I am walking
When I saw this gigantic man on a facade of a parking garage in Dubai (United Arab Emirates) I started humming: I’m walking, yes indeed I’m talking For you and me and I’m hoping That you’ll come back to me I’m walking, yes indeed I’m talking For you and me and I’m hoping That you’ll [...]
7/3 for Mao?
Last week I visited a traditional courtyard house somewhere in the Beijing’s Hutong (China). There I saw what you see on the picture above: a historic poster of Mao Zedong above a beautifully decorated table resembling almost a shrine for worship. Although I don’t know enough about the details of China’s history of the past [...]
Santa in Nepal
Whether you have been there or you heard it from others, without a doubt Nepal is one of the most photogenic countries you can travel to. Beside unique sceneries you pass by tracking through the mountains, especially the people make this part of the world a very special one. This year I have been in [...]
Mexican Bridesmaids
Bridesmaids are members of the bride’s party in a wedding including the maid of honor who is often a close friend or sister. She attends to the bride before or during the wedding. Roman law apparently played an important role in today’s tradition. It required ten witnesses at a wedding in order to outsmart evil [...]
9 Famous Dubliners & One I Don’t Know
Last week I have been to Dublin (Ireland) and especially the taxi drivers proudly mentioned all the famous sons & daughters of their city. I tried to remember as many as I could, so here they are: 1) Bono: lead singer of U2 and political activist 2) Oscar Wild: author and poet and many of [...]
Surprise
More than ten years – that’s how long my first visit to Angkor (Cambodia) dates back. It is one of the few places I ever revisited and in case you haven’t been there yet: go if you have the chance. Angkor was the center of the Khmer Empire which flourished from the 9th to the [...]
The Early Bird Catches the Monk
It is 6.30 am and the boy is on his way back from the daily morning puja in the big prayer hall. He was sitting there with around 70 other monks of the yellow hat sect and recited sutras to the rhythm of bells, trompeds & drums. It was cold and dark when he entered the [...]
With Your Permission – Lady Lucy and Mrs. Ples
When I travelled in Ethiopia I met Lucy or better the skeleton of her. Lucy lived 3.2 million years ago, was named after the Beatles song (“Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”) which was apparently playing continuously in the excavation camp in 1974. Finding her was a sensation as the skeleton shows evidence of small skull [...]
A as in Ahmad
Very often wonderful landscapes, touristic attractions, cultural highlights, exotic food or simply stunning beaches are the reason to travel. That’s before the journey starts. Reading my travel journals and thinking back about the highlights of my trips, more than often personal encounters come to my mind first. When I travelled in Jordan, obviously the Dead [...]
Snake and the City
Forget about mice and spiders. There is barely another species that gives so many people the creeps like snakes. Fear of snakes is one of the most common phobias, yet many people have never seen a snake in person. Some researchers believe that the fear may be evolutionary, developed by our ancestors as a survival mechanism. [...]
Ethiopian Beauty
If you want to get an impression of Africa as it may once have been, Ethiopia is one of the few places left for you to go. The country is home to more than 50 different tribes. Many of them live in the southwestern part, the so called Omo River valley. That is also home [...]
My Cup of Tea
Earlier this year, traveling through Kandy (Sri Lanka), I read the story about Lipton – yes, the Lipton you might know from the tea bag in your cup. From 187o to 1888 the clever Sir Thomas Lipton grew his parents grocery shop in Glasgow to a nationwide chain of 300 stores. This provided him with guaranteed [...]
TashKENt & Barbie
“Where is that?” − is what most of my friends asked when I told them, that I was going to Tashkent. If you wonder about that as well, keep on reading as you will learn seven facts about Uzbekistan and its capital, you will never forget again: Uzbekistan is one of only two countries in the [...]
Move your lips
Funny, no matter where you travel and how difficult it is to order a meal or ask for the right bus – smiling always works. It’s probably the strongest of all universal human vocabularies. Everyone on earth understands it. Smiling is a way to communicate with others (if you don’t believe it, think about how [...]
Seeking nothing less than enlightenment
What are you doing today? The two Sadhus I met in Kathmandu (Nepal) and their dog probably do the same like yesterday, last week and what they have been doing for the past years: they are pursuing enlightenment. Nothing more, nothing less. They are obliged to live simple lives with few possessions, simple tastes in food [...]
Proud to be Bavarian
If you are Bavarian, you don’t really care that you live in the largest federal state of Germany. But you are incredibly proud of “being different”. You relate to a long history of traditions which you know or at least pretend to know. You are happy to live in a beautiful part of Europe, where [...]
Water is disappearing − let’s go to work
On this day the sign to work came at 1pm. Not only the two brothers, their father and mother, but also their neighbors and friends grabbed their spears & dip nets and went fishing. Some pulled their boats out, others waded several kilometers through the knee-deep sea. Every day, the majority of places on the [...]
Lady in Gansu Province – aging like the rest of China
When the lady, strolling through a tiny town in Gansu Province (China), had the age of her grandson, more than 40 percent of all Chinese were younger than 20 years. Chinese fertility was falling already by then, but the famous “one child policy” accelerated the trend from 1979 onwards. In a few years almost every [...]
