http://thevortext.com Thu, 19 Apr 2007 21:06:29 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Photo courtesy of eychao I'm sure the Beijing landscape has changed vastly since I left there in December, but the New York Times confirms at least one transformation that saddens me deeply. Around the corner from my first apartment in Beijing, on Dongdaqiao Lu near Chaoyangmenwai Dajie, stands a hospital ... http://thevortext.com/2007/04/goodbye-anus-hospital/ In Vang Vieng, a tiny town halfway between Luang Prabang and Vientiane, a crowd of backpackers a few years ago discovered a mountain-bound oasis from the heat and disorder of traveling in Laos. A small river flows among hills composed of limestone karst, and enterprising locals have gathered a ... http://thevortext.com/2006/12/a-real-lazy-river/ My best day in Luang Prabang was spent taking a cooking class, taught by a young Hmong man named Ning who was accomplished and sure in the kitchen. Along with three other students (a couple from Heidelberg and a guy from Belgium who works for EUROPOL), I paid $25 ... http://thevortext.com/2006/11/cooking-in-luang-prabang/ So far I've had, among many memorable meals, two unbelievable ones. The first was on my last night in Luang Namtha, on the outskirts of town near the old airport, at a restaurant called the Boat Landing, which happens to share its name with the most upscale lodgings in ... http://thevortext.com/2006/11/two-great-meals-in-laos/ ...but Sartre is smart-re, as Homer Simpson would say, if he knew that Khmu is pronounced like Camus, and that it's the name of a tribe indigenous to the area around the Nam Ha river in Luang Namtha province here in Laos. I've just returned from an amazing two ... http://thevortext.com/2006/11/khmu-can-do/ I've uploaded my first batch of photos to flickr. You can see them there, in the photoset called Laos, or here, on the Photos page, in the eponymous album. Here are the photos that correspond to my first Laos post, The Laos-China Border. http://thevortext.com/2006/11/photos-from-the-border/ In contrast to the Paris-China Border (and if you don't know the reference, get thee to Amazon for a copy of Salinger's Nine Stories post haste), the Laos-China Border is a very real liminal space, one which I traversed this afternoon, partly on foot and partly in the back of ... http://thevortext.com/2006/11/the-laos-china-border/ Apparently about.com's China Travel editor likes my Hangzhou book. She recommends it in her article on (what else but) visiting Hangzhou. Pretty cool. And since I never posted a photo of the book, here's one now. http://thevortext.com/2006/11/more-hangzhou-kudos/ Last weekend was the start of China's National Day holiday, one of three so-called Golden Weeks during which business throughout the country comes to a stand-still as trains cart urban yuppies and migrant workers out of the bustling metropolises of the eastern and southern coasts and back to their small ... http://thevortext.com/2006/10/spicy-shangzhi/ I may be writing right now from an internet cafe in the small city of Shangzhi, two hours northeast of Harbin in Heilongjiang Province, but the story of what I'm doing here will come at a later date. For now, I wanted to post some photos from the trip ... http://thevortext.com/2006/10/a-trip-to-tianjin/