Features on Asian Art, Culture, History & Travel
Features
Thailand’s Tempting Regional Cuisines
Central Thai Food is Justly Celebrated World-Wide - But The Kingdom’s Less Well-Known Regional Cuisines Are Equally Delicious!
Just thirty years ago Thai cuisine was relatively unknown beyond the frontiers of the Kingdom and a few small ethnic enclaves, such as the Thai district of Los Angeles. The past two decades have seen a dramatic change, with Thai restaurants springing up all over the world, from Paris to Sydney, Seoul to Johannesburg. Thai has become the ‘in’ cuisine, as much on account of its healthy, low cholesterol and low fat content as for its spicy taste and elegant presentation.
Cultural Riches Of Lampang
Northern Thailand’s Historic Second City
Lampang is the second city of the Khon Muang or Northern Thai people, being, after Chiang Mai, the largest, richest and most populous city of the north. Isolated from Lamphun and Chiang Mai to the west by the Doi Khun Tan mountains, from Phayao to the east by the massive bulk of Doi Bussaracum, and from Phrae to the south-east by the Doi Khun Kiat range, the valley of Lampang is broad and fertile. As a consequence, Lampang—valley, city and people—has developed a distinctive style and culture of its own.
Timur’s Legacy
The Architecture Of Samarkand
Timur, better known in the West as Tamerlane from his nickname Timur-i-leng or “Timur the Lame”, was the last of the great nomadic warriors to sweep out of Central Asia and shake the world. As befits a man styled “World Conqueror”, we know a lot about him - and not all of it good. In 1336, at Shakhrisabz in present-day Uzbekistan, the wife of a minor chief of the Mongol Barlas clan gave birth to a son with blood-filled palms, a sure omen that the infant was predestined to cause the death of many.
Sigiriya
The "Cloud Maidens" Of Sigiriya
"Sweet girl, standing on the mountain, your teeth are like jewels, lighting the lotus of your eyes.
Talk to me gently of your heart…
Who is not happy when he sees those rosy palms, rounded shoulders, gold necklaces, copper-hued lips and long, long eyes." - Graffito, Sigiriya Mirror Wall, c. 800 AD
Coffee
The Rich History Of Coffee
For lo! the board with cups and spoons is crowned,
the berries crackle and the mill turns round;
On shining altars of Japan they raise
The silver lamp; the fiery spirits blaze:
From silver spouts the grateful liquors glide,
While China’s earth receives the smoking tide.
- Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock, Canto III (1714)
Khajuraho
Khajuraho: A Celebration Of Cosmic Union
In 1839 Captain T.S. Burt of the Royal Bengal Engineers published in the pages of the prestigious Journal of the Asiatic Society an account of his discovery of an overgrown and abandoned Hindu temple complex in central India. The good captain, writing in the restrained style of the early Victorian era, noted that:
"I found in the ruins of Khajrao seven large diwallas, or Hindoo temples, most beautifully and exquisitely carved as to workmanship, but the sculptor had at times allowed his subject to grow rather warmer than there was any absolute necessity for his doing; indeed, some of the sculptures here were extremely indecent and offensive..."
Sublime Petra
Rose-Red Caravan City Of Ancient Jordan
Not virgin white - like that old Doric shrine
where once Athena held her rights divine,
but rosy-red - as if the blush of dawn
which first beheld them were not yet withdrawn.
The hues of youth on a brow of woe
Which men called old two thousand years ago!
Match me such marvel, save in eastern clime;
a rose-red city - "Half as old as Time!"
Tears of the Poppy
Opium, Morphine and Heroin
Opium has been recognised as a narcotic for at least two thousand years. It is thought to have grown wild in the mountains of the eastern Mediterranean from Neolithic times, and was known to both the early Greeks and Romans. It was probably introduced to both China and India by Arab traders about a thousand years ago, and soon came to be widely valued for its medicinal properties.