of blue lights.

Hamburg is a city that has its very own, unique charm. It is after long nights out that I enjoy sitting by the harbour most, looking out for the sunrise and ships moving back and forth, forth and back. Sunrise and sunset alike fill the scenery with golden colors and warmth. That is the time when I close my eyes and see the blood red of my eye lids becoming more and more intense, listening to the ships moving back and forth, forth and back.

Yesterday, I went to the harbour and felt the solitude surrounding me as I swept away in the long views of lost lights. The blue was cold, yet warm as I felt the calm melody of our song dripping softly into my ears filling it with red waves of blue light. Nothing matters in times like these. No future, no past, not even the present and the thought itself. Only the ships move back and forth. Back and forth.

belated picture update - pt 2

The ornamentic and carvings in the temples of Angkor. It is stunning.

Sunrise, sunrise,... At the temple on top of the hill in Angkor.

On the Meking, waiting for the fresh water dolphins. If you read Lars' blog you can read the story of the "Papagaienduijkers" and you'll know what I felt like.

In the Ratanakiri province in Cambodia.

Being lazy on the lake I was musing about in an earlier post. It was so beautiful.

belated picture update.

Borneo - the diver's paradise

still on the dive trip on the beautiful island of Sipadan.

The slightly disapointing Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur

Sam, Jojo and I in Siem Reap, one night before visiting the temples of Angkor.

She is one of the cutest children i have met on this journey. Short story - I always have and still do find bus trips absolutely terrible and boring. Thus, I thought how bad it must be for this small girl in Borneo and got to the result - even worse. She was with her sister and I started making funny faces which the two enjoyed a lot and answered to me in the same manner. The bus ride passed by a lot faster and I will not forget their looks of appreciation, a look I got to know in Hong Kong. It is a look of relief, a look of sympathy and a look of astonishment. That and a little smile - how much better can looks get?

culture lost?

I certainly do think so. I feel strange in a culture that once used to be mine but has now become a blurry something that does not give me what I expect from my own culture - a feeling of being home. I live here, I love to see my friends and my family again but apart from that I feel terribly strange in this country. The time in Hong Kong and beyond has been such an intense one and coming back from this chaotic place called Asia has taken its toll on me (or better a piece of my heart from me).

As lovely as it is not to be travelling and changing positions daily brings me back to a slower life that I do not accept as it is. The independence, the anarchistic approach and lifestyle of backpackers is lost for now and I don't know when (if ever) I can be part of it again and if my approach to be free in such a pretence that travelling appears to be to me is possible.

For now I have to live and adjust in a culture that I enjoy for trivial reasons but has lost a big part of me to a different part of the world.

"Le temps le plus important c'est la première fois.
Le temps le plus important c'est la deuxième fois.
Et après ça la troisième fois et on recommence.
J'ai perdu les habitudes de ma jeunesse et je me
sent désunis et à part de ma propre histoire
et on recommence."

vietnam.

The fact I am skipping Laos is that the events since my arrival in Hanoi (yesterday) have been quite intense, considering the difference in personality of Vietnamese citizens to those of Laos and Cambodia.

I was terrified by the reports I heard from other travellers and wanted to see for myself but I got to the point where I don't want to but have to agree that communication can easily turn directions within a milly second.

It all started with the airport pick-up which was adequate. Adequate until we reached the first hotel the drivers would get a commission off. I insisted on staying in the car, knowing a cheaper place to crush. The driver tried desperately to get me out of the van by ignoring my words and telling me how cheap $12 for a room a night were. "I know, mate, but I want to go to this place I saw in my guide...it's $3 a night and that's better, innit?" Didn't work. With the time driving around the driver got really annoyed with me and that contributed to my mood. I was having a blast with some other travellers, telling him I actually got a reservation in that place, which of course wasn't true. Funny thing was: He would have only had to drop me off at that place and his suffering with us would have ended. He decided against it and we went to the next hotel of his choice. Now, I was getting a little annoyed and he was having a red head. I started teasing him a little and - none of us believed it - he went to the place I told him to go to. Got off, got a cheap room with a Finnish and a Spanish, sorry, Basque, guy and went out to get hot pot while feeling like one.

