Happy New Year everyone. Still to get back to mother ship in Jakarta so for the meantime here,s some photos fro m Myanmar to keep you occupied.
Happy New Year and some more images from Myanmar
Some images from Myanmar
Still traveling and managed to catch some wifi in Mandalay. So just a few photos to share for now. Merry Christmas.
Wisdom of Whores Takes Tea with the Dead
Unspun's past life was as a journalist in a newspaper too incredible to be true, The Asia Times. It was a menagerie of strange characters from an editor who spoke like he was high all the time as speakers taller than him blasted Wagnerian music out of his office, to his deputy who had been... Continue Reading →
Spiritual Museum 3.0: Stroke of genius or marketing spin?
Herman Kartajaya has managed to position himself as a marketing guru to Indonesia and an international audience, although Unspun, probably because of low intellectual capacity has never really understood what he's on about. Now, swimming into the blue ocean of a 3.0 world while the rest of us are stuck in 2.0 Hermawan aims to... Continue Reading →
Impressions of Sister Jie Land
Guillin, China, has been a tourist hub for thousands of years. Over the Christmas break Unspun and family thought they'd try to go to somewhere cold but when we got there it was freezing at a daily average temperature of ) to 3 degrees C. The cold notwithstanding Guilin is a fun tourist destination. Things... Continue Reading →
A journey back in time to Taiping
Time distorts, and its greatest distortion, more than 30 years after I left Taiping where I spent my childhood and teenage years, was in the dimensions of the house I grew up in. It had seemed so large when I was a boy. The rooms and garden that I had wandered through in the spacious... Continue Reading →
Lyrical Beauty in Great Peace
Finally found some time over the Idul Adha holidays to do something that Unspun's wanted to for a long time - revisit the town that I grew up in: Taiping, a small town about three hours drive north from Kuala Lumpur. (Taiping comes from the Chinese characters for Great and Peace. The town was given... Continue Reading →
KL a damn good place to recuperate
Unspun, it would seem, has spent too many years out of Malaysia that he's forgotten some of the better aspects of this country. In normal times Unspun would zip in and out of the country for a short visit to the folks but this time around medical circumstances forced him and family to spend more... Continue Reading →
When is batik really batik?
In Bali News: Has Garuda Lost the Thread on Heritage Conservation? the publication takes Garuda Boss Emirsyah Satar for resorting to using ersatz batik instead of the original ones for the uniforms of its staff. Unspun doesn't quite get what the fuss is about, as the site's main objection seems to be that Garuda "instead... Continue Reading →
Amazing Grace and the Balinese Gigolos
The Balinese authorities have got it all wrong where it comes to the hooha over the news documentary Cowboys in Paradise, about the Kuta Cowboys, gigolos selling their services to foreign women tourists. Instead of getting angry with Singapore-based director Amit Virmani for allegedly besmirching the island's reputation, they should instead thank Amit for restoring... Continue Reading →
Does Indonesia Suck as a tourist destination?
@anakcerdas just alerted me to this blog posting in Travel Blog with the terse and succinct message: "Memalukan yah" (Shameful, isn't it?). Yes, it is indeed shameful if even half of what the blogger, Mike Foster, says is true. As someone who's adopted Jakarta and Indonesia as my home I feel duty bound to defend... Continue Reading →
Indonesian tourism’s secret weapon?
Someone help Unspun here please. Can anyone explain how a "senior" singer such as Eddy Silitonga, him of the cheesy mustache and unkempt haircut, is going to attract droves of tourists to Indonesia's shores? Does the Tourism Minister, in his infinite wisdom and impeccable taste, think that Eddy will appeal to would be tourists in... Continue Reading →
Unspun 