ROMAR TRAVELER ASIA

The Slow Life in OKINAWA

The bright night lights and busy work schedules and blaring car horns of urban Okinawa give voice to the industrious lifestyle of its cities, but there is another style of life in Japan’s southernmost island: Okinawa's Slow Life.

Closing Out the Year in Okinawa

The end of the old year and the beginning of the new is celebrated around the world by all cultures. For Christians it is a time to celebrate Christmas. Okinawa, the main island of the Ryukyu Islands of Japan has melded the festivities in its own unique way.

The Adivasi: Visiting India’s Indigenous Tribes

The truly indigenous peoples of India are known collectively as the adivasi, yet relatively few people outside of the province of Orissa have heard about these exotic people of India. They live less than 150 kilometers from tropical Visakhapatnam, a major port city on the east coast of India half. It is the perfect starting point for your journey into the India of old.

Varanasi: India’s City of Death and Life

Varanasi is one of the oldest cities in the world. The oldness is to be seen in the buildings, temples and statues, but more than that, the smell of oldness is in the streets. It is the city of death and life, of extremes, just like India itself. But at this place the soul of India comes at you more quickly and more intently.

Special MONGOLIA Issue:

Featuring 3 women who explore Mongolia in 3 unique ways:

• Living With the nomadic herdsmen of the steppes.

• Riding across Russia on the Trans Siberian Express.

• Driving to Mongolia across Europe and Central Asia.

Fall Season in South Korea:

Surrealist Cities, Ancient Fortresses and the Fine Art of Fermented Cabbage…

Trekking Thailand’s Rainforest

In the hills and mountains of Thailand thousands of people live traditional tribal lives. At least ten different ethnic groups still practice their ancient livelihoods, animistic religions and sometimes bizarre rituals and practices.

Romar Traveler's Angkor Wat Issue

• Angkor Wat, Cambodia’s magnificent archaeological park
• Siem Reap, the principal.gateway city to Angkor Wat.

Summer in South Korea

The intense heat and humidity of a South Korean summer brings mud festivals, live snacks, beach time, bullfights, small town festivals and extravagant parties as a breaks away from the pressures of city life. .

Springtime in South Korea

Cherry Blossoms, Bungee Jumping and Holy Birthdays: the best of South Korea in springtime.

The Food of Chiang Mai: From Market to Table

Long a backpacker haven, Chiang Mai, northern Thailand's largest city, has recently seen a surge of high end travel as luxury resorts have sprouted up in the hills outside of the city. To serve the interests of guests of these resorts, numerous culinary schools have been established that provide the opportunity to learn to create and appreciate northern Thai cuisine.

North Korea: One way in, One way out

North Korea, the Northern half of the Korean peninsula, is a rarely penetrated communist fortress, totally shielded from the modern world. Stripped of home comforts and under the watchful eye of the secret police, James Hendicott, a long time resident of Seoul, South Korea, enjoys a short, insightful but intimidating glimpse of life on the other side.

East Malaysia: Cat City, Bat Caves and Orang Utans

Sharing the island of Borneo with the Indonesian state of Kalimantan and the sultanate of Brunei, The East Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak offer culture, adventure, and ecotourism along with Borneo’s remaining rainforests and wildlife.

Malaysia Celebrates A Divine Birth

Malaysia's capital, Kuala Lumpur is a handsome metropolis with all the trimmings of a 21st century city. It also is the focal point in Malaysia of Thaipusam, a festival celebrating the birthday in the Hindu pantheon of Lord Subramaniam, also known as Muruga, the first-born son of the God Siva.

Vietnam/2008

VIETNAM is becoming a travel hot spot in spite of itself. It has no monuments or cultural sites on the scale of those you will find in Thailand and Cambodia. Ha Lon Bay, is its only major geographic attraction. It's not a place that will dazzle and amaze you. What Vietnam and its people will do is charm you.

