Mail 1: Mainz, Germany - Boston, USA
Mail 2: Boston, USA - Ensenada, México
Mail 3: Ensenada, México - San Cristobal de las Casas, México
Mail 4: San Cristobal de las Casas, México - Bogotá, Colombia
Mail 5: Bogotá, Colombia - La Paz, Bolivia
Mail 6: La Paz, Bolivia - Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Chile
Mail 7: Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Chile - Katherine, Australia
Mail 8: Katherine, Australia - Yogyakarta, Indonesia
Mail 9: Yogyakarta, Indonesia - Chiang Mai, Thailand
Mail 10: Chiang Mai, Thailand - Mumbai, India
Mail 11: Mumbai, India - Istanbul, Turkey
Mail 12: Istanbul, Turkey - Mainz, Germany

Good afternoon from Boston, Massachussetts,

I hope you still know me, I am the German who wants to travel around the
word. We met either in Iceland or in Canada last Sept.

Some of you I promised to send an email letter from time to time in order
that you know where I am at the moment. I included everyone in this email,
who I met and who was interested in my trip. Please send my a reply if
don't want to be included in this letter!!!

So I started my trip mid-August in my hometown Mainz near Frankfurt am
Main in Central Germany with my local bus to the central station. It was a
really strange feeling sitting in this bus and going on a long, long trip,
while everybody else goes to work.

Thanks to my company Air France, I got a gap year for doing this trip. So
my first country had to be France for sure. And there is no better way to
start such a trip than going to the famous Champagne Region having a taste
of this magic blubber! The next day I took the train from Reims
(Champagne) to the capital of France, the city of love, normally known as
Paris. As I am quite often in this city (due to my job), I used Paris as a
chill out destination, having Croissants and a good cafe, as a good
evening dinner with a friend of mine, studying here for one year.

The fastest ground transportation on my trip with the french high speed
train TGV took me in 3 hrs. 600 km far away from Paris to the old port
town of St. Malo in Brittany. From France I took a ferry to the Channel
Island of Guernsey. This island belongs to Britain, but they use their own
currency, stamps etc. and they are not a member of the EU. Here I could
enjoy cycling through the whole island, which looks like a big garden,
full of flowers, trees und meadows.

From Guernsey another ferry brought me to England. In southern England I
cycled to the famous site of Stonehange, which was not so spectacular, as
I thought. But the cities of Salisbury and Bath were real gems, full of
medivial architecture. In Wales I started my climbing session, with hiking
up Mt. Snowdon, only 1000m high but the highest peak in England and Wales.
From Wales I took the train northward to Durham and the capital of
Scotland, Edinburgh.

I loved this city for the many outdoor festivals with real cool scotish
music and good scotish ale. After so many cities I enjoyed my stay in the
scotish highlands where I visited the famous Isle of Skye and climbed the
highest mountain in Britain, Ben Nevis 1300, high. Surprisingly the
weather in Britain was really great with no rain at all in England. An
englishman told me: "So you haven't seen England, you must have been to
another country!"

At the northern end of the british railtrack I changed my means of
transport back to the ferries. The first stopover was then on the Orkney
Islands. I visited on of the eldest villages of the worl, dating back to
3100 BC! In the Orkneys you don't find any trees. Therefore the people of
this village mad everything from stone: Houses, beds, cupboards etc. The
villages was hidden under sand untill the beginning 20th century when a
storm blewed the sand away. And what should you never miss, when going to
Scotland? Right, visiting a distillery, like the Highland Park Distillery
in the Orkneys. Actually I am not a big Scotch fan, but that stuff was
really good and old (12 years minimum).

From the Orkneys I caught once again a ferry, bringing me to the famous
Shetland Islands. The ponies were really great animals, because they loved
my camera and were really "posing" for good snapshots! Like on the
Orkneys, you find no trees here, because of the rough climate, especially
the wind and the salty air.

My next destination, the Faroe Islands are a nearly independant nation in
the North Atlantic. Only foreign affaires are still handled by Denmark. I
have been to the Faroes in 2001, so I just had a small day visit to the
capital of Thorshavn, this time. The old quarter with the dark wooden
houses is of particular beauty. The wood for the houses came all the way
from Norway, because, yes you got it, there are also no trees on the
Faroes. Fortunately on my way to Iceland, the ferry went through the whole
archipelago of the Faroes, and I could once again enjoy the huge cliffs
(up to 800m high) forming the landscape of these very nice islands.

Arriving in Iceland, I was a bit disapointed: Clouds, rain, wind and a
temperature near 0 degrees celcius. But in Iceland the weather changes
quickly and the following 7 days I had nearly no rain at all! At lake
Myvatn I could enjoy the natural wonders of this island, which is often
called: Land of fire and ice. Near the lakeshore you find green
pseudocraters, a great grey volcanoe, same small ponds blubbering due to
the boiling water in it. At Lake Myvatn I saw at night the famous Northern
Lights, looking like in a science fiction movie. Acutually the are formed
by solar winds from the sun, and you can see this green coloured light
only in the Arctic region and naturally in the Antarctic region. From
Arkureyri I took a ferry to my northernmost point of this trip: The island
of Grimsey, with approx. 98 inhabitants and hundreds of birds nesting in
the islands cliff, like in a big skyscraper. The island lies direct on the
Arctic circle and enjoys 24 hours of sunshine the 21st of June every year.
From Reykjavik, the tiny capital of Iceland I couldn't go any further West
or Northwest without any aircraft. But I found it already a great
adventure arriving in Westiceland, without taking a plane.

So I head via Boston MA and Halifax NS to the next possible point westward
from Iceland, where I can restard my voyage with public transport: The
island of Newfoundland. Near the capital of St. John's you find the most
eastern point of Northamerica. St. John's has a big natural harbour and
colourfull wooden houses made it a very nice place to stay, although the
hilly streets were really hard to walk up! From St. John's I took a bus
service to the Burin peninsula the stepping of point for the last
territory of France in Northamerica: The archipelago of St. Pierre et
Miquelon. These islands are an Overseas Territory of France, therefore you
pay with the new EURO currency, and the cars of numberplates with the
European flag on it! Fortunately the food was as good as in France and I
enjoyed for a long time the very good french red wine. But you can enjoy
nice walks also, before starting with the french cuisine. Path led into
the countryside where you find lakes, ponds and nice views to the Atlantic
Ocean.

Back in Newfoundland, I was hitchhiking with a German girl, due to the
erratic public transport here. But we had really good luck and we always
got a ride, with friendly Newfies (inhabitants of Newfoundland) and other
Canadians and U.S. citizens!!! Hiking was also a big thing in
Newfoundland. The Gros Morne Ntl. Park was a particular nice place to hike
onto tablemountains, to waterfalls or to light houses. Fortunately most of
the time, like in Iceland I had a good good luck with the weather alowing
me a lot of hiking and cycling around the countryside.

From Newfound I took once again a ferry to next Province in Canada, called
Nova Scotia, because a lot of Scotsmen came from the "Old World" to this
big peninsula in eastern Canada. The capital of Halifax is a pleasant city
with a good brewery called Alexander Keiths, having the same good ale like
"at home" in Scotland. (Naturally German beer is even better ;-))

In Lunenburg NS, I enjoyed a trip with a big wooden sailing boat called
"Bluenose II". It was an interesting feeling, sailing without any engines
and hearing only the sound of the wood and the Canadian flag, blowing in
the wind.

From Nova Scotia, I crossed by ferry into the United Staates to Bar
Harbour, Maine. The Acadia National Park was the ideal terrain for
mountain biking through the Pine forrest. The smell of the trees was
similar to the Mediterrenean Sea in Europe, so I felt a bit like at home!

Now I arrived in Boston, Massachussetts. The weather is not the best,
allowing me to write to you this email. I hope you enjoyed this first
letter. I will try to send you the next one beginning November from ... we
will see ;-)

I know some of you are also on a long trip: Take care and I look forward
hearing from you!!!

Buenas noches de Ensenada, Mexico!!!

First I have to appologize that some of you received a mail from me in
German, which should have been sent to my german-speaking folks instead of
my english-speaking folks. Now you receive another email in English, or
nearly English, as my language knowledge lacks sometimes the right
vocabulary.

Most of the month of October I was travelling through the US by Greyhound
bus. The storries I got told from fellow travellers before I started
'riding the dog', were truely horrofic. So I was looking forward for my
adventures with that Bus Company. From Boston I wanted to go to
Burlington, Vermont on a rainy Friday afternoon. I saw the queue in front
of my bus gate and decided to make quickly a phone call before joining the
queue. This was a big mistake because as I entered the bus, it was already
completely full. The driver didn't allow me and an american girl to stay
in the aisle. He promissed that there was another bus 5 mins. later.
Fortunately we picked up our backpacks while leaving the bus, because
there was no other bus 5 mins. later.

After a waiting time of approx. 2 hrs. a bus driver picked us up on his
local bus to the worldfamous white river jct, in order to get a connection
to Burlington (me) and further on to Montreal (Andria, the american girl).
Unfortunately we drove directly into a traffic jam and we spent the next 2
hrs. somewhere on the highway with an average speed of 5 mph! Finally we
ended up in White River Jct. and we couldn't believe it, there was really
a  bus waiting for us for going to Burlington and Montreal. Andria, who
wanted to catch a flight to Europe, missed that flight finally and had to
stay in Montreal for her vacations, due to the overbooked Greyhound in
Boston.

In Burlington I enjoyed cycling in the countryside on old railwaytracks
which were transformed in to Bike Lanes now. Then it was time again for
another ride with the Greyhound to Chicago. On the Greyhound trips you
will never get fat, as the driver normally make only short brakes and most
of the times you don't have the opportunity to get a regular meal. Perhaps
the drivers have a contract with Mc Donald's as they stop quite often a
this magic so called 'restaurant'. Most of the people travelling by
Greyhound are big Afro American Gangsta Rappers, Latino Families with lots
of Kids and White Americans who lost their drivers licence or who just
were released from jail, as some Americans told me. But all these people
were always very honest like in a big family. Everybody looked for his or
her travel companion, that he or she is back on the bus after a break. The
drivers are also great people, as they have to drive, have to check the
tickets, have to load and unload the bags and love being an entainer on
the bus, with funny announcements like this: Don't leave your stuff on the
bus because otherwise it wil be a case for the "Lost and Found" - that
means you lost it and it is never found again!

In Chicago I made only a brief stopover because I wanted to be in Oklahoma
in Mid October for a friends' birthday. He studies in Norman, OK for half
a year and for me it is really a great pleasure meeting someone in a
foreign place who I know for perhaps 20 years now. Therefore I checked in
Chicago only if my so called 'poste restante' mail has made it into the
'windy city'. Unfortunately the mail didn't find its way to the General
Post Office. Poste restante means normally that someone can write me a
postcard or a letter to a certain cities' general post office and I can
pick up that mail when I arrive in town. One of the Chicago postcards
arrived back in  Mainz last week as the sender has written his address on
the postcard. At least I can read that postcard when I am back in Germany.
 

Arriving in Norman, OK we (my friend Alex from Germany and myself) had a
very nice birthdayparty with lots of other exchange students from several
countries around the globe. The next day we went down to Dallas, Texas in
order to watch my first football match in a big pub: Oklahoma University
vs. Texas University. I got all the necessary rules explained and now I
have to admit that football is quite an interesting sport to watch. In
Europe I stick totally to soccer, which is quite popular in Germany.

From Dallas, TX I started northwestward again to Boulder, Colorado. From
downtown Boulder I could walk up the hills directly into the Rocky
Mountains. The leaves were at that time red or yellow coloured and I
enjoyed the warm autumn days in the Rockies very much before going through
the Rockies with the Greyhound to Salt Lake City.

Salt Lake was a bit disappointing, because the city was really 'dead'
after sunset. But anyway I stayed only one night for heading on a 30 hrs
trip to Vancouver BC. Unfortunately my big backpack was lost in between
because Greyhound probably has sent the bag to Vancouver, Washington
State. So in Vancouver I had only my small bagpack left. It was not a very
nice feeling arriving nearly 'naked' in a foreign place. The bagage
tracing agent of Greyhound Canada told me that Greyhound US often has big
problems in sending the bagage to the right place but evenutually the
bagage should arrived. She promised me to send the bag to my next
destination Vancouver Island.

On Vancouver Is. I was visiting Astrid who I met first in Newfoundland on
a small ferry in the middle of nowhere. Astrid is German but lives for
several years now in BC (British Columbia). Initially we had planned to go
on a several day hike but due to my fellow 'friends' of Greyhound we had
to change our plans. First we bought some new underwear, as I had nothing
to change with me now. Then we made a nice day hike on another tiny island
not far away from Vancouver Island. Fortunately I didn't rain because my
rain gear was - yes you get it - in the lost backpack.

3 days after my backpack was lost I was able to pick it up in Victoria,
BC. On the way to the Greyhound Parcel station the car from a friend of
Astrid broke down. So we had the next problem, just as my problem with the
backpack was solved. So the next day we arrived with another car of
another friend of Astrid and we towed the broken car over the highway back
home. Someone was probably angry about our 'illegal behaviour' towing a
car over the highway and this nice person informed the police. But the
police was pretty cool informing the owners of the car - so not us - that
it is not allowed to tow car over highways in Canada. So you see,
travelling gives you always the opportunity to learn something!

The next day I had to leave Astrid and her really nice friends. I had a
wonderful stay in BC and if you travel for such a long period it is really
a nice feeling being welcomed in such a friendly way as Astrid and her
friends did it! From BC I took the ferry through the archipelago of the
San Juan Islands to Washington State. After visiting Seattle I took of to
Portland, Oregon for doing a nice walk just outside town in the wild
oregonian forrests.

