Meet great people and feel the places around the world

The South Coast of Penang Island

2012-01-18T23:39:00.000-08:00

I have been invited to surf Yusuf's couch on the South Coast of Penang Island. Not only that it was a secret spot on the island but the whole family was simply something special. Originally from Bosnia, they have converted to Island, live the lifestyle of a Muslim family in Malaysia and yet their country of origin was still present.

They spoke Hungarian at home mixed with some Malay, ate a blend of European and Asian food, very often made out of Malaysian ingredients with a European touch. They love to eat with their hands at a low table and sitting on the floor.

Their eldest sons Abdullah and Hassan are aredent chess player who like to beat you in one of the simpler games. The third 5-year-old son Mustafa is very social and tries to accompany you to buy breakfast and even offered to carry the bags with the charm of a gentleman. Their youngest baby son Ali is a friendly and communicate little boy, liked to climb and play.

It was probably the best experience to explore the area with the family, play with the kids, go out eating together and enjoy a local breakfast at home. A lovely place to surf not only for families with small children

Being pestered in foodcourts

2012-01-04T22:48:00.000-08:00

Penang food is a true Godsend from heaven. I really enjoy the various foods ranging from Chinese, Malay, mamak and Indian food all over the place. Oh, how I love the Char quay teow, fried rice, yong taufu, prawns, fish, prawn fritters, loh bak etc. The hawkers have been very friendly for most of the time and the foodcourt convenient to sit. A heaven for the best quality and cheapest prices in South East Asia.

On the downside of the story, especially in bigger Malaysian cities, I have been pestered by drink vendors. Malaysia is different from Indonesia or Thailand and this means that one coffee shop sublet their place to other hawkers including drink sellers. Not only that they push you into buying their drinks but they also want to see cash as soon as they serve the ordered goods.

As soon as they have brought the food or drinks you ordered, you will hear a monotonous and repetitive "3 RM please". I am sure that not everybody is honest and they need to make sure to receive their money as soon as they have fulfilled their duties, but I still find it irritating. Most of the time the food and the drinks don't arrive at the same time. This can be really annoying especially when you are eating, have washed your hands, have to dig into your backpack to look for your wallet and touch money again. How disturbing and unhygienic! Malaysian people should stand up against this!

In smaller towns, people tend to be more relaxed, allowing us to pay our food after finishing our meals and they don't employ drink head hunters.In every coffee shop there are one or two drink vendors whom I found unpleasant and offensive. Different from food vendors, they will come to your table straight away and pester you into buying drinks for them. As an excuse they keep claiming that they also pay rent to the place I'm sitting in and disturb me further with their obligation to pay entertainment fees.

While I do understand all the reasons leading to their actions, I do not appreciate this type of pestering. Firstly, some of their drinks are such low quality that they can't hide the chlorine taste. They blame the Malaysian government for this and think I'm not very informed about their country. I do have regular vendors who serve good drinks which do not taste of chlorine.

The drink vendors have spoilt it all for me. I haven't asked them to be there and I come to the food court for eating and not drinking. In a foodcourt or coffee shop there are usually many food vendors sharing the rent as well and we can only decide to buy from one.

If the drink sellers' reason is that they also pay rent, then all the food vendors will have the same reason to pester because all vendors pay their rent share. Yet we have to refrain from buying food from other vendors if we have decided for one hawker already.

I have not experienced this very often yet in most Muslim, mamak and Indian foodcourts and start wondering what we can do about this. The final straw was: One of the restaurant owners told me" We have this all over in Malaysia and you have to follow our rules" She totally ignored my claims that we were all free to buy what we want and there was no sign obligating us to buy drinks. The only sign that actually makes sense to me is that we are not allowed to bring outside foods and drinks.

Following Saint Hildegard's footprints with a couchsurfer

2011-10-16T01:16:00.000-07:00

My couchsurfer Sara from Wisconsin USA shared an interest which was not very common for the average couchsurfer. She wished to research Hildegard of Bingen's life work and history. It didn't take much time to accept her couch request and the next day we took her on a journey through the Rhine Gorge to the Hildegard sites. My daughter Angela has taken so much energy to do research on the internet, drove us all over the place and told Sara many legends about the sites

Bingen, our first station
After a beautiful ride through the Binger Loch, the southern gateway of the gorge, we arrived at the museum in Bingen where St. Hildegard's life and works were documented in an audiovisual setting. This museum did not only depict Hildegard's heritage but it had a large department of all the surgical instruments applied in the old hospice. It was located exactly opposite the Mäuseturm or Mouse Tower , a medieval tower located on a small island in the Rhine River with a famous folk tale to tell.

Rochus Hill and the chapel
Our next path took us to the Rochusberg and the chapel. It is amazing to find such a gem at my doorstep, vast tapestry of vineyards while we were gazing down at the Rhine and its beautiful castle ruines. Walking through "Hildegard's woods" has given us a feel that we had collected positive life energy and a reborn body and soul. At the edge of the woods we could see such a natural beauty over the Rhine Gorge which could be hardly described in words

St. Hildegard Abbey
We crossed the River Rhine by car ferry and continued our journey in Rüdesheim. This is a famous place for tourists from the very kitsch until the very picturesque scenery of the Rhine Valley. We drove to the Hildegard Forum where we could eat a healthy lunch buffet and watch artworks about her visions and medical insight

The highlight and the final station was the Eibingen church where her relics and bones were kept in a shrine. I must have lost my surfer Sara and my daughter Angela, then decided to take a short cut climbing through the vineyards to St. Hildegard Abbey where the guest quarters are. We visited the Hildegard shop, enjoyed the beautiful view and finally had the chance to attend the Gregorian Chant 6 o'clock vesper.

Sometimes couchsurfers can inspire you to re-explore the beauties of your home area

A day out in nearby paradise Edenkoben and St. Martin

2011-10-05T10:17:00.000-07:00

I started wondering what to do on the long weekend of the 3rd October which is the German Unification Day. One couchsurfer and another person spontaneously decided to plan a day trip together. We really don't need to travel too far to experience a fine day of hiking in the woods and visiting an old little town in the Palatinate wine country.

The hike in the Edenkoben Valley wasn't overly vicious but hilly enough for us to have a good sleep at night. After this we visited a small town in the Palatine wine country where we had a beautiful traditional Palatine dish in a beautiful little restaurant next to the old church. Jasmin from Couchsurfing has provided memorable photo shots she made in St. Martin.

St. Martin is a historic little town which is seldom mentioned and totally unknown for many Germans, let alone foreign visitors. The forest where we picked chestnuts last week, the vineyards, the old cosy wine taverns and historic half-timbered houses where they sell wine is definitely a target just one hour drive from Mainz

I have discovered this beautiful village surrounded by the Haardt mountain range and Palatine Forest during a weekend trip with the U.S. military. During my clerkship in Neustadt an der Weinstraße we visited this beautiful place once during our weekend trip in Edenkoben.

Those people who would like to surf in Mainz may consider this beautiful place about one hour drive from Mainz, especially if they stay for a couple of days. The French border starts about 35 km from here and could still be managed in a day trip from Mainz.

The French border is so close

2011-10-05T10:16:00.000-07:00

Wolfram Adolph is a renowned expert in church organs and church music. I have already thought that his educational tours were extensive and full of information. His knowledge of the northern part of the Vosgues added a great deal to the enjoyment. However, I didn't know that he was also food expert and gourmet. The restaurants he chose were excellent and reasonably priced, from more homemade to exclusive cuisine.

In a 2-hour-drive, we drove on the B10 through the Palatine forest until we seamlessly passed the scenery from Hirschtal in Germany to Lembach in the Alsace region in France. There was hardly a visible cultural difference except the colours of the half-timbered houses. The Alsatian half-timbered houses had coloured walls which we don't see as often in Germany.

Our first stop was a small town named Wingen where we could enjoy Strasburg's head organist Prof. Marc Baumann. He spoke German fluently and probably English as well. A beautiful concert in the ecumenical church. Prof. Baumann also joined as to a nice restaurant in Pfaffenbronn where a beautiful Tarte Flambee and a delicious green salad with fresh garlic was waiting for us. Prof baumann was good fun and we had a lot of amusing stories about the Catholic church. Our dessert was a heavenly Zwetschgenkuchen(damson pie) with vanilla ice cream on top. The bottom was made of butter puff pastry instead of the usual yeast dough we commonly know. Zwetschgen or damsons are a kind of plums but rounder and smaller, the flesh sour and firm which makes it easier to bake or process.

In the afternoon we visited an organ building factory owned by the well-known organ builder Alfred Kern. His son Gaston Kern gave us an elaborate presentation about the mechanics of the church organ. Our program has been modified just to our liking, as we had the honour to listen to three more concerts by Prof. Baumann and M. Francois Fuchs. We arrived dead-tired at our Hotel Roi de Soleil in Strasburg Mundolsheim, just adjacent to Reichstett where my former Couchsurfing host Thierry lives. We didn't manage to catch up this time, so this trip had nothing to do with Couchsurfing. The hotel was a brandnew 2 star hotel with clean ultra-modern shower and comfortable bed. There was no real reception but instead, a breakfast buffet which was amazingly rich compared to the rather cheap hotel price.

After breakfast we headed for wine tasting at the famous "Cave Vinicole de Cleebourg" in Cleebourg. It was a bit early for wine tasting but we had a beautiful presentation, a movie and freshly baked Gugelhupf or Alsace sweet raisin bread. We continued our journey to Bruchweiler in Germany where the other Strasburg head organist Prof Pascal Reber indulged our senses with organ music from 5 epoches.

We passed the border to Germany again to be pampered with a lovely 4-course-lunch in Nothweiler. A beautiful little town in the middle of the Palatine Forest and a cosy little 3-star-superior restaurant and hotel serving probably the best of the middle-class superior cuisine. Our last stop was Weißenbourg to see the organ in the old cathedral. It was still under renovation, we couldn't hear it and the stairs were not particularly safe. Suddenly it started to rain cats and dogs. I have been to Weissenbourg many times and we decided to drop the city tour and headed home instead.

