Asia
Korean Grave Etiquette
by Melissa Valks
I had been travelling in Asia and living temporarily in Seoul, South Korea as an English as a Second Language teacher. I had been instructing a high school class for quite a few months when Seung Soo, one of my favourite students, invited me to join his family to visit his grandparents’ grave. Read more >>
Saved in Suwon
by Michelle Shusterman
I’m almost asleep – a real accomplishment, what with the tube jabbed through my rib cage and piercing my right lung – when I hear them push my door open. Read more >>
Ibu Tina
by Wendy Bone
(Grand Prize winner in the 2010 WanderWomen Write travel writing contest)
I want to look away in horror but cannot. My eyes are transfixed on the most shocking thing I’ve ever seen, and I struggle to contain my emotion. Ibu Tina has opened her shirt to expose the cancer on her right breast. Read more >>
Flunking Buddhism
by Eve M. Tai
(Spiritual Category winner in the 2010 WanderWomen Write travel writing contest)
I knew as soon as I arrived here that I couldn’t stay. The central room of my Tibetan guide’s home – where I am lodging for three days – is dark as tar. The smoke billowing from the hearth fire weakens the single lightbulb’s glow. I can just make out an ash-covered kitten huddled next to the coals. A red turban, presumably attached to a body, bobs above the fire. Read more >>
Elephant Driving 101
by Kate Crawford
(Off the Beaten Path Category winner in the 2010 WanderWomen Write travel writing contest)
Is that my elephant? I ask as the first mammoth mammal lumbers into camp. That’s Lawan, John replies, watching her undulating gait. She’s our youngest, the village flirt. She can be a bit naughty. She’s known to indulge in little diva tantrums if another elephant gets more camera time. Read more >>
Circling the Mongolian Steppe
by Caitlin Dwyer
Everything in Mongolia is named after Genghis Khan.
Dark, spacious, and noisy, Grand Khaan Irish Pub reeked with the smell of sizzling fat. A veil of cigarette smoke shrouded the dark upholstery. Waitresses buzzed everywhere, smiles pulled taut across their cheekbones…..Read more >>
Peach Cigarettes in Tokyo
by Kirsty Logan
The first time I ever smoked a peach cigarette, I was wearing a dinosaur suit and sitting on my friend’s balcony in a Tokyo suburb. My friend had a dinosaur suit because he’d gone to a fancy dress party the week before, and I was wearing it because I was cold and it was made of fleece…..Read more >>
The Wake
by Jessica Bryan
I have been in the Philippines for only a few days, when early one evening we set out for a distant barrio to attend the wake of someone who has died….Read more >>
Tsunami
by Kira Coonley
Leaving a trail of footprints in the sand, soon to be washed away by the ebb and flow of the tide, I walked barefoot along the water’s edge to a thinly thatched bamboo bungalow that would be what I called home for the next month; or so I thought…Read more >>
Experience Indonesia By Soul Not Just Sight
by Diane Winston
I’m a politician. My friend, Tanya, is an artist. I’m left-brained. She’s right-brained. I’m not sure I know what that means, but she does and it seems relevant to my story. What I do know is that we share a love for Indonesia and recently traveled together to experience the beauty and the bounty of Bali. Read more >>
Coming Home to Can Tho
by Christine Rochelle
I begin every English class with a dramatic account of my most recent travels for my Vietnamese University students. They always hang on every word of my stories, from unwelcome critters found in guesthouses to terrifying ferry rides and breathtaking pagodas….Read more >>
Not Just Yet
by Ashley Cultra
The morning begins with the revile of roosters. Their throaty exhortations seem to command that I open my eyes and roll out of bed, literally, for our mattresses are threadbare quilts on rough, bamboo planks…..Read more >>
Looking for Black Gibbons
by Elizabeth Enslin
I try to curb my hope for seeing the endangered black gibbons of Bokeo Forest Reserve. But I do expect to eye a few birds or a snake. For an hour and a half, I duck strangler vines, bend bamboo, and sidestep fig roots… Read more >>
Travel Somewhere
by Teresa Coates
It must be just about lunchtime; the cicadas are screaming again. Little time-keepers, they are. Every spring, they crawl from the ground, rising from the silence of winter, to signal the change of the season here in northern Vietnam. Read more >>
Mojitos in Tokyo
by Karen Regn
My skirt is too short.
