Apr 25
As the plane descends over southern Vietnam, I observe braided rivers weaving across a canvas of mangroves and fish ponds, their silty waters glinting in the late afternoon sun. The semi-wild landscape below gives way to paddy fields, then the warehouses and factories of an industrial estate, a squiggly-shaped golf course, and expanding suburbia: empty plots of land bounded by small roads that carve out man-made patterns in asphalt. Read more
Mar 11
The first time I met Bama’s mother, she stood smiling in a loose red dress inside the garage of her previous home in Semarang, under the flight path of passenger jets arriving at the city’s airport. It was July 2015, and the second week of a six-month backpacking trip that Bama and I dubbed the “Spice Odyssey.” I called her Auntie Dhani; soon enough she had shortened my name to the more Javanese-sounding “Jem” for convenience. The ensuing crash course in the do’s and don’ts of Idul Fitri (a.k.a. Eid al-Fitr) was softened because she embraced me not only as a guest, but also as an adopted member of her small family. In little more than a week, she had nicknamed me “the funny son.” Read more
Jan 13
Days before Bama and I were due to leave for our much-awaited year-end trip, my dad sent me a screenshot of the latest weather forecast for Hong Kong and urged us to pack warm clothes. He was right to worry. It turned out to be the coldest Christmas I had probably experienced back home, with temperatures in the city falling to 8 or 9°C (about 46–48°F) at first — downright chilly compared to equatorial Indonesia. Read more
Nov 30
“Doesn’t it feel like you’ve come home?”
My tablemate posed me the question over lunch at Man Wah, a refined Cantonese restaurant on the 25th floor of Mandarin Oriental, Hong Kong. Before polishing off a small platter of the best dim sum I’d eaten all year, I couldn’t help revealing my personal connection to the storied five-star hotel dubbed the MO. More than a decade ago, when this blog was still in its relative infancy, I worked at the bustling Mandarin Cake Shop for two months. Now, I had returned as an invited guest. It felt as though life had come full circle. Read more
Aug 21
It must have been in 2017 or 2018 when I first got wind of the dramatic changes happening in Kaohsiung, Taiwan’s biggest port city. While scouring the internet to research potential story ideas one afternoon, I learned about an ambitious project to transform its once walled-off waterfront from a neglected industrial wasteland to a vibrant arts and culture precinct, with ultramodern buildings designed by big-name architects from abroad. Someday, I told myself, I would go and write a full-length feature article for work. Read more
Jun 11
“Are you running the marathon tomorrow?”
Risa, the kind young woman at the front desk of our Siem Reap hotel, is not being ironic.
Bama and I want to laugh. Our near-instantaneous answer, a polite “no,” dispels any notion that we will be needing a 3 a.m. wake-up call. By pure coincidence, the two of us have arrived the day before the Angkor Wat International Half-Marathon, and the French guests booked into the room next door are taking part. Depending on where we travel, itineraries sometimes involve hiking excursions, snorkeling, or even a bit of ocean kayaking. But running? The point of this holiday in Siem Reap was to explore the area’s incredible trove of ancient temples and to eat. Read more
Feb 19
Squeezed into the middle seat in the back row of a Singapore Airlines jet, between Bama and a cheerful Indian doctor vacationing from the U.S., I look out the window at a jungle-shrouded Malaysian island rising from the South China Sea. The moving map on my PTV screen identifies this as Tioman: from the air we spot a pair of sharp, near-vertical granite monoliths known as the Dragon Horns. It’s barely 30 minutes into a two-hour-plus flight when our plane climbs above layers of cloud, the earth’s surface gradually disappearing from view. Read more
Jan 14
There are two sides to Hong Kong: a vertical city of frenetic streets and heaving metro stations where commuters run between platforms to catch the next train, and an astonishing wonderland of hiking trails, secluded beaches, and more than 250 outlying islands. One of the highlights of my recent trip back was a half-day excursion with my father to Tung Lung Chau. Literally “East Dragon Island,” the 242-hectare outcrop of volcanic rock – about 70 percent the size of New York’s Central Park – guards the eastern approaches to Victoria Harbour. Read more
Dec 18
I don’t recall the last time I saw the waters of Victoria Harbour gleaming in such a radiant blue-green hue. The summery conditions and flawless blue skies are wholly unexpected on this late October morning. Several days into my first trip back to Hong Kong after almost three years of Covid-induced separation from my parents and extended family, I’ve boarded a ferry to eastern Kowloon for an 8:15 appointment to renew my local ID card. I’m more than a little envious of the dozen or so other passengers on the ship – no commute in traffic-clogged Jakarta is as scenic and relaxing as this. Read more
Sep 27
Long ago, on the lush, volcano-studded island of Java, there lived a princess by the name of Roro Jonggrang. Not only was she ravishingly beautiful; legend has it that the young maiden had a sharp intellect. Roro Jonggrang happened to be the daughter of the fearsome king Prabu Boko, a man so tall and powerfully built many believed him to be descended from giants; some say he was a fierce warrior who had a reputation for cannibalism. Not content with the territory and riches he already had, Papa Prabu declared war on the neighboring kingdom of Pengging and promptly launched an invasion. Read more
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