Travels in the Riel World

Happy New Year! It’s that time of year again - time for personal resolutions and for perusing various annual lists of top travel destinations for the coming 12 months. For the most part, this is a meaningless exercise. But it’s a fun kind of meaningless. Hey, it’s time to dream of all those places we still want and need to visit.

First up this year is Frommers with a list of 12 top destinations for 2009. Here are a few of them…

Cartagena, Colombia - After years of strife and violence owing to the drug cartel wars, Colombia has begun to emerge as a safe and vibrant travel destination…Cartagena has a highly developed tourist infrastructure, and it’s just a short hop from the U.S…Cartagena sits on the Caribbean coast and is a wonderfully picturesque, walled-in fishing village of pastel-painted buildings, fine cathedrals, and plenty of Spanish colonial architecture and 17th-century forts that allow you to steep yourself in history. The white-sand beaches are sublime, the restaurants are excellent, and lodging comes in all styles and prices.

Cape Town, South Africa - Cape Town, the oldest city in southern Africa, is regularly heralded as one of the most beautiful on earth. The massive sandstone bulk of Table Mountain, often draped in a flowing “tablecloth” of clouds, forms an imposing backdrop, while minutes away, pristine sandy beaches line the cliff-hugging coast where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet. You can visit African Penguin colonies at Boulders Beach along False Bay or take the ferry to Robben Island, the former prison home to political prisoners such as Nelson Mandela.

Cambodia (But Not Angkor Wat) - For people who have “done” Thailand and Vietnam, Cambodia seems like the next natural step. Tourism is taking off as a countrywide industry, and most people who contemplate Cambodia do so for a visit to Angkor Wat, the famed ruins in the jungle…We recommend casting a net beyond the limits of Angkor Wat and seeing a bit more of the country. Among the highlights are boat trips up the Mekong River and through the jungle to catch a glimpse of the rare freshwater Irrawaddy dolphins; or perhaps spending some time in vibrant, energized Phnom Penh.

Civil Rights Trail from Selma to Montgomery in Alabama, United States - What happened forty years ago between Selma and Montgomery — the antecedent for the Voting Rights Act — is why the U.S. will welcome Barack Obama into the White House this year. It’s additionally important because the U.S. southeast is rich both historically and culturally, and the Trail provides a very accessible window to an often overlooked region by tourists…Highlights include the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the Slavery & Civil War Museum, the Rosa Parks Museum, and the Maya Lin-designed Civil Rights Monument.

The lost ark of the covenant, which once housed the Ten Commandments that were given to Moses on Mount Sinai. It’s an enduring legend, one that has never been solved but which has enchanted legions of scholars and laypeople. Steven Spielberg even made a pretty good movie out of it.

But is the ark really lost? Ethiopian Christians have long claimed that the ark has been in their possession for 3,000 years. Paul Raffaele investigated the story for Smithsonian magazine.

“They shall make an ark of acacia wood,” God commanded Moses in the Book of Exodus, after delivering the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. And so the Israelites built an ark, or chest, gilding it inside and out. And into this chest Moses placed stone tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments, as given to him on Mount Sinai…

According to the First Book of Kings, King Solomon built the First Temple in Jerusalem to house the ark. It was venerated there during Solomon’s reign (c. 970-930 B.C.) and beyond. Then it vanished. Much of Jewish tradition holds that it disappeared before or while the Babylonians sacked the temple in Jerusalem in 586 B.C.

But through the centuries, Ethiopian Christians have claimed that the ark rests in a chapel in the small town of Aksum, in their country’s northern highlands. It arrived nearly 3,000 years ago, they say, and has been guarded by a succession of virgin monks who, once anointed, are forbidden to set foot outside the chapel grounds until they die…

The story is told in the Kebra Negast (Glory of the Kings), Ethiopia’s chronicle of its royal line: the Queen of Sheba, one of its first rulers, traveled to Jerusalem to partake of King Solomon’s wisdom; on her way home, she bore Solomon’s son, Menelik. Later Menelik went to visit his father, and on his return journey was accompanied by the firstborn sons of some Israelite nobles—who, unbeknown to Menelik, stole the ark and carried it with them to Ethiopia. When Menelik learned of the theft, he reasoned that since the ark’s frightful powers hadn’t destroyed his retinue, it must be God’s will that it remain with him.

