I Fix Your Computer For Bed and Breakfast

Time to go home

2009-08-18T01:18:00.010+02:00

It’s done! My trip is over! It’s time to pick up the pieces of a shattered life. How much is left of it? Where to start? Adventures end as fast and spontaneous as they begin. Ten month ago I threw away everything I had- My girlfriend, my job, my life. Travelling the world costs a lot. A LOT! Some stuff I got in return:
• A sore butt from- 6000 miles on a motorbike- crossing the U.S.
• Dirty hands from- Being a bike mechanic in Goa- India
• Terrible headache from- Teaching English in North East Thailand
• Very dirty hands from- Being a shepherd in New Zealand
• Freaking out from- Meeting all those incredible people
And now I sit here back in Austria, on my sore butt, type the last blog entry with my dirty hands and have terrible headache from thinking about my freaking little life :-)

Hi it’s me, Mike, and I am back!

It is time to say goodbye! Thank you for joining me on my way around the world. I really did not expect that so many people would read my blog. Hopefully you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed my trip. And if not.....get lost :-) I missed my friends and family and I want to see every single one of you as soon as possible. And to everybody I met on my way: Flights are cheap- Austria is fun!
Actually I am back since almost a week now, but I didn’t tell anybody in order to get a chance to calm down. Maybe some of you will ask me if I found what I was looking for. During my trip I was sometimes thinking for days about, what I should do with my life.
The answer is: stop thinking!

And one last thing: Go and do your own trip! Go! NOW! Yes,.....now!!!

By the way: meet me at the frequency festival in St.Pölten! -> 0043 680 2105238 the first three, who call get a beer!

It was good, really!

Walking down those well known streets incognito. Nothing has changed. The cars are the same, the buildings are the same, the people are the same. Still it feels like awakening from a dream. Memories from the past month flash through my head. They feel intense. At the same time they seem remote and untouchable. Those days will never come back. Never! Places appear in my head. Faces appear in my heart. Mixed feelings all around. Those who meant the most to me either don’t even know or I will never see them again. That’s fate.
From the distance I can hear their questions: “Oh you’re back! How was it?!”…. WHAT?! How was it? I cannot answer that and every second that passes feels awkward. What am I supposed to say? “Good” or “very nice” that doesn’t sound right. It feels like trying to tell a whole life in a few words. A sentence comes to my mind, back from India, when we were Bonnie and Clyde on our motorbike and Bonnie said: “We’ll never be able to explain this to anyone.” And she was damn right. It’s beyond all verbal possibilities. A silent minute has passed and my interrogator looks at me like I needed help. Finally I utter the words “It was really great.” Understatement of the year. I wish I had some supernatural mental powers to transfer my feelings about this to the people. They would see, they would understand, they would feel and go: “Really?” Then they would immediately pack their stuff and….. Well, I know it won’t happen. They won’t go. Instead they say: “Oh I am jealous and one day I will!” And then I know that I failed to share my story. I will never be able to share my story. “So, what are you going to do next?” …WHAT?! That question hits me like a sledge hammer. There is a life after?! Who could have expected that? My opponent notices my emotionless and puzzled face and regrets asking. It gets embarrassing. It is smalltalk. It is a way of being polite. But in that case it feels like eating delicate lobster with a dirty rusty spoon.

And then she appears,

After a week undercover, not telling anybody that I am already back home I decide to do something I was waiting for a long time. I decide to see her. I take a shower, decide which shirt to wear and take my “good luck”- flip flops. Getting out the door my heart starts pounding faster. What? Already? That can’t be! But there it is. The distance to her house is approximately 400 meters. I feel every meter right in my chest. Incredible. Standing in front of the door, ringing the bell. I fear that I won’t be able to talk as the sound of this factory inside my heart is just too loud. 1 second, 2 seconds, 3 seconds. Nothing. No movement inside. No sound. Nobody home. I turn and leave. Jesus, that was close. Slowly I calm down. It takes forever until I reach a normal count of beats per minute. I don’t want to go home now. The city is my destination, after that shock I need a beer. The street seems familiar and I feel at home. 200 meters down the road a girl on a bike appears around the corner. Black hair- that movement- within the fraction of a second I know it’s her. She comes towards me. I stop and stare. I take off my shades and stand like a post, not able to move, not able to speak. My feet are out of stone and so is the huge smile on my face. She comes near. She sees me. She recognises me. She smiles. Shivers down my spine. In the middle of the street we stand like school children not knowing what to say. “Hi.” “Hi”- She caught me so off guard that I can barely understand what is going on. Then we stand here for some moments. Neither of us knows what to do or say. Nevertheless I love to be right here right now. “What are you doing here?” she asks “Nobody knows I am here!” I answer -“You are crazy! And I am confused.” We do smalltalk. It is the best smalltalk I’ve ever done. She tells me something about job and travel of hers. I don’t even hear it. Her face tells me other things. We walk back to her house together, then we split ways. 200 meters of pure excitement. What is happening here? What have I done 10 month ago? Things will never be the same again. And that is a good thing.

leaving on a jetplane

Boarding the plane. Business as ususal. Waiting for my set of rows to be announced to board the plane. Entering the plane on those long tunnels that always lead downhill a little and make people walk like they wore skiing boots. I give my tiny slip of paper with my seat number to the stewardess, who tells me that my seat is down there. How pointless is this ritual anyway? First of all I know my seat number and my row because it’s written on my boarding pass. And second the gesture of the stewardess is always the same, regardless where the seat is. Maybe some airlines sell tickets in the cockpit, then she would turn around and say: “Oh, mister you sit next to the pilot.” I’ve never experienced that. Anyway I find my seat being a window seat. I like that. Not so much because of the great view, which at some point is almost the same anywhere, but more because of the little gap between the window and the seat. Stuffing my sweater or a blanket into it provides me with a much better sleeping position then the seat alone. It will take a while until all the passengers are in and we start, so I take my preferred sleeping position.
I must have slept. A roar as loud as a gunshot wakes me brutally. We are already flying - kind of- but the scenery around me is surreal. The plane is moving sideways and up and down. People scream like crazy and a horrible shrill beeping sound feels like resonating in my brain. Babies in the back are crying their hearts out. The passenger next to me is screaming at me with eyes big as plates. The next second he gets shut up by a little Samsonite hard cover suitcase that hits his head. Now he is unconscious and bleeding hard from a big laceration. Everything is happening in slow motion, as I turn my head to the left to look out of my window and slowly realise what is happening. Where there used to be a wing, a burned and shattered trunk protrudes in the air. The explosion of the kerosene didn’t rip me to pieces right away. Lucky me! Another 15 seconds to live. It feels like a ride on a roller coaster, only that the screams around me aren’t out of joy but out of pure mortification. Obviously we didn’t make it very far. Still being overland as the ground moves nearer the plane falls into a counter clockwise spin that pushes me to my bloodshed neighbour. All that blood, it is gross. I hope I don’t get infected with something. Then I realise how pointless this thought is. The only infection that I could get from his blood that kills me before the plane crashes is the poison of the Austrialian fierce snake. Poor guy. One plane crash in a whole lifetime and he misses out completely. I’ve never seen those oxygen masks for real. My ears pop so hard that both eardrums burst. It doesn’t hurt anymore. No sounds, no noise, no fuss. Absolute silence. The lifeless body of the stewardess, who showed me my row flies by and gets wrapped around one of the seats like a rag doll. I look down on my seatbelt. Oh- now I know, what the seatbelts are for in a plane! A glimpse out of the window tells me that it is almost done. There is no fear and I don’t know why. Calmly I lean back and close my eyes. Surrendering I smile and think: “Life is good, and then you die.”
I spring to life and pour the cup of water, that the stewardess reaches to me, on my neighbours lap. Hey you guys are not dead- sweet. They can’t really follow, why I am happy, when I just messed up my neighbour’s suite. Next time I won't watch "Death on Flight 1977" before I get on a plane, I promise!

Una vacuna de fiebre Amarilla, por favour!

2009-08-08T15:43:00.006+02:00

I got a vaccination. As Columbia is seen as one of the most dangerous countries for getting infected with yellow fever, I figured it would be a good time to get my vaccination. Looking for a proper place is the first objective. I really have to improve my Spanish! 15 annoyed people on the streets and one hour later I enter a little white room, where two cute giggling girls in white dresses are waiting for me. At that time I wonder if I asked for the right thing at the reception. And where is the doctor? Now they chat with each other and look at me from time to time and I don’t understand a word. I realise that they are the doctors as they prepare syringes and little bottles. After giving them my international certificate of vaccinations, where all my shots are listed I hope to have made myself clear what I need. They look at the little book like it contains rocket science. Great. Very international! In a one minute monologue in Spanish they explain something to me and I go: “HÄ?!” So I explain what I need in English and they go: “HÄ?!” One minute later I have a needle stuck in my arm and just hope that it was the right one. As I want to pay, they say that it is free. Possibly they injected sugar water into my arm- I’ll find out in a couple of weeks.

