Danau Toba Unwoven
We entered the small unassuming shop through a low doorway. Housed in a wooden open-air cabin on a grassy hill we had stumbled upon a veritable museum of Batak art, […]
Author Archives: Internationally Grown
Dusk in the Monkey Kingdom
Several months after the monsoon the landscape of Hampi is desolate and other-worldly. Save the glowing green rice paddies and banana plantations thriving in well irrigated valleys, the occasional stunted […]
An Amateur’s Guide to Birders and Birding
We were all chatting over a slightly bland but otherwise well prepared dinner at Backwoods Goa birding camp (the guide, used to fickle western tourists, had immediately assured us much […]
The Saffron Coast
Goa’s horizons are red. A pale pinkish red, the bright saffron of the Indian flag, and the the deep, rust color of dried blood. It exposes itself up and down […]
Mumbai 101
We’d just finished our first Dosa since Penang the previous winter, its savory potato masala blending in our mouths with tangy mint chutney christening our yearly sovereign to the tropics […]
Minahasa Macabre
Indonesia’s intrinsic diversity is what makes traveling here captivating. It’s a place that’s easy to drop all expectations and just be amazed by what is waiting to be found. Every […]
The Cambodian Flow
“Mister, you buy” “Lady, you buy” Somewhere between a question and a command, these phrases rise in a nasal Cambodian accent from an army of tiny women standing guard at […]
Togean Turquoise
We affectionately nicknamed our vessel the “Smog Princess”. Its two massive Chinese engines belched smoke with a deafening roar and required nearly constant attention from the captain’s three sons who […]
The Headman’s New Chainsaw
A noisy, sputtering gas generator keeps the village’s satellite TV blaring until midnight, teenagers wearing “I don’t give a F*#k” t-shirts chain smoke cigarettes, and the purr of chainsaws are […]
Torajan Way of Death
The old woman’s solemn, weathered face was worn with the passing of decades, transformation of traditions, arrival of modernity, and resurgence of culture. Her calm dark eyes, deeply sunken into […]
