Galleries

Having visited India at least fifteen times over many decades, I’ve made friends among the musical community that has enabled me to book events in advance of my visits, filling the two short weeks with musical opportunities.  Another enabling factor is my decades-long study of Indian (Hindustani) classical music, starting in 1975 at Ali Akbar College in Marin County, California.  My knowledge of Indian music has enabled me to collaborate with Indian musicians in both classical and jazz-fusion-world-music concerts...

I first heard of Cape Verde Islands in the title of a jazz composition by pianist Horace Silver, The Cape Verdean Blues. 

Mount Fuji was an impressive site as our ship approached the Shimizu harbor.  Mount Fuji is Japan's highest mountain, an active volcano in a perfect conical form.

When I took Latin in high school, I learned the acronym FRIPS for the five Romance languages, derived from Latin: French, Romanian, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. So here we are in Romania, and I can recognize half the written words. I didn’t know much about Romania before. In my five days here, I have learned a lot. My naïve preconception was that Romania was inhabited by gypsies and peasants. Wow, was I wrong! We traveled a bit in the province of Transylvania and saw some older traditional houses. But the residents had every modern convenience. So let me declare, Romania is a modern, sophisticated, highly developed, relatively affluent country, not at all like the outdated memories of its Communist decades. . .

Approximately one month ago, Houston, Texas was inundated by the storm surge caused by hurricane Harvey. In an unprecedented series of Atlantic hurricanes, Harvey was followed in quick succession by hurricane Irma which struck Florida, hurricane Maria which devastated Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, . . .

Concluding my seventeenth visit to India, I hope my blogs will impart to my blog readers my interest in this fascinating country. In fact, Susan and I are even thinking of traveling there again in March of 2026. Stay tuned for more blogs!

Our safari trip consisted of two weeks in Kenya and one week in Tanzania.  It was nice to visit both countries for a broader perspective on how each is using its diverse animals to attract tourism.

Tanzania is larger than Kenya and has 125 different tribes, compared with Kenya's 45 different tribes.

DISCLAIMER

My photo gallery for this blog is of varying quality.  That is because many photos were taken from the moving jeep.  Sometimes, the subjects were far away, such that expanding and cropping of the subject lowered the resolution.  Some of the subjects were not happy with my having taken their photos.  I tried to be unobtrusive when possible.  Don’t forget to click the photos to expand them and see the short descriptions.

This blog will describe Southern Chile: Puerto Montt, two impressive glaciers, Punta Arenas, and our transit around Cape Horn, the southernmost part of Tierra Del Fuego, South America.

Our third (and final) Vietnamese port of call was Saigon, the former capital of South Vietnam, which was renamed Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) after the victory of North Vietnam at the end of the Vietnam War.  HCMC is a large prosperous city.  We were lucky to be met on two consecutive days by our old friend Bob, who is married to a Vietnamese lady and has retired to live in Vietnam following his long career in Reno as a counselor and professional musician.  I played many gigs with Bob in Reno over the years.

Our first trip to East Africa was a great experience.  The people were very open and hospitable.  The safari logistics were performed without a hitch.  But above all, the animals were amazing. 

The gallery for this blog features the people, not the animals.

DISCLAIMER

My photo gallery for this blog is of varying quality.  That is because many photos were taken from the moving jeep.  Sometimes, the subjects were far away, such that expanding and cropping of the subject lowered the resolution.  Some of the subjects were not happy with my having taken their photos.  I tried to be unobtrusive when possible.  Don’t forget to click the photos to expand them and see the short descriptions.