After years of working 70 hours a week at jobs I detested, I felt like the proverbial "hole in the donut" - solid on the outside, but empty on the inside. Searching for meaning in my life, I abandoned my successful but unsatisfying career and set out on a six-month solo backpacking trip around the world to pursue my true passions of travel, writing, and photography. My blog features stories about the destinations I visit, people I meet, the crazy things...Read more here.... 
Thai artisans work precious teak wood into carvings, furniture, and all manner of statuary at the Royal Thai Handicrafts Center in Damnoen Saduak, near Bangkok, Thailand.
Posted in Videos | 
arisans, Art, Bangkok, cultural travel, culture, Damnoen Saduak, furniture, Sculpture, teak, Thailand, Travel, wood carving, world travel | 
5 Comments
As I waited to fill my plate during the International Human Rights Day celebration at Tashiling Tibetan refugee settlement in Pokhara, kids darted back and forth through the dinner line, playing tag. When one of them unexpectedly scooted in front of me, I reflexively took a step back and bumped into Tseten Chomphel. He laughed, diffusing my embarrassment, and introduced himself. By the time we made it to the head of the buffet line we were chatting like old friends. For the next hour I sat cross-legged on the concrete floor of the community center with Tseten, his wife, niece and mother-in-law as he related how he came to be an artist and art teacher in Nepal.
Tseten came to Nepal from Tibet at the age of six. Like his older brother and sister before him, Tseten’s parents sent him out of the country to receive a better education than he could hope for in Tibet, especially since he’d shown great artistic promise from the time he could pick up a pencil. At the Tibet-Nepal border his parents handed Tseten over to his older brother who, with help from the Tibetan Assistance Agency in Kathmandu, arranged for him to attend school in India. After graduation, Tseten returned to Nepal, where he reunited with his brother and began focusing on his art.
Tseten Chomphel, artist and art teacher at Tashiling Tibetan refugee settlement
Tseten's niece and mother-in-law
Although he is happy living in Nepal, the forced separation from his family is a difficult burden to bear. Since the day he left Tibet, Tseten has seen his parents only once and they have never even met his wife. In 2007 the Chinese government finally granted permission for his parents to travel to the Nepal-Tibet border to reunite with their son, but only for six hours. They huddled together in the bleak landscape that marks the border between the two countries, enduring the scrutiny of Chinese soldiers as they shed tears of joy and despair.
Fascinated by his story, I could hardly believe my good fortune when he asked if I would like to see his paintings. At the elementary school he pulled aside a floor-length tapestry covering the front door of his tiny apartment in the teachers’ residence area and stepped aside for me to enter. A huge oil painting of a leopard chasing prey dominated one wall of the front room and smaller paintings covered much of the remaining wall space. He served up tea and offered me Yak cheese and dried sheep yank that his mother-in-law had carried all the way from Tibet, then pulled out a large portfolio and began spreading piece after piece in front of me on the sofa table, most of which were produced in watercolor on art paper that Tseten makes by hand, since canvas and oil paints are expensive and rarely available.
Tseten and his wife share tiny teacher's quarters
Leopard mural dominates Tseten's small living room
Posted in Asia travel | Art, artist, blogsherpa, cultural travel, culture, long term travel, Nepal, painting, Pokhara, refugee, Tashiling, Tibet, Tibetan, Travel, world travel | 8 Comments
In addition to being beautiful and having a fascinating history, Guanajuato, Mexico is a cultural mecca, with 15 museums, three major theaters, five major plazas, five temples that range from Baroque to a fine example of New Spain’s Churrigueresca architecture style, and a schedule of festivals and special events that rivals any of the world’s great cities.
Mummy Museum
Once again, time constraints made it impossible to visit all the museums. Since Guanajuato was the birthplace of the famous Mexican artist Diego Rivera, the Museo Casa Diego Rivera would have undoubtedly been a good choice. Then again, both the Regional Museum of Guanajuato’s Alhondiga dde Granaditas, site of the battle that launched the Mexican Independence movement, and the Museum of the City of Guanajuato were worthy sites. In the end, with so many possibilities, I decided to concentrate the two quirkiest museums in town, the Museo de las Momias and the Museo Iconografico del Quijote.
