The Southeast Asia Travel Specialists Since 1999
Current Sites Laos’s latest addition to UNESCO’s prestigious World Heritage List – inscribed in 2019 and to our minds, long overdue – is the Megalithic Jar Sites of Xiengkhuang, commonly known as the Plain of Jars. Usually associated with adjectives such as mysterious or enigmatic the site consists of over 2,000 giant jars, carved out of solid rock and scattered…
A few random pics from our recent Mekong Adventure tour; a 2-week and 1,000-kilometre journey by land and by river through the heart of Indochina from Lao’s laidback and scenic capital of Vientiane to Cambodia’s bustling and fun Phnom Penh. The first stop on our Mekong Adventure after leaving Vientiane was a great local market set up by Hmong women…
A brief country by country run down of Southeast Asia’s various UNESCO Sites beginning, for no particular reason, with the Laos World Heritage list. Well, it is an easy one to start with since the small, land-locked and sparsely populated nation has the grand total of 2 sites. Having said that a scan through the UNESCO list, (which does seem…
The stunning sandstone lintel below – from Sikhoraphum, Surin, Thailand – is an astonishingly well-preserved example of Angkor carving with sharp detail, deep relief and complex and intricate subject matter; – a masterpiece and certainly representing an incredible amount of work! Furthermore, its creation was undoubtedly even more complicated than you would imagine. It wasn’t just a case of a…
Lying just a kilometre away from Wat Phu, the small Angkor period temple of Nang Sida, Laos, does tend to get overshadowed by it’s prestigious UNESCO World Heritage neighbour. After hiking up and down the steep steps at Wat Phu few visitors are going to be bothered to head off into the dusty surrounding scrub-land to visit a ‘lesser’ temple…
King Suryavarman I acceded to the throne of Angkor in 1006 after a 4-year struggle with rival claimant Jayaviravarman. Later inscriptions do backdate his reign to 1002 – presumably to delete any traces of his pesky antagonist – but Jayaviravarman, ensconced in the imperial capital, Yasodharapura, and a close relative (possibly a brother) of the previous monarch Udayadityavarman I and…