by Christopher Shay

From the back of a rickshaw in the busy streets of Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital, Taimur Islam shook his head and pointed to an old residential building being torn down. “There’s goes another one,” he said. “It never stops.

Islam, an architect, is the head of the Urban Study Group, a small band of architects founded in 2004 that are campaigning to save the cultural heritage of Puran Dhaka, the most historic area in the city. The group has documented some 3,000 heritage buildings in Puran Dhaka, most of which have fallen into disrepair and are in danger of destruction. With about 700,000 inhabitants, the 24-sq-mile area is one of the most densely populated parts of an already packed city.

“It’s dirty. It’s messy. It’s crowded,” Islam said about Puran Dhaka, but that is part of its charm.

There are colourfully decorated rickshaws around every bend, tea shops on every block and kids playing cricket wherever they eek out the space. Calls for prayer echo from the mosques, and samosa sellers invite passers-by into their shops — oftentimes offering foreigners free samples.

To raise awareness of Dhaka’s heritage before it disappears, Islam runs two Urban Study Group walking tours a week for Bangladesh’s expatriate community and the rare tourist. A small donation of 500 taka is requested per person. Starting at 8 am and usually lasting until 11 am on Friday and Saturday, Islam guides people through the confusing warren of alleys to 400-year-old forts, tranquil Christian cemeteries and colonial mansions. He offers 10 different tour routes – each one shows a different part of Puran Dhaka and each is a fascinating three-hour history lesson through Dhaka’s past.

Dhaka became the Mughal capital of Bengal in the early 17th Century, during which the city was bustling trading metropolis. The Mughals built caravansaries (accommodations for camel caravans), palaces and bazaars, remnants of which can be seen on the walking tours. Trade flowed through the city, and a few merchants — many of them Hindu or Armenian — acquired great wealth, building stately colonial mansions next to the Buriganga River. Dhaka was one of the largest, most important cities on the subcontinent.

But it did not last. With the British takeover of Bengal in the mid-18th Century, Dhaka’s population and influence declined as the empire’s new colonial capital, Calcutta, flourished. By 1824, a visiting Anglican bishop from Calcutta called Dhaka a city of “magnificent ruins”.

After partition— when Pakistan, which included Bangladesh, split off from India in 1947 — most of the remaining Hindu merchants left, abandoning their homes. The wealthy Armenian community, which once numbered around 300 families, almost all died or left.

On one typical tour, Islam leads the group through the chawkbazaar, a 400-year-old bewildering maze of street market stalls, packed with everything from electronic goods to sweets. Just south of the bazaar lies the Barakatra, once the tallest structure in Dhaka. Built in the 17th Century, it housed 22 shops and acted as a grand inn for travelling merchants. Today, only about half the Mughal building stands, and ramshackle residences — even a public bathroom — have been cut into the building. You can still stand in one of the two remaining gateways and imagine trading caravans passing through.

Though the grand old merchant homes are falling apart, Islam’s tours take visitors into the courtyards to meet the families now living there. Bright saris hang on ornate, rusty railings. Kids play hopscotch in front of chipped colonnades. An 18th-century Armenian Church and a Christian cemetery dated to around 1600 – two quiet havens in the din of Puran Dhaka – offer respite from the often hot and dusty surrounds. The tour also includes pausing at one of Puran Dhaka’s small tea establishments for a short break of Bangladesh’s deliciously sweet tea.

The tours often end at the Buriganga River, which he calls the “beating heart of Dhaka”. On one tour, he takes the group to a rooftop overlooking the river, to see the heavily trafficked waterway filled with small, wooden boats, ferrying people and goods across.

Islam’s goal to restore Dhaka’s heritage buildings and attract tourists is going to be a challenge. As people have migrated from rural areas to the city, Dhaka’s population has increased from about 6.5 million in 1990 to about 15 million in 2010, with many of new residents living in slums. There is pressure to build up and modernize the city’s overburdened infrastructure. Boxy, concrete buildings pop up quickly and are often shoddily constructed, and the city says more than 20% of the buildings would collapse if it were hit by an earthquake with a magnitude of 7 on the Richter scale. Additionally, conserving the city’s cultural heritage does not appear high on many politicians’ to-do lists.

