About

Swarnabhumi is the ancient name for the land beyond India to its east.  It conjures up images of mist shrouded lands with golden temples set in dense jungles and surrounded by rich paddy fields.  Its a Sanskrit term that is the same as the Greek term Golden Chersonese which means golden peninsula.  Essentially it refers to the modern day Myanmar, Thailand and Malaya.  Wikipedia's Suvarnabhumi has the whole background information on this and be warned, its quite a deep read.

Nusantara is an Javanese word for island (nusa) and others (antara), generally meaning an archipelago.  This describes well the Indonesian and Phillippine archipelagos.  Nusantara also means the Malay Realm, a nebulous cultural and linguistic identity common to the natives of these islands of South East Asia.

Thus South East Asia is of 2 main parts, Swarnabhumi and Nusantara.  Hence the name for this blog.

I love this place.  The people here are an eclectic mix of races, religions and cultures. The basic ingredient is ancient Hinduism and Buddhism, with ancient Indian, Chinese, Persian and Arabic genetic intermingling resulting in regional flavors of the most exotic kind.  With the arrival of Islam, Christianity and Europeans, the ancient traditions have adapted and the resulting mix results in an even more dazzling mix of diversity that appears to be different but yet can be discerned to be rooted to a common strand.  Thus the food, clothes, scents, buildings and people are a pleasure to behold.

You will find this a heady mix, even as you venture to Yunnan, Laos, Vietnam, Philippines, Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Bali, Sulawesi and some speckles of it lingering in Taiwan, Timor and Papua.  If you have been to Fiji and Bora Bora, you may even recognize some underlying genetic and cultural similarities.

This blog is help you in the planning of your tour to South East Asia.  Its essentially a snippet and a compilation of things to do and see, food to eat and opportunities to help you optimize your tour.

I hope you have will have a good time reading my posts.  I plan to post daily, so sign up or do drop by get updates.  And I hope these posts will add real value in the planning of your next vacation or trip.


This video by abhichartt gives an overview of Swarnabhumi Nusantara aka ASEAN.