Myanmar

When I first got into Myanmar I have to admit that I sort of refrained from diving into its culture & people straight away but allowed myself some luxury at Ngapali beach which turned out to really be a small paradise on earth. And indeed I very much enjoyed this week on a pristine beach where I was lucky enough to be staying at a just wonderful hotel, with friendly & helpful staff, delicious food, and a daily evening drink to admire the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen. All together with some every morning sport activities i.e. jogging & swimming and then after the rich breakfast reading a good book on the beach lounger it made me come at ease again & moreover fixed my stomach, for which I was really glad.

I wouldn't have minded to stay a little more in my paradise, but anyway, all good times have come to an end and my Intrepid tour was waiting for me to commence soon.

So I took the plane back to Yangon where I have met up with my fellow travelers who were coming from all sorts of countries, Down Under, England, Germany & Switzerland. It was the first time for me to do an organized tour like this and the group I joined was quite cool, and loud too, lots of them with a great bunch of stories & jokes to tell. And what surprised me a little was the fact, that a lot of these guys really have already seen so much of the world that I felt myself to a bit boring with my world around and the few number of countries that I will be seeing. Never mind, it's not a competition anyway :-). And hey guess what, I found that I was not the only one who quit his job and everything to discover the world, there are other lunatics on their way too ;-)

Together with our guide we set off to discover the most popular places in Myanmar during the upcoming 14 days. Like Bagan, the first (of many) capital of Myanmar that boast with its numerous temples built around 11th to 13th century. These temples emanate some kind of magic atmosphere, especially when you feel that some centuries ago among these temples kings have ruled, monks have prayed, peasants and other people have lived their lifes, and wars have been fought... even more so, when you watch the sun set or rise on one of the temples, overlooking the Bagan area and the Irrawady river.

After three nights in Bagan and little sleep (since I was sharing my room with a tank, at least the guy sounded like one) we took the boat on a two day trip to Mandalay. First I wasn't too sure if our barge would make it there, but it turned out to be a very pleasant trip, just very easy going sitting on deck, watching the scenery passing by, enjoying a beer or two and excellent food, and sleeping on deck with the huge full moon above, and having a laugh with my fellow travelers. And being on a little barge it was also given, that every one else of the group could enjoy the run-over-by-a-tank feeling after a not very quiet night.

Mandalay then wasn't really worth the stop, but moving on to Kalaw, we found an other very nice place up in the mountains, all of us enjoying a one day walk on the countryside, passing by some villages where people grow their rice & veggies and take care of their cattle. Our local guide we had on that day even made the trip more interesting, giving us some background to what we see, hear & taste. After dinner back in Kalaw I then was very happy to visit a local bar, where the local people drank whisky & rum and sang their folk songs from the very deep of their hearts (the guy just beside me nearly gave me a tinitus) - and then they would pass the guitar over to me so I could play the coversongs that I knew... this all was big fun :-)

Our last stop then was in Inle Lake, another wonderful place where the people called Intha live in small villages along the lake's shores, and on the lake itself. Driving around the lake on a small boat, visiting the various craftsman shops, then also doing a small bike tour and visiting the winery up on the hill, we have spent a great time over there.

I've experienced Myanmar to be a country definitely still worth a visit, although some years ago it all must have been even lots more untouched, whereas nowadays tourism is spreading with lightspeed. I very much liked the local people, being friendly & helpful, and every now and then someone would approach you just for a chat in order to get some info on your person and your coming from, and to get some practical experience in using their English. Some fellow travelers were even invited to a Burmese lady's home, where they would be cooked for, get a taxi organized, and invited again to come back soon... and she would not want anything for it in exchange, like all the other people mentioned above. A phenomenon which is not common everywhere in South East Asia. Myanmar is also called the Golden Land, in which you will find thousands of temples and Buddhas, some of them covered over with gold leafs people had put on while practicing their faith. And then the country is also covered with advertisements for beer and whisky, which I just found somehow funny to see, even though I reckon you don't have to believe that everybody would be a drinker, I only guess the beer companies hand out this ads to the people for free which would use it as kind of building material. Somehow unfortunate was the fact, that our guide was not enough skilled when it came to English and to background know how about country and people (which actually happened already for the second time on my trip). Even though this time my guide was a great chap as a person, being very helpful and one who offered a good services in terms of organizing things, he did not manage to convey the history and the fascination about his country and his people, which once more was just too bad. Because that's exactly why you would go on such a tour, otherwise you could just do it on your own, which definitely is no problem at all in Myanmar. Anyway, despite this we had a good time all together and celebrated our farewell while having a dinner at some rooftop bar in Yangon. And on our way home to the hotel we really made the best of the taxi fare paid, packing our taxi with 7 people :-)

