Southeast Asia and India are two of the world's most popular tourist destinations, and for good reasons.
Many of the countries here have it all: a tropical climate, warm all year around, fascinating culture, gorgeous beaches, wonderful food and charming people. It is also a region of contrasts. Here you will find from high-tech modern cities and centres of world trade rubbing shoulders with serene Buddhist temples and floating markets.
LAND OF WONDERS
It is the great buildings and monuments that have captivated visitors to Asia for centuries. The beauty and grandeur of the Taj Mahal and the mysterious temples of Angkor are equal to that of those iconic buildings of Western civilisation, the Parthenon and the Coliseum. The artistic treasures of Southeast Asia are also some of the most dazzling and opulent to be found anywhere in the world. Perhaps the most impressive of all is the Golden Buddha in Bangkok that is made from 5 ½ tons of solid gold.
The natural beauty is also breathtaking: from the islands of Phi Phi in Thailand and Halong Bay in Vietnam to the rainforests of Borneo and the plantations of Sri Lanks, the landscapes are both exotic and enchanting.
A SENSE SENSATION
Then, of course, there is the food. In India and Southeast Asian countries, eating is a national pastime. The tastes are so amazing, so diverse, so fresh, so flavourful, so wonderful. You may have tried Thai, Vietnamese or Indian food at home, but they can’t match the freshness of ingredients used here nor the experience and verve used to create the mouthwatering masterpieces.
The markets, too, are a treat with their fragrant spices, exotic fruits and unusual produce (some you may want to try, others not!)
HEROES, GODS AND EMPIRES: A BRIEF HISTORY
This brief history of the India and Southeast Asia will explore the internal and external forces that have shaped this fascinating region.
INDIA: THE ARYAN INVASION AND ALEXANDER
Sometime after 1500 BC, the Aryans (from the Sanskrit word for noble) arrived in northern India from Central Asia and Afghanistan. It was at this time that the Hindu sacred texts, the Vedas, were written and the caste system – originally designed to keep Aryans and indigenous non-Aryans apart - was developed.
By the 5th century BC, the Aryans had completed their conquest but they soon faced a threat from the West in the form of that most famous of ancient warriors, Alexander the Great. In 327 BC, Alexander with his army reinforced with several thousand Persian cavalrymen crossed into India and in 326, defeated the most powerful Indian leader Porus at the Battle of the River Hydaspes. Victory was bittersweet for Alexander as during the battle his horse, Bucephalus, was fatally wounded. Alexander had ridden Bucephalus into every one of his battles in Greece and Asia: his death left the mighty conqueror devastated. In 325 BC, Alexander reached the mouth of the River Indus and here, to the relief of the local kings, he turned back and headed home.
THE MYSTERY BARABUDUR AND THE GOD KINGS OF ANKOR
There is no written record of who built the Buddhist monument of Borobudur in Java or, indeed, of its intended purpose. The construction time has been estimated to have taken place during the 8th and 9th centuries. The building is thought to have taken about 75 years and been completed during the reign of King Samaratungga in 825.
Borobudur lay hidden for centuries under layers of volcanic ash and jungle growth and the facts behind its abandonment remain a mystery. It is not known when active use of the monument and Buddhist pilgrimage to it ceased. Sometime between 928 and 1006, King Mpu Sindok moved the capital of the Medang Kingdom to the region of East Java after a series of volcanic eruptions; it is not certain whether this influenced the abandonment, but several sources mention this as the most likely period of abandonment.
At this time, the Khmer Empire centred on Angkor, one of the world’s most remarkable civilisations, was flourishing in the jungles of Cambodia. Between the 8th and 13th centuries, a succession of Hindu and Buddhist kings created the most magnificent stone temples. Their elaborate carvings and intricate architecture amazed the first Europeans who visited in the 19th century and continue to inspire wonder today.
THE RISE OF THE MUGHAL EMPIRE
The greatest flourishing of Indian culture, art, and imperial strength undoubtedly took place during the reign of the Mughal monarchs of the 16th and 17th centuries. The Mughals were Central Asian descendents of the great Mongol warriors Ghengis Khan and Timur (Tamerlane), whose hordes of cavalry swept across the Eurasian steppe in the 13th and 14th centuries, conquering everything between Beijing and Budapest. But by the turn of the 16th century, the great Mongol empire has splintered; the many royal descendents of Ghengis and Timur fought over the territorial scraps and did their best to hold on to their own minor sultanates.
One of these sultans, Babur turned his attention south to the sultanate of Delhi in northern India, which had been ruled successively by five dynasties of Muslim warriors from Afghanistan since the late 12th century. As history would show, Babur's campaign against the Delhi sultanate catalyzed the foundation of one of the greatest dynasties in the history of south Asia: the Mughal Empire.
Mughal rule lasted for nearly 300 years and during this time art and architecture thrived: indeed, it is the monuments of the Mughals that made India famous.
