Fabienne's Blog

8958 km in 23 days

2010-03-21T23:34:00.000-07:00

The last month I spent with 5 friends (Laura, Jill, Tom, Jana and Georg) in a 4WD for 5 people (yes we were a bit squeezed) driving from Perth up to Darwin, down to the Ayers Rock and back up to Alice Springs again. 8958 km in 23 days. We saw a sign in Alice Springs, that it is 14000 km to Berlin, so we nearly drove home in 23 days. Most people would think that travelling like that would be stressful, but it was just perfect, because it was so hot outside that we were quite happy to sit some hours in the car during the day anyways. Being 6 people was fun and it didn't really bother us to have only 5 seats, we just had a sitting order to be able to belt us all up (2 of the thin-fraction in one belt in the middle) and to close the doors, as we couldn't all sit anywhere...

We nearly bumped into kangaroos, emus, lizards, cows, horses, sheep, goats, bilbys and whatever else was on the road all the time. But in the end we only hit two birds. Killing two of 100ish is not too bad I guess...

It was nice sleeping outside in the wild. We nearly never needed the top part of our tents (too hot), so we could even watch the stars.

We drove many dirt-roads, which was so much fun with the 4WD... through mud, water, dunes and red sand. We even helped out some tourists who were stuck in the sand and couldn't come out again.

We had a cooking problem as we didn't dare to cook because we didn't want to cause bush fires. So most of the time we just ate bread, weet bix, muesli and wraps and were really excited when we had the opportunity to eat something else from time to time. We went to bed quite early as the sun got so hot around 6 a.m. that we couldn't sleep much longer.

We slept often in random places, which were always so much better than sleeping on camping grounds. On the dunes we never needed a tent so we just slept under the stars which was stunningly beautiful! (Even when some weird people with quads drove by in the night)

Sleeping in the dunes was also practical because we didn't have to fear for lethal spiders or snakes like in the bush... at least we thought that.

I never ever saw so many flies as in Western Australia and in the Northern Territory. They sit in your eyes, fly in your mouth and nose and are unbelievable annyoing.

No sharks in the shark bay, but still beautiful.

The first camping after almost a week of sleeping in the bush and on beaches and taking showers in the sea.

Eating breakfast was a complicated task... it was already so hot that one couldn't bare sitting in the sun and it was really difficult not to swallow any flies while eating.

Driving around, listening to music and reading belonged to our daily program.

The colours of the landscape were so bright, it was amazing...

Here we slept near the waterfall, I think it was one of the best places I've ever slept. In the evening we were lying in the water watching the sun going down and the stars coming up. We were sleeping on the hot stones next to the waterfall and at dawn we went swimming again...

My bed of stones...

Weird place to sleep on the parking next to a toilet shack...

Haha this movie was so gorgeous, we saw it in Broome in a movie theater which was in the movie itself. We just came from Perth to Broome and the movie was about a drive from Perth to Broome. It was really ironic and was making fun of Germans as well. We couldn't stop laughing watching all the stuff that just happened to us at the same places on the screen. And at the most corny scene a plane just landed in the city (the airport is in the middle of the city and the movie theater is known for being interrupted by landing planes as it is open air) and it was freaking hilarious!!

Futurama blllblll of Dr. Zoidberg on the street (for insiders).

Nothing better than a good cold pint in the heat...

Squeezed in the car as always...we got used to it.

Too hot for our butter, it ran away...

...doesn't mean that one cannot use it anymore...

Trying to touch as less as possible to sweat less. The theory didn't work out unfortunately.

Stretching after a whole day of driving.

There were many rumours of fruit inspections to pass the border of Western Australia to the Nothern Territory. So we never knew when we had to get rid off our fruits, as everyone said different things..

We did a turtles rescue operation: we found a hole in the ground where one turtle emerged after the other. As they tried to get to the water, which was quite far and we saw them being threatened by all the birds, we started collecting them and bringing them all in the water. It was so nice seeing them swimming away afterwards without being eaten.

Smoked tuna... thanks to Noam we always did this. Toilet paper on a opened tuna can, lighten it, and let the flames smoke it for about 20 min. Delicious...

Driving through water is so much fun.

We had a real luck phase. We always got stuff for free, I wonder if people thought that we looked that needy... Laura got earphones in the supermarket, we got waterbottles, a woman gave us chocolate because we lent her shoes for the supermarket, at the pertrol station we got pies for free, we got anti-mosquitoe things and got many bags of bread from a familiy and we were even really lucky with dumpster-diving fresh bread from the same day of a bakery and beer and many other things...

Sleeping on a highway was the loudest night ever I guess. We didn't realize until the sun got up how close we actually were. Funny though...

Many hours in Harvey Norman... Georg's favorite place...

...and many hours in supermarkets.

Some problems with the parking machine.

..tree hugger...

..and hugging the tree...

We spent much time in National Parks, which were all very different, but all amazing. And all full of mosquitoes and other flying stuff as huge grasshoppers and bugs.

Once we lost our keys in the car and somehow everyone around us knew how to break a car open. Well one security guy opened our car in 2 minutes, scary how easily a car can be opened without making any damage to it.

This was a really cool bar, Daily Water. Getting there at 10 a.m. didn't stop us from playing pool, drinking a pint and listening to CCR at the jukebox...

The devils marbles..

Disela.

It looks chaotic but it was actually cleaning our stuff.

Georg and Laura felt the necessity to do a mud fight... it looked like a performance in the end as they started doing a mud-rain-whatever-dance...

The red sand was everywhere.

Dreading in the car...

Our one and only barbecue! With vergetarian and non-vegetarian onions...

The emu stole our bread in the morning...

As we didn't have many water supplies, we had to drink water which really didn't taste good. As it was hot outside we started putting tea bags in the water and from there on we had tea everyday...

Laura's car-should-smell-better-invention. She sewed a tea bag where she put lavender washing powder inside and put a little decoration on it and hang it up.

Uluru in the rain was amazing. I guess not many people do the Ayers Rock walk of 10,6 km in the rain barefoot, because the water reaches until one's knees in many spots...

beautiful colours everywhere...

Freezing cold in the end...

Atschutschetscha in the rain... Even some Japanese tourists joined our rain dance.

Everything was wet and we didn't have anything left beside of some towels and and some sleeping clothes or one jumper. Not even dry shoes...

Dinner at the petrol station... in the pyjama...

So that was it. 8 months of travelling are over.... I am kind of ready to go back to my stressful everyday life, but only with the background knowing that I haven't finished travelling yet! To be continued some day...

Forgot to say...

2010-02-18T22:27:00.001-08:00

Forgot to say that I didn't take all the pictures, Sean and I shared my camera and we took about half each... A few are from Georg as well...

Now I am couchsurfing in a really cool place in Fremantle, it's so much better than staying at a hostel. Playing the guitar a lot, chilling and watching the Olympics...
Georg came today, Jana will come soon and in a few days Laura, Jill and Tom will come and the next and last part of this trip will begin...

Selamat datang di Indonesia

2010-02-17T03:53:00.000-08:00

One month Indonesia, I don’t even know where to start… It was a month full of new experiences. Indonesia has a stunningly beautiful nature. As we were in many non touristy places, where we didn’t see any white people and no one spoke English, we had to learn Bahasa Indonesia very fast. I guess we did a good job, because we could travel by now without any problem through Indonesia and being able to communicate at a small talk level with locals. We also learned to bargain really quickly. We had some exhausting moments as well, it is quiet tiring to travel all the time without basing oneself anywhere (after already one month of only travelling in Australia) and having to deal non-stop with people who try to rip one off. As a white person you always have a crowd of people following you, in the cities mostly because you are a symbol of money (‘transport??’, ‘taxi, taxi, taxi????’ ‘tickets for nice show mister!!’ etc.) and in small villages because you are an attraction which everyone wants to see (‘hello mister!’ – the two English words everyone knows!). But all in all we had an amazing time! One could summarize our way of travelling: a mixture of a bunch of helpful people, good instincts and a huge amount of luck!

We drank fresh mango-juice all the time, yummi!

This is avocado juice with chocolate, sounds weird, tastes good.

Lots of street food...

Bakso - some kind of meatball soup with noodles, good with sambal and kecap manis...

We stayed in some really fancy hotels, but they were all around 5 euros a night... (One could get used to it...) And one hour massages for 3,80 euros.. Well after two days in Bali (Kuta, far to touristy and Ubud, also touristy but much nicer), we decided to go somewhere random... so we pointed one place on the map out and tried to get there somehow... As it was some small island in Maluku, we had to fly. So that was the first of our 8 unplanned flights in Indonesia!

Waiting at the airport.. again... I don't know how much hours we spent at the airport in Denpasar, but more than 24 all in all...

Our first flight was to Jakarta, where we spent a whole night playing the guitar and eating some weird things we saw. From there we caught a flight to Kota Ambon, this was the first plane where we were the only white people. So of course when we got of the plane everyone tried to talk to us, to tell us they would be 'tourist guides' (sure) or they wanted to register our passports (it was a very suspicious situation). After telling everyone that we don't need a taxi, we finally made our way in town with a Bemo (one of those mini busses, which are definitely not made for people as tall as Sean, yep sometimes it's nice to be small). We started to need to be able of speaking Bahasa Indonesia very quickly as no one spoke English anywhere... Makassar is a very crowded city, interesting, but dirty and not very beautiful. Still we really enjoyed it just walking around, talking to people about food, trying every kind of street food (I love Serabi- something pancake like with a red beans sauce and peanuts). As a lefthanded person I had to learn very quickly how to eat with the right hand, which is kind of difficult with things like rice... We watched a soccer game and got sourrounded by a whole school class. It is interesting to see how the culture differences, especially gender roles, come up with things like this. Sean got sourrounded by all the boys and I by all the girls...

The first week we needed to walk around with our dictionary all the time..

The streets of Ambon...

In Makassar we decided to go out of town and go to some random islands... So we took a boat to the Lease islands were we based ourselves for a couple of days in Saparua. Our guitar turned out to be a good way to get in contact with people...

Our buddy, who was a huge 'Mister John! Mister John!'-fan, took us around all around Saparua. He taught me how to ride a motorcycle (and changed his mind of being a 'Mister John"- fan after letting me drive for an hour and seeing that 'Mister Sean' didn't know how to drive a manual motorcycle in the beginning). We (well more Sean than I) cooked in the restaurant of his family.

Some breadfruit (buargh) with worms.

We got invited by the family of the hotel owner for a huge meal and they took us on a boattrip...

We had some fun evenings with playing the guitar and singing...

We drove with the motorcycle to a gorgeous cave, the water was so clear and you could even drink it.

No electricity, so we cooked by candlelight.

