Mirissa, Sri Lanka - It is not hard to see what happened five years ago in southern and eastern Sri Lanka. About 34,000 people died in this small South Asian country. Wreckage of the tsunami is still apparent and in some places seems to have grown to be part of the landscape. Fishing boats dropped along roadsides still lay there, some now sprouting grass and plants. In the southern town of Mirissa, locals and tourists enjoy the beaches, barely noticing the partial hull of a fishing boat. 

A woman remembers victims of the 2004 tsunami with flowers and candles in Peraliya, Sri Lanka, on Saturday.

Here workers are busy building a monument not to the tsunami, but to soldiers of Sri Lanka's recent victory in the war with rebel Tamil Tigers.  Many Sri Lankans are too young to remember a time when their country wasn’t at war. The conclusion of more than 25 years of civil war, and decades of terrorist bombings around the country draws their focus now.

Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaksa has called for an election two years before the conclusion of his term. Now that the war is over, Sri Lanka's economy needs attention: There is concern about Sri Lanka's economy and rising food prices.

In the years since the tsunami, the hordes of aid workers and well-meaning benefactors have drifted on leaving signs of renewal in some places and dried up expectations in others. Scatterings of foreign-built playgrounds, new schools and housing can be seen along the roadsides of southern and eastern Sri Lanka, the most tsunami devastated parts of the country.  Locals will say money is sorely needed for schools and the few apartment buildings are not liked by locals, since they were not used to living in such clusters.

In a village just outside Hikkaduwa, women wait for rides sitting on the remains of someone's kitchen counter.

This town was among the most devastated. Here a memorial shows an artist’s rendering of the horrifying aftermath when the deadly wave overturned a passing train, bodies strewn on the tracks and flung into trees. The train line still runs along the shore.

Go to the beaches in Yala on Sri Lanka's eastern shore and you will see a heartbreakingly beautiful beach.  

Stories abound about how the animals of Yala's National Park sensed the vibrations of the earthquake and ran inland before disaster struck.  On the beach here, is a memorial to the Japanese and German tourists and many locals who had no such warning.

Banteay Chhmar, Cambodia - It's hot and I have a headache.

The sun is too bright and reflecting off the corrugated tin roofs of tiny shops. And there are so many people, it is dizzying.

Everywhere you look, throngs of people walking from home to store, store to home, milling around street vendor carts, begging for change, or sitting on plastic chairs by the side of the road silently watching it all unfold.

Sitting in this backseat of a cramped crew cab pickup truck, I'm sharing with two other guys, our backpacks, and a 16 kilogram camera.

It's 33 degrees Celsius and I'm told it's winter: The end of the rainy season. I can't imagine it could be any worse than this, so I ask our Cambodian driver what it's like here in the summer.

He looks at me through the rear view mirror.

"Hotter," he replies, focusing his smirking eyes back on the road.

No matter how tropical or humid the climate, dry humor exists everywhere.

Out the window, I see there are far too many people on the road and too many types of vehicles. Bicycles. Bicycles with motors rigged up to their frames. Motorcycles. Motorcycles with carriages rigged up to their backs. The Cambodians call those tuk-tuks: their equivalent of a taxi. Toyota Camrys and well-worn Nissan pickups. All fighting for space on the road with the cattle and chickens and men and children and women carrying woven wicker baskets on their heads.

There are no stop-lights, no stop signs. No rules or order to the roadway that I can make out, except that if you are going to pass, you have to honk.

A man on a motorcycle weaves around an old piece of farm equipment plodding down the road, then swerves awkwardly to avoid an oncoming car. The man's wife and two small children clutch on to each other's clothing, to avoid being thrown off.

It's all too much. I look in my backpack for a bottle of water. All the activity is making me nervous and nauseous.

Some of my crankiness can be attributed to the fact I'm just a few hours removed from an arduous 17 hour trans-Pacific flight that started in Atlanta, crossed the Arctic Circle, dropped me off in Seoul to catch my breath and stretch my cramping legs, and then carried me on to Siem Reap.

