Lao hit ball
Robert Cooper
One sport has played a surprising role in defining Laos and the Lao — tikhi
The real thing
Connla Stokes
The undefinable, addictive nature of Vietnamese food
Books for everyone
Nic Dunlop
Established in Chiang Mai in 1989, publisher Silkworm now boasts more than 200 titles
The second laugh
Rachel Wong
Only Lonely Planet can get you “off the beaten path”, onto “the road less travelled”
Death or freedom
Sebastian Strangio
Myanmar fell apart as soon as it became independent
Duras, mother and Cambodia
Penny Edwards
The life and work of Marguerite Duras
Defying Big Brother
Kenneth Wong
I came across a Winston Smith, a clerk who erased “unpersons”
Victor’s justice
Minh Bui Jones
The international defence counsel-cum-Khmer Rouge fellow traveller
Carry on empire
Simon Winchester
All empires inevitably fade, including France’s in Southeast Asia
Cambodia’s lost literary life
George Chigas
Cambodia’s first Khmer-language literary journal
This old house
Kevin Doyle
Since this house was built, Cambodia’s name has changed half a dozen times
Rituals and religion
Paul Fuller
The difference between lived Buddhism and Buddhism of popular imagination
Lost ground
Chris Taylor
Nostalgia, destruction and unplanned reconstruction
Wayne’s wat
Jeff Kisseloff
Decades after Vietnam, Wayne Matthysse discovered why he was still alive
Hidden history
Luke Hunt
Steven Boswell talks about his book King Norodom’s Head
Annamite journeys
Wayne McCallum
Where peoples, plants and animals are found nowhere else
Chasing the past
Rajan Venkataraman
The Last Reel and A Tomb for Khun Srun, for all their differences, share striking parallels
Dreamworld
Rupert Winchester
A huge step forward for Beijing-based Hong Kong novelist Chan Koonchung
Sweet humdrum days
Connla Stokes
Hanoi at the dawn of the new millennium
Marginal Countries
Mario Del Pero
A long apology for Kissinger’s crimes
Purity and Danger
Minh Bui Jones
Putting the family ghost to rest
Soth Polin
Penny Edwards
What happens when the musicality of Khmer literature is transposed to a new world order?
The anarchist
Soth Polin
Oh my dear, how still you lie, spread-eagled in the white snow that’s stained with the scarlet pools of your blood …
Stolen children
Christina Firfo
The “protection” of fatherless métis children in Indochina
Poetry
Scott Bywater
A poem by Scott Bywater
Mad, bad and French
Michelle Vachon
Michelle Vachon explores the “bad Frenchmen” of Indochina
Charity rock
Rupert Winchester
The story behind the Concert for the People of Kampuchea
Lizards of Phnom Penh
Luke Hunt
Material deemed unfit for the news pages found a home in “The Gecko”
Death railway
Alasdair Richards
The railway line that cost as many as 100,000 lives
To smile
Colin Cotterill
Said a tourist, “I have to refute, That the durian should count as a fruit …”