The Earlier Mona Lisa

Imagine strolling the streets of Shanghai, which is known all over the world as the Paris of the Orient and finding out that the Mona Lisa, too, happened to be there. 

This was exactly what happened to Jes and me as we were walking aimlessly in the nooks and crannies of Xintiandi -- "New Heaven and Earth" -- Shanghai's Old French Quarters. It is a shopping district so posh one would think one is walking around the cobbled stone streets of Paris, with its charming cafes and where art is all over the city.

And that's exactly how we felt. At the House in Xintiandi, an exhibition place, we met Leonardo Da Vinci's Lisa del Giocondo. Nope, this was not the Louvre and this isn't the Mona Lisa at the Louvre but we would later learn, it was Da Vinci's Earlier Mona Lisa. 

She had a warm smile and she did look younger. 

Just how lucky can we get. It's not everyday that you get to stumble upon a masterpiece. I remember a few years back when I also saw the works of Frida Kahlo on exhibit in Brussels. This was a de ja vu of sorts. 

The Earlier Mona Lisa, according to an article on the Shanghai Daily, is also the portrait of Lisa del Giocondo, but painted a decade before and therefore looks much younger.  After almost 35 years, during which historians made comparative study and carried out scientific research, the Mona Lisa Foundation, together with experts, scientists and art historians, presented evidence in 2012 that confirmed that the “Earlier Mona Lisa” was indeed done by da Vinci. Mona Lisa,” which was commissioned by Guiliano de’ Medici, was done between 1513 and 1516. The “Earlier Mona Lisa” was painted from 1503 to 1506 and commissioned by Francesco del Giocondo. It had a young Lisa, and was flanked by columns, but was left unfinished.

In all probability, da Vinci used the same model to create the Louvre masterpiece, and the earlier unfinished work ended up with da Vinci’s assistant after his death, the article also said. 

It was on exhibit in Shanghai after years of being kept in a Swiss vault.

And how lucky we were to be in same place at the same time that young Lisa was there. 

Indigenous Women in the Philippines Are Fighting for Their Way of Life

My latest story for Womensenews

They woke up to the smell of gasoline poured on the canvas roofs of their tents at an evacuation center on the grounds of a church, the complaint says.

It was around 2:30 a.m. on Feb. 24.

"Immediately after, the tents were set aflame when a lighted torch was thrown in," reads the complaint, which was sent to a U.N. official as well as members of the press. "Five makeshift houses were already consumed by fire when it was put out."

Dormitories near the camp were also burned, according to the complaint.

The attack occurred on the compound of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines, or UCCP, in Davao City in the southern province of Davao. Those under attack were over 500 indigenous people from the south of the country, known locally as Lumads.

Five people were hurt, including two children who suffered burns when the canvas roofs melted and fell on their feet.

Now Karapatan, a Manila-based umbrella organization of human rights groups, is waiting to hear back from Chaloka Beyani, U.N. special rapporteur on the rights of internally displaced persons. They submitted the complaint to Beyani at the 31st Session of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Switzerland, which opened Feb. 29 and runs through March 24.

While the focus of the complaint is on the burning of the encampment, advocates are also looking for help with the deeper problem of the Lumads' displacement pressures.

Legal advocates are lodging this particular complaint, but the Lumad themselves have been doing everything possible to protest on their own behalf.

Month-Long Protest

Late last year about 700 Lumads left their mostly thatched huts and makeshift homes in villages in different parts of Mindanao to travel on foot, by bus and ferry to a camping ground inside the University of the Philippines campus in Quezon City, a two-hour drive outside Manila.

Many were mothers who left their children to join the month-long protest.

One is Minda "Dindin" Dalinan, 36, from the Blaan indigenous tribe. She is a mother to eight children, ages 1 to 17. Dalinan left her children under the care of her husband and relatives. She didn't want to leave them but she knew that joining the protest was something she had to do to try to give them a peaceful life.

"In 2004, the military killed my father. My father is a member of the tribal council in our community. He was stubborn. He did not want to give up our ancestral land so armed men killed him. I just want the killings to stop. My dream is to see an end to human rights violations," Dalinan said.

