost every thirty minutes, offering the same stuff that’s on your shelf of your local 7/11 or supermarket – [...]
The trailer of Camera Camera (2009), a documentary film by Malcolm Murray, about the nature and effect of mass tourism in Laos, offers an intriguing glimpse of the Land of the Million Elephants and the million backpackers that travel through it. Who said the camera never lies, one might as oneself, as one looks at [...]
Spent a few days in Vientiane, Laos’ rather compact capital. This city of some 200.000 is just waking up from 35 years of communism induced slumber, but, like a child that’s slept too long, the awakening is a little disconcerting, reluctant and modest. Traffic has increased in recent years, but crossing the riverfront road that [...]
Every day, we appear to be moving a little closer to a state of affairs where governments could become obsolete. Large parts of the world have always been ruled by people who don’t really qualify as governments, but in recent years, perfectly respectable rulers have also shown signs (not for the first time) that they [...]