Milenka, age 35: My parents met on an airplane. They are both from Chile. My mother was a flight attendent and my father was traveling for work. The flight had a problem and they had to stop overnight in Brazil to fix the plane. Anyway, they got married in 1976, when the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet […]
Back Surgery at Bangkok’s Bumrungrad Hospital
On the evening of October 16, 2007, as I lay flat on my back with an anesthesia mask freshly placed against my face, I looked up at the small group of medical professionals standing around me. It included a particularly cute nurse. My mind rapidly drifting off, the last thought I remember went something like this: […]
A Sample Of Times In Which Pain Or Adrenaline Went Into Taking A Photo
In providing captions for photographs, there is often background to the image that the photographer leaves out. Each of the photos in this post, when I look at them, bring to mind moments of adrenaline or pain. I hope that these images with backstory — all of which come from a 2007 trip to Southeast Asia — […]
Expanding Awareness Of Geography Through Travel
One morning on Ko Chang, Thailand, while sitting by the sea and preparing to breakfast on a pineapple pancake and a pineapple shake, I read a puzzling line in Simon Winchester’s book Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883. Winchester pointed out that the 1969 film Krakatoa: East of Java contains a glaring geographical error in […]