The Museo de las Momias (Mummy Museum) is a macabre exposition of mummified bodies that have been exhumed from city graveyards. The collection of 111 bodies of mummified women, men and children in were exhumed from Santa Paula Municipal Cemetery between 1865 and 1989. The corpses are so well preserved that the hair remains on their head and the clothes in which they were buried are almost totally unaffected by decay. While fascinating, the extent of the preservation also has a horrifying side; many of the corpses were victims of the black plague, which often resulted in a coma that doctors misdiagnosed as death, and “scream” expressions on some of the mummified faces prove that they were buried alive.
Mummified remains from other places in the world are the result of religious rituals designed to preserve the cadavers, or result from conditions such as extreme dryness, cold, alkalinity, isolation from the elements or from microorganisms. However, Guanajuato ‘s mummies are unique because they did not undergo any process of preservation or embalmment, and the cause of their state of mummification is a mystery that is still being studied today.
Impromptu concert in the courtyard of Museo Iconografico del Quijote
The Iconographic Museum of Don Quijote, dedicated to one the great literary figures of all time, Don Quijote de la Mancha, has a massive collection of paintings, sculptures and tapestries that were inspired by the figure of Quijote and his faithful sidekick, Sancho Panza, including works by Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso, and Mario Orozco Rivera, among others. The museum was spawned by the Festival Internacional Cervantino, an event named in honor of the book’s author, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, which brings together artists of diverse cultural and artistic disciplines in October of each year and has become one of the most important cultural events in Mexico and throughout Latin America.
In between museums, I delighted in the fancy footwork to be found around Guanajuato. Although they are big business in Mexico, I’m not talking about shoes. From a quick-stepping Mariachi band performing for diners in Jardin de la Union to open-air ballroom dancing in Plaza San Fernando, Guanajuato is one very cultural and very fun city!
But as much as I have fallen in love with this exquisite, fun, friendly city, I know I must soon hit the road again. There is so much more of Mexico to see and so little time.
Posted in Mexico travel | Art, ballroom, blogsherpa, Cervantes, culture, Dance, dancing, Diego Rivera, Don Quijote, Don Quixote, Festival Internacional Cervantino, Guanajuato, International Cervantes Festival, mariachi, Mexico, museo de las momias, Museo Iconografico de Quijote, museum, northern central highlands, Travel | 15 Comments
The territory that today comprises the State of Zacatecas was originally inhabited by diverse ethnic groups who left important traces of their presence and cultural development, beginning with its name: Zacatecas is derived from the Nahuatl Indian word “zacate,” which means a place of abundant grass. The present day City of Zacatecas was founded in the sixteenth century when rich silver deposits were discovered in the area. Exploitation of the mines created a new class of aristocrats that rivaled those in Old Spain, and the newly wealthy filled the city center with distinguished colonial and Neo-Classic style buildings designed to reflect their importance. The Centro Historico (downtown, literally historic center) of Zacatecas is one of the best preserved historic cities on the American continent and since 1993, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Today, many of these exquisitely preserved buildings have been converted into museums, all of which are worth a visit. But with no less than nine major museums in the city center alone, there was no way I could possibly visit them all, so I selected two that seemed to be most highly recommended.
Stunning grounds of the Rafael Coronel Mask Museum
The Rafael Coronel Museo de Mascaras Mexicana (Mexican Mask Museum) is perhaps best known, as it is included on every list of top attractions in Zacatecas. In this case, the lists are right; this is one museum that should not be missed, if only to stroll through its amazing, lush grounds. Housed in the former San Francisco Convent, the museum boasts the largest collection of masks in all of Mexico. The main exhibit, “The Face of Mexico,” presents a large portion of the ten thousand authentic masks in the museum’s collection, many of which are still used today by indigenous tribes during festivals and traditional ceremonies. Other exhibits include puppets from the Rosette Aranda Company, pre-Columbian pots and vases, terracotta figurines from colonial Mexico, and other art displays from pre-Hispanic to contemporary times, but the masks are the stars.
