Toerke

On the national flag, on the beermats, on the banknotes: Angkor, everywhere Angkor. A visit to the mother of all temples is quite unavoidable, a must-do so to speak. After a 9-hour boat ride from hell on a much too shallow river among a bunch of white-socked German prepensioners, each carrying a suitcase of over [...]

We want to visit Battambang’s countryside. Because foreigners are not allowed to rent motorcycles, we let ourselves be chauffeured. Dusty roads zigzag through a system of small irrigation canals passing rice paddies, mango plantations, banana trees, coconut palm trees and kampot. Some rice fields are harvested three times a year thanks to the dam at [...]

No better way to counter a case of asiatitis (see Asiatitis) than spending the weekend at the beach. Just floating in the Gulf of Thailand, midnight cocktails, sand between the toes and waves rolling all the way up to the lazy chair. Aaah. Breath in, breath out. Stars are twinkling and are accompanied by the [...]

I am not quoted in the stock exhange. I know what the weather will be like: continuously warm and humid. I don’t care much for soccer results. When on holiday, no news is good news. Only sporadically do I open the newspaper and read what is being written about “the world”. Today was sporadically, with [...]

The woman looks straight ahead. Her child is seated in her lap. If you look carefully, you can see a single tear halfway the woman’s cheeck. She sits unnaturally straight and cannot sit any other way. She is not allowed to move nor could she if she had wanted to. She is tied to the [...]

You know what it is? The road passess endlessly through nothing. It follows the Mekong, that’s true. Not that you’d notice. There is just heaps of dust, piles of plastic garbage waiting for a recycling scheme, but not a much as a hill in sight. I take a nap on the bump-bus, wake up one [...]