Category Archives: Asia

Chinese Iron Rooster BET ON CRAZY

January 10, 2024 – 11:24 am

My teenage nephew stopped by 47th Street yesterday evening. It was closing time for our exchange. Zeb goes to a mid-town high school. Public. His father works over at Rockefeller Center. He does something with TV. “You going home?” Zeb and I lived in Fort Greene. His father worked late. The long-haired student liked my […]

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Singapore To Bangkok By Train

January 10, 2024 – 6:07 am

In 1990 I bought a second-class ticket from Singapore to Bangkok with stops in Penang and Suranthani. The old Pearl of the Orient was too clean for me. The Chinese president had ordered the city-state’s police to fine people for chewing gum or not washing their hands after using the WC. Effacing the walls with […]

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Penang Funicular

January 10, 2024 – 1:45 am

In 1994 I was stranded in Penang, Malaysia. The magazine for which I had been writing a series of stories about SE Asia had folded without buying my return ticket to the States. I had enough money to stay at the Swiss Hotel $3/night, eat at the Chinese and Indian restaurants on Chulia Street, and […]

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THE MIRAGE OF TIME by Peter Nolan Smith

August 13, 2023 – 10:27 pm

The Gulf War had scared away the tourists from Bunaken Island and I had the coral cliffs all to my self. I was the only traveler at the dining room. After a week of desolate free diving with sea turtles I returned to Manado to catch a Pelni liner rounding the Northern Arm of Sulawesi. […]

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Tibet T-Bone 1995

June 10, 2023 – 6:51 pm

This road ran between Lhasa and Kathmandu. Twenty miles farther Another dirt road diverged to Khailash. The van stopped there and drove off to the Holy Mountain A thousand kilometers away to the west. I stood at the t-bone intersection Headed south to Nepal. I couldn’t have been happier in such desolation Whereas I freak […]

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