Pushkar is a small town in Rajasthan, the region that many Americans most associate with India — a desert with camels, palaces, forts, and elephants. I happened to be in the area during the time of the Pushkar’s annual Camel Fair. I had to go!
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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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Last week, I went to Kurdistan in Iraq. I’ve wanted to visit Kurdistan because the Kurds I met in Greece when I was working with refugees in 2015 were such motivated, kind people. And the Kurdish women had a strong sense of empowerment.
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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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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.
Yesterday, I visited Transnistria, a country in the middle of Moldova. At least, it acts like a country. It has a border patrol, a military, a government bureaucracy, and currency. It calls itself a country. And actually, it no longer calls itself “Transnistria” because its leader directed residents to use its Russian name, “Pridnistrovie.” This is one of the most complicated cases of national identity I’ve ever heard of, or actually never heard of.
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I am in the capital of Moldova, which I bet most people don’t know is Chisinau. I didn’t. Moldova is one of the least touristed places in Europe (after Liechtenstein it seems). Moldova wants you to visit. It will stamp your passport without even looking to see whether your face matches your passport photo. Moldova’s marketing one-liner is “Discover the Unexpected,” and I’ve already definitely discovered some unexpected.
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I’m only a tourist here but, coming from dignified Baku, I get the feeling Tbilisi is quite a hedonist. This city stays up late, drinks a lot, eats a lot, and smokes a lot. Georgians are mostly Eastern Orthodox, but the churches are sharing a fair amount of real estate with bars, shisha parlors, spas, and casinos.
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Camino Milagro 