I’ve visited Stockholm, Sweden, over a dozen times during the last forty years, for weeks or months at a time, I’m once again reminded of why it is one of my favorite cities in the world, and indeed, why I love Sweden in general...
INDIA VISIT OVERVIEW
Susan and I have completed one month of our seven-week visit to Mumbai, India. This is the longest time that Susan will have ever spent in India. In my approximately fifteen visits to India over the years, I generally stayed for around a month and twice for two months. As a result of these many visits, we have many friends here, most of whom are musicians or music lovers. Our goal for this seven-week stay was to enjoy our friends and the great food while playing as much music as possible.
I’ll never forget a conversation that occurred in Norway some years ago as Susan and I met retired hospital architect, Knut Bergsland, to tour his hospital in Trondheim, Norway. Knut said, “Welcome to Norway. You should know that as long as you are in Norway, if you have any medical problem, you can go straight to the hospital, where you will be treated without charge. We don’t care if you’re Norwegian or a foreigner, with or without a visa, all will receive treatments free of charge.”
Until today’s port visit, Cadiz was just a name I had encountered sometime in the past. I didn’t know anything at all about it. Now at the end of the day, I feel enriched by learning about this city, as well as having visited an historic village named Vejer de la Frontera.
Mysore is a city of two million in southern India. Two million is considered a moderate size city in India. The Mysore Palace is the second most visited building in India after the Taj Mahal, and for good reason as these photos will show. The 27th Maharaja of Mysore still occupies half of the palace with his family. The Indian government occupies 20 percent, which it uses for official meetings and as a reception area for honored guests. And the remaining 30 percent is open for public tours, from which the photos below are taken.
Kuala Lumpur is the capital of the country of Malaysia. Known previously as Malaya, the country was colonized first by the Portuguese, then the Dutch, and finally by the British. In World War II, it was occupied by the Japanese. It became independent after WWII. In 1963 Malaya joined with Singapore, changing its name to Malaysia, adding the "si" for Singapore. However, the confederation lasted only two years because of resistance to the potential influence of Singapore's majority Chinese population.
Our recent trip to Georgia and Alabama was our first occasion to travel since Susan and I arrived back from Israel, Jordan, India, Dubai, and Nashville on March 5, 2020. Society, including our company, Healing Healthcare Systems, shut down totally at the end of that week...
Writing this blog on the return flight from Spain to the US, my challenge in writing is to choose which aspects of the trip to highlight. There are more stories than I have the time or space to relate at length. Thus, my brief listing . . .
Susan and I were privileged to spend ten days in Bali. Several days were spent traveling several hours from Ubud, our home base, to famous temples popular with tourists like us. We didn't see all of Bali. But the places we were able to visit yielded many interesting photos.