We heard that Seram would be more traditional and even more beautiful so we decided to go there. We took a ferry from Saparua to Seram and tried to get somehow to Sawai. It was a hell of a ride and it took us eternities to get there but it was a very crazy experience in the end. We drove for hours and hours with a Bemo. (We started getting more confident in telling the people for how much money we would take the ride and not letting us rip off anymore.) Then we came to a city where there was no possibility to get to Seram on that day (there are nearly no daily possibilities for transport anywhere in this country). So we had to bargain with a random guy who needed to drive up there anyways to take us as well. We started in Saparua in the early morning and it was already evening when we finally made it over the mountain pass in the National Park. We drove over such a bumpy road, more potholes than the actual road and then we turned into a sideroad in the jungle. We drove a long way through the dark jungle in the middle of nowhere whith a speed of maybe 5 kms per hour. Finally the driver decided that he couldn't drive us any farther because the road is too muddy and he let us and a mother with her small child out. So we were stranded in the middle of the night in the jungle somewhere on a muddy path with no clue where we were. We just followed the woman and walked with our bags for one or two kms. Finally we walked up a hill and thought already we won't ever find a village, when this stunningly beautiful village emerged from the middle of nowhere. A small islamic village with many houses on the water and an amazing charm. The woman brought us to the hotel, where we got a bungalow for ourselves on the water, for about 5 euros per night per person with all the food we wanted included! Wow!

After three just perfect days without any worries in a place no one would imagine it exists, we had to move on because we should meet Georg in Maumere two days later. Well we thought Makassar would be closer to get to Flores, so we took a random flight to there. Of course there were no boats to Flores from there, but as stubborn as we were we didn't believe that and tried to hitchhike with a boat to Flores. Of course that didn't work either and we had to fly back to Denpasar the day afterwards and from there to Maumere. Our flight to Maumere got cancelled though and they sent us to a beautiful resort for free...

Two days later after random travels we finally came to Maumere where we tried to find Georg who had no phone and no internet. Through a weird person who told us he knew where Georg would be, we found him in the end, but we got involved in a meeting with strange people from the Mafia in a church and got followed for three days from a guy who insulted us constantly and would have loved to beat us up....Well anyhow we found Georg so that was quiet good, because we only said we will meet that day in that city without a time and Sean and I came actually a day later because of the flight...

We stayed two days in a bungalow (for 3 euros a person) in Maumere, where Sean fell completely in love with a goose! The goose started following him everywhere, even in the sea over a wall!!! She tried to get into our bungalow and answered him his honk- noises... She chased everyone else away who came to close... Georg and I only got a rat which ate our cookies...

Our bungalow...

Bakso....

We walked to a village and got sourrounded by the kids of the village. A family invited us for a coffee and wanted us to stay there. So we stayed the next to nights at their place. It was an amazing experience, but very tiring because as it was a traditional muslim village we had to adapt completely to their gender roles and it was a clear splitting of men and women. Sean was the one in charge who had to talk to the elders all the time. I had to be with the women and the children and to answer them a million questions (I didn't know that one could learn a language that fast as we had to with Bahasa, as they didn't speak any English.). Georg had the 'younger' role and could do fun stuff with the boys... We all had to eat constantly, they cooked one meal after the other... They were extremly friendly, their hospitality was amazing. But it was tiring because we were a status symbol for them in the village, they kind of showed us around that everyone sees that we were staying with them and they wanted us to get a visa for their daughters to come to America etc. It was complicated because they were so money focused and wanted to know everything which involves money issues. They didn't understand that we won't and can't do what they wanted... They valued all the differences they associated with America and it was difficult to tell them that we don't think like that. One saw that already in small things, like they all wanted white skin colour, it was nearly scary how much they idealized everything Westernized...

Sean and I had to go through many posed pictures...

We slept in this living room...

After those days, we drove to Moni, the terriblest place of our travels. We got constantly completely ripped off and the food we ate was really disgusting (when it eventually turned up)! It was one of those touristy places, which you can't avoid because there are no others and for the same reason people don't care to be friendly. The vulcano was nice but the place was definitely not worth going to....

A sleepy Sean after having to wake up at 4 a.m.

Cucumber fight at 6 a.m.

Chewing betlenut...

Another more touristy place again... Bajawa, a town where there are 'traditional villages' around. The traditional villages are more of a '3D - museum' than real traditional places though and everything was maintained for tourism. The interesting part was that the people there live in matrilineal societies...

The world is small, we met a German girl there who studies as well Anthropology and is a friend of a friend of mine... haha...

A even more touristy 'traditional' village...

huge earthslides...

We had a nice bath in the hot springs though...

And cooking again...

We completely ran out of money and no ATM worked. So we had to pay some stuff with Australian Dollars and had to find a ride to the next town to an ATM before we could even pay the driver.... Not a cent left.... It was kind of funny though...

Sean found more geese...

We were really tired of travelling all the time and decided to go therefore back to Bali as quickly as possible. Of course there were no other possiblities than to fly so we tried to get flights in one day which was completely impossible.... It took us then two days with a flight to Timor and then one back to Bali until we finally based ourselves in Ubud for the last week. Ubud is a beautiful small town, and we finally managed it to spent some relaxing days again... We were by now really good in bargaining and managed it to get most things very cheaply, which turned out to be practical...

This is supposed to be the Luxembourgish flag (red, white, blue) because we all bought new pants and they were red, white, blue... Isn't it obvious?? Dah!

The hotel were we stayed had a beautiful garden with lots of hinduistic art and temples. It was a family who owned the place and the woman was a fantastic cook. Of course Sean wanted to cook with her, and we got amazing dishes...

We witnessed a balinese cockfight... probably the most anthropolgical thing I have done in the last 8 months.... Every anthropology student has to read at least once what Clifford Geertz wrote on the balinese cockfights! I was quiet impressed to see that because they are normally illegal...

Short Update from Bali

2010-01-20T00:14:00.000-08:00

After two days of touristy Bali we are finally going to fly in the middle of somewhere called Ambon (Maluku) and I really, really, really won't have Internet anymore (I guess). We have no clue what is in Ambon and those other islands around... but we'll find out...

A buddhistic day

2010-01-17T16:48:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we drove to Serpentine (an hour South of Perth) to visit our friend Georg who is staying at a buddhist monastery (Bodhinyana Monastery). It was an amazing day! We arrived around 10.30 precisly for the chanting and the dana meal (awesome food).The monastery is in a beautiful area, which is just so quiet and peaceful. Georg, Sean and I passed the whole day walking around with a German guy who lived there since three months listening to the philosophy of buddhism and the concepts of the way of living that lifestyle. We went to the cave of Ajahn Brahm and meditated in the temple and walked through the bush around the monastery to find an Aboriginal sign whith a deep spiritual meaning. It was a really, really interesting experience and one can learn a lot from that religion. Being a buddhist would be to extreme for me, as I really love many things in life, like music and art, of which you would have to detach yourself, but there are definitely some concepts which one could try to integrate in one's life on a daily basis. I really like the idea of the focusing on the present and trying to find happiness in the present instead of thinking what one could change in the future and what would have happened if one had changed some things in the past.

That reminds me of a quote I found in Melbourne: "For a long time it seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life, but there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. At least it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life. This perspective has helped me see there is no way to happiness. Hapiness is the way. So treasure every moment you have and remember that time waits for no one. Happiness is a journey not a destination!"

On our way back we had to pass by Fremantle to get our bags and took the train from Freo to Perth. Somehow everyone who sat in our department started talking to us and we had some random conversations with different people. But then suddenly a guy asked us for our guitar and he started playing while everyone sang and is was just wicked! When the train stopped, one of the security guys told us to stop playing and singing and everybody was like "yeah sure" and as soon as the doors closed the guy played the next songs and the whole department just laughed and sang. Pretty amazing!

A lucky day

2010-01-15T01:09:00.000-08:00

Today we flew very early this morning out of Adelaide (we had to get up at 4am and we somehow managed it to get there on time, even after not hearing the alarm)...After a nice 3 hour flight and some time-zones-crossings we arrived also very early in Perth. Our plan (after finding no couchsurfer) was to hitchhike from the Airport to Freemantle, a small place which many many different people recommended as one of the best places in Australia. So we started walking up the road and we had not even time to find a good spot to hitch, as 2 guys stopped to give us a lift. They didn't only drove us to Freemantle, but gave us even a tourist-guide ride through Perth with a stop in the Botanical Gardens, with a beautiful view over the city and some other stops at the way to show moce places. They even told us many interesting stories about Perth and brought us all the way down to Freo. We are now in the Old Firestation Backpackers, an freaking awesome hostel, of which many people back in Germany told me to be the best hostel in Australia. So we walked through Freo and I booked the car for our travels along the West coast and thought the only missing thing is music now, a guitar would have been nice for Indonesia and the West coast. We looked into one of these sell-all-kind-of-stuff-magazines and found one for 60$. Two hours later this guy drove to our hostel and brought us the beautiful green guitar!! Now we are sitting outside enjoying the warm sun, playing table tennis, drinking with some random travellers, listening to the huge music box and practising the guitar...

Crazy times in Sydney and Melbourne

2010-01-12T22:18:00.001-08:00

On our last day in Sydney we finally found the motivation to stop chilling and to do an Art Gallery day. I really went to many Art Galleries in the last time, but I have to say that the Sydney Art Galleries were very interesting. Beside of the National Art Gallery New South Wales in the Botanical Gardens, we went to the Museum of Contemporary Art.

Our big adventure started on the 07th. As Sean and I will fly to Indonesia from Perth (which is on the other side of the huge country) we somehow had to get there. As usually we chose the cheapest way… which was in this case hitchhiking. And it was freaking hilarious!! (to say it in my thanks-to-Sean-and-Amy-new-American-slang-and-useful-words-vocabulary)

Well after Sean finally got his new passport (to be able to join me for Indonesia) we took a train and a bus out of Sydney and started somewhere near a highway, found some cardboard and made a sign and got a ride only 10 minutes later, even if we stood on a random spot which was quiet confusing, because it was the end of a highway… Well we had a ride with a nice Aussie who had a Nissan from ’88 and overheated all the time, so we had to stop every 20 minutes to put water over his radiator to cool it down. It was quite funny. As he went only half way, he saw a truck from a company which he knew and so he asked the truck driver (after asking for a random guy called Peter who worked in that company, whatever…) if he could give us a ride to Melbourne and so we didn’t have to worry about our next lift. This ride was amazing!! The truck carried 20 tons of watermelons and had a huge cabin and I sat the whole ride on the couch(bed) and we had even Internet, good music and fancy leather furniture… After the comfiest ride ever I wished I would only ride with trucks from now on…

We got to Melbourne in the evening and couchsurfed with a bunch of very cool people who live in a squat since several months. (A squat is a house where no one lives in there, if you live for 10 years in a squat without someone claiming to be the owner, the house officially belongs you.) It was a very cool place, a beautiful, very clean house and they even started to grow different veggies in their garden. They always have a huge amount of good food, they dumpster dive from the market in the evening and from the best bakery in town after their closing. There was a big party already the first night we came, many people from all over the world… We stayed there for three days. I really like Melbourne, it is a city with charm and has a lot of artistic stuff going on, there is a lot of street art as well. And there is music everywhere, street music, live bands and we even went to a Swing dance lesson in one of the parks and danced Swing the whole night until I had so many blisters that I barely can walk anymore. We caught up with Noam again who was in Melbourne as well and it was really cool to see him again. After those three days of housesitting together it was like meeting an old friend again. Sean and I spent hours and hours in the media and film museum in Melbourne, one of the best museums I’ve ever been in. They also had a huge Dennis Hopper exhibition, very interesting!