While the Urban Study Group has had some notable successes, like preventing the destruction of the 400-year-old Shakhari Bazaar, Islam is pessimistic about Puran Dhaka’s future. At this rate, he said, “the buildings will all be gone in three or four years.”

by Christopher Shay / Dhaka

On March 27, Bangladeshi doctors amputated the leg of Limon Hossain, a 16-year-old student, four days after he was shot during a raid by the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), Bangladesh’s elite security force. Almost everyday since, Hossain’s name has made headlines in Bangladesh, becoming a symbol of accusations that the governments paramilitary force acts as judge, jury and executioner in its official mission to clean up this south Asian nation of crime and corruption. “RAB is misusing their power,” Hossain says. “They are killing people.”

On March 23, Hossain says he was taking his family’s calf back home from the fields to his village of Jhalakati in southwest Bangladesh. Out of nowhere, he says, members of RAB arrived on motorbikes. One grabbed Hossain’s collar and accused him of being a criminal. Another pulled out a gun and put it against Hossain’s head. Weeping, the boy fell to the ground, pleading for his life. After dragging him to another spot in the village, a RAB member pulled out a revolver and shot him point blank in his left leg. Days later, doctors had cut it off to save his life.

RAB, of course, has a very different story. According to RAB’s Commander Mohammad Sohail, the village of Jhalakati is the hub of a powerful syndicate headed by Morshed Jamaddar. Everyone there, says Sohail, is in the pocket of Morshed’s gang. He says law enforcement agencies have filed 19 cases against Jamaddar, including rape, murder and abduction, and that the Morshed gang has bought “everyone except RAB” — including some local politicians.

Sohail says RAB, headquartered in Dhaka, had heard information that Jamaddar was in the village on March 27, and dispatched a team to capture him. When RAB approached, gang members shot at them, and RAB returned fire. Hossain, Sohail says, was a Morshed lackey caught in the crossfire. “The other story,” he says, “is made up by bad people.” RAB filed cases against Hossain for illegal arms possession, obstructing law enforcement agents and attempted murder the same day as the shooting.

Dressed in all-black uniforms with black bandanas and wraparound sunglasses, RAB cuts an imposing presence on the streets of Bangladesh. The group was founded in 2004 during a time of “huge deterioration of law and order in the country,” according to Sohail. Drug lords, extremists and arms traffickers worked with impunity. Brad Adams, the Asia director of Human Rights Watch, says when RAB was created, “rich people implicated in serious crime could buy their way out.”

By selecting the best from the military and police and loaning them to RAB in two-year rotations, the force was supposed to be above corruption and put an end to the crime wave. By that measure, even the groups harshest critics — and there are many outside of Bangladesh — admit it has been successful. Since 2004, the force of about 8,500 has captured more than 95,000 criminals and confiscated 10,000 illegal firearms, 5,000 bombs and grenades and 400 kilos of heroin, according to RAB statistics.

The problems with RAB began, says Adams, when its members began taking justice into their own hands. “They started targeting criminals, because they had no faith in the criminal justice system,” he says. RAB admits that their team members have killed some 600 criminals in firefights since 2004, though Odhikhar, a Bangladeshi human rights group, says the real number is over 730. Human rights organizations say many of those deaths have been intentional extrajudicial killings, sometimes targeting the wrong individual, and that RAB employs violent methods in questioning their suspects.

In May, Human Rights Watch released a report cataloging some of RAB’s alleged torture incidents and killings, including a case in which they say RAB mistakenly murdered a man because he had the same nickname as a criminal. According to the report, no one has ever been punished in connection to any of the 600-plus deaths. Sohail says Human Rights Watch didn’t approach RAB for information and relied on family members of those who had been shot for information. The result, he says, is that the report is “a one-sided complaint book of the criminals and their families.”

And despite human rights groups’ objections, RAB still enjoys wide grassroots support. In a 2009 cable released by Wikileaks, the U.S. ambassador to Bangladesh called RAB the country’s “most respected police unit.” Interviews in Bangladesh bear this out. In a typical comment, Anthony Sarker, a hotel manager, said “RAB are real heroes to the poor. They are like black pirates.” He not only acknowledged that RAB oversteps its mandate; he said it was necessary. “The normal judicial processes dont work, so sometimes its best to control a criminal RAB’s way,” said Sarker.

This kind of attitude may be changing. Recently, Bangladeshi newspapers have been more openly critical of RAB’s alleged extra-judicial killings. Adams says that for the first time, significant segments of public opinion are being critical of RAB’s ethics. How the upcoming Hossain court cases play out in public will be a telling barometer of RAB’s support.

