In these images, above and below, we return to the vicinity of
Yangshuo, Guangxi Province, China.
I say “return” because the image at the very top of this site is from this same region.
I consider this the most “enchanted” place on earth. In this sentiment I am not alone. Artists and poets have been traveling to this region for inspiration literally for millenia.
Of course this is especially due to the fantastic geology, which is called “karst.” It results from extremely deep sedimentary layers, forming limestone, that get unevenly eroded over geologic time, resulting in these hauntingly beautiful spires.
The images above depict the journey down the
Lijiang River
from the city of Quilin, in Guangxi Province, to the small town of Yangshuo. These are very popular tourist destinations, not undiscovered treasures.
One of these photos above shows a cormorant fisherman–something fascinating to observe–especially by lantern light at night.
And yes, those are the official knees of your humble correspondent, offered in court as evidence that, yes, he actually really was here.
Above, we see the author trying his hand at rice threshing.
Below, in a local house in which this precious little girl was a resident with her family, he is enjoying a child’s storybook with her.
These photos are from the countryside accessed from Yangshuo.
A reader might already get the impression this writer kinda likes traveling in China. If he doesn’t, he’s a pretty slow learner. He’s made 8 separate journeys there. This is ALL about fascination with the people, the ancient history, the culture, geology, etc. It has absolutely nothing to do with love of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), or communism in general, which is ephemeral to the big picture.
Also, significantly, all his visits there were between the late 1980’s and around 2000, therefore, most of his visits were during the terms of President Jiang Zemin. Things were more “relaxed” there then than recently (as I write this in August, 2020).
However, and on the other hand, he has had a kinda close, even intimate relationship with one local family who seems to enjoy some fairly high status within the CCP. I’ll try to get around to relating at least one anecdote pertaining to this relationship.
Also, by the way, on one of his literally dozens of visits to Hong Kong, usually for just one night during some transition, but sometimes for a longer visit, he accidentally met a very beautiful girl. We made (more than just momentary, conspicuously interesting and potentially meaningful) eye contact in a bookstore in a shopping mall. (Harbor City, upper level, on Canton Road, right by the Marco Polo Hotel where I often stayed).
Needing, I discerned, to act with no undo hesitation, and yes, maybe even a little brashly, but hopefully not too stupidly . . .
I boldly approached this lovely-beyond-description young lady (hoping she couldn’t hear my heart pounding), and uttered this, the most irresistible charm I could summon on such short notice: “I’m just passing through, and don’t have much time right now; if we’re going to get acquainted, we better go someplace to talk . . . right now.”
To my astonishment, she actually agreed!
So, we went down to the Starbucks by the ferry terminal. She had, it turned out, a rich British boyfriend, but for some inexplicable reason, that night, to her best friend, Angie (she told me later), she said “I’m going to marry that man.” Meaning the one she just met.
I tell you, there simply is no accounting for some girls’ taste.
And for this, we guys are eternally grateful!
I returned, as promised, some weeks later. She was not there to meet me at the airport, as arranged and promised. I called her–she didn’t believe me. That is, didn’t believe me that I was actually returning to the other side of the globe, so soon, “just” to get to know her better. Well, we did get better acquainted, then went on to get married and stuff, and you know, like had a son and stuff (who is totally awesome), and are now, you know, like, living happily ever after.
(There is such a thing as coincidence, I get that, but in this relationship there seems to be some higher force in attendance. There is one very important, very special, even mystical occurrence in it that has absolutely no explanation within the physical realm. This anecdote is told as the introduction to Chapter 4 of the book: The Politics of Deep Reality.)
I hope I’ll remember to fill in some details about another, literally life or death scenario anon.
Hint: it involves an island in the Andaman Sea off the coast of Thailand.
Ok, so now let’s make a little transition to, um, how about . . .
India
Everyone has some familiarity with the Taj Mahal, of course, but what may be not so widely understood is that the text of the Koran is inlaid in its surface in the form of semi-precious stones.
Below is the author at
snake-charming
class.
(Hmmm . . . I wonder if there are any college credits for this?)
Anyway, after observing at this close range for a while, this professional loaned me his flute thingy, and I gave it a try.
