A ride into the green

One of the most exciting things for me about travelling is that you will get to know different ways of transportation. It doesn´t really matter if it is comfortable. In fact, the most uncomfortable ones are the ones you will remember. If i sit in a minibus on a rough road trough the mountains, with twice the amount of people which would fit in, according to european standards, and the driver still thinks two more and a cage of chicken easily fit in, i know i´m in the right place. Don´t get me wrong, i don´t enjoy it at this moment, but i´ll remeber it later and i´ll be happy that i have survived.

The uncomfortable rides are one thing. The really unusuall ones are another. They are just fun, and what i have found a few days ago is something i just have to show. There is a small village somewhere in the rainforrest of colombia, which is not connected by any road. Only old, rusty rails connect the village to the rest of the world. The problem is that if you want to go there by train you would maybe wait forever. The locals there have found a great solution for this.

 

Beasts of the eastern wild: #02

The Gharial a.k.a long nose croc

Jungle trecking in Nepal is fun. You walk on foot through a jungle where mighty beasts like rihnos, slothbears, crocs and ... the bengal tiger roam around. We were prepared, we had our cameras. You had to hire two guides, so we did. And they had sticks to protect us. We were prepared.

Fiji time

I think there is no place i´ve been in the last years where i took the amount of pictures like i did in Fiji. Almost none. I´ll use more or less all of them in the following text. Later, my couchhost in L.A. said that a good tourist always has his camera with him. It seems like, i have turned into a very bad one.  I ask myself if i´m still spoiled of too much travelling? While going through the very small folder of the group of islands i realise that, especially in Fiji, i actually was the perfect tourist. 

Guinea pig gambling

There are these rare moments, when you are on the way back to you hostel, your camera batterie is empty and you forgot to bring a spare one. Doesn´t matter, you´re done and it´s not far away. You don´t expect anything to happen. A step around a corner and you realise that you were wrong. "Maybe a few seconds." Once more, you turn your camera on. If the following red blinking light would have a sound effect, the lovely concert for strings from the Pyscho shower scene would fit quite well. The settings should still be allright. You have to hurry. You hit the button. Two short klicks from the multishot setting and that´s it, no response anymore. - I have very mixed feelings about this moments.

Beasts of the eastern wild: #01 The Lizard

Lizards are awsome. All of them. Some of them look like dinosaurs, but my favourites are the smaller house lizards from India and South east asia. Nothinger better than a lizard which hunts for mosquitos in the beach hut. They are usefull but not as pictureesque as the bigger species. As bigger as better. I´m still dreaming of going to kommodo to see the huge varanids one day and have a few shootings with them, but for now this one has to do it. A random lizard from Aserbaidschan. He was quite big and so i chased him while i visited some, also random, cavepaintings south of Baku. He was not really happy about it and so he looked a bit supicious before he was heading off to hide in a narrow rock crevice. 

Namasté

Das magische Tor.

Nur noch ein paar Meter. Nur noch ein paar Schritte und ich erreiche endlich das was die ganze ganze Zeit vor mir lag. Es ist greifbar. Das Land der tausend Farben und der aber tausend Götter. Vor mir baut sich ein gewaltiger, verzierter Torbogen auf. Die magische Schwelle zum versprochenem Wunderland. In einem kleinen Büro, direkt neben dem Torbogen, wird noch kurz der Austrittsstempel Nepals in den Pass gedrückt und schon durchschreite ich den Durchgang. Es folgen Reizüberflutung, Erstaunen und eine etwas zeitverzögert eintretende Verwirrtheit. Es folgt Indien.

Und jährlich grüßt der Osterhase

Mir der bevorstehenden Winterflucht vom anderen Ende der Welt erwacht auch die Motivation neue Projekte in Angriffe zu nehmen und der Lethargie zu entkommen. Eastboundaround wird daher mit etwas verändertem Konzept neugestartet. Es wird mehr visuell und wieder aktueller. Um auch den vielen Menschen die ich unterwegs kennen lernen durfte eine Möglichkeit zu geben hier mitzulesen wird eastboundaround in Zukunft in Englisch erscheinen, Nebenbei wird es auch dazu führen mich kürzer zu halten. Längere Geschichten in deutsch wie vor der Pause werden aber noch ab und zu erscheinen. Ich habe noch ein paar, keine Sorge. Den kontinuierlichen Ablauf einzuhalten fällt an diesem Punkt aber einfach zu schwer. Um das bisher gepostete vorerst abzuschließen gibt es noch eine kurze Geschichte über den Ausgang meiner Reise nach Indien. Bis dahin. Frohe Osterfeiertage.