Who would have thought a privileged white woman of a mature age would finally see herself while gazing into the feathery eyes of a 14,000-pound African elephant? Or that a dream of death in a steamy Phnom Penh hotel room would help an abandoned daughter find the love she assumed was gone?
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. She discovers kinship, comfort and love amongst giant elephants in Kenya, and looks for answers to old questions in Vietnam and the tragically...