Around the World in Three Minutes

by Paul Winter

After living on The Rock (Okinawa) for two years, I was ready to stretch my legs. I purchased one of those around-the-world airline tickets that let me go anywhere as long as I went west. So I went from the Far East to the east coast of the States by going through Asia, a bit of Africa and Europe. It took three months, but it sure took care of my travel bug. I decided to spend at least one week in each place without moving around so I could get to know some people. Most tourists want to see historic sites. but I learn about myself from observing different life styles. I have always been more interested in the people around me than people who lived hundreds of years ago. When I travel, I go for the people. I get my history from books. I recommend one in particular, The Archives Of Ebla by Pettinato.

I have observed that people in different countries do everything differently. They build differently, they wait in line differently, they eat differently, they strike matches differently. . . most importantly, they think differently and have a different sense of values. I would contemplate these differences and try to determine what made these people behave and think differently. Often I came to an impasse in my deliberations due to a lack of detailed historical and cultural knowledge. What automatically happenes at this point is that I would begin to consider the basis of my behavior and sense of value on that subject. This is much easier since I had plenty of background knowledge concerning my own culture and sense of values. However, without people in far away places showing me different approaches, I would never have examined myself or my culture in this area and under such an objective light.

I soon realized that my ideas and goals were not the result of simply being a man with a propensity towards free-thinking. To a large extent my ideas were the result of a set of previously unknown influences. The more strange and different things I observed about people in foreign countries, the more I examined the person I had become and what had influenced me. The results of these examinations were so valuable that I wrote them down, and that made all the difference. To a significant extent, I learned what parts of myself were really my own and what parts were the result of cultural and social influences. I not only learned about myself and the society I grew up in, but discovered motivations and tools for the changes I wished to make in myself.

Countries on this Page

It is strongly recommended that you do not click any of these links until the entire page loads.

India | Sri Lanka | Egypt | Italy |

Singapore

My first stop for my trip was to obtain visas that I couldn't get in Okinawa. I didn't get to know any one in Singapore, but I had time on my hands and a camera. I found myself drawn to the local parks.

I didn't see much of what Malaysia had to offer, but I saw some interesting roofs.

One cool thing about Singapore it that everybody wears their pajamas whereever they go.

Shopping in Singapore is insane. I couldn't even find the floor in this department store:

The night had lots of lights.

India

I intended to visit the interior of India, but because of visa problems in Singapore, I cancelled that portion of my trip and headed to Sri Lanka after a short hold over in Bombay. But Bonbay gave me a lot to look at. In Califorina, we have about a hundred cars per one perdistrian. In Bombay it is the oppisite and people crowd it so it can't move any faster than they can.

The combination of British and local architecture was rather extrodinary:

It seemed that the style of dress in the olden days was quite marvelous.

Local curture is everywhere. Here a street artist makes a flat street dip and dive:

After just a couple of days in Bombay, I left for the island nation of the east coast of India:

Sri Lanka

I had wanted to go to Sri Lanka for a very long time. So long in fact that I wasn't sure why, but it felt right and it was. I spent weeks there and traveled as little as possible. During my touring, I did find the topper of all toppers:

The figures on that roof were about half life size. Their vivid colors looked like the thick glaze found pottery. It looked like it would retain its incredible brightness for ever. I also found some monks in some tricky country going down some stairs or are they climbing those stairs?

I spent considerable time at a beach community that had the most incredible breaking wave I had ever seen. It broke for so long down the beach that we never swam back. We just got out of the water and walked back to the line-up. My estimate is that it broke for at least a 1/4 mile. Most of the surfers there had come from Austral so I was a novelty. Here is a local surfer displaying Yogo posture on a wave:

But the most amazing thing about the beach was not the wave, but the lagoon. As much as I spend time in the water, I have never really forded a river of bay or anything that I could remember, but in order to get to the surf spot, you had to ford this small lagoon. You could walk all the way across which we did holding a towel over our heads. the surfers pushed their boards and I carried my fins. So what was the big deal? The feeling. It seemed that I connected with every past life I had ever experienced. Fording water is something we just don’t do anymore. We fly over water on bridges made of steel and tar. But in my past lives fording water was a natural part of traveling adventures - the highlight of most lives. After all these years I still remember the feeling that that crossing brought to me every magical day.

Well, perhaps not all our bridges are steel and tar.

I hired a car and driver so I could watch the scenery and traveled the mountainous interior where the best tea in the world is grown.

Being a tea drinker I was in heaven. It turns out the best tea in the world doesn't often leave the island. They have been letting us drink their cast offs for centuries, but at least I learned the difference and now and then I can find the good stuff. Perhaps the hardships of picking tea in the mountains causes them to hord the good tea.