Recovering at a hospital in Dhaka, Hossain and his family fear the lives that await them back in their village. Hossain’s mother has sued six members of RAB, but there has yet to be a hearing on their case. “I don’t think there’s any hope,” says Tofazzal Hossain, Limon’s father. He says RAB has powerful allies who have physically threatened his family. “We sued them,” he says, “because we didn’t want any another boy like Limon to lose his leg. We didn’t want any more mothers to cry or fathers to live in agony.”

by Christopher Shay

The Executive

On her first mountaineering experience, Anita Jensen, commercial director for Skagen Designs in Hong Kong, got lost, threw up from exhaustion and lost nearly six kilograms over seven days.

“We were so naïve. We didn’t know anything,” she says of her and her partner’s trek up the 5,900-meter Mt. Kilimanjaro in 2006.

That trip was just the start of her climbing career. Two years earlier, Ms. Jensen, a 33-year-old Denmark native, spotted a sticker publicizing trekking the Seven Summits, the highest peaks on each of the seven continents: Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa, Mt. Everest in Asia, Mt. Elbrus in Europe, Denali in North America, Aconcagua in South America, Vinson Massif in Antarctica and either Carstensz Pyramid in Indonesia or Mt. Kosciuszko in Australia. Intrigued by the challenge, she decided she would climb them all.

“If there is a goal you can accomplish, then it becomes extremely interesting,” she says.

In 2007, she climbed Mt. Elbrus in Russia—this time with a professional guide and a group. On Aconcagua, two years later, she got a reminder of the dangers of mountaineering. While her group was hiking up, five people in a separate climbing team froze to death near the summit of the nearly 7,000-meter Argentine mountain. She says the group that froze got lost on the way back down the summit, after their guide got altitude sickness and became disoriented. “That can happen to anyone,” she says.

So why does she climb?

“You feel so alive,” she says. “You get a little bit addicted to being in a dangerous scenario.”

And the mountain scenery, despite minus-30 degree Celsius temperatures, is simply stunning: “The reward is looking out your tent with a frozen nose and seeing the most beautiful sunsets,” she says.

Ms. Jensen still has four mountains left on the list, but since her climbing partner broke his leg playing soccer last year, her trekking plans have been put on hold. She hopes to climb Australia’s highest mountain, Mt. Kosciuszko, when his leg recovers later this year.

The Workout

Ms. Jensen has a different exercise routine for every day of the workweek that combines 40-50 minutes of cardio with core work. Every Wednesday, for example, she bikes for 30 minutes, runs for 20 minutes on a treadmill, does three sets of 60 crunches and then does some yoga exercises to stretch and work her core. On Mondays, she bikes for 45 minutes, does her three sets of 60 crunches and then yoga poses. Each day she tweaks her routine to mix things up.

While cardio endurance is important for mountaineering, it needs to be paired with strong calf, thigh and gluteal muscles, Ms. Jensen says. As a climbing trip approaches, she increases the incline on the treadmill to get her leg muscles stronger.

In addition to her cardio and strength training, Ms. Jensen does yoga nidra, or “relaxation yoga,” every day for half an hour. She says yoga nidra helps her lung capacity when trekking: She’s more aware of her breathing, which helps her bring in as much oxygen as she can in the thin mountain air. “Even if you sit and breathe properly for five minutes, it gives you a lot of energy,” she says.

Every weekend, Ms. Jensen goes hiking in Hong Kong for at least 10-20 kilometers. Her favorite trail to get her ready to climb a mountain is the Lead Mine Pass near Hong Kong’s tallest peak, Tai Mo Shan, in the New Territories. The trail is about 12 kilometers, and she’ll run up and down the pass two or three times.

The Diet

Ms. Jensen says she carefully balances her diet to keep her healthy and full of energy. A typical day’s meals might be oatmeal or a two-egg omelet for breakfast; a muesli bar and fruit or a protein shake as a midmorning snack; meat, vegetables and rice for lunch; another snack of either a muesli bar and fruit or a protein shake in the afternoon; and fish and vegetables for dinner. She also makes sure to drink at least three liters of water throughout the day.

She admits to having a weakness for one food that isn’t so healthful: “I cannot say no to chocolate,” she says.

When she’s on a mountain, her diet doesn’t stray much from her normal intake, except that she snacks more on chocolate, nuts and muesli bars to make up for the calories lost while trekking.

