EAST SIDERS: Asia

1. Alma-Ata in Kazakhstan. In 1854 the Russians built Verniy, a fort in the foothills of the Tien Shan mountains. In 1921 a vote changed the name of the city to Alma-Ata, which means “father of apples” and in 1929 the city became the capital of Kazakhstan, home to the forebears of many modern apple varieties. The apples in supermarkets are probably descended from those that still grow wild in the country.

2. Singapore. The Malay word Singapura is borrowed from Sanskrit. The kingdoms of south-east Asia and Indonesia were influenced by the spread of Indian civilisation, and the region’s languages have also borrowed heavily from Sanskrit. The Sanskrit word also lives on in Singh, which makes up part of the name of every male Sikh.

3. Bangkok. Translated as “village of wild plums”, Bangkok was the original site of the capital city located across the Chao Phraya river from the present-day capital. In 1782, King Rama I founded his new capital, Krung Thep (“The City of Angels”), in a position that could be better defended. The full name of the city is in fact Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Ayuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit.

4. Kuala Lumpur. Chinese prospectors in search of tin set up camp in 1857, at the spot where Kuala Lumpur now stands. Within a month most of them had died of malaria and other tropical diseases. But the tin they discovered brought in more miners and Kuala Lumpur quickly became a boomtown.

5. Myanmar. In 2005 the country’s then military rulers moved the capital from Yangon to a new purpose-built site, constructed in secret in the middle of nowhere. In 1970 the military junta had also sowed confusion by suddenly switching the country from driving on the left to driving on the right, although most cars were right-hand drive.

6. Bhutan. The remote mountain kingdom on the edge of the Himalayas did away with using economic growth as a yardstick for development and enshrined GNH as the measure of development in the constitution of 2008.

7. East Pakistan. In 1971 a war between India and Pakistan spilled over into a battle for independence in East Pakistan, which led to the secession of the country and the creation of the state of Bangladesh.

8. Strait of Malacca. By linking the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea, the Strait of Malacca is the shortest sea route between India and China. It is therefore one of the busiest shipping channels in the world. Singapore sits at the strait’s southern end.

9. Russia. The Russo-Japanese war was fought to establish dominance over Korea and Manchuria in China. The Russian government sent its Baltic fleet all the way to the other side of the planet to link up with its Pacific squadron. The Baltic fleet took over six months to reach its destination where it was soundly beaten by the Japanese.

10. Nepal. It is the only national flag which is not a quadrilateral. The design is based on pennants of rival branches of the Rana dynasty, which once ruled the country. The two designs were combined and adopted as the official flag in 1962, along with a constitutional government. The moon in the upper triangle represents the royal house. The sun in the lower part symbolises another branch of the Rana family.

11. Yellow River and the Mekong. The Yangtze, which stretches over 3,900 miles (6,276km) from Shanghai through the heart of China, is the world’s third-longest river. The Yellow river, or Huang He, is known as the “mother river” of China and flows 3,400 miles from Qinghai province in western China to the Bohai Sea. The course of the Mekong takes it 3,050 miles from the Tibetan plateau in China through Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.

12. K2 and Kangchenjunga. K2, also known as Mount Godwin-Austen or Chhogori, is located in the Karakoram range on the China–Pakistan border and is 28,250 feet (8,611 metres) in height. Kangchenjunga, at 28,200 feet, lies on the border between Nepal and the Indian state of Sikkim.

13. Attain the rank of Sumo grand champion or Yokozuna. Japan has not bred a grand champion since 1998. All those since have come from Mongolia or American Samoa.

14. It can be deadly. Fugu, or puffer fish, is a delicacy, served in wafer-thin slices at the best sushi restaurants. But the intestines, ovaries and liver contain a poison called tetrodotoxin and chefs must undergo three years of training to get a licence to prepare the fish for diners.

15. Nara and Kyoto. Japan’s capital was the hometown of the emperor and when he died the ancients believed that the place of death was stricken with eternal bad luck and the capital was moved from place to place. Nara became Japan’s permanent capital in 710. In 794 Emperor Kammu moved the seat of government to Kyoto. It remained the capital until the Imperial Restoration in 1868.

16. Tokyo was the venue for the summer Olympics in 1964. But the last games held in the country were in 1998, when the winter Olympics took place in Nagano. The winter games were also held in Sapporo in 1972.

17. Flower arranging. Ikebana derives from the Buddhist ritual of offering flowers to the spirits of the dead. The Japanese have raised it to the status of an art form.

18. Busan. The population of Seoul is over 10 million. Busan, located on the south-east coast at the mouth of South Korea’s longest waterway, the Nakdong river, is home to 3.6 million people.

19. Pol Pot. Pol Pot’s communist Khmer Rouge led Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. Around 1.5 million (or perhaps even more) died of starvation and disease or were executed by a brutal regime trying to create a classless peasant society. A Vietnamese army force deposed the Khmer Rouge in 1979 and, after several years in hiding, Pol Pot died in 1998 under house arrest.

