Around the Region
Hello from Europe, where I’m currently trading Bangkok’s humidity and incessant rain for a rather more restrained kind of summer, though I won’t pretend I don’t miss the smell of a night market and being able to grab a bite to eat from a street stall at 9pm. Westerners do have stricter rules when it comes to selling food, and although that can be comforting, it’s just not the same as the casual and chaotic street scenes I’ve grown used to in Southeast Asia over the years. Distance certainly doesn’t dull the appetite for a good story though, and this week’s crop has a nice thread running through it: places where the numbers actually add up.
Head over to Cambodia and book a room in Kep and someone plants ten mangroves on your behalf. In Malaysia you can wander Penang’s coastal trails and you have a genuine chance of spotting an endangered langur crossing a bridge built from old fire hoses. In the Philippines a family farm in Quezon province is quietly proving that wetlands and working land don’t have to fight each other. While Laos has a timely reminder about what not to buy while you’re there.
Thailand sits this one out. Not because we ran out of things to say about it, but because nothing this week actually earned its place. There’s still no confirmed movement on those visa rules, so I’d rather hand you four stories worth your time than pad it out to five for the sake of appearances.
This Week in Southeast Asia
Book a Room in Kep, Plant Ten Mangroves Along the Coast
Knai Bang Chatt, an 18-room retreat built inside restored 1950s villas on Cambodia’s southern coast, has tied every international booking this year to a fixed conservation outcome. Under its Regenerative Stay programme, run with Marine Conservation Cambodia, each stay funds the planting of ten mangrove seedlings along the Kep coastline, where mangrove loss has weakened natural storm and erosion defences for years. The resort estimates the ten trees will offset more than 7.7 tonnes of CO2 over a 25-year growth cycle, though the more useful return is the coastline itself: mangroves shelter fish nurseries, stabilise sediment, and buffer nearby fishing communities against stronger tides.
Kep once carried the nickname “the St Tropez of Southeast Asia” during the French colonial era, and the property’s own restoration echoes that history. Three colonial-era villas, rebuilt with French architect Françoise Lavielle, now anchor the resort. Guests can join Marine Conservation Cambodia excursions directly, kayak through the mangrove stands that make Cambodia’s coastline one of the region’s most biodiverse, or simply watch the planting from the water. It is roughly three hours by road from Phnom Penh, easily done as a long weekend, and one of the more concrete examples in the region of a stay that leaves a measurable trace behind it.
Knai Bang Chatt is a short walk from Kep’s crab market and beach, and the resort arranges its own airport transfers for guests flying into Phnom Penh. Rooms across third-party booking sites currently list from around £75 / US$100 a night, rising well above that for peak season and larger rooms – treat that as a starting guide rather than a quote, and check directly with the resort for current rates, since prices shift by season and platform.
A fisherman searching for the day’s catch on Kep’s coastline, Cambodia
Old Fire Hoses Are Saving Penang’s Endangered Langurs
On Penang Island in Malaysia, conservationist Yap Jo Leen has strung three canopy bridges from decommissioned fire hoses across roads where endangered dusky langurs used to die trying to cross. The first, installed at Teluk Bahang in 2019, has recorded zero langur deaths on that stretch since going up, and now carries nine other species too, including macaques, squirrels and slow lorises. A third bridge opened in April at Batu Ferringhi, a stretch of coast most visitors know for its beaches rather than its wildlife.
Langur Project Penang trains volunteer “citizen scientists,” aged 17 to 65, to track the animals and work with residents on reducing conflict, turning conservation into something locals do rather than watch from a distance, as Mongabay reported in its interview with Yap. Anyone hiking Penang’s forest trails or staying near Teluk Bahang or Batu Ferringhi has a genuine chance of spotting a langur crossing mid-swing, and the project welcomes visitors keen to sign up as trackers themselves.
