Author: klmalcolm2014

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About klmalcolm2014

Retired from work in government and nonprofit organizations, I've been traveling the world nonstop since 2016, writing and supporting humanitarian work. Life is good!

Khajuraho Oh Wow

2025, India, , , , , , , , View all 16 comments

Hindus believe that spiritual growth comes from a synchronization of the mind, heart, soul and body. Because Hindus believe the physical body and its functions aren’t separate from the other aspects of our being, it’s not surprising that there is a temple complex in India with carvings that are very explicitly sexual. Khajuraho in Central India is dozens of sandstone temples built in the 9th, 10th, and 11th centuries The temple walls depict scenes from the Kama Sutra, an ancient Hindu manual of sexual pleasure, desire, and love.

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Lumbini, Nepal — Buddha’s Birthplace

2025, Nepal, , , , , View all 10 comments

I just learned that the Buddha isn’t the only Buddha. Buddhas are born every 5,000 years. I learned that in Lumbini, Nepal. Lumbini is where our current Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, was born in 623 BC. It’s a holy site, and is becoming an important place of pilgrimage for Buddhists all over the world. Since Lumbini was identified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997, Buddhist countries (plus France and Germany) have built beautiful temples and monasteries in a giant park near the Mahadevi Temple, the exact location of Buddha’s birth.

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Lalish, Iraq — Holy Temple of the Yazidis

2025, Iraq, Kurdistan, , , , , , , , , View all 13 comments

Not many people know about the Yazidis — an ancient tribe of Mesopotamia with beliefs and traditions that are part Muslim, part Christian, and a lot their own. I met a few Yazidis when I was in Greece during 2015 when thousands of people were fleeing to Europe from wars in the Middle East. At the time, many Yazidis were escaping persecution by ISIS. I recently visited their most important holy place — Lalish Temple — in northern Kurdistan. Lalish is only a two hour drive from Erbil but, in some ways, it feels like a million miles from anywhere.

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The Tana Toraja — Life and Death in Sulawesi

2025, Indonesia, , , , , , , , , View all 10 comments

You might love this report or hate it, depending on your tolerance for morbid. Either way, you will probably find the Tana Toraja fascinating. About 600,000 of them live in Southern Sulawesi. Their community is close-knit, agricultural, and friendly. I recently visited them because I wanted to understand their very unusual traditions involving the dead.

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Santorini and Crete

2025, Greece, , , , , , , , View all 12 comments

A few years ago, I asked a Greek acquaintance how things were going in Greece in light of its struggling the economy. She said, “We’re fine. We have our islands. They are like family.” I think I understand this. Last week, my San Miguel BFF, Suzen, and I took the ferry to the Greek islands of Santorini and Crete. They were magic and, in different ways, they felt like family.

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Serbia’s Complicated Story

2025, Serbia, , , , , , View all 10 comments
Unidentified graphic in Serbia’s National Museum of History.

For the past week, I’ve been in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. The city has great museums, a million trees, parks, walkable neighborhoods, and gorgeous old churches. This part of the Balkan Peninsula also has an almost unimaginably complicated political history. Until 2003, Serbia was Yugoslavia, which is now six independent states — Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro. Depending on your politics, Kosovo is either an independent nation, or part of Serbia (most of the world says it’s part of Serbia). This is not the most complicated part of the history of this part of the Balkans.

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Belgrade’s Art Surprises

2025, art, Serbia, , , , , , , , , , , , View all 26 comments
Painting by Illeia Basicevic Bolsil

I’m in Belgrade, Serbia, this week and I love it. But instead of telling you more about Serbia right now, I’m going to tell you about some of the art in Belgrade and wait on the other stuff. I have my reasons. Anyway, one of the things I love about Belgrade is how art is seems to be quietly everywhere. On my first day in the city, I knew I was going to have a good art adventure because the first thing I saw leaving my hotel was a 4 year old who stood enraptured by a talented singer in the plaza. The rest of the art I saw in Belgrade was partly planned, but the best of it was, like the little girl and the singer, by chance.

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