Challenges
It is travelling time again. After three days in Mission Beach I am on my way again, destination: Magentic Island. At the bus terminal in Mission Beach I start to read my new book, a simple fictious story that I exchanged for a new classic photography book that simply got too heavy (I was subbing a bit when I turned it in at the book exchange but surprisingly I am doing ok without it). I am worried about the Greyhound arrival time thus ask the guy next to me. We start chatting and as it turns out that he is German as well (there are supposed to be 40.000 Germans currently travelling in Australia, so please everyone with a German passport stay at home where you are if you want to escape your neighbours, because they are most probably travelling here!). Matthias and I get into this really, really interesting conversation: as it turns out, he is studying engineering for aviation and space, and I got many questions for him, starting off with some quality-related, in order to understand better the security of aviation turbines. However the whole talk gets really SPACY as I ask him THE question: what in his opinion are the remaining challenges in discovering the universe? He gives me many things to think about: nations work together easily and voluntarily in space discovery projects, simply because of the need to get enough money together. Western nations cooperate with China, oversimplifying like: let's ask China as we are still missing some millions! This kind of projects are up to the politicians' interest to invest state money in, Obama has in the first days of his precidency declared that he wouldn't be much interested into space discovery, his priorities were others. This dependancy on great amount of money and politicans' interest is making space engineers work really hard, as you can hardly expect any big discoveries in one precidency (5-7 years). But it seems so worthwhile: apparently the Venus had undergone some climate change, today no life there is possible any more as it is too hot on the surface, and I am asking myself as I am experiencing the burning sun, can we learn from it? I think we must learn from it, we have come way too far already! We are talking and talking, and he tells me that for him the biggest challenge is to find out about where life was and is possible on the various planets. I am throwing question after question at him, the bus arrives when he starts to explain me the DNA and gene thing, how far did we get trying to understand the whole evolution, I guess! As this time the Greyhound driver is a really strict one, he makes us seat at our seats and I don't get to understand any more DNA and genes. Never mind, probably not supposed to be at this stage. I could probably look it up in Wikipedia, but isn't it much more interesting and fun to hear it from some human and understand a bit more about your next person's life?
Royal Ride
I enjoy the ferry ride as much as I did the water taxi to Dunk Island. It is a bigger boat but nevertheless any time that I get to go on an island, I get this Elba-feeling that just makes me happy! I can already feel the peace and calmness of Magnetic island from the ferry. It is just a 25 minutes trip, I get together all my luggage, today it is bloody hot and I am already sweating just looking at what I need to carry.
Renee, the lady that I talked to when making my reservation at the Arcadia Beach Guest House told me to look after a green bus with their name on it. I rest a bit in the sun, to dry the swet, and here we go, next surprise to wait for me! Renee's fiance arrives, but it is not a green bus, but a green Rolls Royce! A fairly old one, the motor sounds like a tractor, but he moves and carries us to our destination. The seats are covered with white fur, and I start to feel like an African princess. Renee's fiancee is so helpful and nice, that I can hardly believe how lucky I am to have found this place. The room is cosy, clean and light, the wooden floor must be cherry wood and shines. I am in the room with three boys, and actually I can hardly see the beautiful floor as I walk in! I have to promise to show off my German mentality with the boys and make them clean (which I forget about as I simply don't care so much as they respect the space around my bed.
Magnetic stone therapy
I am heading towards the beach at Arcadia bay. It is a lovely setting, there is just one family with kids on the beach playing with their dog (too romantic to be realistic), and I am walking towards the north. Renee had told me that there is a place at the end of the beach where you could watch wallabies at the sunset. I walk and walk and walk and suddenly there is a small animal crossing my way. As much as a nature expert that I am, I think that they are kangaroos, but seem a bit small to me. I continue my way, and encounter more and more of them, until it dawns to me: they are not kangaroos, but the famous wallabies! I am all alone with them, they make funny noises as the young ones fight amongst each other. There is even a mother that carries his small one in her "bag"'. It's a very peaceful atmosphere, I just sit down, trying to make some portraits of them. At some point, as other human beings join me, I continue the way, down to the stony part of the walk that turns out to be really spectacular!
Magnetic Island is actually famous for the stone formations, that you can see mostly at the beaches. Massive stones and rocks (not sure what the difference is, but it's all out there!), it looks like someone has simply droped them as beach decoration, most of them round, but some of them strangely squared. I sit on one of them and get a wonderful, relaxing hot stone massage for free! The stones are so hot, heated up from the sun, a wonderful natural storage of energy that smoothes my headache. The sun sets in a few minutes, it is too fast for me, I could enjoy it for much longer! Magnetic Island is the first really strong energetic place that I visit as I feel now sitting on the rocks.
Island exploration
There is so much wildlife here to explore for me, and it all comes step by step and mostly in a surprising way. My German roommate (very shy as I turn up in the room) tells me that the strange bird sounds that we hear from the street must be parrots. Next morning I am standing at the bus stop and looking at the trees. No parrots. I get off at Horseshoe Bay and take a relaxing swim in the stinger net (how sexy this is, again as it is stinger season, I am not taking the risk of a swim in the open ocean, noone else does). I decide to go for a walk after I had my first mango smoothie at the Noodies. It is actually a very steep walk up the hill, there is a couple in front of me and an Australian behind me. The Australian is not very sympathetic to me and I let me overtake me. He starts talking with the couple, and again I can hardly understand this. But I do understand that he tries to show off with the girl with his (honestly very poor) Italian. I decide to walk with them to the Nudist Beach as I am not up to a lonely walk to the other bay. I am happy to bond a bit with the couple and forget about the guy that I did not like at all. Sometimes anxiety comes back to me, and probably it is just protecting me.
Heading back to the Horseshoe bay before crossing the last creek, there is a guy greeting us smiling from the other side of the creek, and surprise surprise it is: Owen! I am happy to meet a known, trustful person on this whole wide bay and we exchange details. He tells me about Getrud that he met and is at the same hostel as he is. I am almost too sure to meet them again, without fixing up something concrete with Owen.
Driving back, heading home towards Arcadia Bay I decide to go further up to the very last stop of the bus line, which was a wise decision. I get off the bus at Picnic bay at sunset, and it is another beautiful setting: in the far the lights of the Townsville coast, a jetty just in front of us with some young locals trying to catch some fish for the weekend barbecue. There is family that was with me on the bus that is out for a swim, again the whole scenery almost too beautiful to be realistic. I have a fish burger and head home for a good night sleep.
12/19/2010
12/15/2010
Mission Beach (Dec 5 - Dec 9)
My Mission in Mission Beach
It is my first ride on the Greyhound and the driver sticks a tag on my bags which says: Mission. So I'm on a Mission out here, it is just a two hour drive out to this place that is supposed to have a beautiful beach. The landscape doesn't change much as we go along and something dawns me: this will be the same landscape for long...We arrive and something else dawns me: there are "lost" places in this country, towns built in landscape that doesn't see to end. Where early-settlers must have decided to because they found something good, something worthwhile for staying. My theory is that here it must have been the beach.
As I am not the beach beach person, I will stay 3 nights. The hostel buses already wait for us, and I get to stay in my second hostel which is Scotty's, recommended by Brian and his fiancee, the Irish couple that I was with on Uncle Brian's tour
Cherrie (Darling)
This time I decided for a bit more luxurious option: a female dormitory of 4 with a private bathroom. What a peaceful place I have found! I go into the room and a woman jumps out of the bathroom: Cherrie. I don't understand what she is saying, but in general I have difficulty understanding locals, and obviously also Kiwis! Cherrie (pronounced rather "Jerry" and this way reminds me less of the French "Darling") is an 50 year old lady, recently divorced. She has two children, a daughter and a sun. Her daughter recently moved up to Mission Beach, she is a reporter, and whilst I am staying there, she got a big story about an Albino on the front page of the Cairns New Post which went around the world. Cherrie is afraid of all the wild creatures out there, and she laughs at me when she hears me screaming when I got 'attacked' by one of these big beatles outside our porch that sticks to my knee. She has a big torch (I thought it belongs to the room, picked it up and said "Wow, they are equipped!"), to lighten the way up when she comes home at night from her daugther's house. Cherrie is painting, she brought up all ther painting gear and shows me some of the painting that she has done at Mission Beach. She does these kind of naive paintings of wildlife, I like it, and she has done one painting of her daughter's boyfriend with his guitar.
I got into a really peaceful place at Scotty's and I take advantage of it doing some couching at the porch. A cat is giving me good company as I continue to plan the next stops of my trip. We are just interrupted by some beatle falling of the roof, but the cat resolves the problem. Haven't seen in my life any beatles as big as those! And the fly!