Cost and Gear

Traveling the world to summit the world’s highest peaks is not cheap. Ms. Jensen estimates it cost her about 60,000 Hong Kong dollars (US$7,700) to climb Aconcagua, including the flight, hiking permits and fees for her climbing group. That cost doesn’t include the gear.

Ms. Jensen says a full kit for mountain climbing costs at least HK$5,000. She says the key for dressing for the mountain is to wear many layers for the varying temperatures. Instead of wearing one heavy jacket, she wears three or four layers of shirts made of a thin and quick-drying material, underneath a wind-resistant jacket. She will wear up to two layers of polypropylene, a sweat-wicking material, beneath her gloves.

Climbing mountains also requires equipment like crampons, which normally cost around HK$1,200; trekking poles, which—if one chooses light carbon-fiber ones like Ms. Jensen—cost about HK$1,500; an ice axe, which runs about HK$550; and goggles or glacier glasses, which cost at least HK$350. Ms. Jensen recommends spending extra money for a top-of-the-line sleeping bag—her Dreamcatcher sleeping bag put her back about HK$3,000. “For a good night’s sleep on the mountain, it’s definitely worth it,” she says.

Ms. Jensen works out during the week at either her gym in her apartment building, which costs HK$150a month, or a membership gym, which costs HK$333 a month.

by Christopher Shay

Hong Kong theme parks are locked in a race to build attractions as they compete for visitors amid rising competition in the region.

The latest splash: A 500-square-meter Amazon exhibit, unveiled by Ocean Park on Tuesday, that features a jungle raft ride, an aviary and live animals, including a now-pregnant anaconda and two capybaras, the world’s largest rodent. In perhaps a gesture meant for competing theme parks, Allan Zeman, chairman of Ocean Park, opened the new attraction, called the Rainforest, wearing Amazon war paint along with a blue headdress and a grass skirt.

The Rainforest, part of a 5.6 billion Hong Kong dollar (US$719.3 million) redevelopment plan by Ocean Park, is just the latest move in the battle for Asia’s fun seekers, especially the growing number of mainland Chinese tourists. Last year, the number of mainland Chinese visitors to Hong Kong jumped more than 26% to nearly 23 million, according to Hong Kong government statistics.

Hong Kong Disneyland, which has yet to earn a profit since it opened in 2005 but had record attendance last year, is in the middle of its own HK$3.6 billion expansion, which includes a Toy Story Land attraction slated to open this year.

In Sentosa, Singapore, the world’s largest saltwater aquarium is set to open in 2012 with some 700,000 fish, blowing Ocean Park’s Aqua City aquarium, which opened in January and houses about 5,000 fish, out of the water. Another massive theme park called Ocean Kingdom, part of a 200 billion yuan (US$30.85 billion) project in Zhuhai, China, just across the border from Macau, is set to open in 2013. Its operators expect to attract 20 million visitors a year with eight different theme areas.

Ocean Park, a 34-year-old Hong Kong government-owned amusement park, saw record attendance last year with more than five million visitors. Mr. Zeman said that the park is expected to set another attendance record this year. He said Aqua City fueled a 20% rise in attendance and he predicts it will jump another 10-15% with the Rainforest. Later this year, as part of the same redevelopment plan, a ride called Thrill Mountain will begin operation. Next year, a re-creation of an old Hong Kong street and a polar-themed attraction are scheduled to open.

Ocean Park’s redevelopment plan is funded by loans, including a HK$1.4 billion one from the Hong Kong government. Mr. Zeman said there are no immediate plans to raise ticket prices to pay for the construction of the new attractions. The park has earned a profit the past seven years.

“As long as we keep coming up with attractions like the Rainforest, I feel very confident we’ll continue to set records,” Mr. Zeman said.

But that doesn’t mean the chairman should remove his war paint just yet. He said that in recent months representatives from Disneyland in Shanghai, which is set to open in 2015, have visited Ocean Park three times.

“The competition is getting better and better,” he said.

by Christopher Shay

Bangladeshis will travel hours to the sleepy town of Srimongol, in Bangladesh’s northeast, just for a cup of Romesh Ram Gour’s famous tea. In a country of avid tea drinkers, Mr. Gour is the inventor behind a seven-layer tea which, he claims, no one else has been able to replicate. Copycats in the region have succeeded in creating five-layer teas, but none have been able to unlock the secret to Mr. Gour’s rainbow brew.

Mr. Gour invented his colorful layered teas 10 years ago, when he was selling tea from a bamboo shack. He says he realized that teas from different leaves have slightly different densities. It took a year of experimenting before he could sell teas with more than two layers. Over the years, he learned to expand to seven.