We're going to be here for the next 10 days shooting a documentary on human trafficking and the personal impact it has on the lives of families. Before we do that, though, we're taking a side trip to a place called Banteay Chhmar, to file a story about climate change and the effects it can have on a civilization.

Banteay Chhmar is the kind of place I didn't think still existed on Earth. An ancient ruin, it's discovered but still unknown. Built in the 12th century by the great Khmer ruler Jayavarman II, today it sits empty. Historians still don't know why the city was built or why it was abandoned. It's hard even to understand why it's still here. Just a few meters from a village with the same name, there are no tourists, no squatters and very little evidence that there ever have been.

There are only a few dozen local laborers who, under the supervision of project leader John Sanday, are working to restore the site to the point it's safe and attractive to outside visitors. The hope is, they'll be able to train locals to set up a responsible, sustainable tourist industry, where the money goes to members of the local community, not foreign investors from countries like South Korea, the United States, China, or Japan.

The city was abandoned more than 500 years ago. Sanday, who is an architect by trade and lives in Katmandu, is our guide. He tells us that scientists believe that changes in the climate coupled with political instability and an aging infrastructure. He surmises that a period of prolonged drought created water scarcity, food shortages and unrest, which forced the royal family to move south to the area which is now Phnom Penh.

When that happened, like the city's reservoirs, its wealth and economic energy also dried up.

As our truck rambled into the site, we turned onto a pathway that crossed over that same reservoir. Two giant Buddha heads made our welcome at the entrance.

I was amazed they were still there. Two minutes later we were in the main part of the city. Now I was shocked. To me, it felt like re-entering a city that had been evacuated during a bombing raid. Sanday led us around, pointing out why this gate was important, why rulers had created that massive bas relief to show their power, and how this structure had been felled by the roots of a tree. Everywhere you looked were piles of rubble. It went on for hundreds of meters in every direction.

There were large courtyards where only pillars remained. Huge rooms that opened to the sky and jungle canopy. Intricately carved doorways stood, upright and exposed, while the wall that had encased it lay in a heap. Each time you rounded a corner, or even turned your head, there was something new and breath-taking to look at and take a picture of.

My favorite part of the city, though, were faces of the Buddha, carved seamlessly into the towers of the temples, looking out over all of it. A precursor to the architecture you see on the Bayon Temple at Angkor Wat, the entire time we were there they seemed to be looking down at us, smiling knowingly, as we explored their city and pointed our cameras up to take their picture.

We spent two days there, bounding over the ruins, looking at the incredible art and architecture, taking pictures and discussing what led to the collapse of this once-powerful civilization.

When it was time to leave, and we crawled through to the old corridor made dark by dusk's fading light, I thought about the people who passed through these hallways so many centuries ago. I thought how interesting that, thanks to the potential tourism industry, their hard work then, might now bring about a new dawn in the lives of their descendents.

And as we packed into pick-up for our long ride back to Siem Reap, I was struck by another thought and smiled.

This was definitely worth the trip.

Have you seen Fancyfastfood.com? The concept is simple. Take your favorite junk food and turn it into haute cuisine. Twinkies. Oreos. Hot dogs - whatever.

Inspired, we enlisted a top chef here in Hong Kong to turn a few junk food favorites into fine dining dishes.

The result? Caviar made of Coca Cola and, wait for it, nachos for dessert.

At the Mandarin Oriental, Executive Chef Uwe Opocensky doubles as a food scientist, transforming humble nibbles into haute gastronomy.

First up? Cotton candy.

Uwe turns a ball of cotton candy into a powder puff to dip into a compact powder made of freeze-dried oranges and raspberries. It’s accompanied by a tube of chocolate lipstick.

Voila, a childhood favorite tailor-made for a preening female snacker like me.

Next up, a classic transformed into caviar.

Uwe explains the concept: “Basically, when we eat caviar normally, it bursts. Coca-Cola also sparkles, so I incorporate both of that into Coca-Cola caviar.”

The Coca-Cola is distilled in an evaporator for several days and then syringed into seaweed water to form the gelled balls - creating that caviar look.