Since four days I'm already in Cambodia now, visiting Siem Reap and Angkor Wat. More temples and I guess I have a little temple overdose by now. Anyway, I will report on my short stay here as soon as possible, for now wishing everyone a merry X-mas and a great New Year (even though at temperatures around 30 X-mas and year end seems even further away to me).

Bhutan

Bhutan is just very beautiful & peaceful and if you're ever close to it (or far, doesn't matter) you should definitely pay it a visit. Being a small country at roughly the size of Switzerland it has only about 700'000 citizens. And coming from the chaos of Kathmandu it was like having found Shangri-La, where the land is clean and close to heaven & the people unostentatious and religious deep in their hearts. And it really does make a big difference to who leads a country, and by what I've seen and heard Bhutan's king and his predecessors have been doing a really great job with the resources they have. I was very much impressed by the fact that not making as much money as possible is the goal, but the happiness of the people, and that environment protection has such a high value, being taught to every child at early school. As well I've experienced the great respect and gratitude the Bhutanese people have for their king, many of them wearing the badge of the royal couple on their traditional clothing. 

Of course I also must say that I only had a very short time over there, and my trip was very well organized (in fact, you cannot do any tour there on your own, and when you go, your stay must cost 250 USD minimum by law, so being a rather luxurious event - all of it not the way I would have done it if I had had the choice), so at the end of the day I most likely have seen only a small piece of the country, its people and their real life.

Anyway, I had a great time over there, especially with my guide Tashi and my driver Kinzang, who on the last evening out even danced for me at some very peculiar bar ;-). So over the 5 days we visited lots of temples, religious gatherings, forts and other places in Thimphu (the capital), in Punakha and finally Paro. On the last day I was also very happy to do a little hiking up to the Tiger's Nest, after sitting in the car for too much time. The Tiger's Nest is a place where Guru Rinpoche Padmasambhava is said to have done his meditations, but also many other religious people, for instance like the Divine Madman, a very funny historical person who apparently not only taught with religious wisdom but also with his genitals ;-). Even more funny, many foreign couples who failed in having children so far came to Bhutan to pay his temple a visit, and according the the photo album many of their wishes have come true eventually.

Well, it was a too short time in this lovely country and I guess I have to come back there some time to stay a little longer. On my flight back to Kathmandu I was lucky enough to see Mount Everest out of the window, and I guess that was the closest I would ever get to its summit.

Now I had one more week in Kathmandu to spend but in the end, it wasn't really worth it, especially after a little food poisoning I picked up this week (nice night time on the toilet) and also because I must say, this city became more and more ugly to me. Anyway, I was happy to catch my flight out of it today and doing a stopover in Bangkok I will fly on to Myanmar on Monday. And I'm really looking forward to the beach now :-)

Nepal

Well, so I then flew over from the capital of Japan to the capital of Nepal, and finding the 10 differences would probably have taken only a split second, as I've entered a completely different world. Not so much in terms of the vast number of people living in one place, but more like the way everything is organized... let's just say quite different ;-)

So here I've also met up with my friend Sabine, how flew over from Dehli, apparently her plane was having some difficulties to find the landing strip (or maybe this was just a joke made by the guy from our tour organizer), but in the end it turned out well and she appeared in the entrance hall eventually. We first had the pleasure to enjoy a very well guided tour around Kathmandu and its neighborhoods, visiting Bhaktapur, Pashupatinath and Boudhanath, all of them very impressive and sometimes stunning historical and religious sites.