A very memorable weekend with interesting company, beautiful scenery, impressive old churches, Silbermann and other Baroque organs, excellent high quality music, newly acquired knowledge and fine food

Hosting a guest while the water supply was shut down

2011-08-25T08:05:00.000-07:00

My draining pipe gave up and as I opened it, it was fully jammed. I have cleaned most of it and the water flow was better but not perfect. Apparently there was more dirt in the back pipe behind the wall. I shut down the tap and improvised an emergency dish-washing station in the bathroom. We could still use the tap in the kitchen but I thought it was better to shut down the water supply as it was very likely that the drainage would be clogged up again.

Mateusz arrived in the afternoon dead-tired and late after sightseeing Idar Oberstein. Conversations with him were so diverse and well thought-out so that you would never think you were talking to a teenager. We watched a lot of his interesting photos. He has traveled a lot and traveling seems to be habitual in his family. His father has worked in the US, one brother is very nomadic and lives in Greece at present, the other in the U.S, one brother and one sister in the UK. He was simply lucky to be able to stay with his family or their friends on travels. Following his three brothers, he is now a very enthusiastic member of Couchsurfing, full of resources.

Mainz tour and CS meeting
Mateusz had many stories to tell about his observation on travels and laughed about an unfortunate incident regarding train ticket validation. The weather was unusually bad for a European summer, full of thunderstorms. Between two rainstorms we had a quick look at the Roman theatre excavations. It cleared up quickly and we enjoyed sitting on the Rhine riverside. The bus ran on the half hour, so we rather used the time to walk through the city of Mainz to the Nero's. This was the pub where the weekly Mainz CS-meeting took place. On our way to Nero's, I could show him the half-timbered houses in the Augustiner Straße(Mainz old town) until it ended at the courtyard behind the Mainz Dom(cathedral). This is called Leichhof or the courtyard of the dead, from where we could see the famous West Tower of the Dom. From here we walked down the main shopping street Ludwigstraße, Carnival fountain through the pebbled pedestrian area straight to Mainz central station. Mateusz had a good sense of orientation and didn't need to be babysitted all the time.

Idstein and Taunus area
The next day we had a lovely day eating brunch at my friend Marianne's place in Taunusstein in the middle of the Taunus mountain range. I brought a pot of home-grown basil to prepare a delicious tomato-mozarella-basil plate and Marianne baked a delicious fresh pear cake. The thunderstorm has severely hit their pear and plum trees, fruit falling off and she had to make around 30 pots of jam. The conversations were stimulating and the food excellent, time passed by very quickly. Marianne offered to show us Idstein before she headed to an appointment with one of her students.

Mateusz and me continued our visit to Idstein which was in fact spontaneous and unplanned. One of Idstein's landmarks was the Hextenturm or Witch Tower. Its history had nothing to do with witches but the ordinary watchtower looked like those towers in one of Grimm's fairy tales. We climbed up the watch tower called Hexenturm or witch tower as all of a sudden Idstein was struck by a heavy hurricane-like thunderstorm. We felt safe and protected in the tower and watched the storm from a window-like opening. Afterwards people told us that umbrellas, coffee cups and cakes were just flying around the place. Normally we only see this type of storm in Australia or Asia, in Europe it must be more spectacular than a 3D movie. Marianne rang me up to make sure whether we were safe because her car was hit by a heavy hailstorm and the creeks were flooding into the streets, very dangerous for driving.

We came home hungry and fortunately I have cooked a good Spaghetti Bolognaise the day before. Mateusz coped very well with my emergency dish-washing station in the bathroom. He is exceptionally gentleman-like for that age, carrying bags for ladies was simply natural for him. In the evening we took another walk through Mainz, I showed him more ornaments and historical buildings in Mainz. Afterwards we enjoyed a glass of wine in the traditional wine tavern "the Kanzel". I really enjoyed Mateusz's visit because he was curious, interested, a good conversationalist and very empathic. He did not only talk about his own culture but also about the Greek and Canadian one. His stories and photos really felt like traveling without leaving the comfort of your own home. Needless to say that house rules were totally unnecessary for him

Coface Arena and my guest from China. Is it so contradictory?

2011-08-15T06:08:00.000-07:00

People who are not familiar with this local political issue will have to read these articles first. Things have become very emotional as the plans to build the multipurpose stadium Coface Arena were finalised in summer 2009. The decision has been made just after Mainz05 soccer club moved up to the Bundesliga(first German soccer league).

The Mainz football club Mainz 05, being the soul of Mainz' local pride, has made its way to the Bundesliga(first German soccer) league) after beating Schalke 04 in May 2009. The opening of the Coface Arena on July 3, 2011 was very moving and there was a kind of local Fassenacht(Mainz Carnival) feel on that day. I'm a passionate ecologist but at the same time quite an avid soccer fan. Mainz 05 has shown that they could achieve many things without promotion. After watching the game in the old stadium, we walked 3 km in a Mainz Carnival-like procession. I was as euphoric as my family and friends and for a moment I could forget the pain concerning abuse against the probably most fertile land in the middle part of Germany. It is about walking the fine line between my engagement to protect nature and my passion for soccer. I have been watching more games since the Coface Arena is just behind my house. In this case, sometime me and some other ecologists, mostly farmers, have to think what we had sacrificed in order to support Mainz05.

My guest Xuechen from China is an architecture student studying in Milan, Italy. We went to see the Coface arena. I told him about the dispute with ecologists and he commented on the stadium's location and architecture. Xuechen is a talented student and he thought it could have had a different architectural design while still retaining the Mainz05 red and white colours. In his opinion it was too simple for a 60 Mill EUR construction and doesn't really fit into the natural environment. A different type of design and shape could have fitted a lot better into the natural environment while still displaying the Mainz05 colours and characteristics. Mainzers could really turn into an enthusiastic crowd by just seeing the suppporters in red white Mainz05 clothes. I was surprised that Xuechen had so much understanding for an issue with such a local flavour. He applied a lot of his knowledge in architecture to comment on the issue

On a side note and unrelated to the Coface Arena, Xuechen(Jason) has been one of my top notch guests. House rules have been totally unnecessary for him and he shared great Chinese cooking and stories from his country

Hidden gems in rural Malaysia

2011-05-27T07:07:00.001-07:00

A taste of smiling India on Malaysian grounds will be an experience you should never miss

You may visit an Indian Thanksgiving feast in the country, volunteer in a disabled home in Penang, watch a Chinese wedding proposal or even discover that Malaysian people can drink as heavily as any Anglo-Saxon guy. It would not be possible without Couchsurfing and their friends. Ang Huah has introduced me to a lot of local secrets and volunteering in disabled home

A good bike ride or trip in a car between Cameron Highland and Ipoh will make you enjoy the beautiful scenery

I have stayed with Andreas in his very nice flat with direct Twin tower's view from my room. It has been one of the highlights of my travels

How to make Couchsurfing more attractive for hosts

2011-04-23T08:16:00.000-07:00

Meatless breakfast on Good Friday

The current host-traveler ratio on Couchsurfing
Most of the Couchsurfing introduction events such as Couchsurfing Orientation Day as well as several books on Backpacking around the World have been extremely inspiring. Unfortunately the focus of the media as well as private events is too much on the travelling and surfing part. People are rather interested in finding a host in their travel destination than being a host themselves. I think our common sense and the original idea of Couchsurfing is paying forward and this means we take and give a couch.

It will add a lot more balanced information to the Couchsurfing idea if we also present the aspects and advantages of hosting. As a New Member Welcome greeter I have to scroll down very deeply past the travelling or non-hosting member until I can find a host. Then I'm disappointed again because even these people are preparing for their next big trip. What actions can we take to improve this imbalance between hosts and couch seeker?

How can we improve the host-surfer ratio?
Many new signups have empty profiles, do not host or are still on travels; very few new hosts are in sight. This can be very discouraging for hosts and travellers alike.
One of the reasons why the host/surfer ratio on Couchsurfing is so imbalanced is: Couchsurfing Inc as well as the media emphasises a lot more on the travelling than the hosting part.

Every TV show, media article, TV documentary, Couchsurfing's own advertisement only presents how much fun it is for a traveller to surf a couch for free. If the media could emphasise more on the hosting part, a lot of hosts will be more inclined to join Couchsurfing for a longer period. Articles in magazines and newspapers, TV programs and even talkshows about the hosting aspect of couchsurfing will make the Couchsurfing idea much more attractive for those people who would like to enjoy hosting.

There are many advantages of hosting over surfing

1. You can stay in the comfort of your own home and social environment while the world comes to you and open your eyes
2. Cultural exchange in your own four walls and possible friendships
3. Language practice with native speakers without leaving your friendly environment
4. Teach, learn and share without the hardships of travelling. We may think of parents with kids or very busy people who cannot always afford to travel
5. Valuable help with housework or repairs. These services are very costly nowadays
6. Nice gifts, invitation to a restaurant or home-made food from a foreign culture
7. Hosting is still a lot cheaper and less stressful than traveling

Many people think that hosting is a burden and the host gives, the surfer takes. In real life it is always a two-way communication, a surfer can treat the host to meals and drinks, buy groceries, help in the household, enjoy their company, give them an inspiring experience, you can travel the world without leaving your house and many things more. Hosting is still a lot less expensive than travelling, even in cases where guests don't give too much of a material contribution. Beyond all the presents, good manners, help in the household there is something even more precious: People open up themselves towards a person they will never have a chance to meet on other occasions.

