Abuse against nature

This is the beautiful farming area straight behind my house, one of the most fertile farming areas in Germany. My couchsurfers get the chance to take an early morning walk stealing good strawberries. Don't tell anybody because it's a secret. This area is going to be flattened out(!!)) to make way for an ugly football stadium. The view of the mountains will be gone and so will be the healthy crop. Not to talk about drunken soccer fans tramping through the remaining crop.

Penang food

My trip first trip to Penang to temples, eating tours and plantations.












Penang Bridge

More food

Melinjo, A Malay Indonesian bitter vegetable

Malay food

Rojak, an Indonesian Malaysian salad with various sauces among others cincalo. Cincalo is a sauce made of nearly rotten little shrimps. Cincalo is also a somewhat ambiguous word for a Malaysian European Eurasian. My Malaysian friends joke and called me"cincalok". The Indonesian word for cincalok is terasi, the same word for Eurasians. Cincalok supposed to be the favourite food of the Eurasians i suppose;-))))




Mamak stall on the Malaysian Thai border to Hat Yai

Couchsurfing hosts

These hosts are not looking for references and vouches. Zita, Oliver's dog from New Caledonia and Kangaroo I took a picture of at one of Kakadu's carparks. Zita will only vouch for you if she smells you and finds you vouch-worthy:-))))). If you feed Kangaroo maybe she will vouch easier than Zita?

Meet people or save money?

It is quite annoying when you have the impression that people are only interested in free accommodation without any respect for the host. As a matter of fact there is quite a fine line between CouchSurfing and free accommodation. A person can be a wonderful guest and friend at one place which explains many not other than glowing references and multiple vouches.

However, the same person could be tired, out of cash or in whatever state of mood when arriving at another host's place. When somebody desperately needs a place to sleep for the night, they would stay with anybody who offers a place. Worst case scenario: A freeloader not interested in you, eating your food without asking, leaving a dirty lump of washing and souvenirs like bed bugs or even swine flu.

Nearly every surfer prefers a host that fits but they would definitely keep options open and "reserve" a second choice host. The problem would occur when this second option host is YOU. As a host, we may examine the request, profile and your own possibilities very well before accepting the person. This is also the reason, why I am not keen on last-minute requests. Email contact is a good way to find out more about the personal connection.

Is a member required to host before surfing?
Well, I would not feel very comfortable to host someone who does not intend to host me back. So if their profile doesn't contain any couch information I tend to be reluctant. Some members organise a lot of meetings and potlucks, give generously to their hosts. So why not hosting these members? It is not pleasant to see when a member has surfed many couches, receive positive references and then delete their profile or don't log in anymore.

We cannot eliminate this behaviour and as a host, the only thing we can do is to select our guests properly. Since we cannot guarantee that it will click we can do a few things. I look at a profile and the first communicator is the photo. Until now I was never wrong and people whom I met were quite decent characters. It happened only one time that we decided not to continue our friendship although this person was a decent character.

After I realised that a traveller in an internet cafe cannot read a whole profile, I ask them to read the couch information only. I'm not too keen on last minute and 1-night requests because we simply do not have the time to get to know each other. The groups on a profile are important because if somebody is a member in several satanist and sadist clubs, it would be a reason for me not to host them. References and friends are most important but I will start to look at the references and profiles of their references.

Of course everybody would like to save money. If we stay with our parents or best friends we will save a lot of money too. But I wouldn't like to feel like a free B & B nor would I like strangers to save money at my expenses.

Couchsurfing Leadership has given their stance to us on Ambassador Info group. We may not charge for the couch itself but it would be OK to charge for food, phone calls, internet and any costs which may occur to us due to a surfer staying at our place. Such costs may be water, electricity, gas, petrol etc. You can visit my profile and look for the group: Ambassador Info and Q & A for questions.

Couchsurfing in a Thai nunnery

Jeffrey took us to a nunnery near Hat Yai, Thailand. Originally we only came to eat durian and vegetarian food for free. The nunnery was very well-managed and organised. No men are allowed to reside here although there are some men employed by the nuns. WOMEN ARE STRONG BOSSES WITH A KIND HEART!!!

The nuns were all very strong, down-to-earth and technical women. The seniors were assertive but wise, the younger ones a bit more nerve-wracking and tried to boss on me. Of course I was the wrong person for that because I would have appreciated more respect and consideration towards my person. The language barrier was not of much help. The social structure was downward and authoritarian but friendly. Too downward for my taste but my reason to stay there was to immerse.