This morning I got up and went to book my trip to Sapa, in the North of Vietnam. Paying about $100 for train (back and forth), accommodation (1 night homestay with local family, 1 night hotel), food and anything else but personal expenses. We'll see how it goes.

Done.

cambodia - laos.

In fact, the rain did not change at all, so we stayed in the hostel, frustrated, bored and somewhat looking forward to our return to Phnom Penh. On the morning of our departure, we figured we had about US$11 left and still had to buy tickets and nutrition for the day. We bought tickets and thus had about US$2 left. we decided we had to keep that money for the internet cafe in Phnom Penh if we wanted to get into contact with Eddie, one of Jojo's mates from New Zealand. After 6 hours and 1000 times hungrier, we arrived in Phnom Penh and found Eddie in the hostel "Lazy Fish", beautifully situated at the lake side. We immediately bumped in our savior and had curry as our first meal of the day (which for me actually is a lie since I had a chewing gum before).

We had a couple of drinks and went out the next day and bumped into another friend of the two who was doing a world journey and (20 seconds later...) ran into Chloe as well. Gathered, we went back to the guesthouse and had a good night. The next day, Jojo and I did the same programme we had done before (Killing Fielgs, etc) and visited the S21 concentration camp which was truly gruesome, considering the methods and instruments of torture being shown in the museum. Eddie and Chloe were just as stoked and in the evening decided to go to Siem Reap, a fact that seperated them from us for a couple of days.

The following day, Jojo and I went to the north to the Mekong to see the least spectacular "must-see" in Cambodia - the endangered species of the fresh water dolphin. Lame. hey look like floating turds in the anyway brown Mekong. It would have been nice, if they would have come close to the boat but they decided to stay about 50m away which made it really hard to see them at all.

The next morning we left Kratie for the (by far) more interesting Ratanakiri province in the North East of the country. The trip there was and adventure itself. Examining the map of Cambodia in our "Lonely Planet", we had always wondered why this part of the road was dotted but not a proper line. We were about to witness the worst road I personally have ever travelled on. The bus was crammed to the max and we got shitty seats above the enigne which made the temperature increase about 30 degrees. The holes in the street and the oversensitive suspension of the bus enabled some good "jumpin-out-of-the-seat-action" and after 5 hours and several bruises later we arrived at our destination.

Ratanakiri is the purest part of Cambodia I have seen in the weeks staying in this lovely country. We went on a tour and took showers under epic waterfalls, spotted fantastic towns, lovely people and a perfectly untouched mind of Cambodia. I am always amazed how people who have literalyy nothing try to comfort you by giving you everything they have, rather than taking it themselves.

The tour finished at Yeak Laom, the most wonderful lake I ever swam in. It is perfectly round and surrounded by jungle. The water is clear blue with sight of up to 5 meters. The temperature was lovely and made the day one of the highlights on our journey which has now lasted over one month. Slowly, Jojo and I made our way to the center of the lake and started soking in the silence which was only broken by our hands touching the surface. After this expierience we decided to stay another day and to come back to this place that poses serious competition to all the beaches I have seen in Thailand or Malaysia.

After a good night of sleep we went to have breakfast with John, a Canadian we had met on the bus to Ratanakiri. We rented motorbikes and camke back to the lake, trying to do some exploring. We went to an empty Pier and started doing jumps into the lovely water. As time went by it got a little crowded (about 20 people in the water...judge yourself) and we went back to the place we had descended from, running into a group of locals that asked us to sit. The were incredibly drunk and played music on their native instruments. As Jojo got the drums, the amazement on the part of the locals lost all boundaries and soon we also were intoxicated with beer and rice wine. When one of the locals humbly asked me if I could maybe buy some more beers I was aware of the fact that we had in fact been invited to everything we had drunk so far and it felt as if I blushed slightly and immediately went to buy another crate of beer. That was the point my mind got aware of how lovely these people actually were.

Next point on our programme - Laos. We met Chloe and Ed, who had been so nice to pick up our Visas+Passports in Phnom Penh, in Stung Treng, a small village on the way to Laos. We stayed for one night, playing a lot of Chloes favorite game - La Bataille Corse. Favorite because she never looses. Le lendemain, a minivan picked us up to bring us to Don Det, one of the 1000 islands in the South of Laos. From then on theres not much to say since we travelled a lot and saw little which is about to change tomorrow, when we will eventually arrive in Vang Vieng to do some tubing on...whatever river there is. Oh yes, I almost forgot. We invented drinking poker without chips. KEY!

