Merry Christmas and a happy new year


-----------------------------------------------------
First of all I’d like to wish all of you a very merry Christmas and a happy new year. At the moment I’m spending my time at the http://www.openmindprojects.org Center in Nong Khai, which is in northeast Thailand at the Mekong River, next to the Boarder to Laos. We are an Organisation that teaches English and Computer at local schools. Furthermore we are a bunch of foreign superstars, or at least that’s the impression we have when walking through the streets. White skinned people get so much attention by the locals, that you start to feel very special. As my skin is still so white that Michael Jackson would be jealous, I feel very special. Everybody smiles and waves when we pass. What a loveley kind of people. I often think of the way, we treat foreigners at home- possibly we could learn a lot from Thai mentality.
May I introduce you to:
Will, Matt, Surijah, Khai, Toto, Moss, Sarah and Ruthie

-----------------------------------------------------
Home Stay with Toto’s family

Toto is our Project leader at OpenmindProjects and we had the honour to stay a night at his home village, with his family. We took our car, which of course is a Pickup Truck- everybody drives a Pickup Truck here, there are approximately the same amount of normal cars here as PickupTrucks in Europe- and started our journey with 5 people in the car 3 people on the car and Toto, who had no driving licence. Best preconditions for a save road trip.
Two hours later we arrived in the small village of Toto’s family- and were warmly welcomed with dinner and a sightseeing tour through the salt and rice fields. The next day Toto showed us how to fish in a nearby river. Toto’s father prepared a small fisher boat. Toto, Moss and me climbed carefully into the boat, which I thought would never carry all three of us- especially not the European size farang in the middle. Nevertheless we got on the boat and went out on the river. Nobody noticed the alarming draft (Tiefgang), which might have had something to do with the weight of us three together. Two minutes later we tried to find the boat on the ground of the river and to reach the shore- swimming in Jeans and T-shirt. Good job!

-----------------------------------------------------
The Stone- Road trip

This weekend we had another road trip, which I call the stone trip. No- not the stoned tip! This time 5 people in the car 4 people on the car and Will driving the car as he has a driving licence and the police started to stop cars, because of their new years resolution (gute Neujahrsvorsätze). We visited the Phu Phrabat Historical Park, where some giants played rock jackstraws (Felsmikado). As we found out afterwards Buddhist monks scratched the rocks to the shape they have today. OK- Nobody would believe this anyway, the truth is: glaciers and erosion shaped them to bizarre looking tables of huge size.

-----------------------------------------------------
The next day we found ourselves crawling through a cave near the Mekong River. I’d not call myself claustrophobic, but there are some movies, which should not appear in your mind when doing such things (The Descent). Anyway Buddha was with us and we found our way back.

The city of angels (Bangkok),

I arrived in Bangkok at the 16th of December. The morning of the flight I felt very sick. I caught a cold. It is never a good idea to fall asleep when you still sweat from carrying your backpack through the city. I woke up with a bad sore throat and a feeling of weakness in my bones. Nevertheless I had to get my plane from Beijing to Bangkok that day at 2pm. I trudged to the subway and then to the airport. Somehow I managed to send some stuff I wouldn’t need in Thailand home (jacket, boots, scarf etc.) and got on the plane. Looking forward to go to a nice warm place I found out that Thai-people like air conditioning a lot. Literally every plane, train, car and restaurant cool down the air to fridge conditions. I arrived at my hostel, which I booked in advance via internet and was quite happy to have a place to stay for the first night. After arriving at the hostel I got to know one American and 3 Swedish guys, Brandon, Marcus, Jonas and Eric, nice greetings to you, if you’ll ever read this.



-----------------------------------------------------------------
Some days in Bangkok

Bangkok, which official name consists of about 30 words, is a crazy place to be. There are so many “farangs”, western people as they name them, that you just don’t stand out in the crowd of white skin around you. Of course we visited the Khao san Road where you can get lost with buying things and refusing offers from street vendors.
Thai people like sports a lot. Especially ping pong- Everybody offers you to play with them on the street, which I find is really nice. For some reason they only want to play with foreigners- so I think they want to improve their skills by competing with other nations. ;-)


-------------------------------------------------
Brandon and me stayed one day longer in Bangkok than the others did so we discovered the city from a different side as well. We took a water ferry to go to one of the beautiful temples of the city but we missed our stop- so we got completely lost at the attempt to walk back to the temple. We found ourselves in some Thai neighbourhood, where there were not a single tourist but parents bringing their kids to school and Thai families praying in temples. We stumbled into a school where pupils performed a really cool dance and girls cheering at special hip movements.




-------------------------------------------------

Arriving in Nong Khai

After doing some research I found a volunteer organisation named Open mind Projects (www.openmindprojects.org) and decided to stick to my quest as it is to fix computers for bed and breakfast. I took the train (10 hrs) from Bangkok to NongKhai, which is NorthEast Asia, at the boarder to Laos at the Mekong River. The train unfortunately did not go the whole way to Nong Khai but stopped at some town near. On the train I met a Thai girl, Poja (there is nothing funny about this name my Spanish friends!!). As her English was not that good and my Thai was not existing at all we found a very nice man, who helped us with translating some sentences. Poja told me that her brother is going to pick her up at the station, and that they would go to NongKhai. It happened that they life just half a kilometre away from the Organisation, where I volunteer. We arrived and indeed her brother took us with him to KFC for having dinner- within five minutes 4 of Pojas friends where sitting at our table, laughing their asses off, as the white, blond farang didn’t understand a single word Thai. After that they took me to my new home for the next weeks: openmindprojects at NongKhai.