Many historians—including Richard Pankhurst, a British-born scholar who has lived in Ethiopia for almost 50 years—date the Kebra Negast manuscript to the 14th century A.D. It was written, they say, to validate the claim by Menelik’s descendants that their right to rule was God-given, based on an unbroken succession from Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. But the Ethiopian faithful say the chronicles were copied from a fourth-century Coptic manuscript that was, in turn, based on a far earlier account.

Check out the whole story to read about Raffaele’s experiences in Ethiopia.

I hope everyone had an enjoyable holiday season! Now it’s back to work…

Have you ever wanted to go to Indonesia? Would you go there with your two-year-old son? With your nine-year-old son? Lisa Reed did both - traveling there with her two-year-old son in 2001 and returning this year with the same child, now nine. She recounts the two trips in a story for the NY Times.

My husband, John, and I had spent three months in Indonesia in 2001 with our son, who was then 2, and I was curious about how deep an imprint the culture had left on him. His enthusiasm for Indonesia back then — his wide-eyed delight at the lizards, called cicaks, that lived in the house in Jakarta; at holding the reins of a pony cart in Lombok; and at the sunset performance of a fire dance on an oceanside cliff in a monkey forest in Bali — made me think that the soul of the country had seeped into him. He was thrilled by the drama and magic of the country’s arts and folk tales.

And if he had loved Indonesia, it had loved him right back — Indonesians being famously kind and affectionate to children. He was fussed over, played with and indulged everywhere we went.

At 9, he is no longer such an enthusiast; the prospect of our sunrise trip to Borobudur tomorrow is not exciting to him in the least. But I want him to see it again, now that he’ll remember it…

The alarm goes off at 3:45 a.m. and we are on the road by 4, my son asleep again in the dark, quiet comfort of the car, his head in my lap. Lonely trucks pass us on empty streets. The road is lined with warungs, wooden food stalls, which are still closed but cheerfully lighted with strings of bulbs…

My son sleepwalks across the lawn as I point out features of the temple, trying to gin up interest. We climb to the top with the others and jockey for the prime location facing Merapi and the reddening sky. Monks in saffron robes meditate facing inward to the stupa, perhaps trying to resist the distractions of a beautiful sunrise or an erupting volcano.

Tomorrow is Christmas Day, so it’s a good time to take a look at some of our holiday traditions - how they’ve evolved through the years and how much these customs are a product of celebrations from various other countries and cultures.

A story in the Orlando Sentinel makes the point that our current holiday is actually a melting pot of traditions.

Few American holiday traditions are as popular around the world as that of the jolly old man in a red suit who comes bearing gifts. But Santa Claus is coming to town only because immigrants brought him here first, either as the Greek St. Nicholas or the Father Christmas of the early English and Dutch settlers.

Even the first modern depictions of Santa were drawn by a German immigrant living in the United States in the 19th century. Immigrants brought the tradition of Christmas trees from Europe. They sang some of the first carols…

In fact, many of the yuletide traditions — some that begin tonight, Christmas Eve — that are considered quintessentially American started somewhere else. The evolution of Christmas as a mishmash of customs continues as people from other parts of the world add theirs to the cultural melting pot.

So says Edward T. O’Donnell, a history professor at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., who studies the historical and cultural aspects of Christmas.

Nowadays, Americans are as familiar with “Silent Night,” translated from German, as they are with “Feliz Navidad,” the 1970 hit by Puerto Rican singer Jose Feliciano.

And that is a good thing, O’Donnell believes. “Tradition always evolves,” he said.

The Washington Daily News took a look at the evolution of Christmas traditions.

Families and friends will sit down Thursday for a Christmas feast of ham and/or turkey, mashed potatoes, yams and a few other special favorites.