Nevertheless, I decided to stay there and experience their lifestyle and meditation. They expected someone who stayed there to contribute with whatever, especially in household and gardening. We had to start total fastening and silence starting from noon until 3.am noon. In the evening we had more singing prayers and physical meditation including long walks(similar to Tai Chi walking). Then sleeping time until the gong woke us up for singing prayers. The senior nuns are however aware that a person new to fasting or somebody with medical conditions such as arthritis could not be subjected to the fasting and sitting prayer. So they allowed me to eat a little and gradually adapt to their lifestyle.

I admired their pragmatic attitude of integrating meditation practices into any physical task needed for the nunnery. As a martial artist, I'm very well aware of involving the qi(life force) from meditation into physical activity like sports and martial arts applications. Involving and later infusing the qi into the muscles not only through Tai Chi or Wing Chun forms but through daily activities is very well practiced in this nunnery. I do practice Tai Chi during any kind of activity including computer- and housework.

SEE ALL PHOTOS BELOW




Me going out of the temple after presenting the brick to Buddha

Me entering and kneeling in front of the temple before presenting the brick to Buddha. We can write a special wish on it and it is said that it will come true

Me in temple clothing in front of my private chalet. Joe and Anthony visited me.







Sewing, a contribution to the nunnery



Buddha

Nitmiluk Gorge, Northern Territory, Australia

This is less well-known than the Kakadu National Park. You can hike and ride a boat to see the maximum of this beautiful gorge. I bumped into a bunch or good fun local Australians. Lots of conversations about travels, people, life so we decided to do several boat rides and hikes together. And who said that staying at a hotel doesn't make you to meet people? I met all these wonderful here as well as in pubs and sports clubs until I decided to settle down and live in a nice apartment

Noumea

New Caledonia is one of the most expensive countries along with French Polynesia. It is not the usual backpacker trail despite breath-taking nature and some beautiful sandy beaches. More than the majority are white French decendants but living on Polynesian grounds has changed a lot of their way of life, spontaneity and hospitality. New Caledonia is a multi-cultural and -ethnic society where even a giant cruise ship arriving from Australia will make the people blend in completely. There is nothing of that weird feeling of isolation as a tourist here. If you speak decent French, it will make your life even easier....

My Couchsurfing host locked me out by accident and I thought I would go out dancing salsa for a while. Since I had my sneakers on, I was not permitted into their posh club and was forced to sleep on the beach.  Luckily there was a homeless Melanesian family who offered to protect me. They had a huge campervan and didn't come across as poor as the usual homeless. One policeman offered me a place to sleep in a comfortable room and not in jail, the others commented "La femme n'est pas catholique". This refers to somebody who is not quite right on the mainstream track, France being a predominantly Catholic country. I preferred the beach because I felt safe with the 'homeless' family.

Me and indigenous woman in Noumea, New Caledonia

Nic and Annelies, my hosts in Vienna

Normally I'm not a particular friend of large gatherings because I like to interact on a deeper basis. But the Vienna Calling was so inspiring and meaning: I just felt the endorphines flowing through my body!!!! I met many people with whom I just communicated on the net. Joking, drinking, hiking...name it!!!!! I met the LT or Leadership and Tech Team of Couchsurfing, some crazy guys but yet so down-to-earth.

I thought it was going to be difficult to find a couch in such a city like Vienna especially during this gathering!!! After sending out 4 requests, 3 hosts said yes and the last one who was about to embark on her travelling sent me a nice very personalised message. Nic and Annelies were probably the most caring hosts in my Couchsurfing life and we had so many good experiences!

Nic
Nic's apartment was cosy and perfectly organised with towels artistically arranged in a basket. I needed to be careful in order not to intrude into this harmony. As I arrived after midnight because the flight arrived late, she had already prepared a small table next to my couch. On this she put a bottle of water and a glass, a small bottle of shower gel in the shape of a turtle and the keys hanging around the bottle neck.

She could perfectly empathise with the feelings of a guest who arrived and even provided some cupboard space for my clothes. How grateful I was!! I don't demand space for my things from my hosts but how grateful I was not to live out of the suitcase. NIc had a wicked sense of humour and a lot of stories to tell, entertaining funny stories but a few things were food for thought........Nic was German but her accent as well as mannerism was more British I thought.....

We were supposed to attend a CS Vienna Calling gathering but I looked at the wrong page. As we arrived at the BBQ spot on the Danube Island there was only a CS sign but nobody there. After a long walk through the labyrinth of skateboarding and various ethnic groups of Vienna we realised what happened. Anyway we met a bunch of nice young people and still had a great day out together. An experience of the other kind on CS.

