The map on the airplane seat back showed that we were flying through the “Neutral Zone” somewhere between Iraq and Saudi Arabia. A phrase like that should give comfort, I suppose, when flying into a country where people are currently being killed by their neighbors in Syria. Many people have questioned my sanity when I [...]

For the fifth time, I flew back to Bangkok today. In the morning, I start my journey west to Beirut. Coming here again feels like home in a way even as I try out another hotel. It makes me realize how much I have learned about life here compared to my first night in Bangkok [...]

It probably started by visiting one of the Killing Fields, one of the places in Cambodia where some of the 3 million people who died during my lifetime were tortured and killed. It probably was fueled when I visited the Angkor Hospital for children where over 400 children are treated each day. There I learned [...]

“Hello! Hello!”, came the young voices from somewhere in the shadows. With a bit of looking, you might see the children on the ground underneath their houses built on stilts or maybe they would be sitting on the stoop of a little shop. The braver ones would run toward the road, waving their hands and [...]

A word of caution right up front. I’m writing under the influence. I’ve just had the best massage of my life and it might affect my writing. It was also the first time that I’ve paddled a kayak to get to a massage but it took a couple of very soggy tries to get there. [...]

One of the hazards of traveling in Southeast Asia is temple fatigue. Having donned my long sleeves and a long silk skirt, I braved the 100 degree humid temps here in Bangkok and did the mandatory sight-seeing temples yesterday. I started out early to join the lines to see the Royal Palace and the famous [...]

In this most spiritual of countries, today we hiked up over 10,000 feet to the Tiger’s Nest, the most sacred monastery built high up on the side of a mountain cliff. It is said that the second Lord Buddha was flown up to a cave by his Tibetan consort in the form of a tigress. [...]

The queen of Bhutan gave me a thumbs up as I stood respectfully next to my bike on the twisty mountain road. The king was in the car in front and by the time I realized it was him, I had only a glimpse. There’s something about being with royalty that makes for a special [...]

Yesterday morning I was riding in a car past men pushing bicycles loaded with hundreds of eggs or fruit or piles of blankets. Women laid their vegetables out on the sidewalk to sell as cows wandered by in the streets. Today I’m looking out my 4th floor window at planes landing at Bangkok airport. I’m [...]

I suspect I had a silly grin on my face the whole first two days trekking in the Himalayas until tragedy struck at the end of the second day. Before the grin came the tears as I left my home stay family. When the father took my face in his hands and said in tentative [...]