And I tried for the first time in my life a Vietnamese Pho soup, a beef soup with strange things like the inner substance of a bone and tripes and so on, but as strange as it looked it tastes good. Besides the food in Melbourne is awesome, there are so good Pie Bars everywhere (Australian pie is so yummy, I guess Sean will soon break the record of the worlds biggest Pie-eater) and really good (cheap) Sushi bars.

Well after a couple of days in Melbourne we had to hit in direction of Adelaide because we tried to get to Perth by the 15th. So we hitched from a bit out of Melbourne (it was freaking 44 degrees outside and hot wind!!) and got very quickly a ride with an Aussie to half way from Adelaide. We were around 6ish in a small town in the middle of Nowhere and tried to get a ride to Adelaide. We met very nice people who told us the best hitch places in the village and drove us up and down, everyone to another place which was in his opinion the best. But no matter where we were we really were in bumfuck! So we finally ended up waiting for 8!!! hours in that small place and were pretty desperate when a truck driver decided to give us a lift. Another ride in a truck to Adelaide, which was really interesting. You meet so many different people while hitchhiking. This was a very conservative Aussie with had a typical small town I-hate-changes attitude and it was very interesting to hear his view of things. I like it how you get to know so different people in the different ways of travelling, it makes such a difference HOW you travel in a same place in order what kind of people you meet. But no matter how the people you meet are, they all have something interesting to tell.

Well anyhow we ended up completely tired around 8ish in the morning at a truckstop in Adelaide and tried to find a truck who went straight to Perth. We knew we would find one, but the problem was that we were really short in time so we couldn’t just make a break and restart the day afterwards. After another 8 hours of waiting we were so tired and have lost all our motivation, that we took a ride into town and just decided after a long should-we-risk-to-go-to-Port-Augusta-to-maybe-find-a-ride-debatation just not to do it. Now we are in a hostel in Adelaide for the next three days and will take a plane on the 15th to Perth. It wasn’t that expensive in the end and we were just to exhausted to continue. But at least we managed it to hitch from Sydney (I even from Byron Bay) to Adelaide, which are already several 1000 kms. Many people consider hitchhiking as dangerous, but it is not that different from carsharing in that sense and I really believe in that trust-your-instinct part. When your talk to people and you look them in their eyes you will soon now if you can trust the ride or not. And you learn quickly (never drive with a truck who has a towel on the window and stuff…). Well I also think it is a generation thing, it was more common to hitchhike in the generation of our parents, we are more the internet generation, and use things like carshare or like couchsurfing, which makes some things easier, but makes hitchhiking nowadays more complicated. The problem will probably be that as a bad reputation hitching got nowadays, couchsurfing will grow bigger and bigger and will probably get to a point where it will be used in the wrong sense one day and so the next generation will have a different kind of thing I guess. Anyhow I am now again in a hostel and I really don’t like hostels anymore (well besides of the Art Factory in Byron Bay). They are so impersonal compared to couchsurfing, but it’s only for a couple of days, in Perth we will couchsurf again… and maybe stay one night in a buddist monastery, where we will meet Georg (the German guy we met on Christmas on the couchsurfing meeting), because we have to figure out how and where we will meet him in Indonesia.

It is quiet likely that I don’t get the possibility to update my blog in the coming weeks, because I guess that we will be a lot in the jungle or in the middle of nowhere in Indonesia. So if you don’t hear anything of me in the next time you know why. So Sean and I will be in Indonesia from the 18/01 till the 15/02. Georg will visit us for a week or two. And when I come back I will spent a couple of days in Freemantle, before my last month starts. This part has also changed very much, it will be my first travel in a big group. Not only Laura comes visiting me, but Jill and Tom as well. This is quiet funny because in High School we always said that someday after school we will travel together somewhere on the other side of the world and now there we are… Jana, the German girl I met in Byron Bay will join us as well. So we will be a group of five people travelling up the West coast together in a big van!

Movieday

2010-01-07T20:49:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday the movies are cheaper in the movie theater so we decided to see all the movies we wanted to see in one day...Which was another pretty well-working attempt to let people think we are crazy, haha. Four movies in one day wouldn't be too bad if the breaks in between would be a bit longer...
Well we saw Nowhere Boy, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Lovely Bones and Broken Embraces in one day.
I really liked Broken Embraces, a Pedro Almodovar film with Penelope Cruz. It was kind of Woody Allen like...
The lovely bones was very disappointing! Corny and cheesy, the only nice thing was the artistic way of filming.
If you like Royal Tenenbaums and the humour of Wes Anderson, you would probably love Fantastic Mr. Fox!
Nowhere boy was ok, a bit typical, but moving...

Sydney

2010-01-03T23:59:00.000-08:00

Wow, everything that happened in the last week was so unexpected… I am still in Sydney and will be here until the 7th… that makes almost 3 weeks then! Well I had an awesome time housesitting with Sean and Noam. Living with a Chef involves a lot of good food and living with Noam involves a lot of chilling out. So we spent most of our time in the house listening to good music, chilling and eating. Well now we stay at Amy’s place, a friend of Sean, and we’re doing pretty much the same stuff, eating and chilling… Sometimes walking around randomly and eating somewhere else counts probably to our not-only-chilling-motivation.

I met up twice with John, a friend from Ireland which I met in PNG, it was good to get updated about PNG a bit, even if not all the news were positive. We had a nice evening with some friends of him chatting at the Opera Bar. Gorgeous food!! And he joined us then at our barbecue evening at the housesitting house. A shame that he had to fly out for New Years. We spent New Years in between 1,5 million people in the city at the Opera House and the fire works were just amazing. The 9 hours waiting, playing cards and other games were totally worth it to see the firework. We were completely surrounded by the firework, it came from the bridge, from in front of us, from behind of us, from the sides, from the buildings (from the roofs!), just from everywhere. Pretty awesome! Still I have to admit, that Luxembourg is way ahead to many other countries when it comes to social events. Even tough the firework was amazing and the people were all excited, it wasn’t the same then some of the summer events in Luxembourg because I somehow missed the music part (with all the live bands on the streets) and all the food and drink booths. And the mentality that the whole country celebrates together for some special occasion like “Nationalfeierdaag” or the “ING-Marathon”. Well maybe it’s not bad to know that there’s something I love about my country, even if it’s the ability to celebrate together…

Some discoveries:
-If you ever get the chance, watch 12 monkeys, I loved that movie!
-African food is amazingly good! …ginger drinks too…
-Newtown is probably my favorite neighborhood in Sydney. Creative, diverse, multiethnic, a lot of second-hand and antique stuff, good food, many graffiti-art and gives a bit of being home-feeling or at least I-could-live-here-feeling…
-It is quiet impossible not to eat too much when one has decided to travel with a Chef. But when the food is fantastic one forgets quickly the consequence of that...
-Visiting an Aquarium with a marine biologist and a scientist who worked in a marine camp makes it definitely more interesting!

Buenpoo's part:

The craziest tour ever and cold Christmas

2009-12-25T21:51:00.000-08:00

Many, many different experiences in a very short time…I flew into Brisbane and stayed again a couple of days at Amanda’s place. I thought she would be still in Papua New Guinea, but she was already back and so we spent a very nice time together. By the way we watched Mao’s last dancer and I can just recommend it, a beautiful, very intense movie about a Chinese ballet dancer, which has such an admirable strong and brave personality and managed it to fight for his freedom during the regime of Mao, even tough he came from a very poor family. Amazing.

My next stop was Byron Bay where I stayed for 3 nights at the Arts Factory. This place is not like any other hostel. Artistic painted, workshops to make one’s own didjeridoo (which traveller carries a 10 kg wooden didjeridoo in his backpack???), yoga workshops, a nice pool, a small lagoon-like lake, tipis, surfer houses, a small alternative cinema, a nice buddha bar, meditation workshops and the average of the people with dreads would probably be around 50%. Cool place.

I met a German girl there, Jana, who greeted me by saying let’s skip that typical small talk stuff (Where do you come from? Where have you been in Australia? How long will you travel blabla? The questions you get asked a million times a day…), very cool… so we ended up spending the next three days together.

We went to Nimbin for one day. Nimbin is like THE hippie place in Australia, a village, which became so touristy and surreal in the last years because of all the people who travel there to see all the old hippies (which settled down there after a huge hippie festival) and the crazy shops… and of course to get stoned.
First we thought about hitchhiking there, but in the end we decided to book a tour. So we did “Jim’s alternative tour”, the strangest and craziest tourist tour ever!!!! When the tour started we found out that the aim of the tour was to have a bus of 25 stoned tourists in the end (and eventually drunk). The program of the tour was driving to Nimbin telling the tourists that the older ladies make the better cookies, going to the hemp museum, driving from there to a National Park to see an amazing view, driving a lot over rollercoaster like roads while listening to Pink Floyd and other similar music, driving to a farm of an old hippie and eating strange nuts and berries, and driving back again. The best ever was a rollercoaster road which the driver drove far to fast and it took him exactly 12 and a half minutes, the exact same amount of time than the Pink Floyd song took he played in the meantime. Crazy stuff!!!

I found a free ride from Byron Bay to Sydney with a security guard, which was a cop and a soldier before and was raised by hippies and is a millionaire now. So I ended up having a ride in a luxury car with French cheese and grapes for free.

Now I am in Sydney since one week and stay at a family’s place of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend. (yep, complicated) I should travel down to Melbourne tomorrow with Jaime and some friends of him, but out of several reasons that didn’t work out and I decided anyhow to stay longer in Sydney after the last day.
Now the story of my strangest Christmas ever: On the 24th I met up with Kamran, the guy next to whom I sat in my flight from Frankfurt to Singapur. We went for lunch. walked a lot around, drove randomly around until we got to a beach North of Sydney in the evening, ate pizza’s at the beach, chased seagulls and saw penguins in a public beach shower and just talked about everything one can imagine. Now I know much more about eastern history, about Bahai religion and can write my name in Persian… It was an amazing day! …but it was not at all Christmas like….

I really don't like those tourist pictures... but somehow I end up doing them from time to time.

Australians don’t celebrate on the 24th but on the 25th and I got 2 invitations to spend Christmas in an Australian family. But I preferred spending an Orphan’s Christmas on the Beach with all the couchsurfers who don’t have a family here to celebrate Christmas with. Let’s imagine a Christmas in Australia: hot, sunny, swimming in the sea, sunbathing on the beach and having a barbecue. Reality: it was freezing cold!!!, windy, and raining. But we were on the beach, had a barbecue (on the slowest barbecue ever), and went swimming in the sea (nearly dying of shivering and freezing)… Before, I met up with an American guy, Sean, and we came together to the beach to find the other couchsurfers. We randomly walked around looking for confused people who looked like they were looking for couchsurfers. So we started asking people if they are couchsurfers and made a bet: who finds more couchsurfers. We ended up being over 50 people in the end and I lost the bet… We came to that point where everyone was getting so cold until the perfect solution turned up. One guy got a key from a couchsurfer who let us stay in his flat. So we (50 people!!!) crashed in the flat and started a huge houseparty. It was amazing!! In the evening the owner of the flat turned up and brought more drinks. So we had a party at a random place with 50 people who didn’t know each other before and we danced the whole night. In the morning we all cleaned up together and the flat looked again like there had never been a party… So funny…
So much for a hot Christmas on the beach… (but I had cherries!)

