The stories in this book describe life in other worlds across the Asian continent where customs and cultures are far removed from our own. All describe places I visited and sights I witnessed such as the simple yet wonderful Lao courtship ritual, the cremations on the banks of the Ganges, and the Golden Triangle's unique Opium Museum. Some tell of the journeys themselves like my first taste of India, others relate to difficulties in communication as I experienced in Kathmandu, or of differences in cuisine such as in Vietnam. In others the theme is history; for example, Korea's heartrending past. The tales journey from a holy lake in the Indian desert to the Killing Fields of Cambodia; from the land mines and bomb craters of the Lao countryside to the Korean DMZ; and from the magnificence of the Great Wall of China to the bustling twenty first century cities of Tokyo, Singapore, and Hong Kong, all of which clearly demonstrate the wonder of our planet.
