Merry Christmas

My dear readers,
I send out some surprises allready, but i am sure most of them haven’t arrived yet.
Thats why i am giving you another present right here.
it is once again picture time:

Stunning sunsets at lowtide, we tried to reach the buffalos, but it was so muddy we could barely walk

1237 steep steps to the tiger temple

A cheeky wizard greets us half way up

999 steps

well thanks for the warning

Exhausted we reach the top. thankful for a cup of water.

but it was definitely worth it

thunderstorm is approaching, we better walk back down the stairs

our trip to the hotsprings…watch the drowning kids

We reached Chiang Mai just in time for Loy Kratong the festival of lights.

Every little dot is a lantern

and thy got caught in cables

and trees, luckily there was no fire

And then we went to meditate. This is the library

the ordination hall

and the oldest temple with a buddha statue from the 1400s

every Full-half and new-moon it is time for Buddha day

we give offerings to honor the tripple gems, buddha, his teaching and everybody that followed his teaching to enlightenment

the lighting of a candle or an oil lamp represents the light of wisdom illuminating the darkness of ignorance. the burning of incense represents the fragrant scent of morality. flowers represents the aspiration to achieve the body of the Buddha with the thirty-two marks of the Buddha as well as the teaching of impermanence.

My little “kuti” where i lived and also meditated quite bit.

shaving day

offering alms food for the monks

After we were out of the monastery we celebrated Bodhi Day on top of the mountain in Doi Suthep

with an amazing view

and magic powers

Celebrating our one year aniversary with the most delicious Pizza ever!

And now for all the fans of furry animals…i give you tigers!

We played music for this girl, she loved it and her friends joined in too.

Now we take a night train to our next destination… what an adventure.
So long
Ole

Changes

For the last 2 weeks i worked as a cook in a beach kiosk.
I made money so i can afford to fly to Thailand.
I booked a ticket today.
The winter here was hard. people don’t heat their homes and most europeans agree that it is harsher than the european winters. Even though we get colder temperatures.
But the summer has started and i like it. Beaches with beautiful people tanning in the sun. Surfers waiting for the perfect wave. It feels like it has become a different place.
Yet i had enough.
I sold my car and i am getting rid of the stuff that i have accumulated because of it.
I am looking forward to the relaxed attitude of the Asians. It sometimes feels like most things here are about money.
I have an urge to not worry about money anymore to thrive and live, but australia seems so expensive you are on a constant survival.
It is going to be great to go back to asia, meditate and meet old friends before i go back home. Or maybe i will change my mind completely after meditating. Who knows.
I am looking forward to meeting my family and friends again, working in switzerland, and eventually starting to study there.
Loving life today, my job hired other people, so i am not working at the moment, but really enjoying my free time.
Here are some pix of the job.

The cook

The kitchen

The view

The Ice-cream

So long
Ole

The catwalk games

hello dear readers,
I have made a very fun experience.
I was a commercial catwalk model for the fudge hair show.
I cannot really describe what happened.
So much glam! Makeup artists, Hairdresser and choreographers, all dressed in the latest designer clothes. It was very stereotypical to be honest.
I felt like a mix between Derek Zoolander and Katniss Everdeen. Tributes of Panem.
It was so surreal but the best paid job i have had so far…i was basically paid for waiting around all day 😀

The hairdresser who was a star among hairdresser apparently liked me so much they flew me to Melbourne, where i stayed at the Hilton…wow.
They put my hair up like Bjoerk or Gwen Steffani and clothed me in Pink…after the makeup i looked more like Olivia than like Ole 😀
It was definitely an experience worth making!
so long
Ole

So much colored hair

green

like in another world

the pants i wore stood up…

hello my name is olivia!

That was us, the Tributes…

Citylife is so draining!

p.s. I am off to the forest!

