Pea and Coffee: Surprised in Brno
Often travel is best when it surprises. Even when we plan the arc of our trips - X days here, check out this site there, Y days here, and so on - we keep things…
Often travel is best when it surprises. Even when we plan the arc of our trips - X days here, check out this site there, Y days here, and so on - we keep things…
Most of us vaguely recall the story. Some duke gets killed in Eastern Europe and all hell breaks loose in World War 1. That story gets a new depth with a visit to Zakem Konopiste…
Mostly you notice the natural beauty. Driving the roads and trekking the trails across Bhutan, we traced the bulges and hollows of the richly forested mountain sides. We ascended and descended steeply sloped valleys one…
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…