Countries that enchanted me

USA for its national parks, its music and dance shows, beautiful cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, San Diego, San Antonio, Miami, New Orleans, New York, the friendliness and sociability of the Americans, the organization perfect with excellent and free roads and highways, petrol and cheap motels PERU' for the beauty of the Inca capital Cuzco, the site of Machu Pichu and many others, pisco sauer, a kind of mojito, live music played by excellent bands, the landscape of the Andes and Lake Titicaca CUBA for the sympathy and sociability of the Cubans, the salsa and the mojito, the colonial cities like Trinidad and Santi Espiritu, the cars of the 50s abandoned by the Americans, the beauty of the landscapes of the two extreme points MOROCCO for its imperial cities, especially Marrakech and Fes, the contrast between the red earth and the green of its oases, its chaotic medinas in which it is nice to get lost between one stall and another TUNISIA for its mountain and sea oases, its salt lakes, its olive groves, the cities in the oases such as Tozeur and those on the coast such as Hamamet and Sfax, its mint tea and couscous EGYPT for its millennial history with many sites along the Nile starting from the pyramids of Giza, Luxor, Abu Simbel, the friendliness of its inhabitants, Sharm el Sheik with its beautiful sea and coral reef Türkiye its metropolis Istanbul which houses the Grand Bazaar, the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia, Topkapi and the Galata bridge, Ephesus slightly lower than Pompeii, Cappadocia with its pinnacles and underground cities, its Roman and Greek theaters on the south coast and the sea of Kas, Marmaris and Antalya, the wild East with Lake Van and Mount Ararat and Djarbakir with its black volcanic walls NEPAL for its capital Katmandu full of squares that house temples and ancient pagodas, and the other two Baktapur and Bagdaon, its mountains and trekking paths INDIA almost a colorful continent with many dialects and races, from the splendid Rajasthan with the cities founded by the Afghan moguls Jaipur, Udaipir, Jodpur, Jaisalmer the pearl of the desert, the city of Agra with its Taj Mahal palace and the love temples of Kajuraho, the holy city of Benares with the Ganges along which the dead burn, Goa with its beaches, the splendid Kerala with its canals parallel to the coast, the many spectacular temples, in particular that of Madurai, Kornak in Orissa, the colonial city of Calcutta with its markets and palaces of the English era, and Sikkim at 3-4,000 meters in the mountains of the Himalayan range with its numerous Buddhist temples and statues MYANMAR with its splendid pagodas in particular the Shwedagon and the Sule in Yangon, the old capital of Mandalay in the north, the Inle lake with its fishermen who row with one foot and many temples and then the splendid valley of Bagan with 7,000 temples some large and impressive as cathedrals, others medium or small THAILAND the exotic capital Bangkok with its spectacular royal palace and its many temples, the river with its boats like in Venice, its splendid islands such as Pukhet, Koh Samui, Koh Lipe, Lanta, Chang, Tao, Phangan with its party every month on the day of the full moon, Phi Phi Island the one of the film the Beach with Di Caprio, its white beaches and crystal clear waters, its exquisite cuisine and its beers, the country with the best price/quality ratio PHILIPPINES many beautiful islands in particular Palawan the most to the east with the splendid El Nido to the north which offers incomparable sea excursions such as the neighboring Coron on the island of Bushuanga, the most beautiful beach and island of Boracay, Alona Beach, the Chocolate Hills, some districts of Manila such as Makati and the Spanish fortress destroyed by the Americans to flush out a hundred thousand Japanese soldiers who had taken refuge there, the splendid rice terraces in Banaue and Batad in the north of the island of Luzon VIETNAM nice and very well organized people, excellent cuisine, Hanoi a jewel with its historic center, Halong Bay a wonder of nature with its pinnacles rising from the sea waters, the ethnic tribes of Sapa and its colorful markets, the old capital Hue with its citadel fortress, the colonial city of Hoi An with its historic palaces of rich merchants and its tailors, Nha Trang the beautiful city with a long arched beach and facing islands, the metropolis of Saigon with its rich palaces and shops and the Mekong delta with its canals, cultivated fields and handicraft activities CHINA Beijing alone is worth the trip to this huge country that I visited for 40 years when it was still poor and underdeveloped but offered its historical riches such as the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven and the Dalai Lama, Tian'an Men Square and the nearby Wall Chinese and the Ming tombs and then the terracotta army in the old capital Xian, Shanghai the metropolis with its western district along the coastal road of the Bund, its parks and temples with the jade Buddha, the romantic Guilin with its spectacular single mountains which can be admired with a boat trip on the Li River to Yangshhuo, another former capital Hangzhou with its West Lake and the Chinese Venice Suzhou with its canals, Canton or Guanzhou, a rich southern metropolis with its monuments and markets where you can see for sale all types of animals and finally Hong Kong with its very tall and many skyscrapers in the marine bay that looks like a lake, the island of Kowloon which can also be accessed by metro