The Enchanted City
Liron Shimoni grew up in Tel Aviv, surrounded by the sights and sounds of a thousand cultures colliding. He remembers the nights dancing on the beach, the fishermen at the port and how the city grew to the metropolis it is today.
Top 5 Things to Buy and Try in Singapore
1. CHILLI CRAB
Talk about finger-lickin’ good! Described as “sensuous” and “sweet, yet savoury”, with a “fluffy texture”, Singapore’s world-famous chilli crab – ordered with...
What Makes the World Go Round?
text SHAILENDRA BHANDARE
photos ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
AS everyone knows from the old English adage, the answer to the title of this tale is...
The Mongolian Gold Wars
Gold mining has sparked a clash between illegal diggers, artisanal mining associations and large multinationals
A Dying Tradition
by Hastings Forman
THE CLANGING OF HAMMERS ON METAL, ECHOING THROUGH THE BACK ALLEYS OF BANGKOK, SOUNDS OUT A FADING TRADITION
In the face of globalisation,...
Making Tracks
The Orient Express has the literary cache, and India’s Palace on Wheels has the opulence, but the greatest train journey on Earth is without doubt the Trans-Siberian Railway. For more than 100 years, locomotives – first steam trains, then diesel and electric engines – have run the 9,289 kilometres between Moscow and Vladivostok on the Sea of Japan. The world’s longest railway crosses seven time zones and the journey takes at least a week to complete.
Reflections: Chess – An Asian Game Well Played
The origins of the ubiquitous game of strategy, chess, lie in an instructional military model used in ancient India to plan battles. This model...
A Knot in Time
Whether they are tied into place as the weaver's imagination wanders, or aligned in code-like calculations, the minuscule knots of a carpet narrate tales of an ancient craft and those who keep it alive.