When the great boxer Manny Pacquiao flew into Bangkok Traversing the Orient's Ben Hopkins was there to throw a few questions On May 2nd, at the MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas, Manny Pacquiao sent a shock wave through the world of boxing and most likely destroyed the career of Britain’s most popular fighter, Ricky Hatton. In doing so, he added the light-welterweight crown to his past world titles which include lightweight, super-featherweight, light- feather­weight, featherweight and flyweight. Sports writer Tim Dahlberg summed it up neatly, “Manny Pacquiao didn’t just beat Hatton. He didn’t just knock him out. He demolished a world class fighter who had never lost at his natural weight of 140 lbs. He did it with such precision and ease that the talk afterward wasn’t whether Pacquiao is the best pound for pound fighter in the world, but whether he ...

Songkram Jutjarat has a love of dogs, he takes them off the streets and away from the danger of landing on plates in Thai and Vietnamese eateries - he tells Traversing the Orient it’s a tough battle. Amid loud growling and gnashing teeth, dog catchers round up the homeless hounds in Thailand’s Lopburi and sell them to the butcher’s knife in Vietnam. Any­where from 40 to 80 dogs at a time are crammed into trucks, their destiny priced at around US$10 a portion, unless the trucks cross paths with the Thai police first. A legal spot fine of a mere US$60 per truckload sees the thieves release the stolen dogs, only to return another day or move on to another territory. Songkram Jutjarat – nickname Golf - is from Lopburi, for the last ten years he has co-run/owned a small restaurant called Mali in Bangkok’s Sathorn Soi 1 district. Three years ago ...

Tom Cockrem explores a religious festival that blends icons of Catholicism with the ancient tribal traditions of the Ati-Ati people History in the Philippines is never far removed from the people’s daily lives. It’s intrinsic in their artworks, reli­gion, cinema, and especially their festivals. It is doubtful that any country in the world puts as many days aside for celebratory events as do the Filipinos. And they do it in grand style, with an energy and passion that can leave the visiting observer literally breathless with excitement and with awe; as I discovered in Iloilo on the central Visayan island of Panay. This was my second visit to Iloilo. The first time I came to do the city plazas and their churches – grand old Spanish colonial survivors. This time I had one of those festivals in mind – the Dinagyang. ...

At the Three Pagodas Pass, in the wild and beautiful far west of Thailand, the orchid and furniture trade is booming, shoot-outs between Burmese rebels and Thai soldiers are rare and the area remains one of those beauty spots that have not yet succumbed to mass tourism. Tom Vater enters the region to discover two different worlds. Win sells orchids, “We go into the jungle and get them by the sack full. It takes a long time these days, but we’re paid 300 Baht a sack, depending on what species we get.” While picking wild orchids in Thailand is against the law, in Burma it is not. The  fence  divides Thailand  and  Burma  -  different  countries,  different worlds. Following the River Kwai west, from Kanchanaburi, location of the infamous WW2 bridge, on the Death Railway, the hustle and bustle of central Thailand soon gives way to ...