Travelfish #400: Not everything changes
Hi everyone,
So this week I’m grasping for hope on the world that will be out there post Covid19. More on this down the page a bit.
As I’ve mentioned previously, we have hit our crowdfunding target. Thank you! The first two stories are on my desk and they’re both fab. I can’t wait to get them online. The third one is underway at the moment. As I’ve written before, these features are 100% funded by Travelfish supporters, so once again, thank you!
An elephant in the river, Tad Lo. Photo: Cindy Fan.
The crowdfunding has another month to run, so if you’ve loose change, please keep it in mind. You can follow our progress here.
Last week on pay to read Couchfish, I’ve been kicking around in southern Laos, starting at Tad Lo, then the Broken Bridge near Salavan, a haunted hotel in Sekong, a failed attempt at a river trip and then the beginning of my travelling party falling apart.
On free to read Couchfish, there was just the one post, looking at why some people travel—this proved to be a very popular post and you may need a box of tissues by your side before you read it.
Yup, the bridge is still broken. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
As always, the photos in this newsletter are from last week on Couchfish.
Don’t forget, if you are a Travelfish member, the full Couchfish newsletter is free—just email me your member name and I’ll add you to the list.
Over on Thai Island Times, David had his regular island wrap and then takes a deep look at Ko Wiang—no I hadn’t heard of it either. David was also a part of a panel on Thai tourism this week—do give it a listen.
Under the water rather than above, Chris hits Komodo.
Cheers and again thank you for all your support
Stuart
Support Travelfish!
If you'd like to chip in (if you haven’t already) for using the site, we'd love you to sign up for a year-long subscription for just A$35. See more here.
Not everything changes
I’m too time–pressed (well, lazy to be honest) to read as much as I should. I do enjoy anthologies though, as they’re a bit like the cheat-summaries back at school that saved me from Jane Austen.
Not a ghost in sight. Sekong riverside. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
Many of the anthologies I have feature Western blokes traipsing around Southeast Asia. Some have not aged well. Complaining about Malay slaves not speaking your language won’t pass muster today thankfully.
Leafing through one anthology for another project, this piece on Bokor in Cambodia struck me. By A.H. Brodrick, it recounts a visit in 1939.
“Behind, and high up in the Elephant Ridge, is Bok-kor. It will take you two hours to drive through the Emerald Valley. The mountain road is bordered by thick forest whose trees shoot up, often a hundred feet above you. The Emerald Valley shimmers in green mist. It is a world of leaves and lianas, of murderous thorns and monstrous trunks, it is a world quite uninhabited by man. This Phnom Kamchhang, as the Cambodians call it, is a compact mass of ancient (Triassic) sandstone riveted directly upon very antique rocks (pre–carboniferous strata). It has been dry land for countless ages and the ridge, so long and often an island in the past has remained insular. It is an isolated outcrop rising abruptly from the plain. Cambodian legends shroud the place in mystery. It is the home of ghosts ... it is full of elephant, gaur, monkeys, panther, tiger, parrots, perhaps rhinoceros (but no one stalks them) and of deer.”
Aside from the elephants and the rhinoceros, I could have written this yesterday. The murderous thorns are absolutely still there and I’m sure the first time I went it took at least two hours!
Now that is a waterfall. Katamtok falls near Sekong. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
Since Brodrick’s time there’s been World War II, the Vietnam War and the Khmer Rouge period. There’s been rampant deforestation and other environmental bastardry. And yes, there is a god-awful casino complex up top.
Yet this “Emerald Valley” remains largely as it was 81 years ago.
We’re less than a year into what could be a prolonged age of Covid19. While I realise the world could well be a different place at the other end of this era, the above gives me hope.
At least until the Emerald Valley gets logged that is.
Good travels
Stuart
Premium members only:
Book a round the world with roundtheworldflights.com (must travel from the UK via Asia, Australia, New Zealand AND the Americas) and get £30pp off your trip. Offer valid for departures to December 2021.
Log in to the Member Centre on Travelfish now for your coupon code and start designing your own round the world trip
Twelve things worth reading
Selfies in cells? Thailand bets on prisons to boost tourism
“But driving visitors to correctional facilities is not the answer, even though Thailand has successfully turned the islands of Koh Tao and Koh Tarutao—which were once prisons—into popular tourist spots.”
Pandemic worsens plight of Thailand’s “long-necked” women $
“The economic impact on the villagers has been largely ignored in the wake of the pandemic ... Deprived of their incomes, and lacking employment opportunities, many migrants decided to go back to Myanmar, where farm work is available.”
Inn Din’s story, three years later
“As ethnic violence swept through Rakhine, Inn Din stood out. It remained peaceful while other towns and villages burned. Peaceful coexistence was stronger than the lure of violence.”
Douglas Latchford: The man who pillaged Cambodia
“A Bangkok journalist, whom I tried to interest in the story, flatly refused, citing Latchford’s connections to the Thai military and the going assassination rate.”
The radical plan to save the fastest sinking city in the world
“When I told Indonesians about the Kazakhs who snubbed their own new capital, all without exception insisted that there would be no such resistance here. People would simply move. When I asked whether they were moving, the responses were uniformly no, of course not. How absurd.”
Just a love letter to Saigon’s tropical fruits
“Walking inside the market, feel yourself taken over by a wash of yellow and green as you glide past stalls that exclusively sell bananas, large green-peeled grapefruits, avocados, and young papayas and coconuts.”
In Thailand, a 21-year-old student dares to tackle a taboo subject
“It's a risky move, the first time in modern Thai history that the monarchy has been talked about publicly—openly—in a critical way. Panusaya is undeterred.” A super brave woman.
How South East Asia travel is rebounding
Listen to David Luekens and others talk about Thailand in the age of Covid19.
Travel inspiration for those stuck on the couch
An interview covering the backstory of Couchfish.
Myanmar’s cinema centenary and film censorship $
“Censorship restrictions, which began under the British colonial government, became much more strict, with art made to serve the purposes of the military junta rather than the artist.”
Coconut and palm oil industries at loggerheads over environmental impact
“While the impact of the palm oil industry on deforestation and the viability of species like the orangutan has been heavily documented, Meijaard argued there was not enough research into other edible oils such as coconut, olive and soy.”
The coup-makers and the elites have had a wonderful relationship but the people are waking up
“Citizens were mere outsiders in politics, to be massacred and killed when they overstep their bounds and try to stop the coup cycle.”
Something to read
My Life With Bob: Flawed Heroine Keeps Book of Books, Plot Ensues
“Pamela Paul has kept a Book of Books (Bob) listing all the books she has read, or attempted to read, for 28 years. My Life With Bob: Flawed Heroine Keeps Book of Books, Plot Ensues, is Paul’s memoir of her life as a reader.”
Photo of the week
Kids letting off steam, Battambang. Photo: Nicky Sullivan.
Thank you!
Thanks from reading the Travelfish newsletter. Please feel free to forward it to all and sundry and your feedback, as always, is much appreciated.
Travel light!
Stuart & the Travelfish team