Then I left the Pacific Northwest for California and its hippie mekka San
Francisco. As I like hiking and biking I found myself in a paradise in San
Francisco. Just north of the famous Golden Gate bridge there were perfect
Mountain Bike Trails and hiking trails. I continued hiking then in the
famous Yosemite Ntl. Park before heading down to San Diego the last stop
before Mexico.

After having a real international Halloween Party in a San Diego Hostel I
crossed the border into Mexico. Noone wanted to control me on my way out
of the US. So it was really a problem finding an immigration officer for
giving back my small immigration card which was stapled into my passport.
If I had left it in my passport I would have had big problems entering the
States next time. Fortunately after a longer search I found someone who
took this card and I walked into Mexico. Noone wanted to see my passport
or take a look into my backpack. I knew that I have to get a tourist card
for travelling in Mexico. The people I asked at the border told me I get
it in the Tijuana bus station. Arriving in the bus station noone knew
something about that card but they promissed me that I could get that card
in Ensenada. If I got that card you will see next time. That's it for
today. --  Adios y hasta luego

Christoph de Loreto (Baja California Sur / Mexico)

¡Hola de San Cristobal de las Casas!

This month I was starting my travels through the spanish speaking part of
the Americas. Perhaps you remember my troubles when entering Mexico from
the US, as I didn't get my tourist card at the border. After riding with a
bus 130 km southward to Ensenada I found eventually the Immigration Office
at the harbour, and I got my tourist card. But the immigration officer
kept my passport and sent me with the tourist card to a certain bank at
the other end of the town. There I enjoyed queuing for a while and then I
was "allowed" to pay approx. 20US$ as an entrance fee for visiting Mexico.
This fee is normaly included in the ticket price if you fly into Mexico! I
got a big stamp on my card and walked back to the immigration office.
Finally I got my part of the tourist card and after asking politely to
stamp my passport as well, I was able to start travelling through Mexico!

I was continuing my travelling with buses to the southeastern part of the
Baja California. But travelling by bus in Mexico means travelling hassle
free, not like "riding the dog" (Greyhound) in the US. The reclining seats
of the 1st class buses are really comfortable and you don't sleep on the
knees of the person behind you, as there is a big distance between the
seats even if the Mexicans are normally smaller than their US neighbours.
Another point is the reservation system which is nonexisting to Greyhound
but to all 1st class buses in Mexico.You get your seatnumber when
purchasing the ticket, which you can buy days in advance. So you don't
have to panic that your bus is overbooked and that you don't get a seat.
Most of the times you can even choose your seat, before buying the ticket.
Your bagage is also quite often taged correcty and Mexicans can read these
tags, not like the Greyhound staff who lost my bag for 4 days (I hope you
remeber).

The trip through the Baja was a travel along the longest rubish dump I
have ever seen, as Mexicans seem not to care for their environment. And
there were crosses every kilometer or so to remember who lost his life on
this highway. I was really glad that the bus drivers were driving
carefully and that we didn't have any accidents on our way through this
mountainous and dessert like part of Mexico. The southern tip of this
longest peninsular of the world is quite touristy with mostly Americans
who enjoy walking down the streets with at least one beer in their hands.
So this part of the peninsular was definetely not my favorite of my
journey through Mexico.

From La Paz, the capital of the State Baja California Sur I took a
catamaran to the Mexican mainland. I expected that someone will check at
least here my passport, but once again noone wanted to see it. So
theoretically you can travel through whole Mexico without being
controlled. I wondered what would happen when arriving at the border
without the tourist card and without an entry stamp.

The 4 hr. crossing to the Mexican mainland was absolutely not spectecular.
But the following train ride up into the highlands through the so called
"Copper Canyon" was really a scenic journey. The train climbs from sea
level up through the canyon to a level of approx. 2300m (7000 ft.) The
views throughout the day made it worth that we had to drive a whole day
only to cover approx. 360km. Quite often we (fellow travellers from
Holland, Spain and Switzerland+myself) spend some time at the end of the
cars to get a view without a window but that was sometimes a bit unhealthy
as we drove through some 86 tunnels and the smoke from the locomotive was
absolute cancer providing, so I tried to stop breathing while driving
through the tunnels, which was only possible in tunnels shorter than 300m!
 

After a rest in the mountains of Northern Mexico I was heading southward
to the old silver towns of Zacatecas and Taxco. Most buildings are quite
old and walking through the tiny streets to nice plazas with fountains in
Zacatecas or the steep narrow streets of Taxco was really a nice
experience. But especially in Taxco this was not quite "safe" as
sidewalks, traffic lights and one way streets are not existing. So the
cars, most of them white beetle taxis are driving with high speed around
the many corners without taking care for pedestrians. But fortunately you
could always jump into a door to escape the beetle mania!

To avoid the huge capital Mexico City I was continuing from Taxco
sotheastward to Puebla. On my way to the "home" of the beetle production I
enjoyed the snow covered volcanoes of Popocatepetl and Itzacchíhuatl ,
both more than 5200 m (17000 ft.) high. Like the Kilimanjaro in Africa
they were quite impressive as the rest of the landscape was mostly flat.

From Puebla I continued a bit in a hurry southward via Oaxaca to the
Guatemalan border, as I had to start my Spanish language courses in
Quetzaltenango two days later. For 2 weeks I was improving my language
skills in order to be able to comunicate with the locals, as Spanish will
be the language of my travels for the next time! From 8 to 1 I got a one
to one teaching in a nice courtyard in downtown Quetzaltenango, or Xela
like the locals call their city.

In the afternoon I had to do my homework, mostly Grammar or storrywriting.
So it was quite a busy and hard time in Xela, but I think it was really
worth it. With my teacher Alma I could talk and discuss in Spanish every
day a little bit more and I learnt 5 different times in only 2 weeks!
Instead of staying in a hotel I chose a family stay, in order to practice
my Spanish even more. The food was quite good (lots of veggie and some
meat) but frijoles (beans) for breakfast was sometimes a bit hard. A
bigger challenge was washing my clothes as the families' dog was a bit
crazy. First he caught all my clothes from the linen and finally caught my
legs as they seem very sexy to him. But with the help of the families'
kids I survived eventually without any sexual harrasement!

The weekend between the 2 weeks of studying, I was hiking with a group of
13 backpackers from the US, Canada, France, UK, Holland, Switzerland and
Germany to the highest mountain in Centralamerica, Volcán Tajumulco
(4220mts. or 13842 ft.). The landscape reminded my rather to the swiss
Alps than to a tropical country with all the pine trees and green meadows.
In order to avoid altidude sickness, which can be fatal, I carried 6 lts.
of water but anyway I got headaches several times while hiking uphill. The
first evening we camped on an altitude of 4000mts. (aprox. 13000 ft.) and
it was terribly cold but we could enjoy a nice sunset over  the Pacific.
The next morning we got up at 4:15 (a.m. ;-) and climbed the last meters
to the summit in order to arrive just before sunrise! The path uphill was
clearly visible due to the full moon and some parts were really covered
with ice!  The sunrise was quite breathtaking as we could look down to
other volcanoes in the east, and to a sea of clouds in the north were only
the peaks of the mountains were visible like islands! To the southwest we
could look down to the Pacific lowlands 4000mts. further down.  Later in
the day we hiked downhill again, in order to begin another week of
studying.

Today I left my family and my fellow students from all parts of the world
to go back to Mexico. After a hard 8 hrs. drive with guatemaltecan buses
and mexican minibusses I arrived in the magnificient colonial town of San
Cristobal de las Casas. The guatemaltecan busse are have nothing in common
with the comfortable Mexican busses. In Guatemala the majority of the
buses are old american schoolbuses painted in all possible colours. For me
travelling in these buses is always a challenge as I have never an idea
where to "store" my legs. But these buses are dirt cheap (approx. 1US$ for
100 km) and often the only way of going by public transport.

Actually I wanted to study in San Cristobal de las Casas and not in Xela,
but prices and quality of the schools were quite better in Xela. If you
want to study also in Xela here is the website to click:
http://www.celasmaya.edu.gt/ ! If you want to know more about climbing
Volcán Tajumulco click: http://www.quetzaltrekkers.org/tajumulco.htm ! In
San Cristobal I have to go to the post office on Monday morning to pick up
my General Delivery (Poste Restante) mail which is waiting for me
hopefully. What I am doing in December I'll let you know next time!!!

¡Hola de Bogota!

From Bogota, the capital of Colombia I whish you all a happy new year
2003! I hope you had all quite a good start into the new year.

The month of December I was mainly travelling through all countries of
Central America. Starting in San Cristobal de las Casas I went through the
jungle of Chiapas to the beautiful waterfalls of Agua Azul (Blue Water)
and for my third time to the archeological site of Palenque. This old Maya
City is still a fascinating place for my and its setting into the
rainforest where you can hear monkeys and bird leads to unique athmospere.
 

After travelling a bit through the Yucatan peninsula and visting old
Campeche town and the archeological site of Chichen Itza I left eventually
Mexico and crossed really into a different culture when I was entering
Belize. Rasta, Reggae and Rum forms more or less this Caribbean country.
Instead of speaking spanish, hearing latin american music and eating
tacos, Belizean people speak english, hear Reggae and Rap and eat pies and
drink lots of Rum when they are partying. Leaving Mexico meant also for me
changing the standard of transportation. Now I was travelling mainly in
old american school buses until I reached Panama the end of December. The
days were gone where I could enjoy bus journeys because now I had always
huge trouble in finding space for my legs and sometimes also for the rest
of my body. Even if there were only 4 seats in a row most of the times 6
or 7 people occupied the seats.

From Belize I was continuing southward with a small boat crossing the Gulf
of Honduras and entering again Guatemala. But this time I was more or less
only in transit through the country in order to reach my next country: El
Salvador.

After travelling the weeks before with lots of other backpackers I enjoyed
El Salvador first because you hardly find any backpackers and this can be
really o.k. If you are always meeting new people every day and if you have
to introduce yourself to new people every day one day you are really tired
of that. In addition if you are always travelling with other foreigners
you don't get in contact with the locals. Therefore I loved travelling
through El Salvador from the first minute I entered the country. The
people were really interested in knowing more about my country. And I had
to explain a lot to the people, because in Central America people have
really other problems than knowing facts about such a small country like
Germany. So the locals thought most of the time that Germany is a state of
the USA and that Germans speak English. Fortunately I have a small travel
atlas with me and I could show the people where they can find their own
country, where the find the USA and where to find Europe.

Sometimes travelling or hiking in El Salvador can be a bit weird. When I
wanted to climb a volcanoe in a National Park I was welcomed by two
policemen who accompanied me with loaded weapons on my hike. The
salvadoran gouverment cares a lot for the security of the few tourist
coming to El Salvador. And my "bodyguard" didn't charge my anything for
their service. Fortunately nothing happens and we could enjoy the hike
without any trouble. Later I was travelling to a small old colonial town
called Suchitoto, where I could enjoy the old colonial architecture of the
houses and the surounding scenery with a nice lakeshore and green hills in
the back.

From El Salvador I crossed for few days into Honduras. I was travelling
with a small boat to the tiny island of El Tigre in Pacific Ocean. Most of
the tourist heading to Honduras go the Atlantic coast for diving and
snorkeling. Nearly nobody goes to El Tigre, so I had white sandy beaches
for my own and I could relax a bit at the Pacific Ocean. On the island
people still have no tap water, so in my hotel we had a fountain and the
"flush" toilet was operated manually by throwing enough water into it with
a big drum of water! The same drum you could also use for showering and/or
washing your clothes. People in Honduras are really football (soccer)
fanatics and as they reallized I was German I got some beer for free as
Germany was 2nd in the soccer championships in Korea and Japan in 2002!!!

Leaving Honduras I went southward to Nicaragua visiting the old colonial
cities of Granada and Leon. Unfortunately the people were not so friendly
like in Honduras and El Salvador and I was often called Gringo, a word
that I really dislike. But in the countryside especially on the island of
Ometepe in the Lake Nicaragua people were friendly and honest again. I
enjoyed cycling the whole island with a very old and used mountain bike.
Roads on the island are more or less only pathes and so it was quite a
challenge to ride the 90km (60 miles) around the island. But it was a joy
to meet the people while they were working in the fields or on the
plantations.

From Nicaragua I headed down to another world: Costa Rica! While in all
the other central american countries a watch is more or less useless, as
buses drive whenever they want, in Costa Rica they have a schedule and
depart mostly on time. And Costa Ricans try to recycle!!! In all the other
countries normally people throw all the rubbish into the streets, so the
landscape is quite often really poluted. After visiting quite an acitive
volcanoe in central Costa Rica who throws lava around every 15 minutes or
so, I went down to the Caribbean coast to spend Christmas right on the
beach. I could pitch up my tent 50 meters away from a white sandy beach
and with fellow travellers we had a really good Christmas party (barbecue
and cocktails), also nothing reminded us to Christmas. It was sunny, hot
and humid - so definetly not the Christmas I had always celebrated in
Germany. I think it was good for me not having a so called Christmas
feeling because otherwise perhaps I would have been sad not celebrating it
with my family.

Right after Christmas I crossed into the last country in Central America:
Panama! After climbing another volcanoe and spending the night with my
tent near the top in the middle of nowhere in misty rainy weather I
reached Panama City. After starting Sept. 16 in St. John's Newfoundland,
Canada I was travelling more than 25.000kms through North and
Centralamerica by bus, train and boat. From Panama I had to take an
aircraft, as the border regions with Colombia is quite unsafe due to the
presence of colobian guerillas, drug traffikers, US DEA agents,
Paramilitias and normals thieves. So I was flying on New Years Eve to the
Colombian town of Cartagena, right at the caribbean coast.

Cartagena was the ideal place for welcoming 2003! People were partying the
whole night, dancing salsa enjoying the good and loud music and drinking
lots of beer and aguardiente the local fire water!!! As travelling
overland through the country is also not recommended, I just flew from
Cartagena to Bogota, where I am just writing to this mail.

