Memories of backpacking around Syria, talking my way into Syria by getting a visa on the border, exploring ancient sights while hitchhiking the desert, and visiting a restricted military zone on the Israeli border, and more.
Culture
Markets - Villages - Tribes - Festivals - Music - Cities
The ancient town of Shaxi in Yunnan was a market for trading Chinese tea and Tibetan war horses on the Southern Silk Road between India and China.
On the edge of the Sahara in Algeria, five ancient fortified villages in the M'zab Valley preserve a unique Islamic culture lasting more than 1000 years.
In the mountains of Vietnam, I stay with a Hmong family living an ancient lifestyle (barely touched by the modern world in 1994), which included the accepted use of opium.
Photographic portraits of females encountered on the road - young & old.
Traveling to Sirigu Village known for geometric designs and folk art painted on the houses by the artistic women of northern Ghana.
Basílica de Nuestra Señora del Cobre is Cuba’s most-sacred site, a place of miracles attributed to the "Black Virgin".
Visiting the Kurdish village of Palangan, its houses stacked on top of each each other while stepping up the mountainside.
Video of traditional Mongolian folk music - with throat singing - recorded in a tent in Karakorum, Mongolia, once the capital of Genghis Khan's empire.
Traveling Syria in 1989, encountering classic Islamic hospitality on a bungled hiking trip to the desert ruins of Halabiye on the Euphrates River.
The tiniest village in Bulgaria is Melnik - seemingly lost amid the eroded hills, yet it's famous wine was once the toast of Europe, for over 600 years.
Djenne is famous for its surreal mud mosque that dominates this ancient trading town, once an important stop on the Trans-Saharan route and today's Monday Market is also a must-see.
Hiking in northern Laos to stay in an Akha Hill-Tribe village near the Chinese border.
Old Sanaa is an Arabian Nights vision - straight from the tales of the 1001 Nights. And it's one the oldest continuously-inhabited cities in the world.
The colorful, Maya San Francisco de Asis Festival in Guatemala is held over a period of days in early October.
Future Tourism: When the world gets commercial and cartoon beyond belief.
Making a prayer at the Meiji Shrine in Tokyo. Careful what you wish for...
Al Qasr has a desert oasis fairytale feel to it. Built in the 12th century in an Islamic style on the ruins of a Roman settlement, it sits amid the Dakhla Oasis in Western Egypt.
Meet Daouda Diabate - a Baye Fall singer/songwriter from Senegal, who lives in an old military bunker on Goree Island offshore of Dakar.
Xinye is a time trip - reaching back 100s of years, this ancient Chinese village remains intact from the Ming and Qing eras.
They often wore no clothes - staying naked, but smothered in seal oil to survive in the cold southern tip of South America.
Kang village climbs the mountain in a stack of earth walls, balconies and roofs and this settlement, in northeast Iran, has been inhabited for over 3000 years.
The hike thru rainforest to the volcanic crater lake of Laguna Chicabal takes about 2 hours. But don't expect to swim as it's the sacred center of the Mam Maya cosmos.
I hitchhiked amid the Maramures Region of Romania to the idyllic peasant village of Botiza. Homestays are available and the tranquil countryside is great for walks. .
Looking at the women of Minab Market reveals the ancient trading routes that once connected southern Iran with the Arabian Peninsula, Pakistan, and beyond.
Video of a Mexican Mayan shaman performing a traditional ritual with words, drums and incense to cleanse, bless, and protect me. In Spanish, he wishes good health, luck with family, and my travels.
Women with lip plates and killer warriors - yeah these Mursi tribe traditions still exist in Ethiopia. But today, the Mursi also pose for tourist dollars.
A letter home from my time in Ainaro in the mountains of East Timor, living with a local family and working for the United Nations in 2000.
I was walking the streets of Taizz in Yemen, when suddenly this folk musician stops and offers to play a tune for me as crowds gather around.
SUBSCRIBE TO READ: Get my crazed travel account wrapped within the history + culture of Yemen.
Visiting a fishing village of the Muslim Cham people on the Mekong River, amid the high fishing season in Cambodia.
If you're looking for a ragged, end-of-the-earth place - go to Berbera. This old Red Sea port has dusty streets, crumbling architecture & wrecked ships.
Discovered in 2005 and yet 5000 years old, Las Geel is one of the world's greatest prehistoric art sites.
On my birthday, I go to the village of Santiago Atitlan to pay homage to Maximon - a Maya god that smokes + drinks.
Traveling the capital of Ashgabat, with all the security and surreal architecture, I understand why Turkmenistan is dubbed - “The North Korea of Central Asia”
Visit markets, see tribes, hike the weird-humped Taka Mountains and explore the ruined Khatmiyah Mosque.
Exploring the desert mountains of Gansu and meeting Yugur nomads while van camping a few days at a waterhole used by their flocks of sheep. In this wilderness, I celebrated my 54th birthday.
The self-proclaimed Republic of Somaliland is safe to travel. And while there's not much in the way of tourist sights, Hargeisa is the gateway to Somaliland.
Watch the exciting Friday ceremony of the Sufis gathered at the Hamid El-Nil Mosque in Omdurman, in Sudan.
Early Travel Impressionism digital art made while living in India and Cambodia in 2004-2005.
To escape slave-grabbing raids by the neighboring Benin kingdom in the 17th century, the people of Tamberma Valley built these fortified houses.
The Marsh Arabs of Iraq are a unique Middle Eastern culture that have thrived in the marshlands of southern Iraq for millennia. I visited them in 1989.
Traveling across Eritrea in 1995 it seemed like a land of peace and hope. People were enthusiastic about the new beginning after their war of liberation.
The Osun-Osogbo Sacred Grove is an ancient forest dedicated to Osun, the Yoruba goddess of fertility.
Video of traveling Sierra Leone in a bus crawling amid a crowded, early-morning market spilling onto the roads of Freetown.
History spliced with satire - contemporary silliness - makes this take on Timbuktu, different.
Glowing psychedelic skulls grin at me. Today is the Day of the Dead. What the Maya call Hanal Pixan also known as The Day of the Dead in Mexico.
Part #2 of story heading into outer Indonesia to Papua in search of my GF -Erica's, long lost father that she hadn't seen for 30 years.
Black & White photography featuring people in their environment. Going for a retro printed paper look, evoking texture, fades, softened images.