Our idea before traveling there by muscle power, was that various forms of Buddhism was the dominant spiritual force. We spent twelve days in Bangkok in 2000, after our tandem tour around Australia, visiting temples, and missed the complexity of spiritual life in Southeast Asia. In Bangkok, Buddhist is the dominant religion, and the other forms were decidedly muted by the fantastic representations of the Buddha. Outside of the large centers, religious symbolism  is much more complex matter.

The photo above is one of many very large stone statues at Buddha Park a dozen or so kilometers outside of Vientiane, Laos. In the middle of a long hot day on a dirt road, we spent an hour or more wandering this fantastic few acres near the Mekong river. Although called Buddha Park, it contained representations of numerous spiritual beings, figures in a complex mythology of Asian historic spiritual practice.

I post this because Claire is now finishing up her first magazine article, illustrated with both our photos from this tandem trip, The Many Faces of Buddha. We will announce when the article ,and post a link to the magazine’s site.

If anyone has any interest in the complexity of Southeast Asian spirituality, and wishes to share experiences or knowledge about it, we’d love to hear from you. Post a comment below.

There will be more photos in later articles.

This is a republication, with changes, of an earlier post.

It appears the volcano in Iceland is not going to go back to sleep without causing mankind to take notice of the disruption possible. Thousands of flights have been canceled by the the ash cloud ejected from the eruption under a glacier. The ash is even more destructive to air traffic because some of it may be turned to glass by the ice before being ejected high into the air.We’ll just have to wait and see if this will last for weeks and cause major economic disruption in North Atlantic and European transportation, or fade away quietly. I wouldn’t bet on either.

We rode mountain bikes across Iceland one spring and learned just how unstable a place it can be. No, not the banking system, that might be another post, but the land itself. Iceland is part of the Atlantic Ridge, where Earth’s crust is being ripped apart as the tectonic plates slide on the molten mantle. In the first picture, Claire is straddling the North American plate and the European plate.

All this volcanic activity so close to the surface has been both a blessing and curse to Icelanders since settlement times. Steam from vents warms homes, produces electricity and draws tourists for their short summer. But where there is steam, there is fire, and water. With lots of precipitation, and just bussing the Arctic Circle, Iceland is and land of fire and ice, and roaring powerful rivers. Iceland has the third forth and fifth largest ice sheets on Earth, quite a distinction for such a small island nation.

Powerful rivers with thundering waterfalls carry the rain and glacier melt to the sea, along the away, often harnessed for electricity to smelt aluminum from ore shipped from all over the world. In recent years this has been a major contributor to the Iceland’s economy, replacing the fishing industry facing increased competition in the North Atlantic fishery. The harnessing of their rivers is a contentious issue with Icelanders; they like the money, but aren’t so sure about the environmental consequences. The also fear the consequences for the unprecedented purity of their gene pool, from the importation of foreign smelter workers.

This beautiful lady we met at a national park in the far north. She is pure Icelandic, lovely and nice too. She is studying to be an opera singer in Europe, and works summers as a park ranger. For years, scientists have been using Iceland as a place to study the genetic makeup of humans; their line goes back to the 9th century, and they are isolated halfway between continents and far north. With new gene sequencing methods, it won’t matter so much if science looses that pure strain, but it seems to be still important to the people of Iceland. I wouldn’t call it racism in this case, more cultural pride.

Should you be concerned with a small volcano on a tiny island nation far away? Possibly.  Activity in the current location has always been a  precursor to large eruptions under the Eyjafjallajokull glacier in southern Iceland. In 1783 an eruption killed a fifth of the population by famine, and created severe climate disruptions in Europe. A large, ash producing eruption, could cause rapid climate change in many parts of the northern hemisphere. Geologic evidence points to many such events in human history.

So, are you ready for a winter all summer next year? You might want to watch tiny Iceland for the foreseeable future.

Claire and her mountain bike in the center of Iceland.

