Travelfish #501: The New Beginnings Edition

A wrap on stuff worth reading

Hi!

Happy New Year from West Bali!

I hope you all had an excellent holiday period and are bright-eyed and bushy-tailed ready for a brand-spanking new year. Here at Casa Travelfish, we had a great family Christmas holiday in Thailand, then to the tune of about a bazillion fireworks, we watched the clock tick over to the New Year back in Bali. Sticking to the fireworks theme for a moment, if you’ve ever asked yourself “what would it look like if all the fireworks went off at once?” Hà Tĩnh in northern Vietnam found out.

Before I get onto the regular Southeast Asia news-wrap, first some housekeeping. This newsletter and Couchfish will be moving off the Substack platform in the very near future. They’ll both be transferred from Substack to a self-hosted solution on my own server (where Travelfish and my other random bits and pieces already live). As I have a thesis proposal to finish first, I’m aiming for the move to be finished by the end of January, with this newsletter moving first as its move is more straightforward, with Couchfish to follow by the end of the month. Until then both will continue to be dispatched via Substack.

Why am I moving? The issues with Substack have been covered extensively in the international press, first in a piece by Johnathan M Katz for The Atlantic, with a number of follow-up pieces in international outlets including The Guardian, Business Insider, NBC, and The New York Times, along with a truck load of think pieces, of which I thought this one by US attorney Ken White, and this piece in tech newsletter Platformer were particularly insightful and well considered.

Hamish McKenzie (one of the Substack founders), responded here, in part saying (my emphasis) “I just want to make it clear that we don’t like Nazis either—we wish no-one held those views. But some people do hold those and other extreme views. Given that, we don't think that censorship (including through demonetizing publications) makes the problem go away—in fact, it makes it worse.” McKenzie’s note won’t load for me, and if you have the same problem, you can see a copy of it on the Internet Archive here.

I disagree with this view, and in short, I’m not interested in using the publishing platform of a company that has no qualms about making money from hate speech, so I’m moving both newsletters. Likewise I’ll be cancelling any paid subscriptions I have there and will sort out alternative ways to pay the authors concerned. Regulars will know I’m a firm believer in walking the talk, and with over 18,000 subscribers across the two newsletters (thank you every one of you!), it was time to walk.

While it is true that hate speech can unfortunately be found on many publishing platforms, to my knowledge Substack is the only mainstream platform that has explicitly said they will host “Nazi views,” (their words) and earn money from such material. If Substack want to run a Nazi bar (the link goes not to a photo of a Nazi bar but to another excellent piece on this whole issue, by content moderation expert Mike Masnick), that’s their business—I’ll just drink elsewhere. Take my word for it, I’ve seriously considered taking drinking up again through all this!

To my mind, it doesn’t matter if there are six, six hundred, or six thousand such publications—Substack has made it clear they will host how ever many such newsletters appear and earn revenue from them. So I’m done.

Takes a breath.

With that off my chest, what does the move mean for you dear Travelfish newsletter reader? As this newsletter is free, the transition will be near seamless. I’ll have an update next week, including perhaps a request for a few volunteers to assist with testing stuff, and keep you posted (yes, via Substack!) until the move is done and dusted. Couchfish is a more complicated move as there is a paid version, but I’ll address what will be happening there in a special Couchfish explainathon newsletter later this week.

Lastly, as regular readers will know, I often link to interesting pieces that are published via Substack, and I have no plans to stop doing this. There is plenty of excellent writing there and I respect that this is an individual choice for each and every writer/publisher.

My apologies for all this—I assume you receive this newsletter because you’re interested in Southeast Asia, so, with no further ado, let’s get onto that. Thank you for your patience.

The featured piece this week is a light one—some reading tips from Southeast Asia expert Erin Cook. How the hell Erin found the time to read 92 books in 2023 is absolutely beyond me. Pics this week are a couple of snaps from our holiday in Thailand.

Cheers and best for 2024

Stuart

This week’s newsletter is supported by Ling—think of it as a new way to learn a language without picking up phrases like how to tell your neighbour there are a million cats in your house. Their coverage includes a bunch of Southeast Asian languages which I’ve outlined further down, or just click on the monkey above and find out for yourself—they’ve got both iOS and Android apps available—and a free trial.

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Travel writer in training

Slowing down on Thailand’s Ko Kut. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

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⭐️ Story of the week 

• A Year In Reading: From The Back Streets Of Tondo To The Tense Family Tables Of Washington In The 60s from Dari Mulut Ke Mulut

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📚 What I’m reading

• Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

🇲🇲 Burma

• Escape From Laukkai: A Migrant’s Story from Frontier Myanmar ($)

• Domestic Flights In Myanmar Reduced As Junta Searches For Jet Fuel from RFA

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One of the best way to get a little more out of your trip is to learn a bit of the language, and Ling helps you learn vocabulary and phrases to form meaningful relationships with people you meet along the way.

