Sweden: A checkered history and changing with immigration
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Dallas Smith's Blog
A Quick Glimpse of Rome
December, 2019
We spent two tourist days in Rome prior to boarding the Viking cruise ship. Our hotel was located in the Trastevere section of Rome, an older residential area across the Tiber River from the central city, home to Rome’s most famous architectural landmarks.
My travel blogs are intended to provide my readers with the vicarious pleasure of my sharing my travel experiences.
Xue--Vietnam's Historic Capital City
Visiting a Buddhist Pagoda and the Imperial Palace
The city of Hue is located approximately in the middle of Vietnam and was the seat of royal power from the 19th and into the 20th centuries. There were thirteen kings who reigned from Hue. Many of the ancient structures were destroyed during the Vietnam-American War, which have since been restored. The photos show scenes from the Imperial Palace as well as the three hundred-year-old Buddhist pagoda.
More Alaska Photos
October, 2013
As we traveled across the Denali Highway, the 105 mile dirt road through this incredible wilderness, with higher elevation came fresh snow.
Sikkim--India's Buddhist State
March, 2016
A Brief History of Contemporary Sikkim The history of Sikkim parallels that of Bhutan in many aspects. Like Bhutan, Sikkim was a geographically isolated Buddhist kingdom that was never colonized by the British or any other country. Bhutan has remained an independent country, though it...
Turkey: Religion and Politics
Our Turkish tour guide, Mehmet, has a college degree in English literature. He spent his military service working as a translator. Obviously, his English language skills are outstanding. Having been a tourist guide for twenty years, he has visited these Turkish historical sites hundreds of times. Thus, he has refined his narratives over the years to be immensely content-rich, historically informative, and culturally aware. Therefore, besides my own reading and observations, much of the information I will recount in this blog is derived from what I've learned from Mehmet's daily cultural and historical descriptions.
Madeira
March 2022 - World Cruise
What a difference the distance of three sea days between Cape Verde and Madeira makes! The country of Madeira, like Cape Verde, also discovered and settled by the Portuguese, is the opposite of Cape Verde...
A cultural comparison of Kenya and Tanzania
Photos of the people of Kenya and Tanzania
Our first trip to East Africa was a great experience. The people were very open and hospitable. The safari logistics were performed without a hitch. But above all, the animals were amazing.
The gallery for this blog features the people, not the animals.
DISCLAIMER
My photo gallery for this blog is of varying quality. That is because many photos were taken from the moving jeep. Sometimes, the subjects were far away, such that expanding and cropping of the subject lowered the resolution. Some of the subjects were not happy with my having taken their photos. I tried to be unobtrusive when possible. Don’t forget to click the photos to expand them and see the short descriptions.
Bali
Indonesia's Paradise Island
Bali is an island populated by 95% Hindus, but are only 5% of Muslim-majority Indonesia. As early as the first century CE, Indian traders spread Hinduism and Buddhism to East Asia, including what is now Indonesia. Hinduism in Indonesia reached its height by the 7th century. It was during this period that the Buddhist temple of Borobudur was constructed. (Borobudur was featured in my previous Indonesia blog.) By the 13th century, Islam spread through the islands of Sumatra and Java, supplanting Hinduism. However, Bali remained almost exclusively Hindu, despite the rise to dominance of Islam throughout the rest of what is current-day Indonesia. Bali has maintained the ancient Hindu religious practices which are also still practiced in India.