----------------------------------------------------
Poja is the girl on the left and she is, believe it or not, 24!

The first week

There are no words to express how I feel. It is some kind of excitement, fearlessness mixed with curiosity and the feeling of being a complete newbie to nearly everything I experience. And still I wonder how it happened that it took me 25 years to go on that trip. Today I went to the great wall and now I tell you what happened during the last week.


--------------------------------------
Markets in Beijing

The markets in Beijing are unbelievable hassling places. Hundreds of young women try to sell you stuff you don’t need. “Looka, looka, Mista friendly price” and they act like in professional show business- full of emotions that aim one big goal- your money. But fair enough everybody has to make a living, so I tried to negotiate about prices for things I didn’t intend to buy, just to try it. And it worked quite well.


--------------------------------------
Summer palace

When visiting the summer palace I met 2 Chinese couples, who hardly spoke a word English. They came along asking me to take pictures together with them. I tried my 3 sentences Chinese over and over again and Tautau, one of the Chinese guys, improved his English. We spend the whole afternoon together and had a very nice time. Their names are Tautau, Adi, Dakun and Xiaocai. If they ever read this: “You guys really rock, nice greetings from me! Enjoy the swiss drinking chocolate, with your parents”



--------------------------------------
Fixed a computer for bed and breakfast

Ryan and me moved into a new place. I helped him carry his stuff into some hired car, and was happy that I could make myself a little useful. The new flat is really amazing, we are in the 19th floor and have a view over whole Beijing. Again I have fixed a computer for bed and breakfast. Since we had no internet at the new place I tried to find some hotspot- and finally found a still operating hotspot from the Olympic games. And here we go- free internet for Ryan.
--------------------------------------
Going out

Yesterday we spent some time going out to some very nice bars and got to know more people. Here is a picture of Shelly and her friend Joy, having a great time with some Austrian maniac.
Since I didn’t quite know how to find the new place I told Ryan to write the address on a slip of paper, so that I can show it to a cab driver to take me home. Unfortunately the cab driver still didn’t have a clue where to go and dropped me at some place I really didn’t know. So here I stood- 3 in the morning- freezing cold. After walking around for approximately half an hour and climbing some fences- I found the right building and went to bed as I still had 3 hours of sleep before going to the great wall.



--------------------------------------
The great wall



Today I went to the great wall. It was a hiking journey. We spent 3 hours on the bus and hiked 10 kilometres on the wall. I met 1 Spanish and 3 German guys. Sandra, Sebatian, Björn and Christian. Tonight we will go out together- I really look forward to it.



--------------------------------------
Hitchhiking from Poland to Beijing

I was lucky to get to know this very nice Polish couple, Agata and Witold. Those two actually managed to travel from Krakau in Poland to Beijing in China by hitchhiking. This really made me stunned so read about their great stories at www.zaile.pl
I wish you luck and a good flight back home you two nomads.


--------------------------------------
At the moment I feel like I will not need a plane to go to Bangkok next week- because I could fly there myself.

Cheers
Michael

P.S.: (14.12.2008 --> going out on Saturday)
First mistake: Learning some strange Chinese dice game in a bar with Chinese people.
Second mistake: Accepting the rule to drink everytime you loose.
Third mistake: Not beeing very good in playing the game.

fixed a computer for bed and breakfast!

Today I officially fixed the first computer for bed and breakfast :-) The touchpad of Max's laptop, one of Ryans flatmates, was not working properly. So we installed some software to fix it.
The time in Beijing is flying. More updates in some days.

The first day

------------------------------------------
I actually made it to Beijing and at the moment I'm spending my time with my couchsurfing host Ryan in his flat. It was a great first day of my world trip. After going out until 5 in the morning I got up at 8 in order to finally pack my backpack. Maybe I should have thought about this earlier, since my flight was about to leave at 7 pm that day from Munich. But anyway I managed take my train to Munich at 12 and was at the airport on time. I was not afraid or nervous because my headache from the night before was killing all emotions efficiently. So I got on the plane, ate some ... whatever it was...., and watched the hours go by.
Then I landed in Beijing at 12 am today. This was the first time when I realised, that I had forgotten to learn Chinese on time and that my backpack is just far to heavy.
Since Ryan had to work until 6:30 pm I tried to get a locker to get rid of my backpack and make my way to the olympic stadium.
On my way I met Eljas a very nice guy, who speaks fluently English, German and Chinese- I was stunned. So we went together to the olympic garden and had a nice afternoon- Nice to have you met Eljas- thanks alot.
Then I tried to find Ryans place- should be easy with only 60 million people in the city and me not speaking a word Chinese. After asking approximately half of the population of Beijing two old ladies guided me to his place- they didn't understand a word English, we though somehow had a great conversation.
After meeting Ryan, who lives in a big flat with some very nice European flatmates we went to the city to get my backpack from the locker and eat some healthy food.

To sum it up: I did not fix a single computer, but I had a great time.
I'm really looking forward to what's about to come.

Cheers
Michael