How to minimise unpleasant surprises with guests
It is never pleasant to hear less than positive comments, especially if we would like to promote hosting. There are some surfers who are rude, disrespectful towards the host and their property, abusive, sponging or even dangerous. A new host may want to contact other hosts in their cities regarding reading profiles(interests,teach, learn, share, types of people they enjoy etc), reading into references, how to evaluate positive and negative references alike, photos etc. Last but not least, the best reference is always prior correspondence, skype and phone calls as well as posts in groups

Point nr. 2 of this page is part of CS FAQ and very often used by less reciprocal surfers to pressure their hosts. In fact, this is only one page of the FAQ which is written by ambassadors based on the TOU. Several threads in groups(Ambassador archives) suggest that the Terms of Use is a commercial contract with grey areas to work around. I have never charged for the couch itself, but asking for donations or an act of thanks such as help in the household, groceries or invitation to dinner has never posed any problems. When in doubt, there is always a way to contact the Membership Dispute and Safety Team.

Conclusion
It is very unfortunate that Couchsurfing Terms of Use are totally in favour of surfers and travelers. New Welcome Greeters have a great potential to motivate the joys of hosting travelers. Official and inofficial events like Teach, Learn and Share Day in Jakarta have a great impact on how to make Couchsurfing more attractive for hosts. Let us educate future surfers and new members to be considerate to their host, so their visit will remain a lasting positive experience in their memories

Common misconceptions on Couchsurfing

2011-04-23T07:40:00.000-07:00

With the very recent unproportional growth of Couchsurfing, we observe that currently many people have misconceptions about Couchsurfing.
I have heard some comments from people outside and sometimes inside Couchsurfing which may or may not be the reality

. These statements do not represent my own views, although I partly agree with them:

1. The primary reason why people join Couchsurfing is a free place to stay.
2. Hosts are all the same, travelers are all backpackers
3. CS represents "a big love into the world" Utopia.
4. Couchsurfing is dangerous and full of people with mental disturbances
5. Hosts who posts rules on their profile are very negative, uptight and anal
6. Couchsurfing is to help travelers without money.
7. Couchsurfing is secluded from the real world.
8. All couchsurfers are hippies and far left wing
9. Negative references are rare. Those who received them will never get a couch again
10.a. People host because they are lonely and have no life outside CS
b. Consider the host's place as yours and the host your maid
c. Use the internet 24/7 for chatting and don't mingle with the host. The host doesn't need the internet, it's just a luxury

What can we do to clarify these misconceptions?
In this case I can only talk about my own hands-on experiences, the positive and negative ones alike. My experiences are oberwhelmingly positive and the few negatives don't have convincing or even hidden profiles. It is important to tell potential members that exactly as in the world outside Couchsurfing not everybody can get along with everybody. As a New Member Welcome greeter I will always tell the new surfer to use common sense, intuition and observe subtle actions such as words, movements or the eyes next to profile and references. I would suggest reading some profiles, coming to meetings, attend a Couchsurfing Orientation Day or ask a question to the Advice for Hosts group on Couchsurfing.

If anybody has an idea about another misconception, please let me know or write a comment on my article. How do you deal with misconceptions?

To discover your own boundaries within exotic waters

2011-04-23T06:28:00.000-07:00

There is nothing more inspiring than the cultural diversity in Indonesia. Couchsurfing has helped me a lot to learn about these differences and even learn the language and culture of my ancestors. Made up of 50% Asian genes, I have been formed by predominantly Western cultures. I have always thought that I was "openminded" and that it was easy for me to blend in societies different from my own. For sure it is definitely easier for me than for many other travellers. After living in countries outside my usual boundaries, I found a huge difference between knowing a culture and to actually blend in as though it was your own. It is undoubtedly easy for me to respect a culture but quite a challenge to live it as though it is my own.

I had close contact with Couchsurfers in many countries and found that they tend to be different from the average person in their own culture. In fact you will find globalized circles in nearly every country.They have travelled, speak many languages on a native or near-native basis and even spent their formative years in a Western country. I found that expatriates or globalized locals could teach me a lot about the local culture, yet they are more likely to find a common ground for communication with me.

As to the Asian cultures compared to the west, there are a few very pronounced differences that I would like to draw attention to.I have lived in Indonesia, have some friends or relatives there. Very much aware of the differences myself, I found that local people who have not yet been exposed to other countries were not always tolerant towards our views. Most of them have only traveled the Western world as flash tourists hence their opinion is much based on prejudice along with scenes from cheap sitcoms.

Nowadays Indonesia starts to develop and open up to attitudes outside their own box. Younger people tend to raise their kids to develop their own identity, more self-confidence, more democracy and autonomy for their own decisions in life. The core values in Asian societies are more community- than individual-based as opposed to their Western counterparts.

Privacy rights
This is one of the widest gap between Asian and Western societies. People ask your age and income, don't stop their interrogation until you tell them what they want to hear. Neighbours are curious about your life without really caring for you. If they feel that they don't get enough information to spice up their daily coffee hour, they either insist on getting more to put on their cake or even fabricate some weird stories.

My heart missed a beat as I walked out of my door and heard loud conversations about the local doctor who was allegedly too old to give birth to her newborn baby. At the age of 37, she became the talk of the town. In their view, this lady must have received artificial insemination because it is impossible for such an old woman to have a natural birth. The very educated and well-traveled people may be the exception to the rule. However, I have been explicitly irritated by well-traveled people with university degrees who didn't seem to be aware of those who were not prepared to disclose enough private information.

A fairly wealthy business person with a good command of English asked me bluntly along these lines:" You certainly send your mother a check every month, right? Or maybe she sends you a monthly check, doesn't she?" I was very close to calling him names but refrained from doing so because he had a generous caring heart for other people. Nevertheless, I'm going to tell him that he made me feel like being shackled on the torture bench, mercily interrogated by the Inquisition.

One example of privacy differences:
In most Western countries, any individual has the freedom to do what they think is appropriate for themselves. The advantages: People become more creative, self-confident and responsible for their own actions. On the downside, sometimes people with less stable characters may not always be aware of moral boundaries or ethics. In Indonesia, a lot of actions and behaviour seem to be dictated by the rules of the society. One example: if people dress differently from the social norm, people on the street will follow and ridicule them. If you join a sports club and refuse to wear their uniform because you think your body only belongs to you, you will be gossiped about at best and openly insulted at worst.

Respect for the elderly
I have seen a lot of words like "respect for the elderly" in the couch description of Asian Couchsurfer's profiles. I would rather replace the word "respect" with "obedient". Travelers don't always realise that what some non-Western cultures call respect is in fact a rigid, one-sided top-down system where society simply demands unrestricted obedience towards somebody who is considered older or senior to you. It is the society who unapologetically judges a person for not strictly following social rules.Young people do not always have too many opportunities to ensure their personal growth. However, I have observed that adult authority is slowly evolving in Indonesia and parents support democracy......

I suggest any person who would like to surf the couch of a non-globalized Asian family or receive an Asian couchsurfer in their home should realise the impact of this culture on them. It is good to be aware of what some cultural regulations really mean and compare them with their own personal perception. Couchsurfing or any other hospex site is still a very insightful journey to discover one's own personal boundaries when they try to immerse in more exotic waters.

Flora and Fauna at Teluk Bahang national park

2011-02-27T17:38:00.000-08:00

Teluk Bahang National Park is possibly one of the smallest but most interesting and easy to explore national parks in Malaysia. I have hiked both Monkey Beach and Keracut Beach with my mother, tourists that I met on travels and some of my friends. The pictures with the animals were taken as I hiked either completely on my own or with some Dutch travelers that I met in the park.

This time was the first time that I hiked with Couchsurfers from Malaysia. Couchsurfer Chau, his friend Chin and myself hiked to Keracut Beach. This is pretty much a local and quiet beach, due to the fact that people have to hike to this beach. Chau prepared a great picnic lunch and just name what is missing: sandwiches, different types of canned tuna, cucmbers, tomatoes, onions, drinks. Thank you Chau for organising such a great day.

We hiked in the morning and it was pleasant because we were not exposed to the scorching Malaysian heat. It was quite a big pity that the monkeys, lizards and other inhabitants of the national park had their day off on that Sunday. Nevertheless, Chau, Chin and me got to know each other quite well and we had great conversations. Actually I prefer such outings with local and non-local couchsurfers rather than an uncomfortable couch with a host who considers you a stranger and who provides nothing more than a place to sleep. Living close-corner with travellers whose company I don't prefer too much would add more to the suboptimal experience.

Well, Chin and Chau have been great company who enjoyed food and picnic lunches as much as they enjoyed nature and trekking.The National Park was well-organised and they maintain a little turtle sanctuary on Keracut Beach. I was lazy and tired in the afternoon and chose the boat to return instead of hiking in the heat. The boat was less expensive than I thought, RM 10,- or 2 EUR. For the first time I saw the whole national park from the ocean side from a boat. Something nobody should miss for such a reasonable price. It was my first time on a boat either and it is a great experience to experience the park from different viewpoints.

Hidden eating places on Penang island

2011-02-24T02:05:00.001-08:00

Teluk Bahang national park bus station
If you are bored while waiting for the bus between teluk Bahang and Balik Pulau, you may stop at the mamak(muslim Indian) stall right next to the bus stop. Not only that the owners help you with travel information but they have one of the best home-cooked chicken curries. The vegetable stir-fry is unique and their protha delicious.

Balik Pulau
The Balik Pulau laksa is of course more famous and located on a busy street corner at Jl. Sungei Penang. It is tasty and unique, unbeatable with a curry blend that he would probably wouldn't even disclose under torture. However, he explained that he put fish, tamarind and shrimp paste into his laksa. Please never forget to try his fresh nutmeg juice.

Just next to the Balik Pulau Laksa is a good durian vendor. A nice old man whose name I need to ask the next time I buy famous Malaysian durian from him. He gave me a durian which has been nibbled off by a squirrel. These little animals know exactly which durian is good and which is not.

The wet market close to the bus terminal is worth a visit. Here you will find more durians and delicious hawker food. Bus 501 leaves Teluk Bahang bus station every 1/2 hour past the hour and provide a marvellous ride through the hills and fruit farms. Make sure you'll be there 1/2 hour before because the bus doesn't wait for you.

