It’s a Sunday afternoon in Vientiane, and visitors dropping into a small art gallery near the centre of town can’t stop smiling. On the walls, and scattered artfully about the room, are all kinds of animals – elephants, chickens, turtles – as well as playful human figures with articulated...
Mattie Do doesn’t consider herself a superstitious person. But in Laos, sometimes strange things happen. Many Lao people believe in the afterlife. They believe the dead can send messages, and that daily life is filled with secret codes and patterns that, once unlocked, can bring great luck to a...
Something is happening on the banks of the Mekong in Vientiane – a joyful kind of energy building behind a half-empty commercial development near the city centre. On any given night, you could drive right past it and not notice the flickering lights, wonder about the sauntering figures or clock...
Sally Pryor tries out Crowne Plaza – the latest luxury hotel to arrive in Vientiane – and is mightily impressed. It’s a muggy and oppressively hot Saturday afternoon in Vientiane, but in the hushed, carpeted corridors of the Crowne Plaza Hotel, there’s no weather at all. Nor are...
From electro-folk to gritty blues, the live music scene in Bangkok is one of the best in South East Asia…with a song for everyone to sing. Sawai Kaewsombat has his hands wrapped around his khaen – the tips of his fingers dancing over the bamboo pipes as his cheeks fill with air. The sound the...
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