Tibetan prayer flags flying in wind in Shangri-La. By Scott Busby It was a crisp Spring day when my wife and I embarked on a remarkable journey in China’s Yunnan Province that would trace part of the Ancient Tea Horse Road – a 1,000-year old network of caravan trails and paths that zigzag through the…
Silk vendor at D. Popli & Sons in Mumbai displays high-quality yet reasonably priced silk. Photo by Jacqueline Swartz By Jacqueline Swartz Mumbai, the city formerly known as Bombay, is the marketplace of India — its jewelry, textiles, handicrafts, furniture and leather goods come from all over India and around the world. This is India’s…
For the Burmese, the Irrawaddy River is a laundry, bath, source of food, and major transportation route. Like the Salween and the Chindwin rivers, it starts high in the mountains, meandering south through teak and mahogany forests, and around mines producing jade, sapphires and world famous ‘pigeon’s blood’ rubies. In terms of per capita income, Myanmar is the poorest country in Southeast Asia, but its population supports – and daily feeds – more than half a million Buddhist monks as well as nearly 100,000 nuns. The majority of males in the country spend some time in a Buddhist monastery, often starting as young as age six.
Driving slowly down the narrow road bordering the Kaziranga Wildlife Preserve in north eastern India, my guide promised me a rhino sighting early the following morning. Elephant, endangered Wild Buffalo and deer roam this area, 25 miles long and eight miles wide, marked by tall grasses, marshes and the mighty Brahmaputra river. But the prize sight is the rare Indian one-horned rhino, brought back from near extinction in the last century.
Travelers wishing to truly understand China’s rich history must venture beyond the opulent gateways into the real China, a land shaped by wealth and war, to the city of Yangzhou. Located just north of the Yangtze River in Jiangsu Province, Yangzhou offers modern comfort, exotic beauty, distinctive cuisine and historic sites that reflect the grandeur of the past and the promise of the present. Yangzhou is a city of 6,000,000 that sits in the middle of China’s richest province. The city is famous for feminine beauty, imaginative gardens and artistic handicrafts that include lacquer and stoneware, bamboo carving, cutlery and block printing. Knives and cleavers made in the city are so finely honed that cooks can slice a 1-cm-thick bean curd into 30 paper-thin shreds without breaking a single one.
Because of its fertile soil, abundant water and temperate climate, Jiangsu Province is known as China’s “Land of Fish and Rice.” In Yangzhou, the ancient Southern capital, the riches of Jiangsu are expressed in the design, construction and careful maintenance of magnificent urban gardens…
Because of its fertile soil, abundant water and temperate climate, Jiangsu Province is known as China’s “Land of Fish and Rice.” In Yangzhou, the ancient Southern capital, the riches of Jiangsu are expressed in the design, construction and careful maintenance of magnificent urban gardens built by rich merchants centuries ago. Yangzhou gardens are designed to inspire, painting, poetry and calligraphy as well as friendly conversation and reflective thought…
By David DeVoss The PyeongChang Olympics may be over, but that no reason to stop thinking about Korea. Indeed, now’s a great time to start planning ahead for warmer months. By all means head back to PyeongChang, which is beautiful with or without snow, but check out Seoul before you do. Every Asian capital has…
By Diane Hope It wasn’t the most obvious place to enjoy the delights of Shanghai. I was on one of the pedestrian bridges above a six-lane surface street and beneath the elevated section of the Yan’An freeway at 7pm, the tail end of the evening rush hour. My twenty-something friend Robin was bored, shuffling from…
Dawn of the Aerotropolis By David DeVoss By David DeVoss Just outside Korea’s Incheon airport there are two roads leading to downtown. One heads east to the Korean capital of Seoul more than an hour’s drive away. The other angles south over a short causeway to New Songdo, a decade-old airport city that is known…
Fight or go Shopping? China and America Can’t Decide By David DeVoss It’s been a long time since China and the U.S. were as close as lips and teeth. When Chinese president Xi Jinping arrives in Washington DC this week he will find barely disguised outrage over Beijing’s suspected cyber attacks, its terraforming in the…