I place a spoonful in my mouth and they break up with a refreshing, effervescent burst. Yep, it’s Coke. But delivered in an entirely new way.

And for the grand finale? Nachos.

Uwe, a self-proclaimed geek, recreates the cheese by grating mango sorbet into liquid nitrogen. It hardens, taking on the appearance of cheddar.

Tortilla chips are caramelized with a cheesecake and sour cream mixture, kiwi fruit is pureed to look like guacamole and crunchy chocolate bits take the place of ground beef.

It’s a bit disorienting to eat a plate of nachos that are more chocolaty than cheesy. But my compliments to the chef.

The ultimate geek food has been given the ultimate geek treatment.

(CNN) – Santa Marta, like so many shanty towns in Rio de Janeiro, seems to defy gravity.

A view of the recently pacified Santa Marta.

To get to our destination, London cameraman Todd Baxter and I rode a one-car funicular past naked cement and brick homes clinging to the hillside.

Then we cut across the slum, a maze of cramped doorways and micro-entrepreneurs offering everything from haircuts to sacks of cement.

With a lot of breaks to catch our breath ...

Finally we found it: a huge cinder-block wall going up around the entire shanty town.

The wall was the subject of our story. According to officials it’s an “ecobarrier” built to protect the surrounding rainforest, but a lot of people we talked to were offended.

They felt they were being caged in and saw it as an attempt to further separate the crime-ridden slums from the affluent condos on the beaches below.

But what struck me was just how safe Santa Marta was.

When I lived in Rio eight years earlier it was unthinkable to enter any favela without a police escort.

At night you could hear shoot-outs between rival drug gangs and nearby neighborhoods complained of “lost bullets” that tore through their homes while they slept.

That’s changed with Rio’s “pacification” plan. Santa Marta is one of the favelas that’s been occupied by police. They built a permanent headquarters in the community and have set up checkpoints where gangs used to sell drugs.

We actually saw very few police when we hiked along the winding paths, but the sense of security was palpable.

We were invited into a number of homes.

An elderly man called Jiuzel showed us his toy car collection before we huffed and puffed our way up his near-horizontal staircase to the roof for one of the most amazing views of the city.

A woman, Elian Lopez, offered us coffee while she pulled out her daughter’s laptop and showed us her recently acquired credit card.

We even met a well-dressed tour guide on the funicular who was headed up to Santa Marta in search of a house to buy.

Not everything has changed though. Raw sewage still runs through many of the alleys and residents still complain they're marginalized by the rest of the “Marvelous City,” and pointed to the wall as proof.

But it was uplifting to see how some areas of Rio have come in the last eight years.

Beijing, China - It's just a T-shirt. Or so we thought.

The shirts were 'banned' by the Chinese government. (AFP/Getty images)

Our search for the so-called "communist Obama" T-shirt began with a capable intern scouring markets in Beijing. It depicts U.S. President Barack Obama wearing a Red Army uniform, the "Chinese communist-style" outfit made famous by Chairman Mao. On the front it says, "Serve the People" in Chinese. On the back, "Oba-Mao" in English.

Our first scan of Beijing turned up nothing. But a tip led us to the basement of Shin Kong Place. In an unassuming souvenir shop, we found a T-shirt in extra-large. During our flight from Beijing to Shanghai to cover the president's arrival, a news blitz indicated the shirts had been "banned" by the Chinese government amid worries that they may offend the American president.

Thank goodness we'd gotten ours in time!

But there was no way to confirm the government had indeed taken the shirts off the shelves, so we decided to check for ourselves. We headed to Yatai Xinyang market at a Shanghai metro stop in search of Obama-branded merchandise.

The Chinese also make wallets and trading cards featuring the "Communist Obama" image.

We found nothing but could not be sure they hadn't sold them there before. So, I chose that opportune moment to do a piece to camera with the shirt in hand. Bad move? Maybe. But it ended up being great television.

Two security guards happened to pass by at the moment I announced to the camera: "This is the T-shirt everybody is talking about." And that was it. They scrambled toward us and tried to pry the shirt out of my hands. I didn't give in.

