South/East Asia Archives - Page 5 of 5

Archive by category "South/East Asia" (Page 5)

Baliem Valley, West Papua: guys and gourds

Well! that’s certainly the first time I have been welcomed at an airport by a man wearing only a gourd on his cock. Admittedly, when I say airport, the structure at Wamena in the Baliem Valley, West Papua tends more towards the idea of a cow shed than what you would traditionally imagine an airport to be. This however, did nothing to make the experience any the less superb. Plenty of destinations around the world would benefit from having more old men’s…

Gado Gado – Tenggarong street style recipe

As I was given an impromptu lesson in how to make the popular Indonesian dish gado gado (vegetables and peanut sauce), whilst looking for something to eat one night, it seems only right to pass the recipe on to the culinary inclined among you. There are numerous variations of the dish around the country’s many islands so I am not giving you a precise recipe as such. It can be altered to suit your tastes or what you have in the…

Hit me with your rhythm stick, part 1

I had a stupid idea. En route for Borneo a lyric kept going round that big bit of my brain that’s used to store pointless stuff: “in the wilds of Borneo”, from Ian Dury and the Blockheads’ track, hit me with your rhythm stick. If this means nothing to you, by the magic of internet, here’s the video – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WGVgfjnLqc As the lyrics below demonstrate, it references a series of disconnected locations around the world, some of which I…

Tenggarong: island of shame

Many things are doomed to failure, such as starting a hog roast franchise in Chechnya or basing your foreign policy around the concept of dropping bombs on people. One such folly must surely be Fantasy Island in Tenggarong, eastern Kalimantan, on the Mahakam River. The region’s coal mining operations had blessed the local authorities with that affliction we all desire, of having more money than sense, so they decided to blow it on turning the town’s river island of Pulau Kumala into…

The heroes of Samarinda

Samarinda, on the east Kalimantan coast is never going to win any prizes, unless there is a competition for pavement obstructions in SE Asia. Its general air of tattiness, wafted by the fumes of sluggish traffic would prompt the less charitable to describe it as a bit of a shithole. Warranting special mention is its drainage system, which valiantly performs several tasks, such as removing rainwater, sewage and the rubbish, that those of the more bone-idle residents, who decide they don’t…

Wehea Forest: of apes and men in Borneo

I have taken the unusual step of handing over this week’s post to a guest blogger, Professor Tokolodo Dangerleybeets, an Orang Utan from the Wehea Forest, in north-east Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo, who is an expert in humans and their cultural practices. Here in the Forest we have two kinds of human: the Treecutters and the Watchers. The former we don’t like, because taking away our trees is like what it is for a human to have a bunch of Gorillas…

Buggery in Brunei

When is a dictatorship not a dictatorship? Brunei is an intriguing example of this conundrum. Technically the Sultan, Hassanal Bolkiah, with six hundred years of hereditary privilege behind him cannot be a dictator, but like kings everywhere before him he holds powers all dictators aspire to. Even violent psychopaths like Saddam Hussein or the divinely ordained, like Ayatollah Khomeini had to juggle competing powers to maintain their position but the Sultan has virtually no concrete bounds to his powers and…

Malaysia: tresspassers will be shot

It is difficult to reconcile the welcoming nature of the average Malaysian, regardless of religion or ethnicity, with the warning signs commonly seen on fenced property around the country. The threat of an armed response may be normal practice but in the US but much of the rest of the world has a lesser inclination to the indiscriminate use of firearms, Malaysia could however be taking the first steps down that path. A spate of shootings in 2013, generally linked…

The sofas of Malaysia

In the West we have a narrow view on the uses and adaptability of the humble sofa, where it is primarily reserved for exercising the eye balls in front of the big screen TV or collapsing unconscious upon after a night dedicated to the art of intoxication, its plump cushions ideal sponges for the drool of beer addled slumberers. You may think that soft furnishings would be unsuited to the drenchings of tropical downpours or blazing sunshine but the people…

Sarawak: village of the damned

“We’re going to visit the old village”, said Penghulu Sagan cheerfully, as he loaded another box of fishing equipment onto the small boat. The matter of fact statement disguised the real nature of the expedition, which was perhaps more evident in the thin, sun etched face of his uncle, who sat quietly waiting: eyes lost in the distance, speaking of a longing, a sadness? Lost in thought, remembering. The reality was that to actually visit the village they would have…

Category: South/East Asia

Baliem Valley, West Papua: guys and gourds

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Gado Gado – Tenggarong street style recipe

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Hit me with your rhythm stick, part 1

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Tenggarong: island of shame

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The heroes of Samarinda

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Wehea Forest: of apes and men in Borneo

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Buggery in Brunei

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Malaysia: tresspassers will be shot

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The sofas of Malaysia

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Sarawak: village of the damned

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