The reader (Vietnam) March 12, 2014 The reader. I often met her browsing the history section. It was as if all those wars, coups, and treaties happened just so that our reader could Thinker, watcher, knitter, spy (Vietnam) March 10, 2014 Who is the spy? Long-distance buses stop and start below my stay. I often go down for some food and a chat with the arriving and departing ones. The last days of Zone 9 (Vietnam) January 1, 2014 Some of my friends from Xian always admonish me for not visiting the famous terracotta warriors. Splendid they may be, but such attractions fail My heroes (Indonesia) August 14, 2013 Across Asia, young people who work at cafés and convenience stores, study at night, work another shift somewhere else. The little sleep they get is Chemistry lessons in rural Java (Indonesia) May 30, 2013 I was with a newfound friend at a shopping mall in Surakarta. We had met earlier at a tourism conference and decided to skip some dull sessions for The thing that flows in your blood (Indonesia) May 14, 2013 You come to Indonesia and it takes you a couple of weeks (or perhaps a few months) to get used to the chilli sauce. But once it flows in your blood, An old raincoat won’t ever let you down (Singapore) August 16, 2012 These travelling companions are worn and falling apart. They are comfortable. Such are the times when I miss my Saigon backstreets where an equally Libraries for community learning (Singapore) June 10, 2012 I was at a library conference in Singapore at a panel about social media use by libraries. I argued that rather than just doing online stuff on The art of getting lost (Japan) November 17, 2011 I was talking about “The Art of Traveling Lost” at an event at Blue Jazz in Singapore. Incidentally, I used to live in the shophouse next door a few The caravanserai (Malaysia) November 8, 2011 Some years back, I hitchhiked from Yinchuan, in China’s Ningxia province, to the border of Inner Mongolia. The borderland was wilderness, and Next page