She comes from the poor farming village of Bacong, Tulunan in North Cotabato in Mindanao, the second of the three island groups of the Philippines in the southernmost part of the country. She is a full-time housewife, taking care of the children while her husband ekes out a living as a farmer.

She spoke with Women's eNews last November inside the Baclaran Church, a popular 1932 Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines.

"Why would a mother like me leave her eight children?" she said. "It's because the human rights violations in our community are so rampant. I have to join this protest. It's too much."

Protesters called their trip "the Manilakbayan," a play on the words Manila, the Philippine capital, and "lakbayan," the Filipino word for journey.

The displaced evacuees at the center of the current U.N. complaint came mostly from remote communities in Davao del Norte and Bukidnon, both in Mindanao. 

They said they were forced to flee because of operations of paramilitary groups in their communities.

Country's Food Basket

Mindanao is considered the food basket of the country, with more than 700,000 hectares of land in the region covered by banana, pineapple, oil palm, rubber and other plantations.

Ten of the poorest of the country's 81 provinces are on the island.

By plane, the distance from Manila is more than 500 miles, or up to two hours away, depending on the province.

More than 500,000 hectares of land in Mindanao, or 12 percent of the region's land, are also covered by various mining concessions, according to industry data. The region ranks fourth in copper, third in gold, fifth in nickel and sixth in chromite deposits in the world.

Indigenous people say they are a business obstacle that mining concerns are leaving up to paramilitary groups, with possible help from the military, to remove.

Months before the Manilakbayan, the different indigenous tribes of Mindanao suffered a series of direct attacks, killings and harassment. The abuses were concentrated in three provinces--Bukidnon, Davao del Norte and Surigao del Sur–that host private Lumad schools that are regulated by the government.

Among the series of incidents against the Lumad, one of the most highly condemned was the displacement on Sept. 1 last year of at least 2,000 residents from the village of Diatagon in Lianga, Surigao del Sur.

Another was the killing of Emerico Samarca, executive director of the Alternative Learning Center for Agricultural and Livelihood Development (Alcadev). He was found inside a classroom hogtied, with a stab wound and his throat slit open.

The armed men then killed indigenous community leader Dionel Campos and his cousin Juvello Sinzo, who have campaigning for the protection of ancestral lands, said Josephine Pagalan, 37, a Lumad mother from the village belonging to the Manobo tribe.

"I was there, I saw them kill Dionel Campos and Juvello Sinzo," said Pagalan.

The murder has not been solved and the military has denied any involvement in the attacks, saying that the armed group did not belong to the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

International Attention

The incidents have drawn international attention.

On Feb. 12, 62-year-old American playwright and feminist Eve Ensler, author of "The Vagina Monologues," visited the Lumads in the Davao evacuation camp.

She was moved to tears upon hearing of the plight of the Lumads, according to Bulatlat.com, an online news site, which covered her visit.

"They love the earth. They know how the earth operates," Ensler was quoted as saying on the news site. "They are one with the earth and we're destroying them for mining companies, for greed, for capitalism, for exploitation and when you see how beautiful they are, when you see how generous they are, when you see how all they want is to be one with their beautiful trees and their sky and the earth, their rivers – how can any human being be doing this to them?"

Whoever is to blame, Lumad mothers said they want to live peacefully and take care of their children and return home from evacuation camps.

Gertrudes Layal, 43, left her five children, ages 8 to 19, to join the Manilakbayan. "I just want to protest so that we can keep our ancestral land. 

Mining companies want our land. They always promise development, they promise to give us jobs but they do not keep their promises," Layal said.

Pagalan, the Lumad mother from the village of Diatagon, left four children at home to join the protest.

"We want the government to be made accountable for the human rights violations and attacks," she said. "Mining companies promised too many things in the past but they did not deliver. We don't want to give up our land because money can be consumed but land will not perish."

Old Jazz Band from Old Shanghai

This is a story of a legendary jazz band and how its music mesmerized us.  Photo by Jes Aznar. 

SHANGHAI, China - The thermometer, I suspect, reads four or five degrees Celsius. It is around 9 in the evening, on this cold winter night in Shanghai and my step counter says I’ve walked 11,000 steps already, a thousand more than required.