Technically, we did not have permission to film in the market. And the security guards scolded us for not getting permission ahead of time.

There was a bit of yelling and quite a scuffle. My producer Jo Kent emphatically stated our case. Photographer Miguel Castro kept his cool. By this point, we had everything on tape.

We ended up being detained for two hours in the cold maze of a market. A crowd gathered round. More security and then police showed up. They wanted our press cards, our passports, but most of all, they wanted the shirt.

Ultimately, they confirmed that we were indeed "real" journalists (that is legally reporting in China.) But that didn't stop them from scolding us and making it very difficult to leave. After asking repeatedly and then one last time for the shirt, I refused.

Finally, they let us go. Phew!

It was worth it. The shirt got attention on the air and sparked buzz online. In fact, some members of the White House pool and a few colleagues in Atlanta actually tried to bribe me for it.

Nothing like juxtaposing communism and democracy in more ways than one. Just another day on the job.

(CNN) –  My trip back to my native Bulgaria this summer took on a special meaning because of an event that changed the course of history and my life! Twenty years since the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, I was taking special notice of how things had changed. I noticed a new generation gap, separating those like me, who grew up with communism, from those who have no memory of it.

I came face to face with that reality on the plane back home to the United States. 

I was chatting with a 20-something Bulgarian college student on her way to a student work program in the U.S, when I had a flashback to 1991, and my own trip to America when I was that age.  I almost didn't make it. Not because I was late for my flight. But because, to use a famous Cold War scholar's phrase, "history" had not quite "ended" in 1991.

Just a month before my flight, communists opposed to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms, deposed him. All of sudden, it seemed, my dream CNN job could have been shut down behind the "Iron Curtain."

Fears grew in Bulgaria, that a return of communism in Russia would bring the Cold War back to tiny Bulgaria. A week later, it was over. The communist revival attempt failed, I was free to board my trans-Atlantic flight!

I glanced over at the young woman sitting beside me. Such a relief that history is no longer in our way. But even though we're both enjoying the benefits of change, there's one big difference. I experienced that history first hand; she's only heard about it from her mom. And that's a generation gap I gladly embrace.

BEIJING, China - I hauled myself out of bed at 6 a.m. Sunday to set out for something I'd never done before–run a race in the Beijing marathon.

Jaime FlorCruz, far right, joins Zhang Lianqi, center, and another runner at the finish line.

I’ve been prepping for this day, on and off, for three months since I signed up to run 9.6K as part of the 2009 Beijing International Marathon, the full length of which is a little more than 42 kilometers.

My 58-year-old body seemed fit enough to run the distance, but I woke up with pinching pain on my left knee. For one brief moment, I thought that was a good reason to back out.

I decided to go and run. I had my muesli and banana, took a painkiller and proceeded to Tiananmen Square. Nearly 30,000 people, professionals and amateurs, had gathered there for the 29-year-old annual event. Foreigners paid $100 to register; Chinese paid 150 yuan ($22). Everyone gets a packet, including a runner's bag and bib, an official T-shirt and a certificate of participation.

At the starting line, some came in groups — high school and college students, factory workers, corporate employees, and members of runners’ club from various parts of China. Others came alone or with running buddies. Many joined to challenge themselves. Others, like the nine Chinese nuns from Henan province, run to support charity. Several runners wore distinctive T-shirts emblazoned with company logos ("Bimbo" Bread stands out) and uplifting message (the Obama slogan “Yes We Can” was eye-catching, if a bit tired).

I can too, I thought, as I jogged past Chairman Mao’s portrait soon after the start. Forty minutes and four kilometers later, however, my energy and enthusiasm started to flag. I puffed and winced, as I watched rabbit-like runners overtake me and deflated stragglers fall off behind me. Can I go on for five more Ks?

Just as I was losing confidence, I noticed an elderly man in red shirt, red shorts and blue sneakers, running just ahead of me. I sidled up and politely asked his age. "I’m 76,” he says, smiling.

