Week 3

May 31, 2016 | After The Great Journey, Thoughts, Updates

I made it a little cosy for myself. Instead of the ceiling lights, my spherical lamp on the floor makes for some subdued light. My thermos stands by my side and I put on some music. Quietly, it is late already…
Rain pelts against the windows, the night is ripped apart by lighting and thunder…

My head is spinning a little. So many things I go through and so many are coming at me and many more I push tend to push into the future. From meeting with dear friends from home and those you met in New Zealand, car formalities, birthday parties, job search, technical doings on my computer and domestic duties to my beloved theatre rehearsals.

From one of those I just came home. And that was where it struck me. It has all stayed the same. Not much changes. And under this old light you seem as if you never left. You walk the more or less well known streets and into the more or less well known corners and you don’t have the urge to think about it. About the 17 months you spent abroad. About the time my family and friends, who are now around as ever, missed me.

You easily fall back into the old habits you were happy to lay off ‘over there’. It works just the same now. It works just as ever.
What is left? Is is the souvenirs you put on your shelf? Is it the pictures you safe on your hard drive? Is it the clothes you bought ‘over there’?
It is the countless memories. It is the many new contacts you never would have dreamed of taking care of one day. It is the friends you can call yours. It is the steps you had to take, towards self-reliance and self-knowledge. It is the lessons you learned for life.

And that was it all. It is behind me. It is in the room and it is my turn to make something out of it. What did I learn? What do I apply? How does this long time of my life influence my living?

You see, I have time for deeper thoughts, too…
I think therefore I am.

 

 

Homecoming

May 23, 2016 | After The Great Journey, Thoughts, Updates

I just mowed the lawn and swept in front of the house.

Every move I carried out as if I did it yesterday for the last time. Then upstairs to my room again and turn on music. My old computer is running again and in the browser I encounter a folder of bookmarks.
Here I read about travel advice, packing lists and New Zealand… Never this collection of information was less important to me than today.

Because I was there. Now I have been everywhere.
You accumulate the information, you plan, you go there, experience and…think back. That is the flow.

But before I attempt highly philosophical statements, at this point I wanted to tell you about the moments of my homecoming. To Germany. Home.

After a pleasant flight, where people talked too much German to my taste (due to the airline) and some little time waiting I took my luggage on the last way.

Before my journey was completed in the arms of my family, I took one last shot:

Before I could even grasp it all, I sat next to the as if naturally placed there grand piano, I listened to the familiar tunes of my brothers hands and held a little child in my arm.
To my surprise Vincent was part of the welcome committee alongside his parents! I just went with them all and just like that we were on the Autobahn.

My loved ones made a long before proclaimed wish come true and indeed, we made halt at a rest stop and took in some exquisit meal.

Gratinated bread rolls with mum’s guacamole. 🙂

And thus, I was home. All the known and still, all new…

Back again

May 19, 2016 | After The Great Journey, Thoughts, Updates

I have plenty of time now.

Time to settle. Time to correspond more. Time to comprehend the past 17 months. Time to see all the people again.

Time… It went by like nothing else!

Now I am sitting in paradise. Mum is cooking mind-blowing meals again, my dearly missed speakers do their job and the parts to upgrade my computer are arriving one by one.

Even with this post I have waited several days too many.
Didn’t I promise you to continue writing? Well, most of my readers can just talk to my just like that again, but I don’t want to become lazy!

That is why I use this post, to break the blogger-ice. More thorough reports about my homecoming itself and about the impressions of the days to follow will follow. For first impressions don’t cease even after a week!

In the soft pillows of the Hotel Mama you can fall into a deep sleep very quickly.
But it would be a shame to miss all the things to experience and to discover!

My journey goes on, stay tuned!

Every day is one of the past eventually…

You have come to Journey’s End

May 10, 2016 | Photos, The Great Journey, Thoughts

“Lay down your sweet and weary head.”

There once was a boy who packed his things. All those things, he believed he needed in New Zealand. Did he know what was waiting for him? Not really. He did know where he went and what were his plans there, but he didn’t know how it would work out.

In Bangkok, he packed his bag for the last time. The great burden, the treasure of goods and memories, which should arrive at home safely.

524 days it has been…

In the beginning of December 2014 he did not know, where he would be today. He didn’t know, who he would text with today. He didn’t know, for whose lives he would care today. He didn’t know, which places he would’ve called his home. He didn’t know, how the journey would change him. He didn’t know, how hard he would long to go home one day.

He didn’t know, how very satisfied he would stand at the end of his journey. At the airport in Bangkok. Having bought some coffee off his last money. The song in his head.
Soon he will be home. He will close his arms around his family. He would stay there. He will look at many things from a new perspective. He will value invitation, the food at home and his relatives and friends far more.
He will sit quietly in his nice room and ponder about the past time. He will write to his friends, tell them how happy he is to have gotten to know them.
He will realise, how wonderful and with great fortune his long journey had been blessed…

He will be able to relax. He won’t have that pressure, to experience something everyday just because you are on this trip. He will put away his belongings neatly and only take the things needed on the journeys to come. He won’t have to give away the keys to his home. He will hold his nephew tight. He will tell many people about his journey.

