A Few Words From Me… Money keeps surfacing as the theme this week, or rather the question of where it actually ends up once it’s left your hand. Marriott Bonvoy’s new partnership with the orangutan foundation in Perak is about as clean an example as you’ll find: scan a QR code at check-in in Malaysia
A Few Words From Me The biggest story coming out of the region this week is the weather itself. Green season brings a wash of colour to the region yet it can also prove to be a wash out, with lives disrupted through incessant rain that brings flooding to low-lying areas. Laos is dealing with
A Few Words From Me As the region embraces green season, news on the ground is typically thin, and that’s the case this week as some countries in the region move from headline announcements to the quieter work of planning ahead. That’s especially true in Laos, where authorities are making good use of their time,
A Few Words From Me Lampang doesn’t get that much attention – even from people like myself who’ve spent years in Thailand. This week its lac-dyed textiles earned official protected status, the same kind Champagne has, which feels overdue in the best way, a craft that could easily have been left to fade (no pun
There are 8,582 registered tuk-tuks in Bangkok. As of the end of May this year, 1,056 of them, nationwide, were electric. Hold those two numbers next to each other for a second, because they explain almost everything about what’s actually happening across Southeast Asia right now, and why I think the region’s sudden enthusiasm for
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
Around the Region Monsoon rain has put five eastern Thai provinces on flood watch this week, with harvests at real risk, while much of Western Europe swelters through drought conditions. Against that backdrop, this issue leans on recovery and renewal. Southeast Asia’s mangroves have quietly flipped from decline to regrowth, driven mainly by Indonesia and
Around the Region There’s a particular kind of travel news that never quite makes it past the trade press, and this week’s edition is a good example of that. UNESCO quietly added three new biosphere reserves to the map last month, one of them is a first for a country most readers have never had
Thailand tested its sustainable tourism model in Krabi. Now the same blueprint is heading north, and it changes how you should plan a Chiang Mai trip. Five years ago, Krabi became the testing ground for an idea Thailand’s tourism authority wasn’t sure would work: that a destination could be rebuilt around certified low-impact routes, trained
Around the Region I’m not going to lie, the durian museum that just opened in Kuala Lumpur isn’t tempting me onto a flight this week. I don’t find the notoriously pongy fruit as intrusive as some, but I did once convince myself that there was a gas leak in the apartment (which isn’t connected to
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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