The 2026 quota ran out in August, you must now enter on the date printed on your e-ticket, and walking in without one costs five times the normal fee. Planning to see the dragons before the year ends? Then the first thing you need is not a boat. It is a ticket for a named
A Few Words From Me Most decisions that change how we travel this region are made somewhere we will never see, by people we will never meet, and announced once everything is already settled. This week four countries showed their hands at once, and the common thread is who gets to set the terms. Laos
A country-by-country guide to travelling the region from October to December, from the flooded central coast of Vietnam to Timor-Leste’s whale season Bangkok is wet again. This week the city’s drainage department reported standing water on five main road sections, and the Thai Meteorological Department expects isolated heavy to very heavy rain across the central
A Few Words From Me There was no issue last week, and I owe you a short explanation: I spent most of it getting back to Bangkok, a journey that always takes longer than the flight suggests. I arrived to serious flooding, and water is still standing in up country Bangkok and the provinces around
A Few Words From Me Some good news from the Mekong to start with, and it’s been a while since I could write that sentence with a straight face. In Kratie, up in Cambodia’s northeast, the Irrawaddy dolphin count is heading the right way, and after writing in August about the Laos side of the
A third of the Javan rhino’s population disappeared from Ujung Kulon National Park before anyone noticed. Here’s the fuller story, and what’s actually left to protect. This month’s Anak Krakatau eruption made headlines for grounding flights and stranding travellers across Indonesia. A few kilometres across the Sunda Strait, it also drew attention back to Ujung
A Few Words From Me Anak Krakatau has form for making headlines it would rather not, though I’ll say this for it, this time it let the world’s rarest rhino off comparatively lightly. Ujung Kulon has now sat out two Krakatau eruptions unscathed, which either says something reassuring about that stretch of coast or something
A Few Words From Me… Malaysia and Vietnam did something rather good for the region this week, six new names added to the ASEAN Heritage Park list between them, Bako and Lambir Hills among them. That sounds like the sort of thing that only matters to committee minutes until you realise Bako is a place
A Few Words From Me Three governments seem to have landed on the same idea this week: that how people move through a place matters as much as where they go. Thailand has started training its first proper hiking guides, launched at Khao Yai, one of the national parks that together see more than ten
If you have filmed a sponsored reel on a Canggu beach, tagged a villa in a story in exchange for a free night, or posted a paid partnership from a rooftop bar in Seminyak, Indonesian immigration now considers that work, not tourism, and they are actively watching social media to find it. Content that pays,
The Similan Islands Took 400,000 Visitors Last Season. Before You Book This One, Read the Rules.
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Malaysia and Vietnam Just Added Six Parks to an Exclusive List. The Badge Is the Easy Part.
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Da Nang Just Wrote a 219-Point Rulebook for What “Green” Actually Means. Here’s What’s in It.
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