Funds from this year’s event were donated to various projects including the Zoological Parks Organisation of Thailand which supports veterinary and educational projects to improve the year-round lives of elephants and mahouts in the Surin Province where ex-street elephants face ongoing hardship.

The donations have also funded South East Asia’s first ever workshop to teach mahouts and vets the benefits of Environmental Enrichment to keep elephants happy as well as the construction of a watch tower in a village whose crops are raided by elephants, allowing villagers to watch and warn other villagers of approaching elephants in a safe manner for both people and elephants.

Donations also funded a conservation education trip to a National Park for the children and next generation of hereditary mahouts to learn the importance of elephants in the wild; the transport of Thai elephant vets to international conferences; funding Thai Government aid to teach mahouts to act as veterinary assistants and provide basic first aid and other medical care to their elephants; as well as community based Human Elephant Conflict mitigation projects in two Thai and one Tanzanian National Parks and the purchase of equipment for anti-poaching rangers in a Cambodian National Park.

Other significant benefits from the money raised by the tournament include: the ongoing Thai Elephant Therapy Project which has been underway since 2009 in conjunction with Chiang Mai University’s Department of Occupational Therapy, with future clinics to include children with Down’s Syndrome and other conditions now committed until the end of 2018 as well as the funding of Asia’s first workshop to show traditional elephant trainers and camp owners the benefits of Positive Reinforcement Training for captive elephants with additional workshops this year in Myanmar reaching teams responsible for over 200 elephants.

To plan your Thailand trip to coincide with this great annual event, contact Symbiosis Custom Travel and start planning now.

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The Mt Hagen Show will be held on the weekend of 16th & 17th August 2014. We have 4 tour variations or 10 to 12 days duration to coincide with this highly colourful event that will also take you to other areas of this fascinating country including the highlands and the Sepik basin.

For information on the tours visit the Mt Hagen Show webpage here

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For 24 hours everything on the island will be closed with no one permitted on the streets, with the exception of emergency vehicles. This enforcement begins from 6am on 31 March and continues until 6am on 1 Apr 2014. April 1st is also a public holiday after the enforcement has been lifted at 6am.

Although Nyepi is a Hindu holiday, non-Hindu residents of the island and tourists are not exempt. Although they are free to do as they wish inside their hotels, no one is allowed on the beaches or streets and the only airport in Bali remains closed for the entire day. The only exceptions granted are for emergency vehicles carrying those with life-threatening conditions and women about to give birth.

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In the Kingdom of Thailand’s Jazz scene, the Hua Hin Jazz Festival is one of the most recognised and established jazz festivals, attracting more than 15,000 locals and travellers to the beachside town of Hua Hin, which is just 2-3 hours drive from Bangkok.

The Jazz Festival was first started by a collection of forward thinking hotels in Hua Hin. They took the lead to organise the Jazz Festival on the beach with the aim of attracting more travellers.

You can follow developments of the 2014 Jazz Festival and how the event plans to grow at http://www.thehuahinjazzfestival.com. Why not include it in your next trip to Thailand? Contact us at Symbiosis Custom Travel to discuss.

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The Hagen show is held in August every year – and we are be offering three escorted programs and one unescorted program in 2013. Escorted programs have the same guide throughout whereas with unescorted programs, you still have guides to assist you at each location, the only difference being that guides change at the different locations.

For photographers, the Mount Hagen Show offers an amazing opportunity to capture many of the flamboyant traditional costumes of Papua New Guinea’s highlander people all on one place. The tours will also take you to other fascinating parts of the main island, staying at the finest and most remote lodges as you go, with flights by small charter plane to give you some amazing aerial views of the mountains and rainforests.

Tours range in length from 11 to days, starting on either the 8th or 16 August, depending on the tour configuration.

More info with prices on the Symbiosis Custom Travel website.

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The event is centred on the stunning, multi-coloured Kelimutu Crater Lake which is considered to be a final resting place for spirits. Local people honour these departed souls by offering food at a sacred site on top of the mountain.

Annually, hundreds of people make the pilgrimage to a stone altar (Mesbah) where chants and prayers accompany the rite. After the ceremony has been observed, the congregation head back down to the starting point where a series of fascinating cultural performances are staged.

This is a stunning destination to visit in its own right, but the celebration of Pati Ka Du’a Bapu Ata adds colour and cultural richness to the experience.

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Created in 2005, the Angkor Photo Festival is the first photography festival to be held in Southeast Asia. Each year the weeklong event features exhibitions and outdoor slideshows by celebrated and emerging photographers in Siem Reap.

The strong educational goals of the Angkor Photo Festival sets it apart from other photography events. At the free Angkor Photo Workshops, renowned photographers tutor emerging Asian photographers, while the festival operates its own outreach program, the Anjali Children’s Photo Workshops.

More about the festival here.

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The fifteenth day, of the tenth month, of the Khmer calendar marks the Pchum Ben festival. This is a time when the spirits of the dead ancestors walk the Earth. And the living can ease their suffering by offering them food to eat.

At four in the morning, nearly all of the residents of Phnom Penh gather at the temple with offerings of rice, which they toss on the ground, feeding the dead ancestors.

“Some of the ghosts have small mouths,” one man explains. “So we have to use special rice.”

Many of the people throw sticky rice, which, apparently is easier for the spirits to consume.

According to Buddhist beliefs, the lives that we live, after death, are predicated by the actions that we took when we were living. Minor infractions would be punished with small punishments, such as being an unattractive ghost or having a small mouth. With a small mouth, it is hard to eat. Other, more severe, punishments could include being crippled or having no mouth at all.

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This is a highly sought after Papua New Guinea experience – the famous Mount Hagen Cultural festival. A must for people interested in photographing people.

In addition to attending this colourful event, the tour also includes stays at the stunning Ambua Lodge, high up in the Southern Highlands, overlooking the Tari basin (home to the Huli Wigmen) and to Karawari Lodge, deep in the Sepik basin, plus a Sepik River cruise aboard the Sepik Spirit.

Full tour details here.

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The show is set in a small theatre in the Old Quarter Hanoi. The stage is somewhat different to a normal performance in that it is filled with water. A small pond like structure surrounded by beautiful backdrops. The performers- The Puppets- are all brightly coloured wooden puppets, ranging from fishermen, musicians and farmers to the amazing dragons. The puppeteers are all standing in the water manipulating these amazing puppets. The show is so life like you forget about the puppeteers and start imagining a scene of villagers going about their daily lives in rural Vietnam.

This October the water puppeteers are going on the road they will be introducing this unique art to a large number of American and Vietnamese people in America. The puppeteers are embarking on a tour of California, San Fransisco and Santa Cruz. Don’t worry, however, for those of you going to Vietnam or thinking about a holiday there soon, daily shows will still be performed at the Water Puppets Theatre in Hanoi.

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