2nd Jubilee at a beautiful beach

Dear readers,
i live right by the best beach of Sydney, it is incredible. Coogee for the win!
Even though the job market is slowing down i enjoy the immense beauty of my surroundings.
I am going to stay here until the 3rd of August and then a couple weeks later hopefully get a job as a chef on daydream island, hold your fingers crossed for me 🙂

I cannot believe, that ii have been gone for more than 2 years now!
It is crazy it passed like a storm.
So many experiences, so many emotions, so many impressions, so many people
And as i said before i do not regret anything.
It has been a great ride and i am sure that my journey will continue to enrich me and hopefully other people as well…whether i am traveling or not.
I am looking forward to coming back to my birthplace, my homebase. I am anxious that people “don’t get me”, but i guess i just need to train my communication skills for that 🙂
But while traveling i must say i think i found the home in me.
That’s what i think is the significance of being uprooted for such a long time. You loose the attachment to your conditioned values, and you learn to love the whole.
I am not saying you have to be uprooted to find that, it might just be easier to find.
You see that things are evenly beautiful, evenly problematic, it is the same joy or despair wherever you go. My father always used to say: “The sum of all problems is always equal”
You are not attached to your ways of thinking as the only ones, there are 7 billion people on this planet and everybody has their own little bubble. Who am i to claim the only truth.
I am extremely grateful, that i am able to travel for such a long time.
There is not may people who travel that long or CAN travel that long for that matter…i think it is extremely giving to travel and it would be a great world if everybody would travel at least once in their life.

Okay enough cheesy thoughts
This Sunday i went to a Nigerian church. Last Sunday i told you i went dancing and in the bus back i met Victor a Nigerian petroleum engineer who invited me to this very cultural experience. It was a lot of fun.
I was the only white person in the room and attracted the attention of all the 2-4 year old 😀
It is crazy how there is a special Australian-Nigerian partnership program…Nigeria has the 3rd biggest Crude Oil reserve in the world.
It would seem as if Australia is doing some public relations here…

View from my kitchen

ZENsation chinese teastall

it was soo cool

hundreds of different teapots

my favorite part of the beach

the “rockgarden”

Me and Victor

the way to my little hideout with little opossums coming close to me

I found a little hideout in a teatree forest.
While meditating there an opossum came close to me it looked and came closer. Up to 1 meter!!
It was gone when i came back with an apple and banana.

So long Ole
p.s. i wanted to write earlier, but my phone doesn’t like the wordpress app…it crashed 3 times!

My neighborhood and the blue mountains

Hey ho

i moved to Coogee, 4minute walk to the beach.
It is very beautiful. To bad that it is so cold, and it started raining today… but in the morning you can sit by the beach.
It is wonderful to watch the waves crashing into the rocks and if you are lucky you see whales breaching through the sea.
You can put up your hammock in the trees and just enjoy life.
Last weekend i went sailing again, the boat “Mojo” looks like a spaceship and gets really fast. Our bowsprit broke while flying the kite/spinnaker so we lost the race. Next weekend it will be fixed and we will hopefully win!

The Beach next door

like a spaceship

the mojo

i carried most of this junk

my job as a plumber

and demolitionman

chillin

waves crashing, and wedding pie island in the back

the other side of the bay

these trees are fascinating

the trippy sculpture in the park

my home, bream st. 81

This weekend Rose and I went for a trip to the blue mountains. It is the mountain range just 1.5h west of Sydney and it is incredibly beautiful.
It is a place full with steep cliffs and waterfalls everywhere. We slept in our car, but it got soooo cold over night. It is winter here after all, and in the mountains it is even colder.
The next morning was so freezing my hands turned all numb. During the day however the sun came out and it became nice and warm.
We saw the 3 sisters, a rock formation with a special story:

Three sisters, Meenhi, Wimlah and Gunnedoo had a father who was a witch doctor.
His name was Tyawan.
Long ago there was a Bunyip who lived in a deep hole who was feared by all. Passing the hole was considered very dangerous, therefore whenever Tyawan had to pass the hole in search for food, he would leave his daughters safely on the cliff behind a rocky wall.
One fateful day, Tyawan waved goodbye to his daughters and descended down the cliff steps into the valley. Meanwhile at the top of the cliff, Meenhi was frightened by a large centipede which suddenly appeared before her. Meenhi took a stone and threw it at the centipede. The stone continued on its journey and rolled over the cliff, crashing into the valley below which angered the Bunyip.
The rocky wall behind Meenhi, Wimlah and Gunnedoo then began to split open and the three sisters were left stranded on a thin ledge at the top of the cliff.
All the birds, animals and fairies stopped still as the Bunyip emerged to see the terrified girls. As the Bunyip began to approach the girls, to protect them from harm, their father Tyawan used his magic bone to turn them into stone.
Angered by this, the Bunyip then began to chase Tyawan. Becoming trapped, in order to flee from the Bunyip, Tyawan changed into a magnificent Lyre Bird, yet in the process dropped his magic bone.
Tyawan and his three daughters were now safe from the Bunyip. Once the Bunyip had disappeared, Tyawan returned in search of his magic bone, yet this was never to be found.
The Lyre Bird has been searching for this magic bone ever since. Remaining in rock formation, The Three Sisters stand silently overlooking the valley hoping that one day he’ll find the bone and turn them back to former selves.
When visiting The Three Sisters, if you listen carefully you may be able to hear the Lyre Bird, Tyawan, as he continues his quest for his lost magic bone.

