Our Glimpse 77 yesterday (11/03) was of the Wakhan Corridor – a skinny finger of northeast Afghanistan separating Tajikistan and Pakistan extending all the way to China. Click on the link to get the photo. Note the large alluvial fan in the center on the Afghan side of the Amu Darya. Now look closely and you’ll see a tiny white dot on the edge of the fan next to the green of the river bank.

What could that be? Well, here’s my photo of it close up. Certainly no Afghan village. It’s a modern windowless compound completely isolated with no roads, trails, or any other habitation for many miles in any direction, reachable only by helicopter. Any guesses? It’s a CIA interrogation center, where captured Taliban are brought for rather intense debriefings. That’s the Wakhan Surprise. I’ll bet many of you canny old TTPers, however, aren’t surprised at all. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #78 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

This is the Wakhan Corridor traversed by Marco Polo on his way to China in 1273. The river is the Amu Darya, known to Alexander the Great and the ancient Greeks as the Oxus. The Wakhan is the finger of northeast Afghanistan designed in the late 19^th century to prevent the Russian Empire in Central Asia from touching the British Empire in India. It now separates Tajikistan from Pakistan with its fingertip the only border Afghanistan has with China.

Thus you’re looking at four countries. The river forms the Tajik-Afghan border – Tajikistan is on the left, Afghanistan on the right, in the center distance are the Hindu Kush mountains of Pakistan, while in the far distance are the Karakorum mountains of China. This is a fabulously exotic remote part of our world with people living here tracing their ancestry to the troops of Alexander. Oh – and the surprise? I’ll tell you tomorrow. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #77 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

This is Mysore Palace, home of the Wadiyar Rajas who ruled Mysore from 1399 to 1950. It is one of the many wonders of Southern India that’s far less known than traveler’s meccas up north like Agra and Rajasthan.

There’s the Nagarhole Tiger Sanctuary, more Asian elephants than anywhere else in the world, over 100 tigers, scores of leopards, their prey in profusion. Christian churches founded by Christ’s disciple St. Thomas in the 1st century AD. Towering Hindu temples covered with tens of thousands of eye-popping multi-colored sculptures. The gorgeous beaches of Goa, the serene peace of the Kerala Backwaters – “one of the most beautiful locations on earth” according to National Geographic, that you explore by luxury houseboat. It goes on and on.

And here also you find the business metropolis of Bangalore, the Silicon Valley of India. We did all of this and more a few years ago, and may again in ’21 or ’22. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #81 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

June 2002, the Vulture’s Mouth Glacier. In the deepest heart of the Gobi Desert of Mongolia, south of the Flaming Cliffs where Roy Chapman Andrews discovered dinosaur eggs in the 1920s, there is a naked spine of mountains called the Gurvan Saihan. In the Gurvan Saihan there is a deep gorge called Yol Alyn, the Vulture’s Mouth. And in the Vulture’s Mouth, there is a glacier.

It is not a big glacier, the continual ice buildup of a stream that never melts even in the heat of the Gobi summer. Yet it is a glacier nonetheless, thick enough for my son Jackson and I to walk on for more than a mile. The Vulture’s Mouth Glacier is just one of a multitude of extraordinary experiences Mongolia has to offer the explorer. Are you up for exploring it with me next summer of 2022? (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #90 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

The world’s most spectacular nature park is the 130-acre Gardens by the Bay in Singapore. In the gigantic greenhouse of the Flower Dome, virtually every rare flower on earth flourishes in abundance, while the Cloud Forest is a wonderland of tropical waterfalls seemingly falling out of the sky high above.

Dominating the park are the 160-foot high Supertrees, towering vertical gardens covered in orchids, ferns, vines, and exotic plants. There are elevated canopies and walkways between them. Exploring the astonishing display of hi-tech botanical artistry and genius that is Gardens by the Bay is absolutely awe-inspiring.

TTPer Cassowary was kind enough to guide me through the park as Singapore is his home. Perhaps he’ll tell us more about it on the Forum. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #102 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

According to the many thousands of world travellers on TripAdvisor, it’s #1: Praia do Sancho on the Brazilian island of Fernando de Noronha. You’ll also find it on just about any list of most beautiful beaches, such as Condé Nast, Harper’s Bazaar, and Luxury Travel.

The whole island is gorgeous. Mention that you’ve been there to any Brazilian who hasn’t and their eyes get misty. Fernando de Noronha (no-rone-ya) is the dream honeymoon, the dream vacation that only comes true for few in Brazil, as it’s hard to get to and hardly any place to stay once you’re there.

You have to get to either Recife or Natal in the far northeast, then fly 220 miles out into the Atlantic. Then take a boat, or scamper down the rocks of a 250ft-high cliff to be on the sugar sand of this enchanting beach – which you’ll have almost to yourself.

For some reason, all those lists have the name wrong, calling it “Baia” or “Baio,” when it’s “Praia” (beach in Portuguese). As the welcome sign proudly announces above the cliff trail: “Praia do Sancho – A Mais Bonita do Mundo,” Sancho Beach – The Most Beautiful in the World. If you’re lucky to ever get here, you’ll surely agree. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #73 photo ©Jack Wheeler)