But if we were living in England centuries ago, Christmas dinner would consist of (gulp!) the head of a hog cooked with mustard. If that doesn’t kill your appetite, consider that in the Middle Ages it was customary for peacocks and swans to be consumed at Christmas time, their flesh seasoned with saffron…

Electric lights glowed on Christmas trees for the first time in 1895; they were a safer replacement for the live candles that had been used up until that time.

Mailing holiday greetings to loved ones dates back to the early 1800s; the first commercially-produced Christmas card was created in England in 1842…But as early as 1822, Americans were sending homemade Christmas cards and the practice so over-whelmed the postal service that Washington, D.C. had to hire extra mail carriers to deliver cards in that city. Today, it is estimated that over three billion Christmas cards are mailed in the United States.

And the Huntington Herald-Dispatch also ran a feature on the origin of holiday customs.

The Christmas tree originated in Germany around 1,000 years ago and was associated with mystery plays…When performed in the church, the tree was surrounded by lighted candles. After ending church plays, the candles and tree were taken to a home where the Christmas tree became a symbol of the Savior. Tree decorations over time changed to white wafers, then small pastries, colored paper, tinsel, cookies and other objects.

In time, the lighted candles were transferred from near the tree to being placed on the tree. German immigrants probably set up the first Christmas trees in America around 1710. German soldiers during the Revolutionary War popularized the Christmas tree in America during the late 1700s…

Saint Nicholas of Myra was a fourth century bishop. St. Nicholas appears on the eve of his Dec. 6 feast bearing gifts. He comes at the beginning of Advent to prepare children’s hearts and lives for the coming of the Messiah. The custom of giving presents in his name at Christmas time, therefore, originated.

Santa Claus was made popular in America by Dutch Protestants who immigrated and settled. His name is Father Christmas in England, Pere Noel in France and is named Saint (Sinterklaas) in Germany.

Just some Christmas history to enjoy as you prepare to celebrate this year’s holiday season. I wish you all the best for the holidays and in the coming year!

I always love to hear stories of how other people discovered their love of travel, and a great source for this are the monthly interviews with travel writers that Rolf Potts publishes on his website. He recently interviewed Catherine Watson. Here is an excerpt:

How did you get started traveling?

By the time I was a teenager, we were taking a five- or six-week road trip every summer. Our family wasn’t one of those happy, totally in-sync Brady Bunches, but my parents did a remarkably good job of teaching my four siblings and me how to travel. We went all over the continent, from the Arctic Circle to the southern border of Yucatan…

I don’t know how my mother felt about it, but my father hated planning, and he liked getting lost. I picked up both those attitudes. He also refused to stop at any attraction kids like. There were no Treasure Caves, Mystery Spots or Reptile Farms for us, though he did break down once and take us to Wall Drug. Otherwise, it was Yellowstone, Mesa Verde, Grand Canyon, Bryce, Zion, Yosemite, the Great Smokies, and every historic town, village, national monument and battlefield in between.

Every trip was a crash course in geography, history, culture, anthropology, religion, even local politics. In the car, kids were assigned to take turns reading aloud to the rest of the family about the places we were coming to. Wherever we stopped, we had to go out in teams – big kids watching little kids – and find things out. In Mexico, for example, my parents routinely sent us off into crowded public markets to shop for food, and we learned first-hand how kind people could be, even when they’d never met us before and couldn’t understand what we were saying.

What is the biggest reward of life as a travel writer?

The world. The whole, damned, beautiful, complicated, aggravating, incredible world. And the freedom that comes with it. I feel most alive when I am out there, on the road, meeting people, asking questions – not just for myself, but on behalf of readers. I’m a better traveler when I keep my audience in mind: They help me be braver, more curious, my best self – because I’m traveling for someone besides me.

Are you interested in Israel? The Los Angeles Times just published a three-part travel series on the country, with articles on Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and the Sea of Galilee. Here is an excerpt from the piece on Galilee.