For more photos and story about our tour across Iceland, click here

]]> http://newbohemians.net/iceland-eruption-worth-your-attention/feed 0 http://newbohemians.net/hai-van-pass-vietnam http://newbohemians.net/hai-van-pass-vietnam#comments Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:56:51 +0000 Bob Rogers http://newbohemians.net/?p=1299

Hai Van Pass in Vietnam

This view is probably familiar to many in my generation who served in Vietnam in the 1960’s and 1970’s. It was taken, looking north, from a headland jutting out into the South China Sea, forming a barrier to weather, and no doubt troop movements, between South Vietnam and North Vietnam. The two Vietnams are now officially one country, but we found, as we pedaled from the DMZ south, two fairly distinct cultures. In Hue, the former Saigon where Claire was born, is called Ho Chi Minh City, south of Hue it is still called Saigon, even on train schedules.

The Vietnamese people are increasingly  entering the world economy, and will challenge many other Asian economies in coming years. They are incredibly industrious, and highly intelligent. Economists should keep their focus on China, but watch Vietnam out of the corner of your eye. They are not far behind.

Good Luck?

A few years ago Claire and I traveled the Silk Road from Beijing to Istanbul on our tandem bicycle, a train, an airplane, and one Lada.

In a small town in Azerbaijan, we saw this door sill with three horseshoes attached, pointing to the street. In the U.S. some people attach a horseshoe over their front door, pointed up, for good luck, and/or prosperity. We were, as usual ignorant in the local language, and unable to ask what this means. Not knowing is sometimes more interesting than knowing. But I wouldn’t mind if someone from the Caucasus area would tell us.

Uighur in Far West China

We were there a few years ago on our Silk Road Crossing on our tandem bicycle. Relations between Uighurs and Hans were strained then. Neither side will give up easily.

We recently crossed Sichuan Tibet on our tandem bicycle and saw even more stress between the majority

We were stopped at least once each day, to check our passports

Han and  the Tibetans, though they are still the majority in mountainous Sichuan. China has its hands full with minority populations, and it only will get worse if economic conditions do not improve for the poor.

China is a big and complex country with wide racial divides and challenging economic conditions. We should be aware of their major issues for the betterment of future relations.

It’s easy: just go to the right column of this Home page, and scroll down to article subjects, and click on 2009 Asia Adventure and it will take you to the first blog, Shangri-la; Journey into Myth, search for Reality.

When you get tired of reading, looking at picture or videos, you can just bookmark the blog where you are, so you can start where you left off, the next day, or week. At some point, I’ll have the posts on their own Adventures page, when I decide on a format.

Even if you think you’ve seen all of the posts, you will find things you missed the first time around. If you missed checking for a few days, you probably missed something interesting! With my short term memory, I’ll find something interesting! And don’t forget to look for our articles at Just One Opinion; many of them have basis is what we have learned during our travels.

Your comments are still welcome. Enjoy!

Man throwing a net on a backwater of the Mekong in Cambodia

“With coarse rice to eat, with water to drink, and my bended arm for a pillow – I have still joy in the midst of these things. Riches and honors acquired by unrighteousness are to me as a floating cloud.” Confucius

Before we began our Asian tandem bicycle adventure, I read Confucian quotes and often couldn’t relate.  This I chalked up to lack of depth on my part, and perhaps the enigmatic (to us) nature of Eastern thought.

Muddling my way through jet lag on our return, and as one friend opined, postpartum depression at the end of another adventure, I pondered the above Confucianism anew, and discovered I suddenly understood. Oh, I had known the surface meaning, from earlier adventures involving discomfort, danger, but not the full depth of his thought. I suddenly noticed that he says, “…have still joy…”  not “…still have joy…” as I had first read it. His meaning was hidden from me until I had eaten enough coarse rice, drank enough wood smoke infused water and slept sufficient times with my bended arm for a pillow.

To have a still joy, a quiet joy, a joy devoid of external condition, of riches or renown, is to have a profound joy, a lasting joy. I will look back on the past four months for as many years as I have left. I will remember the struggles, the discomforts, the challenge of the unknown, even the moments of  near panic, and I will smile. Confucius traveled China, seeking knowledge, seeking deep understanding. And Claire and I did also.

On this blog we have shared the light moments as well as the challenges and discomforts. I hope in coming months, as we integrate the lessons learned and share them, that you will be enriched through our seeking. And then I hope some of you will open a new path for learning, and seek out the adventure that fits your nature and capabilities. We all have the desire to continue to grow, to explore the previously unknown, no matter our age or condition in life. To suppress that desire is to suffer loss.

Here’s to your adventurous 2010, and beyond.

Happy New Year

www.youtube.com/watch?v=eM_J55g0Ju4