Travelfish newsletter Issue 321 : Far Southern Thailand + Instagram Revisited + The Lover
Hi all,
We’re coming to you a little late from Sa Dec in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta this week, where the food is as great as the rain is heavy. Wet season travel is just the best if all you need to do is lay in bed listening to the rain chuck it down... unfortunately that is not us. Oh well.
This week, we have a new itinerary focusing on four weeks spent in far southern Thailand. While we skirt around the country’s ravaged far southern trio of provinces, the rest of the region makes for a fascinating exploration of a great part of Thailand--and the food is fab!
Indonesia’s Lombok and Sumbawa continue to be rumbled by a concerningly long stretch of quakes, with another big one the day before last. Thankfully Indonesia is doing a good job getting aid to those who need it and, reflecting the humanity of the place, the national post service has been totally overloaded by Indonesians elsewhere in the country wanting to mail supplies to the affected regions. Bravo. So perhaps put those stamps back in the drawer, but still consider a donation to the Indonesian Red Cross. Thank you.
Stuart’s Soapbox is revisiting an earlier one on Instagram, and we're revisiting an old book review as we don't often pass through Sa Dec, the setting of renowned novel, The Lover.
Good travels
Stuart, Sam and the Travelfish crew
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Soapbox
Instagram revisited
Back in July, when Travelfish turned 14, in the newsletter I wanted to zoom in on something that was really changing travel but didn’t exist when we launched Travelfish—that thing was Facebook–owned Instagram.
When I travel, I use the app a lot as I find it a useful method to find independent (non–professional) local travel enthusiasts and, with some effort, to find things that I was not aware of. Today, on the way back from Xeo Quyt, a war–era site outside Sa Dec in the Mekong Delta, I was sifting through my feed while coasting on the ferry, looking for (surprise, surprise) food ideas. I stumbled upon a pic of a dish that looked delish. Taken by a Vietnamese resident (going by her feed) I figured out where it was, went and ate the dish, and it will be in our Sa Dec write up (coming soon!).
Is that a bad thing? I think no.
As far as I can tell, the poster is a student of some description in Long Xuyen (a neighbouring town) and there seems to be no commercial angle at play—she just liked the dish and I did too (and hopefully you will too, dear reader!)
The problem arrises of course down the track, when the cafe has been picked up by every man and his dog and there are literally busloads of people descending on the cafe to eat (and more importantly photograph!) the same dish. When a street stall in Bangkok was semi-recently awarded a Michelin Star, the punters went nuts!
There is another small cafe here (which I’ve also eaten at thanks to a friend’s recommendation) and it wasn’t till after we ate there that I realised it was listed almost everywhere, though thank god not on Trip Advisor. Walking past it later in the day, while still uniformly Vietnamese, the crowd (and it was a crowd) did look to have more of an out-of-town vibe to them—still at least no tour buses ... yet.
It can be tempting to blame this on technology, but “Instagram is ruining travel” sounds a lot like the “Lonely Planet Touch of Death” that did the rounds in the nineties and noughties.
But is it the fault of tech (or a decade ago of the guidebooks)? Or is it our slavish following of technology's recommendations rather than choosing to follow our own noses, wandering down a side lane and doing a bit of our own “surfacing”?
Leave the phone in the room (in the safe please!) and take a wander. Explore and enjoy. You won’t always hit paydirt, but whatever happens, it will be yours.
Good travels,
Stuart
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What we’ve read
The Lover by Marguerite Duras
Due to events outside of our control (yoga, school drop-offs, earthquakes, alien flyovers, a visit by the president, too much beach time and snoozing) we don’t have a new book review for you this week, so instead we’re going to point you to an old one, The Lover, as Stuart wandered through one of the houses the book was set in yesterday. You know what, the book and even the movie, are far better and more enjoyable than a visit to the house, which we found to be a big fat disappointment. Read the book instead.
Featured
Four weeks in Far Southern Thailand
“Many of the travellers who flock to Southern Thailand’s big-name islands don’t realise how much more there is to this region than islands. Give the following itinerary a go if you’re ready to jump off the tourist trail and dig into the food, history, culture and nature of the less-travelled South.”
So reads the introduction of a new Thailand itinerary written buy David. U-shaped, it starts in Surat Thani and loops down along the southeast coast, then bottoms out (avoiding the three far southern provinces of Pattani, Narathiwat and Yala) across to Satun before cranking back up the west coast of the peninsula. For the traveller looking to get more societal and cultural learnings of southern Thailand, even though we’re biased, this is a great itinerary.
It fits in well with island sojourns on both the east and west coasts (you are coming to Thailand for six months right?!) and for those with even more time (a decade is a good starting point) we give plenty of options for spots to slow down in.
Yes, yet again we are on about slow travel. Drag yourself off the beach and go expose yourself to a bit more culture than swapping breakfast banter with hotel staff on a Thai island. Far southern Thailand, especially Nakhon Si Thammarat, Phattalung and Songkhla are some of the most under–rated (and under–visited—see the soap box above) towns in the country.
