Like most non-Western nations, the countries of Southeast Asia have loads of street addresses that don’t mean much to non-residents. It’s common for numbering schemes to stop as a street name changes, then start up again a few blocks away. Often, addresses on one side of the street have nothing in relation to those on […]
Read the rest of this entry »Archive for the 'Philippines' Category
WoWasis book review: Joseph Smith’s ‘Portrait of a Cold Warrior’
Perhaps the most telling element of Joseph Burkholder Smith’s compelling and controversial exposé of his life as a CIA agent, Portrait of a Cold Warrior: Second Thoughts of a Top CIA Agent (1976 ISBN 0-345-29839-X) is what amounts to something of an apology, although, as he states several pages later, he’s not exactly apologizing. He […]
Read the rest of this entry »WoWasis book review: Jonathan Kwitny’s ‘Crimes of Patriots’
Here’s a book about one of the great bank swindles of the 20th century, that touched countries as disparate as the U.S., Australia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei, and Indonesia. And it touched them all in a big way. The bank was called Nugan Hand, named after its co-founders, lawyer Frank […]
Read the rest of this entry »Bachelor in Bangkok: Khun Lee’s 10 rules for being a bar girl
When I first started writing this column I explored the top ten rules for dealing with regular gals as well as a top ten for surviving with bar gals. I received a lot of positive feedback from both readers and close mates of mine who have to be constantly bombarded by my rants and unsolicited […]
Read the rest of this entry »WoWasis book review: ‘Yakuza: The Explosive Account of Japan’s Criminal Underworld’
If you’re looking for a comprehensive book that provides great insight on Yakuaza business, history, culture, scams, players, this book is it, even though it was first published in 1986. Where it falls short is in the area of Yakuza and prostitution, where frankly, it has a lot of it wrong. We’ll explain why, but […]
Read the rest of this entry »WoWasis book review: Martin Booth’s ‘The Dragon Syndicates’
If, like those of us here at WoWasis, you’re a veteran traveler in SE Asia, you’ve done business with the Triads, the underworld syndicates that have their hands in businesses ranging from noodle shops, to food carts, to politics. That goes for some Western cities too, including London, New York, and cities in the San […]
Read the rest of this entry »WoWasis book review: ‘Gold Warriors’ by Sterling & Peggy Seagrave
Sterling and Peggy Seagrave continue to amaze your WoWasis review staff. We’re veteran SE Asia travelers, and like many travelers revisiting the region, have more and more questions about the political and cultural factors that drive decisions and events in these countries. In the past couple of years, we’ve been hearing anecdotal stories from associates […]
Read the rest of this entry »WoWasis book review: ‘The Yamato Dynasty’ by Sterling & Peggy Seagrave
Here at WoWasis, we’ve never read a Sterling Seagrave book that we could easily put down. We were glued to our chair, reading The Yamato Dynasty: the Secret History of Japan’s Imperial Family (1999, ISBN 0-7679-0496-6) by Seagrave and his wife Peggy Seagrave, when our back gave out, and we were now really glued to […]
Read the rest of this entry »A colonial hotel and great restaurant in Vigan, Philippines
The picturesque northwestern Luzon city of Vigan is a colonial treasure, highly recommended by WoWasis for her outstanding architecture. While there, we stayed at the Villa Angela, a wonderful rambling colonial house that’s been turned into an inn, and found an exceptional restaurant, Café Leona. Villa Angela, on Quirino Boulevard, is within easy walking distance […]
Read the rest of this entry »WoWasis book review: Sterling Seagrave’s ‘The Marcos Dynasty’
Travelers to the Philippines will invariably want to find out more about the history of the country after having seen it, but good books (and bookstores!) in the Philippines are hard to find. In particular, books on Philippine history are virtually impossible to be found anywhere. In the picturesque northern Luzon city of Vigan, for […]
Read the rest of this entry »