Cherrie and me get to bed at the same time and we start talking. She tells me about her divorce, and about the last relationships she had. She basically escaped to Australia from her last relationship, her daughter told her to stay with her. As Cherrie put it, it was an abusive relationship, the man was very extreme in his emotions, up and down all the time. She got married when she was 18, had her children, and as she put it: there was no other option in your life, that was what you were supposed to do. Now she is thinking of going to university and then do social work. Her daughter told her not to, and just to work something to enjoy her life, so she is a bit unsure about it. She is sharing some deep thoughts with me, and I appreciate her openness and honesty. She tells that she is now just learning how to behave when to date men, she never really learned that. Cherrie tells me: You never change another person, you can only change yourself. I always felt that this is true, but the second part of the sentence particularly strikes me, not sure why it comes so strong towards me, but I must be thinking in the difficult situations I had in the past and how I resolved them.
My own Rainforest
After a day of cycling (how could you think of renting a bike and cycle in the morning? Never do that, it kills you in the sun out there!) and beaching (I was lucky to have the company of a talkative French young lady), I ddecided to spend another day at Scotty's and go out to Dunk Island. The water taxi is more than worth the money, it is a fairly small boat with two strong engines and a funny elderly captain who enjoys taking out all the young ladies to the island. It's a great ride, the top of the boat is high up and I'd love to spend the day riding that boat up and back the island. But my mission is another one: the walk up the highest mountain on the island (271m) inside the rainforest. But first I need to collect some (some..kilos!) of shells and coral pieces that I find on the beach..I can't help it! When I see shells, I am forgetting the world around me and start to collect! And how happy I am to find the smallest and tiniest in the world. I find some new ones, that I've never seen before and so jumps my collector's heart. However after an hour it's time to do the walk. I have secured myself three times that there are no deadly animals on the island, no crocodiles, no deadly snakes, and I start my walk alone by myself.
I need to be honest with you: the way up I was pretty scarred. Most of all to run into a spider net, and have a spider sitting on my nose. It seemed that I was the first person doing the walk in the morning. Actually I did run into some not yet finished spider net that suddenly appeared in front of my eyes! Wow, I got scared, but no spider around...I get to see some beautiful butterflies, brightest blue and orange, big, never seen before in my life! Some animals cross my way: type of a hen, a bit bigger, with black feathers and a red neck. They are digging the earth searching for food. As they hear me approaching they run away. But it leaves me with this feeling of having seens something extraordinary. At a certain point I get overtaken by a couple, that speed up the hill. I try to hold their speed, but I cannot. I tell myself that it is due to my backpack being that heavy (all the photo equipment and water and fruits and 1l of suntan lotion and bikini and towls...I need to be prepared for every case). Suddenly I get out of the rainforest to a little terrace with a stunning view of the island's beaches. The couple is already there, telling me that they have done this walk already three times, mmmhhh so there is hope for me! I get again attacked by an unknown insect, he doesn't care about me insect repellent, but my defenses are successfull (throwing around the arms wildly) and he gets off me.
After that battle, the way back is just the best: the couple is probably already down eating lunch as I start my way down. I can enjoy it much more as I've already discovered and understood that there are no real dangers in here. I often stop to simply hear the sound of the forest, and realize that it is truly like on one of these relaxation CD's, only that it is real! It really moves me, it is a beautiful sound: a mix of birds, leaves falling, cracking, a smell of humid earth that makes me think that this is a living system in constant move: growing and at the same time recycling. I am happy as I reach the beach again and deeply relaxed.
News
As I get back into the hostel, Cherrie awaits me with some news that she spits out: she has decided today to fly back for Christmas to New Zealand. She tells me that she is tired of the crawling animals, and that it has been enough time for her here and that she is ready to go back. She has decided to start studying and she feels that it is the right thing to do. I am happy for her, she has cleared up her clouds and seems eager to head back home. She urges me to come visiting New Zealand, which I give and will give some thoughts. So good-bye to Cherrie, I give her my email address and ask her to write me as I really want to know how her life continues.
Surprise
As I sit again on the couch on the porch, there is another surprise waiting for me: I see Getrud with a guy sitting around chatting. I haven't told you about Getrud yet, so I need to now. I met Getrud during the Tropic Days in Cairns. I heard about her at the reception, Phil was talking about her, telling me that there was this elderly lady, Austrian, travelling by herself not speaking a word of English! I got curious about her, finding that very very courageous. As I met her, she instantly impressed me with her beautiful open smile and look and we started to chat. She tells me her story, which is this: her five children had given her as a birthday present this trip to Australia and New Zealand, and she tells me her sons were convinced that she would be going on the trip, whereas her daughters were a bit unsure. She still wonders and doesn't realize that she is in Australia, so far away from home. We decide to do a guided tour together, as I tell her that I am really interested in the Aborigines, and she as well. Unfortunately the tour was booked and the guy then on holidays, so it didn't work out. The day that I left Cairns, we had breakfast together, and that's when she got very emotional and telling me about her husband and that he died three years ago. Her children actually gave her the trip as a present so that she would leave behind the grooming and think about something different. She cried and told me that she spent 16 years taking care of her husband like in intensive care as he had a brain stroke. I get really touched by this, for her, for her story, and I think closed her into my heart.
So when I saw her on the porch at Scotty's, I was really happy to have found her back, somehow we hadn't talked about which way we both would be going. We had dinner together, and once we get back we have a long chat on the porch. A thunderstorm is coming down, it heavily rains but it is a beautiful setting and we are safe on the porch (besides the falling beatles). At a certain point there is a guy with a backpack walking by, and it turns out to be Owen! Anouther encounter from the Tropic Days in Cairns, an English guy that was working there for accomodation.
Owen's deep thoughts
Getrud is going to bed, and I sit there with Owen watching some guys and girls in the pool playing volleyball. Our chat starts as an innocent chat, but suddenly takes a surprise turn as Owen starts to talk about himself. I am surprised, he gets into kind of a blue mood, and about his social inadaptness. I think that it is so strange about which people you meet and what they tell you at a certain stage. Cherrie, Getrud, and now him. What do they have to tell me and what is in it for me? I remember a conversation at Elba back in October this year, when we discussed about sharing experiences and that we are at different stages in our life, one more ahead than the other and that we can help each other sharing our experiences. That's how I felt with Owen, I exactly knew what he was talking about, I had been like this in the past and even feel it myself sometimes, that I would like to mingle up with certain people that I feel apart from. But life always teaches me some different: that mingling up with persons like Getrud or Cherrie or Owen gives me much more than mingling up with girls and boys in the pool. I tell Owen that, hoping that it would cheer up his mind, but also that if he thinks that he truly does want to stay with these people, he should simply take the risk and jump into it! He said something wise which was good for me to hear as well: sometimes he believes that these people do good, they are not thinking too much! Thank you, Owen, for reminding me about this.
It is my first ride on the Greyhound and the driver sticks a tag on my bags which says: Mission. So I'm on a Mission out here, it is just a two hour drive out to this place that is supposed to have a beautiful beach. The landscape doesn't change much as we go along and something dawns me: this will be the same landscape for long...We arrive and something else dawns me: there are "lost" places in this country, towns built in landscape that doesn't see to end. Where early-settlers must have decided to because they found something good, something worthwhile for staying. My theory is that here it must have been the beach.
As I am not the beach beach person, I will stay 3 nights. The hostel buses already wait for us, and I get to stay in my second hostel which is Scotty's, recommended by Brian and his fiancee, the Irish couple that I was with on Uncle Brian's tour
Cherrie (Darling)
This time I decided for a bit more luxurious option: a female dormitory of 4 with a private bathroom. What a peaceful place I have found! I go into the room and a woman jumps out of the bathroom: Cherrie. I don't understand what she is saying, but in general I have difficulty understanding locals, and obviously also Kiwis! Cherrie (pronounced rather "Jerry" and this way reminds me less of the French "Darling") is an 50 year old lady, recently divorced. She has two children, a daughter and a sun. Her daughter recently moved up to Mission Beach, she is a reporter, and whilst I am staying there, she got a big story about an Albino on the front page of the Cairns New Post which went around the world. Cherrie is afraid of all the wild creatures out there, and she laughs at me when she hears me screaming when I got 'attacked' by one of these big beatles outside our porch that sticks to my knee. She has a big torch (I thought it belongs to the room, picked it up and said "Wow, they are equipped!"), to lighten the way up when she comes home at night from her daugther's house. Cherrie is painting, she brought up all ther painting gear and shows me some of the painting that she has done at Mission Beach. She does these kind of naive paintings of wildlife, I like it, and she has done one painting of her daughter's boyfriend with his guitar.