Bukit Jambul Shopping Complex
is a great place to shop and Mydin supermarket is one of the cheapest next to Tesco on the island of Penang. If you arrive there in the afternoon, you will find a lot of cheap fresh food and fruits of the season. Just a sample of foods you may like to find here: Pulut udang(sticky rice with a spicy shredded shrimp wrapped in banana leaf and grilled on charcoal) for 50 c, pancakes for 80 c, nasi lemak with special curry for RM 2,50 etc etc.

Traditional Sundanese Wedding on 6 February 2011 in Garut

2011-02-09T23:25:00.000-08:00

Last weekend my friends Wiwi and Novia invited me spontaneously to Garut to attend their friend's Daughter's wedding. I thought already that I would be thrilled but I never thought it would be that extremely unforgettable. Garut is a beautiful little town in the mountains just 60 km from Bandung. Tourist attractions include the Cipanas hot spring area, several treks and the Papandayan crater. Kampung Naga, a socially secluded village with members still living in the past without technology, electricity and transport is probably the most impressive place in the Garut area. It is reminiscent of the Baduy society which I have visited before but unfortunately I didn't have the chance to visit these beautiful places. Our schedule was very packed. Instead, I made some new friends like Pak Dadang and his family. We had a lovely food tour in lovely and fairly cheap traditional restaurants. The gurame fish with green chilli is one of the very great dishes

The next day was different from the original plan where we were supposed to go to the church and then eat. Because I was considered part of the Pak Dadang family,he started knocking on my door at 5.30. I was still asleep but didn't need too long to get ready and pack my suitcase. Afterall, it was worth all the energy. We did have an interesting cultural exchange already in the car and found Pak Dadang very openminded towards other cultures including the ethnic Chinese.

All the family was gathered at Pak Dadang's place and before getting my bridal make-up, I joined them for a small breakfast consisting of rice, chicken and some vegies. Later we had risoles(crumbed spring rolls) and lemper(chicken cooked in coconut milk stuffed in a sticky rice roll) for morning tea. The makeup artist started transform my face until probably nobody would recognise me. I thought she needed very long to transform the ugly duckling into a Sundanese beauty;-P. My hair was too short and stood out like a lion, so she modified my hairdo and put a Sundanese hair decoration into my hair.

The bridal escorts were dressed in blue kebayas(Sundanese Indonesian traditional tunic) and sarongs. I spent some time talking to the Wedding celebrant, MC, his assistants, Pak Dadang's relatives, the Ustads(Moslem scholars) and penghulu(traditional Moslem Wedding officer). The MC spoke some English but my Indonesian was actually fine.

So if I remember well the ceremony started in this order:
1. Serah terima or bridegroom handover from their family to the bridal family. The bridegroom's family handed over presents to the family of the bride. Everything was represented from quilts, fruit baskets, canned and dried food, crockery, pots and pans etc
2. The real ceremony, both parties agreed on the money and gold to "buy" the bridegroom
3. Praying several chapters of the Qur'an before and afterwards
4. Traditional Sundanese singing
5. The most fun of all, the "Nyawer" ceremony. All of us would throw some money and candies or instant noodles into the crowd. everybody will try to be the first person to pick up some money or candies. Well, in my beautiful dress I was the last and felt like an elephant dressed as a princess

Bridegroom and escorts got ready to go the the rented building where the wedding reception continued. Wiwi and NOvia arrived with faces so astonished as if they saw a monster from outer space. Apparently all the make up and dress had changed me quite a bit.

This was probably one of the highlights of my stay in Jakarta and meeting unforgettable people like Pak Dadang and his family.

German Christmas cooking with CS Indonesia

2010-12-16T21:29:00.001-08:00

Magdalena and Faiza have organised many cooking classes. This time they planned to organise a German class, so I decided to give them a helping hand

They had many cooking classes starting from French, Cambodian, Thai, the several regions of Indonesia and recently the German class. German pre-Christmas(Advent)cooking has always been the highlight of the Christmas tradition in many countries. This time we decided to transfer this atmosphere from Germany to Indonesia. We haven't stopped enjoying the beautiful Rinderrouladen(beef rolls), Rotkraut(red cabbage) and an improvised mixture of potato dumpling and baked potatoes. It was perfectly organised and I started to doubt whether I'm professional enough to join in into the organisation

It was a fun experience making Rotkraut(red cabbage) together. The pot was so light that we needed four people in total, three to hold the pot and one to stir.

We had to wear name tags so it was easier to remember people's names. These are Bratäpfel(baked apples) a la CS Indonesia with them displayed on the dish. It was a wonderful cultural exchange, very playful with some sort of party atmosphere.Magdalena hosted me the night before and we went out for shopping. This has been one of the highlights how the Couchsurfing idea is transformed into practice by having cooking class parties

Katja Brüdermann's Shiatsu On-Tour Pantomime

2010-10-24T11:10:00.000-07:00

We don't need to host or surf to enjoy Couchsurfing. Yesss....we don't even need to get too far from our house!!! Through a CS post on the Mainz(Germany) group I met Katja Brüdermann. She was looking for improvised pantomime performers to accompany the reading of her book:" Von einer, der sich auf den weg macht(Shiatsu on Tour)" at the Wiesbaden Wellness Fair, 16 km from Mainz. Katja likes to travel on her bike and offers shiatsu treatments while on tour. These are photos of our outstanding and funny pantomime performance at the Wiesbaden Wellness Fair! Katja and me reading excerpts out of her book accompanied by our pantomime.

SHIATSU ON-TOUR PANTOMIME and READING
"This is my shiatsu team!" said Katja Brüdermann while reading excerpts out of her book

Scenario: Hippie Festival. "I wonder whether I fit in into this crazy pack of tantra massaging hippies....."

Hippie Music Festival: The shiatsu team is building a yurt. Putting together the small parts or getting tangled up. Similar to shiatsu

At the end all the tiny bits and pieces form a well-rounded structure. That's what shiatsu is all about:-)

Treating a stressed woman with a noisy, sandwich smacking family in the background

Treating a hippie couple with sore legs after dancing

Man with excruciating backpain coming in after midnight

That's not yet one hour mein Fräulein! Don't wanna make more money??

Grrrrr...biking through Mecklenburg's bumpy roads and sand dunes. I continue my tour with heavy luggage on the worst trail since ever...........

Finally I have found a room to sleep in.......hooray!!!

Dumpster diving with Talley and Callum

2010-10-07T15:44:00.001-07:00

Callum MacDonald had a very unique request. He wished to join into dumpster diving and to live in a squat. While I was unable to provide the latter, it was great fun to go on a dumpster diving tour.

My goal is not to promote dumpster diving for fun because this may result in shops locking up their trash bins and needy people will have no opportunity to find food. Callum has been an old friend and therefore I included him in our hunt. However, normally I don't do it with surfers that I have never met before. It is hard to imagine that organic super markets throw away such a huge amount of products. Callum and me had a gourmet organic meal of packaged German potato pancakes(Kartoffelpuffer) and a sealed jar of awesome apple/mango mark with some bacon from my fridge.

Dumpster diving is different in different countries. In Germany it is officially prohibited and considered theft. However, people don't bother to call the police and the police doesn't take much action either. In most conservative cities in Germany, large supermarkets tend to cover and lock their trash bins which they do in Mainz. Wiesbaden is less strict especially the smaller shops and we may need to look for small organic supermarkets. Giant supermarkets like Aldi or Nettokom calculate the purchase of their goods very carefully, so nearly nothing is left and thrown in the dumpster. It is the smaller organic shops which we have to look for because they don't calculate their purchase professionally. So we just have to remember that it is us who have to pay for their lack of professionality.

Tips for Germany:
1. Come when it is dark
2. Carefully search the bins and tip them all over. Put them back in order and don't leave any of your footprints.
3. The foul goods or trash are purposely put on top as to discourage dumpster divers but at the bottom you will find all gems.
4. Look for small organic shops

Prepare to dive deep into the bin

Callum MacDonald surfing my couch. Dumpster diving in Wiesbaden with Talley

Ronneburg medieval market

2010-10-07T15:13:00.000-07:00

" Mirror, mirror on the wall, who in the land is fairest of all?"

"Oh Lady Queen, thou, O Queen, art the fairest of all" Mirror broken, don't believe it;-P
Patricia, a CS member, walking on stilts
Me in medieval lady attire

sword fighting

Clown/fire juggling

A wonderful castle ruine is the Ronneburg Museum Castle in Hesse, 180 km north of Frankfurt. A beautiful location in the middle of breathtaking mountainous views. It is the right setting for a medieval market where beautiful costumes and the middle ages come back to life.

Reason number 13 to surf Christian Bayerlein's couch

2010-09-16T00:50:00.003-07:00

After Annnick-Marie Bouchard stated her 12 reasons to surf Christian's couch, I will add just number 13. Christian is down-to-earth, cheeky and I hope they will not televise our naughty conversation:-). Of course this is not reason no 13 why somebody should surf Christian's couch.

Reason no 13 is: Christian and his 3 Assistentinnen are quite in opposition to my political and social viewpoint. And yet I was comfortable and familiar with Christian from day one. It has been a relaxing but simple surfing experience. We exchanged quite a few hosting and surfing experiences. Among others he said something about references I found refreshing and down-to-earth. He said that if you were observant enough with an ability to read people, you would be able to find out at least the basics of somebody's personality. It especially holds true in a small or one-to-one meeting. We were exactly on the same page. He had other simple but effective views for both hosts and guests.