After spending a few days in Tel Aviv, I rented a car and set out with my friend … for an eight-room country inn about 60 miles north of the Sea of Galilee…

We followed the coast north, gradually leaving behind the urban sprawl that is rapidly filling in the empty spaces between Haifa, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, turning central Israel into one big metropolis. It felt good to be on the road, and I quenched my yearning for classic biblical vistas of rocky hills where shepherds kept watch over their flocks.

When we turned inland at Hadera, I got landscape — first a barren plateau around Nazareth, then lonely Mt. Tabor, thought to have been the setting for the Transfiguration of Christ described in the New Testament.

An hour or so from the coast, the highway contracted into a series of hairpin curves leading to the town of Tiberias, a hot spring resort built by Herod Antipas, the Jewish king who governed Palestine for the Roman Empire during Christ’s lifetime. While rounding a turn, I let my eyes drift past the road and suddenly saw the Sea of Galilee, seven miles wide, 13 miles long and almost 700 feet below sea level. It was a milky shade of blue that I’d swear existed nowhere else on Earth.

Two recent articles caught my eye. They are both about the impact that technology is having (or not having) on opening up the world and promoting greater transparency.

The first piece concerns technology in Egypt, and focuses on the fact that Apple disabled the GPS feature on its iPhone in that country. This was at the request of the Egyptian government, which was said to be concerned with the ability of people to get coordinates of military bases. The writer spends a bit of time discussing the failure of technology so far to promote greater openness in Egypt, but still ends the article on a note of hope in this regard. 

But thus far, each time technology has promised to help introduce democracy to the country, the young peoples’ hopes have been dashed. A movement for political reform that used Facebook to organize protests over the spring was shut down. The authorities cracked down, jailing many of its organizers. In the last few weeks, a blogger affiliated with the radical group the Muslim Brotherhood was arrested for his writings, according to the Arabic Network for Human Rights. Another blogger is being held in a military camp, the group says.

It is enough to make one wonder if new technologies - the personal computer, the Web, the smartphone - will help set us free or merely give us that illusion…

It is easy to get swept up in the utopianism embedded in new technologies. That we will be more politically engaged because of the organizing and fund-raising tools of social networking; that we will think greater thoughts now that anyone can have access to nearly everything ever written; that our tribal hatreds will melt away as the world recognizes that we are all connected.

Even those like Ganesan, who see technology abused, are cautiously hopeful. “Technologies do not hold people accountable. They give people the tools to hold people accountable.” But he added: “We believe as a human rights group that the Internet can have an opening and transforming effect.”

When Human Rights Watch was founded in 1978, he said, people were “smuggling letters by hand from the Soviet Union - that was how the world found out about a dissident.” Today, there is a range of tools for spreading the word, from blogs to e-mail to YouTube videos.

The second article dates to the time of the terror attack in Mumbai, India, and provides more glimpses of the power of technology to transform the media and our access to information. In this case, individuals who were trapped in hotels or who viewed the Mumbai violence firsthand used Twitter to communicate with the rest of the world and provide real time updates on the tragedy.

From his terrace on Colaba Causeway in south Mumbai, Arun Shanbhag saw the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower Hotel burn. He saw ambulances leave the Nariman House. And he recorded every move on the Internet.

Mr. Shanbhag, who lives in Boston but happened to be in Mumbai when the attacks began on Wednesday, described the gunfire on his Twitter feed — the “thud, thud, thud” of shotguns and the short bursts of automatic weapons — and uploaded photos to his personal blog…

The attacks in India served as another case study in how technology is transforming people into potential reporters, adding a new dimension to the news media.

At the peak of the violence, more than one message per second with the word “Mumbai” in it was being posted onto Twitter, a short-message service that has evolved from an oddity to a full-fledged news platform in just two years…

“When you look at TV, you see one channel at a time, then you go to another channel,” said Dina Mehta, an ethnographer and social media consultant in Mumbai. “On Twitter, you get feeds from many different people at the same time.”

Just a couple of examples of how technology quietly transforms the world in both expected and unintended ways.

