"Ceaselessly the river flows, and yet the water is never the same, while in the still pools the shifting foam gathers and is gone, never...

(Hue, Vietnam, part 2) Emperors and gods are sometimes (usually!) indistinguishable. In Asia, and especially looming China, central...

The Perfume River (Sông Hương or Hương Giang; 香江) crosses the city of Huế, in the central Vietnamese province of Thừa Thiên-Huế Province....

I’ve spent a night on Halong Bay, on the coast of North Vietnam, twice. Both times, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience — (1) hauling...

It is finally time to leave Hanoi, the city, for a gambit in the countryside. But it takes time, as the metropolis is far-flung, hanging...

Vietnam today is, of course, a different place than in the previous century. Changes have been significant in government,...

At one time, in the last century, Americans dabbed charcoal-tinted war paint on their faces and attempted to subdue a combined imperial...

I have always wanted to ask a puppet, in private, what it is like to be enslaved and forced to do its master’s bidding, subject to being...

Hanoi (Ha Noi, “river’s inner”) is a large sprawling beehive(s) of activity, spotted with large construction projects and relentless...

I visited North Vietnam the first time roughly 10 years ago. The country then had already moved on from the previous century of...

“The swallow has set her six young on the rail, and looks seaward.” James Lee’s Wife (1864, pt 3 st.1), Robert Browning Before Autumn...

Tomorrow I leave for another visit to Vietnam and Cambodia for a couple of weeks. It has been 10 years since I was in these two...

Cuba Connection — 2018 (*Photos have been selected at random) A Metaphor Walking the streets of Havana in March 2018, I spied a man in a...

Cristobal Colon (Christopher Columbus) never set foot or planted the flag for the Crown of Castille on North America. However, he found...

A Metaphor Walking the streets of Havana in March 2018, I spied a man in a white T-shirt watching a spontaneous soccer match below his...

Even before touring the city of Havana proper, I am enthralled by the alternating flow of shiny and rumpled, rusting metal objects on the...

Before leaving Iran, it is only fitting in a way that I/we step away from the beauty and progressive qualities on display in the country...

On the western side of Isfahan’s grand square looms the Ali Qapu, a towering pavilion topped by pillars, under reconstruction, and behind...

It's early morning, late September. I stride across Meidan-e Shah Square (the massive Royal Square) in old town Esfahan (or Isfahan),...

In the wilderness about 200 miles south of Tehran is a place called “Half of the World.” Ishfahan, twice the capital of Persia, was the...