Tag Archives: blog

. . . There is something intriguing about walking in the footsteps of prehistoric people – people who have left no written records and whose lives we can only pretend to reconstruct from the buildings and artefacts they left behind. I had read about the Cliff Palace, a complex of cliff dwellings built by the ancient Anasazi – more properly called the Ancestral Pueblo […]

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This time a year ago, my husband and I were on a big boat, on a very short trip from Port Canaveral (Orlando) Florida, to Nassau, capital of the Bahamas. You might ask why we were on what can only be described as a floating resort-cassino in the North Atlantic Ocean. That’s a very good question, […]

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Bagan, in Central Myanmar, is known for its temples. Not all its temples, however, are ruined relics of the Pagan Empire (9th to 13th Century). Others – like the beautiful Shwezigon Pagoda – are still living, breathing places. Shwezigon was Pagan’s first Buddhist temple. It was started by King Anawrahta after he took the throne by force in 1044, unified the country, and […]

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“Not a piece of architecture, as other buildings are, but the proud passion of an emperor’s love wrought in living stones.” – Sir Edwin Arnold We all know the story: the Taj Mahal, considered the epitome of Mughal art and architecture, was built by emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his beloved third wife, Mumtaz Mahal. Prince […]

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(Double click for: Whiskey Cambodia, from the album of the same name by The Cambodian Space Project) A female chanteuse in long hair and short skirt is dwarfed by the stage until she opens her mouth. Her vocals wail across Asian half-notes – off the scale and back again – to a back-beat of pounding music ranging from Khmer […]

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