Letter from Burrator: A slice of Sarawak in Dartmoor, and where AI does not mean what we think it does
As my friend and I were walking down a quiet country lane in Sheepstor, in West Dartmoor, England, a man stopped and asked us, “Would you two ladies happen to be from Sarawak?”
We smiled and said, “No, but we are from Malaysia.”
Listen to the article here:
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Letter from Barcelona: Of prohibited works and the art of balancing local interests with tourism
The day before I arrived in Barcelona, apparently thousands of Spanish had taken to the streets in the city as well as in the islands to protest against mass tourism and overcrowding.
Reports said that “up to 3,000 young people marched in Barcelona on June 8, chanting “Tourists go home” and [...]
Letter from Shanghai: Of Mona Lisa, Gravitational Arena and Innovationism
The last time I was in Shanghai was in October 2019, when I attended Trip.com Group’s 20th anniversary party. I recall it felt like a rock concert, almost like a coming out party as the group declared its ambitions to grow into a global giant as well as be the champion for Chinese inbound.
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Letter from Tokyo: The human-machine and tradition-innovation dance unfolding in Japan
Inbound rush, outbound slump, new tech and travellers shaping future of travel – how will it play out in Japan? WiT Japan & North Asia 2024 had it all covered.
There is no better place in the world to observe the twin revolutions of human and technology unfolding at this time than in Japan, a [...]
Letter from Saudi: Of cheeky encounters, cultural kaleidoscopes and social transformation
A funny thing happened to me while I was waiting at King Khalid International Airport, in Riyadh, while I was waiting for the car to my hotel, Radisson Blu, in the Diplomatic Quarter. Firstly, it’s really busy, lots of people pushing carts willy-nilly.
Listen to this episode here
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Letter enroute to Riyadh: A journey into The Land of Incredulous Possibilities
I am off to Riyadh today via Singapore. It was meant to have been via Paris but a flu bug changed my plans. It has a nasty way of doing that, as we’ve all learnt in the last few years. Nothing’s going to stop us now – yeah! A bug will.
So, I am sitting at the Emirates Lounge, which is freez [...]
Decoding travel jargon: From bleisure to rubbish tourism
Author and travel writer Paul Theroux had a very simple way of describing people who travel. He divided them into tourist and traveller, saying, “Tourists don’t know where they’ve been, travellers don’t know where they’re going.”
Listen to the article here
(This au [...]
Lessons from WiT Africa Part 2: The ties that bind us, from remote work to AI and sustainability
It’s been nearly two weeks since I left the majesty and scale of South Africa for the tiny dot of Singapore and here I am, in the even tinier (or as tiny) dot of Penang, Malaysia, where the evidence of global nomadism is in full play.
This is the island off the west coast of Malaysia that was r [...]
Of pain, suffering and low expectations: How to be happy founders and travellers
“If you’re not at one point about to go bankrupt, then you can’t say you really had a startup”
Lately, I’ve been getting lots of messages sharing Jensen Huang’s speech at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, where he wished “pain and suffering” on students at his a [...]
Letter from Cape Town: Of diamonds, dassies and naked surprises
As the Singapore Airlines flight came in for a landing in Cape Town Monday morning and I watched the beautiful vistas of the Western Cape unfold before my eyes, the first question that popped into my head was, “Why has it taken me so long?”
I first came to South Africa when I was still living [...]
