Discontinuing his Where Is The Idiot Today? blog after fastidiously posting over 2,500 daily items and photo(s) during the past seven years.
Love getting the latest issue of The New Yorker, with its insightful cover, on a rainy lockdown Monday morning in Northern California. Support first responders! Read more
The time has come for YOU to visit the Amazon and expand your travel horizons for Christmas.
Just take a look at what you’ll find @ https://www.amazon.com/kindle-dbs/entity/author/B004KA6V5O?_encoding=UTF8&node=2656022011&offset=0&pageSize=12&searchAlias=stripbooks&sort=author-sidecar-rank&page=1&langFilter=default#formatSelectorHeader
Interested in more about the pleasures and perils of this trip? Listen to a recent interview with The Idiot on NPR’s “Nancy’s Bookshelf” @ https://www.mynspr.org/show/nancys-bookshelf/2024-09-18/nancys-bookshelf-a-short-swim-in-the-seine-river
Get thee to the Amazon for Christmas travel adventures.
Start with The Idiot’s first book in “The Idiot and the Odyssey” trilogy of travel narratives.
Continue with The Idiot’s second book in “The Idiot and the Odyssey” trilogy of travel narratives.
Conclude with The Idiot’s third book in “The Idiot and the Odyssey” trilogy of travel narratives.
See what The Idiot did before the Amazon was on the radar.
The Idiot just enjoyed a tranquil and secluded retreat at an expansive Buddhist monastery near Penang, Malaysia, that had only one monk on the premises.
The Vivekevana Solitude Grove is perched on two acres of land and has more than three dozen rooms, ranging from an ordination hall, libraries, a kitchen and dormitories to solitary cells and spacious meditation areas on five separate levels.
But the only access — a precarious, slippery path up-and-down a steep mountain slope through a rain forest (which caused The Idiot to slip, slide and fall more than he’d like to admit) — has gradually reduced the number of monks. In fact, the two-hour round trip finally became too difficult for the last monk to continually make the daily slog to fill his alms bowl with food and, after The Idiot’s visit, he moved into the city.
The local abbot, who holds a darma talk at the bottom of the hill every Saturday and says a group of devotees will continue to clean the monastery every Sunday, didn’t know when another solitary monk might inhabit the idyllic locale. But he’s betting it will take a new access road to put the monastery back on the map.
The entrance to the Vivekavana Buddhist monastery overlooking Penang, Malaysia.
A directional sign on the path to the Vivekavana Buddhist monastery overlooking Penang, Malaysia.
A directional sign on the path to the Vivekavana Buddhist monastery overlooking Penang, Malaysia.
A rare straight section of the slippery path through the rainforest to the Vivekavana Buddhist monastery overlooking Penang, Malaysia.
The Vivekavana Buddhist monastery overlooking Penang, Malaysia, is built on five separate levels.
The Vivekavana Buddhist monastery overlooking Penang, Malaysia.
One level of the Vivekavana Buddhist monastery overlooking Penang, Malaysia.
A peaceful Buddha at the Vivekavana Buddhist monastery overlooking Penang, Malaysia.
One of two libraries at the Vivekavana Buddhist monastery overlooking Penang, Malaysia.
The last remaining monk, who jokingly refers to himself as a “five-star beggar,” occasionally took a motorcycle to reach the Vivekavana Buddhist monastery overlooking Penang, Malaysia.
The pagoda at the Vivekavana Buddhist monastery overlooking Penang, Malaysia.
The dormitory that The Idiot had all to himself at the Vivekavana Buddhist monastery overlooking Penang, Malaysia.
The last remaining monk did daily chores before he left the Vivekavana Buddhist monastery overlooking Penang, Malaysia.
The ordination room at the Vivekavana Buddhist monastery overlooking Penang, Malaysia.
One meditation room with soft orange pillows at the Vivekavana Buddhist monastery overlooking Penang, Malaysia.
A devotee brought the monk breakfast by motorcycle at the Vivekavana Buddhist monastery overlooking Penang, Malaysia, during The Idiot’s stay.
The view towards Penang from the now-monkless Vivekavana Buddhist monastery.
The Idiot, who went to his first Buddhist monastery in Japan in 1967 and is making his fifth visit to the Himalaya Mountains since 1980 (the last was to Tibet in 2010), is spending eleven exhilarating days hiking throughout Bhutan, the Buddhist kingdom squeezed between China and India.
Although tourists must contribute $100 a day to a sustainable development fund to visit the country (it’s charged when you get your visa) and are required to hire a guide to see it, there’s no denying that Bhutan, its 700,000 people and a government that promotes gross national happiness to influence its development policies merit a peripatetic visit.
Just look!
The Idiot exploring the fortress in Punakha with Tenzin Dolma Gyeltshen, a 23-year-old guide who he bets will be Minister of Tourism by the time she’s thirty.
Starting a hike across a swaying bridge to a temple in Punakha.
Visiting the gigantic Buddjha Dordenma Statue in Thimphu.
Attending a morning gong session with American Fran Bak in Thimphu.
Visiting a primary school in the capital Thimphu.
Children walking to school in Bumthang.
Climbing to the Cheri Monastery north of Thimphu.
The Cheri Monastery north of Thimphu.
A monastery near Thimphu.
Stupa-fied in Trongsa.
Stupa-fied in Thimphu.
Buddhist sights are omnipresent throughout Bhutan.
A monk in Trongsa chops wood and carries water.
Monks’ robes drying at a rural monastery.
A monk tends a prayer wheel near Thimphu.
A young monk in Trongsa.
Afternoon weather in Bumthang.
A waterfall in central Bhutan.
A typical warning sign in Bhutan.
The Idiot is continuing his 600-kilometer circumnavigation of Paris on the GR1 long-distance hiking trail and — as he trekked from Fontainebleau to Crécy-la-Chapelle southeast of the French capital — is strolling through countryside featuring enchanting forests, inviting chateaux and majestic medieval churches. Read more
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