Photos are a wonderful reminder of the places I’ve been, the people I’ve met, the exotic experiences of travel.  But I find that there are a number of photos I didn’t take that stick with me as vividly as any I have in a photo album or on a CD.

Some photos are not taken because of technical issues, others because the camera was not available, still others because taking a photo would be intrusive.

On my second trip to Thailand, back in the late 1980s, we made a stop in Chiang Mai.  On the drive back to the hotel from the night market, we drove down a dark street. There were no streetlights, and the only illumination came from an old-fashioned phone booth – the kind where a light comes on when you close the door.  In the lighted phone booth were four novice monks, their saffron robes aglow.  Still adolescents, laughing together making a group phone call, they were the bridge between the secular world and the spiritual world.

In 1994, during my first trip to Nepal, we visited Changu Narayan, the oldest temple in Nepal, perched atop a ridge.  To get there, you must walk though a village on a stepped walkway.  When we visited, we were the only visitors there.  We arrived before mid-morning, and there was a meeting taking place outside the school – nearly everyone in the village was there.  We walked quietly up the stairs, and encountered a toddler playing on the steps… in a pair of his mother’s high heels.  The universality of the child trying on the parent’s clothing and the contrast of the high heels with the small, traditional rural village encapsulated the changing face of Nepal for me.

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