When I made a solo trip far up the Mahakam River in Kalimantan (formerly Borneo), headhunting was still an occasional event although it was officially outlawed. This is a tale of an unnerving encounter.

Young women in the remote town of Chong Wu in China are forced to build the entire town out of heavy blocks of stone that they carry and assemble while the men hold parasols to stay out of the sun.

The Sri Lankan government wanted me to show me around this island country, which was emerging from civil war and trying to find its way in the world. Signs of colonialism and conflict were everywhere.

When I first visited Uluru in the Australian Outback, the world's largest monolith seemed underwhelming. Before I left, it became perhaps the most powerful encounter I've ever had with a supposedly inanimate thing of Nature.