Tyrona National park, the beach paradise

After the track to ciudad perdida it is time to relax again- and of course there are some nice places to do so in Columbia. One of them is the Tyrona national park, where the last descendents of the native inhabitants of the “Lost City” live. To get there one has to walk one and a half hours through the jungle. Then the jungle clears up and the beach is right there. It feels like arriving at the movie “The Beach”. Tons of young people having fun in living in little bamboo huts and playing games. So you expect Leonardo DiCaprio to show up every second and act crazy. But the only ones who act crazy are three French guys, who run around like chicken, trying to find an ATM or a place where they can pay with credit card, because they have not one peso cash on them. Poor guys. Later they cross your way again, being proud of managing to harvest 6 mangos, which will be their dinner. Have a nice meal, guys!

Welcome to the jungle

2009-08-04T19:53:00.001+02:00

It starts as a nice Sunday afternoon hike. You get to know the group and a light chit chat about origins kills time.
Three hours later.
After the first climb your clothes are soaked from your own sweat. Trying to not step into puddles seems as a pointless task as using deodorant. You walk one after the other through a thick wall of plants. The Green from the jungle replaces the Blue of the sky. It is omnipresent. You smell the trees, the creeks, the animals as it gets mixed with the odours of sweat. Your mosquitobites on your ankles look like out of a childs riddle picture book. If you connect the red dots you see the giraffe. The sun disappears. Why is this place called rainforest again? Oh, yes you remember. Now it is pouring down rain. The rocks you jump on are slippery and you hope you won’t wreck your mosquitobit ankles. The only reason you know where the path is, is because the water is turning it into a creek. So you walk in the creek, rather then anywhere else. You jump from one side to the other- As your landing foot slips away in the mud you hope that there are no rocks in the puddle behind you. Falling right into it seems like happening in slow motion and you find yourself lying on your back like a flipped beetle, covered in mud and water. You get up and keep on walking. The fact that some years earlier a whole group of hikers were kidnapped here by paramilitaries can’t cheer you up. On your way you pass little huts and villages of Kogi Indians, who live here in their tribals ways since centuries. At a higher altitude the scenerey is breathtaking.
At night you get food and before you fall asleep in your hammock, you hear a Russian lullaby, passionately sung by one of your fellow hiking mates, accompanied by the millions of birds, frogs, snakes, insects and hell knows what else, which try to attract females by letting the jungle sound aloud. It sounds like a choir and it’s only purpose is to get laid. 5 minutes later you hear a strange sound, which confirms, that the Russian guy was successful.
Wake up. Wake up. What?! Why wake up?! You didn’t sleep yet! What is going on? A glimpse at your watch tells you that you just slept 7 hours completely dreamless. Your kidneys hurt as you lost half of your blanket when rolling over. Luckily you managed to stay in the hammock. Packing up and getting ready for the hike. You know, what clothes you will wear today- yes- the same as yesterday. And don’t think they got dry during the night. At 5 in morning, the cold morning air surrounds you. You take on your wet, cold pants, socks and shirt. Goose skin. Immediately you are in your smell sphere again. Back on the track. Ten minutes later you find yourself wading through a river, the current pushes hard and the water is up your belly. Needless to mention that this was the first of nine river crossings that day. Nobody bothers to take off shoes or clothes anymore when getting in the water. Everything is soaked and dirty anyway. In the afternoon you find yourself on the first step of 1600 stone steps, that take you somewhere uphill. One step after the other. Another stone, another step. In the heat of the jungle- the humidity is causing you to sweat so much that you didn’t pee in ages. It’s exhausting. The backpack is cutting your shoulders. Your heart beats up your throat. Another step, another stone. Your legs hate you as much as you hate them. Anger arises from inside. You will not take a break. You will not drink water. You keep on till the end. COME ON! GO, GO. This is not some ancient stone construction. This is the freaking stairway to heaven! Another stone, another step- The sun breaks through the green jungle roof. Then you see the destination of the track. The “Ciudad Perdida”. The “Lost City”.
3 days later you are back to civilisation. After a total of 5 days in the jungle you sit with your fellow hikers at a restaurant and have some victory beers. Everybody agrees:
“The “Lost City” wasn’t that impressive- but the hike was fantastic.”

Good bye United States

2009-07-18T03:58:00.000+02:00

Today I left the United States, with it’s vast diversity in cultures and nature. A continent in which everything can be found from native Indian tribal life to the vibrant hectic rush in the cities like New York and San Francisco. The US made it possible for me to do my cross continental trip on a motorbike and I am very grateful for that. But more that riding along the Route 66 it gave me so many new friends, that it is quite hard to say good bye.
Thank you, United States!

It starts with a plane.

Every adventure on my trip started with a plane. The routine of checking in and wandering around alone on the airport makes me feel like a lonesome wolverine looking for his partner. Reading a book in the corner on the floor and watching people chatting, waiting, looking forward to reaching the destination they chose to go. Usually I fly in shorts, flip flops, my hat and no hand luggage. All I need for enduring a flight up to 15 hours can be stored in my pockets easily. Two books ( a travel guide and the assault on reason), some napkins, my passport, ATM and credit card and mp3 player. The only disadvantage is that it takes me minutes to reassemble myself after security screening. I had a nightly 10 hours stopover in Florida. So I slept on a park bench at the Fort Lauderdale Airport using the books as a pillow, the hat as a blindfold and getting protected by the police, which had it’s standby spot right next to me.
Thinking back on the stories that I found so far on my trip makes me melancholic. Someone asked me once if it’s not boring to go alone on vacation for so long. I think it would be boring if it actually was vacation, but the truth is that the fundamental difference between travel and vacation is that travel is not always fun. Ups and downs mark my way around the world. The fact that nothing is fixed and nothing is organised seems like an expression of pure freedom. But at the same time there is no place to call your own. And the absolute lack of stability can get to you deeply. To overcome all these kinds of strange situations and to cope with challenges, that is travelling. And the outcome must be to be able to appreciate what you’ve got from life on a deeper level. And it all starts with a plane.

Where are you now?

Oh, by the way, I just arrived in Colombia. Imagine you arrive at Bogota airport and notice that you just looked up how to say “my name is” in Spanish. You are sure that at some point in time you learned this nice language for 3 semesters, but your brain doesn’t care about that fact at all! The immigration officer asks you if you speak Spanish…in Spanish “no” is your answer but your counterpart tells you all the important immigration information in the same language. 5 minutes later you are on the street. Once again in a country where you are practically deaf, numb and illiterate. As you climb into a taxi and play charade with the driver to get downtown, you realise: Next destination: SPANISH COURSE!!

Hitchhiking and other bad habits

2009-07-12T20:40:00.007+02:00

On the road again

Since nearly one month I travel with a friend I met in New York. We went to Boston and Martha’s Vinyard together and had an incredible time! His name is Mike too. And he is 26 and American. After leaving the little island of Matha’s Vinyard we decided to go on a hitchhiking trip up north to Quebec. We camped in the wild as the campgrounds cost up to $40 per person and night. We made our way through Cape Cod to Portland, where we tried to find a nice place to camp next to the freeway. As we walk towards a bunch of trees we hear a voice. “Stop, where are you going?” We turn around and see a homeless guy sitting under a tree. “This place is occupied! GO AWAY!” Then we realise that we stepped into the territory of a bunch of homeless people. So we decided to get away from there and find an unoccupied tree for ourselves.

Some funny facts about hitchhiking in the United States

When you hitch at a traffic light your mind starts to play tricks on you. After one hour all cars that stop in front of the traffic light seem to move backwards.

It is a myth that you get a ride easier, when it is raining. In fact we’ve been waiting in the rain for over 3 hours in a little town called Bingham. People don’t feel mercy for you, they are afraid that their car might get wet.

The more expensive a car, the more room inside a car, the less likely it is that you get picked up by it’s driver.

Blame Canada, Blame Canada

On our way north on the 201 in direction of Quebec we got a ride from a young guy to the Boarder. By the time we reached the boarder to Canada it was about 7 pm. The Canadian Customs started to search through our bags and the Immigration officer undertook the usual questionnaire. One hour later, as we started to wonder why everything was taking so long, we got told that Mike was not allowed to cross the boarder to Canada. Thunderstruck we asked for the reason and learned the following: Mike is not allowed in Canada because he was found sleeping drunk in his car with the keys in the ignition over 7 years ago. Under shock we get escorted back to the United States and get handed over to the US Customs. There we are at 8 in the evening with no food and no water 15 miles from the next town in the middle of nowhere. So we started walking with half an hour of daylight left. We tried to hitch but not a single car stopped for us. Not knowing what to do we decided to flag some cars down. “We have no food and no water and it is getting dark- we give you $10 if you bring us to the next town.” Here are some answers we got:
Rich couple from Quebec: ”No, sorry we don’t have enough time.”
Guy in a SUV: “Yes, I go to the next town, but on my own!”
Guy in another SUV: “I am sure you will find someone.”
Not believing what we just heard we had a decision to make. Being aware that there are moose and bears around we tried to find a sensible spot to camp. It should be a kind of clearing which animals would not access, somewhere a bit away from the wood. And then we found our camping spot for the 8th of July 2009. A graveyard in the woods. A small sign told us that dead children were buried here. As the sun went down everything seemed to be a little more frightening then before. The air temperature lowered fast as darkness encircled us. Strange noises from the woods completed the scenery, that could be out of a cheap horror movie.
That night we slept like dead.
The next day we kept on walking, trying to find somebody with a heart to pick us up. After 2 hours walking without food or water a car appears from a side road. “Would you take us to Jackman- we are stranded since yesterday.”- “I go fishing” he says. “Yes but we have no water and walk since two hours with 20 kg backpacks each.” “Yes, but I go fishing.” And away he drives.
Half an hour later a car pulls over for us: The US Boarder Patrol, gave us a ride to the next town.

