Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
Hong Kong is in flux once more. "Now a Chinese special administrative region, it is being remade yet again under diamond pressure. And increasingly this city of over seven million inhabitants floats on a growing sense of unease"
A small plane in China. "When you're in the clouds, it's like driving a car while blindfolded, but worse. In a plane it's simply impossible to tell up from down by your own bodily senses, if you can't see the ground or the horizon"
Rust-porn ramble through Mishima's Tokyo: "Unshaven, unshowered Tokyo, Tokyo with its make-up off last thing at night, a place of battered plastic bottles strapped with green duct tape and nylon string around a lamppost"
There really isn't much of a theme to tie these 39 photographs together, other than that they were all taken in the air, looking down. But, my, there are some beauties. Worth a few minutes of anyone's time
Stunning gallery of photos from remote corner of Nepal, published to support Vanishing Cultures Project. "Today, Mustang is arguably the best-preserved example of traditional Tibetan life in the world. But it is poised for change"
"Located deep in central Laos, one of southeast Asia's poorest countries, the once-tranquil farming village has become a seething epicentre of backpackers behaving badly." And it all started accidentally
"By 2006 Macau's casino revenues had surpassed those of Las Vegas, until then the world's largest gambling town. Today, the quantity of money passing through Macau exceeds that of Las Vegas five times over." Here's how it happened
"The North Indian city of Badaun is barely known beyond the subcontinent, but among the Muslims of India it has a great reputation. Seven ancient Islamic shrines encircle the town; hey are said to facilitate the exorcism of jinns"
Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner was trying to become the first woman to climb all 14 peaks more than 8,000 meters high, without supplemental oxygen. K2 would be her ultimate challenge. One climber has died for every four who’ve conquered it
Hudson visits The Killing Fields: "No birds sing. It is bouncy underfoot, as if you are treading on invisible hands pushing upwards towards the surface." But despite the horrors of its past, Cambodia is moving on with optimism
Pakistani writer on the city where she grew up. "If there’s one word used more often than others to characterise Karachi by those who love it, it’s 'resilience' — the ability to endure suffering without breaking"
Ski bug arrives in Afghanistan. "Local teenagers who had never seen skis before last winter, began taking to the hills with homemade skis, made by nailing flattened tin cans to the bottom of wood planks"
