Category Archives: Travel Some events in history are incomprehensible to me. That some people survive these events, with dignity and hope, is almost more incomprehensible. While I was in Phnom Penh last month, as part of a photo-tour/workshop with photographers Karl Grobl, Marco Ryan, Gavin Gough and Matt Brandon, I was privileged to meet and speak with Mr Chum Mey, […]  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 […]  “Try to focus on one thing – it could be one colour, one idea, any one thing, really,” instructed our photo-tour guide Gavin Gough. “Don’t just wander around taking pictures of everything!” Now, I have enormous respect for Gavin, Bangkok-based travel photographer and teacher extraordinaire, but I was about to head into Yaowarat, Bangkok’s Chinatown, […]  Thailand goes to the polls this Sunday. For weeks, the streets of Bangkok have been lined with colourful political posters: posters with pictures of bland-faced politicians and their pork-barrel promises of fiscal payouts to just about every demographic; posters of “everywoman” in her tennis whites and “everyman” in his golf gear; posters depicting the candidates […]  Pottery is one of the markers of ‘civilisation’. With archeological examples dating back to B.C. 3,600, Thailand’s pottery traditions are amongst the oldest in the world. Over the years clear regional styles developed, with the quality of the products largely dependent on the types of clay found in the area. Ceramics traditions also crossed borders: with the […] |
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