At the end of every year I think back to the main events of the year. Fore
sure this year my journeys was the main event. And without you this event
wouldn't have been so nice and funny. Therefore I want to say: Danke,
merci, thank you, gracias, bedankt & takk...

...Peter aus Mainz, Deutschland pour le bon séjour avec toi à Paris!
...Angela aus Stirling, Scotland fuer die wunderbare Tour auf Bressay
Island (Shetlands)! ...Tinna aus Bergen, Norge for the travelling from
time to time with you through your Ísland! ...Regula aus St. John´s NF,
Canada fuer den netten Septemberabend im Hostel! ...Astrid aus Sidney BC,
Canada fuer das Hitchhiken mit Dir durch NF & den moralischen Aufbau
waehrend der Abwesenheit meiner besseren Haelfte (Rucksack)! ... Therry &
Monna aus Victoria BC, Canada for the most comfortable part of the whole
journey (BMW), the great Queen songs and the wonderful dinner in Rocky
Harbour, NF! ... Andreas & Thilmann aus Stuttgart, Deutschland fuer Ride &
Hike zum Gros Morne Ntl. Park! ... Gail aus Chicago, USA for the
interesting discussions about US & German politics and the longest ride
ever (431km)! ... Danielle aus Valkenswaard, Holland for the wonderful
time and lots of Alexander Keith´s in Halfifax, Nova Scotia! ... Andria
aus Boston, USA for sharing the troubles with Greyhound! ... Alexander aus
Mainz, Deutschland fuer die geile Zeit mit Dir & Mark in Norman, OK &
Dallas, TX! ... Birgit aus Sidney BC, Canada fuer die besten Burger und
den kinderreichsten Abend der Tour! ... Ulrike aus Kiel, Deutschland fuer
die ADAC-maessige Pannenhilfe auf Vancouver Island! ... Gerry aus Sidney
BC, Canada for your wonderfull birthday party and your trouble-causing
car! ... Katia aus Leysin, Suisse pour m'avoir aidé à trouver la bonne
école à Xela et les belles journées au Nord du Méxique! ... Alvaro &
Roberto aus Madrid, España por nuestro buen viaje en México del Norte! ...
Nicoline & Christian aus Playa del Carmen, México for the delicious dinner
in Chihuahua and the travelling through northern Méxcio! ... Annette aus
dem Schwabenlaendle, Deutschland fuer die kurzweilige Busfahrt
Zacatecas-Guadalajara! ... Leo aus Genève, Suisse pour le temps superbe à
Xela et les discussions en Allemand, Espagnol, Anglais et Français! ...
Andreas aus Stuttgart, Deutschland fuer Deine wunderbaren
Afrikageschichten und die vielen gemeinsam gezischten Gallos! ... Ekke aus
Thueringen, Deutschland fuer die Inspiration, die Du mir gabst, meine
Broetchen vielleicht mal als Web-Lehrer zu verdienen! ... Alma aus
Quetzaltenango, Guatemala por tu paciencia con mi de apprenderme el
español! ... Manolo y Patricia Vega aus Quetzaltenango, Guatemala por
estar hospitalario y la comida deliciosa! ... Brina aus "up 'n away"
irgendwo in der Welt, fuer den einwoechigen Bildungsurlaub in Sachen
Haengemattenmuchachasherunterhandeln & sonstigen Preisstrategien fuer
zahlungsschwache Backpacker! ... Jaspar aus Holland & Ian aus Victoria BC,
Canada for the Caribbean night in Belize City! ... Karsten & Willie aus
Berlin, Deutschland fuer die gemeinsame Abneigung gegenueber "Eisern"
Union Berlin - geauessert in Quirigua, Guatemala! ... Jerôme aus
La-Chaux-de-Fonds, Suisse pour tes informations superbes concernant le
Panama et le Costa Rica! ... Bastien aus La Rochelle, France et Marie aus
Québec City, Canada pour le temps génial à El Tigre, Honduras! ...
François aus San José, Costa Rica pour tes informations profondes
concernant ton Costa Rica et le Panama! ... Erik aus Norjoepping, Sverige
for the nice time travelling with you through whole Costa Rica! ... Luke
aus Seattle, WA USA, JJ aus Phoenix, AZ USA & Claudia aus Bern, Schweiz
fuer die wunderschoene Weihnachtszeit am Strand!

How I was starting 2003, I will hopefully tell you with the next mail. I
whish you all the best for 2003 and happy travelling around the word!!!

Rimaykullayki mantataq La Paz,

I hope the 1st month of the new years was a good one for all of you. I was
travelling the whole month through the western part of South America. Most
of the time I was in the mountainous regions of the Andes. Therefore I am
a bit missing the beach and the warm weather as it gets pretty cold here
with temperatures at night near or even below freezing.

From Bogotá the capital of Colombia I flew with a small prop-plane
southward to the small Andean town of Pasto. I prefered flying most of the
time in Colombia as kidnapping foreign people is not unheared of in this
beautiful country. The reason why I went to Pasto was mainly the annual
"Carnaval de los negros y blancos" held in the first week of the new year.
At this time the whole city is in a big fiesta with everybody dancing and
having fun. Nothing reminded me on that Colombia we all usually hear of in
the mass media. The people in Colombia and especially in Pasto were
extemely friendly and I had often to taste their local firewater called
Aguardiente, which burns everything inside your throat.

The "Carnaval de los negros y blancos" means Carneval of blacks and whites
and dates back to the time where africans descendants had to work as
slaves in the mines of the Spaniards. One day each year the (black) slaves
were allowed to hold up a big party and at this day the Spaniards painte
theirs faces black. The next day the slaves painted their faces white
while the Spaniards were celebrating another fiesta. Today the Carnaval
leasts several days more with the highlights on January 5th and 6th. On
the 5th the day of the blacks everybodys face is painted by every other
person with black cream while people are dancing and partying. As a
foreigner you are in a quite bad situation as everybody sees you as a
"target". On that day I felt more like in Africa than in South America as
the African-American where dancing with big drums through the streets and
performed a lot of tribal dances.

The following day, the day of the whites, the whole city looked at the end
like a small town in Switzerland or the Rockies in winter: Everything was
in white - the streets, the cars, the houses and naturally all the people.
Everybody had small bags of white chalk powder as a "weapon" and the
"battle" lasted the whole day while there was a big parade through the
narrow streets of Pasto. My clothes looked afterwards really bad but I
"survived" this funny, dirty and lovely Carnaval without any loss of
important things - only a few dollars where stolen when I was in the
middle of the crowd. So I enjoyed my stay here and definitely I want to go
back here next year if it is possible.

From Pasto I drove in my favorite way of transportation to the Ecuador
border: The shared taxi goes to a certain destination and leaves when it
is full. Full means here 3 people in the back and 3 in the front. So I had
enough space for my legs and the taxi was quite fast. In Ecuador I was
mainly hiking and biking. Once I could ride the mountain bike on a dirt
road from the Andes down to the Amazon bassin in a whole day. It was a
fascinating trip first through the mountainous regions with a deep canyon
and lots of waterfalls. Later I drove through the rain forrest hearing
lots of birds and "fighting" against the heavy downpoor because here it is
actually the rainy season. Going back I was travelling in the bus, while
the bike was fixed on the roof.

Going southward from Ecuador my next country was Peru, really one of my
favorites on my trip. The countryside is extremly beautiful and the
Peruvians are very open minded. First I spent some days in Trujillo at the
Pacific Ocean to explore the ruins of the Moche people who lived several
hundred years before the famous Incas. The travelling from Colombia to
Northern Peru in the buses was more or less o.k. because the roads were in
a good condition. From Trujillo I was heading inland through a huge Canyon
again into mountaineous interior and this was quite a rough ride: For
100km the bus needed 6 hours to cover this distance on a very bumpy dirt
road through the canyon. But on the last part of the trip I could enjoy
the beautiful mountain scenery around the highest peak in Peru Mt.
Huarascan (approx. 6.500m). After hiking a bit in the region I headed down
to Lima, the capital of Peru, which is not very appealing.

So I decided to continue the following day on a bus back to the highlands.
The road climbed from 0m to more than 4.300m and I felt like driving into
the sky. In this rough landscape the only animals I could spot out were
the famous Llamas and Alpakas grazing around. The trip by bus on dirt
roads to the ancient Inca capital of Cusco was another hard way of
travelling. It was very cold and it rained quite often. So it was always a
good idea of the bus driver to stop at the villages to get some hot
drinks. Most of the time the only hot drink was mate de Coca. You get hot
water and a dozen of Coca leaves into the cup. After 5 minutes or so the
mate is ready and you can enjoy it. The mate is not dangerous to your
health but it helps to prevent altitude sickness, as the locals told me.
The mate de Coca has nothing in common with cocaine but the base, the
leaves are the same.

Eventually I arrived in Cusco after a 3 day bus drive through the Peruvian
highlands from Lima. Cusco is a great city to explore and the fact that
there are a lot of foreigners has some adventures for me: I could enjoy an
American or European breakfast with butter and jam instead of chicken with
rice which I had usually in Ecuador as breakfast, lunch and dinner. Or I
could go to a cinema and enjoy the latest James Bond 007 and I could
change my books. Without any books to read your have a very hard journey
as it can get quite boaring travelling for hours in the same scenery or
hanging around in the evening in your hotel room with no entertainment at
all. Cusco was also the base for my next train ride after I enjoyed the
last train ride in November in Mexico. The train was extremely expensive
as it is designed mainly for tourists and it goes to a very special
destination: Machu Picchu!

The lost city of Machu Picchu was never found by the Spaniards and we
don't know exactly its function. Perhaps it was founded after the
Spaniards occupied Cusco and transferred the Peruvian capital to the new
city of Lima. The Machu Picchu ruins themselves are not so breathtaking
but the location 700 m above the wild rio Urubamba between two steep
mountains is extraordinary. Fortunately there was some drizzle and most of
the tourists prefered having a coffee in the restaurant instead of
exploring the ruins, so I had the spectacular views nearly for my own and
I could just looking on them for an hour or so.

The region around Cusco is full of old Inca ruins but most of them are
disappointing as the Spaniards used the material to build colonial houses
in Cusco. So often the lower levels of the colonial houses in Cusco are
walls of old Inca houses. It looks a bit strange wandering around the
narrow cobblestoned streets of Cusco and seeing this big walls and the
upper levels with new material are quite thin.

After exploring the Cusco area for 5 days I travelled down to another gem
of South America the famous Lake Titicaca. First I explored the Peruvian
side with the so called floating islands. The Uros people built the up
from Tortora reed in the middle of the Lake to escape from the Incas. Even
today they live on these islands, and their houses and boats are also
constructed out of the reed. Walking on the islands gives you a strange
feeling as you hear the sound of soaking water and it feels like walking
on an air matress lying on water.

Finally I left Peru for the bolivian side of Lake Titicaca for going on a
hike. The lake lies on an altitude of 3.800m and therefore the air is
quite clear leading to bright colours: The deep blue of the lake I will
never forget and hiking on Isla de Sol (Island of the sun) on old Inca
pathes passing herds of sheep, donkeys, Llamas and Alpakas was really like
being in paradise. From Lake Titicaca I continued to the caotic capital of
Bolivia, La Paz. La Paz means peace but the athmosphere was rather hectic
and busy with a lot of noise and smog. So I escape from that city as soon
as possible again to the countryside of Bolivia...

That's it for today and for this month. Lets see what's happening the next
month on my journey...

Take care and I looking forward hearing from you again!!!

'Iorana...

... means Hello and Good Bye in the language of the Rapa Nui the people
living on the island of Rapa Nui better known as Easter Island in English
or Isla de Pascua in Spanish! This month I was travelling from the
Bolivian capital of La Paz down to the deep south of South America. After
travelling for 162 days in the Americas and travelling for more than
39.000km (approx.25.000 miles) on the double continent I left it for Rapa
Nui, one of the most remote places on earth!!!

I left La Paz just in time, as a few days later the city ended up in chaos
and shooting around the presidential palace with some people dead. I left
the capital for Oruro the jumping off point for another train ride to
Uyuni in the south western corner of the country. Unfortunately most
railways in South and Central America are suspended and therefore I was
looking forward to travel again by train. The train was not a touristy one
like the train to Machu Picchu and therefore it was cheap but difficult to
obtain a ticket: After waiting a whole soccer game (90 mins.) in the
waiting room finally I got my ticket for the next day. The train journey
was comfortable and relaxing but nothing special, while the desert like
landscape was moving slowly along my window.

Uyuni looks a bit like a wild west town in the middle of nowhere. But this
whole is the starting point for a spectacular trip through the biggest
salt pan in the world. Together with 5 other backpackers (UK, US &
Germany) we went with a 4x4 and a bolivian driver through this fantasctic
region. The first day we drove on the white salt pan under the deep blue
sky. Some brown coloured islands were the only other colour we saw this
day. The next day the landscape changed completely with red and yellow
coloured mountains, lagoons with flamingos and snow covered volcanoes. The
last day we ended up at an altitude of approx. 5.000m (16.000 ft.) at the
bolivian/chilean border. The driver said: Welcome to the civilization.
Indeed it was a culture shock for me crossing from Bolivia into Chile.
Chile is in many ways similar to Europe and so different to the other
latin american countries north of Chile. Travelling in Chile is quite easy
by bus and quite comfortable as well. The food which was in Bolivia and
Ecuador quite boaring (Chicken & rice for breakfast, lunch and dinner) so
I enjoyed the variety of food available now in Chile.