The kind of layer tea Mr. Gour makes is unique to the Srimongol area. An iced three-layer tea has become popular in the Malaysian state of Sarawak, but those drinks include one type of tea and are typically layered with palm sugar on the bottom, evaporated milk in the middle and tea on the top. What makes Srimongol’s special are the discrete layers of tea blends.

Mr. Gour mixes different types of locally grown tea—three black teas and one green tea— from four types of bushes, with milk and various spices. Each mixture has a distinct color and taste, and he pours one on top of another to create seven distinct bands. Customers sip each layer slowly:  Trying to figure out what’s in each one is a fun act of gustatory detective work. The top layer of the seven-layer tea has hints of cinnamon; the layer below has a slight citrus flavor to it. Mr. Gour says the fourth layer from the top and bottom layer get the most reaction from his customers. The fourth layer is a black tea mixed with condensed milk, while the bottom layer is a sweet, syrupy green tea with cloves, cinnamon and “secret spices.” (Customers can choose to have one to seven layers of tea in their drink.)

In a country that consumes more than 55 million kilograms of tea leaves a year, Mr. Gour’s layered tea has turned him into something of a celebrity. He has shared a cup of his tea with many of Bangladesh’s top politicians, including members of Parliament and the governor of Bangladesh Bank. Bangladeshi newspaper clippings about his tea cover one wall of his open-air shop. In January, he opened a second tea cabin, just down the street from his first one.

A seven-layer drink costs 70 taka, or about one U.S. dollar. It may not sound like much, but most cups of tea in the area cost about seven U.S. cents.

Just how, exactly, Mr. Gour layers the tea is a closely guarded secret. Mr. Gour heads to a back room so he can make his concoction away from prying eyes. He has trusted the recipe to his three sons and brother who work at the shops—only the five them are allowed into the tea-preparation room.

Though imitators have popped up around town, offering their own layered teas, Mr. Gour is leading the competition with most layers. He says after years of practice, he will release a 10-layer tea later this year.

So, is the tea worth the trip?

With its varied flavors, tea connoisseurs are bound to find at least a layer or two they like. The fourth layer from the top stood out with its strong spices, likely some mixture of ginger and cinnamon in a black tea, while the popular bottom layer was a bit on the sweet side (though would have tasted great as a syrup on ice cream). Mr. Gour claims the flavors “will live with you a lifetime,” but there’s no one tea flavor that makes that memorable of a mark. It’s more about the experience – and drink — as a whole: the mystery of the ingredients, the rows of tea bushes just outside the shops and the chance to drink from the hands of a Bangladeshi tea master.

Nilkantha Tea Cabins are on Kalighat Road just a few kilometers outside of the town of Srimongol in Sylhet division, Bangladesh.

Over the weekend, a Bangladeshi hotel manager told me that Dhaka is like a child’s chair meant to hold a 100 pound boy. “But if sumo wrestler sits on it,” he said, “the whole thing collapses.”

One thing is clear from this trip: Over the past couple decades, a sumo wrestler has sat on Dhaka.

Dhaka is the fastest growing city in the world with a population that has already more than doubled in 20 years. It takes hours to cross town in the city’s snarling traffic. Electricity comes and goes, and garbage piles up on street corners. Dhaka is an unplanned frenzy of a city.

I have to admit that I enjoy the messy chaos, but still I wanted to get away from it for a few days and really relax. I took a beautiful five-hour train ride through the Bangladeshi countryside to Srimongol, the town at center of Bangladesh’s tea industry. The train chugged over wide muddy rivers and through quilts of rice paddies. Right at the end of the trip, the geography changed; gentle hills and lush forests started to appear.

Srimongol, a small town in Bangladesh’s northeast, is surrounded by rainforests and terraced tea plantations. I rented a heavy, single-speed bike and cycled around area. The smooth paved roads, light traffic and easy terrain made it easy to zip through tea estates and quiet villages—despite a rickety bike.

One of my favorite aspects of Bangladesh is that on almost every block of every village there’s small bamboo shack that serves tea. Usually costing seven cents for a cup, it’s great way to get out from the sun.

The tea houses are also a great place to meet people. The old tourism slogan for Bangladesh was “Visit Bangladesh before tourists come,” and it’s still accurate. With so few foreign tourists, everyone is curious about you.

