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Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, Phnom Penh, Cambodia The small traffic jam is unusual for this part of Phnom Penh. Tuk tuks jostle for space down a small road, trying to weave around each other and those parked on the side. A larger tour bus blasts its horn and tries to impatiently push through. Motorbikes buzz amongst ...

Killing fields, Phnom Penh, Cambodia One of the things that strikes you at the Killing Fields, on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, is how crude everything once was here – even the murders. Especially the murders. Ammunition was too expensive and in short supply so the people killed here were normally hacked to death with ...

On the way to Pyin Oo Lwin I’m on my way to a small town in the northeast of Mandalay called Pyin Oo Lwin. Cooler temperatures from the altitude made it a popular holiday resort for the British in the summers of their colonial days and I’m curious to see how that heritage has lasted ...

Inwa, near Mandalay, Myanmar For a foreigner, the history of Myanmar has become as repressed as its people for the past half century. The country closed its borders to the world and with the physical isolation came cultural barriers. Before coming here, all I had generally heard about was the military junta which took control ...

The Royal Palace, Mandalay The year was 1885 and the last Burmese king was standing strong. The British forces were marching into Mandalay with very little opposition. Their plan to take over the country was succeeding – but capturing the Royal Palace in the centre of the city, was going to be an important symbolic ...

Pyay, Myanmar Scott is what he calls himself – he wouldn’t tell me his traditional Myanmar name. Scott does three things around the small city of Pyay, six hours north of Yangon. He teaches English at a local school, he is a motorbike taxi and guide, and he sells cups of yoghurt from a small ...

Bagan, Myanmar It’s not clear exactly what happened to Bagan and how one of the greatest cities in Southeast Asia was left abandoned. Perhaps it was an invasion by the Mongols… perhaps it was the fear of an invasion by the Chinese. Regardless, historians agree that sometime towards the end of the thirteenth century the ...

The Bridge on the River Kwai, Thailand It’s serene down on the River Kwai today. Even with the large amount of tourists, the air is still and things are quiet. The bridge over the river looks old but in good shape. It’s like a used movie set which has been left behind after production and ...

Hellfire Pass Memorial and Museum, Thailand It’s always quite emotional to be confronted with the tragedies of your own country while travelling overseas. But the nature of war means the losses of our countrymen are often spread across the globe. One such place for us Australians is Hellfire Pass, the iconic stretch of the ill-fated ...

Bang Pa-in Palace, Thailand It would be nice to have a Thai summer palace you could head to when the days got hot, wouldn’t it? You know, you could jump on a royal barge, float down the river to your tranquil holiday home and then spend the days walking around the compound, reading by the ...