Zhang Lianqi, it turns out, is a running aficionado. "I've been joining long-distance runs in Beijing since 1956," he recalls, keeping a slow but steady pace. “Once, I finished 37th.” He retired from his transistor-factory job 16 years ago but still jogs two to three kilometers three times a week.

That explains Zhang’s good form. "I've gained a bit of weight but I can still run," he quips. Along the way, he served as my mentor and inspiration. “Let’s not run in the middle of the street,” he suggests, so we avoid runners who are too fast or too slow. He took out two squares of chocolate from a yellow plastic bag and handed me one. “Don’t swallow, just let it melt in your mouth.” Soon, we passed 6K!

Impetuously, I picked up speed, inspired by periodic cheers ("Persistence means victory!") from onlookers and volunteers who’d lined the streets. “Pace yourself,” Zhang warned me. “Don’t run too fast.” Badly dehydrated, I fetched a bottle of water from a volunteer. “Don’t drink too much,” he says. “Just sip.” His most telling unsolicited advice involved attire. “Next time wear running shorts,” he admonished me. “Sweatpants drag you down.” Like a tour guide, he narrated a bit of history of Diaoyutai, as we ran past China's state guest house. He probably just wished to distract me. By the time he finished his spiel, we were only 600 meters away from our goal.

Literally shoulder to shoulder, we crossed the 9.6K finish line. As we posed for souvenir pictures and exchanged phone numbers, I felt especially exhilarated to have found in Mr. Zhang a running companion, a mentor and another Beijing friend. I am glad he pushed me to the finish line.

It’s a rare story that captures a journalist’s imagination the way this one has.

I first heard of El Mirador from Jeff Morgan, the founder of the Global Heritage Fund.

We were talking about his organization when he mentioned this ancient Mayan city they were working to save. Buried deep in the jungles of Northern Guatemala are the stone relics of an empire. His voice cracked with enthusiasm as he described the amazing discoveries being unearthed almost daily.

The archeologists excavating there say they have evidence now showing Mirador, this remote site almost no one has ever heard of, is home to the largest pyramid in the world by volume, the first freeway system in the world and a newly unearthed piece artwork, the size of a football field, that could rewrite the historical timeline of the Mayan civilization.

As a journalist, I did what I’ve been trained to do and asked calmly, “I’m sorry, can you repeat that?”

He did, so my follow-up question was easy: “How can we get there?”

We arrived by helicopter from Guatemala City along with Morgan and the director of the Mirador Basin Project, Richard Hansen. When you’re in the jungle for the first time, a couple thoughts cross your mind. First, you wonder what else is out there, lurking behind the brush and branches, sizing you up.

And the second thing you think about is where you put your water. The heat is intense. It was 34 C the whole time we were there – day and night – and moisture from the jungle canopy adds a steamy, sticky film to your skin that traps the heat.

Our shoot lasted several days, short by documentary filming standards, but we packed in as much work as possible. Working 14-hour days, we hiked for miles, scaled pyramids, squeezed through tiny corridors to get inside the temples.

But in addition to all the wonderful historical discoveries, there is another, more pressing reason we went to film this story. Mirador is facing threats on several fronts.

Looters are constantly breaking into the sites and stealing priceless artifacts. Loggers and cattle ranchers are cutting down the surrounding rainforest at an alarming speed. And narco-traffickers, flying cocaine-filled planes, are landing in the remote areas then setting them ablaze, sparking devastating wildfires.

For Jeff Morgan, Richard Hansen, and several organizations like PACUNAM and APANAC, the purpose of saving and preserving this incredible site is so that the people who live in the surrounding villages will benefit.

These groups hope that by creating a sustainable tourist destination, it will attract tourists from around the world, and bring badly needed fund to the poorest area of the country.

Looking back, it felt like a whirlwind going from plane, to helicopter, to isolated jungle and then back again. But I came away from the experience with the sense that there are still wonders left in this world to be discovered, and good people fighting with everything they have, to save them.

It’s a story I’ll never forget. And one that I hope, for the archeologists and people of Guatemala, has a happy ending.