During one of these drives I took a photo of the winner of car craming. This mini bus carried 12 people into town.

On the same road trip we came across this modern bridge with an old laundry beneath:

Eventually we arrived at the beautiful mountain town called Candy.

Some streets may look drab, but the interiros of the shops were something else again and what service!

The main attraction in Candy is the Temple of the Tooth:

The actual tooth is only is only shown once a year. The rest of the time it remains behind this door:

Whose tooth? you ask. That's a story. The story of a traveler who spread a philosophy across India and its neighbors about 3,000 years ago. As the story goes, when he visited Sri Lanka, he had a tooth removed. The dentist asked if he could keep it. An interesting side note relates to a science fiction writer who lived in the Capital city of Sri Lanka, Colombo for most of his life. One of his science fiction books addressed the exodus from Earth far into the future when our sun is about to nova. In the book Clark describes the contents of the last space ship to leave Earth. Most of the contents are ancient pieces of art. There is one article that he describes as simply the oldest tooth know to man. I know whose tooth he meant. Do you?

Although the Temple of the Tooth was beautiful and full of ancient energy, the most remarkable thing about Candy was a small fruit I had the good fortune to catch during harvest. It is a bit smaller than an apple and purple. It has a very thick skin that yields up the most wonderful white flesh that has ever caressed my tongue. Its name is Mangostien. No, it's not a Jewish mango. It is like no other fruit I have ever tasted. I have heard that it is sometimes available in my area, but I have never seen any. If you ever see any, you will email me, right? handpen@best.com.

As we headed back to the capital, more of the country revealed itself.

Ruins doted the rock outcropping. I though they were very wise to just carve the stones where they were.

We often stopped to observe the local chiefs and sample their specialties.

Sri Lanka was a wonderful experience and probably the best vacation spot I had ever found.

Egypt

So what time do you have to get up to catch these guys without a hundred tourests climbing all over them?

Just don't go to bed. Sunrise on the world's oldest watchdog, lion, errr watchthing.

I did it right in Egypt; I called a tour agency and said that I wanted their best man. They asked me how many people in my group, I said, "one." After a short pause they said they had a professor who would only take small groups. Just what I wanted. When we met he said that he could take me to places that one out of a thousand travelers gets to see, but sometimes things can get rough and if he told me to give this man my wallet or give these men my camera, I had to do it without hesitancy. Cool. I agreed. And off we went on an adventure like the Knights of Arabia.

I told the professor that I liked those domed things so of course I got domed:

Then we went to the City of the Dead. This is were the rich build stone crypts to entomb their ancestors. Some of them had the most amazing mosaics I had ever seen, but a camera couldn't capture what they did; they moved, they rushed, they flew. One of these roofs spun around, or appeared to when the professor told me to look straight up. The other lifted up. Can you tell which does which?

Of course no country would be complete without one of Paul's odd angle shots:

I told the professor about the lamp I was looking for and he took me to this store:

You might think that using the professor to shop was a waste of his talents, but look at my lamp in my new place:

Italy

After the land of the big pointy things, I traveled to the land of good shoes:

This picture wanted to be a postcard, but I have my standards. Not.

Italy has the most beautiful architecture I have ever seen, but sometimes I think that using statues is cheating.

Of course with the marble they have in Italy who can blame them for putting it to good use.

But, they do get carried away with their ceilings. I usually just use that spray-on oatmeal looking stuff.

The Itilians are very health concious and have unique methods for encouraging good health. Here angles are used at a drinking fountain to discourage kids from spitting in it:

I stayed in a hotel room I always think of when I see the Movie "Somewhere In Time."

They use angels for all sorts of things like holding up the lights:

After treating his wife so rudely and then flaunting it, that guy is going to need some angel friends.

I said fairwell to Florence and she shined me on.

I rented a little white car in Italy and drove north through the charming country side.

I drove through the Alps heading to Germany and a lost love. Although it was August, the Alps welcomed me in the tradition of my family name. A snow storm arrived that dumped six feet at the higher elevations. I spent a couple of glorious weeks in Germany visiting my old haunts and falling in love all over again. Since it was August, it stayed light till very late. The room I had was perfect for watching it get dark as I fell asleep with a smile; I was home, going home.

As it comes to all great trips, I headed home with a stop over on the east coast mostly to see my sister who I missed more than anybody and still do.

When I hit LA, I was reminded that you don't have to travel all around the world to find beauty; you just have to open your eyes.

Till we meet again, choose love.

Paul returns to California.

More pictures of Germany and Europe

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