MOMENTS

“在立陶宛沒有邊際的綠色時空裡，你的願望會突然變小，縮小至一塊石頭、一朵蘑菇、一顆野莓，再也無所謂塵世與理想。”

BY SYLVIA FURRER & HOLGER HOFFMANN The idea of the “rainforest” is associated with green hell. For me, it triggers the opposite: in the more than 45 years that I have been exploring our planet, I have never felt such euphoria, neither in the mountains, no matter how high and spectacular their peaks may be,…

BY ELENA SEROSHTAN Our plane was slowly moving toward the runway, passing the glass facade of the brand-new Yangon Airport—which now stood like a ghost in the shimmering hot air. I glanced at it for the last time. Every time I left Myanmar, I thought it might be the last—but this time, it definitely was.…

BY HOLGER HOFFMANN & SYLVIA FURRER There could not be a greater contrast between the bright red clothing worn by Kyrgyz nomadic women and their harsh everyday lives. For a long time, they lived in isolation on the high plateau at Lake Chaqmaqtin in the farthest tip of Afghanistan. Now a dirt road leads to…

BY ALEXANDER ELISCU I had been rolling in anxiety for several days. Week after week, I was told of the innumerable dangers of trekking alone in Brazil’s Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetlands. At night, eyes reddening, I remained glued to the computer screen, clicking every Youtube link on the latest news since the onça-pintada…

BY BRIENNA CARTER On the way to the train station, Abdulkhamid told me he failed his English test. We’d spent the last couple days preparing for it, and he’d been nailing the new vocabulary about gift-giving and bag-packing. He could tell you what he’s going to buy his wife for their anniversary (jewelry), and he…

BY JOSEF BUERGI Mongolia, a land of vast steppes and rugged beauty, is home to a unique way of life centered around the winter migration of nomadic herders. As temperatures plummet, these resilient people lead their livestock across the frozen landscape in search of fresh grazing grounds. Battling fierce snowstorms and bitter cold, the herders…

BY KATHRYN HATCHETT We cross the final river of our trek. Not that you could call it a river yet. The winding ribbon carving out a valley for itself is a couple of feet wide and would be shallow enough to walk through on foot without boots. It trickles towards the coast, a riverbed mosaic…

BY MIGUEL NEVES I could see the red and yellow foliage in the distance as the landscape moved in synchronicity with the clanking of the train wheels on the track, making the mountains of Yamagata seem even more entrancing as they slowly passed the window giving way to more and more thickets of warm autumn…