Well there were so cool people that I re-planed my un-planed plans. I will move tomorrow to Sean, who is housesitting a house for a couple of days and stay over New Years Eve. There will be couchsurfing meetings nearly every day now (like tomorrow a barbecue on the beach and so on) and I really didn’t see the point of driving down and missing all this…

Well I found a new band (thanks to Yve) which I really like: Angus & Julia Stone. A good variety from my Juno, Garden State, Into the Wild and Scrubs soundtracks which I am constantly listening...

The Buenpoo-travels continue:

Another goodbye and a new travel partner

2009-12-16T04:13:00.001-08:00

I spent a couple of days in Hahei, which is a lovely small town on the Coromandel Peninsula. I couchsurfed at Kym’s place who lives in a small house on a hill in the middle of the nature. Next to her house is a small house just for couchsurfers and visitors. A beautiful place, with the best bath ever!! Outside with a view on the ocean.

It was nice spending some days there and Kym turned out to be a very interesting person with a big interest in India and has traveled all over the world already. So I had some days with great conversations and great food.

A very sad thing: my favorite shoes really didn’t make it anymore. Now I had to replace them… At least my new shoes are the most comfiest I could find. Boys' skate shoes for children turned out to be not only comfy but also cheap…

My trip seemed to come to an end and I had to head back to Auckland. Thanks Kym I had a place to stay in Auckland at another couchsurfer, Lorenzo. Never ever even try to find an address in a big city when you drive alone in your car without having a map. And never ever try to take detours which would avoid the city centre when you don’t have phone coverage and you don’t have petrol anymore. Well I did all these things at once. But fortunately Kiwis are so friendly and they helped me out pretty well, I even ended up finding Lorenzo’s place with a full tank. Lorenzo and his family are just amazing people. I really felt at home there and didn’t want to leave after the two days. He had about 15 couchsurfers there and it was like staying in a big family. We had nice evenings with playing the guitar at the fire and singing. We had a huge barbecue (the barbecue randomly fell down and attacked my leg, ouch). There were so many interesting people, for example another German guy, who is a photographer but is in New Zealand to make documentaries and wants to restart studying film afterwards. And there was a girl from Slovenia with whom I found out that we have exactly the same taste in movies, bands and other stuff. I thought it’s funny that you have to travel to the other site of the world to find people who have the same interests than you have. But then I realized that it is just normal because if you are really doing what you want to do and you are travelling the way you are, you meet people who choose to travel the same way than you do probably out of the same reasons. And people with the same mentalities have often the same interests. So it would be more out of probability than out of fate that you meet people who seem to be on the same wavelength on the other site of the world. I mean when you grow up at one place it is difficult to find people who are like you because it is a random accumulation of different people and you have to get to know many people very well to find some who fit to you. But when you are at places you choose for certain reasons you meet people who do the same.

There is something I really can’t cope with: a hot Christmas. We were at this Christmas celebration thing and there were Carol singers in hot pants!! Can you believe that? It was so hot that we were walking around in T-shirts as well and we carried our beers with us. But then I saw all the little kids carrying candles… Something just doesn’t match: hot weather, beer, Christmas songs, kids with candles… Christian celebration and beer?? Well anyway, we walked then along a street in Auckland which is very famous for all the Christmas decoration at the houses and it was exactly like in a very bad American Christmas movie and lots and lots of people who came there to admire the lights. I wonder if it would be interesting to interview the few only houses who are not totally covered in Christmas lights, if they are doing their own anti-Christmas-revolution…

I also had my first experience of being too late in the airport because after not even three hours of sleep it was kind of difficult to get up and Lorenzo forget to put his alarm on. Very embarrassing to hear one own's name being called in the airport. Fabienne Becker to gate blabla please….

Back in Christchurch. Laly was also there but I didn’t get a chance to catch up with her because all my plans changed again, as always… I booked two nights in the Frienz Hostel. The first time since a long time a hostel and I planned to sleep a lot because have nearly not slept the nights before. Of course I ended up by nearly not sleeping again for two nights and not even using my hostel room at all. Typical… Well at least I had a good reason. I met two very cool people from Scotland, Dave and Tuesday. They showed me the coolest coffee bar in Christchurch, with the coolest water providing machine ever.

We went for some drinks and played pool and table tennis. At one dancing place I saw a guy which I met at that Ceroc night one month earlier, what a coincidence... And I definitely need some more pool practice… Well we ended up with a movie night in front of the TV starting with a good making of of Alien and we watched one movie after the other just because we were waiting for Matrix to come (it came then around 6ish in the morning and so our movie night ended around 8 a.m.). I can’t believe I was really watching a Schwarzenegger Christmas movie!!! Anyway after a sleepless night in Christchurch we needed a relaxing day in the park which was quiet funny. Tuesday and Dave invited me for a barbecue at some friends of them, so I stayed there over night…

I’ve got a new travel partner, a very very cool one: Bünpoo! Dave adopted Bünpoo from a Second Hand store in Oamaru and now I take care of him for the next months because it shall get the most well travelled owl in the world. So in the future there will appear from while to while some Bünpoo pics from wherever I am on my blog. Well we made a deal, so Dave has the very cool game, we both invented (kind of chess like but with totally different characters and different rules) and I have Bünpoo and we will exchange both next summer…

On the 14th I had to leave New Zealand after one month. Strange how I always got used to a place when I have to leave, again I really didn’t want to leave… Well on the airport I met a Spanish guy who was in my room in the hostel and I had to explain him during a coffee why I wasn’t there the two days. I thought he would think I am crazy, but a similar thing happened to him, so it was kind of funny…

On my own but not alone

2009-12-08T16:56:00.000-08:00

After Wellington I drove up North to Turangi. I found a hitchhiker from Argentina on my way up. We had many interesting conversations, which was very good because I was quite tired from my long night out the night before. Everyone told me that the South Island would be much more beautiful than the Northern Island, but the Highway 1 turned into the Desert Road at some point and I was pretty amazed by this landscape. This is the volcano landscape of the Lord of the Rings movie and I decided not to regret that I didn’t do my tramping on the Southern Island. In Turangi I booked the huts for two nights and decided to do a 3-day-trek, the Tongariro Northern Circuit. I was kind of worried to go tramping for three days alone, but the lady in the information office told me I would never be alone out there, only on my own. I was convinced very quickly and happy that I took that decision.

This are the Hot Springs around Turangi.

I left most of my stuff at the couchsurfers’ place where I slept the last two nights, Colin and Judith, a 75 year old couple, who love it to host couchsurfers all the time.

The first day of the trek was very tough, it rained a lot, it was freezing cold and windy. It was a shame that all I could see of the great views of the Alpine Crossing part, was fog and clouds. I walked the first part with two German girls, who only made a one day trek. I continued with then to the Oturere Hut and met there some other nice people. I had a nice evening of playing cards and Yatzee with two Canadian couples and a French guy. There was as well a group of ladies in their 70s who were in a tramping club, its fantastic how fit and motivated they were, I wish I could go trekking like that as well when I am in my 70s.

...this should be an amazing view on the Emerald lakes...

The next day I had planed only a three hours walk to the next hut, the weather was far better so I could see the impressing volcanoes and understood definitely why they choose this spot for the Lord of the Rings movie. It was amazing to be on my own in the middle of the nature, where you can’t hear anything beside of a river far away. No humans, no cars, nothing, wow!! It is like if you could soak up the energy of the nature.

In the afternoon I met the French guy, Yannick, again at the next hut and we went to some springs which were supposed to be a 1 hour walk away, but it turned out to be not even half an hour walk. In the evening the hut was overcrowded because of a school class which was tramping as well, but I still had a good time talking to some German guys, talking with the hut guard (which is a very cool volunteer job over summer), playing cards and killer with some French guys, and a group of three travellers. In the morning I continued with those three (a girl from England, one from France and a guy from Israel). Again we had very nice views and it was fun to walk with these open-minded people and listening to their interesting life stories. After a coffee I gave them a ride to the National Park and I drove back to the couchsurfer couple, where were even more people then.

I decided to drive to Taupo and Rotorua the next day, but again everything changed, as always… I drove really to Taupo went to the Hot Springs there, but somehow I was more into sitting there and reading then swimming and passed some nice hours there. Afterwards I wanted to drive to Rotorua, but somehow I didn’t really like that plan because it seems to be a very touristy place. And it turned out pretty well again…
I found three hippies who hitchhiked to go to some caves next to the West Coast, which was not really my destination. They were on their way to a Rainbow gathering in Nelson and wanted to stop before at those caves because Gabrielle had her birthday the next day. I decided to give them a ride, only half way because that was already kind of a detour for me. I dropped them of at a Highway crossing and continued my way. They asked me to join them, but because I had to go up North I didn’t. I only drove a couple of kms and then I thought, well this would be my one and only opportunity to join them now. So I drove back and it turned to be a good choice: I had great conversations with them, learned a lot about meditation, spiritual believes, about their life, about hippie gatherings and had a cool time with them listening to their music, exploring the forest and playing pois. I even got a place to sleep in a tent for that night and a veggie burger and spring water, wicked. The caves were quite expensive, but it was fantastic, it was a 5 hour trip with abseiling, rock climbing, rafting on a tire and cave exploring. At some point we were deep in the cave and we laid down on the floor and saw millions of glowworms over us, it was like stars in the sky at night, and the others started to meditate, it was just indescribable great! Like being in another dimension…
Our guide was a very cool guy too who invited us for the next days to explore with him some other places in his days off, but I had to continue up North.
Yeah, so I ended up giving them a last lift back to town and then made my way up North to Hahei.

South Island done...

2009-11-30T16:23:00.001-08:00

Typical! My plans all changed over and over again! Yve calls that: “it'll all come to you”, if you are just open for it. Probably she's right, until now it worked pretty well... I ended up traveling for 9 days with Yve and Jens and with Layling for about a week. Long enough to miss them now...

We didn't drove down to Invercargill the day after, but stayed for one more night in Dunedin. Therefore I thought I give it a try and search that couchsurfer, Rich, 20kms out of Dunedin one more time. He even gave me a “better” description: a penguin on the mailbox. The penguin turned out to be 1cm big, but at least I found their place. They (Rich and Luke) live exactly like I would love to live, just perfect! A small house in a sheep pasture surrounded by hills, a little river, the sea on the other side of the road, no people anywhere, in the middle of the nature, a beautiful beach with no tourists around! And if one needs civilization, its only 20 minutes to Dunedin. Rich's sister was also there and we had a cool evening at the beach with a fire and the guitar. Before going to bed we watched “Land before our times”, nice falling back into ones childhood...