The snakes were clearly not impressed. So, before they got too annoyed, and totally lost their patience with the situation, and to (really hopefully) avoid getting bitten (these snakes are “hot,” that is, neither defanged nor milked of venom), I returned the flute thingy to the instructor.
A passingly interesting interlude, one might say.
Above is the author, in another part of India, out west in the Thar Desert region of Rajasthan Province (another of my very favorite places to travel) at elephant riding school.
This is easier, but the one thing they don’t tell you when you sign up is: don’t wear shorts! Elephant skin is really rough and abrasive–ouch!
More from the Thar Desert region of
Rajasthan Province,
in or around Jodphur and Jaipur, but the main focus here is on the remote little settlement of Osian.
Here, I enjoyed a (Dromedary, one-hump) camel ride out in the desert, and observed these lovely, exotic (to a boy from Nebraska) ladies with their children.
And now, a brief and not-too-subtle transition from the Thar Desert of India to skiing in
Switzerland.
The main reason I chose to include these three photos is because of the 1975 Clint Eastwood movie: “The Eiger Sanction,” which two of three of you (fossils) (like me) may have seen. The main action of this flick was an attempt to scale the north face of this famous mountain in the Jungfrau region of Switzerland.
Also, I’ve always assumed, probably correctly, that the adventure-travel outfitting company “The North Face,” derives its name from this edifice.
Yes, that’s the north face of the Eiger behind the building with the flags, and yes, your humble correspondent (yet again, sigh) posing for the photo (yawn!).
A Little Detour .
One time, while waiting for immigration status for she who would be my beloved wife and mother of our beloved son, I wished to travel from my home in the U.S. to Sabang, on the island of Mindoro (not to be confused with Mindanao), in the Philippines, where we were renting an apartment with a drop-dead beautiful ocean view from its balcony. Sabang is a very popular diving destination, especially for divers from Europe and Australia.
(My wife was born and raised in the jungle on the island of Mindanao, where, she tells me, she and her [equally beautiful] younger sister used to bathe in a remote, clear-water stream, which seems to me, an, um, not altogether unpleasant thing to imagine.)
Normally, for this trip, I would transition through Narita (Japan), or Singapore, or Hong Kong, but this was in June, and the air fares were crazy high. So, committed to the journey, I said to myself: “If I’m spend THIS much money, I’m gonna do so doing something cool, and at least a little special, not just the same old same old.” So, I made a detour via Sydney, Australia, thence up to my more usual stomping ground at Singapore, and then on to the Philippines.
By the way, if you ever make this flight (Singapore to Manila), try to sit on the left side of the aircraft. Then, on the usual approach to Manila, you’ll be able to see the island of Corregidor–a place requiring no introduction to those knowledgeable about the early days of WWII in the Pacific Theater.
Even more importantly, do it on Singapore Airlines (my favorite airline). The (female) cabin attendants wear a very special garment called a sarong kebaya, designed by a Paris designer, and they fit nicely. No, actually, they’re fittin’ gooooood!
But this has NOTHING to do with this being my favorite airline!
(Well, ok, maybe a little.)
The photo of the downtown Sydney skyline was shot while walking across the Harbor Bridge.
These shots of the world-famous opera house and Harbor Bridge are the result of that detour through Australia.
Yap
Yap is an island in the western Pacific, politically part of the Federated States of Micronesia.
My primary reason to visit there was for the diving, but any visit to this rather remote place would be in vain without witnessing the legendary “stone money,” an example of which is the very large and heavy round disk with a hole in its middle.
Yap is also in the region where chewing betel nut is more or less universal. When chewed, one’s mouth becomes filled with a juicy red paste, and it seems to be at least somewhat addictive. For reasons not altogether clear to this observer, it is very popular around the western Pacific.
Also pictured is a group of teens I encountered on their way to play their local version of tether ball near a beautiful beach.
Well, since we’re kind of in the vicinity, let’s visit some
More Pacific Islands.
First up is the island of Peleliu, site of a fierce battle between the 1st Marine Division and the forces of Imperial Japan. But now, it is a bucket-list place for world-traveling divers.
Shown below is one (justifiably) world-famous dive site: blue corner. The currents tend to be fierce here, so it is at Peleliu that the “reef hook” was devised. Its use can be seen in the photo: the diver has attached the hook portion to a crevice in the reef, and is holding on to a another hook on the other end of the rope. When the rope is attached to the diver’s gear, usually a D-ring on the BCD (buoyancy compensation device), he or she can then have both hands free for photography.
