Insideotherplaces

The heroes of Samarinda

Samarinda, on the east Kalimantan coast is never going to win any prizes, unless there is a competition for pavement obstructions in SE Asia. Its general air of tattiness, wafted by the fumes of sluggish traffic would prompt the less charitable to describe it as a bit of a shithole. Warranting special mention is its drainage system, which valiantly performs several tasks, such as removing rainwater, sewage and the rubbish, that those of the more bone-idle residents, who decide they don’t…

Wehea Forest: of apes and men in Borneo

I have taken the unusual step of handing over this week’s post to a guest blogger, Professor Tokolodo Dangerleybeets, an Orang Utan from the Wehea Forest, in north-east Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo, who is an expert in humans and their cultural practices. Here in the Forest we have two kinds of human: the Treecutters and the Watchers. The former we don’t like, because taking away our trees is like what it is for a human to have a bunch of Gorillas…

Buggery in Brunei

When is a dictatorship not a dictatorship? Brunei is an intriguing example of this conundrum. Technically the Sultan, Hassanal Bolkiah, with six hundred years of hereditary privilege behind him cannot be a dictator, but like kings everywhere before him he holds powers all dictators aspire to. Even violent psychopaths like Saddam Hussein or the divinely ordained, like Ayatollah Khomeini had to juggle competing powers to maintain their position but the Sultan has virtually no concrete bounds to his powers and…

Malaysia: tresspassers will be shot

It is difficult to reconcile the welcoming nature of the average Malaysian, regardless of religion or ethnicity, with the warning signs commonly seen on fenced property around the country. The threat of an armed response may be normal practice but in the US but much of the rest of the world has a lesser inclination to the indiscriminate use of firearms, Malaysia could however be taking the first steps down that path. A spate of shootings in 2013, generally linked…

The sofas of Malaysia

In the West we have a narrow view on the uses and adaptability of the humble sofa, where it is primarily reserved for exercising the eye balls in front of the big screen TV or collapsing unconscious upon after a night dedicated to the art of intoxication, its plump cushions ideal sponges for the drool of beer addled slumberers. You may think that soft furnishings would be unsuited to the drenchings of tropical downpours or blazing sunshine but the people…

Sarawak: village of the damned

“We’re going to visit the old village”, said Penghulu Sagan cheerfully, as he loaded another box of fishing equipment onto the small boat. The matter of fact statement disguised the real nature of the expedition, which was perhaps more evident in the thin, sun etched face of his uncle, who sat quietly waiting: eyes lost in the distance, speaking of a longing, a sadness? Lost in thought, remembering. The reality was that to actually visit the village they would have…

Top Ten electricity substations of Central Asia

With the sheer vastness of the travel blogging world it seems incredible that there remains a subject yet to be celebrated for all the richness it truly deserves. Thus I hereby right the wrong of that criminally neglected, artistic treasure that is the electricity substation. I can only hope that others take up the baton in promoting the profoundly inspiring, cultural genius represented in these creations from other parts of the world. 10. Azerbaijan The lush patina of rust off…

The New (and rather short) Central Asian Encyclopedia

As the popularity of the region increases it has become apparent that the guidebooks don’t always give you a complete picture of the region’s culture. Hence I would like to present some updates and revisions of relevant terminology. Circus We all know the circus comes in a tent, so with a region dominated by nomadic culture, where the tent like yurt has for centuries been the preferred form of accommodation, it seems entirely logical that the circus would be housed…

The splendour falls an apartment walls and Soviet concrete old in story

We have an image of the Soviet city as an unremittingly dull, social wasteland of stained concrete and cheerless vistas but this is further from reality than you might imagine, certainly in Central Asia. For a start they often have far more trees than many European capitals and once the green of spring has arrived they do a lot to mask those architectural sins that do exist. The West was hardly short on post-war, faceless concrete monstrosities, so it would…

Soul of the city: Astana, Kazakhstan

Anyone who employs an internationally acclaimed architect to design an iconic building for a brand new capital city, with a brief to combine state of the art design, whilst paying reference to the country’s cultural heritage and then goes and sticks a shopping centre in it, is clearly someone who does not know the meaning of the word soul and will never know the meaning of the word soul. Whether or not it was Kazakhstan’s strong man of politics (regional…

Insideotherplaces

The heroes of Samarinda

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Wehea Forest: of apes and men in Borneo

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Buggery in Brunei

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Malaysia: tresspassers will be shot

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The sofas of Malaysia

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Sarawak: village of the damned

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Top Ten electricity substations of Central Asia

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The New (and rather short) Central Asian Encyclopedia

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The splendour falls an apartment walls and Soviet concrete old in story

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Soul of the city: Astana, Kazakhstan

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