I got into a really peaceful place at Scotty's and I take advantage of it doing some couching at the porch. A cat is giving me good company as I continue to plan the next stops of my trip. We are just interrupted by some beatle falling of the roof, but the cat resolves the problem. Haven't seen in my life any beatles as big as those! And the fly!
Cherrie and me get to bed at the same time and we start talking. She tells me about her divorce, and about the last relationships she had. She basically escaped to Australia from her last relationship, her daughter told her to stay with her. As Cherrie put it, it was an abusive relationship, the man was very extreme in his emotions, up and down all the time. She got married when she was 18, had her children, and as she put it: there was no other option in your life, that was what you were supposed to do. Now she is thinking of going to university and then do social work. Her daughter told her not to, and just to work something to enjoy her life, so she is a bit unsure about it. She is sharing some deep thoughts with me, and I appreciate her openness and honesty. She tells that she is now just learning how to behave when to date men, she never really learned that. Cherrie tells me: You never change another person, you can only change yourself. I always felt that this is true, but the second part of the sentence particularly strikes me, not sure why it comes so strong towards me, but I must be thinking in the difficult situations I had in the past and how I resolved them.
My own Rainforest
After a day of cycling (how could you think of renting a bike and cycle in the morning? Never do that, it kills you in the sun out there!) and beaching (I was lucky to have the company of a talkative French young lady), I ddecided to spend another day at Scotty's and go out to Dunk Island. The water taxi is more than worth the money, it is a fairly small boat with two strong engines and a funny elderly captain who enjoys taking out all the young ladies to the island. It's a great ride, the top of the boat is high up and I'd love to spend the day riding that boat up and back the island. But my mission is another one: the walk up the highest mountain on the island (271m) inside the rainforest. But first I need to collect some (some..kilos!) of shells and coral pieces that I find on the beach..I can't help it! When I see shells, I am forgetting the world around me and start to collect! And how happy I am to find the smallest and tiniest in the world. I find some new ones, that I've never seen before and so jumps my collector's heart. However after an hour it's time to do the walk. I have secured myself three times that there are no deadly animals on the island, no crocodiles, no deadly snakes, and I start my walk alone by myself.
I need to be honest with you: the way up I was pretty scarred. Most of all to run into a spider net, and have a spider sitting on my nose. It seemed that I was the first person doing the walk in the morning. Actually I did run into some not yet finished spider net that suddenly appeared in front of my eyes! Wow, I got scared, but no spider around...I get to see some beautiful butterflies, brightest blue and orange, big, never seen before in my life! Some animals cross my way: type of a hen, a bit bigger, with black feathers and a red neck. They are digging the earth searching for food. As they hear me approaching they run away. But it leaves me with this feeling of having seens something extraordinary. At a certain point I get overtaken by a couple, that speed up the hill. I try to hold their speed, but I cannot. I tell myself that it is due to my backpack being that heavy (all the photo equipment and water and fruits and 1l of suntan lotion and bikini and towls...I need to be prepared for every case). Suddenly I get out of the rainforest to a little terrace with a stunning view of the island's beaches. The couple is already there, telling me that they have done this walk already three times, mmmhhh so there is hope for me! I get again attacked by an unknown insect, he doesn't care about me insect repellent, but my defenses are successfull (throwing around the arms wildly) and he gets off me.
After that battle, the way back is just the best: the couple is probably already down eating lunch as I start my way down. I can enjoy it much more as I've already discovered and understood that there are no real dangers in here. I often stop to simply hear the sound of the forest, and realize that it is truly like on one of these relaxation CD's, only that it is real! It really moves me, it is a beautiful sound: a mix of birds, leaves falling, cracking, a smell of humid earth that makes me think that this is a living system in constant move: growing and at the same time recycling. I am happy as I reach the beach again and deeply relaxed.
News
As I get back into the hostel, Cherrie awaits me with some news that she spits out: she has decided today to fly back for Christmas to New Zealand. She tells me that she is tired of the crawling animals, and that it has been enough time for her here and that she is ready to go back. She has decided to start studying and she feels that it is the right thing to do. I am happy for her, she has cleared up her clouds and seems eager to head back home. She urges me to come visiting New Zealand, which I give and will give some thoughts. So good-bye to Cherrie, I give her my email address and ask her to write me as I really want to know how her life continues.
Surprise
As I sit again on the couch on the porch, there is another surprise waiting for me: I see Getrud with a guy sitting around chatting. I haven't told you about Getrud yet, so I need to now. I met Getrud during the Tropic Days in Cairns. I heard about her at the reception, Phil was talking about her, telling me that there was this elderly lady, Austrian, travelling by herself not speaking a word of English! I got curious about her, finding that very very courageous. As I met her, she instantly impressed me with her beautiful open smile and look and we started to chat. She tells me her story, which is this: her five children had given her as a birthday present this trip to Australia and New Zealand, and she tells me her sons were convinced that she would be going on the trip, whereas her daughters were a bit unsure. She still wonders and doesn't realize that she is in Australia, so far away from home. We decide to do a guided tour together, as I tell her that I am really interested in the Aborigines, and she as well. Unfortunately the tour was booked and the guy then on holidays, so it didn't work out. The day that I left Cairns, we had breakfast together, and that's when she got very emotional and telling me about her husband and that he died three years ago. Her children actually gave her the trip as a present so that she would leave behind the grooming and think about something different. She cried and told me that she spent 16 years taking care of her husband like in intensive care as he had a brain stroke. I get really touched by this, for her, for her story, and I think closed her into my heart.
So when I saw her on the porch at Scotty's, I was really happy to have found her back, somehow we hadn't talked about which way we both would be going. We had dinner together, and once we get back we have a long chat on the porch. A thunderstorm is coming down, it heavily rains but it is a beautiful setting and we are safe on the porch (besides the falling beatles). At a certain point there is a guy with a backpack walking by, and it turns out to be Owen! Anouther encounter from the Tropic Days in Cairns, an English guy that was working there for accomodation.
Owen's deep thoughts
Getrud is going to bed, and I sit there with Owen watching some guys and girls in the pool playing volleyball. Our chat starts as an innocent chat, but suddenly takes a surprise turn as Owen starts to talk about himself. I am surprised, he gets into kind of a blue mood, and about his social inadaptness. I think that it is so strange about which people you meet and what they tell you at a certain stage. Cherrie, Getrud, and now him. What do they have to tell me and what is in it for me? I remember a conversation at Elba back in October this year, when we discussed about sharing experiences and that we are at different stages in our life, one more ahead than the other and that we can help each other sharing our experiences. That's how I felt with Owen, I exactly knew what he was talking about, I had been like this in the past and even feel it myself sometimes, that I would like to mingle up with certain people that I feel apart from. But life always teaches me some different: that mingling up with persons like Getrud or Cherrie or Owen gives me much more than mingling up with girls and boys in the pool. I tell Owen that, hoping that it would cheer up his mind, but also that if he thinks that he truly does want to stay with these people, he should simply take the risk and jump into it! He said something wise which was good for me to hear as well: sometimes he believes that these people do good, they are not thinking too much! Thank you, Owen, for reminding me about this.
12/14/2010
Cairns: Great Barrier Reef & Rainforest (Nov30 - Dec5)
Tropic Days
Here I am in Australia, in Cairns, up North on the East coast. The pick-up at the Cairns' Airport is late, thus I get a first breeze of the Australian air and sun: it's hot and humid and burning! I am lucky with the choice of my hostel: Tropic Days (the name is a program...) and my flatmates. I make friends with another German girl and an Irish young lady on career break, Corinna and Catherina are good company in these days that we explore the surroundings of Cairns on a scooter and get out to the Great Barrier Reef! Hostel life is pretty unusual to me, people getting into the room and out without greeting, leaving just after one night. I am pretty surprised by the tourist business going on in this place and feel totally overwhelmed by the offer of guided tours that one can do: Rainforest, Tablelands, Aborigines culture centre, Great barrier reef sailing and diving tours...and hundreds of more that I don' even remember. After a deep breath and a good night sleep - actually the long talks with Eva and John left me very tired - I decide to do two toors: Passions of Paradise (mmmmhh...a Katamaran tour out to two sites in the reef) and Uncle Brian (which I will tell you more about later on).
