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.…
Sang-froid: (literally, cold blood) Self-possession or imperturbability especially under strain. Calmness, coolness, placidity, repose, serenity. (Webster’s) Though the weather may be frightful, Parisians sit outside anyway. On a cold Sunday, cloudy and only 10 degrees…
This is the fourth set of profiles of people we have met in India. In this post, meet two people for whom education becomes a mixed blessing. (For the previous profiles, click Profiles 1 or…
Over 5000 of them, archaeologists believe, thrived in the high and low valleys between Flagstaff and Phoenix, places that people even today consider receptive to good, supernatural vibes. Then, for reasons still unknown after about…
Across Indonesia, there are hundreds of distinct ethnicities, languages and native cultures. For some of these, the old tribal religions remain. Most have been subsumed into the three major religions found here - Islam, Christianity…
Most visitors to the wild don't want the really wild. The wild is often uncomfortable, hard to reach, dangerous and fickle. You have a few days to visit a wilderness, see the jungle, sail the…