About Barbara Weibel

Barbara Weibel 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....
  • Eiffel Tower, Paris, France
  • Angkor Wat Cambodia
    Angkor Wat, Siem Reap, Cambodia
  • Hill Tribe Chief Northern Thailand
    Hill Tribe Chief, Thailand
  • Machu Picchu Peru
    Machu Picchu, Peru
  • Franz Josef Glacier New Zealand
    Franz Josef Glacier, New Zealand
  • Olympic National Park Washington State
    Olympic Peninsula, Washington
  • Damnoen Saduak Floating Market Thailand
    Damnoen Saduak Floating Market, Thailand
  • Maasai Tribe Ngorongoro Tanzania
    Maasai Warriors, Ngorongoro, Tanzania
  • Lion Serengeti National Park Tanzania
    Serengeti National Park, Tanzania
  • Chichen Itza Yucatan Mexico
    Chichen Itza, Yucatan, Mexico
  • Wat Xieng Thong
    Wat Xieng Thong, Luang Prabang, Laos
  • Feast Central India
    Traditional Feast, Central India
  • China Shangahi Skyline Pudong
    Pudong Skyline, Shanghai, China
  • Honeymoon Beach Florida
    Honeymoon Beach, Florida
  • Great Wallof China Jinshanling Beijing
    Great Wall, Jinshanling, China
  • Lake Louise Banff National Park Canada
    Lake Louise, Banff National Park, Canada
  • pura ulun danu temple batur bali
    Lake Temple, Central Bali
  • Galapagos Islands Ecuador
    Galapagos Islands, Ecuador

Master Taisen Deshimaru said:

To think is to choose to observe and comprehend,
even if one is disturbed by oneself or others.
Ultimately, to think means to understand,
to understand primordial matter,
the first thing in history.

Master Ok-Sung An-Baron said:

Between he who has conquered a hundred thousand men in battle and he who has conquered himself, it is the latter who is the greater victor.”

I originally read these quotes on two consecutive days. On its own, the first quote was thought provoking, but when I read the second quote Continue reading

My sister emailed this to me today and it is well worth repeating:

Two friends were walking through the desert. During the journey, they had an argument and one friend slapped the other one in the face. The one who got slapped was hurt, but without saying anything, wrote in the sand:

“Today my best friend slapped me in the face.”

They kept on walking until they found an oasis, where they decided to take a bath. The one who had been slapped got stuck in the mire and started drowning, but the friend saved him. When he recovered Continue reading

I arrived in Portugal following a nightmare 13 hour travel day where everything that could go wrong did go wrong, including nearly being throw off an Italian train over a seat assignment, a flight that was an hour late, and getting lost at night between the airport and the rail station in Lisbon because the woman at the information desk at the airport told me to take the wrong bus. But hey, my luggage made it though; gotta be grateful for the little things.

Anyway, I took a day and a half to regroup – get money from the ATM, get my laundry done (really, I was beginning to smell), shop for groceries (I am renting a studio apartment in Cascais, Portugal, a suburb of Lisbon with a series of great little beaches), and write, write, write. I didn’t even go out to see Cascais the first day because I had to get the Cinque Terre, Italy stories out of my head before I saw a new place. So now I’m all caught up and have even uploaded all my Italy photos to the photo library. I hope you’ll want to look at them because I think they are incredible (especially the Venice and Cinque Terre photos). To view them just click on the button labeled “Photo Library” on the upper right-hand side under the green menu bar and then on the appropriate area link.

My trip is winding down now – only 9 more days. I am sad (I really think I could stay on the road pretty much full time) but I’m also looking forward to getting home to the good old USA where everything is so familiar. There were times during this trip that were very stressful – never knowing what I was going to find from day to day, or even where I was going to be the next day was a constant challenge. In the beginning, I was often “mired in the muck” and had to MAKE myself Continue reading

According to anthropologists, the Aborigines have inhabited Australia for between 40,000 and 60,000 years. Yet today it is common to hear white Australians refer to themselves as having descended from the “first settlers.” Unfortunately, the indigenous population of Australia has been abused, neglected, terrorized, and denied basic human rights since the days these “first settlers” arrived. It was only in a 1967 referendum, when 90% of the nation voted to make all Aborigines citizens of Australia and give them the right to vote, that this began to slowly change.

I learned all this at the Sydney Writer’s Festival where, on the 40th anniversary of the referendum, a panel of Aboriginal writers, statesmen, and community leaders reflected upon the things that have changed and the things that have not changed since the legislation was passed into law. One woman recalled the eve of the referendum as her family tried to grasp the fact that they were now full citizens of the country that their ancestors had inhabited for eons. They were awed and elated until the next morning, when her mother walked into the grocery store and, as usual, was followed around by clerks to ensure she stole nothing and made to exit through the rear door, as the front door was for whites only. Their night of elation quickly turned to sorrow as they realized that, although the law had changed, people’s attitudes hadn’t, and in reality nothing had really changed at all.

Others spoke of times when Aboriginal children were forcibly taken from their homes, put into government schools, forced to learn English and punished for speaking their native language. To keep them from running away they were told that their parents were dead, or that their parents didn’t want them. Now, 40 years later, some things Continue reading

Yesterday morning dawned clear and the sites outside my hotel beckoned, but I have been without a good Internet connection for days, so I just had to catch up on email and blog posting before hitting the pavement. It was noon before I finished. I grabbed my backpack and headed out the front door of the hotel, surprised to discover that the weather had tuned grey and drizzly. The tuk-tuk drivers and taxis love this weather – they figure no one wants to walk in the rain. But I was determined and shook my head “no” to their advances. I noticed a bookstore just down the street and I needed something to read, so I headed in that direction.

Crowds shelter under awnings in Bangkok Thailand

Crowds shelter under awnings, waiting for the rain to let up

I hadn’t gone two blocks when the rain began in earnest – and I mean it was a deluge! I ducked under an overhang to wait it out. At first I was standing there, shifting my weight from one foot to the other and not really thinking or paying much attention to what was going on around me. Suddenly I noticed the Thai Lottery building directly across the highway from where I was standing. A set of cavernous covered steps led into the building and as the rain continued unabated, more and more people collected on the protected stairway. There were shirts and umbrellas of all colors, softly muted by the falling rain as in a watercolor painting.
Watching this moving canvas of color brought me into the moment and I started noticing all the little details around me.

A tourist bus sped by, casting an enormous shield of water from its windshield that formed an arc around the front of the bus, as if shielding it from harm.

An open-air tuk-tuk putted along, the driver and passenger both hunched under the vehicle’s narrow metal roof. Continue reading

I mistrust people who are always right or claim to know everything.

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