The first town I reached was San Pedro de Atacama in the Atacama dessert.
This is one of Chiles most touristy destinations but not full of foreign
tourists but full of Chileans on summmer vacation. Although I was in a
dessert it rained every evening and the so called driest place on earth
was ridicolously wet. As I didn't see any Geysirs on my trip when I was in
Iceland I got the chance to see them here in Chile. This country has
nearly everything to offer. From the dessert in the North the landscape
changes further southward into Mediterranean landscape with trees similar
to those in southern Europe and lots of fruit plantation. In this reogion
you find the biggest observatories in the whole world as the sky is on an
average of 350 days a year clear of clouds and the air is one of the
clearest as well. It was really great to watch at night our neighbouring
planets like Saturn or Jupiter and for sure the mountains on the moon as
well.

Going further south through Chile I arrived in the old charming town of
Valaparaiso which reminds me on Lisbon in Portugal as there are lots of
elevators in the city to put people up and down to differents parts of the
city. Valparaiso is built into the coastal mountains and the streets going
up und downhill are quite steep and narrow. In lots of restaurants you can
enjoy the fresh fish and the superb chilean wine. It was also in
Valparaiso where I had a "Alien Attack": Somewhere in Ecuador I got 3
insect bites while I was sleeping. The infected parts of my skin never
healed totally the following weeks but grow up a little bit. So I pushed
the parts of my skin as long as I could squezze 3 caterpillars out of my
skin!!! - No joke! It was really a strange feeling gettings these things
out of the skin but for now I am o. k. again!

From Valparaiso I continued southward into the so called Lake district.
Snow coverred volcanoes lots of freshwater lakes, great hiking
opportunities and lots of Chilean backpackers were waiting for me. I
camped on a campsite full of Chileans and I was not a long time alone as I
was invited by some Chilean backpacker for having a barbecue. Thats Chile
live - nice people and party time!!! But I also enjoyed the beautiful
landscape by hiking and cycling around the region.

From the Lake District it was only a last short bus ride before I reached
Puerto Montt and there I changed my method of transportation from bus to
cargo boat. The following 4 days me and a hundred other backpackers were
going southward through the Patagonian Canals and fjords to the small town
of Puerto Natales. The boat was a really cargo boat necessary for the
supply of goods in southern Chile i.e. Patagonia. People on board were
quite o.k. and the food was also very very good especially if I think back
to Ecuador and Bolivia...

Together with a French traveller I was hiking through a Patagonian
National Park called Torres del Paine. The weather was first really
terrible with storms, rain and even some snowfall. So we didn't see in
what a beautifull landscape we were hiking. Fortunately in this part of
the world the weather changes quickly and the following 2 days were quite
nice but cold and stormy. We fixed our tents quite well otherwise our
tents would have been blown aways. We were hiking between cristal clear
lakes and blue coloured glaciers and towers made of rock! That was really
a perfect finish of my trip through the whole Americas: I started on Sep.
16 in St. John's New Foundland - Canada and I arrived in Punta Arenas,
Chiles southernmost city on Feb. 24 after travelling 39.114 kms in buses,
trains, boats and only 1.500 in planes in Colombia! So I had to say Adios
& Good Bye America Muchas Gracias & Thank you the people of the
Americas!!!

From Punta Arenas I flew via the Chilean capital of Santiago to the tiny
Rapa Nui (Easter Island) in the Pacific Ocean! Belonging to Chile the
islands has not a lot in common with mainland Chile. I felt already more
in Polynesia than in South America. The people are still quite friendly
and relaxed as they were in most places on the Continent. But most of the
people speak not Spanish but Rapa Nui and they fell Polynesian not
Chilean. The island is one of the most remote places on earth: 1.900 kms
to the next island with a human population (Pitcairn Islands) and more
than 3.700 kms to the Chilean mainland! The main attraction on Rapa Nui
are the moai - stone sculptures of tribal chiefs dotted around the island.
As everybody of the 2.800 Rapa Nui lives in the only town Hanga Roa I
could hike around the island and pitch up my tent wherever I liked to. I
found a place on a white sandy beach with palm trees and some Rapa Nui who
were camping also there! As they noticed that I had only tined fish and
bread for dinner I was invited on the spot for having fresh grilled fish
with them and it was a long evening at the beach with a lot of Chilean
wine, which is not too expensive on the island! This was once again a
typical example for the friendlyness of the people in this region of the
world! From Easter Island I moving further westward and I promise you
sending the next report a bit earlier - Internet charges are here in the
South Pacific quite extremely high - therefore this delay!!!

Take care and I am looking forward hearing from you!!!

G'day from Katherine, NT - Australia!

This month I had definitively to say "Adios Suramerica y muchas gracias
por este tiempo agradable alla!" when I was leaving Easter Island in the
South Pacific. My next destination was really the worst on my whole trip:
Tahiti!!! Tahiti is a French Overseas Territory and one of the most
expensive places on earth. The 6 km trip from the airport to the capital
of Tahiti, Papeete costs 3 USD by wooden bus. I don't give you more
examples of the ridiculous prices - believe it or not - it is an too
expensive place to stay. Fortunately I had to spend only a couple of days
there in order to change my plane tickets, as I had a ticket for a flight
from Tahiti to Fiji, but the flight wasn't existing any longer.

At least the food in Tahiti was really good. I enjoyed French baguette,
Croissants and Camembert cheese. But that was the only good point for
Tahiti. People think this island is a real paradise with friendly people.
This is unfortunately not the truth. A lot of non French-speakers found
the locals arrogant and even I found them not really friendly although I
speak fluently French. Perhaps there are too many tourists on these
islands and people are getting sick of tourists...

Discovering the island is another problem as the last reliable bus goes
back to Papeete at around 2 p.m. If you plan on going back later you have
to pray and hope as bus drivers prefer at this time of the day making a
long stop with their bus somewhere or even stop driving till the next day.
The last day on Tahiti I could go at least on a hike to the mountainous
interior and it seemed as Tahiti wants to give me something back: The
rainforest and the scenery to the neighbouring island of Moorea was really
beautiful also the hike was a hard one due to the high temperatures and
the moisture. After the hike I went back to my hostel, had to pay 2 USD
for a last shower and an additional 2 USD for the luggage storage and then
I was more or less kicked out of the hostel as my flight left at 3.45 a.m.
and I didn't stay for the night. So I had to leave at 7 p.m. for the
airport where I slept on my bag till 2 a.m.!

Fortunately not all of the islands of the South Pacific are like Tahiti.
So enjoyed my next destination: Rarotonga!!! "Kia Orana" means Welcome and
this expression you can find on all car number plates around Raro. The
island is part of the Cook Islands and they belong more or less to New
Zealand, also they have a certain autonomy. People are really relaxed on
Rarotonga and this island is very peacefull. The doors of the houses are
always open and I could often get a look into the houses seeing people
holding their "siesta" from mid-morning to mid-afternoon. Quite often you
could hear local drum music when walking around and everybody had a "Good
Day" on the lips even for strange people like me. I was even offered
fruits while walking around and I felt really integrated into peoples
daily life. If I had to pay for pawpaw etc. and I didn't have the exact
amount of money I got often bananas as change - a really healthy way of
shopping...

After enjoying some relaxing days in Raro I jumped over the international
date line. I left Raro on a Friday night at 10 p.m. and after 3 hours I
arrived in the Fijis at 11 p.m. on Saturday, so I lost nearly a whole day,
but I get the time back while I am travelling westward, understood?
Unfortunately I just arrived at a totally wrong time for visiting Fiji as
a tropical Cyclone was arriving at the same time there. So what could I
do? Well, first I enjoyed riding the non air-conditioned bus to the
capital of Suva. This bus had no glass windows at all. So the breeze
cooled during the ride cooled everybody off. When it started raining a big
plastic curtain was tied down by all the passengers to protect us from the
rain. In Suva I tried every day to catch a boat to another island and once
I got even a ticket but the ride was eventually always cancelled due to
the bad weather. So I enjoyed the excellent Cappuccino, the vegetarian
Hare Krishna food, nice Chinese dinners and good movies in English. The
owner of my hostel in Suva were really nice people and the invited me to a
Kava ceremony. Kava is made of root and it tastes really  bad and looks
like dirty water. But after drinking one or two cups you are getting
really relaxed and you don't feel your lips any longer and you love only
to hang around and dream and relax... The perfect way for a hectic German
boy to cool down... After a week or so I had drunken enough cafe, Kava and
Fiji bitter beer in order to take of for downunder!!!

Arriving in Australia I got a really cultural shock: The first time for
months I saw skyscraper and so many lights at night. The last couple of
weeks buildings were most of time one or two floors high and now I saw
buildings 50 or 60 floors high. The advertisements weren't any longer
painted on the walls of houses but big flashing lights were showing that
you can get Coke not only in Rarotonga but even in Sydney! And I really
accepted that traffic lights make sense here in these cities. The last
months most of the time there were no traffic lights, they weren't working
or no one cared about them. But here the streets had so many lanes that I
had really to look at the "green" sign before heading out into the
streets. There was a lot of traffic in Sydney but no noise. The last
months I "enjoyed" the noise of broken engines of very old cars and now?
The latest models don't produce any noise and this was another reason for
accepting traffic lights as in the other countries you always heard the
cars approaching! And the people were stressing around with a cup of
coffee in the left hand and a sandwich in the right hand. Good bye the
nice time where people were moving at a snail speed around the tiny towns
and villages of South America and the South Pacific. And now I had to look
on a clock again... that happened before more or less only in Chile for
the buses. In the other countries you had to wait until a bus shows up and
so you had to have a lot of time. Now I have to book transportation in
advance otherwise I get stuck - in South America you could always hop on a
bus and anyway most of the time you couldn't book anything in advance.

But I am enjoying Australia very much because it is so different to the
place I've been in the last months. Having a real warm shower is a great
thing for me know, also I don't need it here in Northern Australia with
temperatures around 35 degrees celcius. I missed these hot showers really
in the Andes of Peru and Bolivia were it was often damned cold and
showering in cold water was a real pain!!! In Australia I enjoyed hiking
in Blue Mountains next to Sydney without seeing a lot of other hikers.
Later near Adelaide I hiked around in the vine country of Australia
feeling more like in Germany than in downunder. The rest of my trip
through Australia I will tell you the next time.

I am looking forward hearing from you all around the world. Take care and
have a good month of travelling, working or relaxing!!!

Selamat malan ...

or good evening from Yogyakarta on Java Island in Indonesia. Another
months of travelling is over and now I am really on my way back to Germany
via Asia. Also it will probably take several months to reach Germany I am
feeling a bit sad, that most of my journey is almost over.

The month of April I started in the red heart of Australia. Visiting 'the
rock' or Uluru in the Aboriginal language was real fun with a couple of
fellow backpackers mostly from the UK and Ireland. Normally I am avoiding
organized groups and I prefer travelling by public transport but reaching
the Ayers Rock by bus is difficult and why not changing from time to time
the means of transport. I had 3 funny days with bush camping, sunrise and
sunset near the rock, good music in the bus and great walks around this
meeting place for Aboriginal people. This is the location were Aboriginals
teach their kids about life and living in the nature. Later on some 1500
kms further up I learnt in Katherine how to make my own dijeridoo, the
famous instruments of the Aboriginals in the Northern Territory of
Australia. After finishing my own dij I was also taught how to play the
instrument and probably I have the talent to earn my next Euros back in
Germany by playing the dij in a German shopping mall - how knows???

The stay in Australia was a real vacation from travelling. Getting around
was most of the time quite easy, fast and defintively not painfull. I
recharged my batteries once again in Darwin and in the pools of Litchfield
National Park before leaving Down Under. Perhaps I took the shortest
"Intercontinental" flight of the world when I caught the small prop-plane
from Darwin to Dili in East Timor. East what? is perhaps your next
question. This country lies approx 600 km north of the Australian coast
and occupies half of the island of Timor. The other part of the island
belongs to Indonesia. East Timor is the world youngest country created
only in May 2002. Before it was occupied by Indonesia after East Timor got
independend from Portugal in 1975. Unfortunately Indonesia didn't leave
Eat Timor without causing problems. Between 1975 and 1998 the people of
East Timor faught a civil war against Indonesia and when the people of
East Timor voted for independance 1999 Indonesian paramilitian groups
destroyed the whole country and lots of people were killed. The country is
still no tourist destination but I wanted to visit this new country as it
is not any longer dangerous to visit the country.

So most of the passengers in the aircraft were people helping to build up
the new country. I was probably the only tourist on board and for sure the
only backpacker. Arriving in Dili the capital of East Timor from Australia
was once again a big culture shock but also a big "normal" shock as most
of the buildings in Dili are still destroyed. As there are no backpackers
in the country I had to stay in a hotel where normally UN personal sleeps.
So the stay in East Timor was not a cheap one but a comfortable one with
breakfast buffet etc. This was a total contrast to life outside the hotel
where people had to still to struggle with the events of 1999. The
hospital destroyed, the schools destroyed, the fire department burnt down.
I have no idea how the locals can live in such a city and with such a high
price level comparable to Australia.

As there is no accomodation outside Dili I went by public minibus on day
tours around the country. All the houses in even the smallest village were
destroyed. But the landscape was breathtaking. White sandy beaches without
any people or houses, rice paddies, palm trees and green mountains.
Travelling around with the buses was once again a bit more painfull as
they were totally overcrowded and the oldie music like Boney M "By the
rivers of Babylon" etc. was really horrible. And these buses were
absolutely SMOKING buses - nearly everybody smoked cigarettes made out of
cloves!