Fish-ing in the Reef
Passions of Paradise is a tour in a humongous catamaran, with a young crew and all very friendly greeting us when we get on board. We are prepared with suncream, hat and scarfs to cover ourselves. The sun is really burning and in a way makes me really worry. The light is so sharp as it could cut a paper. The sky is actually quite cloudy as we leave the harbour, the feeling on board of this beautiful boat is great: I am out on this boat and heading towards the Great Barrier Reef! The tour has been awarded various times, and supposed to be one of the best. After a lot of thinking I decided to do a day tour snorkelling to start with, as I got a bit anxious about snorkelling. In the end a wise decision as it turned out.
My first Cat-suit
It is stinger season! Get used to wild-life in Australia....there are deadly animals around almost each corner. But there is a measure against almost everything, which means I get to wear my first stinger-suit! In beautiful blue, it covers me completely, inclusively my head. So, here I am, in a cat-suit, with my snorkel getting out on this small island, feeling like Bond-girl...shitting my pants full that I could meet a shark. I am not sure if I should trust what I hear: there are only baby sharks out there, they are more scarred than we are, etc. I put myself a cushion around my hips - very bond-girl-like - in order to feel safer and in order to float! This strategy turns out to be a very good choice: snorkelling is actually very tiring, particularly in this heat, and with the body cooling down in the water, thus I do very relaxing breaks floating on my back, smiling, looking into the sun, thinking about what I am seeing down under my feet: a beautiful world of its own, full of colours, sparkling in the sund, fishes that look like someone has painted them and I start to believe that someone must have designed this! It truly feels like paradise, and you do get passionate about it (so the tour mission achieved 100%)....I am completely absorbed by the beauty of it, that it is difficult to acknowledge also the fact that I see part of the corals damaged, without color, grey that is evidence of the pollution doing its work in the reef. I feel too happy about the beauty, but it is healthy to see also the pollution, thinking how bad we do to destroy the beauties of the paradise we have been given! Completely exhausted by the experience we get back happy and safe into the harbour at night. Noone beeing eaten by a shark or stinged to death by a jelly fish! How lucky we are.
Uncle Brian
Uncle Brian is my second tour that I do the day after Passions of Paradise. The name of the tour seems much less exciting, but....it was recommended, and I do trust recommendations of people that I trust. So here I am with an Irish couple from my hostel waiting for Uncle Brian at 8.30am in the morning.
He is late, not Uncle Brian, but Cousin Brad and Gus (the bus, but you are not allowed to call him bus, he doesn't like that we are told in the introductory speach of Cousin Brad). In 5 minutes Cousin Brad already gets us falling down our seats in the bus, he is a real COMEDIAN...too funny to believe that this is true and where I got into! He is tall, long legs, and arms (they actually seem too long for his body), he has rasta hair and probably has accumulated all Australian's humor. So we are introduced into his world, and during the day I start to believe that he must have made up the story when he was smoking something as it is too crazy and too funny for an adult person with a clear mind to come up with. The tour is a great combination of fun, fun, fun: as Cousin Brad put it in the morning introduction, we get to swim, eat, swim, eat, swim, eat! He keeps his promise and drives us up to beautiful locations in the rainforest.
At the first stop we get to see HUMONGUOUS spiders...I don't mind the spiders, they seem pretty calm, I admire their nets as they are the largest I've ever seen. I refrain to swim in the creek, as I heard too much about sweet water crocodiles. Last week there was one on a playground in Cairns. Mmmm I haven't told my Mom about it to not worry her too much. So, after we swam / or some of us, we eat, and drive to the next stop: a beautiful waterfall (I think the Josephine Falls) which serves us as a slide! FUN FUN FUN we get to climb up a big rock, Cousin Brad secures us and we have a rope to cling to. We slide down, dump under water and again: this is FUN! The water is crystal clear, green, like a smaragd. A guy in our group is scared to death of the water, however in the end with Cousin Brad's help he makes it to the rock, and slides down under our applause. Next thing to do: ride on Gus and do lots of funny games that I forgot about and was probably playing last on teenager parties, but again it's FUN. Everyone is enjoying this, and Cousin Brad's humour seems to release all the tensions.
As we enter the Tablelands, the lanscape suddenly changes and we see green meadows and cows: how happy they must be here, having so much space! We have lunch in a local guesthouse, get to eat my first Chocolate Mud cake (not my most favourite I have to say, I hereby confirm Italian dolci to be the most delicious!) and we continue on to our last destination for FUN: the 16m high waterfalls that was used as a background in one of the commercials for deodorant (no promotion here). Remember the beautiful lady in the lake, raising her hed throwing around her beautiful long hair? That's where we went! And get to do the same photo, Cousin Brad is a very professional photographer and motivates a lot. However I decide to swim to the waterfall, there are rocks where you can sit, and damm, the force of the waterfall is so bit that you feel it already meters away from it. It scares me a bit, it's a special thing to do, as I get closer and finally up on the rocks. The water dumps down from 16m in front of me and is STRONG! Some of us dive unter the waterfall, I couldn't do that. My heart is beating strong, it takes my breath away and I need to calm myself. AFter a little while I decide to swim back, and as I "land" it starts raining! So Cousin Brad is happy, as we promised us some RAINforest...how funny he is!
Driving back to Cairns, we stop in place where he gets us to know his grandmother who waits for us with a basket full of stuffed animals (supposed to be the wild creatures in the outback), he makes us sing: the men for the women, the women for the men, and finally as he puts on "What a wonderful world" we are all moved. We get to get some disco light as well (the alarm light of Gus), so as we get into Cairns we seem to be a party bus so we need to bend down when we pass a police car. However we were a good group: have greeted all the people doing roadwork (happy people that deserve a smile, according to cousin Brad), and it's somehow sad to leave the bus, what an excellent day full of laughter! It was the best time I had for a long time.
Here I am in Australia, in Cairns, up North on the East coast. The pick-up at the Cairns' Airport is late, thus I get a first breeze of the Australian air and sun: it's hot and humid and burning! I am lucky with the choice of my hostel: Tropic Days (the name is a program...) and my flatmates. I make friends with another German girl and an Irish young lady on career break, Corinna and Catherina are good company in these days that we explore the surroundings of Cairns on a scooter and get out to the Great Barrier Reef! Hostel life is pretty unusual to me, people getting into the room and out without greeting, leaving just after one night. I am pretty surprised by the tourist business going on in this place and feel totally overwhelmed by the offer of guided tours that one can do: Rainforest, Tablelands, Aborigines culture centre, Great barrier reef sailing and diving tours...and hundreds of more that I don' even remember. After a deep breath and a good night sleep - actually the long talks with Eva and John left me very tired - I decide to do two toors: Passions of Paradise (mmmmhh...a Katamaran tour out to two sites in the reef) and Uncle Brian (which I will tell you more about later on).
Fish-ing in the Reef
Passions of Paradise is a tour in a humongous catamaran, with a young crew and all very friendly greeting us when we get on board. We are prepared with suncream, hat and scarfs to cover ourselves. The sun is really burning and in a way makes me really worry. The light is so sharp as it could cut a paper. The sky is actually quite cloudy as we leave the harbour, the feeling on board of this beautiful boat is great: I am out on this boat and heading towards the Great Barrier Reef! The tour has been awarded various times, and supposed to be one of the best. After a lot of thinking I decided to do a day tour snorkelling to start with, as I got a bit anxious about snorkelling. In the end a wise decision as it turned out.
My first Cat-suit
It is stinger season! Get used to wild-life in Australia....there are deadly animals around almost each corner. But there is a measure against almost everything, which means I get to wear my first stinger-suit! In beautiful blue, it covers me completely, inclusively my head. So, here I am, in a cat-suit, with my snorkel getting out on this small island, feeling like Bond-girl...shitting my pants full that I could meet a shark. I am not sure if I should trust what I hear: there are only baby sharks out there, they are more scarred than we are, etc. I put myself a cushion around my hips - very bond-girl-like - in order to feel safer and in order to float! This strategy turns out to be a very good choice: snorkelling is actually very tiring, particularly in this heat, and with the body cooling down in the water, thus I do very relaxing breaks floating on my back, smiling, looking into the sun, thinking about what I am seeing down under my feet: a beautiful world of its own, full of colours, sparkling in the sund, fishes that look like someone has painted them and I start to believe that someone must have designed this! It truly feels like paradise, and you do get passionate about it (so the tour mission achieved 100%)....I am completely absorbed by the beauty of it, that it is difficult to acknowledge also the fact that I see part of the corals damaged, without color, grey that is evidence of the pollution doing its work in the reef. I feel too happy about the beauty, but it is healthy to see also the pollution, thinking how bad we do to destroy the beauties of the paradise we have been given! Completely exhausted by the experience we get back happy and safe into the harbour at night. Noone beeing eaten by a shark or stinged to death by a jelly fish! How lucky we are.