Annelies
The next host was Annelies. She was a sporty middle-aged lady who loved to entertain guests. In the past she had been travelling and she was a good French teacher too. The home-made Apfelstrudel or apple strudel spreaded the kind of scent that you only smell in the kitchen of an Austrian Großmutter or grandmother. She prepared it in front of my eyes and popped it into the oven. It was so delicious that I didn't realise that I nearly ate all of it.

I had my own room which was so big that I could do my morning exercise in it. But it was not necessary because I could go into the garden. She had a cute cat and I liked to play with him. We talked a lot about the Austrian school system and we went to visit her holiday house in the Wienerwald, a beautiful mountainous area about 40 km from Vienna.

Annelies cooked a few more Austrian specialties like Wiener Tafelspitz or gourmet beef soup with apple and bread sauces with horse radish. As an entree she served the typical Austrian with pancakes. She is good with the knife and I wish I could be as fast as she was. Our interests were quite similar and we visited the Heiligenkreuz monastery. We attended a meditative Gregorian chant evening mass. This monastery is a silent monastery and speaking is only allowed at certain times.

The time with these 2 hosts was lovely and I was quite sad as I had to leave Vienna....

Come surf my couch...before it's too late

The farming area has been flattened out by bulldozers. We can still see the mountains but it will disappear in a short time........when YOU don't act.

One very special feature of my couch is its location in the middle of the beautiful farming area. Not only that you can experience it straight behind my house, but you can also observe the fresh strawberries, sugarbeet plants, potato, corn and what fields. On a clear day you will have a full view of the Hunsrück mountains just a few seconds after arriving my front door.

Look at this website and apologies in advance if there is no English translation:
http://www.stadionprotest-mainz.de
The municipal government is going to build a multipurpose sporting stadium in the middle of the most fertile farming area in GERMANY!!! Not only that many people are going to lose a nearby recreation area, but the years-long organic fields have to make way for this totally unuseful stadium. And not to speak about the noise from drunken soccer fans and endangered safety.

If you look at the photo on the website, you are not going to have the view of the mountains anymore. The photo shows the STADIUM and at the moment we can just imagine these drunken yahoos trampling our field. This project will cost the taxpayers a lot and it is hard to see whether it will bring back enough money to us!!!!

MAKE THE WORLD AROUND YOU A BETTER PLACE!!!

My opinion on vouching

Vouching on Couchsurfing has been a heated discussion in some threads. Different people seem to have different views on vouching, some are very strict, some give them away like Christmas presents and many are somewhat inbetween.If somebody asks me what the right approach to vouching would be, I will answer that this will fully depends on the voucher's intuition, observation of subtle actions and personal view.
I will then present to them my own view on vouching which they may agree or disagree with.

How do I proceed with vouching and what criteria do I need?

A person can be great and trustworthy, although the hosting/surfing/personal connection may not click perfectly.  With the help of  CS-friends, I have set up the wording for my vouching criteria:

A. I must trust them with my family, friends, property and belonging.
B. They must trust me with their family, friends, property and belonging
C. They must be respectful to other people, their property and belongings
D. They say what they mean and mean what they say


How much time do I need to vouch for people?

Generally, I will leave out every person that I just meet after a quick drink or a large gathering on neutral grounds. Probably I will size up this person whether I decide to continue our relationship or not.My idea of time is quality and not quantity. And this actually means that I definitely need some time but don't quantify in minutes and months. We could as well have spent a shorter quality time to be able to tell how far I can trust a person.

Normally I don't host people for 1 night only and therefore I always get a fair time to build up a relationship. However, I don't vouch for everybody that I hosted or surfed with. I'm very, very selective with hosts or guests and in the past I have vouched for many of my surfing/hosting experiences.

I vouch for the people from MY subjective viewpoint and give NO guarantee that this person would become best friends with everybody. The heterogenuous, multicultural and -lingual nature of CouchSurfing would not make this possible. The people I vouch for are all CS-dedicated in many ways and GENERALLY trustworthy. At the end of the year I'll give my friends list a review but don't limit it to a certain number or time. This is rather about quality time spent and the nature of the relationship.

Exceptions:
People that I work with closely may become the exception because in the past I have vouched for people I met in ambassador meetings which lasted a couple of days/hours. Sometimes we have organised meetings together so the bonding was stronger. Even when I receive very good vibes from them I will still give it time to find out more details.

Do I vouch back for the vouch I get?
I have done this in the past because I considered all my vouchers trustworthy. However, there is no guarantee that I will always do this in the future.

I have never considered vouching as an "You love me, thanks. I love you too" approach. Neither do I make a drama out of it or because I'm an ambassador. Long time marriages or friendships can turn into a malicious war, people change or show their other dark side they may not be aware of before. So I think even the most sensible people make mistakes so once in a while. Removing the friend links on CouchSurfing is the only way to remove the vouch. At least the next vouch will not add up to the vouch list.