Changing plans continued... it was Thanksgiving, so Rich and Luke ordered a huge turkey and invited a bunch of friends. In the end they couldn't come, so they asked me to invite some friends. Well I drove then back to Dunedin to tell Jens and Yve that we shouldn't head to Invercargill on that day, but eat turkey. It's not difficult to convince people to change their plans for food it seems... The other cool thing about that was, that we even had time to go to the Otago peninsula, which was very very windy but nice too and walked the steepest street in the world up (which is in Dunedin)! In the evening I had my first thanksgiving ever and it's definitely a cool tradition. We had a huge amount of food and were only 8 people, but it was a great evening and ended nicely with playing the guitar and singing.

On the 27th we finally drove down the Southern Scenic route over Invercargill up to Te Anau. It took us the whole day but we had some nice stops in between. This country is so freezing cold, that I really preferred to sleep in the car, while the others slept in a tent. Good choice, I could sleep at least... We continued our journey in the morning and drove to Milford Sound, one of the most amazing roads one could possibly drive. There are many stops at the road and beautiful views everywhere. And Keas, big mountain parrots, which love to eat the rubber of the cars. They are definitely not afraid of humans...
We had snow as well! Lots of snow everywhere from the glaciers. I told you this country is so freezing cold!

Now the best thing ever: we were in Milford Sound and after cooking some food on my gas cooker, we walked around and ended up in the harbor. There were many boats and all the trips were far more expensive then we could afford! We asked one guy who worked there how much a trip would cost and he told us around 200$. Well no way, and we didn't planed to go on a trip anyhow, so we just stood around and watched the boats. Suddenly a captain came and asked us which boat we would take. We told him none of them. Then he asked us why and we told him that it's to expensive. He said, yes that's true, therefore he would give us the tickets for free. So we ended up, as the John's family, friends of the captains daughter, on a trip for 2 hours on a luxury tourist boat through the most amazing landscape of Milford Sound! As Yve said: “It'll all come to you!”

But that wasn't all. We drove at night to Queenstown, where Jens and Yve went for a Ceroc dance in the Casino. I tried to sleep a bit in the car in the meanwhile because I knew I had to drive about 1000kms the day afterwards. Around 1 a.m. they came back to the car in another car. So they found a random guy in the Casino who offered us to stay at his place. Another perfect coincidence, so we could even exchange the last pictures at his computer and had a warm shower!

In the morning I had another goodbye (too many sad goodbyes in the last time) from Jens and Yve and started driving my 1000kms. I had to take the ferry on the 30th and because of my continuous changings of plans I had to drive up in one day now.Everyone recommended me to take the East coast because it's much quicker. But stubborn as I am and knowing the West coast is far more beautiful I drove up the West coast. I know that my dad would love this country and as he can't be here, I promised him I would take pictures of every interesting stones and rock faces I find. Layling told me that one of the most interesting geological phenomenons, the pancake rocks, are on the West coast, so I decided to drive to that place. I ended up driving 17hrs all in all. That is exhausting, I can tell!! Fortunately I found a German hitchhiker who was a very nice company for 8 hours. We made even 2 stops, one short one in Wanaka and a lunch break (one can make interesting food experiments on my gas cooker) in Fox Glacier. What I probably will never forget, Jens (yes another Jens again) introduced me to the strangest form of coffee I have ever seen! A tube, which looks loke brownish toothpaste, with a mixture of coffee, sugar and milk in it, which one has to put into cooking water... Tasted not like coffee, but wasn't too bad either...

After 12 hours driving I was really tired, but I reached Punakaiki (the Pancake Rock's place). I slept a few hours in the car and at 6 a.m. I made that 20 minutes walk with my camera (probably the earliest tourist ever) in the rain to take pictures for my dad. I even had to wrap my camera in a plastic bag that I could take the pictures... It was a quite nice walk though. After that I continued driving up, hoped for some backpackers to have a talking company, but didn't find any and reached my ferry around 12 a.m. just in time. 17 hours of driving! It was definitely a beatiful road to drive, but more time on the South Island would be nice.

On the ferry I wanted to try my new chess game and ended up playing chess with my neighbor for quite a while. The ferry was delayed so I came to Wellington around 7 p.m. I was so exhausted of driving that I really didn't want to sleep another night in my car. I know that my budget doesn't allow it, but I definitely want to sleep for 2 nights in a hostel now. I really need a break and I didn't found any couchsurfers in Wellington. So I ended up driving through that terrible city of a million one way streets, with a very bad Lonely Planet map trying to find a non existing parking spot. In the end I found one hostel which is a hole with nearly no people and not the nicest place to stay, but it is exactly what I need right now. A small quiet place, where I can park without paying and where I can sleep without people who want to party all the time!

There where about 5 people in the whole hostel. So I entered the kitchen to cook something and there were two people in the room. One told the other one that one has to speak French and German in his country and that there are 480000 people living there. Wait a moment I know that!!! So I met at this random place which nearly no people another Luxembourger. The world is small. We ended up having dinner together and watching with the other few people a movie. Funny to speak Luxembourgish for the first time with someone since I'm here, but it was also difficult for him, because he really isn't used to it anymore. He works since 5 years in New Zealand for Greenpeace and lives in Auckland. He offered me to stay at his place when I'm there in two weeks. Another accommodation, yuhu! Tonight we will have a beer together then...

This country is the most unpredictable one can have with the weather. It rains so much, but half an hour later there's the brightest sunshine and half an hour later it rains again like hell. Sometimes very annoying. Especially when it's freezing cold, warm and then freezing cold again. My shoes really don't make it any longer so I have to buy new ones now, just because this weather is so freaking unpredictable and walking around in tongues here doesn't work!

Sometimes it's difficult to find the right travelers to travel with. It is better to find long term travelers, than short term travelers. Because the short term ones often don't understand that you can't just buy a coffee at any corner or drink beer in the evening. They don't understand that one's budget is either for long term traveling without any luxury or for short term traveling with just buying food anywhere, parking in any city, paying for accommodations and don't worrying to do outdoor activities or some other touristy stuff. But if you find the right people then they are normally really cool and know exactly how to travel with having a great time without spending much money. Sometimes you even meet the extremes, like one guy who tries to travel the world without spending any money for transport (no flights, only random ships) or others who live by dumpster diving or eating roadkill. Those are normally the ones with the best stories to tell...

...by the way this is my car.

Roadtrip with tree huggers

2009-11-23T18:37:00.000-08:00

Here some pics of Birdlings Flat:

The last days I travelled with Layling, Jens and Yvonne from Christchurch to Dunedin. We slept two nights at a farm (which looked more like an enormous villa) and the last nights in Dunedin. For some reason Jens and Layline know the most amazing places in nature around here and we kept on exploring forests, rocks, beaches, caves and so on. I think New Zealand is the perfect country for geologists: there are rocks and stones everywhere. Laly told us a bit about the emergence of pillow lava and some other rock formations, which was quite interesting. It is great just walking through the nature and climbing up every spot that seems to be nice. We had a lot of fun the last days, we danced Ceroc (which turned out to be pretty cool), we chased sheep, cooked pancakes, made experimental pictures, played cards, found out that there are actually caned strawberries!!!, listened to very good music, etc. Somehow we are followed by “tree hugger”, not only the (amazing) song, but somehow there turned up a “tree hugger” sign on the road and some days before I found a shirt with “tree hugger” on it, strange… I’m definitely into that song! Well yesterday I tried to find a couchsurfer which told me he lived 20km south from Dunedin at a beach in a sheep pasture in a shack with a deck or something around some ruins. I tried to find that place at night and it is not easy at all to find such a place in the dark. His phone was broken and in his car, so I couldn’t reach him, therefore I ended up sleeping at a beach in the car in the middle of nowhere, just because I was too lazy to drive back to the others. I found out that my car is quite comfy, so I enjoyed it. Now I’m back in Dunedin and Jens, Yvl and I are heading tomorrow to Invercargill.

Tree Hugger!!

This reminds me of that Garden State-shirt-wall-scene!

It seems that there is a big difference between tourists and travellers. Tourists are just making holidays and have no stress at all, but travellers need to think every day how to find a place to stay without paying, how to find a place to wash clothes, how to find a food which is not too expensive. But that makes it also much more interesting! And the cool thing about this way of living is that you always find some other travellers which are in the exact same position. Travellers are also people living in a different world, a bit like expats, but with the difference that they normally are just much more crazy and you can have a great time with other travellers! The other practical thing is that you can travel cheaply by couchsurfing (for those who don’t know that network: www.couchsurfing.org) or by people who know friends of people. Since I’m away (beginning of August), I have only payed for 5 nights of accommodation (only one in New Zealand), so that works very well.

Christchurch and Birdlings Flat

2009-11-19T20:59:00.000-08:00

The last days I travelled via couchsurfing. I stayed two nights in Christchurch at a guy’s place, there were several couchsurfers at the same time. The first night we were 5 couchsurfers and they told me that the night before they were even 7. I barely saw the place-owner, but I had a good time with the other couchsurfers. With two of them I drove to Sumner a small village at the beach, which was quite nice. Yesterday I got finally my car I rented. My first hour driving was terrible: at the left side, with an automatic (never done that before) and then reading maps while driving through a city! I had some problems with my hand break at the beginning, but in the end it worked out somehow... I drove then to Akarao, a small town at the sea. Nice but too touristy. I slept at an artist’s place at Birdlings Flat. There you have a great landscape, kind of Scottish-like and a lot and I mean a LOT of geological interesting places and stones. Ian took me with his quad-drive across the beach and up the hill, beautiful views... Had a quiet but nice evening with wine, tea and talking in his gallery.

Now I’m again in Christchurch and will meet three people (which I found on couchsurfing) tonight at a Scottish dancing class (don’t ask why, I don’t know) and after that we will drive to some farm and tomorrow down to Dunedin.

I upload pictures soon...

Short update

2009-11-16T14:40:00.000-08:00

I’m now in Christchurch, New Zealand and it is sooooo cold. When I landed yesterday it were only 4 degrees. I’m not prepared for that, so I need to buy a couple of warm clothes I think. Now I’m sitting in the library looking for a car which I can rent. Before I went for breakfast with a girl from the Netherlands with whom I went to the backpacker yesterday. We went together to McDonalds around 2 a.m. this night (got nothing to eat at the plane) and lost ourselves in the middle of Christchurch after that. Was quite funny and it took us a long time to find our way back to the backpacker in the dark...