Uncle Brian
Uncle Brian is my second tour that I do the day after Passions of Paradise. The name of the tour seems much less exciting, but....it was recommended, and I do trust recommendations of people that I trust. So here I am with an Irish couple from my hostel waiting for Uncle Brian at 8.30am in the morning.
He is late, not Uncle Brian, but Cousin Brad and Gus (the bus, but you are not allowed to call him bus, he doesn't like that we are told in the introductory speach of Cousin Brad). In 5 minutes Cousin Brad already gets us falling down our seats in the bus, he is a real COMEDIAN...too funny to believe that this is true and where I got into! He is tall, long legs, and arms (they actually seem too long for his body), he has rasta hair and probably has accumulated all Australian's humor. So we are introduced into his world, and during the day I start to believe that he must have made up the story when he was smoking something as it is too crazy and too funny for an adult person with a clear mind to come up with. The tour is a great combination of fun, fun, fun: as Cousin Brad put it in the morning introduction, we get to swim, eat, swim, eat, swim, eat! He keeps his promise and drives us up to beautiful locations in the rainforest.
At the first stop we get to see HUMONGUOUS spiders...I don't mind the spiders, they seem pretty calm, I admire their nets as they are the largest I've ever seen. I refrain to swim in the creek, as I heard too much about sweet water crocodiles. Last week there was one on a playground in Cairns. Mmmm I haven't told my Mom about it to not worry her too much. So, after we swam / or some of us, we eat, and drive to the next stop: a beautiful waterfall (I think the Josephine Falls) which serves us as a slide! FUN FUN FUN we get to climb up a big rock, Cousin Brad secures us and we have a rope to cling to. We slide down, dump under water and again: this is FUN! The water is crystal clear, green, like a smaragd. A guy in our group is scared to death of the water, however in the end with Cousin Brad's help he makes it to the rock, and slides down under our applause. Next thing to do: ride on Gus and do lots of funny games that I forgot about and was probably playing last on teenager parties, but again it's FUN. Everyone is enjoying this, and Cousin Brad's humour seems to release all the tensions.
As we enter the Tablelands, the lanscape suddenly changes and we see green meadows and cows: how happy they must be here, having so much space! We have lunch in a local guesthouse, get to eat my first Chocolate Mud cake (not my most favourite I have to say, I hereby confirm Italian dolci to be the most delicious!) and we continue on to our last destination for FUN: the 16m high waterfalls that was used as a background in one of the commercials for deodorant (no promotion here). Remember the beautiful lady in the lake, raising her hed throwing around her beautiful long hair? That's where we went! And get to do the same photo, Cousin Brad is a very professional photographer and motivates a lot. However I decide to swim to the waterfall, there are rocks where you can sit, and damm, the force of the waterfall is so bit that you feel it already meters away from it. It scares me a bit, it's a special thing to do, as I get closer and finally up on the rocks. The water dumps down from 16m in front of me and is STRONG! Some of us dive unter the waterfall, I couldn't do that. My heart is beating strong, it takes my breath away and I need to calm myself. AFter a little while I decide to swim back, and as I "land" it starts raining! So Cousin Brad is happy, as we promised us some RAINforest...how funny he is!
Driving back to Cairns, we stop in place where he gets us to know his grandmother who waits for us with a basket full of stuffed animals (supposed to be the wild creatures in the outback), he makes us sing: the men for the women, the women for the men, and finally as he puts on "What a wonderful world" we are all moved. We get to get some disco light as well (the alarm light of Gus), so as we get into Cairns we seem to be a party bus so we need to bend down when we pass a police car. However we were a good group: have greeted all the people doing roadwork (happy people that deserve a smile, according to cousin Brad), and it's somehow sad to leave the bus, what an excellent day full of laughter! It was the best time I had for a long time.
12/05/2010
Getting into Australia with Eva & John (Nov 30, 2010)
It's a Monday and I am heading off to Australia. With that jump over the ocean, it's when my trip should really start. I am actually really fortunate as I get some really good entertainment on my flights. It's not really entertainment in the sense of watching movies and listening to my iPod. No, it's about life entertainment: people sharing their lifes and experiences with me. A thing that I was lucky to have on the flights from Singapore to Darwin with Eva, and from Darwin to Cairns with John. Let me share you a bit of their stories with you, as they seem precious to me, and probalby meant to be told and heard.
So who is Eva? When I sat down next to her, and the first minutes getting comfortable in my seat, she seemed to me as not being too talkative. I don't remember what put us off talking with each other, but I simply said something pretty meaningless to her. She would be about 60 years old, with colourful clothes, tasty and kind of elegant, blond coloured hair, and wearing jewelry (actually a very nice ring that her second husband made for her) and nice make-up. She was on her way back home from Thailand, where she was for 10 days finding herself a job as an English teacher and a home for her husband and herself. Everyone told her that she wouldn't be able to do that, but she did: she found a beautiful home and a good job in a local school where she starts teaching 16th of December. She seemed brave to me, she and her husband decided to spend there 6 years of her life, her husband now going to be a pensionist. I really respect her, not knowing her husband, but I felt her strong character during our conversation (also as I asked myself why she was going by herself and not being accompanied by her husband). We got more personal as we came to speak about her grandchildren (the ones of her husband not actually hers) and the difficulties with the daughter in law and the elder son, that behaves much younger than his age. One thing that I remember - without going into much details of her personal live - is that she said about the relationship and distance between parents and children: Don't follow your children! she said, and is probably very right about it. It was good to feel that she and her husband were following their life, realizing their ideas and probably dreams, leaving also the freedom to their children to do the same. The other thing that I want to remember from her is that: There is no successful education, if the student is stressed. Wow, that really hit a point in me. Actually I told her the story of a good friend of mine that dropped out her boy from 1st grade in school after he got too stressed out with it and actually sick. There she had a wise advice, to look upon the emotional maturity of the child to cope with the situation, but in the end she said that it wouldn't work if the student is stressed out. That was the teacher side of Eva, and there I felt her strength and could imagine her to be a teach that gains her student's respect. How different she got when we got a visit from Sofia, a 6month old baby that her parents - both singers working in London - carried around to us sitting next to the emergency exit. Eva immediately started to chat with Sofia's Dad who was so caring about his daughter that he really touched me. I got a first impression about Australians' chatting everywhere and everytime, but also about Eva's big heart! She suddendly felt really warm-hearted, a new side on her that I didn't feel beforehand. We continued chatting almost the whole night through, and in the end she gave me her card, newly printed with her new address in Thailand, telling me that I would have 6 years to come over and she'd be happy if I'd spend some days with them. I am happy that I met you, Eva!
Finally in Australia, in Darwin we are spending 4 hours waiting in the terminal for our continuing flight to Cairns. I am in Australia, all by myself and it feels really good. I am tired, but Eva has kind of warmed my heart and was such a good company! The place is full of backpackers, a lot of Germans, a lot younger than me and I get a first taste of what will expect me there. Some drinking already bear, which astonishes me. Now much less, as I saw ore of the backpacker habits around Cairns.
When boarding the plane, I get to get the same seat as before, John is taking Eva's seat. And the first thought was: No, why me? An old guy of 60 years, and the whole plane is full of young guys? He almost doesn't fit into the seat, and tells the stewardess to give a call to the airline to tell them to build wider seats. I don't really want to talk to him, but he starts talking with me. In the first few minutes, I am not sure what happened, but he catches my attention and interest immediately. He talks about his farm in the rainforest, where he has a lodge with land where birdwatchers come. He gives me a brochure, and I think that he simply wants to convince some tourist to go to his place. But no, it's rather the opposite, also with him I immediately get into a really interesting talk about his life, my life and the time rushes by so fast. It is six o' clock in the morning, the sun has risen a few minutes ago, and I am awake like after 12 hours of sleep! John turns out to be a treasure island for new thinking and inspiration. Again we start to talk, not sure about what, but as with Eva it turns out to be really worthwhile to remember.
