Asia
Asia - the largest of all continents - a land of great distances and wide horizons - Rimlands of fascinating and ancient cultures that built their wealth up over the centuries by sea trade and war on the water - and Continental Homelands of the Interior that had to contend with hoards of wandering armies and migrating nations, recognizing that the Interior Homeland had the advantages of control over the many land-based trade routes and rivers and extracted wealth from control of trade. These geographical chokepoints became the seats of great cities, wealth generation beyond imagination and bloody conflicts.
Asia is characterized by a wide spectrum of weather, geographical features and ancient traditions of peoples who have adapted their own distinct ways of survival and prosperity. Asia has a history best known by its influence on other parts of the world - in broad terms several nations have made Asia what it seems to be today and the artifacts of their history are awesome and inspiring. In broad regions of diversity we can examine in our travels India, the Mideast, Afghanistan, Russia, China, SE Asia, and the regions of Korea and Japan. The histories and artifacts of each could engage one in lifetime studies but even to a temporary tourist they command fascination. The immediate excitement is that many of these areas were denied to travelers for generations because of political, logistical or criminal difficulties - but now, the seasoned traveler can roam and learn to his hearts content as long as they obey careful planning and basic precautions - (See our traveler's safety and security sections of the web page).
The broad areas of Asia have their dominant religions - we concentrate on the largest: China & Russia. China as one of the oldest continuous cultures in the world has heavily influenced the Southeast sector of the continent. China blessed with the geography of excellent interior river systems, used to have the largest maritime trading fleet ever known in the world and opened and controlled the ancient sea trading routes stretching from primitive cultures in East Africa to exotic cultures in the Mid East, around the magical and sophisticated cultures of India, Burma and Siam, and what is now known as Indonesia and Malaysia. China became so rich and powerful that they saw the rest of the world as savage and subordinate cultures that threatened more than benefited the Chinese people. Their rulers decided to insulate the nation from the rest of the world and for hundreds of years greatly reduced the size of the Chinese trans-oceanic fleet - China essentially became a continental power, until European nations and the United States reestablished a thriving trade diring the 19th century. Following the collapse of collonialism in the emerging 20th century and the defeat of the Japanese Empire, China reestablished her identity as a world superpower under the destructive and reconsolidation disciplines of Chinese Communism. China seems to have found that sweetspot between being a managed economy at home still influenced by Confucianist work ethics, Christian missionary zeal and Buddhist introspection under the all-seeing eye of a secular Communist Party led state and a thoroughly integrated international trading nation overseas. With their rise as full members of the UN and the WTO, China Incorporated has truly become a superstar economy that drives the heartbeat of SE Asian continent. More importantly, the years of relative insularity and seeming obscurity during the 20th century have changed and China now is relatively assessible to foreign tourists - you can now experience fascinating artifacts of ancient and mysterious civilizations throughout the Chinese nation and one cannot fail to notice the frendliness, youthfulness and optimism of the Chinese people. Tourists are welcome again in China and it is a golden period for world class tourists that want to see more for their money.
In earlier years Asia was a land of mass migrations as peoples that depended on hunting and managing live stocks on grasslands were driven in various directions by the uncertainties of weather patterns. When these great hoards of peoples moved there were no political boundaries that could hold them back other than war and conflict on the rimlands. The Mongols under the Empire of Kubla Khan and Ghengis Khan struck terror in the hearts of all, as their Empire stretched from China to what we call the Mid-East. Influenced by the ancient Vikings and the Tartars the seeds of the Russian nation arose as a boundary against further expansion of the Asiatic hoards. Ironically, the rise of Russia came from west to east, and it ultimately consolidated the northern reaches of Asia into a modern superpower state that blocked China from further northward expansion. Russia became the progeny and protector of the traditions of Orthodox Rome and later Constantinople and Istanbul. Russia mitigated the influence of Islamic peoples along its southern border. Though Russia incorporated people of many religions - it first became primarily an Orthodox Christian state that even in its strongly secular form and atheistic foundation, allowed the freedoms of other religions to worship in their own way as long as they did not advocate overthrow of the state. Russia torn by the horrors of the First World War early in the 20th century, became the grand experiment for adopting Communism to a modern state. This system of One-Party government carried and mobilized Russia into a great superpower,that overwhelmed the Natzi and Japanese menaces of the Second World War, built a modern Navy that challenged all other contenders on the high seas, built a huge maritime trading fleet, and put the first humans in space. (Even during the past several years, Russia has preserved the access of the United States and other nations to human exploration of space through their robust rocket technology and maintenance and operation of the International Space Station). During the apex of the Soviet Union the Russian people became a superpower with the highest standards of science, sports, the arts, and military capability. They crated a region of political stability among widely diverse cultures throughout a huge part of Asia, buffered the influence of the other world superpowers and maintained a relative period of peaceful coexistence mitigating the influence of the United States as the only other superpower to emerge from the Second World War. The end of the 20th century saw the Soviet Union reform and recognize many of its more ancient traditions and history. It fully transitioned into a federal democratic form of government and vastly increased the freedoms of its economy and peacefully integrated it into the world's trading markets. The Soviet Union again became Russia and adopted a multi-party political system. The Russia of today opened many of its cities and fascinating cultural antiquities to foreign tourists and it is truely an adventure and great opportunity of world class travel. Tourists are welcome in Russia and the nation maintains a substantial multimodal transportation system.