So there is definitely magic in these mountains, and as if planned, we found a magic gate that took us to an enchanted part of the jungle where we got a little lost, found some Ents, heard Dragons and saw a bigfoot on the street 😉

the blue mountains at night

and day

steep cliffs

the three sisters

the minne haha falls

mini but HAHA

the magic gate

so pretty…

me inside the ent

it this a bigfoot on the street?

Roses visa is up soon, so she will do a visa run to Fiji and hopefully be back soon.

So long
Ole
p.s. i haven’t seen a single soccer world championship game. But i am happy we won the title 😉

Winter in Sydney

My dear readers,

Last time I wrote was when I flew to Sydney to see Rose again. Now I have spent more than a month here. Being a plumber, a carpenter, a model and again demolition man.

Sydney has a lot to offer. It was vivid Sydney, where they illuminated several big buildings like the opera house with projections and had open museums and galleries through the center. But traffic here is like the design of a madman.

There seem to be quite a few nude beaches around. We accidentally stumbled across one when we went to see the beautiful camp cove. It was the shortest day of the year, but it was so warm that i dared into the water.

After midwinter it got really cold however. Snuggle weather. Like really!

Ludo came back from cairns and we spent his last days in australia together. We really experienced quite some adventures together! It was weird bringing him to the airport. Has it really been 5month again? In 3 weeks i will have been gone for 2 years. It feels like i am ready to come back. I am going to stay in sydney until beginning of august and then try to find a boat to asia where i am going to visit some old friends and finish my journey with reflection in a quiet place.

Thats the plan. But if you have been following this blog, you know that plans are made to change 😉

So long

Ole.

P.s. pictures follow if i have a laptop again 🙂

 

Resume

my last post was more than a month ago.
Wow, and i promised my family to write at least one per month…tsktsk OleOleOle…
I really do not enjoy writing blog on my phone though, so please forgive me 🙂

I wanted to hitchhike from the farm to Cairns, to find a job there.
But on my last day we went to the river nearby and i fell in love.
I decided to stay there for 3 days on my own in stead. It was delightful, the occasional pickup or quad driving by (it was the weekend) was little disturbance to the serenity.
It was good to be on my own again, after almost a year constantly together with other people this was the first time i was really on my own again, just for 3 days but still.
First the ship and then Ludo.
After 3 days we had a big goodbye dinner with everybody from the farm, and me and ludo left for Cairns.
Ludo also had a little disagreement with the owner of the farm about how to treat workers so we kind of had to leave 🙂

We stopped on the way to meet 2 German friends of ours and swam in a jellyfish proof ocean net. It felt like going into a swimming pool (20m by 20m), the whole benefit of the ocean was suddenly gone…well at least there was no poisonous stingers.

Next stop Cairns, camping is not allowed in the whole of Queensland (the state we are now in) so to sleep we always drove way out of town to find a hiding spot.
We did not make the mistake to park in a driveway anymore.
Our first night was abruptly ended when the farmer honked and asked us what we were doing, me still half asleep told him some story that we were lost on our way to look for a banana farm which settled him. I even asked him for a job 😉
So we found another great sleeping spot past the airport (-16.871436, 145.731880 google maps)
Once again we were hunting for jobs, and most of you already know what followed, we became Ricksha drivers, or how they call them here Pedicabs.
Also i took my first nickname ever “Red”.
It was pretty amazing, i dressed up as the pirate “Red Ryder”, and played my favorite music all night. I had a party, listed to music, worked my body and got money for that. Great!
I mean the disadvantages were that i started work at 6pm and stopped at 6am so i kind of became a vampire, i did not know what the weather during the day was because i slept at least till 4pm. Also i did not see anything in Cairns, that you could not see during the night. I enjoyed it anyhow.
But people in Cairns now know me only as Red, which was a pretty trippy feeling.
Even Ludo started calling me Red, i did not call him Blue.
I made a relatively good amount of money, enough to afford a flight to Sydney to see Rose again.
That’s where i am right now.
I let ludo travel alone for a while. I really enjoyed the time with somebody from home, but it was weird too. Both of us kind of associated the other with the person from our memories, but it seems people change over time.
I wonder how people are going to see me when i come home, should i keep the nickname?
I think i am going to stay with Olé.
I love you guys, thank you for all the comments.