The Bengali hospitality though can be a bit overwhelming. At this tea shop outside of Srimongol, people took turns sitting next to me.

Even in the rain the hospitality came through. This boy walked me around a tea estate and a nearby lake, though he obstinately refused to smile in photos.

These women came to the lake to wash themselves. My young guide informed me that taking photos from this far was okay, but they wouldn’t want to photograph them any closer.

When it isn’t raining, this is what the area looks like. I hopped off my bike to get a photo of a man working his rice paddies in front of a tea estate. Since Bangladesh is hotter than other tea growing regions, trees are planted amidst the terraces to shade the tea bushes.

These kids—though you can’t tell from their dour faces—were very excited for me to take their photos. As soon as this was shot, they sprinted across the street to look at the back of my camera.

by Christopher Shay

The Executive

Christine Ho had been practicing Thai boxing for five years when she hit a plateau and started “getting bored.” In search of a new physical challenge, the 39-year-old director of custom publishing at Hearst Magazines Hong Kong (and former editor-in-chief of Elle Hong Kong)  signed up for dragon boat racing, the ancient Chinese traditional sport. The native Hong Konger had watched Dragon Boat Festival races in the past and knew about the sport’s intensity.

“I’m fascinated by all things powerful,” she says.

Dragon boat races date back more than 2,000 years as a Chinese ceremony to celebrate the summer rice planting and to venerate the dragon water deity. In Chinese folklore, there’s another story: In 278 BC, during the Warring States period, popular statesman and poet Qu Yuan tied himself to a rock and walked into the Miluo River, in today’s Hunan province, to drown himself when he learned of an impending invasion. When the local villagers found out, they rushed to their fishing boats to save him while beating a drum to scare the fish away from his body. Every year since—or so the story goes—there’s been a Dragon Boat Festival to mark Qu Yuan’s death.

In 1976 the Hong Kong Tourist Association helped turn the practice of informal local races into the international modern sport it is today by holding the first-ever world dragon boat racing competition. Ten boats—nine from Hong Kong and one from Japan—competed. Over the past three decades, the sport has grown around the world. Hong Kong now boasts hundreds of teams, and more than 60 other countries host their own competitions. Even the newly anointed Duchess of Cambridge, Catherine Middleton, was a dragon boat racer in London until she had to leave her team in 2007 for security reasons.

Dragon boats are thin, long boats with a dragon’s head on the bow. Most of today’s boats in Hong Kong are still made of wood but some races use synthetic-fiber ones. The boats used in international competitions hold 22 people — 20 paddlers, one drummer and one helmsman — and races are usually 200 to 500 meters.

Ms. Ho says the team aspect of the sport pushes her to always put in extra effort. “You have the feeling that you can’t let your team down,” she says.

In a competition, she says one has to mentally control every aspect of the body. “As a control freak, I like that,” she says. “Your mind and body feel very connected.”

She says dragon boating has made her healthier. After three months of racing, Ms. Ho had her cholesterol checked. She says dragon boating was the only major lifestyle change she had made, and her level of low-density lipoprotein, or ”bad cholesterol,” had dropped by more than half. Dragon boating also helps clear her mind. When she returns to work—often immediately following an evening practice—she says she feels energized.

“The body is tired, but the mind is refreshed,” she says.

The Workout

Dragon Boat Festival is celebrated the fifth day of the fifth lunar month – this year it will be June 6. To gear up for the annual races, Ms. Ho’s team, the Buzz Dragon Boating Society, starts with land-based training in September. For four months, the team focuses on building up muscle strength and endurance. Training starts with a 1,500-meter run and then moves to a series of strength exercises. The team will do three sets of 10-15 reps of exercises that include squats, lunges and push-ups. The workout will also include three sets of 30 crunches and other core workouts. The team practices three times a week for one to one-and-a-half hours.

In January, when the weather starts to warm up, the team moves training to the water. They will start with 25 minutes of nonstop paddling as a cardio warm-up. “Twenty-five minutes is actually very long and exhausting,” Ms. Ho says.

Next they’ll focus on one technique or aspect of the race. For example, the team might practice the first 30 strokes of a race, 10 times in a row.

The types of strokes that teams use vary depending on where they are in the race. At the start, they’ll use short, quick strokes that use mostly arm strength to get the boat off to a fast start. After that, the paddlers will use a longer stroke that uses the whole body as leverage and dips the paddle deeper in the water.

