plus nine. neo now.

Every afternoon at 4 pm, when the sun loses a little of its power, the men and boys of koh jum meet on the main road of their village to practise muay thai, the thai form of boxing. in muay thai you use your fists, your feet, your knees to hit your opposite. for thai people muay thai is what soccer is for germans and and baseball for americans.
koh jum is a small island (and the main village on this island) on the southwest coast of thailand. situated near malaysia, most people living there are muslim, most of the men are fishermen or work in rubber plantations all over the island.

I never thought I'd hear about Koh Jum again: Where T. and I jumped off a ferry right into a little boat which brought us over to the island. (Koh Jum is too small for any tourist ferries to stop - so the ferry just slows down a little for the two or three or four backpackers who wanna go there, while the rest stays right on track to Krabi or another nearby island.) We just wanted to stay overnight, once. But after moving into the little stilted hut - the one closest to the jungle and therefore the cheapest; it didn't even have a lockable door or window - it just turned out to be one of those awesome places every backpacker hopes to find on a trip, just once. At night, the monkeys were screaming so loud in the trees above the hut that the dog on the compound kept freaking out, barking all night. In the early evening, we got to know the owners of the resort, if you wanna call it that. We completely hit it off, and ended up inviting each other to whiskeys in turns until the early morning hours. Instead of taking the fisherboat off the island in the early morning, we ended up staying for about three days. Every day it was the same procedure. We'd sleep in a little, take walks around the island, and in the evening the owners and the two of us started drinking together, swapping stories about their and our country. And the next morning it'd start all over again.

It's so nice to be reminded of this. Thanks, theGolfer.

[theGolfer's flickr set, official tourism site]

The building the foundation [office] resides in is an old wooden traditional Thai house, and while this house has stayed the same, it's now totally surrounded with tons of cement. Funnily, the foundation is affiliated with the Green Party in Germany, and the house looks like the realisation of the green conservation principle, fighting a lonely fight against the rest of the grey world. When I worked there two years ago, I stayed at the house, and I remember how I couldn't sleep because of the noise all the frogs and geckos and other animals made. The current interns cannot stay there because of the noise of the construction works.
Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand, as described by a dear friend of mine, who has been back regularly over the last 8 years. Chiang Mai is Thailand's second biggest city. Still, until quite recently it was a very relaxed hinterland kind of town. Not anymore, I guess. When I was there last time just a few months ago I had the same impression. But I only had a half-day stop, so I thought it was due to the area i was hanging out at. (i.e. around the trainstation.) Well, guess no. Sorry, Chiang Mai used to be awesome. (And I bet it still is, in a way.)

forget about pins in a map on your wall: generate your own visited countries map. and other unnecessary, but fun travel tools.

(ouch: 13%)

[via diskrep.ant]

a fortune cookie told me a little while ago: soon you will be travelling around the world. Well, that turned out to be true, so i'll be roaming around for a couple of weeks. I'll try to keep posting here, but also there'll be sort of a little side-project either here or here. enjoy.

aus gegebenem anlass: tales of asia. sehr, sehr feine seite.

note to self: check out [travelpod]

Some pictures from the Red Centre (click any of the pictures to see the whole set)

Rest stop on the way to Kings Canyon, central Australia. This is one of the places where you really don't want to run out of fuel...

für ein paar tage out of town, ab ins red centre. [google earth uluru (kmz, 0 KB)]

yeah.

Fein, fein, fein: Gerade ein Ticket gebucht nach Uluru (früher: Ayers Rock). Und bei der Gelegenheit geht's auch gleich zu den Olgas, der Felsformation mit dem besten Namen ever. Ick freu mir!