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)

The Golden College or Madrasa of Tilla-Kori was built by Samarkand ruler Yalangtush Bakhadur in the 1650s to house and teach the best and brightest students of his realm. It stands at the center of the wondrous Registan public square complex of the Silk Road oasis city of Samarkand, known to the ancient Greeks as Marakanda.

It was centuries old when Alexander conquered it in 329 BC. For a thousand years as Central Asia’s great entrepot on the Silk Road between China and the Mediterranean, it was a cosmopolitan center for Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, and Nestorian Christianity. Incorporated into the Islamic world in the 700s, sacked by Genghiz Khan in 1220, rebuilt by the time Marco Polo in 1272 described it as “a large and splendid city,” Tamerlane made it his capital in 1370.

I was first in Samarkand to stand astonished at the Registan in 1963. Seeing it now, far more impressively preserved than in the Soviet days, made me gasp – especially how Tilla-Kori is once again lavishly decorated with gold. You’ll gasp too, for it is only one of the innumerable sights you’ll see and experiences you’ll have with your fellow TTPers by joining our Heart of Central Asia this September. If you dream of having a fabulous adventure of a lifetime, let me know at jack@wheelerwindsorexpeditions.com and we’ll talk about it. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #223 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

You likely read the new story this week of the extraordinary discovery of Antarctic legendary explorer Ernest Shackleton’s ship The Endurance 10,000 feet deep at the bottom of the Weddell Sea: Ernest Shackleton’s Sunken Ship Endurance Found 107 Years Later (3/09/22).

Perhaps you read my account of his incredible exploits in Endurance (April 2013).  I thought to commemorate the ship’s discovery with this photo of me at Shackleton’s gravesite at the abandoned whaling station of Grytviken on the Antarctic island of South Georgia.

Shackleton was the most heroic arctic explorer of them all.  The famous eulogy at his funeral says it all:

For scientific discovery, give me Scott

For speed and efficiency of travel, give me Amundsen

But when disaster strikes and all hope is gone

Get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton

Near the town of Ubud on Indonesia’s paradise island of Bali there is a sanctuary of spectacularly luxuriant rain forest providing a haven for over 1,000 Balinese long-tailed monkeys. Here’s one communing with a group of moss-covered monkey statues that dot the sanctuary.

This is a sacred place for the Balinese people, as it contains three temples over 600 years old, and is devoted to the Hindu principle of Tri Hata Karana – “three ways to reach spiritual and physical well-being” -- harmony between people, harmony between people and nature, harmony between people and God.

There is perhaps no place on earth in which to better experience the blissful harmony of Tri Hata Karana than Bali. It is a marvelous privilege to be here and experience it for yourself. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #106 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Our Glimpse 77 yesterday (04/25) 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)