It is typically where the currents run fierce that the most intense action occurs, because that tends to be where the food chain is most active, from plankton, right up to top-of-the-food-chain predators (i.e., sharks) tend to be found.
The beautiful little sandbar with the coconut palm is where we stopped for lunch one day. (A few water droplets can be seen in this photo–that is because it was taken with the camera still in the housing for under-water photography–the droplets are on the view port of the housing, not on the lens of the camera.)
Many Pacific islands are to this day scattered with war-remains, as shown here: Japanese gun emplacements, and a rusting Marine amphibious craft.
At the southern tip of Peleliu there is an especially wild dive site called, appropriately: Peleliu Express. A few years before I dived there, there was a group of six Japanese divers who were swept away in the fierce current, and never found alive. Over the next few years, some of their decayed remains were discovered washed up on remote island beaches.
When I dived there, with five others, we too were washed away and lost at sea–in nine-foot-high waves. An air search was launched. So wild are the currents, that air search was conducted on the wrong side of the island! That’s how uncertain the rescue operation would be. There was one person, however, who worked for the local telephone company, and rode these wild waters routinely in his small boat, who had a pretty strong hunch where the currents had taken us.
It turns out his experience-based intuition was correct, or we too would have shared the same fate as those doomed Japanese divers on that fateful day, and I would not be writing these words in the realm of the living right now.
There is more to this story, of course. Perhaps I could tell it in more detail if any requests for that were to materialize. This incident was described on the front page, above the fold, of the local newspaper. Yes, I have a copy of that newspaper, which includes a photo of your humble correspondent, along with Jonas, a fellow diver and friend from Denmark.
The three below are of a still-standing Japanese “pillbox” gun emplacement on the north shore of Saipan. It is still intact because the amphibious landings occurred on the western shore. It is poignant, especially for an ex-Marine like myself, to be inside this structure, look out the gun ports, and try to imagine being inside there in 1944, waiting for a massive American amphibious assault, and certain death.
The beach on which the two girls are standing is the would-be invasion beach directly in front of the WWII pillbox.
The next set of photos (below) are from
Tinian, Mariana Islands, Pacific.
This is runway Able, North Field, Tinian. A person standing in this exact spot, at about 0200 (2 a.m.) on August 6, 1945, would be right in the path of an onrushing B-29 that, after lifting off, would bank to the left over the nearby island of Saipan, and set a course for . . .
HIROSHIMA
changing our world . . .
FOREVERMORE.
Above photos depict diving in and around the local lava formations. The waters in this part of the Pacific are wonderaully clear; at nearby Rota I measured, with a marked line from a reel, visibility of 230 feet! That is due, in large part, to this being what I describe as an underwater “desert.” That is, there is relatively little life here; no gushingly lush coral reefs as in the “Coral Triangle,” to the west and south of here. Still, to me diving in such clear water is its own reward, a magical experience.
The photo above left shows Saipan in the distance; on the right is a rusted Japanese anti-aircraft gun.
Immediately above and below on the left are at a beautiful swimming beach, complete with a little cliff where some local boys were jumping in time after time–looks like fun to me!
The photos in the second row from the bottom of the gallery above are of the pit from which the uranium bomb would be loaded into the “Enola Gay,” named for the mother of pilot-in-command Colonel Paul W. Tibbets, from below-ground on a hydraulic lift. This is exactly the kind of lift that used to be employed for lifting cars for oil changes when I was younger.
I point out this was a uranium bomb because the next mission, three days later, destined for Nagasaki, entailed a plutonium bomb. The first-ever nuclear bomb test, in July, 1945, at the Trinity Site, New Mexico, was a plutonium bomb. That is because this type of bomb involved some uncertainty–it was thought to require testing. The design of the uranium bomb was thought to be relatively certain–the first-ever uranium bomb “test” would occur on that fateful day in August, 1945 at Hiroshima.
The three photos directly below are back at Saipan, at a memorial for victims of suicide, and two cliffs from which these poor souls jumped, as ordered by the Japanese command as the American invasion was beginning.
