keep the wild inside

a correspondence about wilderness and art

ASIA

The majority of my childhood was spent in Asia Minor, in the Lebanon. My father loved driving out of Beirut to the tels in the Bekka Valley, the archaeologists' sites. We'd do our little bit helping with the dig until I got bored, and then he'd drive me around making up his version of life on the planet. The place was old, the birthplace of many civilizations, said my father, and you won't know any other place on Earth properly unless you make your way around Asia.

Only thing my father taught me that was correct, except for one other story involving Mary Queen of Scots and marmalade. You have to know Asia firsthand to know yourself. I believe it.

Coming to this section are peices on Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tokyo, Kathmandu, Beirut, Turkey and Indonesia. What's here now are a few pictures and an essay on my trips to the Annapurna Sanctuary in Nepal. This is actually a chapter from Anxious Mountain, a travelogue.

foto by Stephen F. Correl, Annapurna Himal