Time flies. It has been almost a year since I trekked to Tilicho Lake 2017 in Nepal. For the 2018, I’ll end it off on a philosophical note. India 2018 is going to be a pilgrimage of sorts. Apart from the must-sees like Taj Mahal, Agra Fort and Varanasi, I’ll also be bringing my family […]
Located near the entrance into Hongkeng Village, a hundred metres or so from Zhen Cheng Lou (the biggest tulou on record), is a tulou (named Qing Cheng Lou) that has been converted into a Hakka heritage or teachings museum. This is a squarish tulou and the exterior looked like it has been built from bricks […]
Hongkeng Village (Yongding County) is a Hakka village in Fujian Province. It is the most convenient site to view the mud buildings or tulou with a bus coming directly from Xiamen (3 hours). Not surprisingly, there are crowds here, but accommodations here are also very well-run, making it an excellent base for those who wish […]
A round Hakka mud building 土楼 is indeed fascinating. That’s why whenever we mention Fujian mud buildings, a curious round fortress resembling a curled up pangolin would come to mind. The locals often to boast that there are 20,000 of such buildings around. Actually, the number is much smaller – just over a thousand and […]
Hakka Mud Houses They’re located in Fujian province, but the residents of these unique mud houses are not native to Fujian. They are the legendary Hakka people of China, a group from the original Han ethnic group which migrated no less than 5 times from the northern Chinese provinces of Shan Xi and Henan more […]
The Gunung Sindoro expedition I planned earlier was a success. Below is a video summary. For me, this has been one of the most satisfying hikes I’ve done in Indonesia. The weather was bad on the afternoon I ascended, but the mists cleared overnight and the next morning saw perfect weather above the sea of […]
Singaporean adventurer Chan Joon Yee climbs Gunung Sindoro 3150m in August 2018. Tune in to Knapsack Treks and @ravenous_writer for the latest updates. Check Out Knapsack Books by Chan Joon Yee
On the flight back from Sydney, I met 4 young Singaporean ladies. They were a talkative, bubbly bunch with a mean age of about 25. Being independent travellers, they had rented a car and explored the charming bays and beaches along the coastline of New South Wales completely on their own. I was quite impressed […]
I found out that I didn’t have any clean clothes left after descending from Gunung Semeru in 1997. My shoes were not in good condition either, bursting at the seams. At Yogyakarta, I realised that I badly needed a whole new outfit. So I went to a local clothing store and bought a very “Indonesian” […]
A catastrophic volcanic eruption may change the landscape drastically, but most of the time, even volcanoes change imperceptibly over several human lifetimes. As far as mountains go, having been there and done that doesn’t give you much bragging rights anymore. If you had taken your pictures with a film camera back then, those who went […]