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This blog presents photos from one of India's most beautiful states, Kerala, home to tea plantations, houseboats, and Kathakali dance.

Indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world, after #1 India, #2 China, & #3 USA, numbering 279 million people (source-Wikipedia).  It is the world's most populous Muslim country.  It is the world's 14th largest nation by area, and the world's largest archipelagic state consisting of over 17,000 islands. 

But beyond these statistics, I was very impressed with the warmth of the Indonesian people. The attached photo gallery illustrates their warmth.

Ireland had always been on my “bucket list.”  So I’m ecstatic to have gotten the opportunity to visit, even without long prior planning. 

Traveling on the segment from New York’s JFK airport to Israel, I was coincidentally seated next to a guy from Reno.  He was an engineer named Paul, traveling to Israel for his company.  From previous familiarity, I correctly guessed the company, Ormat Technologies. . . 

Welcome to Israel Arriving in Israel less than a week ago for a short visit on the way to the conference in Jordan, their first question was: “What the _______ (insert appropriate word of your choice) is going on in the US?” To which we replied, “What the ______ is going on in Israel?” It’s complicated. I hardly know where to start. But we have to start somewhere, to bring attention to what’s going on in these turbulent times...

For the third year in a row, Susan and I attended the conference Middle Eastern Nurses Uniting in Human Caring. This year’s title was Human Caring in a Time of World Crisis, a theme chosen almost a year ago, before the most recent war between Israel and Gaza, before the hideous executions by ISIS, most recently of a Jordanian pilot burned alive. . . 

There are many hamams in Istanbul, both ancient and modern.  The hamam we visited was built in 1741 and bills itself as the last hamam constructed during Ottoman Empire.

How much of Istanbul can one see in a short two-day visit?  Actually, quite a bit, when logging over 20,000 steps/day on my FitBit.  When we first planned our Viking River Cruise, I told our friends Bill and Linn, who were traveling with us, that we would be so close to Istanbul while visiting the Balkan countries, that we must add it on to our trip.  And so, following our Danube River cruise, we flew from Budapest to Turkey, arriving in Istanbul the evening before Election Day. . .