July, 1984. The KPNLF – Khmer People’s National Liberation Front – was the Anti-Communist guerrilla movement fighting the Soviet-backed Vietnamese Communists in Cambodia. When I was first there in 1961, Cambodia was then a land of serenity, with a gentle and tranquil people who were at peace with themselves and the world. Now it was a land of indescribable Communist horror.

It was such a privilege to be with these brave men willing to wage war against that horror and bring freedom to their country. I told their tale in Turning Back the Terror, the February 1985 cover story for Reason magazine. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #20 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

What would be an ideal place to escape from all the lunacy washing over our country – for a few days to a second home?

Let’s see… it would have to be a First World country with all the civilized amenities of modern life, and a cultured, educated, and welcoming people many, many of whom speak English.

A First World country that brushes aside all Woke nuttiness engulfing the US as silly rubbish to be ignored, and traditional Christian family values revered instead. That is not much farther away than a US cross-country flight. That has Goldilocks weather, not too hot, not too cold. That has sunsets in the ocean, fabulous food and wine, incredible castles in the sky, history that’s thousands of years old yet so hip and current it’s the cultural capital of its continent.

We’ve had Glimpses of this place before: The Europe That’s Still There, and The Portuguese Riviera. Yes, the Ideal Escape Hatch for us is Portugal – a quick overnight flight getting there, a morning flight return.

For 10 days in mid-October, Rebel and I are conducting a Portugal Exploration for TTPers. Please consider joining us – Rebel and I and your fellow TTPers will love to have you. Just click on Portugal Exploration – Oct 12-21, 2022 -- you owe it to yourself to be entranced by the photos, for a glimpse of this ideal place. (Glimpses of our Breathtaking World #157 ©photo Jack Wheeler)

Waitangi Bay, Chatham Island. 530 miles east of New Zealand lies an isolated island of windswept rugged beauty that few people have ever heard of. Yet Chatham Island may be an ultimate Christian example of how to prevail over monstrous evil.

In the early 1400s, a Polynesian people calling themselves Moriori sailed from New Zealand across an unknown empty sea to reach an island they named Rekohu, meaning “misty sky.” For 400 years they lived in peace among themselves – and in utter isolation from the world.

But in 1835, another people arrived, and brought Hell with them. They were a group of 500 Maori cannibals from New Zealand determined to take Rekohu for themselves. The Maori killed them like sheep, men, women, children, and babies, and ate them.

The British Governor of New Zealand ignored the Maori Genocide. There were about 2,000 Moriori on Rekohu (renamed Chatham) when the Maoris arrived in 1835. Only 101 Moriori were still alive by 1862. It was Western Christian missionaries who put an end to Maori killing, eating, and enslaving Moriori. Today on Chatham Island there is a Moriori resurgence – but without rancor. The past is past, they say, what counts is the future. Like few other peoples on earth, the Moriori understand the Christian power of abandoning resentment and grievance.

Come to Chatham to experience a unique place in our world, and a people with their souls at peace. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #176 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

The magnificent Sher-Dor Madrassa, built in the early 1600s, is part of the Registan public square complex of the ancient Silk Road oasis of Samarkand. “Sher-Dor” means “Adorned with Tigers” in Persian – flaunting Islamic blasphemy of living beings in art. Here is the mosaic depiction of a tiger chasing a deer and on its back a rising sun deity with a human face. This is honoring the pre-Islamic history of Samarkand that goes back almost 3,000 years.

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.

Colonized by Czar Alexander II in the 1860s within the Russian Imperial Empire, and by the Soviets in the 1920s within the Uzbek SSR, Samarkand is flourishing today in independent Uzbekistan. Come with me to explore Samarkand and so many other wonders of The Heart of Central Asia this September. It will be like a dream come true. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #208 photo ©Jack Wheeler)