Twelve hours ago I was in the middle of Manila’s worsening traffic, navigating my way to the airport, to board a plane to this Paris of the Orient.

Landing in Shanghai around 4 p.m., I am brought straight to a posh nightspot, the tree-lined French Quarter, Xintiandi, which literally means the New Heaven and Earth, for a sumptuous Chinese dinner.

After dinner, we walk in the crisp cold winter evening, through the district’s quaint corners and curio shops.  At Nanjing Road, we revel under the dancing city lights glowing under a bright winter moon. 

Finally, we reach the famed Bund and we stand by the Huangpu River to savor the view of the city at night.

But by now, I am tired and cold and could really use a good night’s rest.

Oh, but our gracious host, Ambassador Carlos Chan, the Philippines’ special envoy to China, insists we should have some drinks to cap the night.

I can’t very well say no to a 75-year-old man who doesn’t look tired at all.

And I’m glad I didn’t because he was saving the best for last, right here inside the Peace Hotel, an iconic early 20th century gothic-style structure along the Bund.

It is known around the world as an art deco masterpiece while its amenities and interior were said to rival if not surpass European and Manhattan’s best.

The hotel, which originally opened on Aug. 1, 1929, is known as Asia’s center of glamor and glitterati for the rich, famous and nameless from around the world.

It is also a fitting home to a legendary group.

Indeed, it is here at the Peace Hotel’s Jazz Bar, a cozy bar with gothic chandeliers, where I find myself face to face with Shanghai’s legendary Old Jazz Band, playing live jazz music to a huge crowd.

Until tonight, I have never been up close with a world famous jazz group or rock band, one whose music could make one’s heart melt, feel warm all over and fall in love like a little girl.

They all look elegant in their suits and bow ties, as in the heyday of Shanghai jazz in the 1930s and 40s.

Stepping inside the bar is a trip to a different era, to Shanghai’s bygone days. The soulful music transports you. You hear the variety of rhythms, improvisation and the blues. The band makes you forget where you are; you get lost in the moment. It was a rabbit hole of sorts.

Indeed, nostalgia rules. And why not? The Old Jazz Band plays classic jazz, harking back to the 30s and 40s when most of World War II took place and had a profound effect on Europe and Asia. They play Beatles songs, too.

The Guinness World Records has acknowledged the band as the oldest in the world.

The band was official formed in 1980 but its members have been playing jazz decades earlier. Today, it is composed of six veteran musicians whose average age is 80.

Zhou Wanrong, the leader of the band, is 94 years old.

According to an article in the Shanghai Daily, Zhou was born in 1920 in Wuhan, the capital city of China’s Hubei province. He studied music at an institute named Juyuan in Wuhan’s former French concession.

It was in this school where jazz in China originated.

“I started when I was 14 and studied for three years,” he says.

However, in the 1930s, Wuhan banned dancing and jazz, so Zhou moved to Shanghai to form an all-Chinese band in what became the center of jazz in Asia.

In 2013, German documentary filmmakers Uli Gaulke and Helge Albers produced a documentary about the group: As Time Goes By, which followed the band from 2011 to 2012, including its gig at the North Sea Jazz Festival in Rotterdam.

The band plays here every night. “We’ve been playing everyday since 1980,“ Zhou says.

The group has attracted a loyal following through the decades. US presidents Jimmy Carter and 

Ronald Reagan have traveled to Shanghai to listen to them.

We stay for more than an hour. I forget the time and the biting cold. I am just enjoying the music and getting lost in the moment. 

But soon it is time to go. It is almost 11 in the evening and I am sipping the last of my tea.

The musicians have packed their instruments and off they walked to a waiting private bus outside the hotel.

I don’t want to leave. But there’s no one on the stage now; the seats are empty, the spotlights have been dimmed. 

Then I realize that hearing them play even once is enough to make the music linger, to reverberate in the deepest recesses of my soul, echoing as we walk out into the cold on the Bund.

Nepal's Unshakeable Beauty and Magic

My latest piece for Starweek:

Kathmandu - The chaos begins long before I even reach the city center. It begins right at Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport, a small building made of orange bricks, then on to its jam-packed parking lot, an ocean of dusty white cabs with no air conditioning.