When John was 25 years old, he decided to go for a fundamental change in his life: he was really rich, had the nicest shoes, the nices ties and suits, but when he was looking at his managers, he thought that he didn't want to become like them. So he decided to quit his job, his life, to leave everything, leave without any money and the promise to himself was that he couldn't ask for any food to people. it took him 2 weeks until he was offered the 1st time food. He'd become sort of a Hipppie, that's how he called it. And that vow he had done to himself changed everything: he called it a fundamental change to quality, not quantity. He was travelling for 2 years, and that's the time he also met Patty, his wife. They had met at a concert, and they wouldn't leave each other since then. He said that he would never marry at 26, and not an overweight woman, but he did and is happy ever since. He tells me that I have lots of opportunitis, as I am a nice person, not only "outside", but also inside. I would just need to watch out for the opportunities, and be awake and grasp the right guy when he's there. He met Patty / who is playing poker now and made the 5th place in a tournament with 7.000 participants / and from the 1st evening they were together. They have 4 children and he says that they are all good people which is the most important thing to him.
In the last 4 1|2 years a lot of bad things happened to his family, one of his sons had a car accident and everyone in the other car died, including a young mother with his baby. There was a trial, as in Australia for every car accident there is a trial, and all his sons' friends have shown up to witness. Everyone told that they own their life to John's son. He is pretty big and strong, physlically, John says, but inside he is very soft and sensible, so the accident had really shaken him up. Friends of him would come to their house at night to stay with him, laying around him, putting their hands on him, as he had a lot of nightmares about the accident. John tells me that he lived as a Hippie with others like him: everyone had different philosophies about life, but he thought that it was important that noone was harmed. He learned that rich people wouldn't give any money and that's the ppor that gives you their last penny. I ask him about his strategy to buy the land and build up the lodge, as I explain him about my dream house in Elba. He tells me how they've down it, he and Patty and two other friends. He employed some Hippies to cultivate their garden, and he gave everyone fruit and vegetable and would make them work 4 days a week so they could have a good rest. He employed other people and decided to do the work that others wouldn't want to do and was really successfull with it. He pays everyone good money, so that people were happy to work for him. Everyone in his area was surprised by his way. I tell him about the house and he tells me that the 1st thing to do is to picture it and ask the universal powers to help. But he tells me: " Take a sandwich, and a house. Universe will give you the sandwich, because it's easy. The house is hard, so have to picture it really hard and with all your heart and want it really really badly so that universe will get it for you." John was actually doing reincarnation reasearch, and his theory was that the information about our lives could also be stored in our genes, DNA. Memory is not only in the brain, abut it could also be in the genese. We are not getting too deep into that topic, as we land! Time has flewn by, everyone else was resting on the plane, us not.
We get off the plane, I need to go through all the immigration controls, and John can just pass. As we get off the plane, it feels like as our bond just brakes up. We were there together for this one conversation and that was it. Like a dreamtime. As soon as I got out of the controls, I sit down and write everything down what he told me. It seemed to special and important to me. Thank you John, it was great talking to you!
So who is Eva? When I sat down next to her, and the first minutes getting comfortable in my seat, she seemed to me as not being too talkative. I don't remember what put us off talking with each other, but I simply said something pretty meaningless to her. She would be about 60 years old, with colourful clothes, tasty and kind of elegant, blond coloured hair, and wearing jewelry (actually a very nice ring that her second husband made for her) and nice make-up. She was on her way back home from Thailand, where she was for 10 days finding herself a job as an English teacher and a home for her husband and herself. Everyone told her that she wouldn't be able to do that, but she did: she found a beautiful home and a good job in a local school where she starts teaching 16th of December. She seemed brave to me, she and her husband decided to spend there 6 years of her life, her husband now going to be a pensionist. I really respect her, not knowing her husband, but I felt her strong character during our conversation (also as I asked myself why she was going by herself and not being accompanied by her husband). We got more personal as we came to speak about her grandchildren (the ones of her husband not actually hers) and the difficulties with the daughter in law and the elder son, that behaves much younger than his age. One thing that I remember - without going into much details of her personal live - is that she said about the relationship and distance between parents and children: Don't follow your children! she said, and is probably very right about it. It was good to feel that she and her husband were following their life, realizing their ideas and probably dreams, leaving also the freedom to their children to do the same. The other thing that I want to remember from her is that: There is no successful education, if the student is stressed. Wow, that really hit a point in me. Actually I told her the story of a good friend of mine that dropped out her boy from 1st grade in school after he got too stressed out with it and actually sick. There she had a wise advice, to look upon the emotional maturity of the child to cope with the situation, but in the end she said that it wouldn't work if the student is stressed out. That was the teacher side of Eva, and there I felt her strength and could imagine her to be a teach that gains her student's respect. How different she got when we got a visit from Sofia, a 6month old baby that her parents - both singers working in London - carried around to us sitting next to the emergency exit. Eva immediately started to chat with Sofia's Dad who was so caring about his daughter that he really touched me. I got a first impression about Australians' chatting everywhere and everytime, but also about Eva's big heart! She suddendly felt really warm-hearted, a new side on her that I didn't feel beforehand. We continued chatting almost the whole night through, and in the end she gave me her card, newly printed with her new address in Thailand, telling me that I would have 6 years to come over and she'd be happy if I'd spend some days with them. I am happy that I met you, Eva!
Finally in Australia, in Darwin we are spending 4 hours waiting in the terminal for our continuing flight to Cairns. I am in Australia, all by myself and it feels really good. I am tired, but Eva has kind of warmed my heart and was such a good company! The place is full of backpackers, a lot of Germans, a lot younger than me and I get a first taste of what will expect me there. Some drinking already bear, which astonishes me. Now much less, as I saw ore of the backpacker habits around Cairns.
When boarding the plane, I get to get the same seat as before, John is taking Eva's seat. And the first thought was: No, why me? An old guy of 60 years, and the whole plane is full of young guys? He almost doesn't fit into the seat, and tells the stewardess to give a call to the airline to tell them to build wider seats. I don't really want to talk to him, but he starts talking with me. In the first few minutes, I am not sure what happened, but he catches my attention and interest immediately. He talks about his farm in the rainforest, where he has a lodge with land where birdwatchers come. He gives me a brochure, and I think that he simply wants to convince some tourist to go to his place. But no, it's rather the opposite, also with him I immediately get into a really interesting talk about his life, my life and the time rushes by so fast. It is six o' clock in the morning, the sun has risen a few minutes ago, and I am awake like after 12 hours of sleep! John turns out to be a treasure island for new thinking and inspiration. Again we start to talk, not sure about what, but as with Eva it turns out to be really worthwhile to remember.
When John was 25 years old, he decided to go for a fundamental change in his life: he was really rich, had the nicest shoes, the nices ties and suits, but when he was looking at his managers, he thought that he didn't want to become like them. So he decided to quit his job, his life, to leave everything, leave without any money and the promise to himself was that he couldn't ask for any food to people. it took him 2 weeks until he was offered the 1st time food. He'd become sort of a Hipppie, that's how he called it. And that vow he had done to himself changed everything: he called it a fundamental change to quality, not quantity. He was travelling for 2 years, and that's the time he also met Patty, his wife. They had met at a concert, and they wouldn't leave each other since then. He said that he would never marry at 26, and not an overweight woman, but he did and is happy ever since. He tells me that I have lots of opportunitis, as I am a nice person, not only "outside", but also inside. I would just need to watch out for the opportunities, and be awake and grasp the right guy when he's there. He met Patty / who is playing poker now and made the 5th place in a tournament with 7.000 participants / and from the 1st evening they were together. They have 4 children and he says that they are all good people which is the most important thing to him.
In the last 4 1|2 years a lot of bad things happened to his family, one of his sons had a car accident and everyone in the other car died, including a young mother with his baby. There was a trial, as in Australia for every car accident there is a trial, and all his sons' friends have shown up to witness. Everyone told that they own their life to John's son. He is pretty big and strong, physlically, John says, but inside he is very soft and sensible, so the accident had really shaken him up. Friends of him would come to their house at night to stay with him, laying around him, putting their hands on him, as he had a lot of nightmares about the accident. John tells me that he lived as a Hippie with others like him: everyone had different philosophies about life, but he thought that it was important that noone was harmed. He learned that rich people wouldn't give any money and that's the ppor that gives you their last penny. I ask him about his strategy to buy the land and build up the lodge, as I explain him about my dream house in Elba. He tells me how they've down it, he and Patty and two other friends. He employed some Hippies to cultivate their garden, and he gave everyone fruit and vegetable and would make them work 4 days a week so they could have a good rest. He employed other people and decided to do the work that others wouldn't want to do and was really successfull with it. He pays everyone good money, so that people were happy to work for him. Everyone in his area was surprised by his way. I tell him about the house and he tells me that the 1st thing to do is to picture it and ask the universal powers to help. But he tells me: " Take a sandwich, and a house. Universe will give you the sandwich, because it's easy. The house is hard, so have to picture it really hard and with all your heart and want it really really badly so that universe will get it for you." John was actually doing reincarnation reasearch, and his theory was that the information about our lives could also be stored in our genes, DNA. Memory is not only in the brain, abut it could also be in the genese. We are not getting too deep into that topic, as we land! Time has flewn by, everyone else was resting on the plane, us not.