We really enjoyed this tour, even tough it was raining cats & dogs the whole day, which was very unusual for this time of the year. And at this moment we also had just no idea at all that up in the mountains (especially in the Annapurna region) a terrible sad drama took place, where dozens of trekkers lost their lives in the most fatal snow storm in Nepal trekking history ever. We heard many stories about this incident later on, on TV, by people who were stuck up there but made it out, and one can say that we were quite lucky not to be up there during the storm, but also we felt very sad for the people who died and for their families back home.

After the two days in Kathmandu we set off for our village trek tour around the Gorkha region. So after a 7 hours drive along some veery bumpy roads we ended up in an area, where most people live as farmers, taking care of their rice paddy fields, lots of other veggies & fruits their grow, cows, goats & chicken and so on. During our village trek we had the chance to live with the families and to get a little insight in their lives. They live in rather simple houses and especially in the kitchen one could find a medieval stove which produced a lot of smoke, definitely nothing for a healthy lung.

On the other hand, modern technology has also found its way through to these people, so you had electricity most of the time, you could see TVs and satellite dishes, and the most funny thing to me was, when I came across an old woman carrying a huge pile of wood on her back, and then something started ringing underneath her clothes so she took out her mobile phone and started talking to someone on the other end, maybe letting him know, what time she will be back home :-).

Well, most of all we have met very very friendly families who took good care for us and who made it a pleasant stay in every place. We enjoyed the nice food (Dal bhat in many different variations and tastes), the tea they offered to us whenever we looked like ready for having one, and when we needed something else they were right there to provide it to us if possible. Conversation was not always easy as most of them couldn't speak a lot of English, but a sign with the eyes or hands did solve this in most cases. And wherever you are, a genuine 'Namaste' with your hands folded before your heart helped a lot, making the vis-à-vis smile and knowing, that you're just a human being too :-). During this time we also had the chance to meet with local shamans (a very funny event indeed), to join an English lesson at a primary school and to meditate around the Hindu temples. So this week was filled with so many impressions and I'm glad that I was able to see all of this.

A little unfortunate though was, that our guide found this village trek most of the time very boring, from time to time he's lost his group, didn't know the way but most of all, we didn't feel very comfortable in his presence. So we decide to change things and fortunately we managed to get a different guide for the second part of our trip, the Annapurna trekking.

So it was Madan who became our new guide and he took us from the Gorkha region to Besi Sahar, the starting point for our trek. Actually Madan was the guy who picked us up at the airport, and we were very happy to have him back, as he is just the best guide you could ever have, friendly, smiling and in good mood all the time, caring, funny and a lot more. So in case you will ever come to Nepal, you should definitely book him as your guide.

Having done some trekking for one week already we were quite ready and fit for our next challenge, the Annapurna circuit trek. It starts at around 1'300m a.s.l. and finds its peak at the Thorung La Pass, 5'416m a.s.l. All together it was hell of a (good) experience, we've trekked through so many different views of nature, from the warm climate at the beginning with forests and beautiful gorges and waterfalls up to the deserted heights until the snowy mountain tops above 5'000m. There's so many things you can see on the way, the unreal mountain peaks of the Annapurna range (some of them up to 8'000m high), then you have stupas, prayer flags and monasteries, a lot of animals including mules, blue sheep and the funny & amazing yaks, different guesthouse (some nicer, some less), tea houses & trekker shops and lots more.

Good food and good health is also very important on the way, and you ought to drink a lot of water in order to better adjust to the height. I wasn't always a hundred percent happy with my fitness, especially my digestion felt somehow funny from time to time and above 4'500m my head started aching in a way I didn't really like, but eventually and maybe also with help of a little medicine I got over the nasty inconveniences and made it over the pass at 08.30 in the morning - together with my friend Sabine who did really well all the way up and sometimes walked like some Austrian mountain climber (I guess his name was something like Luis Trenker ;-). Only on the way down she felt a little headache & nausea (maybe she just wanted to stay up in the beautiful mountains ;-) but also this we managed to overcome and we made it safely to Muktinath on the other side of the pass.