It is a dry and sweltering late morning and I am in the Himalayan country of Nepal, known for its enigmatic beauty and also for a 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck a month ago. From the plane, I walk inside to what seems to be the immigration, Customs and baggage area. There were several lines of people – perpendicular and parallel – and I’m not sure where to fall in line.

When I finally find the right immigration line, the officer leaves his post without a word, leaving me wondering whether I should just walk through the unguarded exit of the airport or move to another queue. Turns out, he went to help an elderly man who tried to enter Nepal without paying his visa.

There are all sorts of people at the airport – travelers, aid workers, journalists, non government workers – all off to somewhere. Outside, in the noonday heat, a swarm of taxi drivers are racing against each other to win over the next passenger who exits the airport. And one can hear the honking of cars, the shouting of parking attendants and the whistle of security guards as they try to bring order to the disarray of vehicles all desperate to get out of the parking lot as quickly as possible.

The scene at the airport is a perfect metaphor of what I saw throughout my stay in Nepal – people are doing their best to rise above the chaos, to rebuild their lives amidst the disorder, to go on with the daily grind even if it seems impossible. One can see this in the many tent cities all over the capital, in the unpaved roads filled with fruits and vegetables vendors, in the stupas – ancient Buddhism shrines – and temples and in the many curio shops all over Kathmandu.

Rebuilding officially started a month after. It took a while because the people were really shocked, says 22-year-old Success Ad, my Nepali guide and translator.

“In my village in Gorkha, everyone was crying and shouting,” Ad says.

He believes it would take a year or two before the situation will go back to normal.
At the same time, he says, Nepalis are learning a lot from the Philippines, after surviving Yolanda (Haiyan).

“It’s like the Philippines, in a way. You survived Haiyan so we are trying to survive, too,” he says. As what happened in the Philippines, the help of international media is important, he says, as it brings attention to the situation on the ground.

I am here exactly a month since the  earthquake, which left at least 8,800 people dead and injured more than 23,000. The earthquake occurred at 11:56 a.m. on April 25, with the east district of Lamjung  as its epicenter. It is said to be the worst natural disaster to hit the country since the 1934 Nepal-Bihar earthquake.

It caused an avalanche at Mount Everest, killing 19 people on the mountain that day.

Ad, manager of Happy Home Hotel, says the hotel staff was having lunch on the rooftop of the building when the earthquake struck. “Now, they don’t want to eat there anymore.”

Indeed, there is damage almost everywhere. The road where our five-story hotel is located is closed because a building, also five stories high, has slanted and is leaning on another building, putting all the buildings on that side of the road – our hotel included – at risk of falling like dominos.

Most homes are propped up by whatever support the people can find – stilts made of branches, old wood or bamboo – to prevent further collapse. Some roads are filled with the thickest dust and dried mud; some are closed to motorists because they are too damaged for people to pass through. There are heaps and heaps of fallen orange bricks everywhere.

In Thamel, a tourist place, vendors manning the souvenir stores and curio shops opt to wait out on the streets for fear that the earth will tremble again.

Everyone has a story to tell – of survival, of hurting, of trauma, of losing loved ones, of losing homes and a lifetime of hard earned money, of moving on and of finding healing.

And everyone is trying to do their best to help.

Prateebha Tuladhar, a Nepali journalist, believes that women are playing a significant role in the rebuilding of her country. “Women are holding out better,” she says.

The trauma of the people, she says, goes beyond the memories of that day. Some are dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder and are having difficulties continuing with work or with their relationships.

When the earthquake struck, she narrates how her mother and sister stood strong to save their family.

“My mother seems to be very strong. She was always telling us not to panic,” says Tuladhar of her 56-year-old mother. As the whole family stormed outside, her mother went back to the house to make sure everyone was safe. After the earthquake, her 30-year-old sister instinctively picks up her newborn baby whenever there is an aftershock.

She says even the government is too shocked to act quickly. But individually, everyone is trying to help. She especially notes how women are working on individual actions to help ease the situation.

Tuladhar puts the spotlight on a project initiated by her female friend, A Tiny Little Perspective. It is a project that helps provide nutrition packages for mothers and their newborns.