Dirtbiking and Whitewater Rafting

After getting rejected by the Canadian Boarder we decided to spend a couple of days at West Forks, which is a wonderful place for camping, rafting and having fun. For the first time in my life I went Rafting and Dirtbiking.

after New York

2009-07-08T04:18:00.007+02:00

Business as usual on a rainy day in Harlem.

Living in hostels usually is quite fun. You meet many nice people from all over the world, who have the same goal as you- Explore the city and save money. Sometimes you face a rainy day and think, that this is a perfect day to relax and get away from all the hassle of doing tourist activities. So you sit on the porch have a nice conversation and watch a guy running down the road like a wild boar. “STOP, THE POLICE”- Five policemen run after him struggling with the pace. The facial expression of one of them says: “I hate that f...ing job!” Ten minutes later a police bus passes by with the guy in the back held down by two cops.
Business as usual on a rainy day in Harlem.

Martha’s Vinyard

This tiny island located south of Cape Cod is a true rich mans getaway. What to do if you are not a rich man is explained fast. You meet some awesome people who let you spend some nights in their place and have a good time with them. And after that?
Here is what happened, and this is no joke or imagination:
Sitting in a small gazebo at the pier of Vinyard Haven, hiding from the pouring rain not knowing where to go next. The hostel and the hotels on this island have prices that are just beyond the range of an average backpacker. You sit there for hours contemplating how nice it is to have a place on your own sometimes. Where you have privacy and don’t depend on anyone.
Out of the blue Morgan comes along. She is a woman in her thirties, asking where you come from and where you’ve been so far. Then she offers you to stay in her house. You agree.
The next day she gives you the keys to her house and tells you she will be gone for a couple of days. There you are in your own house on Martha’s Vinyard on the coast with ocean view and sunshine for a week. Sometimes things just happen and you don’t know why. Wishes and dreams do come true.

Stars and Stripes or the 4th of July

1984 by George Orwell is one of the few books that ever meant anything to me. As it is written in the year 1948 it is considered as a fiction book. It predicts how society will be like for future generations. For those of you, who didn’t read the book, read it! It describes how Big Brother is watching you. The speciality of this book is that although it is a fiction book you can actually take part in the plot and feel how it is to live the life of Winston Smith, while Big Brother is watching you. Where? Here, in the United States of America. It is ridiculous how everything described in the book is actually happening right here right now.

There is the invisible enemy on the outside of the country, which is always there and always a threat of life and death. In 1984 it is called Oceania. In US it is terrorism. It is a threat that is permanent and that can strike anytime anywhere. So be afraid of it, this way you are easier to govern.

Big Brother is watching you in 1984. There are no telescreens in the United States. But therefore you are under constant surveillance everywhere. Even your own neighbour can spy on you if he gets some supplies in so called “Spy Shops”. I’ve actually been to a Spy Shop in San Francisco. So your own neighbour could give you away in case you do something strange. So you should better not trust him or her. Be afraid and suspicious. This way you are easier to govern.

No free health care for the sake of keeping people afraid of ruining themselves in case of a major health problem. Being afraid makes you easier to govern.

No free education for the sake of keeping people from thinking for themselves. This way you are easier to govern.

Great great media, that keeps people brainwashed. Everything is there like in 1984: The interviews with veterans from war. The reports from the front. The display of the enemies. And all the rest. Look it up in the book- it is ridiculous!

There is an opposition to the government. In 1984 it is called the brotherhood. Here it’s either the republicans or the democrats. In reality it doesn’t really matter. Both of them are part of the system that is corrupted itself. You can join the opposition and believe in so called “conspiracy” theories. Then you are one of “those” people, who believe in these things. People have lost the ability to understand what a fact is. A fact is that 2 and 2 is 4 and not 5. But these days everything becomes a matter of believe. Meaning that you can believe in “2 and 2 equals 4”, but you don’t necessarily need to. Here are some more facts: It is a fact that the climate changes. It is a fact that the government of the U.S. messed with the laws of Geneva against torture for applying it in Guantanamo Bay. There is nothing to believe- it is there! This leads us right to the concept of Doublethink. My spell correction doesn’t even mark that word, which makes me think even more. Doublethink is the ability to believe in two contradictory facts at the same time. For example, to believe in the fact that you live in a democracy and believe the fact that Bush won the elections 8 years ago. There are hundred examples like these. But again: You can believe it but you don’t really need to. It is your choice.

Welcome to the year 1984.

DONE!!!

2009-06-18T00:45:00.001+02:00

I reached New York in one piece. After riding 5800 miles according to the odometer I am happy to cross the finish line. Back to real life. Back to be just another tourist in a little hostel in New York City. It feels damn good.
I want to thank everybody who supported me so greatly during my USA-trip. Every mail and every message means a lot to me! Honestly.
And I want to apologize to my butt, which had to carry my weight and endure all the potholes I hit during all those miles.
I sold the bike today, and got enough money back to keep on travelling for a while.

Where to go next?
What to do there?
Which continent?

I have no idea, but today I go and get wasted!!

P.S.: There will always be a reason not to do something, get over it!

Trip log:
Day 1: 370 miles to Santa Barbara
Day 2: 150 miles to Los Angeles
Day 3: 300 miles to Las Vegas
Day 4: 1 mile to the Casinos
Day 5: 270 miles to Williams
Day 6: 230 miles to Page
Day 7: 300 miles to Gallup
Day 8: 330 miles to Santa Fe
Day 9: 350 miles to Amarillo
Day 10: 350 miles to Oklahoma
Day 11: 150 miles to Tulsa
Day 12: 200 miles to Springfield
Day 13: 290 miles to St.Louis
Day 15: 350 miles to Chicago
Day 19: 300 miles to Flint
Day 20: 320 miles to Toronto
Day 25: 100 miles to Niagara Falls
Day 26: 330 miles to Albany
Day 27: 250 miles to New Paltz
Day 35: 150 miles to New York

almost there!

2009-06-11T22:18:00.001+02:00

Trip log:
Day 1: 370 miles to Santa Barbara
Day 2: 150 miles to Los Angeles
Day 3: 300 miles to Las Vegas
Day 4: 1 mile to the Casinos
Day 5: 270 miles to Williams
Day 6: 230 miles to Page
Day 7: 300 miles to Gallup
Day 8: 330 miles to Santa Fe
Day 9: 350 miles to Amarillo
Day 10: 350 miles to Oklahoma
Day 11: 150 miles to Tulsa
Day 12: 200 miles to Springfield
Day 13: 290 miles to St.Louis
Day 15: 350 miles to Chicago
Day 19: 300 miles to Flint
Day 20: 320 miles to Toronto
Day 25: 100 miles to Niagara Falls
Day 26: 330 miles to Albany
Day 27: 250 miles to New Paltz

The Falls

I left Toronto to continue my trip to New York. After having 5000 miles behind me I wanted to finish my trip. So I went to Niagara Falls. This place is like a little Las Vegas, Casinos, colourful billboards and hotels everywhere. Oh and by the way, there is a nice waterfall too. Learning that only a third of all water is actually feeding the waterfall and the rest powering huge turbines, designed by Nicola Tesla himself, was very impressive.

Another day another exiting story

I left the falls behind and found myself one day later at the Americade. A massive Motorbike Expo with tons of chrome, deafening engine sounds and Harleys. Cheeky as I am I showed up with my Japanese Suzuki, a huge backpack strapped to the backseat and no licence plates. I met some very nice Canadian bikers, who refused to belief, that I even crossed the boarder to Canada with that set up.

The Catskills and The Centre for Symbolic Studies

The Catskill mountains are a fabulous place to ride. Beautiful hills coloured in green for miles and miles. I decided to find a place, where I could stay for some days to do nothing but riding and reading. And there it was- out of the blue I found the Centre for Symbolic Studies. I think I am not eloquent enough to explain what is done here so I’ll provide a link (http://www.symbolicstudies.org). Basically it is about altering the collective unconscious by injecting myths into it. Still doesn’t ring a bell? I told you- Check out the website. I got to use my little tent and found out that it is not waterproof :-) Since then I stay in a cabin, without electricity and running water. But therefore I met some really interesting people. I really enjoy the long discussions with them.

Chicago

2009-05-29T19:01:00.005+02:00

Status Project Route 66: DONE
20 days- 3800 miles 8 states. Another dream fulfilled. The Route 66 ends in Chicago and it was an incredible experience. I saw so many great places along the way, which I am really grateful for. Having a sore butt from riding all those weeks I was rewarded by meeting some really nice people here in Chicago. Now taking some days off from riding I can enjoy the city and plan the rest of my trip towards New York. After all Project “Cross the US on a bike” is still running.