our zombie parrot

ludo

and me as limepickers

solar eclipse

Ze chocolate bar

i mean the galaxy

my river retreat

i built a solar clock to keep track of time

the river

saying goodye to the goodtimes

australia being hostile

vinegar vs jellyfish

oh i forgot to mention the crocodiles

illegal camping

 

So now i am in Sydney again and am planning to make my way back north again, with Rose this time.
And i will try to write more regularly.
So Long
Your Ole

a backpackers life

hey all my readers, how are you?
and who are you?
It would be amazing if everybody who reads this, if i know you or not, leaves a comment saying “i do”.

Anyhow, back to topic, a lot has happened.
We left sydney.
It was a hard decision, should i stay in Sydney with my girlfriend Rose or travel north together with my best friend Ludo.
I decided to go work on a mandarin farm up north.
We took our time and stopped along the way.
We left on the birthday of my little sister, which i forgot.
And i am soo sorry for that.
We stopped and bought a air matrace and a body board for the big waves.
We took some hitchhikers slept in Coffs harbour.
A little town where we met up with a friend from the horseback riding trip.
He made ludo drink the supposedly worst beer in australia.
According to Ludo VB was “shit but not the worst i ever drank, that was some Spanish beer”
Then we continued, we went to a surfing spot called Skennars head, it lays very exposed and has gigantic waves. Also dolfins close to the coast 🙂
Then we went to a fracking protest with people chaining themselves to roadblocks, where i met my good old pirate friend Lev again.
It is scary what rights the mining companies have here in australia, a farmer has no right to the things under ground only above ground. so a mining company can come and drill on his property and there is nothing he can do against it.
We stayed in the camp for 2 days helping out and for the first time in australia we saw alive aboriginal culture…original australian culture…
They told some of their stories, and one of the elders held a touching speech that they are taking responsibility for what is happening with the land. We white people have no idea what is going on around us, he said, it it their responsibility (aboriginal people carry “the law” of the land/the earth) to bring balance.
The next day he left to a big meeting of 500 native australian tribe elders in the middle desert.
We went on to the mandarin farm, what shock was it that the farmer told us we couldn’t start working for another 2 weeks.
Luckily there was a farm job just 12h car ride away… and we were desperate for a job.
SO here we are.
In the middle of nowhere, charters towers is the name of the town, but we live 20km away on a farm. Picking Limes and pruning grape vines.
We already saw a zombie parrot, a baby python, tons of spiders with incredibly strong nets, kangaroos in the morning sun and hunted kangaroos by our farm dog smokey…he never catches any
The money is not very good, but the people are very nice.
I don’t really know what to do next, but our friend from Melbourne knows somebody who is in labour hire/construction in Queensland. I might try to ask him for help.
Also our car registration ends today, but it is a public holyday…no good.
Anyhow my dear readers, i will take care.

If you want to see pictures and videos, please click >HERE<! Ludo writes in german, but he has a computer. Yes my computer is falling apart.
And please write a comment.

so long Ole

happy new year!

2013 was a cool year!
It started with the sea and ended with it.
Thank you for being such nice readers and comment writers.

The last year was divided in two:
First the journey through S.E. Asia on and off the beaten tracks. Backpacking culture, Temples, Meditation, Parties, Massage, Jungle, Tourism, Buddhism, Water fights and Dragon boats.

And second the journey with “Infinity” over the Pacific Ocean from the Philippines to New Zealand.
Water, Water, Island, Corals, Water, Sharks, Turtles, Water, Storm, Rain, Sails, Fish, No internet, Meditation, Work, learning, Community, Culture, a journey back in time, Alienation and Discovery

It was a strange experience to arrive in Auckland after 2 weeks at sea, and 6 month on the pacific. It felt like we had arrived on another planet. Silver skyscrapers, lights, a clean city with no holes in the spotless roads, anonymous people walking from shop to shop (it was Christmas time after all) it felt like one year ago, when i arrived in Singapore.
Reverse culture shock, thats what my exchange organization called it when an exchange student feels alienated by his/her home country.

