A temple (with the yellow umbrella) in Angkor Wat. I asked the taxi driver to stop so I could take a photo of this montage. Angkor Wat in Cambodia , like Much Picchu in Peru, was lost to the jungle until it was “rediscovered” some many years later. These giant trees grew wild all over.
A stone Buddha buried in the roots of a tree in Ayutthaya, the old capital of Thailand. Many of the statues had been beheaded, perhaps taken by vandals and looters to be sold to private collectors and museums.
A floating market just an hour or two from Bangkok.
Carlovy Vary, a region in the mountains outside of Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic. An hour away was Marienbad, another old resort in the mountains, made famous by a film by Alain Resnais, director of “Hiroshima, Mon Amour.”
Chiangmai, Thailand is one of my favorite places. It is best to visit in December. There is much to see: Buddhist temples, the night bazaar, the restaurants, the spas, the Tao Garden. The massage techniques are the best in the world. The food is cheap and affordable. You can get a room in a hotel for $20 a day and in a guest house for $5. A 2-hour massage costs $10 or so. You can get a day trip to the Golden Triangle for $20-30. You can also buy a fake Rolex watch for $10 at the Night Bazaar!
She’s known by the name Pilat. She’s the owner and chef at a noodle shop in Doi Saket, Chiang Mai, Thailand. This photo was taken 20 years ago. Taken in 2018, during my last visit to Chiangmai. Pilat’s noodle shop is just outside Tao Garden. We would often steal out to have noodles at breakfast.Another place we went to was the refrigerator in the first floor of a house that made the best coconut ice cream in the world. It was made from the local coconut that is so sweet, it did not require any sugar. The owner knew we were raiding the fridge because we were so noisy. Yes, we always left the payment in a bowl. Mikael Hoj, the Tao Garden herbalist, who has 300 jars of herbs in his pharmacy. Amazing friend and healer. David Verdesi practicing a Shaolin form one morning in 1997. A class I was teaching at Tao Garden in 2002. John has a t-shirt shop in downtown Chiangmai that produces these hand-painted shirts. With GM Mantak Chia, founder of the Universal Healing Tao, and James McConnell, disciple of legendary Daoist master Wang Liping, during my last visit. I was so happy to wear that shirt. I learned later that it was a popular uniform for waiters in Chiang Mai.