Teluk Bahang sits about a 30-minute drive from George Town, on Penang’s northwest coast, and is well served by taxis and local buses from the city. Would-be citizen scientists can register interest through Langur Project Penang’s website, which lists current volunteer openings and internship placements alongside the group’s ongoing research.
Dusky langur (Trachypithecus obscurus) the endangered species protected by Penang’s fire-hose canopy bridges. Image credit: Tontan Travel
A Philippine Family Farm Rewrote the Rules on Wetlands
Four hours from Manila in Quezon province, the Glinoga family farm has spent nearly two decades rebuilding land that slash-and-burn farming had stripped bare by 2008. Rather than draining the wetlands beneath it, the family built up the embankments and kept the mangroves standing, on the reasoning that the lowest ground floods regardless of what grows there. Coconut groves now lead down through tidal rice paddies to open wetland: a working version of the coastline much of the Philippines’ recent development has paved over.
Owner Nenieveh Glinoga has opened the farm to overnight visitors for the first time, now that running water and proper facilities are in place, Mongabay’s on-the-ground report noted on a recent visit. It is a working farm rather than a resort, and a rare, close look at what Philippine coastal agriculture looks like when it cooperates with the water instead of fighting it.
The farm sits in Barangay Payte, Pitogo, roughly four hours by road from Manila through Quezon province, or reachable by boat at high tide from Barangay Dulong Bayan if arriving by sea. It’s a registered agricultural training site under the region’s Technical Education and Skills Development Authority programme, which means visits tend to be more structured than a casual drop-in. Glinoga takes enquiries directly through the farm’s Facebook page, Glinoga Integrated Farm, and messaging ahead is worth doing: overnight capacity is new and limited, and there’s no booking system beyond that.
Luang Prabang Raid Seizes 60kg of Suspected Wildlife Products
On 13 June, Lao wildlife enforcement officers raided a property inside Luang Prabang’s UNESCO-listed old town and confiscated more than 60 kilograms of suspected wildlife contraband: 968 ivory-like objects, 559 rhino horn-like items, 112 suspected animal gallbladders, plus pangolin scale-like material, elephant skin powder and processing equipment. Four days later, a separate operation at the Vang Tao checkpoint intercepted 294 live turtles, pythons and lizards being moved by bus toward the Thai border, according to the Laotian Times. Both investigations continue.
For visitors, the takeaway is practical. Buy nothing described as ivory, horn, or traditional medicine derived from wildlife anywhere in Laos, however convincingly it’s marketed, and flag anything suspicious to hotel staff or park rangers. Luang Prabang’s tourism boom is bringing more scrutiny with it, not less, and that scrutiny appears to be doing its job.
Most international visitors reach Luang Prabang by air, with direct flights from Bangkok, Hanoi, Siem Reap and Vientiane landing at Luang Prabang International Airport, a short tuk-tuk ride from the old town. The Laos-China Railway offers regular trains from Vientiane, but reliably booking tickets in advance has proved problematic for non-Chinese tourists. If you do encounter something that looks like wildlife trafficking, the Lao Conservation Trust for Wildlife runs the country’s only dedicated wildlife rescue hotline, free and available in English: call or WhatsApp 1601. Reports are kept anonymous.
What’s On
This Week
- GEORGE TOWN HERITAGE DAY — Penang, Malaysia | 7 July 2026 Marks George Town’s 2008 inscription as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, with free cultural events across the old town’s heritage core. Second and final appearance in Unmasked Weekly this cycle. More info via Penang tourism
Coming Up
- UBON RATCHATHANI CANDLE FESTIVAL — Ubon Ratchathani, Thailand | Late July 2026 Isan’s largest Buddhist festival, marking the start of Khao Phansa with towering carved wax sculptures paraded through the city. Exact date to confirm at editing stage; sources vary between early and late July. More info here
Worth Reading
Knai Bang Chatt’s new mangrove-planting commitment builds on wellness and regenerative-travel groundwork the resort was already laying when we first profiled it.
Knai Bang Chatt: Embracing Wellness and Regenerative Travel in Cambodia’s Kep
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