Tom Vater has been traveling in and writing about South Asia since 1993. He first visited Cambodia in 2001 to document the indigenous minorities in Mondulkiri for the British Library’s International Sound Archive, and instantly fell in love with the country. A year later, Tom co-wrote and production-managed a documentary on Angkor for German-French television, which gave him the opportunity to spend several weeks amongst the temples. Since then, he has returned to Cambodia several times a year to cover the country’s politics and culture for many different publications. He is a regular contributor to Cambodia’s South Eastern Globe, an English-language magazine. On his journeys around the country, he has joined kings, pilgrims, soldiers, secret agents, pirates, hippies, police officers, and prophets. Everyone put up with him longer than he deserved.

Tom is the author of numerous guidebooks, non-fiction titles, and a novel, and has co-written several documentary screenplays for European television. His feature articles, mostly on Asian subjects and destinations, have been published around the world in publications such as The Wall Street Journal, the South China Morning Post, the Far Eastern Economic Review, Marie Claire and many others. Tom often works with his wife, photographer Aroon Thaewchatturat (www.aroonthaew.com), with whom he shares a home in Bangkok and has published three photo books on South Asia.