Closely offshore were Japanese speakers in small U.S. Navy combatants, like mine-sweepers, I believe, pleading over loud speakers for these hapless, guiltless, civilians to not jump! Young mothers holding their small children were among those who needlessly jumped to their deaths at this tragic place.
I stood at this memorial with tears streaming down my cheeks. That is happening now as I am writing these words–and remembering. Such is the pathos of this time and place in the pitiless saga of imperial aggression and resulting warfare.
So now, on a lighter note (whew, thank goodness!), we travel to
Banjarmasin!
Um, ok, but why the exclamation point, you might reasonably ask?
Mostly because it’s on the island of Borneo. I mentioned above that as a young boy I was already fascinated by maps (in the form of globes, too, of course), and there is one particular place on this globe that for some reason caused my youthful imagination to be captured in some special way. That is the region of the southwest Pacific that includes New Guinea, Borneo, and the island of Mindanao just to the north (which, geologically, is he same island as Borneo; it is only after sea levels rose as the ice-caps of the Pleistocene began to melt, that this land mass would become two separate islands, separated by what we call today the Sulu Sea.)
Then, when I learned the beautiful girl I met in Hong Kong was born and raised in the jungle of Mindanao, that made any attempt at resistance futile. I was beguiled for life. We now have a home there.
Anyway, being here at this place (Banjarmasin) and time was another very special, unforgettable experience.
Depicted in these photos is a floating market held in a seaport at the mouth of a river. It was early morning. I don’t know how often this market occurs, but I doubt if it would be everyday, so yet again it seems I was by sheer chance at a very special place at exactly the right time.
People would come down the river from their homes up in the jungle, in their boats laden with trade goods, in order to trade these wares–with other locals, perhaps, or who knows, maybe people come from outside the immediate region to participate.
It was not necessary for me to completely understand what I was witnessing to be intrigued and enchanted by what I experienced so memorably with all my senses.
Bali, Indonesia
Ok, I admit it, I’m a sucker for rice culture, but you gotta agree, don’t you, it’s pretty photogenic, right?
The procession in the lower middle photo is for a wedding.
The following set of photos is from
Xian.
Xian (she-ahn), literally: west peace, is an extraordinary place, by any standards, on any scale. It was to be the capitol of Shihuangdi, who was the founder of the short-lived, but literally monumental Qin dynasty.
For starters, it is from this dynasty that the very word “China” derives. In the Wade-Giles system it was rendered ch’in, which evolved into “China.”
Then, seemingly in large part due to the obsession Shihuangdi had with the idea of immortality, Xian is home to what is considered by many as the eighth wonder of the world: the astonishing terracotta army, part of the emperor’s tomb, which lay undiscovered for over 2,000 years, discovered accidentally by farmers only in 1974.
Further still, what we know today as Xian, was formerly known as Chang’an, eastern terminus of the Silk Road.
I would have to say that my very favorite photography subject is ordinary people (like me) going about their everyday lives in places around this bountiful third rock from the sun with which we are so blessed, that are so breathtakingly exotic for this boy from Nebraska.
The three photos below are of
Ko Phi Phi, Thailand.
This is the Thai island in the Andaman Sea, referred to above. It is a very beautiful place, visited especially by divers from around the world. The photo in the middle is the bungalow in which we, my wife-to-be and I, stayed. It is barely more than one meter above sea-level. Um, ok, is that little fact somehow important, or even relevant, you may reasonably ask? It would soon become of the greatest importance to many visitors here–and those who loved them.
These photos were taken in early December, 2004. This place is not so far from Banda Aceh, on the western tip of the island of Sumatra, part of the island nation of Indonesia. While we were there, no one could have suspected, or even dreamed it, but massive tectonic plates at a subduction fault in the Indian Ocean, just off the coast of Sumatra near Banda Aceh, were hanging by a thread–ready to slip at any moment.
Exactly three weeks after these photos were taken, they did slip, causing one of the greatest disasters in recorded history: the so-called “Boxing Day” tsunami of December 26, 2004, formally referred to as the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake. If an event results in the death of 1,000 innocent souls, it can rightly be termed a disaster, but for the event of this day, no one will ever know even within 1,000 souls just how many would perish. Estimates run around 220,000 — 250,000.