I hope this helps people to vouch with conscience. One more tip: Click on the profile who has vouched for your future host/guest and find more information.

Thomas Hervouet

I thought it was about time to host again. Thomas Hervouet posted on the Frankfurt Couch Emergency group that he was unable to find a host after 25 requests. His message was nice and his profile sympathetic. However, I first thought I would turn down a 1-night-request because normally it didn't provide enough time to get to know each other well enough

We had a lot of mail exchange beforehand. Somehow he sounded like an interesting guest to host and I provided him with a lot of information regarding Frankfurt and Mainz. He was French and I thought this was an excellent opportunity to practise my French too. Apart from everything his profile said that he grew up in a stable family which was something I was always impressed by. Couchsurfing is an opportunity to meet awesome people and speak many languages if you know how to choose your guests.

I was busy working on that day and he needed to tour Frankfurt on his own. We made an arrangement to meet at the Shangrila Mongolian Restaurant in Frankfurt. As I entered the room a young man with a backpack and friendly blue eyes came along and greetet me. He looked a bit different from his profile photo which was not too clear at that time. However, he recognised me straight away. His eyes were friendly and his manners appealing. The food was excellent and good value for that price. Thomas was hungry and couldn't wait for the fresh prawns to cook. The staff would cook the meat you choose in front of your eyes. Thomas chose spicy food and I already thought it was too spicy for a Frenchman.

Our conversation continued to become more interesting and I learnt that he was a nuclear physician who just finished his CME in Würzburg. His English was excellent, my French rusty and I couldn't communicate on the same level as in English. So we decided to speak English. After informative conversations with the other people in the restaurant, we drove home in the rain. I had some trouble with my night vision and he was patient enough to assist and navigate me a little bit.

Visiting the Mainz Marathon
The next day was a Sunday and the Mainz marathon was on. It is a big running event in Mainz along with cultural performances and food. At first he was reluctant to visit a loud marathon but soon he changed his mind. He enjoyed the beauty and historical significance of Mainz.

Mainz was famous for its laid-back people and love for outdoor festivals. Anyway, the Mainz marathon was a unique event and everywhere there were Brazilian and German military drummers to fire the runners. We took some photo shots, visited some baroque churches and headed for Wiesbaden after spending a couple of hours sightseeing.

Wiesbaden
Thomas preferred Mainz to Wiesbaden but I thought he had not seen everything and we did not have enough time to view the Wiesbaden baroque architecture and lifestyle. I drove him through the posh Wilhelmstraße or Wilhelm Street and we could see the Park, Casino and Opera from the car. From the Taunus Str we could already see the hills and wineyards of the Neroberg. This is an important landmark with the only water-driven funiculaire. We took a walk and photo shots on top of the Neroberg. The weather was excellent and we had a clear view of Wiesbaden. After a lovely lunch it was time for him to catch the train to the airport.

Thomas was one of my best guests whose visit felt rather like meeting a good friend. When I have time I really would like to visit him in France. Up until now, he was the second guest that I initially didn't want and who turned out to be one of the best experiences ever! He invited me to surf his couch in France and one day I will do mate....

Back in Mainz again

Back in Mainz again on the 3 April. It was the nicest and warmest April I ever experienced before. I just felt as though I was in Paradise. This year the Easter Days were all one of the most beautiful and warm period. I had lovely Easter Days. On Saturday I went to bed early because I had to get up at 4.30 in the morning.

Dawn on Easter Sunday started off with the traditional Easter Bonfire at St. bernard church. I brought some rolls, homemade cake, ham, cheese and dips for our Easter Breakfast. People start to contemplate around the bonfire and the ushers distributed candles. Silently we walked into the church to start the East Night mass.

This was a silent, contemplative mass without singing and organ. It was heartfelt, as around 7.30 in the morning all the lights went on and the organ and choir played festive Easter Music. After the mass people greeted me as I just came back from Indonesia and Australia. We enjoyed our Easter Breakfast very much.

The annual Internal Medicine Congress in Wiesbaden
This took place one week after my arrival. Still jetlagging and recovering from my stae 1 Dengue Fever, I decided to register because it was free for members. St. Peter was equally friendly to us internists. We had the most beautiful weather since years. I met old and made new friends, learnt a lot about several types of travel diarrhoea along with recent research on many different medical conditions.

