Melaka: It’s More Than Just Gin
Melaka, or Malacca, as we stubbornly insist on calling it, is a mere two-hour bus ride from KL. As an historically significant site right around the corner, I’d have been foolish to miss it. Also,…
Borneo Crafts & Culture
Borneo is the mother lode for crafts in Malaysia. Like the Berbers in North Africa, the various tribes (over 200 discrete ethnic groups) in Borneo seem responsible for the bulk of Malaysia’s cultural footprint, well…
KL Krafts
Kuala Lumpur’s craft scene functions like in most other capitol cities: it aggregates a Best Of selection from across the country into museums and specialty boutiques, but it’s not a place where craft happens. At…
Wild Wild Life
One of the disappointments of my brief, seven day stay in Borneo is that I only scratched the surface of the natural splendors on offer. On one of my day trips I visited an orangutan…
Borneo At The Right Time*
If you play word association with Dorothy (which I highly recommend, by the way, as you’re 100% never getting back what you expect) and toss her Borneo, she replies with “leeches.” And while I’m not certain leeches are truly…
Land, Air, & Sea
Biomes, not theaters of war. A tour of Malaysian wildlife took me to all three zones. One of them, Land, was something of a war, if I’m being honest. But all of them featured fascinating…
Hardcore Hindu
Temple fatigue is real, especially when all of the temples we’ve visited in SEA have been Buddhist. Batu Caves, probably the single biggest attraction in the Kuala Lumpur area, offers up a Hindu response. While…
Not The Good Turgid
I am referring, of course, to the weather. I have spent some large number of months in SEA over the last year, a region renowned for its swampy weather, where average temperatures in the 90s…
Doi Inthanon
There appears to be something I haven’t done in Chiang Mai, some last adventure that will round out the entire experience. I’ve squeezed the lemon pretty thoroughly here (which is probably why I feel pulped),…
Life Is A Cabaret…
For a couple of reasons, this is going to be brief. The first reason is that I’ve only taken in two live performances while I’ve been in Thailand. The other reason is that photography was…