Byebye Brizzie

2009-11-15T19:10:00.000-08:00

After a few days in Brisbane, Frauke and I at least started to struggle a bit less and coped with the fact to be in Australia again. Still we miss PNG! But we had some fun in our final days together. The first days we did some shopping and relaxing and I tried to get rid of my cold I caught again. It seems to me the people in Australia have the coldest air conditions ever. There are two more things I learned here: “How are you?” doesn’t mean the question how you are, but just means hello, so no one awaits an answer to that. Strange. And to say good bye everyone says “See you later” even if it is sure that you will never see them again. Also strange. Well on Saturday we went for one night in a Backpacker in the city because we felt like partying one last time together. We met some young people at the Backpacker, with whom we went to one of the most famous nightclubs in Australia (Family) with four floors. Even if we would have preferred more reggaeton music than house music and a higher age average, we danced a lot and had good fun. For the next morning we had booked a tour from the Backpacker, to go to a viewpoint over the city and after that to a koala sanctuary to cuddle some koalas. We took a boat back to the city and went to the art gallery. There was currently an exhibition of Pacific Arts and it was really strange to see masks and dresses of Papua New Guinea hanging on the wall, which we saw some weeks ago on people. We figured out, that there will be a concert in the Art Gallery of a famous PNG-singer on the 5th of December, but there we both won’t be in Brisbane. What a shame, would have been so fun.

In some hours I will take my flight to New Zealand. I just checked the weather on the internet and saw that it will be really cold there. Not good, I don’t even have more warm clothes than one pullover. ;)

Frauke has gone to the airport some hours ago. After three months of living together we will now go separate ways and meet only back in Germany again. Strange feeling. It is funny in what way experiences like that can have impacts on people. When we came to PNG we were completely different people with completely different lifestyles and now we ended up having such a great time together and became good friends.
Frauke I will definitely miss you! I have three things to say: 1. I don’t know what to do with our Saturday-Fruit-Problem without you!! 2. I will miss my “Sie haben ihre maximale Anzahl an negative Aussagen erreicht!-morning-reminder“! 3. Who can I ask „Bist du auch unproduktiv gerade?“
Have a great time and keep me up to date sometimes (especially on our ranking ladder ;))! Lukim yu poro!

Part II: First Steps

2009-11-13T01:26:00.000-08:00

A few hours flight and a different world... We both didn’t think that it would get so hard to leave PNG. Now we struggle since two days to get back to the western kind of lifestyle. At the airport the first things we saw were: 1. too many people 2. everywhere things you could buy, like 100s of magazines 3. mirrors and soap in the loos 4. the floor was shiny 5. and everywhere people who are wearing barely any clothes. Outside the airport we saw then too many buildings, too much traffic and everywhere noise. All that: Shock!!! We both found it already terrible to leave the country and that definitely didn’t increase our motivation... Yesterday we went then to one of those big shopping malls to buy some stuff we needed, which was made us also feel terrible, even if we got some nice things. But we had one very pleasant encounter with a woman which was wearing a bilum and saw our bilums. She started immediately talking Tok Pisin with us, which improved our mood a lot. And we keep on singing and listening to PNG music all the time, so we have at least that... I’m really wondering how much time it will take to get used to this world again...

A good thing: I bought myself my long desired Canon 500D with a 18-200mm lens. Here my first attempts:

Frauke

The view from the veranda of the place where we stay

Self portrait

Some close ups...

There I was

2009-11-09T21:17:00.000-08:00

Red crosses: there I was
Red circle: there I lived

Farewell weekend

2009-11-08T19:18:00.000-08:00

Here some pictures of our farewell-weekend. After two times Pils Rap’a until 6a.m. Kranket Island was the perfect place to relax…

Not the easiest way

2009-11-05T17:42:00.000-08:00

I thought as I have written a little summary about my impressions on PNG, I probably should do the same about my work. Well my aim was to make one documentary. In the end I have done two, so I think at least that is not too bad. I have to say I really learned a lot here about making a documentary. One of the main reasons I came to PNG was because I was sure that I want to focus on media anthropology in the next year. I thought it gets time to take care of what I really want to do and because filming was involved in that, I wanted to start somehow. Therefore I choose to do an internship where I have the possibility to make a film on a topic I choose. This way of learning how to make a documentary was on the one hand a perfect choice, but on the other side I really could have chosen more easy ways to learn. But still I don’t regret my choice at all... Learning by doing and being thrown in the cold water one could summarize my work. The funny thing is that my first film I have done turned out to be the film that will be shown to all the new students at the University during their introduction week, to show them everything in the library and how the University system works and so on. What concerns my other film, I need to finish my editing back in Germany, but I think that is maybe not too bad because then I have more distance to the subject and can judge on a more objective way what is important to keep and what I can throw away. My choice to do a film on my own, has given me the chance to learn very quickly, but it made everything very complicated too. I had no one telling me how to edit, so therefore the first thing I have done, was reading a whole book about how to edit a film. That was sometimes really annoying because it would have been much easier if I had a person who just would have shown me how to use the programme. Another annoying thing was because I had no one around telling me on what I should keep an eye while I was filming. I filmed in the beginning a lot of things that I could not use. The sound was not good or the picture was not good and I didn’t have enough stuff to fill the lacks where only the sound was all right and so on. If I had worked in a team I probably would not have had those kinds of problems in the beginning, but I am sure I would not have learned that much either. One more thing I noticed is that I really love filming and definitely want to continue in that area. I already have another big plan for a film, but for that I really would need a team. So let’s see... but that still has at least some months of time now. And if you ask me if I am happy with the film I have done? Well I have met a person here who told me that one will never be happy with what one has done and if one would be happy with that, one could never improve. I think there she is right. But my supervisor likes it, so that’s good. And maybe to be asked by an international cocoa trading company to make a documentary for their workers about the growing and the fermentation of cocoa is not a too bad sign...

Madang Town

2009-11-05T15:14:00.000-08:00

I saw I haven't posted any pictures of Madang, where I actually stay, yet. Here are some:

The end of the beginning

2009-11-05T01:19:00.001-08:00

Well.... this is the end of my stay in PNG. I can only hardly believe that it is already time to go! Probably as a last entry for my Blog out of PNG I will try to summarize my impressions and experiences of the last months.

PNG has a wonderful and extremely varying landscape. You can travel only some kilometres and you will see completely different kinds of vegetation. You have white sand beaches, clear turquoise water and palm trees. You have black sand beaches with dark clear water. You have bays with great reefs with flat water, where you can do the best snorkelling ever. You have spots where you can surf. You have some of the best diving spots in the world. You have beautiful trees that are so big that you never achieve to take a picture of the whole tree no matter how wide your angle is. You have untouched villages with huts made out of different kind of plants. You have jungle everywhere with cold rivers and waterfalls. You have the highlands with amazing views of the mountains and a totally different landscape from the coastal areas, even if you can be in the highlands within two hours from the coast. You have spots where you are surrounded by mountains on every side. You have amazing sunsets over the mountain peaks. You have big rivers with small, beautiful villages on the river bank.

Most of the people in PNG are very friendly and open. I don't believe there are many countries where you hand aches when you are driving along a road because you are waving constantly. People really appreciate it when you try to adjust, for example wearing a "meri blaus" at the market makes a good impression. They also really like it when you speak in Tok Pisin to them, even if your English is better and most of them speak English. You should never try to rush anyone because that is the most contra-productive thing you can do. Just accept that everything is in slow-motion modus and adjust. You will notice that you have adjusted pretty well when you catch yourself walking that slow that even slower would be walking backwards. You also have reached a level where you fit in when you start to say: "Mooooning" in the morning to everyone and "okeeeeeeeeyyy" for ok and "soooooooriiiiiiiii" for a sorry that is not necessary at all. Just remember to forget all that when you leave the country again...

Maybe the western countries should adapt a bit of that easy-going style. Why stress yourself all the time and worry about nothing important at all when you just can lay back and enjoy your moment. You will sleep better...

I definitely would recommend people who want to do some volunteer work in a developing country to give it a try in PNG. It is an amazing country for spending some time there. But I would never recommend it to people who want to travel cheaply by backpacking. For that the country is first of all too expensive and secondly to dangerous. You need to know people to travel around cheaply. The hotels are far too expensive and you can forget to couchsurf here. And you need to know how to behave when you take public transport, because you definitely should not take any PMV you see around to any place. You should be aware of the danger of being hold up and the danger of being raped (which is not a too bad thing in the mind of many men here). And you should know what to take with you and how to be dressed. Still travelling by a PMV is an experience I would not want to miss. So therefore the best way to travel around is definitely when you are working in this country. After some time you know nearly any expat in the country, which is very helpful to travel around. To get to know people here is probably the most important thing. You can learn so much of the locals and their cultures when you spent more time with them. PNG has over 800 cultures with over 800 languages. But there is one thing which they all have in common. Their "wantok" system: that comes from "one talk" and refers to people who speak the same language. But the difference here, to for example a Luxembourgish speaking "wantok" of me, is that they have obligations to the "wantoks", so therefore a normal hierarchy you find in western companies is very difficult to establish here, you cannot employ a "wantok" and tell him what to do, especially when he is older than you are. This system is, as many say, the best and the worst thing about PNG. It holds together and gives people a very communal way of thinking, there is no aim for individuality in Melanesian ways of life. People exist with other people and for other people and they cannot survive without these very strong relationships. On the other hand any person would to anything for a "wantok" and cover for everything for a "wantok" which can get very dangerous too. This country is so complex and has such a rich culture, that it doesn't make any sense just to travel around for vacation when one wants to learn something about the cultures.

Some more impressions:

-The fruits and the vegetables are so great here, fresh from the trees. Nothing is imported. You could lose yourself in the middle of the bush and you would never starve!!

-Everything which is imported is the worst quality you can find!

-Umbrellas are not only against rain. And they can be quite useful in the sun...

-I hate mosquitoes!

-It is kind of embarrassing, but after some months here, Frauke and I really learned to like the PNG songs, and even listen to them in our lunch break. Ok, not without the help of the students, who took us many times to their nightclubs and listened with us to those songs until we knew them by heart. I never ever thought I would say this! So I hope I will be re-musicalized to my good old punk music until the time I come back...some examples of our catchy songs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agSGjDIIhuk or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ho9Eh8F4J1w or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0wWRe2WiNY (by the way, look at the comments, they are too funny)

-The way people here dance and the way they are dressed just doesn't match at all. They are dressed in their "meri blauses", which were brought by the missionaries to cover too much skin, but they dance like in the hottest underground bar of Latin America. They can shake their bodies! You really cannot compare that to any kind of German nightclub. So that contrast is really funny, you have people dressed like totally covered, who dance in the sexiest way that could exist!

-I really will miss to ride at the back of a truck!

-The flying foxes are hudge!!!

-Chicken biscuits and beef biscuits really exists and everybody eats them...

-Locals love to be filmed and photographed!

-If you ever want to go to PNG there are some things you should do: chewing betlenut, eating a mumu, watching a singsing, drinking green coconuts, go out for dancing with locals, talking with a local about spirits and of course "sindaun nating na lukluk tasol"

Now that was it... Maybe one or another small add before I leave. But then in one week I'll be in Brisbane for 5 days with Frauke. 5 days of partying, before I leave for New Zealand and she leaves for Sydney.

Postoffice story continues....

2009-11-03T22:08:00.000-08:00

Today I thought I should check if my letter was already sent...