After a couple of days I wanted to leave East Timor to Indonesia but that
was not so easy as I thought. No one could tell me before if I need a visa
for Indonesia if I enter from East Timor. So I showed up at the border and
the first question of the indonesian immigration was "Visa?" As I had no
visa in my passport I got my entry refused to Indonesia and I had to
travel back to Dili to get that damned sticker into my passport.
Fortunately the embassy was still open when I came back from the border
and after paying a bribe of 10 US I should have got the visa the following
morning at 9 am. At 9 am I was showing up at the embassy but it was still
closed. Perhaps 20 minutes later the door was opened but my visa was not
issued because the ambassador to a bath and couldn't sign the visa. After
another hour of waiting the ambassador finished his bath and I received my
passport back with the visa. So eventually I could enter Indonesia in the
afternoon the same day.

While I saw still a lot of Westerners in East Timor who built up the
country I felt being the only foreigner in West Timor. For the first time
I got a real language problem here. During my trip untill Indonesia I
could always talk to the locals in English (UK, Iceland, North America and
Australia) or Spanish (Latin America) but here in West Timor no one spoke
English and I don't speak Bahasa Indonesia. So I had to learn some usefull
words and for the rest I had to learn making signs to get the things I
wanted. As Indonesia is a big island nation I continued my trip from Timor
by passenger vessel to Flores island. The trip was really comfortable with
a 4 person berth more or less good food and myself the only foreigner on
board. That fact was really hard for me as Indonesians try always to
communicate although the comunication is hardly possible if they know only
two word in English "Hello Mister". There were days I couldn't hear that
"hello mister" any longer 'cause I heard it for perhaps more than 100
times per day!!! But meanwhile the "hello mister" people seem to have
disappeared. Now I have a little bit of privacy again and I like the
locals now. In Flores I visited some small traditional villages where
people live still in their wooden houses like centuries ago. And their was
once again a volcanoe to hike around. The crater lakes with 3 different
colours in the light of the early morning were really a nice place to
start your day. Travelling through mountaineous Flores island was really
hard. In a day you could cover most of the time more or less 150 km as the
roads were going up and down the whole time. But the hard roads meant nice
scenery with beautifull mountains and the Indian Ocean in the back!

From Flores I took a boat going in 2 days to the island of Lombok via the
"Dragon" island of Rinca. On that island i felt like being in Jurasic
Park. The "Komodo dragons" are the largest lizzards in the world with a
length of up to 1,30 m and a weight of 50 kgs. Their diet consists of wild
pigs, wild horses etc. Spotting these animals was really a great thing as
these animals are very photogenic looking directly into the lense before
moving on like a cowboy on 4 legs. Lombok was more or less only a transit
island to Bali. After the so called "Bali Bombing" the island like all
parts of Indonesia are desserted. No tourist but a good tourist
infrastructure meant nice hotels and bungalows for you alone, great food
and healthy fruit juices cheaper than Coca Cola or a Big Mac. I relaxed on
Bali and after the hard travelling in Flores and Timor I recharged once
again my batteries before heading off to Java, the first muslim island of
my trip. The people on the islands of Timor and Flores are christian while
the people on Bali are Hindi. But here in Java people perhaps don't like
the politics of George W. Bush but they definitively like the American way
of life: Mc Donald's, Pizza Hut, KFC next to a mosque is here no problem.
The people themselfes say "we are muslims but we are no fanatics" and I
can finish with  the slogan Bali uses at the moment for hoping getting
tourists back: "Don't let the terrorists win - come back to Bali". I would
say do it - you won't regret it!!!

Hopefully I can tell you next month what happened to me in the month of
May while travelling through South East Asia. I whish you happy
travelling, working or just doing nothing!!!

Good morning, buenos dias & bonjour!!!

This month I was travelling most of the time northward through South East
Asia from Yogyakarta in Indonesia to Chiang Mai in  Thailand.

Beginning in Yogya like the locals call Yogyakarta I learnt that it is
absolutely no problem to combine parts of the muslim word with our world
of the west. Although Yogya and Java island are muslim territorries and
the muezin starts praying from the mosque at 4 a.m. and girls covering
their hair the same girls wear jeans, go to Mc Donald's and shop in huge
shopping malls. So the clash of the cultures mentioned quite often after
Sep. 11 is definetely not true!

But Yogya is also a city where you could easily think you are in the
middle east. Lots of small narrow streets where big markets are held daily
and where your nose gets a lot of strange things to smell. The best way to
get around is by 'becak' a cycle riksha, as in the always existing traffic
jams the small becak can easily drive between all the waiting cars, trucks
and buses. Quite often they drive also in the wrong direction of the
traffic, but the becak drivers sits above the the level of a car driver
and so he sees arriving cars and can change the direction immediately
without causing any accident!!! And in a becak you live more safely than
being a pedestrian. This kind of traffic participant has no chance in this
city full of crazy car drivers who just ignore every pedestrian - so take
a becak to survive!!!

Around Yogya you can find quite nice archeological sites from the Hindu
and Buddhist era before Islam came to Java which you can enjoy on
http://www.borobudurpark.com !!! As there were nearly no foreign tourists
especially the site of Borobudur was very nice just after sunrise. The sun
climbed the sky behind a volcanoe, while the black stones of the temple
were seen in a bright light through the early sun light. The play of light
and shadow between the temple stones with the mist in the nearby valley of
rainforests gave me a really spiritual feeling which I felt even stronger
through some buddhist monks moving and singing around the temple. After an
hour or so hundreds of local tourists 'occupied the site' and I was the
main target: Dozens of Indonesians wanted to take a picture with themselfs
and the temple behind. Don't ask me why they did that - everyone of you
knows me and there is really nothing special about me as I think - buy
anyway Indonesians and their behaviours are sometimes quite strange to me!
F.ex. the continously "Hello Mister" attacks, the spiting into the
streets, the lack of any privacy for me in the public of a ferry etc. were
facts I first had to accept before I could enjoy my stay here. But after a
couple of days in Indonesia I liked the people and I liked their country
very much!!!

After some days in a small mountain village where I enjoyed the nice
scenery which reminded me to paintings of Van Gogh in the Provence due to
the way the locals built up their fields into the green hills, I went by
train into the Indonesian capital of Jakarta. The train ride was another
example of the lack of privacy in Indonesia: During the entire trip people
sold food, drinks, baseball caps, sarongs, books, toys, srew drivers,
nails etc. in the train. As a prefered customer who is suposed to have
money these hawkers came always directly to me and I was really tired
after a while denying every minute or so my needs for screw drivers or
nails ;-)

Jakarta is definety not the nicest city of the world. But unfortunately I
had to wait for 3 days here until I could left the capital with a
passenger boat. In that time I applied and got my visa for Myanmar. Visa
are really a pain for travellers. Fortunately Myanmar is a country which
asks only 20 US$ 3 photos and nothing more. Other countries may ask for
plane tickets, booked accomodations a letter of recomendation from your
own countries' embassy, a letter of invitation from someone in the country
etc. Also there are some countries which don't issue you a visa, when the
have a diplomatic representation in your home country. So I love all the
countries where you can enter visa-free. That was the case on my trip from
France via the UK, Faroes, Iceland, Canada, US, Mexiko, Belize, Guatemala,
El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador,
Peru, Bolivia, Chile, French Polynesia, Cook Islands and Fiji. Thanx to
all these countries for saving me a lot of hassle. But now I am in Asia
and I had to get further visas for going home overland.

Originally before Sep. 11 2001 I wanted to cross from China into Pakistan
and then to Iran. But I changed that plan already due to the risky
situation in Pakistan. So I decided to go from Thailand to Myanmar, India
and the Middle East. But I also changed that plan as the Allied Forces
went into war with Iraq. So I decided to go from Thailand to Cambodia,
Laos and China going home with the Transsiberean Express to Moscow,
Russia. But I Sydney around mid-march I heared first of SARS and meanwhile
a lot of borders with China are closed AND there is more or less peace in
the Middle East now. So I changed once again my plans going from Thailand
to Myanmar and further on to India! From India??? We'll see!

After I got my visa for Myanmar I left Jakarta for an island off the coast
with Singapore which belongs to Indonesia. From this island Pulau Bintan I
could take another boat to go directly to Malaysia to avoid the SARS
affected Singapore. Arriving in Malaysia from Indonesia was like arriving
in another world although people speak nearly the same language. Malaysia
is clean, the buses have time tables AND leave on time, the taxis use the
meter without asking for it - so no negotiating necessary before, there
are even motorways and dustbins for the rubbish!!! Wow it was nearly like
travelling back in Europe. But on the other hand the food was still a
blend of Indonesian now with a lot of Indian and Chinese food. And
Malaysia has walking trails in their Cameron Highlands:

Unfortunately I relied on these hiking trails - a big mistake in the end!
Actually I only had to get back from the highest mountain approx 3 kms
down into the village on a officially signposted trail! But that trail was
from the beginning quite a hard one. There was hardly any trail and I got
down jumping from root to root in the middle of the rain forest. After a
while the trail turned westward instead of continuing southward. I dind't
realize that and I followed down this rough trail. Finally there were two
trails so I chose the one leading southward. But that one ended in the
middle of nowhere in the jungle. I was looking around the area and I
didn't find the trail again. But I found an Austrian guy, Peter, who was
also looking for the right way out of this prison of trees and bushes.
Finally we heard the sound of a small river and we decided to follow the
rivers, which must lead eventually to a village we thought. The river went
westward but the civilization was rather in the south. But we didn't
change our strategy and went on for hours. Finally we reallized that we
would have to spend the night in the jungle, with no sleeping gear, no
food and only the water from the river to drink. But we found wild green
bananas. First we ate only one banana to check if we would get stomach
problems. No stomach problems after an hours meant we had enough food to
survive a few days. The water of the river was clean too, so we had also
enough water to drink. We found a small sand bank on the rivers and we
protected us with big banana leaves using as isolating material and a
blanket. Finally I found some spice TACO BELL sauces in my backpack I got
in San Diego CA. last Oktober! So we had a delicious meal: Green small
bean-like bananas with chili sauce!!!

The following day our strategy failed immediately as there was a big
waterfall and we couldn't follow the river any longer. But fortunately I
had a compass and I know to use it. So I decided to go back eastward up
through this labyrinth of rivers uphill and then southward. Then in my
theory we'll end up on a mountain where we can see the mountain we
orginally started as there was a high antenna installed on the top. So we
were a bit frustrated going back all the way and we were sure we wouldn't
find the river up, where we originally came down from. But I was sure,
we'll arrive eventually on the top. The only bad thing about our situation
were the potential fear of our relatives as Peter's family was waiting
already for nearly 24 hrs. in the village and the German embassy would
have to inform my parents as well in the following days. Therefore we
wanted to escape the jungle as soon as possible. After another night on
another river bank we finally climbed up the mountain sothward without a
path but with the help of the compass. After 200 mts. or 3 hrs. we finally
saw the antennas only 500 mts. away and after 2 more hours we were ontop
again, were the police finally met. 16 people were searching for us but
the police men were glad that we found our way out ourselves. The police
didn't charge us a penny for the whole rescue thing but brought us down
into the village for having a couple of teas with them!!!

Finally I travelled a few more days in Malaysia before going by train to
Bangkok, Thailand. I stayed there for 7 days in order to get my visa for
India. So I had enough time to explore some of the 400 wat (temples)
clustered around the city and I could also visit the old capital of
Ayutthaya. I could explore dozens of temple ruins with my bike and enjoyed
the friendly Thai people having most of the time a smile on their faces.
Another day trip brought me to Kanchanaburi where the infamous Bridge on
the River Kwai stands. Thousands of POW's (Prisoner of War) from the US,
UK, Holland and Australia together with Thai, Malay and Burmese people had
to build the so called death railway and that bridge from 1942-43 as
prisoners of the Japanese in WW II. The photos I saw shocked me really and
if you see that bridge with having the historical background I felt really
sad. Once again I realized that war is the most terrible thing we can make
in my opinion!!!

Now I am in Chiang Mai in the North of Thailand. If everything works
alright I'll fly in a few hours to Myanmar in order to continue westward
on my trip back home. In Myanmar there is no Internet available. So I will
not be able to send you any mails for the oncomming two weeks or so. Yet I
don't have any ticket further on, so I don't know when I'll be able to
contact you again Therefore please don't send me any large emails with
attachments, in order to have enough space for the email of other
people!!! Thank you, muchas gracias and merci beacoup!!!

I whish you a very pleasant month of June - Keep on travelling, relaxing
or ... working (?)!!!

Namaste everybody around the world!

Namaste means in Hindi "Hello" and yes, I travelled now from East to West
through the Indian Subcontinent. After travelling for one month most of
the time in very hot weather through Myanmar and India I'm spending my
last hours on the subcontinent now before continuing by air to ???

I also started this month with a small plane trip from Chiang Mai in
Thailand to Mandalay in Myanmar, which was called until 1989 Burma or in
French Birmanie. Going overland to Myanmar is possible from Thailand but
then in the border town of Tachilek you have to continue flying anyway to
Mandalay, so I've chosen the easiest option, flying directly from Chiang
Mai.

Arriving in Myanmar my body temperature was checked due to SARS. Then I
had to change 200 US$ into "FEC" (Foreign Exchange Certificates). With the
FEC you have to pay hotels, trains and ferries in that country. I felt
like in Eastern Europe during the 'cold war' before the wall came down
with that strange currency. Myanmar has also its own currency called Kyat.
Officially 1 US$ was 7 Kyat. If you have changed 1 US$ with a moneychanger
or in a hotel you got up to 950 Kyat. It was all a bit compicated having 3
currencies in your wallet because the greenback was also widely accepted
or asked for...

