Travelfish #482: The curry edition

A wrap on stuff worth reading

Hi!

This week I’m leading with an interesting piece on AI-generated travel guides filling up the virtual shelves of Amazon’s travel section. Poor quality guidebooks pruned from Wikipedia and lesser sources have long been an issue on Amazon, but AI takes this to a new level. Buyer beware, and remember, if there’s one travel website you won’t encounter any AI-generated whatever, it is Travelfish!

Something I particularly enjoyed this week was a story that took the 2,000 year-old curry I linked to a coupla weeks ago and went ahead and prepared the dish (see Random Other Stuff below). It is via the Southeast Asian Archeology newsletter, and if you have an interest in archeology in the region—or 2,000 year-old curries—it is well worth subscribing to. You can sign up via the button below—the newsletter has both free- and paid-for flavours.

While I’m not going to try my hand at a 2,000 year-old curry, it did serve as inspiration for this week’s theme—curry!

Cheers

Stuart

Yangon yummies

Burma does more curries than I could ever name. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

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⭐️ Story of the week 

• A New Frontier For Travel Scammers: A.I.-Generated Guidebooks from The New York Times ($)

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📚 What I’m reading

• Kopi Dulu by Mark Everleigh

🇲🇲 Burma

• Children In Rakhine State Losing Out On Education After Cyclone Mocha from Frontier Myanmar ($)

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Looking to book your transport online when you’re on the road in Southeast Asia? For Vietnam, look no further than Baolau. For the rest of the region, 12Go should be your first port of call.

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🇰🇭 Cambodia

• National Gallery Of Australia Hands Back Ninth-Century Cambodian Sculptures It Believes Were Stolen from The Guardian

• Hun Sen Says He Could Return If Son Encounters Danger As New Prime Minister from RFA

• Opinion | After Cambodia’s Sham Election, A Chance For A Reset from The Washington Post ($)

• How A Tour Of Cambodia’s Capital Phnom Penh Reveals A Heritage Hotbed Beneath The New Chinese Money from SCMP ($)

Did someone order a beach view?

Ad: Salad Hut on Ko Pha Ngan’s beautiful west coast, from US$118 per night. Click here for the details.

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🌴 Environment

• Is This The End Of The Summer Vacation As We Know It? from The New York Times ($)

• Europe Weather: How Heatwaves Could For Ever Change Summer Holidays Abroad from BBC

• Are Carbon Offsets All They’re Cracked Up To Be? We Tracked One From Kenya To England To Find Out. from Vox

• The Invisible Climate Impact Of A Cruise Ship from Bloomberg ($)

🇮🇩 Indonesia

• TikTok Stars Clean Up: The Influencers Saving Indonesia’s Polluted Rivers And Beaches from The Guardian

• What Does An Indonesian Earn, And What Does His/her Domestic Life Look Like? from Retire In Bali

• Bali: For Nature Lovers from NE Where

🇱🇦 Laos

• Will The Modern-Day Silk Road Bring Prosperity To Laos? from InDepthNews

• Plain Of Jars Sites To Be Offered Under Concession To Private Company from The Laotian Times

• Eight Provinces In Laos Ravaged By Severe Flooding And Landslides from The Laotian Times

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Looking for deals on organised tours **with no domestic flying**? Here are a few for Southeast Asia via Travelfish partner TourRadar. (Prices are in US$)

Cambodia
Cambodia Explorer (11 days, $920)

Indonesia
Komodo Island Hopper (9 days, $1,196)

Laos
North Laos by motorbike (7 days, $2,062)

Malaysia
Sabah Highlights (7 days, $1,243)

Thailand
Bangkok to the North (9 days, $1,130)

Vietnam
North Vietnam by motorbike (7 days, $1,026)

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🇲🇾 Malaysia

• Petaling Street, The ‘Chinatown’ Of Malaysia’s Capital, Bets On Its Heritage For A Modern Revival from SCMP ($ from 2019)

• New Discoveries Suggest Human Pre-history Existed 60,000 Years Ago In Niah Caves from The Borneo Post

• People Here Once Hunted Tigers. Now Even The Pork Vendor Wants To Quit from This Is Southeast Asia

🇸🇬 Singapore

• For Over A Decade, Singaporean Cinema Was Dead. Then The 90s Came Along. from Rice Media

• Carrots And Couture: A Double Life As Fashion Model And Vegetable Vendor from Rice Media

🇹🇭 Thailand

• Thai Establishment Thwarts Popular Will With Post-Election Moves from International Crisis Group

• Moving Forward Without Move Forward from Dari Mulut Ke Mulut

• Island Wrap #66, Recapping July 2023 In Coastal Thailand from Thai Island Quest

• Spanish Tourist Admits To Murdering And Dismembering His Lover In Southern Thailand from The Pattaya News

Looking for somewhere special in Penang?

Ad: Campbell House in Georgetown, Penang from US$72 per night. Click here for the details.

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🇻🇳 Vietnam

• Read Your Way Through Hanoi from The New York Times ($)

• Foreign Tourists Wait For Official Guidelines On New Vietnam Visa Policy from VNExpress

• How Anthony Bourdain Changed Fate Of ‘Banh Mi’ Stall In Vietnam’s Hoi An from Vietnam Life

• Vietnam’s Desolate Seabed from Mekong Eye

• A Mosaic Of Vietnam’s Landscapes Through The Windows Of The North-South Train from Saigoneer

Random other stuff

• Recreating A 2000-year-old Curry: A Gastronomic Adventure Into Oc Eo’s Ancient Culinary Heritage from Southeast Asian Archeology

• When AI Is Trained On AI-Generated Data, Strange Things Start To Happen from Futurism

• Green Claims Code Published; Beware Of Claims About Sustainable Travel And The Risk Of Greenwashing from Adventure Travel Networking

• Chocolate Ice Cream And The Nuances Of Scope 3 GHG Accounting from South Pole

• Instagram Is Making You A Worse Tourist – Here’s How To Travel Respectfully from The Conversation

• The Rise Of Wellness Travel, From Rewilding To Yoga And Pilgrimages from National Geographic

• Inventive Incentive Programs Nudge Travelers Over Knowledge-Action Gap from Sustainable Brands

• How One Small African Island Is Setting The Standard For Sustainability from AFAR

• Four Ways To Accelerate Tourism Recovery In Asia from Asian Development Blog

• Tourists Go Home! Fed Up With Over-Tourism, European Hotspots Impose Bans, Fines, Taxes from Forbes ($)

• Why Are The World’s Climate And Environment NGOs Trying To Erase Taiwan From The Map? from Hong Kong Free Press

• The Road To Sarajevo from Cosmographia

Island time

Gaeng nua and yum mamuang pla ching chang on Thailand’s Ko Lanta. Photo: David Luekens.

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See you next week!

So that’s the wrap. I hope you are all in good health, and thanks for reading.

Cheers!

Stuart