Archives For June, 2008

There should be 8 monkeys. Can you spot them all?

I’ve just been invited to BrightKite. Anybody who doesn’t know this service, it’s basically a location aware Twitter. You can log your locations, see where your friends are and what they are up to. This seems to be well suited for travel blogs. I read somewhere that a future feature will include a map with your logged locations, so you could basically map your travels and then include that on your website. Sounds quite promising, but as with all of these new social networking sites, time will tell if it’s worth your time.

Anyways, I have a few invites available, if anyone is interested. Just tell me your favorite travel story and a magic email will fly into your inbox. First come, first serve, lads and lasses…

This list, which only existed in my head until now, started out with number 3 around 20 years ago and I’ve added destinations and trips to it as I found out about them. In time places moved up and down or disappeared completely as I visited them. There’s obviously many more places I want to see and things I want to do, but there’s got to be something special to make it onto my top 10…

1. Travel up the Congo River
   The Congo, in the heart of Africa, represents for me the magic I associate with that continent. Lush rainforest, genuine experiences and extremely hard travelling!
2. Drive from Capetown to Marrakesh
   When I was little my Dad always brought travel magazines like Tours back home. A lot of them dealt with off road tours through Africa, how to outfit cars, which routes to take and so on. It obviously left an impression on me.
3. Hitchhike from Munich to Beijing
   I was around 9 years old when I first thought it’d be awesome to drive all the way from my hometown to China. In time this has morphed into hitchhiking, as a cheaper, more flexible, but probably more dangerous alternative.
4. Dive and travel Antarctica
   Huge icebergs, penguins, sea lions and many more amazing animals. Just imagine what the underwater world looks like there…
5. Navigate the Mekong River
   I have crossed the Mekong many times in many countries and the idea to help navigate a boat from China all the way to Vietnam has been growing ever since.
6. Explore the Bamiyan valley in Afghanistan
   Ever since I heard about the huge Buddhas I wanted to see them for myself. Even though they have been destroyed by the Taliban regime I still want to go and explore the little caves left behind by Buddhist monks.
7. Experience the Hajj
   I am not a Muslim or very religious, but there’s something about the pilgrimage to Mecca that I find fascinating. Maybe it’s a couple of millions of people in the same place actually believing in a God. That’s got to make for a special atmosphere.
8. Live among the Orang Laut for some time
   The Orang Laut are scattered all across Southeast Asia. The name literally means ’sea people’. Their way of life, so closely connected with the ocean they live on, has always fascinated me and in a way I can identify with that.
9. Travel to the (original) Burning Man
   Nowadays there’s a few BM branches around, but I’d like to see the original in Black Rock Desert in Nevada.
10. Cross the Sahara on the back of a camel
    Just another one of my weird dreams. Call me a romantic with no sense of realism, but I think this would be a fantastic experience.

Will I ever make it to all of those places, do all of those trips? To be honest, I doubt it. There are too many variables. Some of those countries aren’t really that safe (yet), I am perpetually in a state of near bankruptcy and a couple of those trips shouldn’t really be done. That’s not the point of this list though. My wish list ,or dreams if you like, are an indication for the kind of experiences and adventures I want and seek and usually they push my limits a little bit further out. It’s my minds way of telling me that I’m ready for the next step away from my comfort zone.

It’s important to have dreams as well. Without them I might as well work on my tan on Ballerman 6. What are your travel dreams?

This image was taken on a little road trip to Glenorchy, a little sleepy town about an hours drive from Queenstown. The road ends here and you can feel it. The air smells fresh and you’re surrounded by mountains and sheer vastness…

Children are awesome. Especially when travelling in Asia. It is very rare that I pass up an opportunity to take a few snapshots of kids. Usually they follow me around and yell ‘Photo, photo, Mister!’. And all they want in return is to have a look at the little screen on the back. Then they go on telling me the news of their day, blissfully unaware that I don’t understand a word. It always makes me chuckle.

These four girls from the little village of Lamalera wanted their picture taken, but always got scared and ran off. Eventually they managed to stand still for a few seconds.

In Asia you see a lot of girls, kids themselves, looking after their younger siblings. They expertly carry them around on the hip, pick them up after they fell over and feed them rice and some fish.

These two cheeky boys in Dili wouldn’t stop talking. All I could understand was ‘photo’ once in a while. They seemed like tough little cookies. I suppose they would have to be living in one of the many refugee tent cities.

I just stumbled across a charming little blog, LL World Tour. LL or Lisa Lubin has just gotten back from a trip around the world. While browsing through her posts I noticed a comment a reader had left. Here it is:

“You are on such an awesome adventure. I plan on living vicariously through you!”

This comment tells me that LLs reader would like to travel as well, but hadn’t quite realized that herself yet. That comment was made end of 2006, so maybe she’s bumming around on a beach as I write this. I’d like to think so. You should never live vicariously through someone else. You’d miss too much of your own life. You should just live.

What do you think?

Crossing a border can be a daunting and nerve wrecking thing and that might not necessarily have something to do with those 2 kg of cocaine hidden in between your smelly socks.

I always think that customs officials are being trained to put on mean faces, to make you as uncomfortable as humanly possible. You might be getting the look, when you’re in trouble with your girlfriend, but that has nothing on your average customs guy. It’s almost like they have x-ray vision, but they use their superpower for evil and not for good.

Liked the teaser? Read more…

Can’t believe it’s already been a year for this trip. Ok, it’s been more like one year and three weeks, but no need to be petty, is there? I haven’t been up to that much over the last four to five months except working here in New Zealand, but even that has been a rich (and necessary) experience. First I thought about writing another post like my 6-month article, but then I thought, why not cut together all my little video clips and then throw a few pictures into the mix. Have fun!