At least that’s what my salsa teacher tells me on the way to the club as we walk through the streets of Roppongi, the racy bar and nightclub district of Tokyo. Read more >>
Krang Yaw
by Lola Akinmade
A sharp right hand turn off the paved main road, and we find ourselves trudging through muddy, unpaved back roads dozens of miles towards Krang Yaw, Cambodia. Bustling city activity and buildings are quickly replaced with seas of lush green rice fields. Read more >>
James Bond Island
by Justine Hanson
“If Eden had an ocean, it would look like this.” The Lonely Planet description of Phang-Nga Bay seduced me on the spot. I was on the Andaman coast of Thailand, trying to find my solo traveler groove. It was the beginning of high season and I was caught off balance by the hordes of backpackers and package tourists. Read more >>
Trafficking Innocence
by Lola Akinmade
I choked on my chicken curry when Boupha told me she was 12. She looked six. Unlike Western countries where average twelve year olds may look sixteen, the reverse was the norm in Cambodia. Read more >>
Tibetan Truths
by Stephanie Elizondo Griest
The weather-beaten woman took a contemplative step, raised her arms high above her head, clasped her hands together, and swept them forward like a diver entering the sea. The full expanse of her small frame embraced the dusty pavement, from her head and shoulders to her toes. Read more >>
Confrontation at Xegar Checkpoint
by Meg Peterson
“Nimende huzhao!” demanded the Chinese guard at Xegar Checkpoint, a small army outpost. It was the last one before leaving Tibet. He peered menacingly at the driver of our weather-beaten minibus. “He wants your passports,” translated Lapa, our Tibetan guide. Mentally, we jumped to attention and, with misgivings, handed over the documents. Read more >>
Behind the Scene in Bali
by Leslie Nevison
Some ironies are sweeter than others: When the pemangku blows into my face—a transfer of his protection and a long, slow, steady release of air as though he is deflating—his breath must carry the cold virus to which I succumb by the end of the week. Read more >>
Meditating in Southern Thailand
by Leslie Nevison
Every night the elderly security guard sweeps carefully and at length around my Singapore apartment building, curiously absorbed in a humble task that no one requires of him. I think of this man now as I brush leaves from the path leading to the women’s dormitory. Read more >>
All Bound Up
by Eva Sandoval
It’s another summer in Japan. The weatherman says temperatures are in the 30s, which, to the Fahrenheit-friendly Americans, will translate as “dripping, miserable puddle of your former self.” Time for the free plastic fans in the subway station instead of tissues, cold drinks in the vending machines, and loads of colorful festivals. Read more >>
Lingering Garden
by Carol White
Suzhou, China is known throughout the world for their exquisite private gardens and one of the most famous is the Liuyaun or Lingering Garden. Designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site and China’s fourth most famous garden, the Lingering Garden was first built during the Ming Dynasty around 1593 AD. Read more >>
10 Things You Ought to Try in Kuching, Sarawak
by Krista Good
From tasting local noodles, to visiting national parks and the Sarawak Cultural Village. Read more >>
Beep Beep! in Vietnam
by Simone Samuels
Beep-Beep Beep-Beep! I let off these four short bursts of the horn as I approach the blind corner of the narrow Hanoian alley I must drive down as I exit my house. It is Tuesday morning and I am about to head down to “Saigon”.? Read more…
The Ride Home from Phan Thiet
by Tara Russell
Watch out for the motor scooters. Everyone uses their horns. A herd of brown cows slowly crosses the road followed by three small women swatting them from behind. A mother and child bicycle home from work and school. A barefoot toddler walks alone from shop to shop along the street. Read more…
Among the Hmong in Sa Pa, Vietnam
by Jules Atkins
We were in Sa Pa, the tourist Mecca of northern Vietnam, known for its colorful markets, and equally colorful indigenous people – the Black, White and Flower Hmong. Read more…