Dipti Sherchan, an anthropological researcher, founded the project. Days after the first earthquake, she found herself among two newborns, a 7-day-old and a 3-day-old, in the camping area in their community. The mothers, she says, all looked traumatized.

“Every tremor would lead the mothers to move along with the villagers to a nearby tent, holding on to her baby, and after things became a bit calmer, return with their babies to stay inside a room,” 
Sherchan says in an e-mail interview.

The initiative provides nutrition packages that contain relief materials catering specifically to the needs of pregnant women, post-natal women and their infants.

There is a bucket filled with rice, lentils, salt, biscuits, multi-grain cereal; a box filled with a mosquito net, sanitary pads, nutrition supplements like vitamins, calcium and iron; water purifier, soap, toothpaste and toothbrush, toilet paper rolls and baby products such as blankets.

Despite all the damage, Nepal is still worth visiting, even in these times. Its beauty, deep, raw and profound, is still very visible because it is seen more in the everyday life than in its damaged temples.

It is a magical journey, a feast for the senses. It is bursting with colors, with its well-dressed women in their long saris and adornments of jewels; its Lung ta prayer flags that are everywhere – blue, green, red, white and yellow; its rickety rickshaws decorated with glittering makeshift canopies and its hundreds and hundreds of shops and roadside stalls selling anything from bright yellow mangoes to antiques from the Himalayas.

There’s also a kaleidoscope of sights and sounds: its stupas with Buddha’s giant eyes, surrounded by the colorful prayer flags and the never-ending noise on its roads; the honking of cab drivers who seem to drive with no rules and limits, and the rhythmic sound of Nepali songs that blare from their radios.

Nepali food – from curries to dumplings – is a gastronomic adventure, with strong Indian influence and lots of lentils and spices. There’s a lot of rice and roti and the freshest vegetables. You never want to stop eating. There’s authentic lassi, the popular yoghurt-based drink, sweet, plain, banana or what-have-you.

But more importantly, it’s the Nepali people that make one’s visit worthwhile. They are always warm and happy despite what they are going through, always ready to greet and welcome visitors with Namaste and a warm smile.

On one of our last moments here, we stood on top of a hill overlooking the city of Kathmandu. We lingered for a long, long time, forgetting the minutes and the hours, admiring the city down below, those hundreds of small pastel-colored houses glittering under the warm Nepalese sun, taking it all in and getting lost, grateful to this Himalayan country for opening its doors to us and revealing its beauty despite the devastation.

I close my eyes one last time before leaving the hilltop, in an attempt to seal in my mind’s eye this magical, breathtaking view, to keep in my heart forever. It is a stark reminder that even in the most chaotic places, the spirit and the soul, in all their beauty, are never destroyed.


To know more about the Tiny Little Perspective Project, please email dipti@atinylittleperspective.org or visit http://withlove.atinylittleperspective.org.

Dateline Nepal

I was interviewing earthquake survivors when @jeszmann came rushing to say there's something I have to see. He led me through labyrinthine streets filled with debris and men rebuilding temples.

To this. My photograph does not do justice to this majestic moment but it really is magical and profoundly beautiful. We lingered here for a long, long time forgetting the minutes and the hours. Just taking it all in and getting lost. Thank you Nepal for revealing your beauty amid the devastation. 

Roaming the Island of the Spirits

The gecko woke me up at 5 a.m. With its rhythmic, clicking sound, it jolted me out of my sleep.

I parted the white canopy that embraced the bed and stepped out of our cottage, guarded by two fertility Gods sitting by the wooden steps.

It is a crisp November morning and Jes and I are in exotic Bali, dubbed as the Island of the Spirits, Island of Gods, a box of sunshine, a heaven on earth. "You've never been to Heaven if you've never been to Bali," says Indonesian writer Toba Beta.

I opened the age-old wooden door, the one with intricate Balinese design to see a breathtaking view of my first morning here at Bali's Red Earth, known in a traveler's website as the world's best resort.

The sky is a shade of pink as the sun peeped out of its cradle. The morning is quiet. What a perfect moment this is.

Welcome to Tanah Merah, the Red Earth, where a rare bluebird from the surrounding forest flies around its nook and cranny. This is a place perched perfectly above the lush gorge of the Cursed River, Tukad Petanu. It is nestled at the end of a short drive from the Ubud Monkey Forest, in the middle of a plateau of lush green grass, a wide expanse of rice fields and rows of retreat houses for the weary and the forlorn or the many happy souls seeking silence.

