Category Archives: Marco Polo

PARADISE BURNING: Southeast Asian Haze the Worst in History

As schools here in Malaysia remain closed for a second day due to ‘the haze’ — a rather soft euphemism for toxic pollution coming from burning rain forest — the new issue of TIME Magazine quotes NASA as proclaiming this current event as among the worst in history. United Nations have declared this thing “an… Read More »

Purple Haze

Here in Malaysia the skies have been heavy with smoke-haze and even the most smoghardened veterans of L.A. on our crew are finding it daunting. The haze, what the locals here call Jerabu, is a direct result of C0-2 rich peatland burning out of control on the island of Sumatra (western Indonesia and Borneo). As… Read More »

Happy 800th Birthday, Kublai Khan

This September 23rd marks the 800th birthday of Kublai Khan, greatest of the Mongol rulers (after his grandfather Genghis), brilliant statesman, founder of China’s Yuan Dynasty, and, as historian John Man puts it bluntly ‘the greatest CEO in world history.’ It’s been a privilege to bring this larger than life historical titan to the global… Read More »

In Memory of Ju Kun – One Year Later

It was one year ago this month that we lost our dear friend Ju Kun in what has become known as the biggest aviation mystery in history. I remember the day all too well. It was an early Saturday morning, March 8th, when I drove from my rented townhouse to Pinewood Studios in Johor Bahru.… Read More »