Think of it as a bit like Duolingo, but without phrases like “There are one million cats in my house,” and best of all, Ling offer a bunch of Southeast Asian languages including:

Indonesian, Khmer, Lao, Malaysian, Thai, and Vietnamese

With apps for both iOS and Android, it couldn’t be easier to grab a 7-day free trial and start learning today.

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🇰🇭 Cambodia

• Reflections On Journalism In Cambodia For 2023 from Danielle Keeton-Olsen

• Tensions Rising As Boeng Tamok Lake Redistributed, Filled With Sand from Danielle Keeton-Olsen

• Reporting Massive Human Rights Abuses Behind A Façade from Columbia Journalism Review (2016)

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

• Cultural Tourism As A Driving Force Of Social Sustainability from Sustain Impact Tourism

• Short Hops And Economy Class: Five Expert Tips On How To Reduce Your Emissions On Holiday from The Guardian

• Flying Hurts The Planet But It’s Vital For Island Tourism. Is There A Greener Way? from The Guardian

• From Reuters To The New York Times, Big Oil Pays “Most Trusted Media Brands” To Push Greenwashing from Journalism.co.uk

🇮🇩 Indonesia

• Immigration Launches Five-Year Multiple Entry Visas For Tourism from Antara

• Bali Bets On Wellness Experiences And Sustainable Dining To Spur Tourism Recovery from SCMP ($)

• ‘Really, Really Weak’: Experts Attack Claim That Indonesia Site Is ‘World’s Oldest Building’ from The Guardian

• The Land Of Iron from The Lombok Diaries

🇱🇦 Laos

• Ancient Temple In Bolikhamxay Set To Attain National Heritage Status from The Laotian Times

• Impacts Of Covid-19 On Tourism In The Lao PDR : Market Insights And Trends from World Bank

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Yes, it’s the language monkey again.

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🇲🇾 Malaysia

• Malaysia Eases Rules For Retirement Residency Visa But Piecemeal Announcement Has Wealthy Foreigners Holding Off from CNA

• Wrapping Up 2023 And Looking Forward To 2024 from Reef Check Malaysia (LinkedIn)

• ‘I Feel Trapped’: Scores Of Underage Rohingya Girls Forced Into Abusive Marriages In Malaysia from AP

• On The Cat Walk: How To Follow In A Tiger’s Footsteps In The Forests Of Malaysia from The Guardian

🇸🇬 Singapore

• What’s Life On The Open Road For Two Singaporean Aunties? from Rice Media

• Singapore’s ‘Ice Cream Uncles’ Are Melting Away Thanks To Old Age And Red Tape: ‘It’s Just The Way It Is’ from SCMP ($)

• Epok Epok Sardine from Singapore Noodles ($)

🇹🇭 Thailand

• Island Wrap #71: Welcome To 2024 In Coastal Thailand from Thai Island Quest

• A Dying Anticorruption Crusader Considers His Life’s Own Misdeeds from The New York Times ($)

• T.I.C.D.: Songkhla Lake Region (Part II: Mueang Songkhla & Sathing Phra Isthmus) from Thai Island Quest ($)

• Thailand To Recover ‘Golden Boy,’ But Over 100 Stolen Artifacts Remain Abroad from RFA

• In Search Of Thailand’s Tasty Hideouts That The Locals Would Rather Keep Secret from CNT

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

• Dreaming Of High-Speed Rail from Vietnam Weekly

• Vintage French Book Illustrations Depict A Quaint Indochina In 1903 from Saigoneer

• Camping On Trong Veo Stream from Vietnam Coracle

• The Unexpected Twist In Vietnam’s Renewable Energy Saga from Fulcrum

• Floating Rice, Lục Bình Baskets And Dried Fish: How WWF-Viet Nam Is Helping Save The Mekong Delta from Saigoneer

Random other stuff

• The Biggest Travel Trends For 2024, As Predicted By Industry Insiders from RoadBook

• The Thought-Leaders To Follow In 2024 from Future of Tourism (LinkedIn)

• #186 – Slow Travel With Stuart McDonald from Talk Travel Asia (Podcast)

• Reflections On A Road Well Travelled from Around The World In 80 Scrapes

• The Darkest Nights Of Travel from TravelHood

• Travel Is Awesome, But How Can We Experience Real Awe? from Poste Restante

Mangrove time

“Up the river without a paddle” could be the theme to this edition of the newsletter, but it is also my kind of holiday. At the glorious Baan Makok on Ko Kut. Photo: Stuart McDonald.

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Wednesday Deals recap

Good travels!

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

Cheers!

Stuart