Showing 1 - 5 of 5
Andalusian dreams
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 15/02/2024
» Two Middle Eastern tourists looked excited as they held up a phone to an exquisitely carved arabesque in Nasrid Palace at the Alhambra. No, they're not taking photos. They're comparing the Arabic text on their screen with the 8th century stone calligraphy. I hear them mumble in Arabic -- here's the translation:
Return to paradise
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 13/01/2022
» At Maya Bay, hawk-eyed park officials patrol the sandy stretch, whistles at the ready. It was a gorgeous morning last Thursday, just days after the fabled beach on Phi Phi Leh Island had reopened after three years of closure, and the 300 or so holidaymakers, masked or otherwise, were ambling or striking catwalk poses on the pillow-soft sand, awestruck by the emerald splendour around them.
Journey to Middle Earth
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 16/06/2016
» It's the Earth not the Moon, I think. We are walking the path that skirts the pool of geothermal geysers at the Whakarewarewa site in the town of Rotorua, New Zealand. The moon-grey rocks are smothered in mud and pungent smoke, with sporadic hissing that suggests the chemical fury underneath. The scene is alien. The air is calm, a kind of nervous calm because we know there will be an outburst. Once every 40 minutes or so, the subterranean pressure pushes the heated, underground water through the crack and shoots up a jet of spray up to 30m, drawing cheers from fortunate visitors who happen to be present at the moment of thermal activity.
Into the sublime
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 27/11/2014
» Swami Yoganand twists his rubbery legs and crosses them behind his neck in a geometric composition. Boneless? Shape-shifter? Of course not, it’s just that his lithe, 106-year-old body — the centenarian yogi is a vegetarian and his food is always uncooked — has reached the level of physical suppleness that most of us stiff-jointed urbanites can’t even imagine. The swami, an honorific for a religious teacher, has taught yoga for 86 years, and he’s still doing it almost every morning at a school in Rishikesh, a northern Indian town by the Ganges.
Poles Apart
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 16/05/2013
» The spirit of rebirth is almost palpable as you walk the streets and hear the stories of Warsaw. Wiped off the map in the 19th century, reduced to ashes by German planes and panzers in 1939 and consigned to suspended animation during the four decades of repressive Stalinist rule that followed, this metropolis _ and the country of which it is capital _ has endured a succession of traumatic misfortunes that it has somehow survived, integrity intact, to reassert its proud identity in the 21st century.