A ticket to ride
I rode almost 4000 miles without getting pulled over by the police. Then I visited Buckingham fountain here in Chicago. The only downer to all that is that you have to pay 25 cent every 8 minutes parking. Even for motorbikes. The meters are obviously high end machines, which need maintenance quite often as some guy is running around checking them all the time. After a little small talk he adjusts the meter to 4 hours free parking, smiles and sais: “Have a save trip to New York.” Great- time to see the fountain, the harbour and navy pier. Arriving back at the bike I find a ticket telling me I had to pay 50 $. But it was not for parking- I have no licence plate. Actually I have the best licence plate ever - it reads “I fix your computer for bed and breakfast .com” The really annoying thing is that they stick the ticket on to your bike with superglue. It took me at least half an hour to scratch the remains of my glorious ticket off my tank.

“Health care in US” or “dying is free”
Since Michael Moore and other documentaries people are mostly aware of the health care situation US citizens life in. But experiencing it first hand gives it much more quality. Staying here with some lovely friends in Chicago gave me a little insight to that. Waking up in the morning I overheard a telephone call between Debbie - my couchsurfing host, and her mother. Debbie is sick since several days. Her sinuses are swollen and blocked and she is coughing all the time:

- Hi mom
- I really don’t feel well.
- I been at the doctors yesterday and he gave me these pills against sinus infection. But he said it could be pneumonia (Lungenentzündung) too he can’t tell.
- Because he would need X-Rays to be sure. (now she is crying)
- No, mom I can’t afford to get X-Rays (coughing) they are incredibly expensive. I am supposed to be at work this evening at 6. I can’t go there. I am too weak. I don’t know what to do. (pure desperation resonates her voice as she cries on the phone)

Trip update

2009-05-24T23:00:00.015+02:00

Trip log so far:
Day 1: 370 miles to Santa Barbara
Day 2: 150 miles to Los Angeles
Day 3: 300 miles to Las Vegas
Day 4: 1 mile to the Casinos
Day 5: 270 miles to Williams
Day 6: 230 miles to Page
Day 7: 300 miles to Gallup
Day 8: 330 miles to Santa Fe
Day 9: 350 miles to Amarillo
Day 10: 350 miles to Oklahoma
Day 11: 150 miles to Tulsa
Day 12: 200 miles to Springfield
Day 13: 290 miles to St.Louis
Day 15: 350 miles to Chicago

It is a Canyon and it’s Grand....what else?
Riding a bike is in itself a fun thing to do. But every now and then one is happy to have some sights along the way to get distracted from the long and winding roads. When fatigue was about to set in I stopped at some “scenic pullout” as these spots are called where you’re supposed to see some beautiful sights. Many times it turns out that you just look at some old rocks. This time it was different. I pulled over and stopped. 20 seconds later my eyes were filled with tears. (no joke!) The Grand Canyon is one of the greatest works of nature I’ve ever seen. Posting the picture below is anticlimactic as there will never be any kind of document, neither written, videotaped or narrated to explain what I felt when I was there.

Caught in the rain
English people do it all the time. People on bikes too. Talking about the weather. Since I left San Francisco the weather forecast is my personal horoscope and I take it very serious every day. I became sensitive for every kind of weather information. Reading clouds is one of my favourite activities while riding. Unfortunately one can not always be lucky. I was riding towards Springfield, when I saw some clouds, that just didn’t seem right. Too dark and too big. At this point I hoped that the road will turn left or right, but that was not happening. It led me right into the dark. I stopped to adjust my gloves and to put the rain covers on the backpack and saddlebags. Actually there is no rain cover for my backpack so I took an old white (telering) rain poncho and fixed it half assed on the backpack. As I moved forward, still hoping that the rain might feel mercy for me, I heard the first drops hitting the visor of my helmet. And then it began. Storm and spray hit my face as I ride with an open face helmet – great decision, Mike- everything is grey and I felt water everywhere. My pants and shoes are soaked. When shifting gear upwards I can feel the water in my shoes running backwards to my heel, when shifting down it runs to my toes. I look down and see water coming out of the ventilation holes of my incredibly unsuitable footwear. I grit my teeth and keep on moving. Now it pours down so hard that I can’t see anything. The rain poncho on my backpack is torn to rags as it flapped too close to the exhauster and melted. I ride down the freeway like a shooting star, red bike in front and pulling a white “rain poncho”- tail right after me. Must have been a great look. 10 minutes later the sun came out again. Two hours to Springfield. Awesome!

Sir Peter
In Austria we sometimes have the phenomenon that frogs, hedgehogs and deers come across the roads. Here in the Mid-east of US are other animals to find. I found many armadillos(Gürteltiere), foxes and suricates (Erdmännchen) smashed to pieces. But mostly I see turtles trying to make a run for the other side of the road. Bloody evidences prove that they don’t succeed very often. So being a good Samaritan I stopped and picked up Sir Peter. Sir Peter is a turtle- explorer, who tried to find out what the other side has to offer. After all the grass might be greener over there. By the way don’t ask why his name is Sir Peter! I just made it up. Sir Peter took a little ride with me on the route 66 (to the other side of the road) and really enjoyed it. Keep on exploring the other side, man!

Acoma Village
Many native Americans live in national Reservations, which are self governed and self organised. So do the Apaches, the Comanches and the little tribe of the Acomas. I visited the Acoma village to see what is going on there. The first sign of Acoma village greets you with the words: “Attention visitors- Taking pictures only with picture permit” I was still on the freeway wondering what I should take no picture of. Arriving at the visitor center of Acoma village I found the actual village placed on the top of a mesa ( a plateau). A guided tour that took me up there with a bus taught me that the Acomas are a little Indian tribe, which got molested by the Spanish Inquisitors pretty badly. They had to abandon their native religion and become roman-catholics instead. They found a way to cope with their past- they practice both religions. Why even fight for religion anyway?

Austria is just around the corner

The route 66

So I say thank you for the music….

2009-05-21T19:08:00.001+02:00

Trip log

2009-05-17T05:08:00.006+02:00

Trip log so far:
Day 1: 370 miles to Santa Barbara
Day 2: 150 miles to Los Angeles
Day 3: 300 miles to Las Vegas
Day 4: 1 mile to the Casinos
Day 5: 270 miles to Williams
Day 6: 200 miles to Page (Grand Canyon)

check out my new licence plate!!

at the hoover dam.

at lake mead

Why I travel by bike
Travelling with a car is a security issue:

Travelling with a motorhome is a safety issue:

a burning motorhome on the route 66

What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas!

Finally alone or The demons of doubt
When I left home to travel around the world I decided to travel alone. At that point most travelling people would say, that this is the best thing to do anyway. Being alone forces you to make your own decisions as you go. There is nobody, who argues in favour or against a certain idea. You have to know what you want and find out if it is possible to do or not. Until I left San Francisco there was not a single day, on which I was actually alone. All the people I met and all the friends I found are an incredible enrichment for this trip, if not even more than that. But now that I am on the road with nothing but the landscape ahead of me and the machine pulling me towards the horizon I am finally alone. Nobody is there to discuss the plans for the next day or to watch a movie with or to do conversation.
It feels wonderful.
I think I am not a brave guy. I think brave is someone, who makes decisions and sticks to it no matter what. No doubts or bad thoughts come to his mind about what he did and if it was the right thing to do. Especially when high risks of failure and high prices are involved it is a virtue to make a certain decision and not having bad feelings afterwards.
As far as I can tell the decision to travel alone was the most important decision I made in my whole life. I sacrificed everything I had, which means I paid a high price and the risk of failure is high as shit, because I don’t even know what the point of all this is. I had hard feelings after those decisions and I call them my “demons of doubt”. They haunted me after quitting my job in Munich and they haunted me after buying the bike to cross the US. At least I learned one thing: The demons of doubt are completely pointless. They don’t help coping with the situation, they don’t give you power and they don’t support you in any way. One thing is clear: Get rid of your demons, make decisions and life a happy life in the moment.

NEW BORN

2009-05-13T04:04:00.003+02:00

12.05.2009 9:00 am San Francisco. Today I started my Trip through the US on my new Bike. The Golden Gate Bridge was the starting point. On the first day I did 370 miles in 9 hours and arrived in Santa Barbara save but very exhausted. It is a funny thing when you ride for hours and hours, then you take a short break because you are so proud of yourself of managing to ride that long. A short look at the map brings you back to reality- do you know how far 100 miles can be on a bike? In a shop I asked for a map from whole US but with less miles but they wouldn't sell me one- so I have to go all the way. Right now I physically feel like hit by a horse and mentally like new born.

2009-05-11T01:44:00.004+02:00

McLovin
Drinking is one of the favourite hobbies for young people here in San Francisco. Unfortunately there is a law that no alcohol is to be sold to anyone under 21. What some of the poor bastards do is getting fake ID’s with a birth date that makes them exactly 21. Whoever saw the movie “Superbad” will know what I am talking about. A young and funny looking guy gets a fake ID with a birth date that makes him 25. One little problem is there though with the ID- the name on it is changed to McLovin.
I found this ID in a Souvenir shop here in San Francisco and tried it. No joke! It works! The other day I went to the bars and showed it at the door- I got in. Then we went to Safeway to get beer and vodka. So we show up at the counter with the ID. I hand the ID to the guy behind the counter and he looks at me and at the ID again. Once. Twice, Three times, then he hands the ID back to me and says: “Thank you Mister Lovin.” We had to leave Safeway as fast as possible to avoid choking from our suppressed laughter.