More importantly, of course not everyone has the luxury of having four weeks to kick around the lesser known parts of the country, but we’d say give the itinerary a read anyway, and perhaps one, or two, or even three destinations will have you thinking hmmm, maybe we can cut back our family holiday on Samui and spend a few days on Khanom and Sichon—after all they're closer to the ferry pier than Surat Thani!
And, well, once you start thinking that way, before you know it you’ll be extending that leave form and following the whole darned itinerary!
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News from the region
BURMA I: Why Burmese hip-hop is inevitably political (from 2016)
“Commercial or “sell-out” artists were more likely to accept military constraints on lyrics, clothing and performances, but even the most commercial faced ongoing problems. It was, after all, still hip-hop.”
BURMA II: Storm of accountability gathers over Myanmar
“Within the milieu of the MoU’s guarded optimism, Fieldview’s independent analysis damns these efforts as misguided at best, and mendacious at worst. ”
DURIAN: We must know if durians survive in space!
“Love it or hate it, there’s a real fear that there won’t be enough durian to go round in Southeast Asia in the near future due to high demand and low supply.” Not. Enough. Durian. (Also, we know durian is not a country, but if it was, we could put all of it there).
INDONESIA: Navigating Indonesia’s Streets
“The vast majority of people with disabilities in Indonesia work in the informal sector—working in a neighbourhood eatery or laundrette, for example, or selling mobile phone credit from a kiosk in front of their house—leaving them less financially stable with less legal protection.”
INDONESIA II: Lombok: deadly quake hits island recovering from string of tremors
“Indonesia, a sprawling archipelago that straddles the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” is prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.”
LAOS I: Laos dam collapse: Work continues on huge projects despite promised halt
“The move has called into question how serious the government is about reviewing numerous multibillion-dollar hydropower projects, which are a pivotal part of the poverty-stricken country’s lucrative plans to become the “battery of Asia” and sell power to neighbouring nations such as Thailand. ”
LAOS II: Asia’s ‘battery’ powers its own extinction crisis
“The combination of poaching by way of the snaring crisis that is engulfing not only Laos but Southeast Asia as a whole, illegal logging, and rampant dam-building may prove to be too much for Laos’ once-magnificent natural heritage.”
LAOS III: Laos dam collapse: survivors tell devastating tales
“Samled Inthavong, who, with his family, has taken refuge in the local school, says he watched as water swallowed up the first floor of his house in Ban Mai before evacuating. Just moments after he had lowered his wife and three children into a boat, an uprooted building slammed into his house, collapsing it with his grandparents still inside.”
MALAYSIA: Malaysia’s simmering culture war
“Religious and cultural conservatives, who have had their moral dictates in essence institutionalised in sharia law as well as Malaysia’s civil Penal Code, appear intent on making this cultural and values-laden battleground about sexuality and sexual orientation a pivotal terrain for targeting and undercutting the traditional – and especially Malay/Muslim – base that had become disillusioned by the excesses, corruption and scandals that plagued the last government.”
THAILAND: Chinese tourist numbers fall as Phuket boat capsize deaths highlight Thailand’s terrible safety record
“There are signs, however, that concerns among Chinese tourists about Thailand’s safety record are beginning to be felt.”
VIETNAM (DISTANTLY!): How spring rolls got to Senegal
“As many as 100 Vietnamese women moved to Dakar during the Indochina War as soldiers’ wives, according to Helene Ndoye Lame, the unofficial historian of this community. Lame can name 49 of them. Before weddings, she tells me, the Vietnamese women she knew would gather in one house and cook for two or three days, marinating pork, rolling spring rolls, and reciting poetry.”
Travel writing
VIETNAM: A soothing 3-day holiday on Cat Ba Island
Yes, you should have gone yesterday.
VIETNAM II: A guide to climbing Mount Fansipan independently
“There are several trails to reach the summit of Mount Fansipan, known romantically as the ‘Roof of Indochina’. However, only one is easy enough (and safe enough) to follow independently, without a guide.” Read it.
VIETNAM III: Hanoi after the war
“Duong Trung Quoc talks about the “tyre shrinking shop” — if you were lucky enough to be allocated a tyre it was probably the wrong size, so you took it to a specialist to have it altered.”
Interesting site
Vietnam Coracle
We’ve recommended this site before, but when in Saigon recently we met up with the guy behind the site (Tom) for a few coffees and a wander, and yes, if you are heading to Vietnam, and especially if you are planning on motorbiking there, his site is essential reading.
Travel shot
In Phattalung: ”Hey look Harry, there is a farang.“ Photo: David Luekens
Till next time
That’s it from us for now. As usual, enjoy the site’s new additions and drop us a line if there’s something in particular you’d like us to cover in Southeast Asia.
Travel light!
Stuart, Sam & the Travelfish team
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