Devil masks, part of the 10,000 masks in the collection of Rafael Coronel Mask Museum
If you look hard enough, you can pierce the phony facade in even the most tourist-choked destinations. In Miami Beach I finally broke through the barrier when I connected with its artist community.
My first view of the art of Karim Ghidinelli was from a second floor balcony at the Art Center/South Florida, looking down into his open cubicle. The artist sat in the center of the room, hunched over a cell phone, surrounded by massive oil on tin paintings. Initially, the flamboyant colors splayed across each piece held my attention. But I was even more fascinated when I realized that a giant thumbprint had been etched into the center of each metal canvas. I had to see them up close.
Ghidinelli in his studio, surrounded by huge canvases
The intense young man welcomed me into his studio and studied me with dark, brooding eyes as I examined his paintings up close. Each fingerprint whorl was formed by words, some readable and some not, spiraling in toward the center. I read snatches:
“…the most natural pressure is fear…”
“…all the traits that make the self do not come from the self so how do we claim…”
“…fall under the omnipresent post-modern theory of everything…”
“…fearless encounter…”
The artist's intensity is reflected in his workk
I asked Ghidinelli if the concept of fear was central to his work. “We all strive for stability but never achieve it,” he explained. Ghidinelli is no stranger to this struggle; like most artists he never knows when Continue reading
Posted in Florida travel | Alberto de Menenses, Art, artists, blogsherpa, culture, escapism, Florida, Karim Ghidinelli, Miami, Miami Beach, South Beach, south florida, Travel, USA | 17 Comments
Although I don’t pretend to understand the surreal images of distorted females and melting clocks that pervade the art of Salvador Dali, his work had always intrigued me. I simply assumed the symbolism was an unknowable product of a demented mind. So I was surprised when the docent at the Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida commented, “Luckily, Dali spoke and wrote voluminously about the meaning of his artwork while he was alive, thus we understand what each piece is meant to represent.”
Fascinated, I followed the docent around the gallery as she related the history behind each piece and explained what the artist was trying to convey in his bizarre landscapes. With its 96 oils created between 1917-1970, the Salvador Dalí Museum is the permanent home of the world’s most comprehensive collection of the renowned Spanish artist’s work, including the Impressionist and Cubist styles of his early period, abstract work from his transition to Surrealism, the famous surrealist canvases for which he is best known, and examples of his preoccupation with religion and science during his classic period.
The tour ended at a sunken gallery where half a dozen of Dali’s enormous religious canvases hung. At the suggestion of our guide, we stood above and looked down on these floor-to-ceiling pieces in order to have a wider view. This was a different Dali – one that I had never experienced. “Look closely – what do you see?” our guide asked, gesturing toward the oil titled, “Halucinogenic Toreador.”
"Halucinogenic Toreador" - What do you see in the painting?
I’d spotted the most obvious of the double images even before she asked, but was astonished when she began pointing out dozens of double images secreted throughout the painting. Almost everyone in the room could see the two male toreadors emerging from the two main Venus de Milo statues. Most could discern the Dalmatian dog hidden at the bottom of the painting and the head of the slain bull, with its pool of blood represented as a blue lagoon. But I had to get up close to see the smaller hidden images. The panting is littered with Venus de Milo statues and each one, no matter how tiny, contains the hidden image of a toreador’s face.
Posted in Florida travel | abstract, Art, blogsherpa, double images, Florida, Hallucinogenic Toreador, paintings, Salvador Dali Museum, St. Petersburg, tampa, Travel, USA, west coast | 24 Comments
Best Budget Destinations
80% off. Pay at checkout.