USA and the media
The media and specially TV is a strange thing in US. You have about 60 channels but every channel seems like a derivate of MTV. All you see is half naked celebrities or movies, which lack every kind of shame. I want to point out a special example that describes what I mean. There is a show called “Favourite celebrities body parts”. What first sounds like a Quentin Tarantino movie ala “Hostel” turns out to be a description of hot and sexy bodies of Mathew Mcconaughey and co. First talking for hours about the six-packs and butts of male actors and finally arriving at a close up on the boobs of Mariah Carrey it gives the impression that there are no other troubles in life that that. Or the other day we saw a nice movie about people in College and their adventures. Whoever has been to Bangkok and knows what a PingPong show is will be able to figure out what I mean by saying: This is nothing against US-College movies. And I do not talk about porn- it’s Wednesday afternoon program. At the same time the media pretends to keep up a certain kind of standard- but they still want to show those things so what could be a solution? A blurry spot on every cock! Great Idea! So you sit there and watch a movie where half of the screen is blurry and the other half shows alcohol, drugs and people puking. What a Brave New World!

Begging Indian style
Walking down the roads of San Francisco offers you many opportunities to do good and donate money. Actually when walking down the roads here people beg as much as in Mumbai. Maybe someone should think about that when taking into account that the US is the 8th richest country in the world and India is a development country.

Project Route 66
Oh… you are still here! Good, because here comes the really great news! This is my new ride: It is a Suzuki V-Strom 650. I did my maiden voyage over the Golden Gate Bridge in shorts and Flip-Flops of course! Some might say there is a better way to invest all your travel budget, as riding a bike across the USA can be dangerous, lonely, expensive, exhausting and risky. But…you know…it’s a Motorbike, baby!!!!!
So from now on I will sleep in a tent, eat bread and water and look for opportunities to Fix your computer for bed and breakfast. So if anyone knows anyone here in US where I could stay for a night and do something for it (I would do anything!!) tell me! (post a comment) My route will be San Francisco- Los Angeles- Las Vegas- Salt Lake City(maybe) and so on.
So please everybody wish me luck and a safe journey, as I have about 5000miles in front of me.

By the way.... My new San Francisco girlfriend!!!!

just kidding...LOL

To fly like an eagle

2009-04-22T09:51:00.002+02:00

Another dream came true today. I jumped out of an airplane. The smart part of your brain tells you that it is just bullshit to actually do this, but there is another part that is not quite as rational as the first one. The way up is very chilly, you sit in a tiny airplane with 3 other victims plus their instructors, who decided to feel the need of having pure adrenalin rushing through their veins. At 12,000 feet the glass door of the plane opens and you get a glimpse of what is waiting for you out there. The sun is shining, it is freezing cold and all you can hear is the roaring of the engine and the wind pulling the plane up and down. You can barely hear the commands of your instructor and you just hope that it was nothing really important. Number one sits at the edge, and there she goes with a deafening scream- number two goes right behind. You scoot forward nearer to the door- slowly you realise what awful mistake you made when purchasing that trip straight to hell. Number three goes and the glass door closes again, as you, of course, booked the jump from 15,000 feet. Good Job! The plane pulls up and although your instructor still sits right behind you, you feel like somehow you don’t belong there. 3 minutes and some more absolutely unhearable commands later the glass door opens again. It’s your turn. You sit at the edge your feet pressed under the plane, your hands on the harness and your head looking upwards into the bright blue sky above you. You don’t have any physical contact to the plane, as you already hang in your harness outside the plane. Now you wait. It takes ages. They told you the instructor would tap your shoulder, when it’s going down. No tap. No tap. No tap. Why did you want to go skydiving again?
Tap.
Fuck.
A sudden move and you fall into nothing. Houston, we have a problem. Your mind cannot believe what happens, as you turn upside down and all of a sudden you see the ground where there should be the sky. That moment burns itself into your memory like a 10,000 Volt electric shock. It is fast. Too fast. Your eyes get the size of satellite dishes. Every muscle in your body tensions and 10 seconds later your throat hurts- you just noticed that you were screaming all the time. Your mind realises that you are still alive and gives you back your senses, that had been turned off in preparation of dying. You feel the air at the speed of 200 km/h cutting your face like razor blades. Your eyes fill with tears, because the storm tries to blow them out of their holes. Your body tells you that you can start to breathe again, as this was the last thing you were worrying about recently. You barely find the time to look around and see the incredibly beautiful landscape below and the mountains in the distance. No cloud in the sky. After 60 seconds of pure insanity, mayhem and excitement you feel something pulling upwards. Your instructor opened the parachute. It gets silent- no roaring of wind, no inability to breathe. How long had the parachute flight lasted?- You have no idea. Did you enjoy the beautiful landscape? - What? What landscape? You just jumped out of an airplane, you had other things to do than that.
You land sitting on your bum. Earth has you back. How did the Teletubbies put it? “AGAIN, AGAIN, AGAIN!”

Mike, the shepherd

2009-04-19T23:08:00.004+02:00

I SHORE A SHEEP! Somehow I was lucky again. I managed to tick off another thing on my todo list while travelling. After arriving in Christchurch I had some days and nights in the very nice and busy city to get used to the western way of living again. This was not as easy as I thought. I am quite sure, that I had a reverse cultural shock. I felt the need to reflect on my travels so far and to calm down somewhere far away from everything. I called Walter, a dear friend from home, who lives in New Zealand now, to ask him if I could stay at his place for some days. When we met he told me that he works on a sheep farm and I could stay as long as I want. Furthermore he offered me to work on the farm as a woofer, which means I work on the farm for food and accommodation. Perfect! That was exactly what I was looking for. So here I am since two weeks I work as a shepherd at Marama Farm near Gore ( www.maramaorganics.co.nz ( the best lamb meat ever!!!!)) Shearing sheep is an incredibly exhausting job. You grab the sheep on the front legs and lift it up- it looks a little like dancing. Then you push it between your legs so that it sits tightly as you start to shear the belly.
After shearing I had the opportunity to slaughter a sheep. I hope that nobody feels offended by me, telling this story. As I eat meat and I very much enjoy doing so I thought it is only natural if I at least once in my life see and feel how it is to kill my food before I eat it. First you have to push the sheep down on the ground so that it can’t move. With the left hand you grab its head and pull it backwards. With the other hand you cut its throat. Then you pull the head further backwards until its neck breaks to give the sheep a fast and painless as possible death. The sheep here live a very good life and they have the probably most beautiful and widest landscapes for themselves.

Good bye, India

2009-04-03T04:27:00.005+02:00

A ticket from Goa to Mumbai please

Packing all your stuff on a bike is an adventure in itself. The need of luggage racks and straps and strings to fix all the stuff is obvious. The good thing on the other hand is that you yourself never have to see how awful it looks until you break down with the machine and let a mechanic take a test ride. Needless to say, that there where plenty of opportunities to do so. Furthermore I want nobody to ask about the financial side of all that. A train ticket from Goa to Mumbai is about 900 rupees. The petrol alone for the bike for the distance of 1000km exceeds that amount by far. Not mentioning the price for spare parts and mechanics. But what you get is an experience that you’ll never forget. Riding through the Konkan hills between Goa and Mumbai is like a dream coming true.
Many times the police tries to pull you over as they are listening for the sound of Bullets. I guess they are not to blame as everybody is just trying to make a living as well as possible. Bribery is a common thing and it became a main source of income to many people. What you learn pretty fast is to not pay attention when a policeman waves at you to stop you at the side of the road. There are two options how to behave in a situation like this. Number one is to not see them, pretending that there is something wrong with the bike, looking down at it and adjust the carburettor idle screw, and pass them. Number two is a little more cheeky, as you just wave back at them and smile and pass them. Either way they are not following you because there is certainly someone else coming their way, who is willing to stop and pay the price for not knowing how to behave in that situation.

“You have drugs!”
Talking about the police a little incident comes to my mind, that occurred one night at the beach in Goa. A couple of friends and me where sitting on the beach having a nice bonfire, playing guitar and having a good time, when two policemen came along and chased us away, as, according to them, it is not allowed to be at the beach at 4 in the morning. We were not willing to get in trouble and left the place to head home, when we noticed, that the two policemen came after us. I was with two friends, a girl and a guy. They stopped us and claimed that we have drugs and that they have to search our bags. They grabbed the purse of the girl and started to go through it with a flashlight. “You have drugs!”, they said, “You will be in great trouble!” Being a little drunk in the middle of the night on the beach stopped by strange policemen was quite scary. I looked into the purse, saw the wallet of the girl, grabbed it and pulled it out, holding it in the face of the policemen I said: “This is the money- this is not what you are looking for right? So I keep the money!” After the money was not there anymore he was not interested in the purse at all. But started to bother me: “You will be in trouble after this, you have drugs, show me your pockets.” I took the purse of the girl, gave it to her and sent her and her friend away from those guys. To the policemen I said: “We don’t have any drugs. You are not from the police. I want to see your licence! You don’t even have a licence, and I will go home now.” I turned and walked away. Some nights later I saw them again on the beach as we passed they tried to stop us- we just kept on walking ignoring those fucking fake policemen at the beaches of Goa.

