Red Square Moscow
Friday, September 17th, 2004
Local police don’t allow anyone in Red Square until 10 in the morning so when Bob got there the Square was jaw-dropping empty…the Kremlin and Lenin’s Tomb on one side, Gum’s Department Store the other.
Gums, at one time a symbol of Soviet shopping with long queues and shelves empty of all but a few drab goods, now houses over 1000 shops like Timberland and Sony) staring at the Kremlin on the other side. At either end is a church…the glorious colors and shapes of St. Basil’s Cathedral created between 1555 and 1561 to celebrate Ivan the Terrible’s capture of the Tatar stronghold at one and the tiny Kazan Cathedral where we bought a tape of Orthodox music for 20 roubles (about 70 cents) at the other. What stories these old worn cobbles of Red Square whisper to us!
The scene is impressive and enduring. No capital since Ancient Rome was more calculated to project pure power than this square mile of buildings.
My original plan was to take a boat up the Mekong River in Cambodia to the Lao border and then on up through Laos but I kept hearing reports about the opening and closing ... 
August 22 2002 (Pagan was previously called Bagan)
I really would have preferred the rickety and slow train north so we could see the countryside but to reserve the most time possible ... 
A Sleepover in Soweto-Africa's largest township
On our way to India we stopped in Johannesburg for two days to stay with Lolo Mabitsela in her Bed and Breakfast in Soweto-a township about 30 minutes outside ... 
May 5, 2002
We left for the 4000 mile seven week trip in a Mercedes Benz truck overland from Nairobi to Capetown. As Bob suspected there would be, there are 17 kids all under ... 
We took an excursion trip south and east past incredible green terraced fields and old Berber kasbahs (ancient Moroccan self-contained communities made out of the rust colored mud of the countryside)-seemingly idyllic-to the Atlas ... 
It is said, the sand was strewn on the ground to soak up the blood from the public executions that were held there until early in the 20th ... 
Zoe