Rajasthan: Rural and Regal

In Rajasthan Province, the opulence of the old India of the Maharajahs is in dramatic contrast to the simple existence of the Bishnoi peoples, whose lives have been attuned for millennia to the natural demands of the starkly beautiful but unforgiving desert land in which they live.

INDIA's Hill Stations

For the traveler new to India, a good starting place is in the northern highlands along the border with the Himalayan kingdoms and China. Once the watering places of the British Raj escaping the intense heat of the plains, the hill stations are a cool and pleasant area from which to begin a tour of this fascinating land.

GOA: There's Good News and Bad

Located on the southwest coast of the Indian subcontinent, Goa is a former Portuguese colony that became famous as a hippie hang out in the 60's and 70's and has recently become one of the largest charter tourist destinations in the world.

Sacred Rivers of India – The Ganges

Two photojournalists make an unforgettable pilgrimage along the length of India's two most sacred rivers, recording what they see with the penetrating eye of the camera lens. Their tale is also about the despoiling of these holy waterways by human ignorance and insensitivity.

Sacred Rivers of India – The Yamuna

Two photojournalists continue their unforgettable pilgrimage along the length of India's two most sacred rivers, recording what they see with the penetrating eye of the camera. Their tale is also about the despoiling of these holy waterways by human ignorance and insensitivity.

Kathmandu Today

Kathmandu, the capital of the Himalayan kingdom of Nepal has held exotic connotations for outsiders all through the ages. These connotations cover an amazingly wide range of fields; be it the landscape, religions, politics or even local handicrafts. Now, even in this once remote corner of Asia, times have changed.

Sri Lanka: After the Tsunami

Devastated by one of nature's most potent forces, Sri Lanka is rebuilding its damaged shores. One of this lovely island nation's most important sources of income is tourism, and its people want you to know that Sri Lanka's most interesting attractions are inland and were not directly affected in any way by the tsunami.

Kerala: Southern India's Eden

India's southernmost state of Kerala is known as "god's own country" to its inhabitants. It's difficult to disagree with that description.

The Forbidden City

No longer forbidden, the fabled home of China's emperors for five centuries is now called the Palace Museum. Its grandeur somewhat diminished, this magnificent city within a city remains a testament to the splendid civilization of ancient China and a contrast to the burgeoning industrial giant around it.

Sri Lanka: A Place Like No Other

Here is a country that is a microcosm of almost everything that can be found in Southeast Asia to interest tourism but without the negative sights that leave some travelers to the region in culture shock.

Xi'an: Home Of China's Clay Army

Xi'an (pronounced She-ahn) in central China, now a fairly modest city by Chinese standards, was the first dynastic capital of China and remained so for more than 1,000 years. Today it is possibly the richest archaeological area in all of China and the site of one of the twentieth century's most spectacular finds, the buried terra-cotta army of Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi, by some accounts, the most powerful man in the world in his day.

Sabah: A Land Below The Wind

Malaysia is a land that stirs the imagination. On the Island of Borneo, 400 miles from the mainland, is the East Malaysian state of Sabah, known as the gateway to Borneo's wildlife. The reality matches the image, but changes are coming rapidly.

Brunei Darussalam: The Abode Of Peace

One of the last absolute monarchies on Earth, the Sultanate of Brunei is moving with style into the twenty-first century

India's Golden Triangle

There still is a place in the world where you may have to step past a genuine snake charmer and his bobbing hooded cobra as you get out of your taxi to enter your five-star Sheraton Hotel. That place is India, and, in an increasingly homogenized world, it's interesting to note that this country has not lost its exoticism as it acquires the trappings of the computer age.

Southern China's Goat City And Guilin

Old Canton (Guangzhou) has been going about its business and has been associated with trade routes passing through its province for centuries. The origins of Guangzhou in Southern China are not specifically known, but perhaps the fable of its beginnings recounted to every school child tells us something.