Mike, and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance

I finished my job at the garage with grief and sadness as I knew it was time to move on and continue my travel around the world. For giving me the opportunity to work as a bike mechanic I will feel deep gratitude to Tikey and Pakshish forever. Many years ago I felt the need of getting involved into engines and mechanics and now I see that this kind of work is nothing of what it looks like from the outside. All the oil and dirt is nothing but camouflage to the deeper meaning that lies underneath. There I found a world full of fascination and wonders. Nowadays I compare pretty much everything in life to the maintenance of a motorbike. To me it became a philosophical pattern, which accompanies me along my way. Knowing that it will take me a long time until I will have the chance to work on bikes again causes a certain feeling of lacking a part of myself.
I noticed, that I have a little bit of a talent in fixing bikes. Distinguishing between a good and a bad bike mechanic is easy- you see it in the way they behave with their tools and with the bike. I try to fix all kind of things along the way and this caused some friends giving me the nickname McGywer. ( in reference to an 90ties TV Show, where a guy makes all kind of handy things out of a pencil and a hair needle ;-)) I can’t help to be proud of one special fix I did on the bike. Every Bullet engine has a compression screw, which can be opened to get the piston into the right position for starting. If that compression screw is broken, the engine can not produce enough pressure to enable the spark plug to ignite the fuel mixture and cause combustion, meaning that the engine will not work at all. It happened that I went to a bike mechanic as I saw some oil coming out of the compression screw. What this guy did was horrible: He took a wrench and tried to unscrew the compression, with such unnecessary power that it seemed strange to me right away. Two minutes later he showed me the broken compression screw and said that it’s not working anymore. He had pushed so hard that the screw just broke apart. WHAT AN IDIOT! I said he should get me a new screw as he broke the old one. “Spare only in Alibag, Mister.” Alibag by that time was 40 km away. So I took the damn screw and tried to put it in to make the engine produce enough pressure again. Impossible. The screw was screwed. I had to find a solution to get to Alibag. In the dust I found a bottle cap and thought, the engine block is made of aluminium and the bottle cap too, so it might withstand the heat of the engine and can be bent a little. I fixed the compression screw with two bottle caps. One day and 40 km later a garage made me a new fitting for the compression screw, after driving all the way to Alibag with two bottle caps on top of the engine.

Selling my soul

My plan was to ship my bike home, with a lot of spare parts so that I could keep on working on the bike once I’m home again. That plan failed as it is impossible to get around the officials- Even bribery is not possible at the moment as everybody is afraid of terrorism. So I had to sell the bike. It broke my heart. That is all I can say. I kept the ignition key to remind me of everything that happened. After all I can say one thing: I learned to ride bikes on a 25 years old Royal Enfield Bullet in India. Now I truly can ride bikes.

India, the mix of feelings

Once more I find myself in the situation of not being able to describe in words what this adventure means to me. What India means to me. On the one side India is a country where anything is possible. Whatever comes to your mind you can go there and do it. Enjoy a crazy lifestyle, live cheaply and without worries about anything. The way you can handle official matters by paying some “official” fees enables you to do whatever you want. On the other side most Indian people are very rude, impolite and incapable. Of course there are exceptions and please don’t get me wrong I do not want to prejudge anyone, but I spoke to many people, who confirmed my feeling in that case. Most Indians are uneducated and therefore unable to do their job right.
Ordering a pizza on the phone in Mumbai, for example can’t be done without a 15 minutes telephone marathon, where you tell them your name and the address of your hotel at least 8 times. Many times you find yourself in the situation that you try to buy something and the person you talk to turns away in the middle of his sentence to talk to one of his friends.
Or sitting in a restaurant and ordering two beers talking to a grunty waiter: “Yes Mister what you want?”- “We want two Kingfisher beers, please.”- “Mild or strong Kingfisher?” – “ We would like one mild and one strong, please.” – “We don’t have strong.”
On the first day in India a woman told me one advice: “There is no “thank you” and no “please” in India. Get used to it! If you want something you go and get it with boldness and self confidence.” After two month I truly know what she was talking about and I am very grateful for that advice. The rudeness of the people really got to me and leaving India caused a feeling of sadness and happiness at the same time. I think India changed the way I deal with people. I became more direct and maybe a little bit ruder as well. It was a big lesson I learned and thanks to India I found new sides of me, which I never would have guessed that are there. If you try to find yourself- go to India but don’t be upset with the result.

“The journey to Christchurch” or “Dubai, the big one”
To get from Mumbai to Christchurch took me… let me see… 3 days. The itinerary is as follows: Mumbai to Dubai, Dubai to Bangkok, Bangkok to Sidney, Sidney to Christchurch- all carried out by the Emirates. My flight departed in Mumbai at the 31st of March at 4:30 in the morning. The first thing that happened was a delay of 2 hours, causing that I did not get my transit flight in Dubai. At the counter of the Emirates Airline a nice lady told me that there is another flight in 3 hours, but I told her what a great job she is doing and smiled at her. So she gave me a very nice hotel room and a flight on the next day in the morning, giving me the opportunity to spend one day in Dubai, for free, in a wonderful hotel. Dubai is an incredibly big, rich, clean and rich city. I name rich twice for a reason! Everything smells like money, and arriving as a budget backpacker feels like stumbling into a gay night club- you just don’t belong there- and everybody seems to know. I tried to rent a motorbike, but there aren’t any bikes on Dubai roads at all. I asked one guy on the street where I could rent a bike but he couldn’t find out eighter. His name was Felix and he offered me a tour as he is a tour guide. I refused as I wanted to do my tour alone with a bike. 6 hours later I called him, as it is literally impossible to rent a bike in Dubai. Anyway I enjoyed the tour with my tour guide, who showed me everything driving me around in his car for 3 hours. I told Felix, about my travels and we had a really good conversation. I told him, that I want to go to San Francisco and buy another motorbike: He laughed and said: “Oh Mike, I’m sure god will give you a good one.” That made me happy.
There is the biggest aquarium in the world in Dubai- and real big sharks are in it. And there is the biggest tower and the biggest hotel and the biggest of everything pretty much. In my hotel I ate so much that I’m still not hungry.

I got my flight on the next day that took me to Bangkok. But before I boarded I got stopped by the immigration control. I had to answer awkward questions about my travel and my visas and if I had an onward ticket from New Zealand. I said yes although I didn’t have one- I printed out some flight itinerary from Auckland to Fiji, which I showed them on demand. I was very lucky to be here in New Zealand now. Everytime I had to pass passport control (4 times) I had to go through the same procedure: “Mister Kuebel, could you please wait here for a minute a colleage from passport control will come back to you soon.” I felt like a criminal and the fellow passengers thought the same- I saw it in their looks “See that guy- something is not right with him.” I finally got to Christchurch. Cheers man!

Mike, the bike mechanic

2009-03-09T21:01:00.003+01:00

I did it again! I fulfilled myself another dream. Since one week I work as a motorbike mechanic. This is not a joke. After buying my bike I went to a mechanic to get luggage racks. While they where fixed on the bike I sat with Tikey, who runs the garage and drank Tchai, very good Indian Tea. I asked him if I could work here for a while, helping out where I can as I never before worked on bikes. To my surprise he agreed and since then I am officially a bike mechanic at Tikeys bike garage- The Enfield specialists. I LOVE IT! I always wanted to be a mechanic, I am fascinated by these machines. During the first week we assembled a bike from scratch. At first there was nothing there except the frame. So we cleaned the engine parts and fixed them on the bike. I took a test ride yesterday. Tikey and Pakshish are my mentors, who explain everything to me in their patient way. They don’t even grasp how they enriched my travel. My working hours are from 9 in the morning to 8 in the evening and I am full of oil and grease from top to bottom the whole day. As today is Sunday I have a day off and I can write a little blog entry. To me it is just incredible. I took my gearbox apart yesterday and assembled it again- and it still works. I know what a carburettor is, and how it works- I know what a crank shaft is- and this is all just too good to be true. I found either my new profession or my new hobby.

The bruises club

My right leg hurts. As I look down on it I notice a big blue bruise on my calf and I wonder what I have done to get that. I show it to my mates at the garage, they lift their trousers and they have it as well. Wandering through Arambol I see several people with this big bruise. After some research I find out that every real Enfield biker has this bruise. It comes from kick starting your bike. Sometimes the compression of the engine is so high that there is a strong kickback in the starting lever and it hits you right back on your leg. So you kick your bike and it kicks you back.