On having an incurable urge to travel…

When I was very young and the urge to be someplace else was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured that greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked. Four hoarse blasts of a ship’s whistle still raise the hair on my neck and set my feet to tapping. The sound of a jet, an engine warming up, even the clopping of shod hooves on pavement brings on the ancient shudder.

                                                                              –John Steinbeck, Travels With Charley

What makes a city sexy? Romantic locales, sultry dancing, or adult playgrounds? Virgin Media online put together a rundown of what it considers the world’s ten sexiest cities. A sample:

Buenos Aires, Argentina- No form of music and dance is sexier than Tango, and Buenos Aires is its birthplace. The people of this most grand of capital cities are famously good-looking and there’s no better place to get to know them than in Los Telos, the city’s “love hotels” that provide hourly rates and seclusion for couples wanting a convenient place to get it on.

Paris, France - We could hardly leave the official “City of lovers” off the sexy list. The city’s grand boulevards and literary heritage are sure to put you in a romantic mood, and those river-side pathways lit by twinkling lights are just the place for a drawn-out snog.

Havana, Cuba - Cuba’s capital offers a thrilling cocktail of salsa clubs, a healthily Latin approach to nightlife (dress well, don’t even think about setting off until 10pm, and dance til dawn or preferably beyond) and elegant American cars in which to cruise around town with a new-found friend. Throw in the general sense of rebellion associated with this non-conformist Caribbean state, and it’s the perfect destination for a sexy getaway.

By now, everyone has heard of the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at President George Bush during a press conference. Almost all of the press coverage has dutifully reported that throwing a shoe at someone is a grave insult in the Arab world, a comment that has sparked countless other individuals to respond with something along the lines of: “Duh, you patronizing journalists, wouldn’t a shoe-throwing incident be considered an insult in any culture?”

Well, yes. And no. The point is that this is a commonly understood insult in the Arab world. If an American were brazen enough to throw a shoe at a President, or at any public figure, viewers would of course understand it as an insult, but they’d also think the person doing the throwing was a bit off his or her rocker. Most Americans who viewed tape of the incident with President Bush likely reacted with surprise. After all, what kind of crazy person would throw their shoes at a politician? In Iraq, however, the meaning was immediately clear. Even those Arab journalists who thought the act was uncalled for and disrespectful still grasped a deeper meaning in the incident. As Wikipedia explains the insult:

In the Arab world, shoe flinging is a gesture of extreme disrespect. A notable occurrence of this gesture happened in Baghdad, Iraq in 2003. When U.S. forces pulled down a giant statue of Saddam Hussein during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, many Iraqi detractors of Hussein threw their shoes at the fallen statue…The shoe represents the lowest part of the body (the foot) and displaying or throwing a shoe at someone or something in Arab cultures denotes that the person or thing is “beneath them.” Showing the bottom of one’s feet or shoes (for example, putting one’s feet up on a table or desk) in Arab cultures is considered an extreme insult.

Meanwhile, if you somehow missed seeing tape of the infamous shoe-throwing, the video is below. And I have to agree with this comment by David Kurtz: “The shoe-hurling was pretty gripping video, but Bush’s reaction and subsequent riff on what free societies are all about is worth watching, too.”  Hey, perhaps the incident had the unintended consequence of prompting an Arab discussion about political protest in a democracy.

Is Cusco, Peru, a must-see destination? Simon Calder thinks so, and he explains why in this story for the U.K. Independent.

When asked the same question: where is the essential stop on a 21st-century Grand Tour? I surprised myself by answering without a second thought, “Cusco”.

Marketing folk expend much time dreaming up slogans for destinations. So far, though, none has matched the claim of the Peruvian city; one that should, I reckon, be on the schedule of every global grand tourist: “navel of the universe”. This was how the most remarkable civilisation in the Americas defined its mother city. The Inca empire straddled the Andes, extending at its height from present-day Chile to Colombia. And Cusco was at its heart.

