Luke Duggleby – Tom Vater

Return to Bokor Mountain, Cambodia

July 31, 2015May 25, 2022tom4 Comments

I’ve just been back to Bokor Hill Sation, one of Cambodia‘s most beautiful and haunted spots. Rising a thousand meter above the kingdom’s southeastern coast, Bokor has been developed three times. In the 1920s, the French cleared some of the jungle on the way up, built a road with the help of 9000 kulis […]

Tom Vater on Travel Talk Asia

February 1, 2015February 1, 2015tomLeave a Comment

I am interviewed this week on Travel Talk Asia about travel writing and my journalistic career in Asia for the past two decades. Hope there are some interesting insights on the craft and a life well lived. Thanks to Trevor Ranges for suggesting I come on the show. Listen to the full interview here. Photograph […]

Kampot Pepper in Geographical

February 1, 2012February 1, 2012tomLeave a Comment

Published in November’s issue of Geographical Magazine, magazine of the Royal Geographical Society, was Bangkok based photographer’s Luke Duggleby‘s feature on the reviving of Cambodia’s pepper industry after it was destroyed by the Khmer Rouge. I traveled to Kampot with Luke to write the story. One of Cambodia’s best known exports prior to the Khmer […]

Cambodia’s Pepper Uncovered in Geographical

November 15, 2011tomLeave a Comment

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

Tom Vater on Kep in the Asia Wall Street Journal – Now online at the Center for Thai & ASEAN News Study

February 24, 2011February 25, 2011tomLeave a Comment

My AWSJ feature story on Kep, a seaside resort on Cambodia´s southeastern coast, is now available online. In the 1950s and 1960s, Kep-sur-Mer was a popular beach getaway for Cambodia´s elite, who built villas and modest palaces along the beach front and sipped cocktails to the sounds of Khmer Rock’n’Roll. In the 1970s the small […]

Are You Mad Enough To Be A Travel Writer?

January 5, 2011January 11, 2011tom1 Comment

The website Tripbase offer information for would-be travel writers, on the whole very sensible and useful for prospective scribes. The introduction -The harsh realities laid bare- is both sobering and spot-on: Travel writing is a tough and competitive business, a trade for which one needs to have plenty of persistence and low financial expectations – […]

Tom Vater’s portrait of master architect Vann Molyvann in the Asia Wall Street Journal

May 28, 2010tomLeave a Comment

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 […]

Tom Vater on India’s Disappearing Havelis in The Wall Street Journal

February 25, 2009November 23, 2018tomLeave a Comment

Tom Vater’s feature on India’s disappearing Havelis and Their Fabled Frescoes has been published in The Wall Street Journal. SHEKHAWATI, India — It was the McMansion of its day. Built in 1900 for a wealthy trading family in a dusty outpost here in India’s Rajasthan state, the house was designed to be a bold statement […]

Jaipur’s Stones – Tom Vater talks to the Kasliwal family, jewelers to the stars

August 6, 2008November 23, 2018tom1 Comment

The Kasliwal family has for decades crafted jewellery for royalty, presidents and film stars from its Gem Palace in one of India’s most beautiful cities. Tom Vater reports from Jaipur, Rajsthan. Almost 300 years ago, Sawai Jai Singh II, a powerful Kachwaha Rajput ruler, scholar and patron of the arts, decided to build a magnificent […]