They gave out free coffee and food as usual, fruit juices, heaps of chocolates and plenty of presents such as computer lamps etc. I just smiled for an hour to see all those doctors behaving exactly like rickshaw drivers on an Indonesian market. Doctors are just ordinary huma beings, they push and bitch just like everybody else when it comes to free food and presents:-))) This year we were invited by the City of Wiesbaden to attend Mozart's Don Giovanni. Beautiful music like always but unfortunately I couldn't be impressed too much by the modern version.

Gatherings
I organised a picnic on the Neroberg Wiesbaden. What a memorable day and heaps of new friends! We had so many people from Mainz, Wiesbaden and Frankfurt joining! Some just indulged themselves in the sun or reading a book, some went to the natural climbing park and quite a few of us starting to play the games that Karen und Collin brought.There were other gatherings that I attended among others a lovely BBQ party at Lauren's place in Darmstadt. Martine visited us from Belgium and a few people from Darmstadt arranged a picnic in the Herrengarten. Ele from Wiesbaden invited us to her birthday BBQ and I hope we will have plenty of meetings to spread the cS spirit or whatever this may be!!

Please build more foot paths and bridges in Melati Mas

Sometimes I really wondered about Melati Mas. The private developers only catered the area of Melati Mas to the needs of the wealthy people. The pedestrians were considered less than second class citizens. Most of Melati Mas residents owned at least one car. And as usual the needs of pedestrians were being stepped on and treated as garbage. Different from other parts around Jakarta, Melati Mas had not bothered to build a side path for pedestrians. The streets were very broad and geared to cars but opportunities for pedestrians were not in their calculation scheme.

The only thing which looked like a sideway was a bumpy path of grass. Due to the fairly wide street, the amount of cars and motorcycles hitting from behind had expanded to 5 rows of reckless vehicles.It was neceesary to publish a number of blogs and daily newspaper articles until Melati Mas finally started to build the first pedestrian bridge over the Serpong Highway! Before, it was simply impossible to cross this highway and a few pedestrians lost their lives or their limbs!

Everytime when I passed the Jalan Melati Mas Raya or main road in Melati Mas I prayed Our Father at least 3 times. My heart started to throb faster from the time I turned into the main road of Melati Mas. There was a school and 2 medical practices near the police station. All these cars simply blocked the narrow grass path intended for the pedestrians.If you walked around the back of the cars, you had to walk directly on the busy street. In this case I was not sure whether a car or motorcycle would come from behind and instantly transform me into a nice serve of minced meat.

If I walked in front of the cars, I would have been hit by them and may have ended as meat curry for the nearby restaurants!!!! Most pedestrians have simply accepted this and I think they were just too used to being voiceless. Residents of Melati Mas: Please voice your opinion and demand changes. I'm already afraid that despite pavement, the cars wouldn't stop to park there. Drivers, please be more considerate towards pedestrians.

People who understand English probably have no empathy because they drive cars, those who don't drive cars probably don't speak English. Who is going to help me to translate this into Indonesian????

More culture shocks

I liked to talk to local people and visit their kampung. Later I had been told that an orang gedung(people who live in expensive houses) were not suppposed to talk to the kampungers(villagers). What the fuck!!!! I can talk to everyone I like and nobody can tell me what to do. The same thing happened as I bought some mee(Chinese noodles) from a poor street vendor who normally only sold to villagers.

As I talked to the house-cleaning staff I was told that this was not the culture over here. Only the gossipers would talk to house cleaners because they try to gain more information for their gossip actions about the neighbours. In my opinion cleaners were human beings and I could talk to them as much as I wished. So I really had a hard time to understand and let alone to adapt to it.

The rich neighbours were very nice and I could talk a lot to them about different things. Showing off money and power seems to be of greater significance in this society. Of course money is equally important in Western countries where people who do have money tend to be more careful about wasting it. But in this society I found out that they simply size you up exclusively by the money or status you have. As I tried to enter a night club at the Pacific Place, the first thing the staff looked at was my shoes. Wow....I felt sorry to disappoint them with my 3-year-old Versace shoes.

Never call house-cleaning staff "maid"
During the Dutch colonial time and even shortly after this period, house cleaning staff were called babu or maid. Nowadays you may get slapped in the face if you call them babu(maid) or djongos(male maid). The real approach is pembantu or assistant for maids but you may also call them bibi(auntie) or mbak(older sister). Societies evolve, no matter in which country.

Culture shock in small serves

The social gap between village and city
I helped my mother a lot with her new little house. At first I thought it would be difficult because business in Indonesia was complicated and unsafe. The language barrier did not make things easier. My Indonesian language and cultural skills improved very fast partly due to the work pressure. I had no choice but to push through our interests and at least I managed to get basic work done.