20. Four. Yap, Chuuk, Pohnpei and Kosrae. Together they make up around 600 islands in the Pacific.

21. Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil. Over 422 million Indians speak Hindi. There are some 83 million Bengali speakers. Telugu, the language of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, is spoken by 74 million. Marathi, predominantly spoken in Maharashtra, claims 72 million speakers. And Tamil is mainly spoken in Tamil Nadu as well as Sri Lanka. But taking into account second and third languages, English is the number two language in India.

22. Goa. Vasco da Gama first arrived in Goa in 1498 and it came under the rule of the Portuguese in 1510, who wanted to establish a trading post in India. The Portuguese stayed for nearly five centuries and refused to budge even after the rest of India gained independence in 1947. In December 1961 the Indian army crossed into Goa, and Portugal finally lost its grip on the territory.

23. Turkmenistan. Niyazov styled himself the Turkmenbashi, or “father of Turkmen”, and like most dictators, looted his country’s wealth. He spent much of it building up a bizarre personality cult. Ashgabat, the capital, was awash with giant portraits and gold statues of the man including one that constantly revolved through 360 degrees, so that it always faced the sun.

24. Uzbekistan. The country is surrounded by Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, none of which have coastlines on open sea, so is also–stan locked. There are only two double landlocked countries in the world. The other is Liechtenstein, which is surrounded by Austria and Switzerland.

25. The first Indochina war of 1946–54. After the second world war France hoped to hang on to Vietnam, its former colonial possession. Ho Chi Minh, leader of the communists, declared independence in 1945. After a long guerrilla war his Viet Minh forces attacked 13,000 entrenched French troops at Dien Bien Phu, and after a siege lasting 57 days the French were defeated, ending their colonial rule in Indochina. America stepped into the gap and another long war began.

26. Hue. The city, located in central Vietnam, became the capital when Gia Long, the first of the Nguyen dynasty emperors, chose the location for his imperial city. The citadel, enclosed by thick walls and surrounded by a moat, and the tombs of Nguyen kings in the nearby area, have been classified by UNESCO as a world heritage site. The capital was moved in 1945 after Bao Dai, last of the Nguyen emperors, abdicated and a communist government was established in Hanoi.

27. The kip. The Free Lao kip was briefly introduced in 1945 before the French colonial powers took control and replaced it with the piaster. The “royal” kip was reintroduced in 1952 and lasted until 1976 when the Pathet Lao kip marked the communist movement’s takeover of the country. After rapid inflation, this was replaced by the new kip in 1979 at a ratio of 100:1. The 500 kip note is the smallest denomination in circulation and the country uses no coins.

28. Siem Reap. The vast expanse of Angkor in northern Cambodia is probably the most important archaeological site in south-east Asia. It was once the centre of the Khmer Kingdom and is littered with temples such as Angkor Wat, water courses and other structures. Siem Reap today is a major tourist destination, full of hotels and restaurants that cater to visitors to the ancient site.

29. Squash. Mr Khan first won the world title in 1987 and dominated the sport thereafter. He not only won eight world titles, the last in 1996 (and lost in the final once to his Pakistani rival Jahangir Khan in 1988), but also won the prestigious British Open six times between 1992 and 1997. But some say that Jahangir was the better player. He won the world title six times, the British Open a record ten times and went on a 555-match unbeaten run that lasted five years.

30. Lollywood. Bollywood is so called because the main centre of Indian film making is Mumbai, the name by which Bombay is now known. The Pakistan’s film industry has a strong presence in Lahore, earning it the nickname Lollywood, though Karachi now rivals Lahore for prominence.

31. The Gobi desert covers 1.3 million km² (502,000 miles²) of both southern Mongolia and parts of north and north-west China and is still expanding. Its dry climate is attributable to its position in the lee of the Himalayas, which blocks rain-laden clouds from reaching most of the Gobi. The desert is a valuable source of dinosaur fossils including the first ever discovery of dinosaur eggs. Gobi means “large and dry” in the Mongolian language.

32. King Philip II of Spain. Philip was king of Spain from 1556 to 1598. Yet in 1543 Ruy López de Villalobos, an explorer, named the islands of Leyte and Samar as Las Islas Filipinas. At the time, Philip was merely the prince of Asturias. (Over the next 300 years, the Spanish colonised the other islands that now make up the Philippines.)

33. The 38th parallel. The actual border now cuts across this circle of latitude but the name has stuck. At the end of the second world war, the Allies had to decide what to do with Japan’s colony. A dividing line was proposed by America that extended far enough north to include Seoul and this was acceptable to the Soviet Union, which had troops in Korea long before the Americans arrived. After the Korean war the adversaries agreed to turn the frontline into the de facto border. Its proximity to the 38th parallel was no coincidence—the status quo had been restored.

34. The Yalu or Amnok River. The river, around 500 miles (805km) long, flows from the Tian Lake (known in Korean as Chon Lake) on Mount Baitou (Paektu) on the China–North Korea border to the Korean Bay.

35. Shoes. When she and her husband fled the Philippines as mass demonstrations against his rule gathered strength, airlifted from the presidential palace in Manila by American helicopter, they left their possessions behind. These included, by some accounts, 3,000 pairs of shoes belonging to Imelda. Over 800 pairs have found their way to the museum. Many others have reportedly been attacked by termites and damaged by flooding while in storage.

