Music: Completing the magic of Karma

As an orange orb dips and melts into the horizon across a vast Indian Ocean, a DJ plays a set to an adoring, happy crowd alive on life, energy and music. At Karma Kandara’s Nammos Beach Club, this kind of special evening isn’t a rarity any more; it’s fast becoming a norm as the focus…

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Karma healers

BALI, Indonesia, 1 September 2010 (Karma Chronicles) — Ellie Sand, practising shaman, channel medium and alchemical astrologer, visited Karma Jimbaran a few years ago in a bid to re-harmonise the beautiful Balinese coastal land it was built on. “There was then a very large open quarry next to the resort. The energy of the resort…

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Kids’ clothes designers in Bali

Take Bali’s fledgling textiles industry, stir in a smattering of creative expatriates and skilled local artisans, sprinkle with oodles of beaches-to-smouldering-volcano inspiration: You’ve got yourself a one-stop island shop for beautiful children’s designer clothes. And while it might be hard work traipsing the tropical streets of Bali to unearth finds from the following labels, the…

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Cigarette museum proves unlikely Indonesian tourism attraction

SURABAYA, Indonesia – The sweet, pungent scent of cloves and tobacco hangs heavy in the air as women paste, roll and snip cigarettes, their fingers flying faster than the eye can follow as tourists observe the public face of one of Indonesia’s most successful companies. Staring down the global trend towards demonising tobacco, Sampoerna, which…

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Amid emerald rice fields, Cambodia’s first winery startles but pleases

PHUM BOT SALA, Cambodia – The fresh grape juice ferments in plastic water containers, bottles are labelled in a loungeroom and cheese has never passed the lips of the producer. But Cambodia’s first home-grown wine is proving a hit, startling foreign tourists and winning over domestic tipplers in the tropical country. Despite being a former…

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Technology trumps Cambodia’s royal portrait artist

The dozens of identical photographic portraits of Cambodia’s new King Norodom Sihamoni looming over the capital’s boulevards to mark his coronation have left royal artist Kimsong Narykun wringing his hands. Technology has trumped 40-year-old Narykun, who works daily in a fan-cooled studio equipped with just one small easel set on a rattan mat, a stone’s…

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Cambodian children get cyberspace savvy with free Internet kiosks

It may be holiday time, but students still hang out at a handful of schools in impoverished Cambodia, lured by free Internet kiosks aimed at getting more people here au fait with cyberspace. At a high school outside the capital Phnom Penh, some students research Asian architecture, others check football results, and a few, like…

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Cambodia’s fashion designers create tropical chic

Fashion designers in Cambodia are tapping into the kingdom’s stunning fabrics, affordable workmanship and tropical inspiration, making for a vibrant although still-tiny industry. While the impoverished country is better known for its garment exports fuelled by more than 200 mass-producing factories, a handful of designers are focusing on the domestic market of moneyed Khmers, expatriates…

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Cambodia’s traditional music fuses with the West in bold album project

In a tiny Phnom Penh studio, US teenagers with musical backgrounds ranging from jazz to punk are collaborating with traditionally trained Cambodian musicians on a unique project. The four Americans, after studying traditional Khmer instruments for several months here, hatched a plan to record an album with their teachers and friends, blending Western and Khmer…

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Thai architect hits on blueprint for sustainable living in the tropics

PATHUM THANI, Thailand – In a gated community just outside the teeming megalopolis of Bangkok, Soontorn Boonyatikarn’s three-bedroom home appears much like any other, with the solar panelling on the roof the only hint that something out of the ordinary lies beneath. Soontorn calls this home a blueprint for sustainable living in the tropics: the…

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