So after our success we took an adventuresome flight from Jomson to Pokhara where we had some time to relax and do some shopping. One more day bus ride back to Kathmandu and our great journey has already come to an end. Sabine has left for Vienna again and now I'm planning my next ventures. I decided to have a brief look at Bhutan, which is not so far from Nepal. I will start my trip there tomorrow and I'm very curious in this different country, which has been secluded from the rest of the world until very recently. So let's find out, what secrets and magic can still be discovered. More pictures of my Nepal trip can be found under Photoalbums on the right side of this page. Enjoy and have a good time you all.

Karate training in Osaka & Tokyo

Again two weeks over, so time's flying! Especially when you're doing Karate training almost every day, and then it's also a little bit tiring ;-) But me and my friends, we all have really enjoyed our time with our Japanese senseis, wheras each one of them had their very own way of teaching us the fundamentals and their understandings of Karate. And Karate of course is not only a kind of sport, but even more a way of living, with a long time history and (family) tradition, and it all comes with a colorful bunch of experience of life, wisdom, stories & images. So every now and then we could enjoy the telling of our Japanese senseis and most of the time following their words, lively demonstrations and mimics was absolutely sufficient in order to understand the meanings of what they were saying. And in case it wasn't too clear for everybody what the point exactly was, we got help from our sensei Roland, who not only acted as an interpreter in between but who also took care of our group very considerately during the whole two weeks - thanks a lot for this :-)

In these two weeks we were also quite lucky to get two days off from training, so one day we could enjoy a river cruise near Kyoto and we also had the chance to visit a very traditional Japanese house with a splendid Japanese garden (it takes apparently three generations to form it that way!) and the short version of a tea ceremony. Of course we also enjoyed a lot of Japanese food and I liked the very traditional form of being served by the beautifully dressed personnel, as well as the more modern way, where you are given a touch screen tablet with all kinds of food pics on which you just have to put your finger and then press 'order' before it's being served by some friendly staff right at your table. Ha, I really liked this thing and wished, I had something like this at home too :-). Yes and the second day off I made a little trip on my own to see Fujisan, which was quite a nice experience too.

Sadly, our time in Japan was overshadowed by the death of one of our colleagues brother back home in Switzerland. This sad news struck us all quite a lot, and at the same time gave our group a special kind of common spirit for the remaining days. For my colleague and his family I wish all the best and a lot of energy in this very difficult time they are going through.

So yesterday it again was a day of saying goodbye and I walked my friends to the bus which brought them to the airport and to the plane back home. I now have one more night in Tokyo before I leave for Osaka, Bangkok and Kathmandu on Sunday evening/midnight. I am very much looking forward to this new country, to a different culture, to the Himalayas and to meeting up with my friend Sabine, who will accompany me for the next 4 weeks. Thanks very much Japan, it was a pleasure seeing you again and maybe we'll meet each once more some time, for a winter holiday and downhill ride on my snowboard maybe, would be nice :-)

Okinawa

Okinawa belongs to the Ryuku islands, which stretch from southwest of Kyushu to almost as far as Taiwan and it's about two hours flight from Osaka (three from Tokyo). This also brought me to a different climate which was pretty tropical with current temperatures in the thirties, some humidity that makes you sweat all the time, and, on the other side, there's most of the time some wind going on that cools you down again.

Okinawan people see themselves somewhat different to the Japanese mainlanders, every now and then I heard them speaking about the Okinawans, and about the other guys coming from that Japan over there. One guy even said something like, no we don't mind the tourists from around the world coming here for holidays, but the Japanese people, hm, don't mention them ;-). Well maybe this probably has also something to do with the former Ryuku time, where these islands belonged to an independent and proud kingdom a couple of hundreds years ago. Also the Okinawan language is apparently quite different from Japanese and cannot easily be understood by the mainlanders (maybe it's something like Walliserdütsch?).  Anyway, I didn't take this animosities too serious, I guessed it's probably just something like the Bern people have with the Zurich people and vice versa ;-).