Spectators may think dragon boat racing is all about using the arms and shoulders, but “the power stems from the legs and body,” Ms. Ho says. After practice, her sorest muscles are always in her legs.

The team competes in races about seven or eight times a year, and each competition usually has one or two heats that lead to semi-final and final.

Outside of dragon boating racing and practice, Ms. Ho goes to the gym at least once a week. She’ll run on a treadmill for 20 minutes and then move to weight lifting in which she completes three sets of 20 lifts. She focuses in particular on her shoulder and back muscles. For example, she’ll work her deltoids by standing with dumbbells at the sides of her legs and lifting them up until her arms are parallel with the ground. She’ll often end her gym workouts with core exercises that include crunches and plank holds.

Diet

Ms. Ho says she hasn’t changed her diet much since she switched from Thai boxing to dragon boating. She still focuses on making sure she gets enough protein to build muscles and has most of her calories early in the day. She often eats a big breakfast of cereal, a muffin, eggs and bacon. At work, she’ll often eat a second breakfast of a sausage roll. For lunch, she might have fried rice. Dinner will be light, often a grilled fish fillet with a light salad.

Two days before a race, Ms. Ho says she’ll increase her carbohydrate intake by eating more pastas and wild rice to maximize her energy.

Cost & Gear

Ms. Ho pays about 2,000 Hong Kong dollars (US$257) a year to be on her team, and the fee includes everything from boat maintenance to coaching. Other than the club fee, costs are minimal. She says normal work-out clothes are suitable for racing, but she bought a pair of padded rowing pants (HK$400) to make sitting in the boat more comfortable. She says some people also buy their own carbon fiber paddles, which are lighter than wooden ones. She bought one for less than HK$1,000. Ms. Ho pays HK$250 a month for her gym membership.

by Christopher Shay

The Exec

When Patrick Gorta traveled to Virginia to surprise his parents for Thanksgiving in 2009, they opened the door and didn’t recognize him. He had lost more than 36 kilograms since they had seen him six months earlier.

“They were happy, but they were shocked about my appearance,” says Mr. Gorta, who was a manager at Standard Chartered’s equity derivatives office in Hong Kong at the time.

Mr. Gorta, now an assistant vice president at Merrill Lynch’s equity and derivatives division in Toyko, has lost about 100 kilograms since 2008, currently weighing in at around 91 kilograms. When he first decided to lose weight and started exercising, he could barely walk on a treadmill. Now he runs half-marathons and is training for an Ironman triathlon, which consists of a 3.8-kilometer swim, a 180-kilometer bike ride and a 42-kilometer run.

Mr. Gorta, 26 years old, had struggled with his weight for most of his life—in high school he weighed more than 136 kilograms. When he moved to Hong Kong in August 2008, he decided that he had run out of excuses for not getting fit and that it was time for a major lifestyle shift. He couldn’t find a scale in Hong Kong that went above 180 kilograms. And he couldn’t find anything to wear off the rack—he had to have all his clothes made by a tailor, who charged him double for the extra fabric needed to cover his frame. “I can’t really blame him,” Mr. Gorta says.

Despite his obesity, Mr. Gorta never considered surgery and wanted to lose weight naturally with diet and exercise. “Weight-loss surgery in my case would have been a sign of giving up,” he says.

He says now his best moments are often those that most people take for granted. “To walk into a store and not even be the biggest size, it’s the greatest feeling,” he says.

The Workout

When Mr. Gorta decided to lose weight, he hired a personal trainer to meet him three mornings a week at the gym in his apartment building. They started off with simple exercises, like walking slowly on a flat treadmill and doing weight machines like the lat pull-down.  “At first, I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t run. I couldn’t do a single push-up,” he says. “As it turns out, I really like working out. I wish I’d found that out before.”

After a few months, Mr. Gorta slowly added body-weight exercises, like push ups (on his knees) and crunches. He would warm up on the treadmill or elliptical machine for 10 minutes and then do a circuit that would include weight machines like the seated row and the lat pull-down. A circuit might have included 10-15 reps each of shoulder presses using barbells, lat pull-downs on a machine and push-ups. He would repeat the circuit three or four times, leaving little time to rest between exercises.

As Mr. Gorta’s balance improved, his trainer introduced more core training. About six months into training, instead of working on the ground, Mr. Gorta would do crunches and free-weight chest presses on a yoga ball. “I was afraid at first of popping [the ball] when I sat down,” he says.