Some day he will have the chance to put the freshly made memories of Bangkok in line with the whole journey. He will wonder, how little he saw of this city. But the quiet before the trip home was just soothing…
He will be able look at the pictures and think back…

 

 

 

 

Now my time is up. I have seen 5 countries, some more thoroughly, some more hastily… I have lived in the most different of places. I have shot 45.000 pictures, more than 38.000 of those in New Zealand. I have won countless friends on my journey. I have told you in over 100 blog posts about my time abroad and I will continue writing. As of now, the possibly most important part of my journey begins…

“What can you see on the horizon?”

Running through the Monsoon

May 9, 2016 | Photos, The Great Journey

The second last destination of my journey, Krabi in Thailand, I reached after a long and not comfortable at all bus ride. For this place, just alike Singapore and Malaysia, I gave myself 2 days and experienced a sweet as island tour, next to some perfect rainy and thunderous weather.

To find your hostel in the dark is one thing, to find it through this deluge is another…

But let’s go from the top: So I said goodbye to Penang and Georgetown and got onto the minivan direction Thailand. Minivan is actually not the best name. Mobile jumping castle is far more fitting, given the street conditions here.
Originally, I was to go through from one end to the other using one ticket, but that only works when you don’t leave the bus. In Hat Yai behind the Thailand border we were ushered out of the bus and redistributed at the bus terminal.
The vocabulary for these situations is reduced to a single word. In my case ‘Krabi’. I was led to a counter and explained myself to the lady using only the one word, until she knew the gist of my mission.
But explaining that I had paid already didn’t make it to her heart. I had to buy another ticket. It is not much money, but less than ideal…

Well, I was off to the next jumping castle now, which was far more uncomfortable and in a worse state than the first. 12 persons and the scorching sun made for some heavy climate inside, but at least the jumpy road got the air moving a little.

The minivan reloading point in Hat Yai.

Finally having arrived in Krabi Town, I settled in my spacious room, booked the further journey and the island tour for the next day with the very friendly hostel owner and took a little walk:

The traffic lights in Krabi Town are works of art!

Tom Yam.

The next day, I went on the ‘Seven Island Sunset Tour’. But of these 7 islands, some are part of the national park and cost extra. I saved that money and was happy with it.
To the pier I was driven in a tuk-tuk. This vehicle has a driver’s cabin and a cargo area suitable for persons in the back. The very standard means of transportation here! 🙂

Out of the tuk-tuk.

This is what the boats look like we tourists are loaded onto.

We were being parted in those who would go to the national park and those who wouldn’t.
Only later I heard from the first that it was no worth the extra charge…
The day looked like this: A jolly back-and-forth from the big boat and the small boat, two times of snorkeling with reefs and exotic fishes, a visit on an island with dinner and some entertainment and later some swimming in fluorescent plankton… The latter being my favourite! So you are in the deep dark water (when the boats turn off the lights) and you make the small particles light up by moving your hand quickly. Just like in a computer game! 😀
But there are no photos of the swimming sessions… My camera is great, though not waterproof. 😉

The stars of these waters are without a doubt the straight up rising rocks…

Chicken Island.

 

 

How do stalactites exist on the outside?

 

 

The sunset was hiding behind the clouds.

A more or less professional fire show in the evening…

On the way back I found myself driving back to town with the very same people again. 7 Indonesians who saw the national park, a British girl from Japan whom I spent my day with and my humble self.
The mood was lifted to the heights after the day we had! We began, one nationality after the other, to sing songs to each other and that made for a great end of a great day…
Music is more, music connects!

 

 

The way home in the tuk-tuk.

 

 

The next day I would be collected by the bus to Bangkok at 4pm and the time until then I used to see the beach at Ao Nang.

And this is how my luggage looks, having exploded once more…

As an electronics technician, I don’t know how to decide between marvel and frown. 😀

 

 

And once more the by the locals longed for rain graced the lands.

The bus terminal in Krabi. Here, we well-paying tourists are divided into the buses like chickens.

 

 

Here’s another nice fact about bus rides in Thailand or Southeast-Asia in general: Customer orientation is an alien concept. The bus we entered in Krabi stopped about one hour later and they shouted: ‘Bangkok change bus! Bangkok change bus!’ Everyone out, take your bags and onto the next bus.
That one had green lighting (#00FF00) and had a tighter suspension than any Opel Manta! The upper floor, which I chose to sit in, that fact showed by the loud rattling, shaking and rustling of just EVERYTHING. In the end, I called off any sleeping attempt and took my acoustic pacifier into my mouth, or more like, into my ear. All hail the headphones!! 😀

Bangkok greeted me with a lying and impertinent taxi driver, which I still got a 60% rebate out of on the original fare, so that he didn’t say another word for the whole ride. To be overrun by scammers, at 6am, after a less than relaxing bus ride, should be illegal! But who cares the other day, I am home soon and can have a rest from all the struggles.

Today marks the last full day on my long journey. I will walk Bangkok a little, but all relaxed. I don’t need any more excitement…