Our house was just on the border to the kampung or village area. Many well-to-do Indonesians were hesitant to live near the border of a kampung because the social gap between the village and city was wider than the Grand Canyon. I liked the fruit orchards in the kampung and all the kampung style houses. But there was definitely a strong agression and envy against the new houses and newcomers. I felt the presence of it every day as I walked through the area.

Newcomers and villagers in Melati Mas
Somehow I could even understand the resentment the villagers had towards the newcomers. Imagine you had lived your own lifestyle in peace and then the rich people started to intrude into your space and changed your life with force......Kampung people still burned their rubbish in their gardens which could lead to life-threatening conditions such as asthma or lung cancer. This was something I just couldn't imagine from my Western viewpoint. It had been prohibited in Jakarta city areas but this place was still considered the border to the villages.

Newcomers wanting to move into one of the new houses were waited for in front of their house. A huge group of kampungers(villagers) under leadership of their elders would devour you unless they could squeeze a hell lot of money out of the "richies". They would block the newcomers to enter their own house until they received the money to carry out the job. These village people were lazy, had no work and often could only afford 2 meals a day. For this reason it became more than incomprehensible for me why all of them possessed a mobile phone they could chat on for hours.

Getting in touch with traditional medical herbs
The jamu or medical herbal tea is a tradition which is as old as mankind in Indonesia. What ever you wish, just name it. Jamu for more sexual potence, for a nice skin, for less spots on your face, for more social charisma, even a total cure of cancer :-))) Every Indonesian would have at least one glass of jamu from a street vendor every day. I tried a few glasses but soon I had to regret it. Probably the water did not meet enough of the hygienic requirements. I contracted a fungus diarrhoea for a couple of days. Through these jamu sessions, I got to know a lot of different local people and their lifestyles.


The importance of age and ethnic identity
The way people adressed each other based on ethnic identity and age alienated me even more. My mother was quite upset as people called her Oma(grandmother) and I wasn't too happy as some youngsters called me Tante or auntie. People address to you based on your perceived ethnic identity. Something I found absolutely weird!!!!!

If they called you Tjie or encim they perceived you as Chinese. I thought what would happen when some Muslim Malay people with Chinese features were called Tjie, encik or encim. Well, they told me that this had happened on several occasions and non-Chinese people were upset about it. The official term was Ibu which meant Ms or sometimes mbak(Miss) when the person was young. If you say Ibu you can't go wrong because this is standard regardless of age and ethnic identity. People also seem to act strange if you are not married although in Jakarta city people start to change.....

I can never familiarise myself with this attitude and unable to understand why ethnicity and age is so important in Asian societies. But Couchsurfing will apparently teach you to be respectful and tolerant of people with values and beliefs other than yourself. It really provides close-corner learning of other lifestyles.

Nur Widodo

Melati Mas is somewhat out in the sticks and the poor public transportation was not overall helpful to meet couchsurfers. I decided to use the internet and found Nur Widodo who also helped hosting my CS friend Aishah Rachman. His mail was very friendly and I wasn't surprised at all as he called me on the phone and suggested a meeting place.

He was busy because he was preparing for his business assignment on an oil rig where he worked as a geologist. Nur Widodo looked much younger than his chronological age and as nice as his profile picture. He smiled warmly and said:" Ibu Sue(my mother who also has a profile on CS)". We instantly had a lot of stories to share and he was very keen to speak his excellent English with us but I rather preferred to speak my poor Indonesian with him.

Widodo invited us to join him to Jakarta in his car. It felt like we had known each other for ages and the conversations proceeded to the more sensitive cultural issues. Cultural encounters can be interesting but we should be prepared for a shock sometimes .It is easy to get to know and even roughly understand a culture......but it can be a challenge to actually live a culture as though it was your own.

I couldn't stand the temptation to buy a dress at the posh Pasar Raya in Kebayoran Baru and again Nur showed his talent and taste for good fashion. I chose a good quality smart casual dress for about Rp 400,000, quite expensive for Indonesian standards.

We spent roughly the whole day together, it started to rain cats and dogs and he dropped by at our place for a coffee. I wanted to buy some Indonesian cakes(kueh basah) but the rain was so horrible that even he preferred to just have some cookies. Nur, your advice on Indonesian culture especially the attitude of Indonesian parents was very sound although I had difficulties to understand it. Hope to see you again when I return to Jakarta

Food in Melati Mas, Tangerang

You can really enjoy food in Indonesia for barely 1,- €. There is a nice restaurant in Melati Mas called Jes Jos. My favourite dish for Rp 15,000 or a bit more than 1 € is a big serve of nasi goreng pete(fried rice with meat and "stinking" peas pete). It is a real clean restaurant and they deliver everything to your place for free.

