Category Archives: Mass Transportation

Glimpses of Myanmar ~ Riding the Ring Train, Yangon

After thirty-six hours of airplanes and airports, and sixteen hours of sleep, I’m sitting on my balcony with a coffee while welcome swallows and noisy miners swoop around my head. My ears are ringing with the screech of lorikeets and rosellas as they jockey for position in our trees, and light is falling on the…

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Riding Bamboo Rails ~ The Bamboo Train, Battambang, Cambodia

Take isolated communities growing rice and raising cows and chickens in rural Cambodia where few roads reach, and you have a need. Take some rail track in disrepair, a bamboo raft and a small motor and you have a solution. Meet “The Bamboo Railway”: the ear-splitting, bone-rattling, wind-in-your-hair, bushes-in-your-face solution to transporting goods and people…

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Lantau 大嶼山 ~ The Other Hong Kong

When I think of Hong Kong, I think of a bustling metropolis with cosmopolitan shops, sparkling lights and tall buildings. And it is true: as one of “The Four Asian Tigers”, Hong Kong is a financial centre with modern architecture reaching into the sky; a pulsating commercial network which never sleeps; and one of the most…

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Peak Experience ~ Hong Kong

First impressions count for so much. My first flight into Hong Kong was a surreal sensory experience: I can still wrap myself in surround-sound memories of listening to Asian flutes in luxurious Cathay business-class comfort, fuelled by love and champagne, as the plane descends through the clouds, allowing the first sight of that beautiful harbour with its sparkling…

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New Year’s Eve on the “River of Kings”, Bangkok

The Chao Phraya River (แม่น้ำเจ้าพระยา), which collects the Nan and Ping Rivers in Central Thailand and runs 372 kilometres south to empty into the Gulf of Thailand, is the life-blood of the City of Angels. When Bangkok was established as the Capital of Thailand in 1782, most activity was conducted along the Chao Phraya River and the network of…

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