Within a few decades of the arrival of the Spanish conquistadores in the 16th century, the Inca emperors had been overthrown with dreadful cruelty. But the capital they created endures as a tribute to a people who compensated for what we would see as technological shortcomings (no wheels, no writing, no horses) with ingenuity, imagination and collective effort.

Talking of effort, Cusco will make you gasp, literally. Most people arrive by air from Peru’s capital, Lima. When catapulted from sea level to 11,000 feet in an hour, humans struggle to cope.

The gods chose a curious position for their navel. Cusco is draped beautifully, though awkwardly, over a hillside, about halfway to heaven. Its shape resembles a puma, a beast held by the Incas to be sacred. The head, in the north, comprises the ancient Inca ceremonial site of Sachsayhuaman; a kind of Machu Picchu for beginners, if you like. This vast complex comes alive each midsummer at the solstice celebration. But at any time of year, the site provides a breathtaking introduction to the scale and intricacy of Inca masonry.

Once you have got your cosmic bearings and done some navel-gazing from the hilltop, stumble down into the heart of the puma. The Spanish-built Plaza de Armas remains one of the most magnificent city squares in the Americas.

No, it’s not a trick question. Actually, many scientists will tell you the answer is yes. Check out this thought-provoking article in the International Herald Tribune for the whole story.

In releasing its latest figure on emissions last month, United Nations climate officials cited agriculture and transportation as the two sectors that remained most “problematic.”

“It’s an area that’s been largely overlooked,” said Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Nobel Prize-winning United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He says people should eat less meat to control their carbon footprints. “We haven’t come to grips with agricultural emissions.” …

Every step of producing meat creates emissions. Flatus and manure from animals contain not only methane, but also nitrous oxide, an even more potent warming agent. And meat requires energy for refrigeration as it moves from farm to market to home.

Producing meat in this ever-more crowded world requires creating new pastures and planting more land for imported feeds, particularly soy, instead of relying on local grazing. That has contributed to the clearing of rain forests, particularly in South America, robbing the world of crucial “carbon sinks,” the vast tracts of trees and vegetation that absorb carbon dioxide.

“I’m not sure that the system we have for livestock can be sustainable,” said Pachauri of the United Nations. A sober scientist, he suggests that “the most attractive” near-term solution is for everyone simply to “reduce meat consumption,” a change he says would have more effect than switching to a hybrid car…

Producing a pound of beef creates 11 times as much greenhouse gas emission as a pound of chicken and 100 times more than a pound of carrots, according to Lantmannen, the Swedish group.

Have you ever heard of the whirling dervishes? Have you ever seen a performance? The only one I ever saw was, oddly enough, in Egypt and not Turkey, which is the country more commonly associated with these spiritual dancers. Nevertheless, the performance by the lone dancer I saw was incredible. I couldn’t take my eyes off of this man as he spun around and around and around in circles. And so I could understand completely this short essay by James Fallows in The Atlantic, in which he described his inability to stop watching a whirling dervish whom he saw dance in a public square in Istanbul.

Across the square we glimpsed a tall, lean, broad-shouldered man standing motionless on an open-air stage. At tables around him people ate and drank, oblivious. The man wore a pure white jacket and skirt over white trousers, and a very tall dun-colored cylindrical hat. He looked straight ahead—and then, as music rose from the reed-flute player and the drummer seated next to him, he began to rotate exactly in place, faster and faster.

His white skirt stood out full around him; he extended his arms, airplane style, one pointed toward heaven and one toward Earth. He cocked his head so the long hat was parallel with his outstretched arms. And for improbable minutes and minutes, he turned.

During those minutes, we did not move, nor did our eyes ever leave him. He had put himself into a trance, and had done something similar to many of the onlookers, who one by one stopped whatever else they were doing to simply gaze.

Eventually the dancer slowed, then left the stage, with no acknowledgement of any sort to the crowd. He sat by himself at a table to recover, drinking water. During the rest of our time in the city we learned more about the symbols expressed in this dance—the eerie hat evoking the tombstone that awaits us all—and sought out other Mevlevi, in less obvious settings. And now, when I think of that dancer, I still hear the first notes from the reed flute, and see the look, into nothing, in his eyes.

