Sep 21
As we stood on the edge of a grassy square facing Palenque’s Temple of the Cross, Bama and I suddenly heard an eerie growl from the nearby jungle: a long and guttural roar, disturbing enough to make anyone stop in their tracks. Read more
May 31
It took Bama three trips to get the shot he wanted of the pagoda-like meru at Bali’s most iconic Hindu temple, Pura Ulun Danu Beratan. Persistent rain, not unusual given the fickle weather in the island’s north-central highlands, had dampened his first two visits years ago. Now, he stood transfixed at the postcard-perfect scene before us: bright blue skies with scattered wisps of cloud over Lake Beratan, the temple’s famed meru appearing to float on its calm, mirror-like surface. The dark palm-fiber roofs of both towers had been recently rethatched, and beneath their eaves, lustrous gold-painted wooden carvings shimmered in the early morning light. All was quiet. Read more
Apr 26
My first brush with Turkey (now officially Türkiye) happens out of pure necessity. En route to Mexico, Bama and I may be genuinely fatigued after stepping off a long-haul flight, but the idea of holing up in an overpriced airport hotel and doing absolutely nothing is out of the question. Not when we have 20 hours to spare in one of the world’s great historic cities — and the only one to straddle Europe and Asia. Read more
Feb 23
Half an hour after stepping out from Silangit airport’s tiny arrivals hall into a parking lot bathed in morning sunshine, the promised hotel pickup was still nowhere to be seen. It was hardly an auspicious start to a hectic five-day assignment on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Joining me this time was British photographer Martin Westlake, who’d also shot my Bali food story six months before. Our flight had left Jakarta at 6:45 a.m. on a Monday and we were keen to hit the ground running. Read more
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
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
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
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
Mar 27
On the shelves of a tall bookcase in my parents’ living room, you’ll find a hardcover titled Wonders of the Ancient World. I leafed through it many times as a child and read the book well into my early teens, with many lazy summer afternoons spent engrossed in the tales and pictures of faraway places I could only dream of visiting. What I remember most clearly from that volume is a full-page photograph taken in Petra, Jordan – specifically of the famed rock-cut tomb known as the Treasury (al-Khazneh). Read more
Aug 22
As much as I wish it were so, I haven’t secretly escaped from Covid-ravaged Indonesia to seek refuge in the foothills of the Himalayas. Bama and I remain cooped up at home, occasionally snatching glimpses of brilliant blue sky through the windows, imagining the places we’d have gone and long-distance trips that have been deferred indefinitely. But there’s also a realization that we are the lucky ones: despite all that has happened in the past 18 months, both of us still have a regular income, food on the table, a roof over our heads. So many people in this country have seen their livelihoods evaporate and are struggling to make ends meet. Read more
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