THE COMING OF THE EUROPEANS
The Portuguese were the first Europeans to arrive in India when, in 1498, Vasco da Gama landed on the coast at modern day Kerala. In 1510, Portuguese forces captured Goa and in 1511 they seized the Malaysian maritime state of Malacca. The Portuguese went on to establish colonies in Vietnam, Burma and Java. This enabled them to found a monopoly over Indian and Southeast Asian trade. The main impetus for this European expansion was the search for spices and the opportunity to open up trade with China.
This new source of riches to not go unnoticed in the West and the Portuguese soon faced competition was the British, Dutch and French. In 1600, Elizabeth I awarded a charter to a London trading company to open up trade with India: the East India Company was born.
As Jan Morris explains in Heaven’s Command, the first volume in her brilliant history of the British Empire, the East India Company arrived in India “first as a trading organization, then as an instrument of supremacy”. Having established its first trading post at Surat in Gujarat in 1612, the Company soon expanded to Madras, Bengal and Bombay.
The British soon increased their Southeast Asian possessions to Burma, Penang, Singapore and Malacca. Elsewhere the French established control in Vietnam and the Dutch consolidated power in Borneo and the East Indies. Only Siam – modern-day Thailand- escaped colonisation and remained independent.
BRITISH INDIA AND THE AGE OF EMPIRE
There was a time when every schoolroom map of the world showed the imperial red of the British Empire stretching from pole to pole. Motivated first by trade and later by the moral imperative to abolish slavery and spread the Christian message - what Jan Morris terms “High and Holy Work” - the British spread their influence to every part of the globe.
Through charismatic, and at times ruthless, figures such as Robert Clive and Warren Hastings, Britain had expanded its influence in India throughout the eighteenth century. By the early 1900s, almost the entire sub-continent – and, indeed, a great deal of the Far East - was subjugated and would remain so until after the Second World War.
The Empire reached its zenith during the reign of Queen Victoria between 1837 and 1897. This desire for empire writes Jan Morris was “a yearning among many British people to break out of their gentle northern setting, all greens and greys, into more vivid places, where fortunes could be made, outrageous enterprises undertaken, and the restrictive rules of scale and conduct flamboyantly disregarded. These impulses were by no means always altruistic, and were often brutal.”
WORLD WAR II AND INDEPENDENCE
The years of Japanese occupation changed the social and political cultures of Southeast Asia. The humiliation of the ruling powers at the hand of the Japanese gave nationalists a new confidence and opened the way for charismatic leaders to come to the fore. The road to freedom, however, was often traumatic and violent.
Unlike the British who, even before the rise of Mahatma Gandhi, realised that they could no longer afford to hold on to India, the French were determined to hold on to Indo China (Vietnam) the jewel in their colonial crown. Ironically, the nationalist leader Ho Chi Minh had received assistance from the US for his struggle against the Japanese in World War II and so was well placed to continue the fight against the French in 1945. By 1954, the Viet Minh were in control of much of Vietnam and neighbouring Laos. In May of that year, Ho’s forces besieged 10,000 French troops at Dien Bien Phu and this was a defeat from which the colonial rulers would never recover.
The ensuing peace conference in Geneva made the fateful decision to divide Vietnam in to the communist Democratic Republic in the north and the South governed by the rabidly anti-communist Catholic Ngo Dinh Diem.
Malaya, Indonesia and Burma all faced their own struggles to achieve independence and these conflicts ensured that Southeast Asia was to be one of the hottest theatres of the Cold War.
THE VIETNAM WAR AND BEYOND
The Vietnam War engulfed Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of South Vietnam, supported by the United States and other anti-communist nations.
In 1968, the North Vietnamese launched a surprise attack during the Tet New Year celebrations and after this American ground forces began to be withdrawn. American military involvement ended on 15 August 1973 and the capture of Saigon by the North Vietnamese army in April 1975 marked the end of the Vietnam War.
The end of conflict in Vietnam did not, however, bring peace to Southeast Asia and the expansion of the war into Cambodia resulted in one of the most tragic episodes in world history. After a civil war and the defeat of the American backed president Lon Nol, Cambodia was subjected to the genocidal rule of the Khmer Rouge. Under the leadership of General Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge unleashed one of the most brutal and total restructurings of society ever attempted. The terror was brought to an end in 1978 by the invasion of the Vietnamese but recovery from the trauma continues to this day.
TIGER ECONOMIES AND THE RISE OF THE EAST
Led by India and China, Asia has experienced a boom over recent years. This economic confidence is spreading throughout the region, and the economies of both Vietnam and Cambodia are on the rise. With this revival has come an opening up to visitors and a renewed interest in the history and cultures of Southeast Asia in the West.
As you travel through this fascinating and beautiful part of the world, you will no doubt witness this dynamism for the future but will, hopefully, also appreciate the magnificence of its past.