After a about a year, Mr. Gorta added kick boxing to his routine. Following a round of weight-machine exercises, for example, he might hit a punching bag for a minute as fast he could.

On days without his trainer, Mr. Gorta would do cardio for an hour every day. It took a year for him to be able to jog on the treadmill.

Now, Mr. Gorta has run two half-marathons. He signed up for a full marathon in Tokyo before it was canceled because of Japan’s earthquake and tsunami in March. He’s also competed in two cycling events, one 70 miles (about 113 kilometers) long.

He still works out with a trainer three times a week. A morning workout often includes a three-minute warm-up run, followed by three circuits of 15 reps each of standing up and sitting down on yoga ball, squat lifts with 90-kilogram weights and leg raises. Then three rounds of a second circuit focuses on his chest and shoulders: 15 shoulder presses on a machine, 20 lat pull-downs and 15 seated rows. A third circuit, repeated three times, includes 20 dips, 15 barbell flys and 15 standing barbell raises. Mr. Gorta stretches between each circuit and avoids any prolonged resting. After that, if he has time, he’ll do an hour of cardio immediately afterwards.

Now his goal is to complete an Ironman triathlon next year. His biggest challenge: swimming. Recently, he added a 45-minute swimming course to his workout once a week. Now that he’s lost so much weight, he says, “I have to get used to the fact that I’m not as buoyant anymore.”

Diet

Mr. Gorta doesn’t like to use the word “diet,” which he considers a temporary change in one’s food choices. He says he had a permanent “lifestyle change.”

“I’m never going back to eating an entire Pizza Hut pizza by myself after work,” he says.

Mr. Gorta’s dietary plan to lose weight was simple: He switched to eating a lot of salads. When he started, he didn’t know much about nutrition and didn’t want to count calories, he says. But he knew salads were healthy so that’s what he ate—usually twice a day.

A typical breakfast for Mr. Gorta while he was losing weight consisted of an apple or a banana and healthy cereal like Special K with skim milk. At lunch, he picked up a salad, usually baby spinach, grilled chicken, bell peppers, broccoli, onions, carrots and cucumber, with a vinaigrette dressing. On his walk home from work, he would pick up another salad for dinner. Mr. Gorta also cut out soda and beer, drinking about six liters of water a day instead. He used to drink five or six Diet Cokes a day.

Now that he lives in Tokyo, he doesn’t eat out nearly as much, cooking instead, but his diet hasn’t really changed. He often grills chicken or fries tofu to put on homemade salads.

Fitness Tip

Mr. Gorta says having a series of goals and then rewarding himself for reaching them helped motivate him. He weighed himself everyday and tracked how much weight he was losing. He set three markers: When he dropped below 136 kilograms, he bought himself a MacBook Pro; at 113 kilograms, he bought a TAG Heuer watch; and when he got below 90 kilograms, he bought another MacBook. “It’s good motivation,” he says. “It helped keep me focused.”

Paul and I went on a beautiful hike in the mountains adjacent to the old mining town Jinguashi. The area has found new life as a tourist destination, but it doesn’t take much to get away from the crowds. Check out the photos:

Paul, my gracious host, overlooks the old mining town Jinguashi on a windy, rocky ledge.

We decided that Paul looked like a 1970s singer-songwriter with his long, unkempt hair.

The previous days in Taiwan were all cloudy. I’m told a hike we did a week before had views that looked like this too.

Paul takes a moment to relax on the way down from our a windy and strenuous hike.

When the Republic of China retreated from the mainland in 1949, they brought to Taiwan the elite culinary tastes from all over the country. Combined with delicious indigenous food, a Japanese occupation and terrific local ingredients and it should be no surprise that Taiwan has some of the world’s best food. In less than two weeks, I ate the best Shanghai dumplings, fried chicken, pulled noodles and Japanese pork I’ve ever had. Even just one of those meals would worth the plane ticket. The food is so consistent even 7-11 sushi is good.

As a Portlander, I’m very proud of my hometown’s food carts. They’re cheap, yummy and drive a lot of the culinary innovation on the West Coast. But Portland’s Cartopia has nothing on Taiwan’s night markets, the food at Taiwan’s carts are better, cheaper and open later. The markets don’t just have Taiwan’s wide-range food—some have hip clothing stores, cheesey fair games and stalls selling baubles. Walking around Shilin Night Market with a camera was terrific fun with all the different types of people enjoying the place. The only problem? It’s hard to photograph when you’re spending the entire time eating the street food.