Would you like to have a good breakfast?
Before I leave the house about 6.00 am for the internet cafe to do my both offline and online work(offline is cheaper BTW), I have breakfast first. Ah Lim, located at the corner of Jalan Raya Melati Mas(main road of Melati Mas) sells the famous steam mee for Rp 9.000. The ketoprak vendors or Indonesian salat with rice noodles and peanut sauce start to sell around 9 am. You can get a nasi uduk(rice steamed in coconut milk) for Rp 3000 without meat but you need to come before 8 am.

The hygiene especially in the charts of the street vendors leaves much to be desired. One morning I saw the village people doing their morning business in the river where they got the water for coffee about one hour later. I have watched some people using water out of the gutter for cooking or to prepare salad, the cleanest one was actually somebody who used water to wash the cars. My tip would be to choose the small street restaurants or stalls instead of the vendors. But the Tahu Sumedang or freshly fried tofu cubes cost so little and you can get it piping hot from the vendor.

Even a restaurant with a karaoke is not particularly expensive. The Furami or Nyonya Suharti restaurant is reasonably cheap and you can sit in a clean and cosy environment. For fried carp with sauce you pay around Rp 30000 or € 2,- for a huge serve with a delicious sauce. Apart from this furami serves sumptuous dinners and karaoke singing if you wish. At night you will see a BBQ seafood stall in front of the BSD shopping plaza.

What can we do to avoid a serious bug like typhoid, salmonella, clostridium difficile and all those lovely pets? Of course we are all better off with immunisation and this can be very cheap in Asia too. A strong immune system is paramount and about 70% of it is located in the digestive system. We need enough sleep which is sometimes not easy, especially when you are couchsurfing. Aa positive attitude and healthy food supports our immune system. About 10 days prior to travelling and during the whole travel period I start to take prebiotics from the pharmacy on a regular basis. Perenterol has significant studies and it worked well for me. This increases the amount of natural intestinal flora which are well-known to deflect germs.

Use your eyes to judge the food - you wouldn't regret it!!!!

The horror doctor from Tangerang

Travel diarrhoea or to be more accurate diarrhoea which is caused by a fungus, virus or bacteria during travelling can be absolutely irritating. Symptoms can be more agressive in tropical countries. I was unlucky to experience about a total of 30 sessions of watery faeces. My mother became worried and suggested me to see a doctor. I wasn't too keen but finally agreed to get my blood and faeces(shit) tested in the lab.

I went to the quite posh Omni Hospital in the area. Similar to a 5 star hotel, the boy greeted me with a bow and helped me out of the car. I could walk directly to the lab, had a short consultation with the chief lab physician and got my blood and faeces tested. The lab doctor, an enterprising lady of about 35 y/o, as well as her staff were extremely friendly and I couldn't have received a more professional service.

My blood was taken by a young lady who could be a doctor or a nurse. Nevertheless, she gave me some advice already and told me that you could quite tell the temporary diagnosis by the symptoms and signs of the fever. I didn't have fever and pain.

My mum insisted me to see a doctor and I agreed again because we were already at the hospital. This doctor was a silly old guy with whom I had not only language problems. He didn't ask me questions but just determine what he would like to hear. For instance:"You have diarrhoea." or "You are in the healing stage, why should I give you an attestation?" He simply didn't listen to my words or didn't want to listen.

Then he diagnosed skabies as I was just bitten by mosquitoes. After my questions he told me that mosquito bites didn't leave scars. They do, especially if you scratch very hard. The bites were scattered all over the body while skabies has certain locations on the body.

After the "consultation" was finished he gave my mother the prescription without even explaining anything to me. I needed to ask the pharmacist and they did not have a package insert!! At least she told me the generic name of the medicine and that it was antibiotics, an anti-fungal remedy and some dubious mixture of analgesics. In Indonesia it is still quite common for doctors to mix up some suspicious brewings.

The lab results clearly showed that I had a fungal infection and he prescribed antibiotics. Antibiotics only work for a bacterial infection and would definitely aggravate a fungal infection. And what sense does a mixture of antibiotics and antifungal medicines make?

Thank God I'm a medical doctor and I knew what to do in that case

Public transportation in Melati Mas, Tangerang, Indonesia

We arrived at Sukarno Hatta Airport in Jakarta around 10 pm. The first thing we needed to do was to look for a taxi. There was a taxi counter where I met a Dutch backpacker couple. A taxi to Jakarta costed Rp 200.000,-- or € 13,-. Not too much for European standards.It was late and not too many taxis around and the few which were there were firmly in the hand of touts.


In order to catch a proper taxi we needed to go on the street and wave a taxi. The touts screamed very agressively at us because they felt their business slipping through their hands. They offered the taxi to a family and they were gentleman enough to leave us the taxi.