We get off the plane, I need to go through all the immigration controls, and John can just pass. As we get off the plane, it feels like as our bond just brakes up. We were there together for this one conversation and that was it. Like a dreamtime. As soon as I got out of the controls, I sit down and write everything down what he told me. It seemed to special and important to me. Thank you John, it was great talking to you!
Happy Feet in Singapore (Nov 29, 2010)
My friends are chasing me up the green hills of Singapore. It is during the weekend, and a lot of Singaporeans are out in in the parcs to exercise. How do they manage? The humidity is amazingly high, probably around 90%, and although it is my fourth day in this city, I am still not used to the heat, sweating a lot, feeling easily tired and taking a shower whenever I can! We are seeing monkeys along the way, and I'd like to go up to them, but they are holding me back: actually the animals are quite agressive, getting the fruits that people eat when they are back at their cars. They look peaceful, but they are not! Sitting on the cars, waiting for the fruits to appear! It is a funny experience this morning as we get our own labyrinth, not finding our way to the gorge that my friend wants me to show. We are trying twice, always getting back miracously to the car park! After the second fail - that actually brings us to see a lizard quite big, taking the sun on the road, probably being 1,5 m long! I feel quite courageous passing him with maybe half meter distance!
Back on the parking we decide to go to lunch and then again! We don' t find the way into it! How strange that feels...you wonder around, try and try and try and there doesn't seem to be a way to get to the place tht you want to get to! Thanks to the strong will of Christian, my schoolmate's husband, we find a parking and stroll to have pasta in the food court. Pasta in Singapore, I am quite sceptic, but actually it's not too bad!
After all this walking and searching, our minds and mostly our feet are tired, so we decide to rest and give a big reward to our feet! I am so curious as we will get a type of foot massage by fish! It's a species coming from Turkey, and they are happy to eat off the skin from your feet! How funny, it's actually quite strange having hundreds of small fishing eating from your feet...but it works and after a couple of minutes I finally enjoy it! After that we get a long reflexology foot massage, and my massagist is an expert in European soccer so I get to discuss some of the German and Italian soccer players. Very entertaining! Thanks to my happy feet I succeed on the way to the airport with my quite heavy backpack (14kg), and the help of a nice lady on the MRT (metro).
What I think about Singapore after these few days? I enjoyed a lot the long walks with my friends in her neighbourhood, as it felt special to me what she was telling to me giving me some views on her life there, personal and work. I should tell you first what I liked: the food of course! The fish curry was just great, having the boiling pot with the fish head in front of me! The orchids were too beautiful to believe, and the rainforest, the different shades of green and the richness of the nature is something I will take with me. What I didn't like: it's the social order that you feel and see, between the different Asian cultures, Europeans, Indians there. I can't understand why people have to be treated differently: why do you need to be impolite to a Chinese waiter? Why is a Malay massagist different to us? You can feel it, when eating out, in the metro, and it's something that I really resent and don't like at all. I noticed it when smiling at my Chinese massagist, people seem to be surprised when a Westener meets them in this way (and there was nothing about attracting each other in it).
I felt that the city was kind of missing an own character, and I was amazed by the number of shopping malls. It seems like an artifical world, you enter, stay there for hours and don't even see the sunlight! And that's what they do: like the Malaysian or Philippine maids that have off on Sunday and go into town to shop. What a weird picture: themn in front of the Gucci and Chanel stores staring into the windows to get a grasp of our World, a really materialistic world that probably doesn't offer them more on a human basis than they wouldn't already have. That's kind of pessimistic, but I felt it that way. I would prefer to live in a city that would be less clean, more chaotic, but having a character a soul, having a democratic system with real free elections. Thanks to that 'Old man' (Khee lu, I need to look up his name) Singapore became one of the wealthiest countries in the world, but unfortunately missing a soul and not giving 100% freedom to all its people. One thought I'd like to add: the control that the Singaporean government has and executes, was justified by them with the tendency of the local people to be wild or chaotic or without manners. So it's all about that and probably a synthesis: the less mannerly people, the more control you need? If your ideal is to be prosperous and clean... it's looking up to the Western ideals and our culture: as we value cleanliness, and manners, and to have a "culture", someone decided to put more control to attract Westerners, and it perfectly worked out! I am not a fan of it, mostly because of the social order that comes with it, but happy to have experienced it for some days! Let's move on to Australia...
Back on the parking we decide to go to lunch and then again! We don' t find the way into it! How strange that feels...you wonder around, try and try and try and there doesn't seem to be a way to get to the place tht you want to get to! Thanks to the strong will of Christian, my schoolmate's husband, we find a parking and stroll to have pasta in the food court. Pasta in Singapore, I am quite sceptic, but actually it's not too bad!
After all this walking and searching, our minds and mostly our feet are tired, so we decide to rest and give a big reward to our feet! I am so curious as we will get a type of foot massage by fish! It's a species coming from Turkey, and they are happy to eat off the skin from your feet! How funny, it's actually quite strange having hundreds of small fishing eating from your feet...but it works and after a couple of minutes I finally enjoy it! After that we get a long reflexology foot massage, and my massagist is an expert in European soccer so I get to discuss some of the German and Italian soccer players. Very entertaining! Thanks to my happy feet I succeed on the way to the airport with my quite heavy backpack (14kg), and the help of a nice lady on the MRT (metro).
What I think about Singapore after these few days? I enjoyed a lot the long walks with my friends in her neighbourhood, as it felt special to me what she was telling to me giving me some views on her life there, personal and work. I should tell you first what I liked: the food of course! The fish curry was just great, having the boiling pot with the fish head in front of me! The orchids were too beautiful to believe, and the rainforest, the different shades of green and the richness of the nature is something I will take with me. What I didn't like: it's the social order that you feel and see, between the different Asian cultures, Europeans, Indians there. I can't understand why people have to be treated differently: why do you need to be impolite to a Chinese waiter? Why is a Malay massagist different to us? You can feel it, when eating out, in the metro, and it's something that I really resent and don't like at all. I noticed it when smiling at my Chinese massagist, people seem to be surprised when a Westener meets them in this way (and there was nothing about attracting each other in it).
I felt that the city was kind of missing an own character, and I was amazed by the number of shopping malls. It seems like an artifical world, you enter, stay there for hours and don't even see the sunlight! And that's what they do: like the Malaysian or Philippine maids that have off on Sunday and go into town to shop. What a weird picture: themn in front of the Gucci and Chanel stores staring into the windows to get a grasp of our World, a really materialistic world that probably doesn't offer them more on a human basis than they wouldn't already have. That's kind of pessimistic, but I felt it that way. I would prefer to live in a city that would be less clean, more chaotic, but having a character a soul, having a democratic system with real free elections. Thanks to that 'Old man' (Khee lu, I need to look up his name) Singapore became one of the wealthiest countries in the world, but unfortunately missing a soul and not giving 100% freedom to all its people. One thought I'd like to add: the control that the Singaporean government has and executes, was justified by them with the tendency of the local people to be wild or chaotic or without manners. So it's all about that and probably a synthesis: the less mannerly people, the more control you need? If your ideal is to be prosperous and clean... it's looking up to the Western ideals and our culture: as we value cleanliness, and manners, and to have a "culture", someone decided to put more control to attract Westerners, and it perfectly worked out! I am not a fan of it, mostly because of the social order that comes with it, but happy to have experienced it for some days! Let's move on to Australia...
11/24/2010
Arrival in Singapore (Nov 23, 2010)
My first day in Singapore after leaving Munich on November 22. As it is raining - the second thunderstorm today - I decided to get online. To not become unnecessarily wet and have a bit of a rest after a 2 hour walk in Little India (which actually is fairly big!). I survived the 12 hour flight pretty well, I had a good companion: an Irish gentleman, grandfather of 16 (!) on his way to Australia to spend Christmas with his three daughters. And he told me everything...! I felt very comfortable, also within the longest turbulence that I ever witnessed on a plane. Besides the fact that we were served by a funny steward that made me smile quite a lot (for sure gay, although he was wearing a ring which tells me that there must be thousands of married gay men out there...!).
