From the 900s to the 1200s, the Pagan Empire built over 10,000 Buddhist temples. 2,200 remain on the plains of Pagan today, one of the world’s most wondrous sights – especially if you see them from above in a hot air balloon.  It is truly astounding how much there is to explore and experience in Burma.  We’ll be there once more for it all next year.  I hope you will be one of your fellow TTPers to join us. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #33 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

The photo above is the Tiger’s Nest, the Taktsang Monastery in the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan. It is a country as close to the Shangri-La of James Hilton’s 1933 classic “Lost Horizon” as you’ll find on earth today.

Smaller than West Virginia, hidden between Tibet and the crest of the Himalayas to the steamy jungles of India, Bhutan is known as the Land of the Thunder Dragon.  Independent for centuries and never colonized, Bhutan is a magic place that is spectacularly unique.

Experiencing Bhutan is a true adventure.  Quite frankly, Bhutan is as fabulously exotic as our world gets.  At the same time, no other country is as serenely peaceful as Bhutan, no people more contented and cheerful as the Bhutanese, no land more welcoming and hospitable.

Bhutan’s culture is a unique mix of the ancient Himalayan animism called Bön and Tibetan Lama Buddhism. The Bhutanese are renowned for being among the happiest people on our planet. They love to laugh, sing, dance, and play – and you’ll be invited to join them.  Bhutanese happiness is infectious.  One very good reason you’ll  have a happy time of your lives on our Bhutan adventure.

Ready? Buckle up – and be  prepared, you’ve never experienced anything so extraordinary in your life. Proof is in the pictures.

This is Spain’s most famous and beloved castle, high on a rocky promontory above the city of Segovia some 60 miles northwest of Madrid. The site of a Celtic settlement, Roman trading post, and Arab wooden fort, when the Reconquista of the Christian knights removed the Islamic invaders from their land in the early 1200s, the building of the idyllic fairy tale castle you see began.

For centuries it was the palace residence of the Kings and Queens of Castille. It was here, on December 13, 1474, that Isabella, daughter of King John II, was enthroned as the Queen of Castille. When her husband Ferdinand, whom she married in 1469, became King of Aragon in 1475, they jointly ruled a unified Spain. As we learned in our early school years, it was Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castille who sponsored Columbus’ discovery of the Americas in 1492.

Today, the Castle of Segovia is a World Heritage Site, serving as a museum of the history of Castille and National Archive of Spain. Immaculately preserved and maintained, it’s a thrilling experience to explore. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #266 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

I took this photo of Mount Rushmore looking straight on from a helicopter – so it may be from an angle you have not seen before. This coming election in November and on Veterans Day (11/11), it may be worthwhile to think of these four heroic Americans from a different perspective, to reflect on the almost unimaginable -- in the light of our comfortable lives we live today – challenges they faced and triumphed over to create and sustain our America.

It is worth asking what would they say to us today, what advice and counsel would they give us on how to face and triumph over what unimaginable – to them during their lives – challenges of ours as Americans today.

Look into their eyes. What are they saying to you? Election week and Veterans Day is a time of deep reflection on the meaning of being American. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #173 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

The 2,000 year-old Rose Red City of Petra was the religious center of an ancient Arab tribe named Nabataeans.  They didn’t build huge temples such as this – they carved them out of cliffs of rose-red sandstone in their hidden mountain sanctuary east of the Dead Sea in present-day Jordan.

The most famous carved temple is called The Treasury (Al-Khazneh in Arabic), 128 feet high, hand-carved into the vertical rock face.  You’ve seen it in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusades and other movies.

One interesting feature of Nabataean culture was the prominence of women. The two principal deities worshipped by them was the male god Dushara, god of the sun and sky whom the ancient Greeks associated with Zeus, and Al-Uzza, the goddess of fertility whom the Greeks associated with Aphrodite.

Al-Uzza was accompanied by Al-lat, the goddess of wisdom, and Manat, the goddess of destiny, as a triad devoutly worshipped by the Nabataeans and throughout all pre-Islamic Arabia.  Together, they are the “forbidden goddesses” of Koranic Islam.  Which is why their images, along with that of Dushara have been defaced and etched out of their carvings in the upper niches of The Treasury.

Experiencing Petra is on most people’s travel bucket list.  Being here, it’s easy to see why.  (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #292, photo ©Jack Wheeler)

This astounding road is how you traverse the Dades Gorge on the Road of a Thousand Kasbahs in Morocco. Kasbahs are fortified villages of the Berbers, who have lived here since the end of the Ice Ages 12,000 years ago (related to the Lapps of the Scandinavian Arctic, both descending from Cro-Magnon hunters in Cantabria of northern Spain).

The road is rated as one of the most scenic drives in the world. It is in the High Atlas Mountains (once higher than the Himalayas and joined to the Appalachians in the northeast US before splitting apart to form the Atlantic Ocean 200 million years ago). Here you go from the sand dunes of the Sahara to the fabulous kasbahs of Skoura, Ouarzazate, and Ait Benhaddou. The drive is one of the many life-memorable experiences we have in our exploration of Moroccan Magic. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #110 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Belvoir Beach, Herm, Channel Islands. Could there be a more idyllic lunch—grilled lobster, fresh garden salad, chilled Chardonnay – here on Herm, the smallest of the five main Channel Islands. There’s Jersey, Guernsey, Sark, Alderney – and tiny Herm. Less than one square mile, but overflowing with charm and hospitality – from the Victorian White House Hotel to the Mermaid Pub to lobsters at Belvoir Beach. Coming here is a true escape from the worries of the world. At Herm they are a long ways away. Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #177 photo ©Jack Wheeler)