The tsunami hit Ko Phi Phi around 10:00 am. I most likely would have been out at sea, diving, and ironically, out on the ocean is the safest place to be during a tsunami–I would have been ok. But she who would be my forever love girl, beloved wife, and mother of our beloved son, would have been, with 100% certainty, killed, in an especially horrible, terrifying way. To this day, about 500 souls who were at Ko Phi Phi on this fateful day are still unaccounted for, washed away, never to be seen or heard from again.
Those tectonic plates could just as well have slipped while we were there. But they didn’t.
Is some higher force in attendance here?
In November, 1971, while on active duty with the Marine Corps at Okinawa, I was able to take leave and meet my parents at Tokyo, who were on a junket provided by a Japanese company for whom my dad’s company was a dealer. This leave took us also to Hong Kong, for what would be my very first of many visits there.
When it came time to return to my duty station, in the Command Center of the Third Marine Amphibious Force, at Camp Courtney, on the island of Okinawa, I went to the arcade of the famous Peninsula Hotel, which at that time had various airline offices in that ground-floor shopping area. After inquiring around a bit, I learned there was a China Airlines flight, on a French Caravelle jet, on which I had never flown before, that seemed especially exotic and interesting; I tried to book that flight from Hong Kong to Naha, Okinawa. Oh, so sorry, I was told–that flight was all sold out–especially due to some girls’ athletic team being aboard, as I recall. Oh, well, so I went over to the TWA counter, and booked my flight on that segment of their round-the-world flight that got me back to Okinawa.
The next day or so, while back to duty, I learned of a plane’s disappearance. Yes, it was that very China Airlines Caravelle. Of that I am completely certain, that very plane disappeared that very day. Of course that wreckage and the remains of the unfortunate souls aboard remain somewhere on the bottom of the sea, but, as far as I know, no wreckage of any kind was ever found, and therefore, the exact location of the crash remains uncertain. I still have that old passport with that departure date, November, 20, 1971, stamped in it.
Is some higher force in attendance here? There have been numerous other instances that guide me toward such a thought.
Below are street scenes from
Kathmandu, Nepal,
and out of town to the east at Nagakot for views of the awesome Himalaya.
Below are photos of the spectacular rice terraces of
Longsheng.
This region too is in Guangxi Province, but far away to the north away from the karst geology of the Lijiang River region.
Tanjung Puting National Park
But not like Yellowstone, for example; there is no tourist development here. This is a wilderness region of coastal marsh and rain forest in the south of Borneo, near Pangkalanbun. It is the natural habitat of orangutans and proboscis monkeys, both of which I saw in the wild there.
Orang = man, utan = forest, hence, man of the forest.
The large male orang in the photo below I encountered while walking alone in the rainforest. Meeting such a magnificent creature in this remote and wild place is different than seeing the same animal in a zoo. It got my attention immediately.
I also went out on a boat, in which we ate and slept, for a three-day, two-night excursion back of beyond. Yet another very special experience of which dreams are made.
Once I had a little swim in the river for relief from the heat. Then, after getting back aboard the boat we motored around the corner, and saw this crocodile. I had no further swims in the river.
The people waving to us from the crowed boat, were, as nearly as I could understand, local miners of some sort.
The small airplane was my ride from Pangkalanbun northwest up to Pontianak, on the west coast of Borneo, which, somewhat notably, lies exactly on the equator. The photo of the dash I took while flying “copilot” on this flight, which was not entirely inappropriate. After serving as a U.S. Marine in the Vietnam era, I attended flight school where I qualified as a commercial pilot.
The photo shot out the window along the way is Borneo wilderness.
The photos below are from a quite different part of China, far to the west, in
Sichuan Province
The workers are working on what I understood to be the restoration of Buddhist temple. This particular site is in the foothills of the Tien Shan mountains, which is geologically part of the Himalaya. The monkey was in the forest nearby the temple.
Sichuan Province is prime home territory for pandas; this one was a resident of the local zoo.
Also pictured is the author enjoying real, genuine Sichuan cuisine!
The large, nighttime photo at the bottom is a study in irony. I was told (my travels to China were from the late 1980’s to around 2000) that most of the previously ubiquitous statues of Chairman Mao had been removed. This one, in the heart of Chengdu, capitol of Sichuan Province, remains (at least then it did). So, we see the founder of the communist People’s Republic of China, reflecting the nighttime glow of signs advertising capitalism. (!)