My first impression of Singapore was: haze! We saw not the smallest piece of the sky when landing....an experience which fortunately didn't continue today. Singapore to me is humid, hot, quite calm, very tidy and the real face I hope still to discover. I heard unknown birds today, actually waking me up. The tropical heat is doing its good, I feel to eat less and to drink more. I could already enjoy my first fruit salad: fresh ananas, melon, apple and some unknown fruit! It was fantastically refreshing, and some butterflies were sharing my joy, as big as a child's hand.
The city seems to have been constructed on a chessboard, traffic is calm, busses are brand new, and everything seems to work very efficiently. I got to understand a bit more about this town during dinner with Alex yesterday evening. She is living here since more than 4 years and is hosting me for this week. I don't even know to distinguish the difference Asian populations, so need to learn a lot! Apparently there are Chinese, Malay, Malaysian and Indian people, and the rule is: the darker your skin color, the lower your position and respect in society. I am trying to understand this better by what I see in the shops and restaurants. It seems that racism has a different dimension here, and I realize that Asia is a world by its own with its own rules. It makes me think of Tiziano Terziano who spent half of his life in Asia which is probably the time you need to understand life here better.
My friends, I leave you here, rain has stopped and I hope to continue my walk!
My first impression of Singapore was: haze! We saw not the smallest piece of the sky when landing....an experience which fortunately didn't continue today. Singapore to me is humid, hot, quite calm, very tidy and the real face I hope still to discover. I heard unknown birds today, actually waking me up. The tropical heat is doing its good, I feel to eat less and to drink more. I could already enjoy my first fruit salad: fresh ananas, melon, apple and some unknown fruit! It was fantastically refreshing, and some butterflies were sharing my joy, as big as a child's hand.
The city seems to have been constructed on a chessboard, traffic is calm, busses are brand new, and everything seems to work very efficiently. I got to understand a bit more about this town during dinner with Alex yesterday evening. She is living here since more than 4 years and is hosting me for this week. I don't even know to distinguish the difference Asian populations, so need to learn a lot! Apparently there are Chinese, Malay, Malaysian and Indian people, and the rule is: the darker your skin color, the lower your position and respect in society. I am trying to understand this better by what I see in the shops and restaurants. It seems that racism has a different dimension here, and I realize that Asia is a world by its own with its own rules. It makes me think of Tiziano Terziano who spent half of his life in Asia which is probably the time you need to understand life here better.
My friends, I leave you here, rain has stopped and I hope to continue my walk!
11/21/2010
Pursuit of Happiness (Nov 20, 2010)
Erding
Tomorrow is departure time and my energy is back to start this trip. I am smelling the take-off and this is a good feeling. I feel my senses waking up again. There are lots of thoughts in my mind, one comes back again and again. The mother of a friend of mine has greeted me wishing that I shall find what I am searching for. This wish is following me since, and I am asking myself again and again: "Am I searching for something? Is this why I am going away?" I am getting back a clear No, there seems nothing specific that I am looking for. The true only motivation is my need of time, time to find back myself and time to rediscover what I have inside myself.
The month I have spent on Elba has shown me undoubtedly that this is the right way and that this way of moving forward is full of enriching discoveries. Someone might not understand why so much time, and I admit that this is probably hard to understand. Probably only people who have experienced the same can understand. It´s healing time, and noone except yourself can tell how much is needed. I remember a conversation with someone that had the same experience as me that told me: "Only you can tell how much time you need and only you know how you feel inside." My time is much slower now, it simply needs to be in order to be healing. For too long I have spent my days running around like crazy with millions things to do that never ended.
When I was thinking about why I go on this trip, an expression flew to my mind: Pursuit of Happiness. I was asking myself where I know this expression from and that I remember it to be very fundamental and famous. Great education, my dear, to forget one of the foundations of American culture on which you were spending many years of university studies! Now I googled it and Wikipedia explains it all: "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" is one of the most famous phrases in the United States Declaration of Independence and considered by some as part of one of the most well crafted, influential sentences in the history of the English language. These three aspects are listed among the "unalienable rights" or sovereign rights of man.(...)".
In these days I realize how fortunate I am to have the liberty and freedom to pursue my happiness. Not everyone has for political or religious or other reasons. I simply have forgotten it for too long! And now I am so curious to discover all the other things that truly make me happy. Because this is about true happiness, nothing else. Whatever this means, I hope to be able to tell you upon my return next year. Sweet dreams, my friends.
Tomorrow is departure time and my energy is back to start this trip. I am smelling the take-off and this is a good feeling. I feel my senses waking up again. There are lots of thoughts in my mind, one comes back again and again. The mother of a friend of mine has greeted me wishing that I shall find what I am searching for. This wish is following me since, and I am asking myself again and again: "Am I searching for something? Is this why I am going away?" I am getting back a clear No, there seems nothing specific that I am looking for. The true only motivation is my need of time, time to find back myself and time to rediscover what I have inside myself.
The month I have spent on Elba has shown me undoubtedly that this is the right way and that this way of moving forward is full of enriching discoveries. Someone might not understand why so much time, and I admit that this is probably hard to understand. Probably only people who have experienced the same can understand. It´s healing time, and noone except yourself can tell how much is needed. I remember a conversation with someone that had the same experience as me that told me: "Only you can tell how much time you need and only you know how you feel inside." My time is much slower now, it simply needs to be in order to be healing. For too long I have spent my days running around like crazy with millions things to do that never ended.
When I was thinking about why I go on this trip, an expression flew to my mind: Pursuit of Happiness. I was asking myself where I know this expression from and that I remember it to be very fundamental and famous. Great education, my dear, to forget one of the foundations of American culture on which you were spending many years of university studies! Now I googled it and Wikipedia explains it all: "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" is one of the most famous phrases in the United States Declaration of Independence and considered by some as part of one of the most well crafted, influential sentences in the history of the English language. These three aspects are listed among the "unalienable rights" or sovereign rights of man.(...)".
In these days I realize how fortunate I am to have the liberty and freedom to pursue my happiness. Not everyone has for political or religious or other reasons. I simply have forgotten it for too long! And now I am so curious to discover all the other things that truly make me happy. Because this is about true happiness, nothing else. Whatever this means, I hope to be able to tell you upon my return next year. Sweet dreams, my friends.
11/18/2010
Trust (Nov 18, 2010)
Erding
Still around here, after having worked on this layout for hours (or to be honest on the photos to post here) I wanted to drop a few lines. My head is full of what I heard today about the security in this country. In the end I turned off the radio. It seems that there are people out there that are so eager to get on TV or radio. However I am not sure what to think or what to believe about what they say. In the end I suppose it doesn´t matter if someone trusts. Trust in whatever will happen in one´s life. I need to write it down to recall it myself. If not, my fear becomes too big and it makes harder the air that I breath. Hope you like the photos!
11/17/2010
Preparation (Nov 16, 2010)
Erding
I am getting prepared, working down my To-Do-List. Today I was able to take off some points, still adding on a daily basis new ones, as I continue to search for more information on the best ways to travel.
It´s all by coincidence, which I still experience to be the best way of living in this very moment. It´s harder to practise while I am in the city, and easier while I am "in the wild". What happened today and why this, my friends? I am in my second life, which means new beginnings and lots of change. This blog is part of it, me lying on my bed in my childhood room, typing on my Apple notebook (one of the greatest investments in my first life). So, this is me entering the New World of Social Networking that others have been using since many years. The world seems to get closer, everyone reachable from the farest place on earth. I am anxious of the length of time that I will stay away from my family, friends and home. My true hope is to shorten the distance between those that are close to my heart by writing here. About what I will see, feel and carry with me from the places that I will visit. So first step completed: the new World of Social Networking has been entered!
I am getting prepared, working down my To-Do-List. Today I was able to take off some points, still adding on a daily basis new ones, as I continue to search for more information on the best ways to travel.
It´s all by coincidence, which I still experience to be the best way of living in this very moment. It´s harder to practise while I am in the city, and easier while I am "in the wild". What happened today and why this, my friends? I am in my second life, which means new beginnings and lots of change. This blog is part of it, me lying on my bed in my childhood room, typing on my Apple notebook (one of the greatest investments in my first life). So, this is me entering the New World of Social Networking that others have been using since many years. The world seems to get closer, everyone reachable from the farest place on earth. I am anxious of the length of time that I will stay away from my family, friends and home. My true hope is to shorten the distance between those that are close to my heart by writing here. About what I will see, feel and carry with me from the places that I will visit. So first step completed: the new World of Social Networking has been entered!
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