I feel stressed, but not in this particular moment…not at all i am relaxing in the Kiwi-countryside and have a lot of fun.
I spent my new years eve on a Hot Water beach. Digging my own geothermal bathtub.
No i feel stressed by what i have seen, heard and experienced.
Destruction, clear cuts of rain forests, an ocean wiped clean of fish, cultures being poisoned by money and media, dying corals,
violence, climate change, exploitation and poverty.
Problems that everybody has heard of before.
Problems that everybody knows are severe.
Problems that nobody wants to be true.

And so they just become surreal things, because we cannot see them in Europe as extreme as in other parts of the world.
I feel stressed because i know we have to act fast, but nobody wants to.

I have to say, that i quite like my life as vagabond, pirate or whatever you want to call me. But i feel like i am sitting on hot coals.
It is the same feeling i had before in Thailand but even more severe this time.
I feel like i will stop/pause my journey soon to learn some skills, in the institution called university, before i become to alienated for studying 😉

I hope you all have a wonderful year 2014!!

“Earth porn”

What is “Earth Porn”?
Well, what is your first association when you hear it?
Think about it for a second.

Wikipedia:
“Pornography is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purpose of sexual arousal.”

Lets rephrase that:
Earth porn is (the explicit portrayal of) epic natural subject matter (for the purpose of) causing instant aesthetic arousal.

It seems to me, that my whole journey has been earth porn.
Seeing the cool stuff you normally find on the Internet.
The cool stuff i myself am now contributing.
To know what i am talking about scroll down and look at the pictures 😉

This will be my last ocean entry for a while as we have arrived in New Zealand. So all you friends of the sea read with great caution.

In Port Villa i spent some time with the local muslim youth.
I made some interviews (i will soon upload a compilation of some of my video material as soon as i get super fast internet), drank Kava, made some good friends, got 2 dreadlocks, flirted with the local ladies, went big time shopping on the local fruit market and had a lot of fun.

Wazzim Fox, the best homie

the guys making my hair

pirate look complete

the port villa crew

uncle jim

in paradise

infinity

We left Port Villa in a pirate manner, almost ramming a high voltage power line on our way to refueling, luckily nothing happened.
Due to the blockage to the fueling dock, we had to wait for the big dock to be free and got in line with a 1000 people cruising ship and a huge sea cable boat.
Oh how happy the people of Port Villa are that they also will have high speed internet soon…
We spend the time waiting in a Jam session aboard.
Finally we made music again… it was about time.

A day later we arrived in Tanna, world famous for it super active volcano Mt Yasur.
We anchored right next to the hot springs, in which i gladly indulged myself. At low tide it is a very twosome place 😉
We went to the volcano as soon as we could, we already saw the ash clouds from the boat.
BUt pictures can say more than words on that one…i can just say: The lava was flying very high, and very close to us. I was looking at the crater the whole night, it did not get boring at all…earth porn for sure. No wonder they asked for money.

And just in time for the first of Advent a group of 40 guys came aboard to make music with us… so much fun!
(excuse me but i am a little tired writing this 😉 )

Port Resolution in Tanna i would live here

school is over…

think Safety

volcano post

drumming at the rim

Sage, chloe and Rosita 🙂

earth porn

talking to the volcano

him answering

after a successful night at the volcano, no sleep but fulfilment

we did not cross the dangerous point….or did we 😉

AMAZING sunrise

village jam on a boat

And so we left for Auckland…
Out of Paradise into the glass and concrete world of western civilization.
We actually started catching fish again, it seems the Chinese fishing boats have not made it this far south yet, (or New Zealand just has more money for the coastal law enforcement.)
When the NZ coastline appeared it felt like we were in Lord of the rings 😀
After 6 month living on a boat i finally made it to New Zealand.
Took me some time one could say.
We cleaned the whole boat of any organic plant material or insect residue which we might have stowed from somewhere (that really took us some time)
And then in the light of the 16th of December we saw the skyline of Auckland.
It felt like arriving on another planet.
but i will address culture shock and a review of the whole journey in the next blog entry as i have the feeling this one is getting quite long.

christmas on a boat

peter is steering

calm runrise

sunrise meditation

schnipp schnapp haare ab

cut the hair

kissing in the sunset

making gingerbread

because ole is in chrismas mood

pirate flag

pirate time

cleaning for quarantine

fun at sea

arrival in metropolis

I hope you had fun following my blog until now.
Please give me some feedback how you like the format, the content etc.
What would you like to hear more about? what do you think is unnecessary blabbering?
Australia is coming up!

So long Ole
p.s. i am flying to Australia on the 24th of January