Irreverent, informed and downright eclectic books and reportage from Southeast Asia and beyond
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 one [...]
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 runs [...]
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 are [...]