Have you heard of Lonely Planet’s Blue List? Well, now it’s time for ”Riel Lists.” This new, every once-in-a-while feature on Riel World will be a compilation of my own travel experiences, memories or recommendations. Beginning today, with “Sunrise, sunset,” which lists some of the more beautiful and interesting experiences that I’ve had watching the sun rise and set in various locations around the world.

1. Mt. Sinai, Egypt- After climbing Mt. Sinai from about 2 to 5 a.m., alongside Bedouin tribesmen and their camels, watching the sun rise over this lunar-like landscape is an unforgettable experience. Whether or not one is religious, it’s not difficult to imagine Moses having a divine experience there. What made this sunrise even more memorable was the chance to share it with a small group of other travelers from around the world, just days after a terrorist attack took place only a few hours away in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt.

2. Oia, on the island of Santorini, Greece- Oia is a small town on the Greek island of Santorini. Every day, travelers wind their way to the western edge of this island, amidst whitewashed homes perched on the edge of hillsides, and watch the sun disappear beneath the waves of the Aegean Sea. It’s a dramatic sight, which invariably causes the gathered travelers to break out in applause.

3. Ganges River, Varanasi, India - Another sunrise experience. And what an experience it is - to trudge the narrow, crowded, dirty streets of Varanasi in the predawn hours and then emerge atop the ghats that line the Ganges River, looking out on a bright sunrise that tints the river orange while hundreds of Hindu pilgrims bathe and pray at the water’s edge.

4. Masai Mara National Reserve, Kenya - I remember this sunset very well, perhaps because it was at the end of an especially interesting game drive, when we saw a group of five lions that had just killed a wildebeest. On the way back to our camp, the driver stopped by a lone acacia tree and let us soak in a vivid purple and orange sunset.

5. Jimbaran Beach, Bali, Indonesia- You could pick any one of several other Balinese beaches and insert them here, as Bali is famous for its beach sunsets. But Jimbaran Beach is unique because of the seafood shacks that line the beach and only open for dinner. Diners pick out a freshly caught fish, which is then cleaned, grilled and served seaside, as the sun sinks into the Indian Ocean.

6. Phnom Bakheng temple, Siem Reap, Cambodia - Perched atop a hillside in northern Cambodia and only accessible via a steep staircase. From here, one can look down on the spectacular ruins of Angkor Wat, while watching the sun set in a splash of color over the edges of an 1,100-year-old Buddhist temple.

7. Nile River, Luxor, Egypt- Another Egyptian sunset, but it can’t be helped. Sunset over the Nile River at Luxor, not far from where numerous ancient pharaohs are buried in the Valley of the Kings, is a memorable experience. If you can view the sunset from a boat, as you gently rock to the motion of the Nile, it’s even better.

Lots of honorable mentions that nearly made the list, but I’d have to say the seven I singled out above are to this point my most memorable sunrise and sunset experiences. What are yours?

An overseas assignment can be an exciting adventure for business executives and their families. Unfortunately, it can also be a confusing, stressful experience for families who have difficulty adapting to a different culture or to sharp changes in one’s social network and identity. 

Proper preparation before heading abroad, including cross-cultural training, can be the difference between a successful and unsuccessful assignment, but not every company provides such support for its employees. This NY Times article details some of the challenges that are faced by expatriates and their families.

More and more workers have relocated abroad in recent years, but despite the growing numbers, family issues remain a major factor in the failure of overseas postings.

The initial excitement of an exotic new posting can turn to culture shock, loneliness, identity loss and depression, and it is often the employee’s spouse and children — without the familiar routine of work — who are most affected.

“I thought it would be an adventure, and it was,” said Francesca Kelly, who moved 10 times in the first nine years as a Foreign Service spouse, living in places like Belgrade and the former Soviet Union during the cold war. But it “was much more difficult than I ever imagined it would be.”