At the moment I am listening a lot to Kashmir and Sigur Ros. Someone made me aware of a very true quote of Nietzsche who said:

"In music the passions enjoy themselves."

Love that one.

Cambodia.

Well, we eventually escaped that sh**hole in KL and went off to the airport to catch our plane to Phnom Penh (pronounced Pnom Pen), the capital to my beloved Dead Kennedies song "Holiday in Cambodia".

As absolutely appropriately described by the Lonely Planet guide it is indeed impulsive, hectic, chaotic and repulsive. Seeing the state of this city makes me understand this is one of the poorest countries in south east Asia. We found a really nice hostel that was the complete opposite of what used to be our center of operations before. Air conditioned, two queen (or king...more appropriate) sized beds. We met Sam, a fellow friend from Hong Kong and went to get dinner on the scooter he got from his couch hopping friend Romyr. The three of us went on and got happy pizza at the river side. it truly was very happy as we realized afterwards. Romyr and his friend David came to pickus up to go to a bar where we got drinks basically for free. I took a closer look at the interior of the bar which was plastered with pictures of antic statues that were not (as usual) lacking their genitalia. Paired with the behavior of our hosts and my knowledge of such bars, I assumed we were indeed in a gay bar, which was good fun. after we had finished the bottle of vodka we went on to a bar called "The heart of Darkness", the biggest whorehouse I have ever been in. We left after an approximate time of 1 hour and got back to our hotel.

The next day we rented motorbikes and made our way to the killing fields, a sight in which the ultra communist party of Cambodia (Khmer Rouge) killed a total of 17000 people in the late 70's. Coming from Germany and having been to a concentration camp, this was the first that came to my mind. We slwoly approached a small Mausoleum, containing about 9000 skulls. After 25 minutes of walking around and seeing mass graves we left and went back to town, a ride of about 20 minutes on our motorbikes.

We then were stopped by the notorious policemen that fined us for not driving with a Cambodian drivers license. We haggled them from US$100 to 25 each. Corrupt bastards they are!

Later that day we went to a mansion that is called "Elswhere" and whose owner hosts a party every first friday of the month. It was fantastic. Chilled out vibes, a pool, nice people, relaxed atmosphere and extremely tasty passion fruit cocktails. Good evening, Good night.

The next morning we were picked up by a TukTuk, which brought us to our bus to Siem Reap. After 6 hours we eventually arrived in our hostel and went out for dinner. This city is by far the best we have experienced food wise, so far. Tasty Curries, Masalas, Soups and fresh beer. Perfect. We went out that night in the "Angkor What?" Bar and had a bucket of the vicious Mekong Whiskey too many. The hangover the next day was not pleasant at all... We met up with Sam again who had left a day early and went off to see the temples of Angkor. It was stunning. The only issue I had: I thought I lost my camera the night before. It turned out I did not but who could know that? :) It was lying safe in my backpack.

The next day we got up at 04:30 to see the sunrise and it was absolutely fantastic. Seeing the sky fade from dark blue to red, to bright red, orange and eventually showing off its round master that gives life to the world, makes the mist vanish and filled me was a moment I will not forget.

"You came to take us
All things go, all things go
To recreate us
All things grow, all things grow"

The rest of the day we experienced some other 6-7 temples before we decided that they would become less and less amazing the more we would see. Thus, we decided to call it a day at around 01:00 pm and went back to the hostel and into town to get Indian food. Our driver (which we hired for the whole day for $15) got a little pissed off in the meantime, assuming that after the temples we would pay him. Since $15 are a lot of money we were told that we hired him for the whole day. So, he got more and more pissed off and as we asked him to drive us to a swimming pool he almost started crying and got reeeeaaaally angry. Was good fun though.

The next day Jojo and me were alone again and just chilled and lay in bed, reading and watching movies. One day filled with laziness, the next one on the bus again, on our way to Sihanoukville, the place we call home at the moment. It is raining and the thought of going to the beach seems riddiculous. The rain is hard and enduring. Hopefully it'll change soon!