During the sixth lunar month, in villages throughout Laos and eastern Thailand (Isaan), one of the more unusual Buddhist festivals, Bun Bang Fai, or Rocket Festivals are held. This is the hottest and driest season in Southeast Asia (early May), and villagers are...
This is a collection of images of entrepreneurs that I shot on the streets of Hanoi, Vietnam. Even though Vietnam is still purportedly a Communist country, it has made a policy shift to a smaller business-friendly, socialist-oriented, market economy and has begun...
Watch the Video on YouTube Halong Bay, or as it is known in Vietnamese “descending dragon bay”, is a body of water in the Gulf of Tonkin, a little over 100 miles east of Hanoi. The area is famous for the thousands of limestone karsts, islands and islets that thrust...
For many years I have heard tales of adventurous foodies drinking cobra blood and eating various snake dishes made from other parts of snake in a mysterious village just outside of Hanoi. When Sarah and I planned our trip recent nine-day trip to Sapa, Halong Bay and...
I have always been a bit of a foodie and I was pleasantly surprised to find that Vientiane, Laos has a thriving organic market at Pha That Luang on Saturday and Wednesday mornings. It is not the largest organic market I have ever seen, but the sellers seem to take...
We recently made the big plunge – our family of 4 relocated from Melbourne, Australia to Penang, Malaysia. Our primary motivation for this move was lifestyle – we wanted more free time. We basically hoped that by living somewhere substantially cheaper than Australia...
I Woke in a Hill Tribe Village in Northern Laos I was awakened from sleep by a blood-curdling scream. It wasn’t quite a human sound, but, in that middle ground between slumber and consciousness, I couldn’t be too sure. Streaky shafts of pale sunlight were streaming...
Sometimes the best ways to help people are the simplest. To establish a charity/NGO you can hire consultants to determine needs, attorneys to file articles of incorporation and accounting firms to look after the books. You can open headquarters and offices; buy...
