By 1616, Ngawanag Namgyal aka Zhabdrung, a revered leader originally from Tibet, unified the divided fiefdoms of Bhutan into a holy Buddhist empire. All over the country you see golden statues and images of Zhabdrung…
The Tibetan branch of Buddhism starts about the 8th century with Guru Rinpoche, the most revered of the Buddhist teachers, then was imported into Bhutan by him and his disciples shortly thereafter. Over time its…
Most people think of Dubai in one way, as a fantasy world of glitz and glamor. With its tall buildings trying to outdo each other in peculiarity, its world-topping skyscrapers and shopping malls, and its…
Here's how we spent a very gracious hour in Bangladesh just outside Lawachara National Park, Srimangal. We're walking a road amid the cultivated fields of a small village. Rapidly slate grey clouds roll in, along…
We've written before about the unrealistic expectations of visitors going on safari in Asia's national parks (click here to read the article). During our three day visit to Chitwan National Park in the south of…
It's no surprise that adherents to three of the great religions established in the last three thousand years revere places associated with the lives of the great prophets who founded them. Not the least of…
Noon, Saturday 25 April 2015. In a few horrifying minutes, shortly after we finished writing this tribute to the wondrous plazas of Kathmandu, they were in ruins. Thousands are dead across the country, as well…
Driving 2500 kilometers around northern Oman, we found navigating quite a challenge, modeled perhaps after the wandering channels of water built for their ancient aflaj irrigation systems. (For more about the significance of the aflaj…
Aflaj, Oman’s gravity-driven water irrigation systems, date from 2500 years ago and possibly even 2000 years earlier. The word itself is said to imitate the sound of flowing water. Along the routes of these narrow…
We drove about 40 minutes from Abu Dhabi's airport to its shoreline, that stretch along the Persian Gulf of pedestrian walkway and motorway for expensive cars known as the Corniche. But we saw no sand.…