Top 5 weirdos in Arambol

Living in a tourist area like Arambol causes mental deceases. The lack of a proper social environment makes a certain type of people live out their dreams in an often strange kind of way. Western social boarders prevent those guys from becoming completely mental, whereas around here there are no such boarders. There are tons of weird people in and around Goa. Following there is a short extract of the “lost souls” of Arambol as we call them.
• The Pirate
There is a guy in Arambol, who actually thinks he is Captain Jack Sparrow. He even looks like him. His mission is to find people for telling them their future using fortune telling cards. The best thing: He always finds them.
• The German mental asylum escapee
The other day I had breakfast at the German Bakery in Arambol, and there is a guy in his 50ies with long grey hair trying to sell his watch to the manager of the German bakery. As I walk up to them in order to get my bill, I ask him why he wants to sell his watch. He tells me that all his money was stolen and he needs to wait for two days to get money from the ATM. So I help him out by lending him some Rupees and keeping his watch as a security. Later in the evening I meet him again giving me back my money as the bank acted quicker than he expected. I did a good thing, I thought, by helping him and eventually it turns out that he is obviously the king of the lost souls. When I go to bars here I constantly see him wearing nothing except his white long pants revealing his astonishing body masses. He usually stands in the middle of the dance floor on a chair waving his hands and body from left to right, pretending to be a sea anemone.
• Bonnie and Clyde
A certain couple lives in Arambol for too long and they actually think that they are Bonnie and Clyde. What they do all day long is cruising through the narrow streets on their motorbike at 20 km/h at least 4 times a day. The guy always wears a white Panama hat, and the ladies head is covered with a tiger bandana, making her look like Rambo without muscles.
• “let me smell your hash”
Sitting in a restaurant and waiting for your food can be fun too. Especially when you all of a sudden notice some strange movement behind your chair. You turn around and there is a guy kneeling behind you naughtily smiling at you, bending over and telling you: “Let me smell your hash”. Thunderstruck you bend away and wonder why your food is taking so long. As you try to avoid any contact to the strange person behind you he takes a chair and places himself in the middle of your friends and explains: “I don’t smoke but I just like the smell of hash, so please let me sit here and smell a little” There couldn’t be a better sign to show you that it is time to leave this place.
• Enlightened priest
Nowhere else in the world there are so many enlightened individuals than in Arambol. Nearly everybody already saw into the soul of the world and is able to tell you how to live your life and what to believe. AND THEY DO! This can lead to having a casual conversation about the size of the waves today and finding yourself 20 minutes later listening to a monologue about the meaning of life and its connection to the ocean. When someone would ask me, I would say: “The meaning of live? Yes, I found it, but it almost killed me by boredom.

It's India, baby!

2009-02-24T07:06:00.004+01:00

A small update:
• I am in India
• I bought a 350ccm Royal Enfield Bullet
• I will travel around India
• I don’t smoke
• I hope my insurance covers all that shit

5 ways to find out that you are in India:

1. The most important part of a vehicle is the horn.
2. You feel like in a retirement home because you and your friends talk about deceases all the time.
3. You take diareah tablets like vitamin pills.
4. You take a nap on the beach and wake up because a cow is licking your face.
5. Fruit vendors on the beach offer you banana, papaya and marihuana.

I am in India. In Goa to be precise. This place rocks! It’s been 2 weeks now, that I spent here and I think India will take me a little longer than I had expected.
I flew in from Bangkok and spent the night at the Mumbai airport, in order to get a train the next day and cut the costs for accommodation. At 5 in the morning two blond finish girls showed up, running around like chicken (sorry guys :-)) asking where to book domestic flights to Goa. So I joined them and we went to Goa together. Frankly I did not have any plan of what I would do once I arrived in India. Since then I am officially a “travel parasite”. We spent 7 great days in Goa before they left back to Finland, where it is freezing cold at the moment I think. Kathi, Miia and Henry if you’ll ever read this: I had a really great time with you and I’m so looking forward to see you guys snowboarding down the mountains of Kitzbühel.

The wobble

Negotiating or bargaining with Indian people is always a fun experience. You enter a shop and try some clothes, then you ask the price and start to bargain. Not expecting anything unusual to happen you see how the head of the person you talk to starts to wiggle from one side to the other. It seems like the head is rolling off his shoulders, and you think: “Hey my friend, does your neck hurt or is this some kind of hypnotic game.” We call it “The Wobble”. Indian people wiggle theirs heads when arguing or discussing something. It’s just fun watching it. I tried to do it as well and it really works. Whenever I talk to an Indian now I immediately start to wiggle my head, and he does it as well. This can last for the whole conversation, facing each other talking about prices and doing the wobble. It is a very good indicator for finding out if the person you talk to knows what he or she is talking about. Meaning when you ask for the way and the other person starts to wiggle his head you can be 80% sure that the following answer will be bullshit. Compared to China and Thailand this is a great improvement, because there is no such indicator on those countries, they just let you walk in whatever direction appeals to them, in order to not loosing their face because of not knowing the right answer.

Shanti

“It’s the shanty, man!” You hear this line everywhere around, and the only way to find out what the shanty is, is to live the shanty. Shanty is waiting for your order in a restaurant for one hour, and being glad that it came so fast. Shanty is getting out of your room to buy a piece of soap at the grocery store 10 meters away and returning 2 and a half hours later. Shanty is like yesterday but tomorrow. Shanty is everything in lower gear. Sometimes it seems to me everything is so leaned back here, that I wonder how people can stand upright. Possibly it’s because of the drugs or the food or the water, but people in Goa are definitely not willing to win a price for living on the fast lane. “Shanty, shanty, man!”

Soap story

My finish friends and me rented two beach huts for two persons each. After settling down we went to some bars to get used to this place. Next morning I woke up, went to the bathroom and started to wash my hands. Then I noticed: The soap is gone. I asked my roommate Henry if he had seen my soap, “no”. The next day I was alone in my beach hut because the finish guys had left to go home, and I made my way to the grocery store to buy another soap. I put it on the sink locked the door and went to sleep. Waking up in the morning taking a shower, reaching out for the soap and, - guess what- the soap is gone! I thought someone must be playing tricks on me- it wouldn’t be the first time, right ;-)?
A mouse actually stole my soap two times. Such hygienic animals!

Good bye Thailand

2009-02-01T17:59:00.006+01:00

Phuket

Arriving in Phuket turned out to be a pain in the ass, as my friends, who were supposed to pick me up at the airport had an old picture from me, and before Phuket I never met them in person. They passed me several times not recognising me due to my changed appearance. I took it as a compliment somehow. Eventually I walked up to a lost looking man, who could be Austrian and Bingo- it was Josef, who gave me shelter for some days in Phuket, at Patong Beach. I want to take the chance and say thank you very much again for some great experiences in Phuket. Patong Beach is a part of Phuket Island, which is pretty much conquered by Swedish and Austrian people. One can easily live from nothing else than Austrian food there, in great variety. I managed to eat Wiener Schnitzel in an Austrian Restaurant in Thailand and making it a cultural experience, because I took Annie there to show her what Austrian food is like.
One night I been to the main nightclub area of Patong Beach called Banglaa. Now I always say, that not having been there would mean that I wouldn’t have made a travel around the world. After my experiences in other clubs of Thailand it was a very welcome change to know that the girls in those clubs were actually female. First I tried to get into the club, which is a pretty hard job because you are held back by at least five Thai girls on each arm, who try to convince you of their abilities as waitresses or similar. Drinking a beer in the club is hard too because you have to hold your beer in one hand and simultaneously defend yourself from the hookers, who grab everything (loose) on your body. Getting out of there is the same story as getting in.

One evening I met a girl, whose name was Joy, of course, as the names of all those girls are either Joy, Love or Nana. After clarifying that I will not take her home we had a very relaxing conversation about Phuket and its people. She told me that she, at the age of 30, is already mother of two kids, a boy and a girl at the age of 4 and 8. Her husband used to work as a builder and violence in the family was a common thing. Eventually she got divorced and ended up in one of Thailands numerous bars.

Still being aware of my mission to fixing computer for bed and breakfast I fixed some troubles of my friends laptops in Phuket. I’m very glad every time I can make myself useful, when staying at a place.

A toilet story

From former stories the frequent reader might already know that some things are pretty different in Thailand than elsewhere. Especially when going out to night clubs or bars one can experience legendary and quite disturbing things at the same time. One incident will stay in my mind for quite a while as it was the first time this happened to me and I was unprepared and literally caught with my pants down. Here is what happened. Partying in night clubs is a common thing in Thailand as everywhere in the world. But as I mentioned before some things are different here, and now I’m not talking about the third gender existing in the kingdom. Drinking beer and dancing made me quite tired that night and I had to follow natures call soon. On my way to the bathroom I was relaxed and in a good mood. Entering the bathroom I saw some guys in official clothes wandering around the toilet, cleaning and chatting. With a polite “Sawas dee, krab” and a smile on my face I passed them and made my way to the next best free toilet. I stood there facing the wall, relaxed and did what I had to do. All of a sudden I felt two hands grabbing my shoulders from behind and holding on firmly for a second. Then the hands start to gently massage my neck. I was paralysed. I didn’t know what was going on or what I should do about it. My pants were down revealing my best part and I was peeing like Niagara falls. Frankly, this is not the moment when you think about self defence. I turned my head around as far as I could and saw one of those official guys smiling and asking me if he is doing a good job. As I turned my head I saw other guests receiving the same kind of attention and noticed, that they actually enjoyed it. “Is it good, Mister?”- the guy on my back asked again- I burst into laughter, messing up the whole toilet. To sum it up, there are guys working in toilets, who massage your shoulders and your back, while you are peeing. Be prepared and stay calm, they do this for tips and not for your pleasure.