-Did the postman come yesterday?
-Yes
-And did he take the letters with him?
-No

Aaarghh! It seems that he takes them tomorrow, hopefully... I’ll give it another try then...

Strange conversation in the postoffice

2009-11-01T21:54:00.000-08:00

I just had a very funny conversation with the lady at the post office:

-Hi I just want to send this letter. I need an envelope please.
She gave me the envelope.
-Do you have glue to close it?
-No
-Do you have some tape?
-No
-Do you have fragile stickers where I can cut a piece of?
-hm... maybe....
-Ok all right I go back to the library, glue it and come back.
Few minutes later:
-It goes to Germany.
-Ok that’s 17.50 PGK.
After 15 minutes she managed it to find a bunch of stamps which were all like 3 PGK and so on, but at least I could put them on my letter...
-Will the letter be send today?
-No
-Tomorrow?
-hm...no...
-When then?
-Don’t know. The postman came already...
-When does he come for the next time?
-Tomorrow?
-Will he take the letters when he comes?
-No
-WHY???????
-Because the lady who normally works here is away and she hasn’t told me how to do everything.
-Aha ok, but it is very important for me that that letter will be sent!
-Can’t you go to the post office in town?
-Ehm no I’m not leaving the campus today...
-Can you go there tomorrow?
-No, can you just give the postman my letter tomorrow please?
-I’ll try.
-Ok, and can you check for me if the letter for Frauke Meeuw has arrived yet?
-No, I have not sorted out the mail yet.

There you go when you just want to send a letter, cheers!

Some changes....

2009-11-01T21:18:00.000-08:00

Lately I spoke to some people who I met over the few months I have been in PNG and they asked me about my plans after my time here. To keep them update I thought it would be easier to give them my blog-address too. But therefore I need to write in English from now on. I decided on that, because I know that it neither matters for the Luxembourgish nor for the German people, so I can pass my address to some people here and it is not the worst thing to do for my English improvement... Sorry for those who do not appreciate that, I will still write my mails in Luxembourgish ;)

I had a pretty relaxing weekend. On Friday we went to the lodge as always, but something strange happened. When I was paying my bill, one of the staff members called me and wanted to talk to me in private. Then he was telling me that the whole staff watched me the week before exchanging my number with some local guy. Now they wanted to know who that guy was, because that would not be all right and could get dangerous for me. Then I had to explain them that I knew that guy quite well, because he was actually a student of Frauke’s tutorial class and he has already been a few times at our place. I have even done some interviews with him for my documentary. So I ended up arguing with the staff members that I am not the kind of person which would give any stranger my number, weird situation. Big Brother is watching you! But I thought maybe it was better to avoid telling them that Frauke and I were actually that Friday with that guy and some other students we know at Pils Rap’a a nightclub, where we were the only white people. Yeah they would definitely not have appreciated that part of the story, but we had a lot of fun at the club and if the students will go there once more we will come with them for sure.

On Saturday morning at 8 a.m. (no, I am still definitely no morning-person, but I survived it with Frauke’s advice to the others to start talking to me three hours later) we went with a group of 7 people for a bush walk with Makis, the cataloguing man of the library. He took us around his village, through the jungle, along some waterfalls and up and down many hills to reach finally a small buai market. It was a very nice walk through an amazing jungle landscape, but the sun was burning and it was not that many shadow around. So we were quite happy about our little jump-into-the-cold-river-water-break and our refreshing green coconut (kulao) in the end.

Saturday night there was a Halloween party at Charlye and Marleen’s place. There have been two costumes which, at least in my opinion, are really worth being remembered! First there was a couple (which in fact was not a real couple, but whatever...) which have only worn a pair of goggles each. But then they told everyone their story behind the “disguise”. The story let me think of that black stories game, but actually it is a story that really happened. In Northern Queensland in Australia there was a couple which went on their honeymoon. They were doing some scooper diving in the Ocean, a very deep dive of around 30m down, when the man turned off the air support of his wife and let her drown. Therefore their goggles... It totally matched with their scary story, a brilliant idea in my eyes... Well the second costume I really liked was Linda’s “cereal killer” disguise. She wore a dress where she glued a bunch of cereals on it and carried some weapons out of Kellogs cartons around. Creative!

Sunday was another Scrubs and movie day. I really enjoy those days where I don’t do anything than watching Scrubs my whole day. Well beside of eating... I have around 300 GB of movies here and 5 seasons of Scrubs and I can hardely believe that I achieve getting the list of unwatched movies smaller and smaller! And I have nearly finished watching all my Scrubs episodes. Frauke says I am addicted to it. Well when I keep noticing that my thoughts start to be quotations of Scrubs episodes I sometimes wonder if maybe she is right...

By the way, this is how people are hanging their babys in the baby bilums on trees, while they are doing some work. Kind of hamack-style...

Eine konstante Steigerung...

2009-10-24T05:00:00.000-07:00

Dass es überhaupt möglich ist in 10 Tagen Ferien eine konstante Steigerung von beeindruckenden und schönen Stellen zu erleben, ist schon faszinierend!
Es hat alles mit einem Flug nach East New Britain und einer PMV Fahrt von dem Flughafen aus nach Kokopo und von dort gleich weiter nach Rabaul angefangen. Wir haben beschlossen unsere erste Nacht im Rabaul Hotel zu verbringen. Rabaul ist eine der beeindruckendesten Stellen, die ich je gesehen habe.

Am 19. September 1994 war der letzte Vulkanausbruch in Rabaul. Einer der Vulkane ist immer noch aktiv und sprüht täglich Aschewolken über die Ruinenstadt. Es herrscht eine apokalyptische Stimmung und man fühlt sich wie inmitten eines schwarz-weißen Horrorfilms. Alles ist grau, es gibt keine Farben, überall Asche, nie kommt die Sonne zum Vorschein, alle Pflanzen sind abgestorben. Besonders ergreifend sind die HotSprings. Hier wirkt die Landschaft wie eine Wüste. Alles sieht aus, als ob es meterweise mit schwarzem Sand bedeckt wäre, doch es sind Aschen. Es ist wie Regen, nur dass die Tropfen schwarz sind und auf der Haut kleben bleiben. Nach kurzer Zeit ist einem seine ganze Haut mit der juckenden Asche bedeckt. Es herrscht eine melancholische Stimmung in diesem Meer von Aschen, die tonnenschwer über der alten Stadt liegen und man wandert bewusst über den vergrabenen Häusern, Flughäfen, Kirchen und sieht ab und zu mal ein paar abgebrochenen und abgestorbenen Palmstämme aus der Asche herausragen. Es ist einer weiter Weg durch die Aschenwüste, bis man zu den HotSprings gelangt, welche so heiß sind, dass die Locals ihre Eier (von den Vulkaninselvögeln) drin kochen.

Nach den HotSprings dachte ich, eine so beeindruckende Stelle, die ich mir so anders vorgestellt habe und nie auf die Idee gekommen wäre, dass es überhaupt sie einen filmkulissenhaften Ort in Wirklichkeit gibt, werde ich keinen faszinierenderen Ort mehr finden. Zu Unrecht. Am nächsten Tag sind wir dann zum Vulkan selbst gefahren. Nach dem wir am Vorabend mit dem Hotelbesitzer Bruce zu Abend gegessen haben, hat er uns vorgeschlagen mit einem seiner Mitarbeiter einen PMV nach Mantupi zu nehmen, um uns dort von Locals mit dem Kanu zum Vulkan bringen zu lassen. Mantupi ist eine in Asche vergrabener Ort an dem krasser Weise noch sehr viele Leute leben und sich an die täglichen Ascheregenwolken gewöhnt zu haben scheinen. Es gibt zwei Kirchen dort, die tatsächlich mit der ganzen düsteren Stimmung einem das Gefühl geben mitten in einem Tim Burton Film zu sein, langgezogenen dreieckige Kirchen zwischen ganz vielen Bäumen ohne Blättern in einer grauen Landschaft mit slumartigen Häusern mit Wellblechdächern. Das Wasser schimmert in allen möglichen Farben, von hellgrün und gelb bis blau und orange (wegen dem Schwefel). Auf dem Weg zu Insel regnet es non-stop Asche und alles wirkt düster und silent-hill-mäßig. Einmal über das Wasser gekanut und schon wieder ist man in einer anderen Welt. Auf der Insel der Vulkans Tavulvur ist es sehr ruhig, keine kreischenden Hühner und schreiende Kinder mehr wie auf der anderen Seite des Wassers. Es ist sehr sehr ruhig und das einzige Geräusch was man ununterbrochen hört ist das gröhlen und rumoren des brodelnden Vulkans, wie ein riesieger schnarchender Drache der jeden Moment aufwachen könnte um Feuer zu speien. Es strömen Unmengen von Rauch aus und man geht in enormen Weiten von metertiefen Aschen die fest sind und doch an manchen Stellen so dass man eingehen kann. Wenn man etwas fester auftritt hört es sich hohl an, als ob eine viel größere Welt unter einen warten würde, die an manchen Stellen dampfend zum Vorschein kommt. Überall sind aus Asche geformten Figuren, in die man eine ganze Fantasiewelt hinein interpretieren kann. Der Geruch ist eine Mischung zwischen faulen Eiern und zu lang gekochter Kohlsuppe und hat was sowohl gesundes als auch stickiges. Gut und eklig zugleich. Wie die Gesamtatmosphäre: schön und beängstigend. Faszinierend! Ein Punkt der Erde wo die Natur definitiv der Menschheit überlegen ist und wo man Respekt vor etwas größerem bekommt. Dass die Natur so arg eine Gefühlsstimmung vorgeben kann ist echt beeindruckend. Eine Stimmung die man definitiv weder mit Wörtern beschreiben kann, noch auf Fotos repräsentieren kann, sondern selbst erleben muss.

Der nächste Stop unserer PMV-Rundtour durch East New Britain war Kabeira Beach. Direkt wieder eine andere Stimmung. Strand, Taucher und ein kleines Resort von einer Familie geleitet. Ein genialer Platz zum Schnorcheln. Das Reef ist einfach fantastisch dort. Fische aller Arten die man sich nur vorstellen kann… Ich habe Stunden und Stunden mit schnorcheln verbracht. Und ansonsten chillen, essen (selbstgekochte Hausmannskost von der Mutter des Besitzers), mit den anderen Gästen und dem (jungen) Besitzer Bier trinken und über alles Mögliche reden. Definitiv die Chillout-Phase der Ferien erreicht!