The reason for that strange currency dealing is the fact that the Myanmar
government is keen on getting as many Dollars as possible, because the
country is quite isolated due to its bad human rights policy. For further
details check out Amnesty Internationals website on :
http://www.amnesty.org/

While Thailand was very westernized with "7eleven" "Mc Donald's" etc. on
every corner the short hop to Mandalay was like travelling back to the
first years of the 20th century. Mandalay is the home to more than 1
million people but there are hardly any cars on the streets and
fortunately no traffic jams like in Bangkok. But everybody has a bicycle
for getting around on the dirt roads leading through the hot and dusty
city. Hors carts and ox carts are used for transporting goods around the
town. I enjoyed cycling around town and countryside and could even dream
while cycling due to the fact that I had often the road for myself. When
there was really a car approaching it blowed the horn that every cyclist
stopped dreaming and leaving the road for the car. Another prefered way of
getting around the town was a trishaw. This is a three wheel cycle with a
seat and the 3rd wheel attached to the bicycle on the right hand side. The
trishaw is the local taxi and the trishaw drivers where most of the time
quite nice people for chatting a lot or going to a 'beer station'. Beer
stations are naturally a paradis for a German backpacker. Ice cold draft
beer the pint for lets say 0,40 US$ while it was damn hot outside was just
the right stuff for cooling down after a day on the bike or in the seat of
a trishaw. And there is NO Coca-Cola officially available in Myanmar. The
cans you get are smuggled or imported (?) from Thailand. The local 'star'
cola was ok but the Myanmar Beer was really the best, although you cannot
compare it with any German (or Club Colombia or Austral one my South
American friends ;-) But you can get also freshly sqeezed sugar cane juice
or other healthy fruit juices without a problem.

Myanmar is famous for its golden temples, temples and temples so called
pagodas and monasteries. Most of the pagodas have a golden stupa that
looks a bit like huge golden bell. As you have to remove your shoes before
entering a pagoda my feet were tortured on the stone floor as the
temperature was above 40 degrees celcius (100 F) and the floor would have
been hot enough to prepare a good pizza or some scrambled eggs on it. But
Christoph the backpacker with the smoking feet discoverd temple after
temple surviving the whole torture without suffering too much. As I was
tired of travelling by bus I've chosen the ferry to go downstream from
Mandalay to Bagan. Well the distance of perhaps 300 km is not very big but
it's just huge for Myanmar and its antique way of transportation. For a
little space on the wooden floor I had to pay 10 FEC (10US) as it was a
government boat, while the locals pay approx. 0,20 US. But at least
someone organised a plastic chair for me to justify the little differnce
in the price ;-) However I relaxed like the locals on the floor having
lots of chinese tea and letting the countryside passing by. After 17 hours
I arrived in Bagan and the following days I enjoyed once again cycling
from one of the 1.200 pagoda to another of the 1.200  pagodas in this
area, having great Italian Pasta und Pizza, cause one Italian lady taught
the locals how to prepare this lovely food and as no one has ever heard
before of pasta and pizza they listened carefully to the Italian lady and
the result was just delicious.

While the travelling on the ferry was perhaps slow I felt at least not
being squeezed like into a tin. Travelling by bus or Pick Up can be pretty
tough in that country. The best is to 'escape' on the roof of the Pick Up
where you can breathe fresh air instead being squeezed with a dozen of
locals on small wooden chairs in the 'passengers cabin'. Travelling by bus
is sometimes not much better but at least you get a seat or a part of it.
But when your head is between the arms of a locals sitting behind you and
on your knees you find the reclining seat of the person sitting in front
of you riding the bus is rarely fun in that country. And if you arrive
instead of 1 o'clock in the morning at 5 o'clock in the morning you
sometimes thing "What the hell am I doing here in that country. I could
spend some nice days somewhere at the beach instead spending nights on
buses where people are coughing around you that you fear getting SARS
imemdiately". But the friendly people, the very beautiful pagodas and the
time travel back into another century were quite a reason to stay and to
enjoy that country. Finally I arrived in Yangon and after visiting a last
golden pagoda and making the people of the Dagon Beer station very rich,
while Chris from England and Chris(toph) from Germany were waiting for our
flights out of the country, I left Myanmar for Kolkata, India!

On my previous journeys and even on that trip I often got in contact with
Indian minorities in the Fiji, in East Africa, in Surinam, in Mauritius
etc. but I never made it to India in my life. So arriving in Kolkata was
like a little shock. First off all the way like Indian people drive around
their country is just crazy. And I really mean CRAZY! Blowing the horn in
an average of every 4 to 5 seconds it is just a pain to stay in the road.
But crossing the road is nearly like commiting suicide. They don't stop,
they blow the horn and perhaps after that they might stop for you but
never be sure. The only rule that exists is the fact that there are no
rules! Driving is normally on the left due to the British but sometimes
they drive on the left and on the right and in the middle there might be
space for the traffic comming from the opposite direction - maybe. And
believe it or not the holy cows are chilling out in the middle of the road
during rush hour and everybody has to take care not to drive these mad
cows to death!!! But as I'm now in Mumbai after crossing the whole country
I must admit that the drivers drive crazyly but know their cars and buses
and the way the others drive so that I survived finally even the most
notorious drivers!

Kolkata can be a real shock for people arriving from richer countries.
Thousands of people are living on the streets: People are looking for
edible things in the huge rubbish hills found in every street, others are
cooking, washing and bathing on the street as the street is their 'house'.
For me the poverty was not shocking any more after travelling for 10
months quite often through poor countries but I felt how lucky we all must
be being born in more or less wealthy families that we don't have to think
about the tomorrow: Will I have enough to eat, where shall I sleep and
hopefully I won't be ill!

While I was travelling in Myanmar it was ALWAYS hot. So I decided to start
my travelling through India northwards to Darjeeling in the Indian
Himalaya. Although the monsun was supposed to arrive and that would have
meant a lot of raining, I just wanted to escape the heat for a few days.
But I had good luck and I could enjoy some walks in the tea plantatations
without getting lost, yeah! And one morning at 6 am I could see where I
was staying: Just behind Darjeeling that clear morning I could enjoy Mt.
Kanchenjunga and its glaciers in the first light. This mountain is the 3rd
highest mountain in the world with approx 8.600 m. Wow the panorama view
was just amazing!
http://storm.prohosting.com/dannywin/graphics/darjeeling.jpg The
temperature was also quite nice at around 20 degrees compared to 45 in the
lowlands and in the shadow. As the majority of the people here is from
Tibet and Nepal I really felt being back in Central Asia and when I
visited a Tibetean Monastery I felt a bit like being "7 years in Tibet"
with all the mist and fog around me! Finally I cooled down enough to go
back to the lowlands and to the crowds as India is always overcrowded.
Varanasi at the holy Ganges was quite an interesting experience with death
and life. The dead bodies of the Hindi population will always be cremated
in the public but being cremated in Varanasi with your ash thrown into the
Ganges can save a Hindi from Re-Incarnation as Hindi believe being reborn
once again after death. But seeing these dead bodies and their golden
clothes burning at the river was a little shocking experience while it was
quite normal for the locals who live next to the cremating place in the
middle of town at the shore of the river.

Leaving Varanasi was not so easy as I thought thanks to Indian Railways.
Normally the train was supposed to leave at 11.30 pm. But at that time I
heared an anouncement that the train will arrive only at 2:15 am! Great so
I could spend half the night in the waiting room on the floor with geckos
and cockroache or on the platform where cows are eating rubbish and paper!
At 2:15 am the train was suddenly supposed to leave at 3:30 am! Even
better! While I stayed cool more or less the last 10 months I got more and
more angry about Indian Railways as at 3:30 there was no anouncement made
any longer! A lot of foreingner go to India to get a spiritual enlightment
in an ashram. My ashram was the waiting room of Varanasi where I started
shouting to myself in German at approx. 4 am because I got really upset by
that time! Yes I got my enlightment - I was VERY angry now - an emotion I
haven't had for months!!! Finally the train showed up at 4:30 am!!!

A few days later I arrived in Agra, visiting the beautiful Taj Mahal
before entering Rajasthan in West India. During the first 2 weeks of my
trip through India I couldn't decide wether I should love or hate this
country: Kids are begging as soons as I enter the road and most of the
time they are sent by their parents. I give only food to the kids they can
eat immediately cause I don't want to encourage their parents behaviour.
Indians can be very rude while boarding a bus or a train or waiting in a
queue. But on the other hand site there were some really friendly guys
helping me to find the right ticket and the correct train. The fact that I
have to bargain in India was clear to me before I have arrived but that
the agreed price rises suddenly because the cheese in the market was so
expensive today (happened sometimes in a restaurant), because it was very
hot (cycly riksha driver) or because the person decided not be happy again
(taxi driver) was just annoying. Even worse was the fact that I often got
the wrong change back!!! Every day I was contacted regularly every 5
minutes sometimes to buy postcards, to take a riksha or a boat or to visit
a shop. These people were not interested in me but only in making money.
Others were asking "What's your country, what's your name, are you
married?" and the conversation was finished. These guys were only
interested in showing others that they can 'talk' to foreigners as it is
still sometimes a great honour to talk to foreign people. But these guys
were also not interested in me but just in ther prestige! Normally I try
to be always polite to the locals as I am a guest or visitor in a country.
Being in polite in India means sometimes just being fooled because the
locals think you're a weak persons. If you want for example the toilet to
be cleaned, the sheets to be changed and you ask politely the chances of
being ignored are quite high. Treating the people in an arrogant way they
are more likely to do what you want them to do. That's really not my of
dealing with people and I had big difficulties with that.

But entering Rajasthan and the city of Jaipur my picture of India changed
somewhat. I originally planed visiting the palaces in the pink painted
city. Pink is here a symbol of hospitality and indeed the people were just
great in Jaipur. I never made it to the palaces because I chatted the
whole time with the locals who spoke a very good english and who where
really open minded. And isn't that the reason for travelling? Meeting the
locals and learning about their culture, their way of living and their way
of thinking. Visiting the sites you can do now also in the Internet but
chatting with the people especially with a very sweet, hot and milky tea
(chay) in your hand is still only possible if you do it 'offline' here
where the locals are! Therefore I loved Jaipur and the basar streets
giving me already a feeling like travelling in the Middle East!!!

Well originally I wanted to continue to Pakistan from Jaipur. But this
country is full of people having sympathies for Taliban fighter from
Afghanistan and therefore there may be some hostility against Westerners,
which could be fatal! So I decided to continue my travel southward to the
'Gateway of India' in Mumbai where I joined again the Indian Ocean, I left
3 weeks ago in Kolkata in the East of India. Now I am at the Arabian Sea
and from here I will hopefully continue my journey tonight to the north
west in order to start another adventure in another region of this
fascinating world.

As we have now the Summer on the Northern part of the globe I whish you
all nice vacations wherever you may roam:

Jessica in New Zealand, Tinna in Norway, Jennifer in Canada (NF)  or
Australia, Astrid, Terry and Monna in Canada (BC), Susannah in Hawaii,
Gail in the US (IL), Andria in Italy or the US (MA), Katia in Switzerland,
Alvaro y Roberto in Spain, Christian and Nicoline in Holland, Thersa in
the US (?), Alma in Guatemala, Patrick in Australia (VIC, Erik in Sweden,
Juana and Paula in Colombia, Matthew and Molly somewhere in S.-E. Asia,
Angeles in Chile, Patrick in France, Giles, Tom and Ann in the UK, Chris
in Thailand and Ravi in India!

Merhaba Globetrotters around the world!

Another month is over and now unfortunately also most of my long long
journey is over. 3 days ago I reached back my continent, the 'old' world,
my home EUROPE! But the month of July started with a short flight from
Mumbai to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

After travelling through India, which wasn't always easy arriving in the
UAE was quite easy! No visa was required and I didn't have to fill out
these senceless papers with your passport details and your address in the
country (which you change anyway every few days!).  Instead of waiting in
front of the immigration counters for hours you could go shopping in Dubai
Airport while you were waiting for your bagage. So it is also quite easy
in the UAE to spend a lot of money, because SHOPPING is the way of life in
this part of the world. You can do it in an A/C souk (medivial market) or
in big shopping malls, you find all over the world now. But these malls
are a bit different to the ones I used to know:

There a prayer rooms for male and female muslims, and a little Disneyland
is also integrated into the mall, where the kids and sheiks can play a
lot, and tey all love playing with cars. These malls seem to be a noahs
ark because people from all over the come to shop. Big African Moms with
their colourfull clothes, chatting Spaniards, US Soldiers who look that
time not for Saddam, Usama or Weapons but for new clothes, and ladies
totally coverd up including the eyes but also women in a tight top with
navel piercing and German tourists with Polo Shirts and a big natural 'air
bag underneath' due to excessive beer consumption!

When the sheiks are not shopping they seem to drive with their nice cars
around Dubai because this city is like Bangkok - traffic jams 24 hrs a
day, also the average 'streets' has 6 to 8 lanes! Naturally I felt a bit
like at home because it seems to be 'de rigeur' to have at least one
Mercedes, Porsche or BMW - the good cars from the country with no speed
limit on their highways. And sheiks love high speed so they can go around
the country on their dessert highway f. ex. to the Al-Ain dessert.

I took a normal bus, which was naturally equipped with A/C and the average
speed was 110 kms per hour. What a difference to Indonesia where the
average 'speed' was 20 to 30 kms per hour. This oasis was totally
different to the glamorous skyskrapers and the only 7 star hotel in the
world, you find in Dubai!
http://www.jumeirahinternational.com/baa/a_noflash.htm Although the
temperature in the shadow was more the 50 degrees centigrade (approx. 115
F) a small hike was a relaxing way of discovering the oasis, which
contains millions a palm trees. No traffic noise (I had still the blowing
horns of India in my head), came to my ears. Only the muezzin was inviting
the muslims for the midday friday prayer in the mosque and some birds were
singing. Dates in red, gold and green colours were hanging in the trees
before they were collected and ending after a typical meals as a desert
from the dessert in my stomach. Eating there was not so easy as I thought,
because the typical meal Chicken with rice (what else - gracias America
del Sur) was eaten with your hands! Have you ever tried to eat rice with
your hands? It was damn difficult to 'transport' the rice without any
'losses' to your mouth. The 'colateral dammage' was indeed very big in the
beginning as my trouser were covered with rice after the meal and ready
for laundry action!!!