Below are a few photos taken at
Kota Kinabalu
in the northeast of the island of Borneo, part of the Malaysian state of Sabah. Mount Kinabalu, an active volcano, can be seen looming over this seaport city.
The other photos were at a beautiful seaside resort, where I was captivated by the artistry of this lovely young lady doing her ingenious fruit carvings.
Below are scenes from
Nanjing.
First of all in an authentic old-world tea house. Through its windows can be seen a portion of the local canals.
Not far from here runs a part, active to this day, of the historic Chinese Grand Canal, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This canal actually had its beginning in the 5th century BC, but it was not until the 17th century AD that it would attain its more or less present form.
The purpose of this canal, the longest such waterway in the world, was to connect the Huang He (Yellow River) in the north, with the Yangtze River in the south.
At the bottom are three photos of the memorial to the victims of the pre-WWII “Rape of Nanjing” by the Imperial Japanese Army.
Shanghai is not far from Nanjing, just up the coast to the north (the word “Shanghai” literally means “upcoast.” Nanjing means “south capitol,” Beijing means “north capitol.”
I have visited Shanghai briefly, but seem to have never taken a single photo there. There is, however, one very special memory for me from there.
There is a part of Shanghai waterfront called the “Bund.” It is the area of the old colonial offices. When I approached this area, and saw those old buildings for the first time ever (I thought) I was suddenly stricken by a strange and quite powerful sensation. This took me totally by surprise; it was weird. In all my travels this is the only time I’ve ever had this sensation. I’m pretty sure what it was: déjà vu–I had been there before.
But there is one other time in my life when I had another, very strong, but otherwise inexplicable, instantaneous reaction to something I saw, something I came to see as likely related to the feeling at the Shanghai Bund.
I was about five year old–1956, probably. I was with my parents at the home of neighbors; our two families were inseparable friends. When the grown-ups retired to the kitchen to play bridge (that’s what grown-ups did back then), the husband/father of this family handed me a little book of photos.
He was a U.S. Marine in the Pacific during WWII; he spent some time at Guam, I remember being told. This little book of photos was a souvenir book given to servicemen. As I write these words in September, 2020, that moment was about 64 years ago, but I remember it in detail–virtually everything about it–that moment became burned into my consciousness.
I was sitting on the floor between the sofa and coffee table–if that house is still standing today, I could point to the exact place in that house where the furniture was arranged and where I was sitting.
He (his name was Roland, nick-named Rod, which everyone called him) kind of plopped this photo book down on the coffee table for me to peruse while the grown ups were playing cards in the kitchen. The book opened up immediately to a certain page. On that page my eyes instantly beheld a photo that instantly sent an unforgettable chilling sense of fear throughout me. The instant I saw that photo I was very, very scared!
That photo was of a war-torn atoll. As I learned about the war in the Pacific later in life I came to realize that photo was most likely of an atoll in the Marshall Islands.
Before WWII there was a constant presence of U.S. Marines at Shanghai–those serving there came to be referred to as “Old China Hands.”
Furthermore, from the time I was very young I somehow just internally “knew” I would join the Marine Corps. As I grew up and the time for such a thing came ever nearer, I began to ask myself just why this was–it is not a small thing to do–especially when a large was is raging, as it was then in Vietnam.
Of course I can never know for certain, not during this lifetime, that is, but I am convinced I was a U.S. Marine stationed in Shanghai, probably sometime between the World Wars. I feel as certain as can be under these circumstances that I experienced combat on a Pacific atoll, and was killed in the Pacific during the war.
The invasion of Okinawa commenced on April 1, 1945. In addition to being April Fools Day, it was also Easter Sunday. (This coincidence occurred again in 2019.) Then, while serving as a U.S. Marine (again?) I arrived for duty at the Command Center of the 3rd Marine Division, III Marine Amphibious Force, on Okinawa, arriving there April Fools Day, 1971.
Nanjing.
This site is presently in development; it’s a work in progress, not finished yet. I’m trying to work on it when I can. It’s time consuming for someone new to this kind of thing, but a labor of love for me. I would be most honored and gratified if anyone would ever happen to look it over. But I’m not delusional; I know that’s unlikely. (sigh)