Tony Mangia on assignment in Southeast Asia

Message to readers of The Other Paper:

This is just a notice that I will be out of the United States for the next four weeks visiting the beautiful and magical lands of Southeast Asia.

First stop will be volunteering in Malaysia, where I'll be working with new acquaintances  — and not of the human kind ... but possibly smarter — within a conservation group that helps orangutans. For two weeks, I will be part of an organization that rescues, rehabilitates and relocates abused, ill and displaced orangutans in the rainforest of Malaysia. I hope it will be as special and rewarding as it sounds. A barrel of apes so to speak. Who knows? They might even teach me some table manners.

After that experience I will be going to Thailand for some scuba diving before heading to the, until recently, isolated and still mysterious Myanmar (Burma) on a photo assignment.

Hoping to do some hiking and catch some muay thai while I am over there too. 

I will most likely be without Internet, phone or TV for most of the duration (happily, I might add) and won’t be posting or even in contact with any sort of social media (even more happily). The absence of news overload and trending hashtag words like anthem, abuse, shooting or collusion will be a welcome relief. So hold off burning the place down until I get back y’all … just so I can be the first to post about it on Facebook.

In the meanwhile, happy holidays and sùk-sǎn wan krít-mâat.

Half-marathon runners go extra 4 miles due to re-routing error

A lot of runners in the Bangkok half-marathon had to be asking themselves more than usual, 'When is this race gonna end?' while thumping the pavement Sunday.

That's because instead of running the usual 13.1 miles, the participants had to run four extra miles after race officials, responsible for pointing the half-marathon runners in the right direction, inadvertently directed them "to make a U-turn at the wrong place," thus adding more than 1.8 miles to each of two laps.

The Jogging Association of Thailand, one of two organizers of the race, admitted to the error late Monday.

"It added more than 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) to each lap, therefore more than 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) were added to the whole half marathon," Surapong Ariyamongkol of the Athletic Association of Thailand said. "We have rebuked the association but we could not do anything else."

But the extra-winded runners were not amused: "The marathon's Facebook page filled with comments on Sunday and Monday from runners who called it 'ridiculous,' a 'massive miscalculation' and 'incredibly dangerous' for runners who had trained to run just 21 kilometers."

Look at the bright side angry runners, you just ran the world’s first — and probably last — 6/10 marathon ever.

And you will also get commemorative T-shirts.