Irreverent, informed and downright eclectic crime fiction and reportage from Southeast Asia and beyond
I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. I watched hundreds of sharks pooling around coral ledges at thirty-five meters, so many they kept bumping into me. I watched giant tuna glitter in the dark thirty meters below me, leading tens of thousands of giant barracuda through the depths. I saw guitar sharks the size of [...]
Several sources suggest that the legendary, historic Olympic Stadium in Phnom Penh is likely to be demolished soon to make space for a development of the Canadia’s Bank Overseas Cambodian Investment Corporation. (OCIC). It appears the bank, in conjunction with someone at a high level within the Cambodian government, had originally planned to develop only [...]
British newspaper The Guardian reports that the Jarawa, a tribe of Andaman Islanders who number just a few hundred, have been coerced by Indian police to dance naked for tourist ‘safaris’. Unfortunately, this has been going on for many, many years. When I visited the Andamans in 1997 and 2000, Indian VIPs, speak politicians and [...]
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
England’s uncaring, fractured society is experiencing temporary meltdown this week, with kids as young as seven looting and fighting the cops, while the British leadership and right wing press is frothing at the mouth and talking maximum violence, maximum punishment and zero reflection on why their country is on fire. Unlike the British establishment, this [...]
Just watched Bradley Cox‘s excellent documentary Who killed Chea Vichea? – the story about the murder of a trade union leader in Cambodia in 2004. This gripping 55 minute feature is a roller-coaster investigative journey into a tragic political killing and by extension, a story about a country ruled by impunity. And just to prove [...]
Just came across an excellent Indian website called I Paid a Bribe. Operated by an Indian NGO based in Bangalore, this site enables visitors to register their stories of bribery and thievery by Indian officials. Irate citizens can report on the nature, number, pattern, types, location, frequency and values of actual corrupt acts. The reports [...]
The Asia Wall Street Journal published my portrait of master architect Vann Molyvann, the creator of Cambodia’s New Khmer Architecture in the 1950s, as a cover story in its weekend edition. In the years after Cambodia won independence from France in 1953, Mr. Molyvann, a student of Le Corbusier, set out under the tutelage of [...]