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Christian explaining his work with barrier-free websites
Crew working out the documentary
Explanations of the Emperor Wilhelm statue

Christian explaining Deutsches Eck

Christian explaining that Coblence does not have a cathedral. City tour with 3SAT team
Me surfing Christian's couch with the 3SAT film team shooting the documentary
Sonja preparing Christian's hair for the TV documentary

News from the Mainz couching sphere

2010-09-13T08:44:00.001-07:00

John from U.S works out a lot. The Mainz Wine and Food Market is the right thing for him
My CS friend Karen and her colleagues at the Mainz Wine Market in the beautiful Rosengarten

Together with my old CS friend Winfried at the Mainz-Kastel Beach bar. He came to my place in Sydney, Australia and we visited a Toastmasters meeting

My guests Hugo and Noel at the historical Mainz fresh produce market, surrounded by the Dom(Cathedral)and Johannes Gutenberg Museum

My surfers Noel and Hugo busy with laptops

Mainz meeting at Ballplatz Cafe with Babu from India/Hungary

Sami, my CS guest from Brazil on 1,2 August

2010-08-02T07:42:00.000-07:00

Samantha from Brazil is an experienced traveler and dentist(endodontist, specialist for root canal). I took her to a vegetarian soulfood dinner at Nathalie's place

We went to explore Wiesbaden, Mainz, the Rhine Gorge with a stop at the medieval town of Bacharach and spa town of Bad Kreuznach

Inhaling saline is a must-do in the spa town of Bad Kreuznach, especially with lung conditions. People with medical conditions can stay and use the natural resources like saline and radon.
Bad Kreuznach is a spa town with a park and forested walks.

We went up the Neroberg in Wiesbaden on a funicular driven by water which is the only one in the world. It is mentioned in the Lonely Planet but not in a way that catches people's attention
The Nerobers is a hill with vineyards which overlooks Wiesbaden and located at the foot of the Taunus mountains.

The Mainz market square in front of the Cathedral, the most important landmark in this city. The weekly fresh produce markets is the highlight of the week, although not necessarily cheap.

Olja from Serbia/Canada, CS guest in July

2010-07-14T02:48:00.001-07:00

Olja and me in a restaurant in Bacharach, Rhine Gorge

My guest Olja and me touring the Rhine River Valley

Wiwi and Novia, the most wonderful couple that I met in Indonesia

2010-06-07T20:16:00.002-07:00

Wiwi eating BBQ fish
Grampa, Novia, Grandma, Soraya, mum Sue
Grampa(80 y/o) shares stories about his crazy food hunt on a motorbike through the killing Jakarta traffic.

Wiwi and Novia are a young couple who are not only good-looking and successful business people but they also have a big and caring heart for other people. My mum and me spent a lot of time with them and every time if we just talk about good food, they will send their driver to send us the food that we fancy.

They are active, social and sporty people, look at least 25 years younger than their chronological age. Their parents are also very humourous and entertaining, grampa is still crazy enough to ride a motor cycle through the catastrophic Jakarta traffic at the age of 80. Wish all Indonesians were like you!

Life in Melati Mas and Tai Chi at Medika Hospital

2010-06-07T20:16:00.001-07:00

Grocery vendors in Melati Mas sell about everything from fresh fruits and vegetables, tofu, tempeh, chicken and fish. I was quite impressed by this energetic and humourous young woman. If you buy prawns in Indonesia they will peel it for you.

Everyday I joined a group of Tai Chi practitioners and we practiced nearly every Saturday in either the Medika or Eka Hospital in BSD City in the Tanggerang area. Indonesian groups are a little bit more restrictive than their Western counterparts. Even just in normal exercise, they prefer to see you wearing their uniform.

Bandar Jakarta Seafood Restaurant

2010-06-07T20:09:00.000-07:00

Wiwi and Novia took mum and me to a very nice place in Alam Sutra TAnggerang. It is opposite Omni Hospital and consists of a couple of good restaurants and bakeries. On weekends you will find the place packed with families going for a little outing. The seafood restaurant Bandar Jakarta is very well organised with a cosy atmosphere.

At ground level there are huge tanks of various kinds of lobsters, giant prawns, small and huge sharks and various types of seafishes. You can just go and pick the type of seafood that you fancy and choose from a variety of how you want them to be cooked:" grilled, fried, sauteed in oyster sauce, chili sauce, battered etc". You deliver your seafood to the counter, tell the staff about the cooking mode and then go to the tastefully designed quarters upstairs and get served by sexy, intelligent and charming waitresses in short pants or skirts

Tim Hargreaves

2010-05-23T21:43:00.001-07:00

Maggie, Tim and me at Cape Peron, Francois Peron National Park, Shark Bay

Quite the opposite of Arthur Pepper is Tim Hargreaves, a cosmopolitan Englishman who has been living in Australia for about 40 years. Slim, agile, sporty, refined voice and manners with quite a hint of irony and sarcasm. Tim is also a very knowledgable tour operator who cannot only share his knowledge of politics and history but he would share his knowledge and feelings he gained as an English Australian Shark Bay local.

Tim speaks better Malay than me and caused me to blush quite a few times. His house is reminiscent of one of those Spanish Moorish houses you see so often in Andalusia, Spain. When you enter his house which he called a Christian Center, you really feel the present of Jesus and some very meditative peace. His wife Maggie is a lovely, very Christian lady who, like himself, has never forgotten her English roots.

We spent some time on a tour, going to Monkey Mia and had insightful discussions about Christianity in their home. At the age of 72, Tim is fit enough to drive the 4WD through the unbearably hot bumpy area of Francois National Park, among others letting air off the tyres and runing around with his van.

Tim's book Dolphin Bay is worth a read, for Shark Bay locals and visitors alike. It is said that you either shoot him or find him amusing. Until now I found him amusing and entertaining, a lot of parallels in his life to my own life.

Photos of residents of Shark Bay

2010-05-20T08:45:00.003-07:00

Weekly dart at RSL club. Few tourists and lots of locals

Darren Capes(left), Aboriginal walking leader

Fay, me and Trevor Deacon

Small girl caught a big fish

The Aboriginal Yadgallah Community in Shark Bay. Actually there is little Aboriginal blood in them but rather Indonesian or Asian

Arthur "Pep" Pepper

2010-05-20T08:45:00.001-07:00

Reciting Banjo Patterson in his home
Pep proudly showing the sign for the Pepper Trail

You can hear his sound, rather loud and articulate voice from miles away. Pep has lost a great deal of his hearing and sometimes you never know how much he can still understand. His appearance is that of one of the old stockmen who are so often written about in Henry Lawson or Banjo Patterson's books. A stockman's hat with a broad brim, a leather-like skin worn out by hard working in the harsh nearly rotten climate of the bush. HOwever, he would transform into a nearly British gentleman when he goes out in the evening.

Arthur Pepper or "Pep" or "Peppie" as everybody in town calls him was born 74 years ago as the son from English tracker Tom Pepper and a partly Aboriginal mother. A predominantly white man in appearance and mannerism you can still perceive something very Aboriginal in him and he never tried to deny it for a single moment. As punctual and accurate as a German, quite tidy and orderly in his house, he sometimes talks about the significance of relationships which are only experienced by an indigenous person.

He was rough around the edges but his heart warm and generous. Never angry and quite laid-back he said he would only become mad when people abuse animals. If you look for deeper conversations and discussions, Pep would probably not be the one for you. Sometimes I really thought that he couldn't really distinguish a human being from one of his sheep or cattle. As a born gentleman he would not leave your wine(or beer?)glass empty. Everytime when I bought him food or beer, he would buy you back twice the amount he received.

His meticulous manners reminded me of a German. He would literally keep his word and show up at any appointment 5 minutes before time. I visited him in his house which was decorated with artefacts such as old leather belts, photos, whips and other tools used in a sheep and cattle outcamp. His collection of books about Australian outback history, Banjo Patterson and Henry Lawson's works as well as the Holy Books of the Bible would tell the whole life of a man who has always lived in an isolated Australian country area, happy with his own company.

He claimed not to be religious but I rather had the feeling that he had some issues with the institutional part of the Church. Well, we had something more in common in this case.....He recited some of Banjo Patterson's works and it came right from his heart. Only a true blue Aussie bushman can feel what Banjo Patterson tried to tell. Myself on the contrary prefer a lot of Henry Lawson's writings who always described the huge contrasting differences between the two Australian cultures, the remote countryside and the city.....Henry Lawson passed away in Sydney early 20th century but he always thought of himself as a bushman.

When it happened that I needed to raise my voice towards this stubborn and quite deaf man, the only reaction was:"Jeezz....you are like my father. A fuckin wild horse." If you ever get to visit the shearing homestead which is now not a working station anymore but rather part of the Francois Peron National Park, you will see the Pepper Trail named after his family along with information of the work on the shearing station. After all the pastoral land including homestead was bought by the government, Pep continued to work for the National Park after 40 years working in the homestead as it was still a working station. A true first-hand Australian experience with Pep. When you ever come to Denham just look out for Pep, the broad little man with that huge hat....

Photos of Denham and Shark Bay

2010-05-20T08:44:00.001-07:00

Emu feeding in front of the tourist office

Emus walking in Denham

20 kg Cod fish

View from my dining room

Beach view opposite my place

Denham...I lost my heart.....

2010-05-20T08:31:00.000-07:00

Darren Capes, famous Aboriginal walking leader from Denham, once put it in such a spot-on manner. " It is not enough when you just see a country, you have to feel it". Many people told me that I should just skip Denham and go to Monkey Maya for a day. I arrived in Denham late night and it was just too dark to really enjoy the town. What started as initially just a stop turned into a social and environmental experience full of joy. I made so many friends, learnt much from DEC(Department of Environment and Conservation) workers, got involved in many social events and last but not least.....I received so many hosting offers from locals who were not Couchsurfers. However, I had signed the lease of my wonderful apartment by the sea and preferred my own privacy where I can cook for people.

Denham has a lively history starting from famous sheep shearers up to discoverers of the shipwreck the Zuytdorp. The town has interesting ethnic diversity because the Aboriginals were descendants of the Indonesian pearlers mixed with whites and Aboriginals. Current research is conducted whether the survivors of the shipwreck the Zuytdorp mixed with the Aboriginals because their skeletons were never found.

