The scandal involving French implant company Poly Implant Prothèse (PIP)’s use of substandard, industrial silicone for breast implants concerns potentially tens of thousands of women in at least half a dozen European countries. So far, it appears that none of these implants, which reportedly are prone to rupturing, were distributed in Southeast Asia. As reported […]
Read the rest of this entry »Archive for the 'Indonesia' Category
WoWasis book review: Judith Heimann’s The Airmen and the Headhunters (Borneo)
Judith M. Heimann’s The Airmen and the Headhunters: A True Story of Lost Soldiers, Heroic Tribesmen, and the Unlikeliest Rescue of World War II (2007, ISBN 978-0-15-101434-7) is more than just an adventure story, encompassing many fascinating anthropological elements of the Dayak culture of Borneo. It starts off slowly, but becomes a real page-turner as […]
Read the rest of this entry »5 travel tips from WoWasis on avoiding getting robbed overseas
Compared to most Western countries, we here at WoWasis feel Asia is pretty safe. Most travelers can go just about anywhere, any time, and not have to be constantly looking over their shoulders. Nevertheless, travelers not practicing basic security measures are leaving themselves open to the occasional theft. So here are some things to keep […]
Read the rest of this entry »Leafsnap phone app allows you to identify trees instantaneously
Here at WoWasis, we’re often curious about what kind of tree we’re seeing in Asia, but don’t want to carry a tree guide (book or human) around with us. So now there’s a solution, that while focused on North American trees, will allow iPhone and iPad users to begin identifying Asian trees as well. It’s […]
Read the rest of this entry »WoWasis book review: ‘Red-Light Nights, Bangkok Daze’ by William Sparrow
When we here at WoWasis first saw William Sparrow’s Red-Light Nights, Bangkok Days: Chronicles of Sexuality Across Asia (ISBN 2008, ISBN 978-981-08-1076-4) at our nearby bookstore, our first thought was “sheesh, who needs another book about sex in Asia?” Fiction and non-fiction books on sexual themes involving Southeast Asia no doubt number in the thousands. […]
Read the rest of this entry »WoWasis book review: Harold Stephens’ ‘At Home in Asia: Expatriates in Southeast Asia’
Writer and sailor Harold Stephens sure gets around. He lied about his age so he join join the Marines and fight in the Pacific, was imprisoned by the Chinese communists, escaped on a junk, rode across Australia on a motorcycle, and built his own concrete boat, which split apart in a hurricane after seeing endless […]
Read the rest of this entry »WoWasis pioneers the use of travel-site GPS coordinates
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 »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 »Discovering a lovely spa on Indonesia’s island of Bali
Indonesia is the home of some magnificent spas, and some of the finest are to be found on the islands of Java and Bali. There are, we at WoWasis would guess, approximately 1,000 spas of different types on the island of Bali alone. The Waroeng Djamoe Spa hotel spa at the Tagu Bali Hotel, in […]
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