The sharper edge to traveling in Asia

Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category

“Just go home and make another daughter!” Thai court officials tell murdered woman’s mother

Here at WoWasis, we’ve found that most murder stories in the Thai press have real gems buried deeply inside. But even we were shocked when unnamed Thai officials invoked their interpretation of Theravada Buddhism while making a helpful suggestion to the parents of noted crime victim Hannah Witheridge. According to the Bangkok Post, sister Laura […]

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The Effects of Foreign Culture on Cambodian Culture

Today’s guest blogger is Bora Nikol, writing from Cambodia: Culture reflects the entire image of any region or nation. How the people dress, what they eat, whom they worship and what they dislike are a few of the elements that collaborate to form the definition of culture. Cambodia, being a prominent country in Southeast Asia, […]

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WoWasis Galapagos book review: The best Marine Life guidebook on the Galápagos that we’ve seen

If you’re like us here at WoWasis, you’ll go scuba diving or snorkeling in the Galapágos Islands, then come back to your hotel wondering what you saw.  Then you’ll go looking in several of the tourist shops looking for a good marine life guidebook. But you won’t find one. Instead, you’ll find plastic fish charts […]

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WoWasis museum and book review: Quito Ecuador’s Pre-Columbian Casa Del Alabado

Ecuador’s capital of Quito boasts a number of interesting things to see, but we here at WoWasis found none more fascinating than the fascinating pre-Columbian museum, Casa Del Alabado. The guide book is something you’ll probably want to have, but more on that later. The strength of the museum is in its ceramics collection of […]

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WoWasis tours Bogota’s Museo Del Oro, the Gold Museum of Colombia

Bogota, Colombia is a city of 14 million people, and frankly, doesn’t have much going for it, in terms of the international traveler. It’s tough to get around during rush hour (try to find a taxi), so you really do need to head back to your hotel around 3 pm. Some of the downtown areas […]

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Simplifying travel and costs in the Galapagos Islands: a WoWasis travel review

Veteran WoWasis readers know that when we travel, we try to make life simple. Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands aren’t that simple to plan  because there are so many of them, and so many ways to see them as well. There are some 125 islands and rocks, and by our count, seventeen of them are visitable either […]

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WoWasis visits Sho-ren-in temple in Kyoto, Japan

Blink, and you’ll miss it. But you shouldn’t. On the famed “temple walk” through the southern Higashiyama district in Kyoto, you’ll pass by and see a lot of temples and shrines. If you’re like us here at WoWasis, you’ll yearn for a few minutes of peace and quiet away from the crowds, and Sho-ren-in Temple […]

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WoWasis’ visits Kyoto’s Tofuku-ji Hojo “Hasso” Garden

Tofuku-ji Temple with its well-known garden is southeast of Kyoto’s center, and is well worth the visit, both for its renowned garden, but also for the fact that there are relatively few visitors here, and the serenity can be welcome after braving crowds at Kyoto’s better known sites. It’s also close to the Fumisjhi Inari […]

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WoWasis’ visits Kyoto’s amazing Sanjusangen-Do temple

We here at WoWasis have seen a lot of Buddhist structures, but we weren’t prepared for what we saw at Kyoto’s amazing Sanjusangen-Do temple. Here is a hall, rebuilt in 1266, replete with 1001 statues of the 100-armed Buddhist goddess of mercy, Kannon. The statues are laid out in a grid consisting of 500 statues […]

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WoWasis visits the Yatai Kaikan Float Museum in Takayama, Japan

No visit to Takayama, Japan, would be complete without a visit to the Takayama Matsuri Yatai Kaikan Float Exhibition Hall. The floats are massive wooden two or three-wheeled structures, brought out twice a year for the Takayama Matsuri (festival). Four of these floats are always on a rotating visit to the museum, where you can […]

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