I learnt new skills like kayaking with tiger sharks nibbling my boat from underneath, improved my fishing skills and even learnt how to fillet a fish. Because the restaurants were not allowed to sell fresh fish, we needed to catch the fish ourselves. Many Australian travellers come here just for fishing and at night you see many people fishing breams, mullets and squid from the jetty. The first thing that I needed to learn was how to estimate how many bowels each type of fish had and where to start cutting without all the treasures flowing out and spoil the good meat.

Most people meet in the bowling club and I found out that there was a lot of fun stuff to do in Denham. The vast turquoise tapestry of ocean surface changing its colours gradually to deep blue was the most impressive scenery that I could watch from my dining room everyday. I visited the conservation workers(DEC or Department of Environment and Conservation) in the Francois Peron National Park everyday and could find out a lot about their work. First hand experience with real people in Shark Bay

I fell in love with Kalbarri

2010-04-18T04:46:00.002-07:00

As the bus entered Kalbarri my heart was instantly beating faster. It was early evening, the weather somewhat cloudly but I could see the breathtaking view of the Murchison River flowing into the ocean. The surrounding hills and islands seem to welcome me straight away.

I spent 7 days in Kalbarri, Western Australia, enjoyed every single day of it. A lot of fishing with not much more luck than in Cervantes, kanoeing, hiking and leisure walks along the beach. It was the first time that I heard that the name Kalbarri stemmed from the kalba tree. Apart from this I learnt a lot about different types of banksia, learnt about their petals closing when heat was missing and saw quite a few kangaroos which I could never capture in a photo.

It was extraordinary impressive to see a caterpillar formation which I would have run over without the ranger who guided us through the park. I volunteered in the feeding the pelicans attraction and felt that I could imagine living here for a longer period.

Kalbarri and Gorge photos

2010-04-18T04:46:00.001-07:00

caterpillar procession

Me volunteering in feeding pelicans, a tourist attraction popular with Australian tourists.
Me hiking in the Kalbarri Gorge

Photos of Cervantes and The Pinnacles

2010-04-16T04:44:00.000-07:00

Boy cutting up a jellyfish at Cervantes beach

Cervantes and The Pinnacles

2010-04-12T21:12:00.000-07:00

Cervantes was my next destination and I decided to have some lazy relaxing holidays the way most local Australians do. Less sightseeing and more into fishing and walking I could discover the secret divine gems of Cervantes' nature. On a clear day I could see the water of the ocean in several shades of turquoise, becoming deep blue at a deeper spot. A couple of dolphins greeted us and may be used to feeding from the boats. The motel owner lent me his fishing rods and I could catch 4 herings and 2 whitings within 1 week, enough to feed one single person. It is not the fish to catch but the relaxation while waiting for the fishes to catch the bait.

Kangaroos and Wallabies were greeting us towards daybreak and sunset which was also beautiful to watch from Thirsty Point, straight behind my motel. I met so many people who were traveling by station wagon, campervan and normal car. This would be the travelling mode that I like although it is not the cheapest way. I enjoyed the people on caravan parks and with campervans so much that I am not worried anymore to travel by van or station car on my own.Haha...among others I met Jan, a German guy with awesome stories to tell from the station wagon that he bought for AUD 100,-- along with 2 sleeping bags and air matresses. His "funny"story from Thailand made me rather sad because he was involved in a car accident and got jailed for it in Thailand. Needless to comment on the circumstances in Thai jails.

We went to the Pinnacles three times, for sunrise, midday and sunset. Sunset was the most beautiful time and we had a BBQ. I found a little fossil of a lizard with all its teeth, some stones which looked like flintstones and......guess......I found a fossil which reminded me of an Emu showing all the colours of the rainblow. As I came home to the motel, the owner told me that it was.....Emu POO:-}}}}}}}. It was a beautiful souvenir but I couldn't get used to the idea of carrying poo in my luggage.

It was good that I left behind everything which had to do with Couchsurfing. I did not hear that word for a week because nobody would understand all those horror stories on Couchsurfing. If I talk about it people would say:"Well, that happens when you stay at a stranger's place.". So I found out that not talking was the best way to move on and get over a problem

The story that I did not want to tell

2010-03-24T23:27:00.000-07:00

I had a great time in Cervantes where I met Australian and international travelers alike, along with heaps of locals. There was one story that I did not want to tell because I found it too embarassing. It happened on Fraser Island where not all the ways are beaches or sand dunes. Occasionally we had to drive through wet moorish areas as well.

I ran over an animal because it was getting dark. As I got out of the car, I was so deeply shocked!!!!! It wass a platypus:-(((((( and I couldn't rescue this rare animal anymore. It has been a few years now that I have been silent about the incident.

We may have had a couple of drinks as I told the story. One new acquaintance who was from Melbourne and very keen to join Couchsurfing said:" Oh.....we have been socialising for a whole week and you never told me anything about it." "I did not intend to tell it to anybody." I responded. There was a couple of German travelers who thought it was funny. "No way." I said." Maybe I look at it now with humour but it was the darkest day in my life."

Now I have it off my chest and able to write this on my blog too.

Photos of Baduy villages

2010-03-18T23:13:00.007-07:00

Baduy Dalam(Inside Baduy) attire, the pure white shirt and black pants

Erwin's son marinating tofu
Do we really want Baduy children end up like this if they don't go to school?
Woman selling karedok

Me hiking Baduy Land
My Baduy host preparing food

Photos of Baduy villages and hiking

2010-03-18T23:13:00.005-07:00

Ferdinand Wongso organised CS tour in Baduy Land

Visiting the Baduy villages

2010-03-14T20:40:00.000-07:00

If you ever visit Indonesia, you should never miss visiting the Baduy villages where you combine a cultural, nature and sporting experience. The Baduy tribes or Kanekes life and culture seemed to stand still for many centuries.
http://en/wikipedia.org/wiki/Baduy

One of the Jakarta local couchsurfers, Fernand Wongso, has taken a lot of efforts to organise a weekend trip to the Baduy land. We drove there during the night time and arrived at the parking lot just outside their community. Our guide Erwin who also served as the assisten lurah(assistant to the village chief) greeted us and soon we embarked on a beautiful hike through the beautiful mountainous area of the Baduy land.

The track was certainly not paved like many other forest tracks in the Western world neither is it a completely trackless area. To be honest, I was not really prepared for this and came with very low quality sneekers. During the rainy season, the rough and slippery steep hills consisting of small and big boulders were a real challenge for those who don't have the right shoes or have any physical illnesses.

The beautiful landscape however would make up for any suffering we had to endure during the trek. We climbed down the steep slippery boulders to the waterfall and then crossed a beautiful canopy walk on a bridge made of big roots. After this trek we had a home-cooked brunch at Erwin's house and had the opportunity to admire his wife's weaving skills. I slipped on one of the wet boulders and Erwin fell on me as I lost too much of my balance. Erwin was very helpful and caring while he supported me on the slippery boulders many times

I was not very tired since my stamina is quite durable due to my sporty life. But I was rather embarrased to slow down the group, had a slight fever from a flu and the bad shoes were rather a discouragement for a further hike on slippery steep hills. Apart from this, I don't have a particular liking for slippery hills and boulder hopping.

Couchsurfing of a very special nature at Erwin's place
As the others moved on to stay at the next village, Erwin invited me to stay at his place while he himself joined the others to stay at the other village. This village was further away from the outside world and has more genuine Baduy life.

So I missed a lot of the beautiful nature and other villages, on the other hand I could visit three villages on my own and spent more time with the villagers and even get to know their life better. I helped Erwin's wife and son with cooking and shopping. I thought this was Couchsurfing of the very special kind and even each of us had their own room which was a total luxury for a Baduy village. Erwin's house had a clean toilet and bathroom which was unusual for a Baduy village too. The house was located right on the border and we virtually could watch TV from the front part of his house.

The village where I stayed was located right on the border to the outside world and so they arranged 2 TVs in the neighbouring community house. A lot of the Baduy Dalam or Inner Baduys(forget their purity) came here and joined watching TV or talking to visitors. Some of the ladies in the village were very outgoing and enterprising. They told me about the many sociology researchers who spent some time in the village while a few of the scientists had concerns of how long this secluded culture could last......

Anyway, at least some small kids loved to watch English lessons on TV and immitate the words taught on the program. The Baduys themselves were friendly, hospitable and welcoming. The inner Baduys started to sell their own products while the Outer BAduys performed most of the mediating sales business. We need to be careful not to tell them our addresses, otherwise they will walk all the way down to the city to sell their products

UPDATE June 2010: Visiting the Baduy Dalam area
The Baduy Dalam areas are what they call the "tanah suci" or holy land. During the holy month, even Indonesians are not permitted into this area. The rules applied are much stricter and people who were not born in Indonesia are not permitted to enter this area. The trek to this area requires tough and steep mountaineering, allowing at least 3 hours tough trek. When the hills become slippery after rain, we can expect around twice as much time. Please be prepared with shoes with a good profile and a walking stick

Women are not allowed to bathe naked, so few sarongs to bring is a good idea in case you fall into the water by accident. I found using these dasters on treks would save a lot of hassle but never forget decent trekking shoes and a stick if possible. I found a couple of wide, long batik dasters very practical and well-accepted by the Baduy people. With my nearly Indonesian looks my friend could smuggle me into the Baduy Dalam area which would have normally been off limits to non-Indonesians. Cameras are not allowed either and I found it more than respectful not to take pictures of this area but rather create a lasting image in my mind....

Special dishes from North Sulawesi

2010-03-09T19:26:00.000-08:00

It has been a long time since I have visited the North Sulawesi region. This year I will go for couchsurfing in Manado.I love Manadonese food and somebody recommended a typical Manadonese restaurant which is only visited by locals. Now I know why:-((

My favourite was the kueh apang, a kind of Manadonese pancake. As I entered the place, I had to pass several dog cages with those poor little black guys whining very helplessly as though they sensed that their fate had been sealed. My heart missed a beat but I felt that both my feet were nailed to the ground, some evil spell probably prevented them to move.