Tanah Merah is a world of its own, an enchanting art resort experience understood only by those who have been here. It is dreamlike, it is a daze, it is magical in its simplicity. The cottages are quaint and filled with art, the mountain air is fresh and crisp, the spirits are alive and the Gods are all over. In the evenings, the sound of crickets and a flowing river down below will serenade visitors.

There is a villa fit for a king named after Mads Johansen Lange, known as the King of Bali. The villa's grand interior told of stories of Lange, a Danish trader born in 1807. The story goes that he travelled to the East Indies and settled on the island of Bali where he built an enterprise of rice and spices. It's a villa so perfect no visitor would want to step out of it, what with its own infinity pool facing the lush green rain forest, birds chirping in paradise, interiors teeming with Balinese art and a bed suited for the king. 

With a resort like this, who wants to go out? But there is the rest of Bali to savor and enjoy. So we saved the villa for our last day here, settling first in another cottage in the same resort.

We went to the Gunung Kawi Temple and and witnessed two people immortalizing their love in photographs: the bride-to-be looked stunning in her red gown while her groom-to-be was all smiles. We walked the path to the temple of the Gods and deities and allowed the surrounding sprawling rice fields around it to take our breath away.

Next stop was the Tirta Empul Temple, a holy spring water temple in Tampak Siring Village, 39 kilometers east from Denpasar. Here, hundreds if not thousands of men and women bathed their sins away.

In a coffee plantation not far from this, we sipped on a wide array of coffees and teas. My favorite was rice and ginger tea and the famed Balinese coffee. We couldn't get enough of it but we had to move further down Ubud's roads to see Batur Volcano, somewhere between the clouds and the heart of Bali. It was a sight to behold.

The Cekine Tegalalang or rice terraces was the last stop. Though not comparable to the famous Banawe Rice Terraces, we spent a moment here to savor the view.

In one of the evenings, we strolled around the city center, went for a traditional Balinese massage and enjoyed two glasses of Mojito in a place named Bollero.

At the Yoga Barn, I spent a good full hour doing Yin Yoga. It is the best place possible to do yoga when one is in exciting Bali. Until the sun set, I was there in the yoga room, the one with glass doors that opened to a beautiful garden, working on my poses, taking in every breath and loving every moment.

I had a full view of the green grass and coconut trees in front of me. I breathed the afternoon mist left by the drizzle. "Feel the space within when you take a long, deep breath. Let go of everything and be in the moment," says yoga teacher Cat.

On our last day in Bali, we stayed at the King's Villa and lingered in the balcony facing the forest. We ate like a king and slept like a queen. We sipped a glass of fresh fruit juices while enjoying the sound of the flowing river. We waded in the private pool and had a warm bath in the tub of the bathroom that had a view of the paradise outside it.

Here in this villa, we capped our journey to the heart of Bali, a perfect ending of a magical trip to this patch of heaven on earth.

Postcards from Bali (Part 2)

Don't talk about heaven if you've never been to Bali - Toba Beta

Photos by me. Edited by Jes Aznar

Postcards from Bali (Part 1)

And here we are! Bali 2014

In the Land of the Crescent Moon

Every night, in this land of dreamers, surrounded by city lights and glistening golden mosques, I would travel to Asia and sleep in a dingy hotel then head back to Europe the following day for work. In some instances, fractions of seconds and fleeting moments, I would find myself in both continents -- in Asia and in Europe -- all at the same time, in the same clockwork, as if inside a rabbit hole, somewhere, somewhere in this great big world.

It is magical yet and it is real. 

This is Turkey, the Home of Two Continents, where there is nothing between Asia and Europe except the famed Bosphorus straight, known in other lifetimes as the Strait of Constantinople.

I arrived in Istanbul on a scorching Thursday afternoon. The Ataturk airport's exit doors opened to a relentless sun and crisp, cold air -- the weather provided the perfect metaphor to describe where I am as I felt Asia's sweltering heat and Europe's crisp air.

