My Odyssey In Southeast Asia...

Mainland Southeast Asia

il 25 ottobre - il 14 dicembre, 2015

This past autumn, I was privileged to spend seven weeks traveling in Southeast Asia. With over 3,500 photos to sort through and dozens of stories to write, the thought of beginning these blog entries has been a bit overwhelming…how to put it all together? How to find the words to describe the vast array of experiences from riding a "tuk-tuk" or crossing a street in the congested traffic in Bangkok, Phnom Penh, Hanoi, and Saigon to the exquisite golden beauty of the Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon or the spiritual mystique of Bagan and what it felt like to climb up hundreds of steps and watch the sunset over a countryside filled with more than 2,000 pagodas. How to describe villages in Myanmar where we were warmly welcomed with shy smiles and being in the country during an historical election, studying Buddhism and meditating with my lovely tour guide, Mu Mu while cruising on the Irrawaddy River, or a haunting visit to the killing fields in Cambodia and learning from locals about the horror of the Khmer Rouge regime...

Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos…it will take me some time to reflect upon and revisit these five countries; a diverse collection of nations playing host to powerful civilizations of long ago, a region of hundreds of languages and ethnic groups, societies where Buddhist belief infuses every aspect of daily life, governments that range from democratic to communist and have known military dictatorship and revered monarchies, an area where the vast inequalities of wealth are striking, and where, after years of foreign domination and the pain and grief of war, it is the strength, courage, and spirit of the people that have brought them to this moment in time.