Ready to travel the world...virtually? Gabrielle Yetter, one of our longtime friends, and the author of MANY books that we've shared here, has a new book out. Whisper of the Lotus is an interesting, heartfelt, and genuine read about finding your self...while exploring a place.

It's one of those books you can't put down, so fair warning for your sleep.

Indochina, which was originally termed Indo-China, consists of the countries in Southeast Asia now known as Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar (formerly Burma), Thailand, and Vietnam. The countries are all within the sphere of influence of the Indian subcontinent and China, and also included part of Malaysia and Singapore in the original designation. Later, the term Indochina was used to refer to the French Indochina region that covered just Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, until each was recognized as an independent nation in the 1950s.

Between 1975 and 1979, an estimated two million people (a quarter of the population at the time) were killed in Cambodia through starvation, torture, execution, disease and overwork under the ruling of the Khmer Rouge. Intellectuals were targeted, and as a result, Cambodia lost most of their educated population.