It's among the first things that will strike a visitor to Turkey, the magic of existing in two realms. I was in Asia yet I was in Europe. It seemed impossible but in Istanbul, it was not.

But Turkey is also more than just that. It is dubbed as the Home of the Blue Mosque, the Home of the Silk Road, the Home of the Turquoise, the Home of Troy.

Turkey is nestled at the mid-point of the European, Asian and African continents. Its geography is varied as it is rich. It is so picturesque with its mountains and seas, plains and rock formations and landscapes and seascapes, that the eyes would have a difficult time transmitting everything from the brain to the senses.

Many empires -- Sumerians, Byzantines and Ottomans -- have once thrived, ruled, walked and expired within this land. 

And its rich history casts shadows on everything.

You'll see it in the labyrinthine Grand Bazaar where usually hard-to-find ancient wares are easy to find, where silver and gold shimmer in its quaint curio shops, where hundreds if not thousands of the Turkish Blue Evil Eye -- a lucky charm that stretches 3,000 years ago -- are staring at you, where the smell of grilled beef kebabs wafts in the air and where one can find the softest silk for thousands of dollars.

You'll see it in the Egpytian Bazaar, more popularly known as the Spice Bazaar, built in 1664 at the southern end of Istanbul's Galata Bridge, by the ferry docks. It is a kaleidoscope of all sorts of spices from the exotic East -- saffron, mint, chili, pepper, and curry. There's also a wide selection of oils, from aromatic to therapeutic -- daisies, St. Johns and aphrodisiacs -- for the blissful or the brokenhearted and those in between. And the famous lokum or Turkish Delight are found in nearly every store, alongside spices, dried fruits, cheese, nuts and seeds.

You'll see it in the mosques, the New, the Blue, the Sultan Ahmed -- or the rest of the 82,000 or so mosques in this country of 74 million, majority of whom are Muslims.

You'll see it in Hagia Sophia, a former Greek Orthodox basilica and later an imperial mosque. Constructed in 537 until 1453, the mosque, historians say, served as the seat of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, then converted into a Roman Catholic cathedral during the Latin Empire. To this day since 1935, it is maintained as a museum, visited daily by throngs of pilgrims, tourists and travelers alike.

You'll see it on dining tables, where a fusion of Central Asian, Mediterranean, Middle Eastern and Balkan cuisines reflects the country's Ottoman heritage; kebabs, yoghurts, pita breads, risotto rice, grilled chicken, fresh vegetable salads, cheese, olives and olive oil.

One warm Friday, just before the sun appeared, I hopped on a plane to Izrim Province, an hour's flight from Istanbul, traveled for another hour more by land across winding roads and rolling hills before I finally found myself walking in the ancient Greek city of Ephesus where I lingered for more than two hours.

Ephesus, cradle of civilization, is dubbed as the most famous Greek city of the ancient times with a heritage dating back to 6,000 BC.

The ancient city, located close to Seljuk, a district of Izmir, is considered one of the most important 12 cities of the classical Greek period and a crucial religious center for both Paganism and Christianity.

It is situated on the Aegean Sea at the mouth of the Cayster River and in the ancient times, Ephesus was a center of travel and commerce.

There is a theater, built in the Hellenistic period and which is believed to be able to hold 25,000 people.

There is a library, built in AD 115-25, with typical Roman architectural design, dedicated to Celsus, the proconsul governor of the Roman province Asia. There's also the agora, or the market.

Indeed, Turkey is a feast for the senses. It is rich in tradition, history and culture that it will take more than a lifetime to see everything it has to offer.

On my last day, I woke up at 5 a.m. and sat outside the hotel, sipping a hot cup of coffee. I sat in the cold, just enjoying the fresh morning air and savoring the memory of the days before. I imagined as much as my inner mind's eye allowed that I have walked the same land as they did -- the Sultans, the Roman emperors, the warriors and the rulers before me. I traveled back to the middle of the Greek theater and imagined saying as Mark Antony did: "Friends, Romans, my countrymen, lend me your ears." I refused to be jolted out of my reverie by the hypnotic sound of the faithful's early morning prayers. I am dreaming, yes, I am. But how can I not? I am after all, in the land of dreamers, where dreamers can dream of the olden days and wake up in the present-day to relive it all again.