Brenda H. Fender, director of global initiatives for Worldwide ERC, an association concerned with work force mobility, said “if the family cannot adapt, the employee will likely not succeed.”

And not succeeding can be expensive.

Scott T. Sullivan, senior vice president at GMAC Global Relocation Services, told the story of a man from Cleveland with an important role in building a large manufacturing plant in rural China. He left the work and returned home when his wife and child became desperately unhappy. This disrupted the project, a joint venture with a Chinese company, which then backed out — a loss for the American company of hundreds of millions of dollars, Mr. Sullivan said, that could have been avoided with a better assessment before the man left home.

Cross-cultural training helps families know what to expect, Mr. Sullivan said, but only 23 percent of companies make it mandatory.

Sure, you can go backpacking in Europe, or Southeast Asia, or Australia and New Zealand. But if you really want an adventure, what about wandering around part of Africa for a while? It’s not for everyone and it’s a more difficult form of travel, especially since the tourist infrastructure is not as well developed, but there are many fascinating destination options.

Anouk Zijlma, the Africa travel guide for About.com, recently did a feature on her top 10 backpacker destinations for Africa. An excerpt:

Lake Malawi, Malawi - Lake Malawi is a beautiful fresh water lake that takes up about a third of the entire country of Malawi. Most backpackers who make it to Malawi head straight for a beach and they’re rarely disappointed. Malawi is the cheapest place in the world to get your diving certification, so you may as well do something useful while you enjoy the sunsets and grilled fish!

Chefchaouen, Morocco- Chefchaouen is situated in the heart of Morocco’s Rif Mountains. The town is relaxed, with very affordable accommodations, and above all, quite stunning to look at. The streets and most of the buildings in the old part of town (medina) are painted a most brilliant sky blue. The mountains which you can see at the end of every cobbled street are rugged and majestic. The clear mountain light just adds a magical touch to the place. It’s no wonder that Chefchaouen is a favorite destination for backpackers visiting Morocco.

Kribi, Cameroon- Kribi is one of those amazing spots few travelers discover because of its remote location. But those that do make it absolutely love it. West Africa is hard on backpackers and Kribi is just a jewel of a beach place. The nearby Lobe Waterfalls actually tumble into the ocean, a totally unique sight. You can also visit Pygmy villages in the area.

Dahab, Egypt- Dahab is the place for backpackers to congregate along the Red Sea coast of Egypt. There’s plenty of budget accommodation available, nice beach restaurants and lots of diving shops…The snorkeling is very good here too.

The only one of these places I’ve been to is Dahab, but I can heartily recommend it as a place to chill out on the beach or to do some snorkeling and diving. You can read a short entry about my experiences in Dahab here, or a longer version in my book.

Ladakh is a fascinating place. A Tibetan Buddhist culture in northern India, it has more in common with such neighbors as Bhutan and Nepal than it does with the country to which it belongs. David Desjardins and his family recently discovered that the Ladakhi landscape is also spectacular and the people are friendly and welcoming. He, his wife and their 12-year-old son recently went trekking in Ladakh, an adventure that David recounted in a story for the Boston Globe.

A high desert plateau pitched between the autonomous Chinese region of Tibet to the east and Pakistan to the west, Ladakh (”Land of High Passes”) is part of India, but has more in common with its neighbors. It is the meeting place of two mountain ranges - the Karakoram and the Himalaya - and of two cultures, Buddhist and Muslim. For centuries, it was an important stop along the ancient Silk Road, but today political tensions to the east and west ensure that most visitors to Ladakh approach it from the south.

Surrounded by mountains, Ladakh was for centuries inaccessible for much of the year, its high passes choked with snow from October through May, often longer. Air travel has changed that, but even today flights are frequently canceled because of bad weather. The region’s high paths and roads are open in July and August. When the throngs arrive, they flock to Leh, Ladakh’s ancient capital and the center of its tourist trade.

Nestled along the Indus River valley at an altitude of 11,500 feet, Leh is where visitors catch their breath. The need to acclimatize, and to organize a trek, usually keeps newcomers