36. The Beach. The novel, later filmed with Leonardo di Caprio in the lead role, was published in 1996 and is narrated by Richard, a young British traveller who acquires a map leading to a secluded beach, legendary among backpackers. But the community that lives there, seemingly in paradise, pays a high price for its existence.

37. Kabul. The British, who ruled India at the time, suspected that the Russian empire to the north had its eye on its prized colony. By conquering Afghanistan the British sought to stop a Russian invasion through the Khyber pass. British and Indian troops reached Kabul in April 1839 but resentment at their presence grew and the outnumbered British force negotiated a retreat to Jalalabad in India. But 4,500 British troops and 12,000 civilians who had followed the army to Kabul were all picked off in the mountain passes—part from Dr Brydon, who may have been allowed to live by the Afghans in order to tell the horrifying tale.

38. Thailand, Laos and Myanmar. The “golden triangle”, where the Ruak River flows into the Mekong, is known as Sop Ruak locally. Its more familiar name is thought to have originated in America’s State Department, when it had its eye on the opium that emanated from the remote area. Now it is also known as a tourist spot.

39. Mongolia. There are less than two Mongolians per square kilometre. But there are other places where the neighbours may be farther away. In Greenland, which is administratively part of Denmark, there are just 0.1 people per square kilometre (0.26 people per square mile) and in the Falkland Islands, a possession of the United Kingdom, 0.2 people.

40. Javan rhino. The beast, whose distribution once extended from north-east India, through mainland south-east Asia, to the island of Sumatra, has a single horn of up to about 10 inches (254mm). Vietnam’s last Javan rhino was killed by poachers in 2010 and now just 60 or so survive in the wild in Indonesia in the Ujung Kulon National Park.

41. West. The massive eruption of Krakatau, as the volcano is correctly known, is said to have killed 36,000 people. The sound of the explosion was reputedly heard 3,000 miles away and the ash thrown up affected global weather patterns for years. The producers are said to have stuck with “east” as it sounded better than west.

42. Jindo. Medium-sized and muscular and originally bred to hunt deer, rabbits and boars, the Jindo is also popular with dog aficionados outside South Korea. The breed was officially recognised by the United Kingdom Kennel Club in 2005 and the American Kennel Club in 2008.

43. Tamerlane. Timur-i lang, or “Timur the Lame” as he was known by Europeans during the 16th century. His Turkic name was Timur, which means “iron”. He was wounded while stealing sheep in his youth and was left lame in the right leg and with a stiff right arm for the rest of his life. From 1370 until his death in 1405, Timur built a powerful empire and was the last of the great nomadic leaders. His conquests were noted not only for their extent but also for their ferocity.

44. Robert Louis Stevenson. The Scottish author of Treasure Island, Kidnapped and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde came to the South Pacific in 1888 to write about life on the islands and for the sake of his health. The tropical climate helped his tuberculosis and he decided to stay in Samoa where he built a mansion overlooking the sea. Sadly, despite the good weather, he died there at the age of 44 in 1894.

45. Cox’s Bazar. Captain Hiram Cox was appointed as the superintendent of Palonki (today’s Cox’s Bazar) after Warren Hastings became the governor of Bengal. To commemorate his role in establishing the place as an important market town, it was named after him.

46. Mount Pinatubo. The volcano’s apparent lack of activity had encouraged tens of thousands to make homes on its slopes and surrounding valleys. But it was not extinct and an earthquake the previous year seems to have triggered the eruption. Fortunately seismologists saw the eruption coming and thousands were evacuated from the surrounding area. Nevertheless, around 800 people lost their lives.

47. Mohammad Ali Jinnah. Jinnah, a lawyer based in Bombay (now Mumbai) and a believer in Hindu-Muslim unity, came to the conclusion that a homeland was the only way to safeguard the rights of Indian Muslims. Negotiations with the British government resulted in the partition of India and the formation of Pakistan in August 1947. But the birth of the new country came at the cost of violence and a vast movement of people between the new states in which hundreds of thousands died.

48. India and Sri Lanka. The strait, between 40 and 80 miles (64 and 128km) wide and around 85 miles long, connects the Bay of Bengal to the north-east with Palk Bay and the Gulf of Mannar to the south-west. It is peppered with islands and reefs that are known as Adam’s Bridge. The port of Jaffna, northern Sri Lanka’s main city, lies on the shore of the strait.

49. Taipei, Taiwan. With 101 storeys above ground and at a height of 1,671 feet (509 metres) the building formerly known as the Taipei World Financial Centre surpassed the 1,483-foot Petronas Towers located in Kuala Lumpur. It held the record until 2010, with the opening of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai at 2,717 feet.

50. Rhododendron. Rhodos (rose) dendron (tree). The vast Rhododendron forests of Nepal attract thousands of trekkers when the plants are flowering in March and May. The Himalayas are home to the widest variety of species with Nepal alone home to over 30, where locals use the trees for traditional medicine, firewood and furniture and the flowers for food—though with care, as the plants can be highly toxic. Smaller species of rhododendrons are found elsewhere—in America it is the state flower of both West Virginia and Washington.