It's been four years since I was last in Aceh covering the aftermath of the tsunami and I was braced for the worst on this trip.

A tsunami drill is carried out in Banda Aceh, with droning alarms and people fleeing an imaginary wave.

I had cynically assumed that there would still be huge swathes of wasteland towards the edge of the city.

But those "fields of shards," as one expat memorably described them to me in the dark days after the tsunami, are now gone. In fact, you have to look quite hard to find any trace of the catastrophe that consumed this corner of Indonesia the day after Christmas 2004.

Houses and shops have sprung up where once there was nothing but rubble, bodies and misery. But what is even more encouraging is that the people here are now much, much better prepared for another tidal wave.

This morning we watched as a full scale tsunami drill was carried out, complete with droning alarms and people covered in fake blood fleeing an imaginary wave.

It was well organized and seemed to show that if Aceh was hit again, there would be a chance for some people to escape.

For some, it brought back chilling memories of that terrible morning on December 26, 2004.

Yudi Rinaldi said the drill brought back images of the day he ran for his life as the tsunami surged towards him.

Yudi Rinaldi, 36, and his four-year-old son Ryan, were among those taking part in the Ulee Lee area of Banda Aceh. He told me the drill was traumatic for him - bringing back vivid images of the day he ran for his life as a monstrous black wave of rubble surged towards him.

Then, there were no tsunami shelters for people like Yudi to run towards.

Now, there are several of these specially-constructed buildings around the city, with room for hundreds of residents. There is a system of buoys out at sea linked to satellites, which should give plenty of warning of an impending tsunami.

I only hope the system will never have to be used for real.

(CNN) – CNN Cairo went to the beach Monday. It was not, alas, a day of rest. We assembled at 2 a.m. at the headquarters of the Egyptian Army's "Morale Guidance" Bureau, from where we were bussed, an hour later, to the northern coast to cover the 2009 Brightstar Exercises.

This year 17,000 troops from Egypt, the United States, Jordan, Pakistan, Germany, Italy, and Kuwait - to name a few - are taking part.

These military exercises have been conducted every two years since 1981.

There is a certain predictability about these affairs. The officers, whatever the country, are all upbeat, talking about cooperation, partnership and mutual respect.

But in the end, these are war games: A rehearsal for something to which other, far less lofty terms come to mind. The officers we interviewed - Americans and Egyptians - speak in glowing adjectives, but dodge questions about what or whom the exercises are preparing for.

I covered Brightstar 10 years ago. Back then it was also all about partnership and cooperation. But in the combat operations room of the USS John F. Kennedy, I had a premonition of what was to come. On a map of clear plastic, written in magic marker over Baghdad were the words: "Target: Saddam."

Ten years later Saddam is gone; U.S. forces are bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, while targets have been hit in Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan.

Voices have been raised in the U.S. – though more loudly and insistently in Israel - calling for military action against Iran, which is accused by some of pursuing a nuclear weapons program.

Back in 1999 it was fairly clear that sooner or later the U.S. and its allies would, somehow or other, bring down Saddam Hussein. After September 11, 2001, regardless of Iraq's non-involvement in those attacks, Saddam's days were running out.

I don't think, at this moment, an attack against Iran (by Israel, by the U.S., or both) is as inevitable as Saddam Hussein's demise. But the possibility is there.

As the sun rose over the desert, I watched three C17 "Globemasters," which had flown straight from Fort Bragg in North Carolina, drop hundreds of paratroopers - mostly Americans along with a few Egyptians and Pakistanis. Later, a pair of American Cobra gunships provided air support as three huge U.S. Navy hovercraft disgorged a dozen armored humvees on a beautiful Mediterranean beach, already "secured" by U.S., Egyptian, Pakistani and Jordanian troops.

It was an impressive display of force and hardware, as well as cooperation and partnership. However it's easy to see from the weapons on display who is the senior "partner."

Sitting in the press bus on my way back to Cairo typing this with my thumbs on a blackberry, I wonder if, as the American and Egyptian officers told us, the Brightstar exercises aren't designed for a specific threat then what is the point?