Need a shoe? Check out Chatuchak

Chatuchak market in Bangkok, also known as JJ, is widely regarded as the world's biggest, with more than 15,000 stalls set amid 14 hectares of narrow, windy lanes. Officially open to the public on Saturdays and Sundays, it's also open on Fridays to wholesalers, although individuals won't be turned away. More than 200,000 people shop at the market each day, buying everything from clothes to watches - imitation, brand new and second-hand - leather goods, silk, food and livestock.

Heritage of Phuket Town

Famed as beach resort, Phuket in Thailand also has an old town on the other side of the island. The old quarter of Phuket city, formerly called ‘Tongkah’, is the home of the Baba community, a cultural community of mixed Thai-Chinese heritage.

The townscape of old Phuket is unique in Thailand, and rather resembles that found in the former British Straits Settlements, particularly Penang. Since the 1990s, the people of Phuket have spearheaded several initiatives to showcase their cultural built heritage.

http://www.lestariheritage.net/phuket/index.html

Phnom Pen, 1971

Big Brother Mouse

Photo courtesy of the author.

http://www.bigbrothermouse.com/

An organization dedicated to bringing books to the people of Laos, and in particular to the children in small, remote villages. An organization that employs enthusiastic young Laotians as writers and artists, and publishes colourful books that make it fun and easy for Lao people to learn to read.

Angkor Wat BBC Documentary

Impressions of Angkor

Photographer: John McDermott
http://www.asiaphotos.net/gallery/Angkor/

Photographer: Martin Reeves

http://www.thehiddenrealms.com/

“There is a touch of surrealism, details that blend together in a dream-like brightness, architecture that would better lend itself to a Tolkien novel than to the rigours of scientific documentation. Martin coaxes something as solid as stone into an ethereal world, as weightless as it is intriguing. These images relate the photographer’s most intimate sensations surrounding the complexities of Eastern culture”.

Lionel Wendt

Lionel Wendt was born in Colombo, Ceylon on December 3, 1900. Educated in Colombo and Cambridge (he studied Law). He also studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London. On returning in 1924 he practiced law for a short time , but then devoted himself to his enormous talents as a musician till 1935 when he turned to what became his true and obsessive métier, photography. He had a one-man show in London in 1938 . He died in Colombo on December 19, 1944.

A fellow photographer destroyed all his negatives some time after he had died, on the ground that this was an accepted practice in photographic circles ('the negative is the score; the print the performance', -Ansel Adams-).

"All photographs in stock are vintage (toned) silver prints from the period 1934 – 1944. Very few of his prints are signed but all are stamped with a Certificate of Authenticity by Gallery Ton Peek." http://www.tonpeek.com/wendtintro.html

Lionel Wendt´s Ceylon, London, 1950

Jack in Sri Lanka

Great Blog! - http://www.jackinsrilanka.blogspot.com/

"Having lived in Sri Lanka for almost 11 years I am finally keeping a diary. I thought I would make it available to anyone who wants to read it for two simple reasons. 1 - stories that we have shared during the last few years have opened some eyes about life in the tropics. The stories, that are all true and recounted from personal experience have caused a mixed reaction - shock; laughter; sadness; bewilderment; concern or all of the above and as such I thought might have the same effect on a wider audience...and 2 sometimes I do not believe something happended and so I have to share it for my own sanity."

Jack Eden, Galle Sri Lanka