Tom Vater

The Orissa Post, the largest English language newspaper in Orissa, India, has republished On the Tea Trail, the story of Makaibari Tea Estates near Darjeeling and the world’s most expensive cuppa.

December 17th, 2012 | Tags: Aroon Thaewchatturat, article, Darjeeling, feature article, India, journalism, Makaibari, newspaper, Orissa Post, Rajah Banerjee, tea, tea industry, The World's Most Expensive Tea, Tom Vater | Category: India | Leave a comment

The Devil’s Road to Kathmandu, my first novel, currently out with Crime Wave Press and soon published in Spanish as well, is reviewed on acclaimed travel blog Vagablogging this week. The plot is precisely knit as a handmade, intricate Kashmiri carpet…  writes reviewer Marco Ferrarese. Read the low down here.  

November 14th, 2012 | Tags: crime fiction, Crime Wave Press, India, Marco Ferrarese, Nepal, novel, review, Rolf Potts, The Devil's Road to Kathmandu, travel fiction, Vagablogging | Category: Nepal, Writer´s Corner | Leave a comment

I have been interviewed in the October edition of Esquire Magazine (Thai edition) about my worst travel experience ever. Bit of a dilemma as I have encountered quite a few disastrous scenarios in the past 25 years on the road. But my failure to rescue a severely injured men in Zanskar (northwestern India), the subject [...]

October 26th, 2012 | Tags: Esquire, Esqure Magazine, India, Interview, Thailand, Tom Vater, travel story, travel writer, Trekking, Zanskar, Zanskar traverse | Category: India, Thailand, Writer´s Corner | Leave a comment

I have been interviewed about my first novel, The Devil’s Road to Kathmandu, out now with Crime Wave Press,  on Pat Bertram’s literary blog.

August 25th, 2012 | Tags: adventure fiction, Afghanistan, Author, crime fiction, Crime Wave Press, hippie trail, India, Interview, Iran, Kathmandu, London, Nepal, novel, Pakistan, Pat Bertram, The Devil's Road to Kathmandu, Tom Vater, travel fiction, Turkey | Category: Writer´s Corner | Leave a comment

First published in 2006, this new edition of The Devil’s Road to Kathmandu, my first novel, has been called a better backpacker novel than The Beach by The Bangkok Post and is now available as a Kindle ebook on amazon UK, published by Crime Wave Press. What’s inside: In 1976, four friends, Dan, Fred, Tim [...]

June 27th, 2012 | Tags: 1970s, 2006 novel, Amazon, amazon UK, backpacker, Crime Wave Press, hippie trail, India, Kindle, Kindle edition, mystery, Nepal, novel, Pakistan, The Devil's Road to Kathmandu, thriller, Tom Vater, Turkey | Category: Writer´s Corner | Leave a comment

Many Asian governments don’t like their citizen to discuss their country’s history, culture, politics or current affairs. Severe restrictions, both in the form of laws as well as unwritten rules, suppress civil society entering into a dialogue with itself. Powerful elites introduce taboos of expression that one may cross only at one’s peril. In China, [...]

May 15th, 2012 | Tags: analysis, Asia, censorship, Essay, Free expression, freedom of expression, India, M.F. Husain, opinion, Patrick French, Shakespeare Must Die, Thailand, tolerance, writing, Writing about India | Category: India | Leave a comment

In 2004, I traveled to Hubli in Karnataka, India to investigate a temple which allegedly still had devadasi, traditional temple dancers cum prostitutes. The Indian government had already made moves to ban the practice of enslaving young girls in Brahmin temples but old tradition tend to linger in India. I think this story has never [...]

March 18th, 2012 | Tags: 2005, Aroon Thaewchatturat, article, Asia, devadasi, devdasi, Hubli, India, Indien, Karnataka, photography, prostitution, Saudatti, temple dancer, Tom Vater, travel feature, Yellamma | Category: India | Leave a comment

Gone are the days when these kind of stories could finance a trip across India. This particular story Hampi: Ruins Forgotten in Time appeared in Lifestyle + Travel in a special segment on India in around 2005 and was republished several more times in travel magazines across Asia. Here is the entire pdf, also featuring [...]

March 18th, 2012 | Tags: Aroon Thaewchatturat, Asia, Hampi, Hubli, India, Indien, Karnataka, Lifestyle+Travel, photography, Tom Vater, travel feature, travel writing | Category: India | Leave a comment

Floating somewhere between the Hooghly River and Massive Attack, Tritha is a music ensemble from Kolkata. The band played a couple of shows at The Space in Bangkok last month  and performed an exalted mix of Indian ragas and folk-ways shuffled around sensuously, with a dash of trip hop thrown in.  Shades of Bjork and [...]

January 16th, 2012 | Tags: Bangkok, India, India feminism, Indian band, Indian contemporary music, Indian music, kali's Forest, Kolkata, PaGli, Ritika Singh, Thailand, The Space, Tom Vater, Trip Hop, Tritha, Tritha Sinha, West Bengal | Category: India, Thailand | Comments (2)