Bowing to Elephants : Tales of a Travel Junkie

In Bowing to Elephants , a woman seeking love and authenticity comes to understand herself as a citizen of the world through decades of wandering the globe. During her travels she sees herself more clearly as she gazes into the feathery eyes of a 14,000-pound African elephant and looks for answers to old questions in Vietnam and the tragically ravaged landscape of Cambodia. Bowing to Elephants is a travel memoir with a twist―the story of an unloved rich girl from San Francisco who becomes a travel junkie, searching for herself in the world to avoid the tragic fate of her narcissistic, alcoholic mother. Haunted by images of childhood loneliness and the need to learn about her world, Dimond journeys to far-flung places―into the perfumed chaos of India, the nostalgic, damp streets of Paris, the gray, watery world of Venice in the winter, the reverent and silent mountains of Bhutan, and the gold temples of Burma. In the end, she accepts the death of the mother she never really had―and finds peace and her authentic self in the refuge of Buddhist practice. BOWING TO ELEPHANTS is a travel memoir with a twist. An unloved rich girl from San Francisco becomes a travel junkie to escape a dysfunctional family and a narcissistic, alcoholic mother. Thanks to a journey of healing and self-discovery, the author navigates depression, loneliness, and loss while learning how to break down the false barriers that separate people. Music, art, and food influence our hero as she finds her way to far-flung parts of the world. By the end, Dimond accepts the death of the mother she never really had and finds forgiveness, peace and her authentic self in the refuges of travel and Buddhist practice. "In Bowing to Elephants, a woman seeking love and authenticity comes to understand herself as a citizen of the world through decades of wandering the globe. During her travels she sees herself more clearly as she gazes into the feathery eyes of a 14,000-pound African elephant and looks for answers to old questions in Vietnam and the tragically ravaged landscape of Cambodia."--Amazon.com Mag Dimond, an unloved girl from San Francisco, becomes a travel junkie to avoid the fate of her narcissistic, alcoholic mother—but everywhere she goes, she’s haunted by memories of her mother’s neglect, and by a hunger to find out who she is.