Die darauffolgende Nacht wollten wir dann aus praktischen Gründen in Kokopo verbringen. Nach einem unerfreulichen Gespräch im PMV wo Frauke und ich zum zweiten Mal nicht für Freundinnen sondern für Mutter und Tochter gehalten wurden (wir sind immer noch am diskutieren für wen das die größere Beleidigung ist), sind wir dann in Kokopo angekommen und haben uns vom Markt auf den Weg zum Beach Hotel gemacht. Dort angekommen haben wir ärgerlicherweise festgestellt, dass nur noch eine Suite für 570 Kina frei war, was wesentlich über unser Budget ragte. Wir haben dann beschlossen in einer etwas heruntergekommeneren Lodge zu übernachten, uns aber erst noch ein richtig geiles Abendessen im Luxus Beach Hotel zu gönnen. Eine Riesen Fischplatte serviert auf einer ozeanisch dekorierten Terrasse über dem Strand war echt lohnenswert. Schlussendlich haben wir auch noch gut in die Wirtschaft des Hotels investiert, denn wir haben eine viel zu billige Rechnung bekommen und dann reklamiert, da einiges fehlte und wir aber ehrlich sein wollten. Ärgerlicherweise haben wir aber zwei White Russians getrunken (schon die dritte Bar in PNG der ich erklärt habe wie man White Russians macht, hehe) und vorher nicht nach dem Preis gefragt. Die Kellnerin kam dann mit einer neuen Rechnung, über doppelt so teuer als die vorherige, wegen 88 Kina (rund 22 Euro) für 2 White Russians!!! Schock! …und dabei waren sie klein und nicht mal besonders toll. Das waren definitiv die teuersten White Russians meines Lebens!!! Und wenn man bedenkt, dass unsere Übernachtung 65 Kina pro Person gekostet hat..

Den vierten Tag könnte man Tag des Wartens, womöglich ein typischer PNG-Tag, taufen! Wir sind aufgestanden haben auf unseren Transport zum Beach Hotel gewartet, gefrühstückt, am Strand darauf gewartet, dass wir ein Bananaboot nach New Ireland nehmen konnten, von 10 bis 14:30 Uhr. Dann kam endlich ein Boot was uns abgeholt hat und wir sind 2:30 Stunden über das offene Meer gedüst (und haben Unmengen von fliegenden Fischen beobachtet). Dann sind wir an einem wunderschönen, unberührten Strand mitten in der Pampa angekommen und haben dann auch noch eine Stunde mit warten verbracht, bis uns endlich ein Truck abgeholt hat. Auf der Ladefläche eines mit Leuten gefüllten Trucks sind wir dann während der Dämmerung über matschige Dschungelwege auf die andere Seite der Insel gefahren. Ein genialer Weg durch eine wahnsinnig schöne und unberührte Landschaft. Gegen halb 7 abends sind wir dann im Dunkeln in Namantanei angekommen und waren schon beunruhigt, jetzt im Dunkeln einen weiteren Transport zu finden, doch irgendwie waren die Leute alle supernett und haben uns direkt unseren nächsten Transport gezeigt, mit dem wir dann zur Belik Plantation kamen.

Hier haben wie die nächsten 3 Tage verbracht. Wieder eine andere Welt und wieder super, ich finde es immer noch faszinierend wie viele verschiedene Facetten dieses Land aufzuweisen hat. Auf jeden Fall würde ich New Ireland von der Schönheit her als Höhepunkt unserer Reise bezeichnen. Unberührt, Pampa, Dschungel, weißer Strand, türkises und teilweise dunkelblaues Meer, freundliche Leute und relativ sicher. Wir haben die drei Tage bei einer Familie gelebt, halb Australisch halb PNG. Eine super nette Familie, die uns direkt integriert hat, als ob wir schon ewig da leben würden. Ron ist Samstags aus Kavieng gekommen und hat dann den Rest des Wochenendes mit uns dort verbracht. WIr hatten eine geniale Zeit und lebten wie abgetrennt vom Rest der Welt, weit weg von jeglichen Sorgen und Stress auf einer Riesigen Kokosnuss und Kakao Plantage direkt am Strand in einem super Haus. Eine sehr behütete Welt, zu westlich für PNG, zu PNG für den Westen…das ist uns irgendwie schon im ersten Moment aufgefallen, als wir das Haus betreten haben, z.b. die Kids hatten Spaghetti-Tops und Hotpants an, etwas was man niemals sonst wo in PNG sehen würde. Also zurück zu unserer Chillout-Zeit…das Essen war übertrieben lecker!!!! die Weinabende waren nice… der Wasserfall im Dschungel schön kühl und erfrischend… das Surfen in Rubio definitiv süchtig machend (und wir haben es sogar alle geschafft auf dem Board stehen zu bleiben) … die Musik war gut… der Papagei war strange… die Schnorchelmöglichkeiten ganz gut…

Und wir waren sogar kulturell produktiv und haben die Kids für zwei Schulstunden in ihrer Privat-Schule besucht und ihnen mehrere Europäische Länder vorgestellt und ihnen die wichtigsten Sätze aufgeschrieben und beigebracht auszusprechen. Wahrscheinlich die einzigen Kids in ganz Ozeanien die jetzt ungefähr 10 Sätze auf Luxemburgisch sagen können, hehe! Naja war auf jeden Fall lustig, Frauke hat Spanisch und Deutsch übernommen und ich Luxemburgisch, Französisch und Italienisch.

Montags sind wir mit Ron nach Kavieng gefahren und sollten nur noch eine Nacht bei ihm bleiben bevor wir dann am nächsten Morgen nach Madang zurückfliegen sollten. Irgendwie haben wir dann doch beschlossen zwei Tage länger zu bleiben und haben unser Flugzeug auf Donnerstag umgebucht. Diese Tage waren definitiv dem Chillen zugeschrieben. Chillen, lesen, in unseren Zimmern direkt über dem Strand, dank Rons Kochkünsten wieder super essen, mit dem Boot nach Nusa fahren und in einer Klischee-Surfer-Location mit anderen Surfern chillen und reden, Cocktails trinken, uns von der einzigen Masseuse aus ganz New Ireland massieren lassen, chillen, essen, chillen, usw. Der anstrengendste Teil waren wohl unsere Beach-Tischtennis- Spiele mit Surfern und unsere durchs-Dorf-Schlenderungen. Das Nusa Retreat ist auf jeden Fall eine der besten Stellen die man sich vorstellen kann, wenn man gechillte Ferien mit Surfern an tollen Stränden, ohne zu viele Touristen will und in Palmenhütten am Strand übernachten möchte. Man sollte sich jedoch vor den komischen Tieren hüten, da findet man echt sehr komische Tiervarianten und womöglich die einzigen nicht ausgehungerten, freilaufende und sehr anhängliche Hunde aus PNG und sehr, sehr komische Vögel (die irgendwie Spaß dran hatten mich zu verfolgen und zu beißen) und natürlich ganz viele Geckos, aber auch Schlangen, Schildkröten, Enten usw..

Nach 10 echt erholenden Tagen bin ich jetzt wieder zurück in Madang und mache mich an meine letzten zwei Wochen Arbeit. Nach so geilen Ferien stört mich der riesige Bücherhaufen auf meinem Schreibtisch auch nicht mehr sehr, der nur darauf wartet übersetzt und eingetragen zu werden…

Nur ganz kurz...

2009-10-12T04:38:00.000-07:00

Ich bin gerade etwas im Stress, deshalb wollte ich nur mal kurz ein Lebenszeichen von mir geben. Also ich fliege morgen nach Rabaul, hatte eine relativ stressige Woche und ein ganz nettes Wochenende mit 2 Studentenpartys mit nur Locals. Sonntags waren wir dann an einem ganz schönen Privatstrand, auf den wir mit dem Boot rausgefahren sind. War auf jeden Fall lustig in Mitten in der Pampa auf französische Art Pétanque zu spielen, Rotwein zu trinken und Käse zu essen...
Und heute hatte ich einen super produktiven Filmtag und bin fast fertig mit meinem Filmmaterial sammeln... Aber jetzt gehts erst mal auf nach New Britain und New Ireland und ich melde mich dann in einer Woche wieder...

Globalisierung, Spiritualität, Dschungel, Hängematten und „the best places ever“!!

2009-10-05T02:45:00.000-07:00

.. so könnte man mein Wochenende zusammenfassen denke ich.

Globalisierung ist wohl wenn ein luxemburgisches Mädchen mit einem kanadischen Typen, der in über 40 Ländern der Welt war, in Papua Neuguinea belgische Schokolade, die im Irak produziert wurde und in Jayapura (Indonesien) gekauft wurde, auf ein „french toast“ schmiert.

Ich habe übers Wochenende Gabriel in Vanimo an der indonesischen Grenze(1-2 Studen Flug, je nach Maschine, von Madang) besucht. Ich wusste vorher nicht, ob ich einen Tauchkurs machen sollte, oder nach Vanimo fliegen sollte. Gabriel hat mich dann überredet mit: Vanimo sei „like the best place ever“ und ja das kam definitiv nah dran…. Ein Surferhaus, mit drei Hängematten auf der Veranda, mit ganz vielen kleinen Details, wie Kerzen in Thunfischdosen und einem ganz individuellen Stil; ein klischeehafter Strand mit Korallenriffs, die ideal zum Schnorcheln sind, nicht mal 2 Minuten vom Haus entfernt; super Musik und ganz vielen Shakes aus allen möglichen Früchten mit allen möglichen Geschmacksrichtungen. Wir sind auf nicht bewohnte Inseln gefahren und hatten auf dem schönsten Strand ever einen Barbecue mit einigen Locals. Wir sind mit einem PMV, den wir am Markt ge-hitchhiked haben zu einem Ort gefahren, wo jedes Jahr weltweit bekannte Surfer Wettkämpfe sind. Einzigartige Stränge mit super Wellen und netten Locals. Wir waren an Stellen in Mitten im Dschungel an einem Fluss der so kalt und klar und erfrischend war, dass man am liebsten nicht mehr raus wollte, definitiv echtes jungle-feeling! Haben zwei Abende mit einem Amerikaner verbracht, der verrückteste Mensch dem ich je begegnet bin, der seit Jahren im Dschungel lebt und der nur sehr komische Geschichten zu erzählen hat. Am zweiten Abend war dann auch seine Indonesische Freundin dabei, die in Jakarta von einem Chinesen gelernt hat Massagen zu machen und die einfach nur übertrieben gut sind! Insgesamt war eigentlich alles sehr bizarr, aber umso cooler… Wir haben mit Locals über Geister und Spirits geredet, die sie gesehen haben und über anderes Spirituelles und auch mit dem Amerikaner über Erfahrungen anderer Dimensionen, wie gesagt, weird… Weird war auch unser Essen, komische Thunfischtoasts in der Pfanne, Spaghetti Bolognese mit Corned Beaf, selbst gemachte Pizza mit PNG-touch, und am letzten Abend ein Wer-macht-das-komischste-Essen-Kontest mit Resten. Das wurde aus Spaghetti aus einer Tüte gemischt mit allem möglichen scharfen Zeug, Eiern, Salami (mit Fleisch???), Gemüse, Peanutbutter, Erdnüssen, Tomatensoße usw. zusammengewürfelt und alles zusammen sah sehr komisch aus. Ein bisschen davon war schlussendlich so scharf (und komischerweise aber gut), dass man nassgeschwitzt war, aber es hat dann zur Musik und Thunfischkerzen-stimmung gepasst und den Weird-Effekt vollendet.