I paid for the kueh apang and they promised to make freshly baked ones. As I was sitting on one of the very comfortable chair, a loud and chatty Manadonese family entered the premises. They ordered some "erwe"(dog meat dish) and I still couldn't find the energy to leave the place.

Finally after one hour they told me that the pancakes were ready. At the same time, a waiter solemnly entered the restaurant with a big dish. "Wow," said one member of the family,"that's good erwe." I was still paralyzed but then I ran.....and ran......The cakes didn't interest me anymore although I had paid and people were shouting after me that I forgot the pancakes.

So remember that the most specific food in North Sulawesi is the erwe(dog puppy dish) and paniki(bat dish). Does Couchsurfing knows about this all?

Chinese New Year at Sang Kiang association

2010-02-15T20:43:00.000-08:00

Chinese New Year is a must-see in Penang where Ang Huah is probably the person who can show you most interesting hidden gems. Today on the 16 Feb I really had the chance to experience something special and unexpected.

After taking pictures of the famous popiah skin maker at Chow Rasta St and a small popiah breakfast, I was heading back to the Tune Hotel to check and download my work. Suddenly I heard the drumming of a lion dancer and I had a look. The lion dance performance impressive and very funny, the premise well-groomed.

Later it turned out that it was the Sang Kiang association, a group of people who would like to trace back their roots and maintain their original culture. The lion dancers showed an excellent choreography, made a lot of jokes and farces and threw oranges at people to catch and again I was hit by one on the head as I tried to take a close-up picture. Their performance was long, teasing and funny while at the end they had to catch the salad, tore it apart and took their ang pau or red packet with lucky money.

The San Kiang association was a group of people of Chinese heritage who would like to maintain their culture and language. Meanwhile I have carried out so much research that I know that part of my ancestors came from the Hokkian area. As I told them that my family came from that area, they suggested to trace exactly from which part of the Hokkian area I came as the area itself was quite vast. Well, I pretended to understand a bit of Hokkian and most of the time I just smiled and said either kam sia(thank you) or Gong Xi Fa Cai. Thinks may become difficult when somebody invites me for more intimate relationships and I just answer with a smile, kam sia(thank you) or Gong Xi Fa Cai(Happy Chinese New Year):-) However, most of the members were friendly and some ladies even called me "sister".

There was free food consisting of noodles, rice noodles, fried and white rice, chicken, fish, vegetarian dishes, fresh fruit and drinks such as juices and water. There were plenty of music shows and games for young and old. The Ang pau after I won the Hula Hoop game was the highlight of the day and again I forgot to charge the battery of my camera.........And the free food of course but bringing non-Chinese CSers would have been a less good idea perhaps.

In due time I thought I could make a lot of contact with local Malaysians in the hotel as well as foreign international tourists. I enjoyed Penang very much without any help of the Penang CSers.

Kuala Kangsar

2010-02-12T06:15:00.000-08:00

Today I drove back to Penang but not without visiting the beautiful city of Kuala Kangsar. Just the scenery between Lumut and Kuala Kangsar was embedded in tropical greenery consisting of mangrove, banana trees and many other beautiful exotic flora. Unfortunately I forgot to charge the battery of my camera and there are not many photos of this beautiful place.

Kuala Kangsar is located in the middle of beautiful hills and forested areas. The combination between ancient royal architecture and nature is something that nobody should give a miss. The government put much effort in this city, a for Malaysian standards perfect walkway with beautiful plaster, all the heritage sites marked with illumination, man-made gardening all over the heritage walk.

I would recommend anybody to stay here for at least one night to do the walk in the morning or evening when it's illuminated. Kuala Kangsar is not yet well-known among tourists and therefore it is quite a local town with very cheap food prices. The tourist information is not too well organised and don't even provide maps. A very friendly library worker took the effort to draw a little map for me. This only happens when places are not swamped with visitors......

Lumut

2010-02-11T13:35:00.000-08:00

Lumut itself has more to offer than meets the eye. For somebody who needs to chill out for some time and likes to get away from tourists, it is worth to stay for a couple of days. The ferry to Pangkor Islands goes every half hour.

The Lumut waterfront is very pleasant to walk and the park is suitable for jogging until the yacht club. Here you have a beautiful view of the islands and have a cup of coffee. There are a couple of small beaches too among others Teluk Batik. The mangrove forest is very interesting for trekking and there is some other forest where you can climb up the hill.

Dr Ridi from Couchsurfing
Last but not least, I was lucky that the only Couchsurfer in Lumut, Dr.Faisal Ridi, showed me around town. He invited me for a couple of drinks and dinners, insisted in paying my bills. I felt that Faisal would be a good friend to me despite the short intervals that we met which was interrupted by phone calls about patients from his hospital.

Not only that he works in a similar job like mine as a medical doctor, but we also clicked on a very personal level. A warm-hearted man and family father, knowledgable in medicine and traveling but a person who has never forgotten about the human sides of life. Definitely another Couchsurfer that is a must-meet in a rather unknown destination like Lumut

Pangkor Island and food

2010-02-08T08:49:00.003-08:00

Tan Eng Kien, the only Couchsurfer from Pangkor Island
I have decided to choose my accommodation in Lumut because it was good value with higher quality compared to Pangkor. For RM 60, I had a 28 m2 room with fridge, TV, phone and balcony with waterviews right next to the jetty. This has been neceesary for me due to my work on the computer and business calls. During the day I enjoyed the tasty food on Pangkor, enjoyed the beaches, jungle treks, culture and historical sites. But everything would not be as memorable without Tan Eng Kien, the only couchsurfer who was a real local fisherman's boy from Pangkor

Kien is a warm-hearted, lively, interesting and interested guy who is enthusiastic about nearly everything, especially his future studies in Australia. He showed me around the island and then invited me for lunch with his family. we met only for a few hours because we were both tired and I actually knew the island quite well already. His mother did not speak much English, so I tried to converse with her in my basic Hokkian and some Malay. This was another experience with food as communication with other cultures without much verbal interaction. She saw that I enjoyed her delicious home-made dishes and naturally knew that I liked it. There are two jetties on Pangkor, one is the main jetty marked with"visitors" and the other one with"villagers". Kien and his family lived in the village which was not too far from the beautiful temple Foo LIng Kong, a must see, apart from the laksa and rojak in the neighbourhood

Sentimental feelings coming up in my heart as I visited the Dutch Fort. How can two different types of blood, one is Dutch(leave out the English within myself) and the other Malaysian?

The Dutch Fort on Pangkor reminds me a lot of my own Dutch Malay(si)an heritage
Foo Ling KOng temple on Pangkor Island. Beautiful architecture with miniature Great Wall
Pasir Bogak beach, my favourite on Pangkor. Unlike Langkawi, the Island is small and easily explored in 2 hours. I go there primarily for nature, beach and exercise which is very relaxing

Dutch Ford on Pangkor Island with forest background, a piece of colonial history amidst tropical nature
Foo Ling Kong temple lies amids lush tropical rain forest and gives one a feeling of piece. And few tourists know that this beautiful temple surrounded by a beautiful Zen-like garden with breathtaking views on the water is just 5 min walk from the Sungei Penang Kecil jetty.
Me eating nasi lemak with fish curry in a Malaysian coffee shop or kopitiam. Food is incredibly cheap and good value. Many locals are having breakfast while sitting and chatting around the table. You get a good feel for local life
Mee or Chinese noodle maker. The actual work is carried out by mostly foreign workers. I had to chase them to be able to make the pictures. For them it is sometimes hard to understand that people would like some photos. Anyway, when I would live here, I would certainly buy their noodles
Me on the beach on Pangkor Island. Teluk Nipah is quite clean but I find it too touristy, including the food

Health projects on Pangkor Island

2010-02-08T08:28:00.001-08:00

Final health counselling by a health worker from the local department of the Ministry of Health

Students taking blood
All results are written on forms
The students can put all the theory they have learnt into practice and collect experience with patients. For rural communities, free health checks and counselling is of great help.
First check is BMI or Body Mass Index
Free health checks by students of biomedical science Shah Alam

Thaipusam Penang 2010

2010-02-06T05:01:00.001-08:00

Chinese Kavati carrier with mouth piercing
Chinese devotees
Preparing for the large poking
Meditating or fear?
Pierced hooks are attached to the ropes and KavatiThe hooks placed into the back of the devotee
Devotee carrying Kavati or offering attached to piercings into his body
Piercing a large stick through the mouth

Is Thaipusam piercing really painless?

2010-01-29T22:38:00.000-08:00

The Thaipusam is not for the fainthearted but I decided to watch this ritual. As I preferred non-tourist spots I went to the temple near Times Square in Penang. People there suggested me to go to Lorong Kulit because the piercing ritual was over. This was not really true as on my way back home, I saw some people carrying Kavatis(offerings pierced into someone's body) leaving the temple. Obviously they do prefer more privacy which is totally understandable for me. Since there were many tourists and visitors hungry for a sensational experience, I could imagine this would disturb the real purpose of the ceremonies.

As I said before in my previous article, the breaking of the coconuts and fruit baskets were one of the offerings. On the next day, the families would present larger offerings in the form of several fruits, flowers and milk. The "carrier" is chosen by the family and mostly a fairly young man(devotee) within the family. The Kavati or huge offering will be then pierced into the body of the devotee.

Piercing ritual
The family allowed me to approach very closely in front of the adventure-hungry tourists. However, I still believe that most families were spiritual believers where donations are welcomed but not mandatory. The devotee or chosen man by the family would stand praying along with the other family members chanting and dancing. This is accompanied by intriguing meditative drumming. The drumming and chanting became more intense as though they were firing the devotee. This became extremely strong as the priest placed the huge mouth and tongue piercing.I saw the western tourists dancing along the rhythms as though it was a Brazilian drumming concert. Apparently some of them had no idea of the content of the rituals.

The devotee is given some time to prepare himself and pray. After this he lays down on the mat. The chanting and drumming becomes very intense to probably encourage him or put him into deeper trance. The holy priests will place the small and large hooks into a intercuteneous area(within the layers of the skin). There was no blood flooding and I assume they placed the hooks into areas without blood vessels and spare nerves as much as possible.

