My chilling encounter with serial killer Charles Sobhraj in The Daily Telegraph

In December 2003, Central Jail in the Nepali capital Kathmandu was everything one might expect from a prison in a developing country. Its high walls, interspersed by watchtowers topped with barbed wire, were patrolled by armed guards. The visitor’s room was a cold, dirty, rectangular cell, divided by a chest-high wall topped with a wire […]

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Belt and Road reaches Nepal’s wild north in the Nikkei Asian Review

My latest story with Laure Siegel in the Nikkei Asian Review on how highways, bridges and dams flow from Chinese infrastructure bonanza in Nepal. A hard truck ride to the Nepal/China/Tibet border, the proverbial end of the world. Some 140 km to the north of Nepal’s capital Kathmandu, China’s “Belt and Road” infrastructure plan is in […]

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Some of my best recent stories in the Nikkei Asian Review

From a punk rock collective in Borneo to European proto-colonies and ethnic minorities in India, rock stars and a circus from Cambodia, the scourge of development in Laos, female motorcycle taxi drivers in Thailand, Japanese entrepreneurs in France and my eye witness reports of the 2015 Nepal earthquake, the Asian Nikkei Review has published some […]

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The Devil’s Road to Kathmandu – Review at The Dorset Book Detective

A brand new and very kind review of my first novel, The Devil’s Road to Kathmandu, at The Dorset Book Detective. Thanks! A snappy thriller with strong characterisation and witty dialogue, The Devil’s Road to Kathmandu is an entertaining read with as many plot twists as it has droll one liners.   Tom Vater’s novel […]

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