5 days in paradise, (Ko Phi Phi)

I spent some days in Phuket, when Annie called me to tell me that she want to visit me in Phuket on the same day. My plan was to go to Ko Phi Phi on the next day to meet some friends from volunteering in Nong Khai. One thing I really don’t like is to be surprised and a second thing is having my plans changed by someone else but me. Annie and me should meet again in Bangkok before I leave Thailand and after some month eventually meet up in New York, where she lives. Annie is half US, half Thai. Eventually we decided to meet on Ko Phi Phi. That was the starting point of those incredible nice days on that little Island, which I call 5 days in paradise. Annie and me spent a wonderful time there, renting a beach bungalow, going snorkelling, watching Thai Boxing and getting wasted with our friends at some beach party. I even took the chance to play a very mean trick on Annie, which I hardly dare to tell here. But I want to make it up to her so let me apologize in front of the whole internet world for doing such a mean thing. I AM SO SORRY. Here is what happened. Annie and me spent two days at a hostel in Ko Phi Phi town. One morning I woke up early- Annie was still asleep. I took a shower and prepared my backpack for the day. I was not particularly silent but she didn’t seem to wake up. As I was dressed I noticed that I had almost packed everything I had with me in my little backpack. I had left my big backpack in Phuket and used the daypack to go to Ko Phi Phi, so it was done within 5 minutes. Then I decided to take all my stuff and sneak out through the backdoor. I was on the balcony, where we used to dry our clothes. On a piece of paper I wrote the following message: “Hi honey, I’m sorry- see you in New York. Yours Michael” I put the message on her drying clothes and climbed to the opposite building, where I found some staircase to escape. It didn’t take long until I heard some noise on the balcony- I did a quick look- The message was gone. Now I had to move. I went up to the door of our room- and knocked three times. No answer. I knocked again- “Who is it?”- “Honey, it’s me- Michael.”- after a small pause she answered me in a very kind and polite way :-)
“Fuck you!!! Leave me alone!!! See you in New York- You a…..hole!....”. She was furious. Calling me names in English and Thai.

I’m sorry my dear! I’m sorry.

Good bye Thailand

I’m about to leave Thailand, so it is time to look back at a country that is so full of amazing stories, wonderful people and love. First of all I have to thank Walter Fuchs, who told me to go to Thailand. I remember that night at the Flaningens in Kitzbuehel, when I told Walter that I will travel around the world. He just said: “That is great- You must go to Thailand.”- I said: “Really? Do you think?” but he answered: “It’s not a question my friend- You MUST go to Thailand.” Today I know why!

Land of Smile
It is widely known that Thailand is the land of smile. But what that phrase actually means can only be discovered by spending time here. So I will not bother with describing that, but say as my friend said: “You must go to Thailand.”.

Land of Love
I discovered a lot in the last 3 weeks of my stay in Thailand. My time here will be over soon but I will take a big piece of love with me on my journey. Annie and me will meet again in New York, after I crossed the USA with my motorbike. Until then I’m wearing a necklace, with “Favourite-City New York” written on it. So that in case I loose my memory people know where to take me.

Land of cheesy Thai Pop
There is nothing like Thai Pop. It is full of feeling and cheesy like no other music. Turning on the radio in Europe brings the same kind of American pop to you as everywhere else. Turning on the radio in Thailand brings you a flood of heartache in a language you don’t understand and everyone in this country is able to sing along those Thai songs. Thai people really like their own music.

Land of devotion to the King
The other day we took a city bus in Bangkok. It was 5 o’clock, the traffic was terrible and it was hot like hells kitchen. I was sitting on the first seat of the bus- next to the driver. I fell asleep with my head leaning against my knee. I woke up because of a loud slapping sound. Then I felt my right leg burning and the silhouettes of five fingers appearing on it in red colour. Looking up I faced the ticket woman, who called me to order in Thai language. What had happened? I had fallen asleep with my right leg standing on a box. This position made my right foot point to front window, where there was a sticker of the King and his family. This is very offensive in Thailand as the feet are considered the dirtiest part of the human body. So never point with your feet at someone in Thailand or touch anything with your feet! The bus driver, the ticket lady and the first three rows in the bus were laughing their asses off- because of the farang, who didn’t know how to behave properly. Annie told me later that she noticed my misbehaviour before the ticket lady slapped my leg, but she did not warn me because: “I was curious what would happen.” Thank you for that lesson!

Since almost two month I don’t use a wallet, I don't have keys, I don’t have a mobile phone and I don’t wear shoes or socks- I never felt so good in my whole life!

Good bye Thailand- next destination ….?

On the road again

2009-01-09T07:40:00.006+01:00

What is wrong in Thailand?

When going out the other night I found myself in some kind of club, being the only farang (Westler, Foreigner) around. My friend Syria and me had a great time- he introduced me to his approximately 1000 friends, who sang along every Thai song the band played. After several Leo’s I sang along too. I circled around in the club and noticed the following. If you are the only foreigner in a Thai club it is never a good idea to let yourself get stopped by a group of people, who are horny, drunk, male and homosexual. Ok, I’m honest, half of them where actually ladyboys. ( My spell correction doesn’t recognise that word- I wonder why, it’s a word as common as spicy food in this country). Somehow their English was very bad either- they did not understand sentences like “Don’t touch”, “Get your filthy hands out of there” or “No, I don’t want boom boom”. On the other side sentences like “I’ll kick your ass”, they got completely wrong. They threw themselves at me- why wouldn’t real girls do this once in a while? After all I escaped somehow, still having my virginity. I was very lucky!

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Good Luck for my travels

The day you decide to do it is your lucky day.- Japanese Proverb. To make sure that the luck, I had so far will stay with me I decided to do something about it. When Thai people buy a new car they let a monk give a blessing on it so that the driver and all the passengers, who use the car reach their destination safely. The blessing is an ornament that is drawn on the ceiling of the car above the driver seat.
So here is what I did: Syria and me visited a nearby Buddhist temple. Waiting for the monks to arrive, it was downing already, when the bell was ringed for their evening prayer. All the monks gathered together in the temple, kneeling on the floor and looking at us, waiting for us to say what we wanted. On our knees we crawled to the front, passing about 15 monks, and where then kneeling in front of the chief monk, who gave his blessing, on my most important means of transport:

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On the road again

After three great weeks at OpenmindProjects it’s time for me to move on! I fixed several computer and did some software, camera operating- and projectmanagement training for my friends here, and I hope that it will help them a little to face their future tasks. Everyone, who is interested in volunteer work or in having a great experience abroad, I recommend to spend some time at OpenmindProjects. When will you ever have the opportunity to stand in front of a classroom with 30 Thai kids, who are looking at you with big brown eyes and black hair, being fascinated by the foreigner, who tries to speak Thai. It’s amazing! I could not have found a better first stay on my world trip than this. Give it a try and visit http://www.openmindprojects.org. You can stay starting from one week up to two month or longer. At every age- at the moment we have volunteers at the age of 18 to 50. It’s never too late for this kind of experience.
On monday I'll leave Nong Khai for a computer to fix in Bangkok- I'll start my Cambodia- Angkor Wat adventure then.

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My USA Trip

There are a lot of places to see and a lot of things to do around the globe. But what I’m really looking forward to is to arrive in the USA. What I tell you now might sound like a childish dream, but I don’t care- here is what I’m gonna do once I arrived in San Francisco:
I’ll buy a motorcycle and cross the USA.
Every now and then I find myself thinking about this, picturing how it would be to have the open highway in front of me and my backpack behind me. I will feel the strength of the engine pulling me towards New York and the aching of my back pulling me towards the next bench to sit down and rest like an old man.
Has anyone of you done anything like this before? Will it take me longer than the 90 days visa I get? Is it hard to learn how to ride an 800ccm and approximately 280 kg motorcycle? Will I have troubles buying a motorcycle? Will I run out of money? Will I have troubles along the way?
Probably, yes! But I will try and if it is the last thing I ever do!
So if you know somebody, who knows somebody, who sells motorbikes in San Francisco- feel free to help me out :-)

picture by wikipedia

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The list- (missions along the way)

• My USA Trip
• Sky dive
• See the umbilical brothers life
• Learn surfing (this time for real!)
• Learn Spanish (this time for real!)
• Eating s’mores
• Eating scorpions (done)
• …

Feel free to extend the list by commenting (click the “comments” link below)

2008-12-29T15:16:00.005+01:00

Merry Christmas and a happy new year

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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

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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!

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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.

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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.

2008-12-20T04:11:00.006+01:00

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.

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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. ;-)

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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.

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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.

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

The first week

2008-12-13T12:41:00.013+01:00

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.

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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.

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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”

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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.
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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

2008-12-10T16:59:00.002+01:00

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

2008-12-08T16:29:00.011+01:00

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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

Under Construction: My trip will start on December the 7th

2008-11-26T14:33:00.001+01:00