Imagine you’re about 4 years old. You walk down a crowded street in the city, holding your Mum’s hand. You pass someone walking on crutches, point at the person and say: “Mum, why is she walking with sticks?” If you are born in a western country your mother will likely respond along these lines: “Common […]
Unknown dangers
“You have to watch out when you go to Sumatra. Especially in the south there are really bad people” says the nice man living on Java, one island down from Sumatra. When arriving there I’m extra careful, make sure to not ride close to dark and watch the bushes for bandits jumping out. “Watch out, […]
Language of Motherly Love
It is a special and interesting experience everywhere I go, talking to older people and especially old ladies. It happened in every country on this trip through Asia. The script is similar every time. You meet, smile, greet each other according to local standards and then they start talking. Most of them in their local […]
Sumatra
It’s been a while since I simply wrote a post about being a tourist, about the places I visited and the people I met. So it’s about time I think. Sumatra is the biggest island I crossed in Indonesia. The south is full of agriculture and palm oil plantations. To save some time, so I […]
The Mancave
As a kid I spend many of my weekend days in my dads garage/workshop. At the back of the house we had a reasonably sized building my parents build themselves. Inside most of the space was taken up by the 5.6 meter long boat my dad sailed around the south of Europe with. An exciting […]
Where did you sleep?
After one month of bike travel through Indonesia it is about time I give its amazing people some credit. In these past weeks I met so many incredibly caring and loving people. Quite a few times now I had the honour of staying with a local family overnight. Without exception, these are all experiences that […]
A Kiss and a Thank You Miss
Some days ago I lost my GPS locator, it’s a little piece of equipment you can set of if you are in real danger. It can also be used to track your steps, which is why it was attached to my backpack while hitching a ride to Ramelau, the highest mountain in East Timor. In […]