Burma – Tom Vater

All of Tom Vater’s fiction is out with Next Chapter Publishing & the print editions are gorgeous.

June 6, 2024June 6, 2024tom

Here are the book links to all my titles. Thanks to all my readers for many years of support… these stories have been more than 20 years in the making. Keep reading books! The Devil’s Road to Kathmandu In 1976, four friends – Dan, Fred, Tim and Thierry – are on a bus along the […]

Photographer documents disappearing face tattoos of Myanmar’s Chin women, in Nikkei Asia

April 20, 2024April 20, 2024tom

My latest story in Nikkei Asia is about the face tattoos of Chin women in Myanmar, documented by German photographer Jens Uwe Parkitny for the past 15 years. The traditional practice of face tattoos is often misunderstood by Western observers who regard them as ugly. BANGKOK — The woman’s eyes are closed. She looks content, […]

Chin face tattoos at Bangkok’s Foreign Correspondents Club

March 27, 2024June 19, 2024tom

Fantastic evening at Bangkok’s Foreign Correspondents Club with Jens Uwe Parkitny who has been photographing the facial tattoos of Chin women in Myanmar for the past 15 years. I added some context on the universality of face tattoos and on the western taboo on tattooed faces.My story on indigenous face tattoos, with Jens Uwe’s images […]

Bangkok photo exhibit portrays plight of Myanmar refugees, in Nikkei Asia

October 20, 2022October 20, 2022tom

My latest story in Nikkei Asia is about ‘Endless Escape’, an exhibition currently at BACC in Bangkok, documenting the plight of refugees trying to flee fighting and government repression in Myanmar by crossing into Thailand and getting trapped, pushed back or killed along the border. BANGKOK — “If you exhibit a photo like this (of […]

From France to Thailand on foot – Western couple find global trek changes perspectives, in Nikkei Asia

June 24, 2022June 24, 2022tom

My latest story in Nikkei Asia follows a Canadian/French couple who set out to walk from Europe to Australia to remind the world that travel is more than a commodity. They sometimes walked up to 14 hours a day, got lost in the jungles of Laos and were involved in a fatal bus crash in […]

Burma, a Country United by Hatred and Murder?

September 16, 2017September 17, 2017tom2 Comments

Burmese army soldier in the hills above Myauk-U, Rakhine State, looking for Muslim ‘terrorists’ 400000 Rohingya Muslims have fled Burma in the past couple of weeks. Overwhelming evidence suggests that the Burmese military, along with civilian militias, is engaging in ethnic cleansing, driving people from their homes, torching their villages, raping their children and murdering […]

How I wrote Burmese Light – in InDepth Magazine

May 16, 2016May 16, 2016tomLeave a Comment

My account on how I wrote Burmese Light, the illustrated book by photographer Hans Kemp in InDepth Magazine. Read the story on pages 20-23. Or read it right here… It really hit me while I was walking amongst the giant stone ruins of the former kingdom in Mrauk-U, which ruled much of Burma from the […]

The Last Tattooed Chin Women of Burma – Rise Tattoo Magazine

April 27, 2016May 16, 2016tomLeave a Comment

My story on the last Chin women in Rakhine state in northwest Burma who have face tattoos is out this month in the French magazine Rise Tattoo.

Generation Democracy: Jerry Ink and the Burmese Tattoo Scene in RISE TATTOO

April 21, 2016April 25, 2016tomLeave a Comment

Laure Siegel reports on Yangon‘s tattoo scene and one of its shops – Jerry Ink. Photos by me and Rāj Hegde for French magazine RISE TATTOO this month. We had a great time spending a day with tattooists Jerry Api and Sweetz Sweetz. Big thanks to Mg Mg Tha Myint for the connect.

Burmese Light reviewed at Woasis

January 20, 2016January 20, 2016tomLeave a Comment

Burmese Light, the beautiful illustrated book by photographer Hans Kemp with a text by myself, gets a great review at Woasis this week. “…both a wonderful introduction to as well as a useable memoir of a country that is increasingly the focus of travelers seeking to explore a world less traveled.” Read the full review […]