It was a cloudy afternoon on our third day in Siem Reap and we were on our way to a massive 12th-century temple in a forest-studded setting.…
Vestiges of Semarang’s Ethnic Quarters
Jalan Pandanaran is a busy four-lane street in downtown Semarang, a city of 1.6 million people that is also the capital of Indonesia’s Central Java…
Banteay Srei: Poetry in Stone
Over the course of history, we have read and seen how with the rise of great kingdoms and empires these opposing sides of what human…
Wadi Rum: Where Imagination Runs Wild
It is remote and barren. It is a land of scorching heat. Yet, here we are, in Wadi Rum, a large valley in the southern…
Kota Lama: Between Restoration and Reinvention
Only time will tell. This cliché has been proven over and over again. We’ll never know what the future has in store, and despite our…
Prambanan: The One that Keeps Calling
Do you have a special place that, for whatever reason, keeps calling you to return even though you’ve been there many times? I do. Those…
Madaba’s Marvelous Mosaics
Humans and art are inseparable. Thanks to the discoveries of cave paintings around the globe from France to Indonesia, dating back more than 40,000 years…
Along the Colonnaded Street of Jerash
Several months ago, after so many years of dreaming, I finally got the chance to visit ancient Roman ruins for the very first time in…
Batujaya: Dawn of an Era
It rises conspicuously amid green rice paddies as far as the eyes can see. Rectangular in shape and made from red bricks that are much…
Kathmandu’s Garden of Dreams
Six years ago this month, I set foot for the first time on a land that felt foreign yet familiar at the same time. India…