Have you ever wondered where that woman who sells those delicious fried beetles and grubs bought her cart? Or who makes those beautiful mortars and pestles that we all see being used to make tasty plates of som tam(Papaya salad)? Well neither had I until I moved to Kluai Nam Thai, a neighborhood near Phra […]
Read the rest of this entry »Archive for the 'Culture & History' Category
Loi Krathong Festival in Chiang Mai, where lighted lanterns fly skyward
Every November on the evening of the full moon, a spectacle of lights can be seen in the skies of Thailand. Like oversized fire flies, thousands of paper lanterns (cohm) slowly fly over every town and city in the country. Below, the rivers are aglow with small Krathong boats made from bamboo, banana leafs, and […]
Read the rest of this entry »Christina Aben’s fascinating Ganduyan Museum in Sagada, northern Luzon
Founder and curator of the town of Sagada’s Ganduyan Museum, Christina Aben is a national treasure. But neither she, nor her family knows it. Through decades of meticulous collecting of tribal pieces, Aben amassed a spectacular collection detailing a vanishing Igorot (Philippines mountain tribes) culture. “When we were kids, we were always stepping over the […]
Read the rest of this entry »Death by Hanging: Sagada’s cliffside coffins
At over 5,000 feet in altitude, and accessible only by roads that are fit for off-roading, the visitor really has to want to come to the Philippines village of Sagada. In addition to Christina Aben’s Ganduyan Museum, the cliffside and cave coffin sites are the biggest draws in this small, quiet hillside town. For hundreds […]
Read the rest of this entry »Nut’s Story: How much can a Bangkok bargirl make and spend?
Nut is a hostess outside a bar on Bangkok’s Soi Cowboy, where she makes 7,000 baht (roughly $200 USD) per week. Dancers there make 10,000 baht per week. Nut left her previous club on Sukhumvit Soi 4, where she made 1,500 baht as a hostess. She’s 32 years old, and has been in the business since […]
Read the rest of this entry »WoWasis Recommended books on Laos: The Lao Bookshelf
Laos is as under-reported in literature as it is in the Press, so there are relatively few books particular to the country, compared to those pertaining to its neighbors in Thailand and Vietnam. Here are a few that we at WoWasis recommend as worthy of your attention. Non-Fiction Kay Danes’ prose is a bit twisted […]
Read the rest of this entry »WoWasis book review: Boye De Mente’s ‘Women of the Orient’
Many men have loved exotic women from the Orient, but few have written as passionately on the subject as adventurer Boye De Mente, in his small but encyclopedic Women of the Orient (1995, ISBN 0-8048-1880-0). Here, he chronicles the habits, looks, and proclivities of women from six Asian countries, China (Hong Kong & Taiwan), Japan, Korea, […]
Read the rest of this entry »
