These posts cover festivals and events we experience during our trip.
This local guide to the Siem Reap arts scene and creative community comes from designer, gallery owner and entrepreneur Loven Ramos, a long-term resident. Siem Reap has a rich artistic and cultural heritage, evident in its Angkor temple architecture and elaborate carvings, and in the classical Khmer dance and music, but we didn’t expect to … Read more
Musings on the nature of tourism spectacles, performances that are artificially constructed and commodified for the tourist gaze, and the notion of authenticity when we travel. This is the metanarrative of my previous post, I suppose, so perhaps you’d better take a read of that one first, if this is to make sense. No matter … Read more
It’s hard to escape the apsara in Siem Reap. The celestial nymph is everywhere we look. Clad in silk and a colossal golden headdress, she seductively adorns temple walls in the form of elaborate carvings, or in human form as a graceful and distant dancer performing the Dance of the Apsara Divinities. The Apsara is … Read more
Located in a lovely valley amid gently undulating hills, Dan Sai, in the Loie Province of Thailand’s Isaan region, is a town of dilapidated wooden houses that is famous for Phi Ta Kon, a boisterous three-day rainmaking festival, also known as the Ghost Festival, which coincides with a grand merit-making event known as Boon Luang. At … Read more
One of the best spots to spend a Saturday night in Bangkok at the moment is Talad Rot Fai – the Train Market – also known as Talad Dek Naew, after the vintage-wearing, retro-loving Thai hipsters who hang out here. We love Talad Rot Fai and can happily while away a few hours here on a … Read more