After I shoped till I dropped I had to decide where to go next. The
problem in this part of the word is the fact, that nearly all countries
bordering the UAE ask visas for Germans and these stickers are not always
so easy to get. Saudi Arabia f. ex. isn't issueing visas for tourist and
as I won't do any business in that country I could only get a 'hadsch'
visa for a pilgrimage to Mekka. But as I am a christian and not a muslim,
I had no chance to get a visa so I had to join the 'axis of the evil' by
entering the Iranian island of Kish in the Persion Gulf. This island is a
visa-free entry point to Iran and nothing more than a big shopping mall
(what else?). For getting to mainland Iran however you need a visa, so I
made my pilgrimage to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the island, which
was nothing more than an apartment in a big housing area. I arrived on a
Sunday evening (Friday is the 'Sunday' in muslim countries) and the next
Morning I had my visa for entering Iran!!!

Well, what do we imagine, if we think of Iran? Perhaps we 'see' some
Mullahs with a long beard, women totally covered up, people burning the US
flag and terrorist preparing the next attack against Israel or the USA! I
think no other country on my trip surprised me like Iran! First of all the
people were just gorgeous! On my ferry ride through the Persion Gulf I was
invited by the captain to stay with the crew on the bridge, eating sweets
and fruits, trinking tea and smoking the water pipe! Other people invited
me for countless teas in theirs bazaars and markets for chatting with me
and one guy bought a complete lunch just for talking with me and improving
his french language skills!

Well, George Walker Bush calls Iran a member of the 'axis of the evil'.
But I think if his best friend is Johnny Walker than he should make a trip
to that country, as alcohol is officially not available and so George
would have a healthier life than at home. Besides he would have his
fanclub in Iran. Believe it or not, I talked to Afghan refugees in a
bazaar in Shiraz who called Bush a hero, for liberating Afghanistan from
the Taliban. Indeed the US and Iran agreed that the people of Afghanistan
must get rid of the Taliban and they were cooperating in that question
cause Iran never recognized the Taliban regime in Kabul. The fact, that
Saddam Hussein was kicked out is also welcomed by Iran, cause Saddam
started in 1980 a war against the Islamic Republic after the Shah (King)
fled from Iran and the Islamic revolution took place. Therefore Saddam was
also a big enemy of Iran and no one found the Iraq Invasion a bad thing.
However the Iranian government didn't support the war. American people
would have a great time in Iran, as their country is definetely the
favorite of Iranians. Even if the majority of Iranians don't like George
Bush very much, they like the 'American way of life' and most of the
people want to leave their country in order to go to Europe or the US.
Most people were really unsatified with their life in Iran after the
revolution took place in 1979.

But life before was under the Shah regime which was protected by America
was also not very good, cause a small number of people were damn rich and
the big majority was more or less poor. When Ajatollah Khomeini arrived
1979 in Tehran he was welcomed by millions and he was popular until his
death in 1989. Iran is not a so called develloping country. I saw no slums
and the standard of living is higher than in most of the neighbouring
countries. But the people are tired of the strict rules for daily life
which were introduced after the revolution. Alcohol was banned, and women
old than 7 must cover their hair and body if there is a chance, that a
male persons not belonging to the family can take a look at the woman.
Dancing and discos are non existing. More than half the population of Iran
is under 20 years old and there is already a high unemployment rate among
the young people, so the only chance they see in leaving the country.

Everything is a bit hypochrite in Iran. Alcohol you can get on the black
market and even the famous 'Shiraz wine' was offered to me. Internet is
widely available as CNN and satelite TV where Iranians can watch our way
of life including the 'naked truth'! The girls 'obey' the dress code by
wearing a scarf over their head but this scarf is moving more and more up
the head and you can spot their black hair most of the time. If they have
long hair, the hair is visible under the much too short scarf. Often they
wear tight Jeans instead of the usual long jacket were you can't see any
proportions of the female body. In the 2 weeks I spent in that country I
saw perhaps two or three woman totally covered up! And the Iranian girls
have quite a good reason for showing their faces and their hair, because
they are just beautiful and they are aware of it!!! But talking to the
girls is quite a bad idea, as police officers can interupt you why you're
talking to a muslim girl. Relationships between muslims and non-muslims
can be punished with the death penalty. But before we start saying: Here
you have your reason why Iran is an evil country, we should take a short
look, for which reason you get the same punishment in the US or China!

Iranian girls have on the other more freedom, than in other muslim
countries. F. ex. they can go out alone or with another girl, they can do
all the jobs except being president like their male counterparts. And they
love to go out especially into the teahouse which is a perfect place to
chill out, when it is again very very hot! The teahouses are normally
built around a courtyard and you can sit on soft carpet pillows having
strong sweet chay (tea) and smoking the water pipe while Persian music is
playing or you enjoy the sound of chatting locals and fountains in the
courtyard! Another place to chill out were the many mosques, where you can
escape the heat. The locals have their siesta in the shadows of the
courtyard and during my stay I saw perhaps 3 people with a long beard, the
long white clothes and the white cap! Iranians are not very religious
people and some of them said even "f... the mullahs!" to me and a few told
me that they miss a real good German beer! Well I enjoyed my alcohol-free
time in Iran but I knew that I will be soon in Turkey where the good Efes
beer was already waiting for me!

The stay in Iran was also a very nice one because there are very few
tourists and the locals don't rip the foreigners off. So I could even hire
a taxi for a 50 miles trip into the mountains to remote villages far away
from the big cities and the revolution. The locals were dressed in
colourfull dresses and some of them were still living in 'appartment'
being cut into the stone like the 'Flintstones family'! The city of
Esfahan was one of the nicest cities of my trip with the turquoise colours
mosques, the huge square looking like a parks, the old bridges over the
river where some teahouses were found inside and clean streets and big
palaces. The bazaars were big tunnels with cobblestone roads inside.
Unlike the bazaars in Istanbul or Dubai they were still used only by
locals and no one came crying: "Buy carpet, very cheap my friend" - an
expression I heard during my whole stay in Turkey!

After 2 weeks I left Iran and I was happy that I gave this country a
chance to change my image that I had from that country before! Arriving in
Turkey I felt already a bit like in Europe, also Istanbul was still 1000
miles away. After checking my temperature due to SARS the Turkish
immigration officers gave me a COKE as a present, cause Coca Cola is
(officially) not available in Iran and I was 'shocked' to see a woman
without scarf wearing a T-Shirt!  The first meal I paid with American
Express a thing that is as usefull as cocktail shaker in Iran! And there
was the sign "E80" meaning Europe road number 80!!! The Turkish people
drive the same cars like we in Germany and I saw now the first cars with a
German number plate!!!

Turkey welcomed me with a great scenery. There was a huge plain and the
snow coverd Mt. Ararat behind! The legend says Noah landed with his ark on
the top but I couldn't see any ship! Instead of finding the boat I found
impressive views from the surrounding hills and my first Efes Beer,
yeah!!! And the food which was in Iran most of the time not very
surprising was waiting for me! As a lot of Turkish people live in Germany
I'm used to Turkish food and I love Doener Kebap, Turkish Pizza, the very
sweet Baklava or the yoghurt like Ayran!

After spending some days in the beautiful valleys of the bizarre landscape
of Capadocia I finally arrived now in Istanbul the metropolis on two
continents! After a short ferry trip of 20 minutes I arrived back in
Europe, which I left Sept. 15 2002 from Keflavik airport in Iceland in the
north western corner of Europe! I travelled 317 days outside my continent
through America, Australia and Asia! I had 92.676 km full of adventure and
now I arrived back in the south-eastern part of Europe. Well there are
still a few Kilometers to Germany and I will let you know hopefully when I
made it back!!! I whish you all a safe travelling, chilling, working or
whatever you're just doing!!!

Guten Tag Globetrotters around the world,

while most of you are still on the road I finished my trip around our
world last week, when I arrived back safely in my hometown of Mainz,
Germany, where I started exactly 365 days and 10 hours ago.

But the month of August started in Istanbul at the south-eastern corner of
Europe, from where I could ride the train again. My first ride was the
overnight train to Veliko Tarnovo in Bulgaria. After I could at least read
the signs in Turkey again, being in Bulgaria was quite hard because they
use the cyrilic alphabet and so I was an analphabet again like during my
trip from Thailand via Myanmar, India, the Emirates to Iran. Veliko
Tarnovo is the former capital of Bulgaria and is dominated by the ruins of
a former huge castle. The old houses and narrow cobblestone road reminded
me already on Germany and altough I couldn't read anything I felt nearly
being back home again. Veliko Tarnovo is a real nice place to relax in one
of the beergardens, bistros or cheap restaurants. The days are gone, where
drinking alcohol was prohibited (Iran) or where I had to put a paper
around my can if I go out into the streets with my beer (USA). I'm back in
the real free world where I can have a beer wherever I want to have it and
no one cares how I drink it ;-)

Veliko Tarnovo gave me also the opportunity to write emails without any
„problems". Most of the time during this trip, surfing the net was a great
way to communicate with the world but that communication was sometimes
quite difficult. The least difficult problem was the keyboard, as you
could normally switch the keyboard to the „English" version. But
unfortunately Bill Gates got the idea to produce an arabic and a chinese
„Windows" version. So everything was written in Arabic (U.A.E., Iran) or
Chinese (Fiji) and I had to use my brain to know where there was normally
the function „delete", „copy", „paste" etc. Microsoft's „Windows" and
Mercedes Benz were the only products I could find in all countries around
the world. Even COKE wasn't available everywhere (not officially available
in Iran and Myanmar).

The speed of the connections was sometimes so low (India, Indonesia), that
I brought quite often a book with me to read between to 'clicks'.
Sometimes nothing happened after I 'clicked' as the connections was down.
Either the whole computer was down or more often the connection was used
for a telephone and they „forgot" that I was writing an email or the
computer disconnected itself without any reason. So most of the time I was
traveling with a disc to safe my words before trying to send them into the
world, as you could always open the disc at another computer, as the
Internet Cafés worldwide use „MS Word", but sometimes the „worst case
scenario" happened before I could safe my words, as we had another
electricity cut, but as we know that can happen even in the US, so please
no comment!

The so called Internet Café was also quite often the place for kids where
they could play 'war games' when I was just writing something about the
peaceful life in my present country. I felt then more in another war with
all the sound of guns and bombs than in peaceful Turkey, Iceland or
Romania. The biggest difficulty finding an Internet Café was in the US, as
everybody has a computer back home, so I had to go to the public libraries
getting a feeling for US bureaucracy. The worst was the library in Chicago
IL, where you could wait for 2 hours before surfing the web, but than at
least it was for free! And in the UK and Tahiti surfing the web, blew a
big hole into my budget, as it cost up to 10 US$ per hour to go online. So
I was really happy being in Bulgaria, where I could sip a vodka in that
Internet Café while writing mails to my friends!

From Veliko Tarnovo I took the train into Romania. I felt also back home
already because the train has a huge delay like in Germany where most of
the long distance trains have delays as well. But who cares? No one was
waiting for me anyway in Romania, so I had some beers in the beer garden
of the train station on a nice sunny Sunday morning with all the locals,
who even started earlier that day drinking beer, or probably they never
stoped the night before? In Romania I visited the nice medivial cities of
Brasov and Sighisoara in the famous regions of Transylvania. Even when I
visited Draculas castle, he didn't show up. So it was just the same like
last August in Scotland, where Nessie was a „no show" and Noah's Ark I
didn't see at Mt. Ararat a couple of weeks ago. After a great hike in the
Carpathian mountains with a lot of bear poo but fortunately no bears, I
went on another train ride to Hungary. At the border I got the last of
more than 40 stamps into my passport and after 35 time changes I arrived
back again in my central European time zone.

This last week of my trip I visited only friends from back home or
travellers I met during this trip. So in Vac near Budapest I stayed with
Joachim a friend of mine who has been working in Hungary for 7 years. He
went home the same day I left Hungary, so he gave me a ride to Innsbruck
in Austria. The old Mercedes was packed like in Myanmar but fortunately I
still got a „seat" in the car, so I didn't have to climb on the roof.
Arriving in Austria was a strange feeling, as the locals speak German, a
feeling I didn't have for 363 days. I had really problems starting a
conversation in German and not in English, but after a few hours I
„accepeted" my new situation. In Innsbruck I met Felix a traveller I first
met on Easter Island in the South Pacific a couple of months ago. In the
same Austrian city I later met Peter, who I met in the Malaysian Jungle,
where we both were lost for 2 nights and 3 days this May. As we still felt
a bit bad about getting lost in the nature, we started at 3 a.m. in the
morning for a sunrise hike in the Austrian Alps. This time we didn't get
lost but arrived just before sunset at the top of the mounting, enjoying
the red fire ball, called sun, moving over the surrounding peaks.

From Innsbruck I took a train to Lindau in the South of Germany. Arriving
in Germany after a whole year of travelling was quite strange, as I didn't
see the border at all, because Austria and Germany are in the so called
„Schengen" countries, where there aren't any borders any longer. So I
entered Germany and no one really cared!!! Even the currency, the Euro,
was still the same when I arrived in Germany from Austria. Therefore I
felt already during this entire year more like a European than a German.
When I met people from Holland or France I always felt meeting people from
your own country, because we have the same currency and no borders at all.
This is a real great feeling, being European and living in a region
without wars at the moment. This is especially a great thing if you take a
look on European history where there was war between our countries nearly
at all times and now we have no borders left, we can work wherever we want
to work and we even pay with the same currency.

