On this edition of World Stories, we cross the River Jordan to stay at an Eco Lodge. Then we get down to work with a potmaker in the Congo who recycles scrap metal and a sandalmaker in Pakistan who works with precious metals. We cycle through a Romanian town with a local barber and check on progress restoring a 300-year-old alterpiece in Mexico.
The Feynan Eco Lodge was built in in 2005 in Jordan's desert Dana Biosphere Reserve. It has no electric power besides what its solar panels generate and no roads nearby except the desert track that leads to it. It has no telephones and no computers. What it does have is spectacular desert landscape surroundings and candle-lit evenings with bedouin baked bread.
Scrap metal collectors in Kinshasa were making a living from recycling whatever metal they could scavenge as cooking pots and other simple household items. But some five years ago, as soon as they saw the boom coming, big recycling companies started muscling in and sweeping the Congolese capital clean.
On the Indian subcontinent, the emperor's clothes were always of great importance - in this case, the 16th and 17th-century Moghul emperors' sandals, woven of fine gold and silver threads called "Tilla". Now, in spite of price tags sometimes running into the thousands of euros, they're coming back in style.
The town of Lugoj in western Romania has long been known as the City of Cyclists. Indeed it is a kind of two-wheeling oasis in a bicycle desert - Romanian cities have very little bike-riding tradition and almost no bike paths. Catalina Filip for RTV looked up Alin the barber, a cycling enthusiast who takes dozens if not hundreds of fellow bike riders on outings every weekend.
The Mexican town of Huamantla has been honored with the title "Pueblo Mágico" - magic town. One thing that makes it magic is the colonial-era San Luis Obispo church. With federal and local funding, citizens' projects are hard at work restoring the church for what may be the first time in its nearly 300-year history.
