NATHAN WILLIAM MEYER

In the highlands of western Sumatra the matrilineal Minang people of Lake Maninjau have for centuries made a volcano’s watery roof their home.

Passing the torch from hand to new hand they danced along their neighbors’ doors driving devils into the night.

In a natural amphitheater only miles from the ruins of Ephesus the air is split by wailing horns and the raucous cheers of 10,000 spectators drunk on raki and the brute intoxication of camel wrestling.

It was Year Zero. Books were burned, religion outlawed, money abolished, schools closed, and teachers, doctors, and lawyers killed. Empty schools were made into prisons. It was Year Zero; it was 1975.

In Central Cambodia lies Southeast Asia’s largest freshwater lake, Tonle Sap, home to vibrant communities living in floating villages and drawing that living from the lake’s waters.

It is a land of mist and mountains, the Himalaya’s eastern extremity that divides Vietnam from China, and the home of Vietnam’s long isolated hill tribes.