news entries from dec 2005 to july 2007, during my first big travel (SouthEastAsiaAustraliaTravel).

18.07.2007: back in berlin: the first phase of my travelling is finished as i arrived back "home" in berlin after 1,5 years in asia and australia. although everything is still a bit strange and i have a bit of a culture shock (especially with the german unfriendlyness), the summer here is really nice and i enjoy connecting with my friends again. and my travels continue - after all i think its more a state of an open mind than actually carrying a backpack.

11.07.2007: meditation: i just finished a 11 day meditation retreat at suan mokkh and since i didn't know anything about buddhism or meditation before it was a really intense and powerful experience. it's amazing what insights, concentration and clarity of mind you can get from just watching your own breath (according to buddha its the way to enlightenment) and living in a community of 60 people in total silence. just breathe!

26.06.2007: pai: after enjoying the quietness and the views in a little hilltribe village near chiang rai for a couple of days, i am now in pai and i really like the relaxed and laid back hippie atmosphere there. no sleep last night though since there was partying until the morning hours. a lot of rain though.

18.06.2007: bangkok: i finally made my departure from australia and am in bangkok now. air travel is getting ridiculous: transport to the airports is usually overpriced. i nearly was not allowed on my flight because i did not have an onward ticket from bangkok (new thailand travel restrictions), so i had to book a dummy flight out of thailand in the last minute. then you are only allowed one lighter in your bag, you have to give away all other ones. no drinks or bottles in the plane. all gels and creams have to go in a plastic ziplock bag. fill out departure card. forgot my plastic ziplock bag. the machine could not read my passport, so i had to follow an unfriendly border police guy to a special scan area. finally in the departure area you can spend your money on overpriced shit. then it was extremely cold on the flight and you have to pay for every drink or service. not very user-friendly... i think the new border restrictions and the "war on terror" play into the hands of the airlines. the solution: no borders, no nations!

26.05.2007: whitsunday islands: spent 12 days in airley beach, the touristic gateway to the whitsdunday islands. been camping on whitehaven beach, the famous beach of the WhitsundayIslands, a 7km stretch of fine white sand - it was really nice except for the masses of tourists during the day and the masses of sandflies in the night. did a dive around the islands - unfortunately we couldn't go to the great barrier reef because of the weather conditions. and my time here in australia is counted, i have only a few weeks left.

31.04.2007: fraser island: just came back from trekking on FraserIsland which is the most beautiful place i have ever seen!!! i'm lacking superlatives (and fotos), but just imagine the biggest sand island of the world with cystall-blue lakes surrounded by white sand, eucalypt-trees, rainforest and huge sand dunes. a red coloured little river creates red and brown stained patterns in the endless sandy swamp ending in a honey coloured lake... amazing! the week before i have been in the BlackDownTableLand national park where we explored really beautiful sandstone gorges and camped out in the wild.

21.03.2007: passport troubles: my passport got stolen and the fucking austrian embassy only issues "emergency" passports with a validity of 6 month. instead of helping their citizens to continue their journey, their approach to a stolen passport is to get the owner back home as soon as possible, where you are supposed to pick up a new "real" passport. austrians are obviously package tourists rather than travellers by law. fucking austria! this means i have to return to berlin within the next 6 month. because of this and the fact that most south east asian countries require a passport which is valid for more than six month i decided to stay in australia. well, actually i decided that because i like it here too... i travelled down AustraliaEastCoast and am in SydNey currently.

22.02.2007: earthfreq festival: back on the GoldCoast i went to EarthFreq, a smaller psytrance festival - camping and partying with a couple of friends is much more fun than going alone...

14.02.2007: working in shepparton: one week of picking pears in mooroopna, near SheppArton, i earned 900 australian dollars. the work is hard though, the living conditions were quite basic and the weather extremely cold in the night and very hot during the day. and i can't see pears any more.

02.02.2007: rainbow serpent festival: after spending about 3 weeks on the GoldCoast i hitchhiked down to melbourne for the RainbowSerpent psytrance festival and had another great party there. now i am in melbourne and i think it's getting time to find some work.

jan 2007: gold coast: i had a really great time on the GoldCoast (south of brisbane) meeting very nice and special people and enjoying some of the best parties of my life, namely the "superfreak" psytrance outdoor festival and my first dress-up party themed "too hot to handle". i don't know why i disliked dress-up parties before...

04.01.2007: woodford folk festival: back and recovered from the WoodFord folk festival. i had an amazing time there, met a lot of great people and discovered that there is really good analog music as well...

