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NEPAL: Durbar Square Before the Earthquake

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I was writing my blog about Nepal’s UNESCO World Heritage and historic sites very late last night (05-12-15 in Nepal) when I happened to check my Instagram and saw a posting about Kathmandu after a 7.4 magnitude earthquake hit Nepal yet again. I get emotional just by looking at the photos and videos I took from my recent trip to Nepal let alone a video of a chaotic Kathmandu. I must confess to telling a co-traveler on our way to Patan's Durbar Square that I was ‘templed out’ (the term I used to describe how I felt after visiting so many temples).  Who would have thought that the visit to that last Durbar Square and seeing all the temples that day was a great blessing.  I have said many prayers of gratitude for the opportunity to see and capture in films and photos Nepal’s UNESCO World Heritage sites and the irreplaceable temples and statues before the April 25, 2015 earthquake. The Kathmandu Valley is comprised of three cities: Kathmandu, Bhaktapur and Patan. Each city features
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The Banaue Rice Terraces: A Living Cultural Landscape

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My interest in exploring the northern part of the Philippines started from looking at a piece of art at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, California.   Among the display of ceramics and pottery engraved with gold and other decorative stuff,  a wooden carving of a male figure squatting on a platform with the lower arms on top of each other, resting upon his knees, caught my eye.  According to the docent, the wooden sculpture was called "Bului" which literally means "granary guardian" in the "Ifugao" tribe dialect. The carved wooden sculpture was set on a platform on top of another platform, a mortar.   Our docent explained the significance of the wooden mortar (which was used with the pestle, to separate the husk from the rice, sort of rice mill) and linked the story to the Rice Terraces in the Cordillera Mountains of the Philippines built 2000 years ago by the “Ifugao” tribe. So two years and three hundred kilometers north of Manila later, we explo
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Poland: The Wieliczka Salt Mine

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One of the most spectacular UNESCO World Heritage Sites I visited this year was the Wieliczka Salt Mine near Krakow, Poland. It was founded in the 13th century to mine the rich deposit of salt. Salt mining stopped in 1996 when the low price of salt on the world market made it too expensive to mine and the mine was slowly flooding. But miners did more than just extract salt. They left behind them a breathtaking record of their time underground in the shape of statues of mythical, historical and religious figures.  Part of the salt mine became an art gallery, chapels, cathedral, and underground lakes. Today, Wieliczka Salt Mine is one of the most visited National Monuments in Poland. For safety reason, less than one percent of the mine is open to visitors, but even that is almost four kilometers in length. There are 20 chambers to visit and 800 steps to climb of which 350 at the beginning take you down into the mine. You can’t just visit and wander around on your own. All of the visits
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