I arrived in Kuala Lumpur on Friday. I’m enjoying Malaysia immensely. It’s a country I didn’t think I’d see on this trip, but I’m delighted to have popped across the border from Thailand. I’ll relate the backstory in due time; until then, I leave you with the following photos devoid of explanation. Details to come.
I arrived here on Monday morning. Flew in from Bangkok. Fantastic place, Penang. More text and some photos to come soon.
I made it to Chiang Mai yesterday. Here’s a pic of me with a buddy. More images and text soon.
Don’t miss Matt Gross’s fascinating piece in today’s New York Times detailing the rise in luxury tourism in Cambodia and elsewhere in Southeast Asia:
In almost every part of the country, you can find a conceptually and architecturally ambitious hotel: In mountainous Ratanakiri, there’s the Terres Rouges Lodge, a former provincial governor’s lakeside residence that has, Time Asia said last July, “the best bar in the middle of nowhere.” On the Sanker River in Battambang, Cambodia’s second-largest city, there’s La Villa, a 1930 house that in October opened as a six-room hotel filled with Art Deco antiques. And sometime this summer, you should be able to head south to Kep and stay at La Villa de Monsieur Thomas, a 1908 oceanfront mansion that’s being transformed into a French restaurant ringed with bungalows.
And then there is Angkor Wat. Foreign visitors are flooding in – 690,987 paid entrance fees last year, up from 451,046 in 2004. And while there are no official figures as to how much each spends in Siem Reap, the town’s dizzying array of luxury hotels – at least 10 by my count, ranging from the Raffles Grand Hotel d’Angkor to quirky boutiques like Hôtel de la Paix – testifies to the emergence of a new generation of high-end travelers, who not only demand round-the-clock Khmer massage but are also willing to pay $400 a day to hire a BMW L7 or $1,375 an hour for a helicopter tour.
Cambodia is not alone in its luxury revolution. Since the mid-1990’s, the former French colonies of Southeast Asia have made enormous leaps in catering to tourists who prefer plunge pools to bucket showers. From the forests of Laos to the beaches of Vietnam to the ruins of Cambodia, you can find well-conceived, well-outfitted, well-run hotels that will sleep you in style for hundreds of dollars a night.
The NYT’s Seth Mydans takes a closer look at why, exactly, Burma’s ruling military junta is moving the country’s capital 200 miles to the north. His conclusion: no one knows for sure. Could be for reasons of astrological auspiciousness; could be so the paranoid brass can ensconce themselves in the jungle in preparation for an American invasion:
Not long ago, according to one story making the rounds in Myanmar, a military officer was asked the purpose of obligatory civil defense training for civilian men. “You are the holding action against the Americans until the Chinese come to our aid,” the officer said, according to David I. Steinberg, a professor at Georgetown University who is a leading expert on Myanmar.
Mr. Steinberg said rumors of an American “rescue” circulate among opponents of the government – a current of wishful thinking that is as extravagant as the fears of the ruling generals.
“The joke going around is, ‘After diamonds, gold,’ ” he said. In the Burmese language, “sein” – as in Saddam Hussein – means diamonds. “Shwe” – as in Gen. Than Shwe, the leader of the military junta – means gold.
BBC:
Burma’s military government has begun its move to a new administrative capital Pyinmana, in the jungle 600km (373 miles) north of Rangoon.
According to sources in Rangoon, convoys of trucks laden with personnel and equipment left on Sunday morning.
BBC:
A former Khmer Rouge commander convicted over the 1994 murder of three Western tourists has been captured in Cambodia, officials have said.
They said that Chhouk Rin – who had been on the run for nearly a year – was detained in the north of the country.
Chhouk Rin was given a life sentence in 2002 for involvement in the abduction and killing of the three backpackers from Britain, Australia and France.
No word as to whether or not he’d been holed up with Gary Glitter.
PHNOM PENH – A new Cambodian cafe is offering diners a slice of life under the Khmer Rouge, with a menu featuring rice-water and leaves, and waitresses dressed in the black fatigues worn by Pol Pot’s ultra-Maoist guerrillas.
Newly opened across the road from Phnom Penh’s notorious Tuol Sleng “S-21” Khmer Rouge interrogation and torture center, the cafe is meant to remind Cambodians of the 1975-1979 genocide in which an estimated 1.7 million people died.
But the set “theme menu” of salted rice-water, followed by corn mixed with water and leaves, and dove eggs and tea at $6 a time is proving too much to swallow for many visitors.
(Via BoingBoing.)
UPDATE: Apparently the joint has been closed down by the government for operating without a license.