25.12.2006: brisbane: just arrived in brisbane. the streets are empty (and clean!) and it's raining... not exactly what i expected from summer in australia.

22.12.2006: gili tarawangan: well, bali was enough after two days, so i decided to go to the best place i found in indonesia so far: GiliTarawangan and if it's only for one day. it was definetly worth it!

21.12.2006: back in bali: i'm very glad to finally have got out of papua and relax in BaLi again for a few days, before i will head to brisbane, australia on the 25th.

15.12.2006: yali trek: returned from my YaliTrek to angguruk and kosarek with malaria. while the trekking itself was very interesting and beautiful, it was a bit unlucky: my first guide was a lazy and dishonest bastard (IDontLikeGuides), my shoes broken and slippery and finally, after 10 days of walking, i got malaria in a small village at the end of the world with little more than an airstrip. no doctor, no shops and no scheduled flight until after december and me too sick to walk back for a week! after 5 days of beeing stuck, we could luckily radio with an american pilot of the MAF (Mission Aviation Fellowship) who picked me up and brought me back to civilization (if you want to call WameNa that). i was also a bit disappointed by the fact that the traditional lifestyle is already disappearing: most people already wear clothes, and it seems there is no place on earth free of instant noodles (SuperMie)! also it's quite annoying that the people requested money for every little thing they do (like letting you take fotos).

30.11.2006: wamena: after spending a week around JayaPura and about a week in manokwari and the biak island, (and letting my good old camera be stolen on the way, sniff, so no fotos) i am finally trying to get away from civilization in the baliem valley. currently, in WameNa, however there is an internet uplink better than what i had in a long time and an amazing number of cars driving around, considered that everything here had to be brought in by plane. still a lot of indonesians are around, dominating all businesses. however, there are a few naked old men with only a penis-gourd walking around, which ask money for taking pictures, and some traditional/touristic villages. i'm currently negotiating hard to get those guides down to a feasible price for a longer trek to a more remote and authentic tribal culture.

07.11.2006: papua: finally i am in JayaPura, WestPapua - the declared destination of my trip! it's very expensive, but quite exciting and the papuan people are very different from the indonesians, so i'm also glad to have a break from the indonesian mono-culture. the weeks before i spent on the magical island halmahera, in a village called GaLela.

21.10.2006: ternate: climbed the vulcano "gamalama" which is the island of TerNate today. it's a perfect vulcano as one would imagine one, conical, with a crater in the middle and sulfur smoke coming up from there. very exciting but unfortunately a bit cloudy so the view was not as great as it could get.

11.10.2006: ambon: time is running fast here, since it takes weeks until the next boat arrives and "soon" is measured in terms of days. just arrived in AmBon from the beautiful BandaIslands.

29.09.2006: kai islands, indonesia: after the most ridiculous boat-ride of my life i arrived today in tual on the KaiIslands. i thought i would have to travel for 2 days but it turned out to be a one week travel on the most crowded and overloaded boat i've ever seen, the PerintisAbadi. well - at least i saw a cangarooh on the way and made friends with the crew. before i have chilled out once again in PulauAlor, Kepa kecil.

02.09.2006: dili, east-timor: i'm currently in EastTimor, in dili, basically on a visa-run for IndoNesia. but EastTimor is quite interresting as well. despite the current stituation - east-east-timorese and west-east-timorese fighting now against each other - ahhh - it's safe for travellers, so no worries...

25.08.2006: rote: spent a few days (too few!) on the beautiful island of RoTe, the most south you can get in indonesia

19.08.2006: kupang: arrived in Kupang, WestTimor today. had a great time in FloRes before, because i got invited by some nice people to their villages and families.

04.08.2006: left gili: after another week of extreme chilling on GiliTarawangan, i am finally on the road again: heading to FloRes with the nightbus today.

26.07.2006: blog style: to make my page more blog style i moved the news up and i will write an entry here everytime i make an addition. currently i am in lombok, indonesia and just came back from an awesome mountain trek to GunungRinjani (also check out the pictures of the eruption in 1994 GunungRinjaniEruption). i'll chill out more on GiliTarawangan in the next days. before i have been to BaLi.

28.06.2006: still travelling: yeah, it works quite well to upload my pictures to my wiki, instead of sending them as attachements it also alows me to add some comments. currently in KualaLumpur, heading to BaLi today.

16.11.2005: travelling: well, i have not put up so much stuff in the last month as i expected maybe i'll use this page for something like a travel diary - i'm heading to bangkok (one way) at the beginning of december.