Okinawa is also the island that has seen one of the most horrible bloodsheds in the last century, when Americans and Japanese fought each other without mercy during World War II. It's hard to imagine for me what brings people to a state of such fury where they shoot bombs and bullets at each other until the bitter end. Hundreds of thousands of people died during the battle for Okinawa, not to mention all the other casualties around the world. I have to say, that from time to time it's been also a bit eerie, when you travel around the island or lie at a magnificent beach, knowing that some decades ago there was death around everywhere. Still nowadays the American military plays quite a role on the island, occupying a large part of land for their airfields, camps for military personnel and other infrastructure. I wondered how it is for the Okinawan people to be surrounded by U.S. military all the time. For me it's just not imaginable being neighbor to a foreign army in my own country. I didn't have the chance to ask an Okinawan how he feels about all this, one other Australian guy whom I've met just told me, that probably the older generation just want the U.S. soldiers away the faster the better, but for the younger people it might be all just normal and ok.

When you're travelling sometimes things you haven't planned are the best ones. So when I found out that there is a Karate museum close to Naha, I called up the owner and he invited me to come over the next day. Now that's how I've met Mr. Hokama and one of his students, Kyoshi Sekar from Chennai, India. Mr. Hokama looked like a friendly elderly school teacher when I first met him, he made a lot of jokes about this and that (see Okinawans vs. Japanese above), he poured tea and offered cake to me, which of course was poisoned, so he said. According to him generally everything was somehow dangerous, especially that Indian guy sitting next to me, he told with a smirk in his face. After having had a look around the museum Mr. Hokama offered me to come back the next day to get a Karate lesson by Sensei Sekar, who was an 8th Dan Karate teacher, also being the responsible head of the Asian Karate association of their Go-Ju Ryu style. I was then more surprised when the next day Sensei Hokama himself (10th Dan) gave me the Karate lesson, together with Sensei Sekar, and I spent a very interesting two hours practising with them. Especially I've learned a few more points on the human body which feel quite unpleasant, when someone presses them... ouch! But it was a great experience!

After this nice enounter I needed a short break and took the ferry over to Zamami island, a beauty just some two hours off Naha. I really enjoyed that small little island with its gorgeous beaches, a nice little restaurant, a nice bar, a fine pension and the magic starry sky one can enjoy with a original Okinawan beer down at the harbor. Just the way I like it :-)

So after another day on Okinawa itself, I flew back to Osaka today, awaiting my Karate friends who will arrive in a few hours. But hey, they are late, the arrival info says, and I'm hungry :-) Anyway, that's been it with beach life and eating and drinking (beer) and hanging around, tomorrow our Karate training shall start with Sensei Mabuni, and I'm really looking forward to that!

Tokyo

Even though I have visited Tokyo before it still gives my the creeps by its sheer size, skyscrapers and buildings as far as the horizon & beyond, a lot of blingbling, screens, sounds, food stalls & karaoke bars everywhere, and soo many people. At this point I always hear Crocodile Dundee saying, well, if so many people decide to live at the same place together, they must definitely be very friendly people and all like each other ;-).

On Thursday I had the chance to meet Yasuko, whom I have encountered last New Years Eve in Zermatt together with a few other friends. We enjoyed a very nice Japanese dinner and Yasuko also gave me a few insights into Japanese life & society. Thanks a bunch for this, Yasuko :-)

I then also really enjoyed the weekend with my friend René, who just flew over from Singapore for having a few beers with me :-) Of course we couldn't refrain from visiting our most beloved bar, the Shibuya rockbar (we just called it that way) in order to listen to some good American and Japanese headbanging music and to have a few submarine Jägermeister whatever drinks ;-)

So at around half three maybe we decided to hop on a taxi to the Tsukiji fish market to watch the tuna auction show and to have a good sushi brekafast thereafter. And even though we had to wait until six in the morning, it was really worth a visit.

So next station will be Okinawa, where I hope to disover some roots of the Karate do and to find some nice beaches. Provided that the current taifun wont shoot my plane off the sky of course :-)

Osaka

Japan is the land of long time history & traditions, big cities, friendly people, good food (lucky me they have pictures on their menues) and a lot more, which I'm about to discover in the next few weeks. I'm also looking forward to meeting my friend René in Tokio this weekend, and then to visit Okinawa and the islands around.

Goodbye Party @ Memphis Bar

...thx to all my dear friends for coming... thanks to Sajib... thanks to the band, Memphis Banda, Tandem, Combozh, Sash, Tome, JP, Sanja, Jessie & Sophia... thx 4 all... Cheerio, F aka P

World Around Tour 2014 - 2015

The next project under construction