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The Vivaldi Italian Restaurant at the Amari Atrium Hotel in Bangkok was offering guests what it claims to be the world's most expensive Valentine's Cocktail - the Amore d'Amari Ruby Martini - over Valentine's Day 2007.

After a grueling decade-long wait in a Thai refugee camp, two thousand Burmese Karen refugees are finally to be given a permanent home in Canada. 

Vietnam offers many exotic splendors for the visitors of the Southeast Asian country. However, for a foreigner wanting to marry a Vietnamese citizen in Vietnam , the procedure can be very bureaucratic and demanding. 

It's a late Saturday afternoon in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and the waterfront along the Tonle Sap River is the place to be.

The unmarked path twists off a dirt road and into the forest, and within a few seconds there is the surreal sight of pale white bodies swathed in colorful sarongs, milling around a wooden house on stilts. Up the stairs, a woman named Noi greets guests, sends them to a ramshackle changing room and then into a windowless cell where three benches are barely visible through the dense steam infused with eucalyptus, citrus, rosemary, lemongrass, basil and mint. She offers weak tea to sweat-drenched survivors, who are encouraged to take a fresh sarong and lie down on one of six beds for a slow but powerful massage in the open air.

Lao women seeking to escape poverty and poor education are increasingly ending up as sex workers in Laos and neighboring Thailand, mainly to support their families and themselves, experts say.

There is an enduring myth that in 1948, when it achieved independence from Britain, Burma was a rich country with every reason to expect a bright future and that the policies and practices of the military government are alone to blame for today’s miseries. It is beyond dispute that many of these policies and practices have been disastrous. But there is a deeper history of misfortune which needs to be understood.

Two things you need when exploring the ancient city of Angkor in Cambodia: First -- hire a quick-witted guide who can snake you in and out of temples without getting tangled with tour bus crowds. Second -- find a swimming pool. Cambodia is one hot little country and even the most intrepid temple prowler will want to slide into cool water after poking around the tumbled ruins of these looming structures of the ancient Khmer empire.

By Anne Chalfant in The San Jose Mercury News.

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