On Wednesday I will set off on a trip with a group of alumni from Williams College.  We will start in Siem Reap, Cambodia, staging ground for the incomprable Angkor Wat temple complex.  From there we will board a comfortable river cruiser and sail down the Tonle Sap to Phnom Penh.  My interest in politics and history will lead me to the grisly Tuol Sleng prison, now a museum of the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge.  We will continue down the Mekong, stopping at various points in Cambodia and Vietnam, and wind up for a couple of days in Saigon.  There will be much to see and understand…

Thus, the blog will be even quieter than it has been of late.  I may be able to post something from Siem Reap and Saigon, but the boat ride in between will be internet free!  I will set up a couple of posts to appear while I'm gone, and will have plenty to reflect upon once I get back. 

I have never been to Cambodia or Vietnam.  I'm a China guy and most of what I experience will be filtered through my China perspective.  That might be useful in some ways.  But I will have to let go of that comparison to see what is there before me, because, unlike the Daodejing (passage 47), I believe that opening ourselves to new places gives us a fuller sense of Way. 

Peace…