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People often ask me about Australia. It doesn’t matter where I happen to be—Vietnam, India, Morocco, South Africa—there seems to be no end of interest in the massive but tiny country that Paul Keating once memorably described as “the arse-end
We pulled out of Amornsup Village in Nong Chok, in Bangkok’s far-eastern boondocks, in the late afternoon when its residents begin to stir. In the central square, barefooted teenagers played soccer on the dusty concrete—the sun’s anvil throughout most of
I was supposed to be in Raxaul, on the Indian side of the Nepalese border, at eight o’clock in the morning. There had been difficulties from the get-go. The Mithila Express, the direct train from Kolkata, had been fully booked
In his controversial book War is Beautiful, David Shields took aim at the New York Times. He wrote that the newspaper’s photographic coverage of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq both “enchanted and infuriated” him, arguing that many of the
The Ganges flow faster in Rishikesh. It is the first thought I have as I cross the Ram Jhula bridge to the eastern bank of the river, where the ashram ghats lead down to the water. I was recently in
From Janpath Road in the centre of Delhi, the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts appears almost deserted. I’m at the wrong gate, but the security guard manning it lets me slide through anyway and points me in the
Afshan Ashiq is a rising soccer star, but she is perhaps most famous for throwing a rock. In April last year, Ms Ashiq was escorting female soccer players to training in her home state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) when
For tor the past ten days, whenever I have wished to go into town, to interview a separatist leader or take in a clash between police and young protesters, I have first had to play the tourist for a moment.