Different from the well-known registered taxi companies like Silver Bird and Bluebird, these taxidrivers are not always trustworthy. And they deliberately drive slowly to increase the price, so the best way would be to negotiate the price in advance. We agreed on Rp 70.000, less than half the price of the agency. As these taxis didn't have a GPS we needed to guide him through to Melati Mas near BSD city in the Tanggerang area.

I lived in a fairly new and quite safe area in Melati Mas. You need to pass a guarded barrier to enter the area. There were just few shops around and quite a few street vendors selling vegetables and meat. Since our house was in a very new street, the vendors didn't show too much interest to come directly to our house. The supermarket "Giant" and the other shops and restaurants were located about 1/2 hour walk from our house. Somewhat tiresome from somebody who is vision impaired with arthritis.

The main road to the shopping complex was busy and the pavement started just close to the supermarket. At the beginning of the street cars were just parked recklessly on the pedestrian path. Pedestrians didn't receive much respect from cars and motorcycles, so if you walk around these cars you very well end up as minced meat.

Taxis refused to ride such a short distance and there were no bajais, a kind of motorised rickshaw in Jakarta. The only means of transportations were the ojeks or motorcycle taxis. They did not wear helmets and drivers were usually very uneducated and agressive. Where ever I walked, they offered their ojek in a pushy manner and if you ignore them they started yelling at you.

I spoke to many well-to-do Indonesians who just hopped on and off their Mercedes. They had no understanding for the pedestrians and could not imagine the hardships they had to endure to cross the street.

Every morning I used to walk to the internet cafe or warnet because I needed to do my online and offline work. This internet cafe was open for 24 hours, quite convenient where the client had their own cabin with a fast operating system. The food was excellent and incredibly cheap, so normally I could survive on roughly 1 € per day

Ambassadorship and hosting in Mainz

I came back to Mainz in July 2008. What a difference to Singapore and Sydney! Mainz is not a well-known international surfer destination, has many good couches and continues to grow at a reasonably fast pace. This means that it is actually an interesting place for surfers because of the many hosts compared to the few requests. Dennis has left Mainz for a 4-year-trip around the world and his job has been taken over by 4 people. I tried to organise and attend meetings exactly like in Sydney and decided to apply for ambassadorship.

This was also the time that I could experience how ugly and unreasonable groups like Brainstorming and similar CS internet groups were. I was randomly attacked on these groups with totally unfactual comments. After 4 weeks, finally I have been approved as city ambassador for Mainz. The inaugural meeting after I received the flag was a Federweise and Zwiebelkuchen(New wine and onion cake) outdoor event and we were lucky to have great weather.

How could I start networking without CS taking over my life? There was a Couchsurfing Brunch in Frankfurt which I attended and of course the ambassador meeting in Langen near Frankfurt. I found it very helpful and given a lot of tips what an ambassador should do or not do. The importance of the TOU(Terms of Use) for ambassadors was greatly explained to the new ambassadors. Quite a few tips of what an ambassador could organise to keep the community going.


Mark Burban from Melbourne has been my first guest after I left Australia and he has now become city ambassador for Melbourne. In November I organised a restaurant night in a Vietnamese restaurant followed by a pre-Christmas cookies potluck in my house. It was great fun, I made cookies, others brought various types of coffee and natural sweeteners, great conversations and new friends. Even Gary Weir from Heidelberg came down especially for my potluck. I was happy to host him but he preferred to drive home to Heidelberg.

My second guest in Mainz was Ellen from Taiwan(photo,left, right me) who was still studying in Maastricht, Netherlands. She wrote to me 3 weeks in advance and showed very clearly that she was interested in German culture and a traditional Christmas. Well, I liked this rather than last minute requests because I could plan things well ahead. Our Christmas was certainly not typical German but rather improvised.

My daughter Angela refused to sing German Carols under the tree and the tree was tiny and artificial. Before my big trip I really didn't feel like planting a huge fir tree in the garden. The only "typical" German tradition was the presents given on Christmas Eve rather than Christmas Day. We had the typical German goose roast and home-made Plätzchen or cookies.

The days before Christmas Day were very busy for me as I still needed to work. Bettina who also came to my pre-Xmas potluck offered to show Ellen around. I invited Collin Black to join our Christmas parties too. I met Collin on the Christmas Market in Mainz as he was going to live in Wiesbaden for 2 years. He was unhappy that he had to spend Christmas and NYE without his family, so I decided to invite him not only for Christmas but also for New Year's Day.

The year 2008 was a great start into my ambassadorship and hosting in Mainz.