In the famous „Black Forrest" I visited another friend of mine, who
travelled with me in 1995 from Mainz, Germany to Cape Town, South Africa
and therefore it was a long evening talking about this present trip. 2
days later I took a series of local trains down the Rhine valley in order
to arrive back in my hometown, where my sister and Jens, a friend of mine
where waiting at the train station „Mainz Süd" for me. After 101.786
Kilometer (73.309 by bus, train, boat and 28.477 by plane) I arrived after
365 days and 10 hours back in Mainz, my hometown I lived all my life,
except during the last year! I enjoy at the moment the feeling 'being back
again' and meeting my family and my friends but in the last year I met
also a lot of nice people on the road who made my trip possible and who
traveled some miles with me around this fascinating world. Therefore I
want to say „Danke Schön" (thank you in German) to:

...Peter from Mainz, Deutschland pour le bon séjour avec toi à Paris!
...Angela from Stirling, Scotland fuer die wunderbare Tour auf Bressay
Island (Shetlands) und die vielen supernetten Briefe aus den schottischen
Highlands! ...Tinna from Bergen, Norge for the travelling from time to
time with you through your Ísland! ...Regula from St. John´s NF, Canada
fuer den netten Septemberabend im Hostel! ...Astrid from Sidney BC, Canada
fuer das Hitchhiken mit Dir durch NF, den moralischen Aufbau waehrend der
Abwesenheit meiner besseren Haelfte (Rucksack) und die netten Karten, die
auf mich weltweit von Zeit zu Zeit warteten ...Therry & Monna from
Victoria BC, Canada for the most comfortable part of the whole journey
(BMW), the great Queen songs and the wonderful dinner in Rocky Harbour,
NF! ...Andreas & Thilmann from Stuttgart, Deutschland fuer Ride & Hike zum
Gros Morne Ntl. Park! ...Gail aus ChicagoIL, USA for the interesting
discussions about US & German politics and the long ride! ...Danielle from
Wageningen, Holland for the wonderful time and lots of Alexander Keith´s
in Halfifax, Nova Scotia and the funny postcards you've sent me from time
to time! ...Andria from Boston MA, USA for sharing the troubles with
Greyhound! ...Alexander from Mainz, Deutschland fuer die geile Zeit mit
Dir & Mark in Norman, OK & Dallas, TX! ...Birgit from Sidney BC, Canada
fuer die besten Burger und den kinderreichsten Abend der Tour! ...Ulrike
from Kiel, Deutschland fuer die ADAC-maessige Pannenhilfe auf Vancouver
Island! ...Gerry from Sidney BC, Canada for your wonderfull birthday party
and your trouble-causing car! ...Katia from Leysin, Suisse pour m'avoir
aidé à trouver la bonne école à Xela et les belles journées au Nord du
Méxique - bon courage por ton séjour à Baghdad! ...Alvaro & Roberto from
Madrid, España por nuestro buen viaje en México del Norte!
...Nicoline&Christian from Playa del Carmen, México for the delicious
dinner in Chihuahua and the travelling through northern Méxcio! ...Annette
aus dem Schwabenlaendle, Deutschland fuer die kurzweilige Busfahrt
Zacatecas-Guadalajara! ...Leo from Genève, Suisse pour le temps superbe à
Xela et les discussions en Allemand, Espagnol, Anglais et Français!
...Andreas from Stuttgart, Deutschland fuer Deine wunderbaren
Afrikageschichten und die vielen gemeinsam gezischten Gallos und Deine
Karte nach Bangkok!!! ...Ekke from Thueringen, Deutschland fuer die
Inspiration, die Du mir gabst, meine Broetchen vielleicht mal als
Web-Lehrer zu verdienen! ...Alma from Quetzaltenango, Guatemala por tu
paciencia con mi de apprenderme el español! ...Manolo y Patricia Vega from
Quetzaltenango, Guatemala por estar hospitalario y la comida deliciosa!
... Brina from Frankfurt, Deutschland fuer den einwoechigen Bildungsurlaub
in Sachen Haengemattenmuchachasherunterhandeln & sonstigen Preisstrategien
fuer zahlungsschwache Backpacker! ...Jaspar from Holland & Ian from
Victoria BC, Canada for the Caribbean night in Belize City! ...Karsten &
Willie from Berlin, Deutschland fuer die gemeinsame Abneigung gegenueber
"Eisern" Union Berlin - geauessert in Quirigua, Guatemala! ...Jerôme from
La-Chaux-de-Fonds, Suisse pour tes informations superbes concernant le
Panama et le Costa Rica! ...Bastien from La Rochelle, France et Marie from
Québec City, Canada pour le temps génial à El Tigre,Honduras! ...François
from San José, Costa Rica pour tes informations profondes concernant ton
Costa Rica et le Panama! ...Erik from Norjoepping, Sverige for the nice
time travelling with you through whole Costa Rica! ...Luke from Seattle,
WA USA, JJ from Phoenix, AZ USA & Claudia from Bern, Schweiz fuer die
wunderschoene Weihnachtszeit am Karibikstrand von Costa Rica! ...Steffi
from Ettlingen, Deutschland & Friends fuer das fetzige Sylvester und die
vielen "Club Colombia" in Cartagena de las Indias! ...Juana desde
Medillin, Colombia por apprenderme bailar la Salsa! ...Paula, Martha y
amigos desde Pasto, Colombia por vos hospitalidad y la buen fiesta
Carnaval de negros y blancos! ...Raquel desde Huaraz, Perú por el camino
bonito a la Laguna de Churup! ...Katrin aus Marburg, Deutschland fuer die
kurzweilige 10 Stunden Busfahrt von Lima nach Ayacucho, Perú und die
lustigen Gespraeche zusammen mit Anne & Christian in Cusco! ...Markus aus
Köln, Dtld. fuer das Vermitteln neuer Esskultur in der Atacamawueste und
Deine prima Online Südamerika Photo Collection! ...Molly and Matt from
Houston TX, USA for the extreme sleeping championship in the Salar de
Uyunia, Bolivia and your great travel updates - keep on writing please!
...Maria de los Angeles, Sol, Marcelo y amigos desde Santiago, Chile por
los buenos noches a Pucón, loscervezas, los vinos y los piscos!!! ...Fluri
aus Laax, Svizera fuer die gemeinsam erlebten Schwankungen an Bord der
Magallanes! ... Patrick de Paris, France pour les beaux jours
phantastiques en Patagonie et ton Müesli comme petit dej! ...Felix aus
Innsbruck, Österreich fuer die vielen wunderbaren Erzaehlungen aus Deinem
langen Reiseleben waehrend unseres Aufenthaltes auf Rapa Nui und in
Innsbruck! ...Wil from Santiago, Chile for supporting me with a "Newsweek"
journal for my 8 hour stay in Faaa Airport, French Polynesia after I was
told to leave the Papeete hostel! ...Lydie et Mireille de Francfort,
Allemagne pour votre grande aide concernant les billets de Papeete a
Sydney! ...Sandra aus Leipzig,Deutschland fuer die super Zeit in Suva,
Fiji mit Kino und Kaffee, Happy Hour und Hare Krishna sowie Gespraechen
von Airlines bis Zootiere! ...Karin and Phil from Sydney, Australia for
the wonderfull evening with you in the 3 Monkeys Pub in George St. Sydney!
...Giles, Tom and Ann from the UK for the great time with you, while
travelling to Uluru, NT - Australia!!! ... Andreas aus Muenchen,
Deutschland fuer die Aufklaerung ueber DS (diskrete Strukturen) und die
intensiven Diskussionen ueber Amerikas Politik im Hostel von Katherine, NT
- Australia! ...Vicki from Denmark WA, Australia for translating Bahasa
Indonesia and Tetun into English during my stay in Timor! ...Ruslan from
Brinchang, Malaysia for sending out 16 police officers in order to search
for me in the Malaysian rainforest! ...Peter aus Axams, Österreich fuer
die gemeinsame Zeit des Verschollenseins im malaysischen Dschungel und
Deine wunderbare Gastfreundschaft bei Dir zu Hause! ...Peter from
Manchester, UK for just being there, when Mainz 05 didn't make it into the
1st division! ...Chris from Cardiff, Wales for the great days and nights
in Yangon's best beer stations! ...Ravi from Jaipur, India for the nice
time and the strong CHAI I had with you in the 'pink city'! ...Peter from
Amsterdam, Holland for giving the great Peter Arnett biography in Esfahan,
Iran! ...Gregor from Hobart, TAS Australia for the funny evenings in the
Köse Pansion, Turkey! ...Marcelo from São Paulo, Brasil and Tatjana from
Ljubiljana, Slovenia for the wonderful time in Ihlara gorge and istanbul!
...Bas from Amsterdam, Holland for the great 'beer garden time' in
Sighisoara, Romania! ...Joachim aus Nieder-Olm, Deutschland für die
wunderbare Zeit mir Dir in Vac, Ungarn, Dein Sponsoring und Dein 350 km
Umwegfahren nach Innsbruck! ...Ruta und Meik aus Münstertal, Deutschland
für den schönen Aufenthalt im "Hotel Morath & Haselbach"! ... Antje und
Jens aus Mainz, Deutschland für dienette Begrüßung im potthäßlichen
Bahnhof Mainz Süd!

Perhaps some of you would like to ask me after this trip: „How was it?".
Well that is not the easiest question and I think it's not possible to
write it down in a few sentences. But anyway I think I won a bigger
tolerance about the different way peolpe are thinking, traveling and
living. We can't see everything in a black and white scheme. So in every
country for example you had nice people and for sure also bad guys who
fortunately I never met. I won't judge a person after his nationality or
his religion because what did you do to be a German, Indian or American?
So I try to kick my prejudices away and try to like or dislike a person
due to his, her character. The second point is the fact that I'm quite
relaxed now, even after a whole week back in Germany. I hope that this
will be forever, because I makes no sense to start an argument about a
fact, you can't change anyway...so wait and relax and eventually the
problem is solved anyway. But I admit, waiting a whole night in the
Varanasi train station for a delayed train was not fun and I was
definitely NOT relaxed at that moment! The 3rd point is that I'm quite
thankful, that I was born into a rich country, where you don't have to
think every Min. of your life, how to get food, water and shelter for the
next day. For sure we have also problems in our job (if we have one) in
our relationship etc. but these problems can't be life threatening. After
I've seen so many poor people I hope that I won't complain any longer
about the life in a Western society.

Concerning the environment I was shocked that a huge part of the word is
big rubbish dump.With the exception of a few countries (Central Europe,
North America, Iceland, Southern Chile, Australia, Iran, U.A.E.) the
highways and train tracks are full of rubbish and no one cares about
recycling. Dustbins are nearly unheared of and deposits for bottles are
disappearing after the introduction of plastic bottles. The absence of
rain is another point which shocked me, because I had perhaps 25 days of
rain during a whole year. So the earth is getting really drier and drier,
at least one fact which seems to be true, if we read our newspapers, watch
CNN or listen to the radio. But the media suggests that the word is a
place full of terrorists, wars and catastrophies. Fortunately I found
another world, a world of friendly people, a world of great hospitality
and people who can make the distinction between a government and the
people living under the government. The countries with the biggest
hospitality where the „evil" and „strange" countries of El Salvador,
Colombia, Myanmar and Iran, but also in the USA I met great, friendly
people who helped me a lot.

For those who believe in numbers, I can tell you some interesting
statistics: The whole trip cost me approx. 13.600 Euros or 15.000 US$,
that's an average of 37 Euros or 40 US$ per day. On 4 continents I paid in
31 currencies and crossed 44 borders with more or less big problems. Only
once I got the entry refused (Indonesia from East Timor) as I didn't have
a visa and fortunately I had to apply only for 5 visa (Australia,
Indonesia, Myanmar, India, Iran) alltogether. During my trip through 21
time zones I had to change my watch 35 times, as I was also travelling
from West to the East (i.e. California to Panama and Indonesia to
Malaysia) whereas I was mostly travelling from East to West. The northern
most point I reached on Sep. 11 2002 in Grimsey, Iceland at 66°N 18°W.
Punta Arenas in Chile was the southern most point I reached on Feb. 24
2003 at 53°S 71°W. Also I was travelling around the word, the most western
land point I reached on Mar. 06 2003 at 21°S 159°30' W on Rarotonga, Cook
Islands and the most eastern point I reached only a few days later on Mar.
09 2003 at 17°S 178°E at Suva, the capital of the Fiji Islands. The
highest point was Laguna Blance in Bolvia with an altitude of more than
5.000m. The longest bus ride with 1.875km in 28 hours began in Salt Lake
City UT, USA and ended in Vancouver BC, Canada. The longest train ride
with 1.612 km in 20 hours began in Adelaide SA, Australia and ended in
Alice Springs NT, Australia. The longest flight with 4.165 km in 6 hours
began in Easter Island, Chile and ended in Tahiti, French Polynesia. The
longest overland trips began on Sep. 17 2002 in St. John's NF, Canada and
ended after 25.537 km in Panama City, Panamá on Dec. 31 2002. The most
expensive place to stay was the Youth Hostel in Chicago IL. They charged
me 28,75 Euro (28,75 US$ that time) for a bed in a 10 person dormitory.
The cheapest paid place to stay was in Darjeeling, India. They charged me
0,95 Euro (1,05 US$) for a bed in a 3 person dorm. The cheapest ticket
cost me 0,06 Euro (0,07 US$) for the 7 km train ride from Ghom to
Darjeeling in India. The hottest place with 55°C was Al-Ain Oasis in the
United Arab Emirates, whereas the coldest place with approx 0°C was Lake
Myvatn in Iceland. I only saw a snowfall in Iceland and Patagonia, Chile
during the whole year.

So that's it from me. If you have time to visit me one day or next
Saturday, where I have a party, feel free to come to my house. I hope we
will stay in touch in the future and perhaps I will meet you in another
place on that small but great planet again!!!