Rizong is a Gompa or monastery for lamas or monks of the Gelugpa or Yellow Hat sect of Tibetan Buddhism.  It is built like it is virtually glued onto a steep cliff in a hidden side valley of the Upper Indus River in the remote region of Ladakh or Indian Tibet.

Ladakh is culturally and geographically Tibetan, yet the British were able to sequester this region for India and away from Chinese-Occupied Tibet, so it is here that real Tibet still flourishes.  Visiting Rizong is one of the many extraordinary sights and experiences we have on our India Tibet Expedition this coming August.  Hope you’ll be with us. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #206 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

The high hidden Valley of Shing in western Tajikistan holds a series of seven stepping-stone lakes called the Seven Pearls of Shing.  The valley is dotted with tiny villages of Mountain Tajiks, descendants of the ancient Sogdians who fought Alexander the Great.

Alexander fell in love with and married a Sogdian princess named Roxanna – and the girls of Shing are often named Roxanna to this day.  The Mountain Tajiks of the Shing are a special people – strong, independent and free.  They are also warm and welcoming.  The kids – the girls just like the boys – grow up vibrant and confidant.  These two young brothers exemplify that.

Each of the seven pearls have a unique breathless beauty, for they are of different colors and change according to the time of day.  We are here at Mijnon (Eyelash), the first pearl, followed by Soya (Shade), Hushnor (Vigilance), Nophin (Navel), Khurdak (Little One), Marguzor (Blossoming), and Hazor Chasma (Thousand Springs).  Towering above us are snow-laced mountains 18,000 feet high.

Perhaps you’d like to join your fellow TTPers to make the Seven Pearls, and so much else, a part of your life this September?  Let me know! (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #53 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

We’re all familiar with the sufferings of Job in the Old Testament’s Book of Job. But what happened to Job after his sufferings were ended? All the OT says is that, with his health and riches restored, he lived long enough to see his great-great grandchildren.

The OT says Job lived in the “Land of Uz,” which was “beyond the Euphrates.” That would place it in modern day Iraq. There is no connection between this Hebraic name and the land of Uzbekistan – meaning the Land of Uzbeks, a Turkic people. Yet the Silk Road city of Bukhara in today’s Uzbekistan is thousands of years old.

Jews have lived in Bukhara for 3,000 years, although almost all have emigrated now (some 150,000 Bukharan Jews live in Israel). Thus it is a very ancient legend that during a terrible drought in Bukhara, Job visited the city and struck the ground with his staff – causing a spring of healing water to gush from the ground, and continues to do so today.

A shrine was built around the spring – the Well of Job – and the water is clear and drinkable. One of the many extraordinary experiences in what we call Hidden Central Asia. We’ll be here again this September. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #114 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

West of the Himalayan giants of Annapurna and Dhaulagiri in Nepal lies a roadless high wilderness inhabited only by Tibetan nomads called Dolpa. The region is named after them, Dolpo. The Dolpa practice the ancient pre-Buddhist animist religion of Tibet called Bön. They worship sites of nature they consider holy. And holiest of all is the Sacred Lake of Phoksundo.

The Dolpa consider the blue of Phoksundo an act of magic by the gods. Once you see it, you can only agree. This picture is not photoshopped – it is real. We visit it in late October when it is ice free on our Himalaya Helicopter Expeditions. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #41 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Cap Haitien, Haiti.  On a steep mountain top three thousand feet high above the north coast of Haiti, stands this staggeringly gigantic fortress.

It is the Citadelle Laferrière, revered by professional distortionists of history as "the greatest monument to black freedom in the Americas."  What it really is instead is a monument to totalitarian insanity.

In 1807, the leader of a victorious slave army against the French named Henri Christophe (1767-1820) seized Haiti and proceeded to re-enslave his people.  With their slave labor, he built La Citadelle – 20,000 slaves died under the lash or from utter exhaustion building it, hauling hundreds of cannons, tens of thousands of cannon balls, and millions of bricks and rocks 3,000 feet up the steep slopes to the site.

Finally, in 1820, Christophe’s slaves rebelled, his body dissolved in a huge vat of liquid lime, the mortar for the fortress’ bricks. The Citadelle has been a deserted ruins ever since.  I was the only visitor there. So much for "the monument to black freedom."  Haiti has never experienced a single day of freedom in its entire existence to this very day.

Haiti, in other words, is not only a failed state – for over 200 years, it has always been a failed state. Tragically, the odds are high it always will be.  (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #265 photo ©Jack Wheeler)