Nothing for the faint-hearted, the small hooks seem to enter the skin(it could be even intercutaneous or into the upper part of the skin) while the large hooks were inserted in with more force(ouch) probably into a subcutaneous part or underneath the upper part of the skin. These hooks will later be attached to the Kavati or the offering burden and the man will carry the offering(flowers) with hooks pierced into his body. The scariest part was the mouth and tongue piercing where even someone like me who is used to medical procedures will start to gasp.

What would be a more rational reason for this ritual? Is it really as painless as people say?
I observed a few devotees and they closed their eyes as the hooks were placed into their skin. Obviously it was when not painful at least very unpleasant for them. Along with the family chanting, some men didn't show any expression, some closed their eyes during mouth piercing and their facial expression became tense, some of them were quite in pain and the priests needed to put a lime into their mouth. Part of the family and priests patted their shoulders to give them more courage. Sometimes a lime was inserted into their mouth during more invasive procedures and afterwards they spitted out the lime they had chewed. It seemed that it could relieve stress and pain too.

I smiled for an hour as one young man kept showed his pokerface throughout the procedure. After it was all over he kept on joking with his family and asked us to take as many photos as we wanted. He was the most good-looking man too and it seemed that he loved to be in the limelight. Overall, the pierced young men were keen on tourists and smiled into the camera.

As I was in Singapore, these men had to go through an 8-days fasting period and given religious instruction. I think after this fasting, they had lost a bit of their sanity which makes it easier for them to endure the procedure. Interviews with other families in Penang revealed that some of them didn't fast or received any religious instruction.

It does make sense that they believe so strongly that they could master the pain, exactly like self-hypnosis in chronic pain therapy. But if they had lost their sanity, how could they still deliberately stand in a certain pose in front of the camera, give instructions to the family and answer questions in English.

The Chinese community also played a large role in this ritual. I was very impressed by their generosity and courage. The piercing techniques were about the same but the mouth and tonge piercing was a lot heavier and longer than most of the Indians. I have also noticed that the Kavatis differ in size so did the amount of piercings, especially the mouth and tonge piercing.

Some men were given a waistbelt to help to carry the burden, so the kavati was not carried by the piercings only. But I saw quite a few men, especially the Chinese men, who administered it in the traditional way. The Kavati was held by the skin piercings only.

We can ponder and discuss for hours but I still think it is amazing how these people could go through this procedure. As I could observe it up close, I saw the differences how each of them individually could deal with the physical martyrium. Some braver than others because it may not be a pleasant procedure even for the chosen ones.

The men had to walk around 5 km in nailed shoes in the sun and the alleged weight of the Kavati is supposed to be around 30 kg. And I already complain doing a bushwalk in the sun in a trackless area? Now I can understand the fanatism of the Malaysian Hash House Harriers. Who would like to go through this penance and make offerings to the God Murugan?

Breaking coconuts for Thaipusam Penang

2010-01-29T22:12:00.000-08:00

One of the most spectacular festivals is probably the Thaipusam Festival. The breaking of 1001(?) coconuts was one unique way to offer gifts to receive blessings. Although I thought it would be such a waste to break all those coconuts which provide a healthy nutrition and useful otherwise.

Well, the more serious people pray through their coconut while lighting a fire on top of it, for the tourists, local and international alike, it was more like a sensation.

After being 1 1/2 hour too late, finally the ceremony started. I was positively surprised that the Chinese were as dedicated as the Indians. Even groups from Singapore presented their offerings along with a huge sign with the word:"Singapore" written on top of their offerings. Quite a few Chinese Malaysian businessmen showed their devotion to ghe Gods.

Nothing more spectacular than the sound of the breaking of the 1000 coconuts. I made quite a few photos and videos, so I could only break three coconuts and got hit by one too:-) A must-see in Penang despite the crowds and pushing.

Rural Penang and Perak, Malaysia

2010-01-27T06:20:00.001-08:00

She sells one meter atap for RM 4,-
Woman making "atap", roof made from palm leaves
After the fishers came from the ocean, the brokers need to clean the fish they bought
Sunset by a secluded beach
Pulling the fishing net

Food in Hat Yai, Thailand

2010-01-26T23:55:00.003-08:00

My CS host Nuch eating a delicious Thai vegetarian dish. I was very lucky to find a host who spoke English fluently. She was quite fluent in German as well. After completing her studies in Australia she pursued her career as senior medical librarian. She owns an apartment in Germany and goes there on a regular basis. A globalized Thai could introduce her culture better while still somehow understanding a Western viewpoint. Thanks to her guidance, I experienced less culture shocks and made less mistakes.
Making deutsche Wurst is very popular in Thailand. Nuch took me to the market at Hat Yai campus

University campus life in Hat Yai, Thailand

2010-01-26T23:41:00.003-08:00

Morning pole exercises at the uni campus
Taiji at the university campus
Nuch and me by the campus lake
Children's Day organised by the Faculty of medicine
Children's Day at the university campus Hat Yai

Hat Yai, Thailand

2010-01-26T23:22:00.003-08:00

Me hitting the gong at the pagoda in Hat Yai
My CS host Nuch from Hat Yai, Thailand
Me in a Taijiquan posture in front of a warrior statue

Temple in Hat Yai
Climbing up the hill to the pagoda near Hat yai

My involuntary Marcumar(blood-thinner) therapy

2010-01-26T19:42:00.000-08:00

Going to a Hash House Harriers chapter in a different country definitely makes you to experience the culture in another country. I'm used to HHH in many countries where the majority of the hashers are expats who would like to meet like-minded people who love to exercise. Hashers that I met before were crazy expats who loved to be a drinking club with a running problem.

Not so in Malaysia. Apart from the beautiful Lake Gardens in Kuala Lumpur, the HHH that I experienced were more an extreme bush-bashing club. At least in the more rural areas, the clubs are a bush-bashing club with a drinking problem and not a usual drinking club with a running problem.In this part of the world you are forced to do the whole run in trackless bush area unless you would prefer to sit on ice. The fastest runner will get a reward unlike in the countries I have been hashing so far.

The HHH chapter Taiping Lake HHH was a nice club with charming people. I thought their runs were really easy and on a running track. When I knew it was through trackless muddy area, I would have gone for a small run.

There was a doctor there who didn't like to run and now I know why. They told me jokingly that their run was very short and easy. Short maybe and easy depends on the runner and the weather. Trackless bushland after heavy rainfall will make you sink into the mud about half of your body.

Despite my protectors Hassan and...(what's your name?) I had a fairly hard time. My jogging shoes were worn out after 1 1/2 years and there was virtually no profile left on the sole. So imagine driving a car with tyres who lost their grip in slippery muddy area. But I think even if I did have shoes with spikes I wouldn't like to run in the rain, scramble through the mud, tripping over thorns and get dirty.

The track was signposted by paper and this was washed away by the weather. So apart from the slippery mud hills and the rain, we had the battle with the bush. Our paper track was totally washed away and we got lost. I got nearly hysterical after scrambling up and down through the sliding mud hills and all of us unable to find the paper signs.

It was getting darker and darker until it became completely dark. There was nothing worse than bush-bashing in the dark through unknown jungle terrain. After searching for the right path I suggested my two companions to rest and scream:" on on." We may as well have yodeled but in Malaysia the "on on" scream would be more effective.

The rescue team was about to come and we waited for some time until we heard the horn and saw their torch.Even more charming sexy guys whose job was to rescue the lost runners, but they lost the track too. All the paper was washed out and gone.The whole up- and downhill through thorns, roots, mud started again. Something tweaked my feet and I thought already I was bitten by a leech.

Finally we could find our way out and after stripping off my socks I found around 10 leeches on my feet with only the fat ones visible. I decided to let them enjoy their dinner and stay on my body before I stepped on them to give them their final treat. I felt so sorry that I didn't have salt to make them suffer more.

In this part of Malaysia I also noticed that the extreme competitive sport is the primary goal while in expatriate HHHH communities that I know the social part was more prevalent than the competitive sports part.

As I reached home I found one last leech between my fingers. Since I wasn't patient enough to wait until he or she finished her supper, I just removed it lege artis(according to the rule of the art). The best way to remove a leech is to strip off the thinner tail with your finger and than strip it off. It was still alive as I hit him with my slipper....

My clother were so dirty and I didn't want to wash off the last leech from my socks. The next day I had a hard time to wash my favourite green Hash T-shirt and just threw away the socks with the leech.It was an experience where I would laugh after the fact was over. Just washing extremely dirty clothes before a big travel was not really pleasant.

And when I may say something, I was also not particularly impressed by the abruptness of the Lady Hash Cash. All the people in the club were helpful and friendly but this lady made me feel very uncomfortable. Remarks like:" You are not experienced in hashing." or "This is our club" were different from what I experienced in the HHH chapters all over the world so far.

On the contrary, as an international guest your first run would be on them and free of charge. As I had an operation in Istanbul, the HHH Istanbul who were primarily Americans and Englishmen suggested to just take a walk and join the social part.

Chinese Wedding Proposal tradition

2010-01-25T23:28:00.001-08:00

Finally he drags her away in this car:-)
Bridegroom begging the bride to do whatever she wants when she just accepts his marriage proposal. Haha...wait until they're married;-P
The bride received the ang pau(lucky money in red packet) but she plays games and gave the future husband riddles to solve before he finally could get in and take her to his house
I could witness a Chinese wedding proposal ceremony in the house I was staying. This is one of the offerings they made, roast suckling pig(yummy) and fruit

Malaysian culture off the beaten track

2010-01-25T22:58:00.000-08:00

David's friends the hashers
Kate and Rowan from Australia and me
This is REAL Malaysian way of life, not that flowery stuff shown to the tourist;-P

Laketown Bukit Merah

2010-01-25T22:28:00.001-08:00

Was my own baby that small?
Eating home-made nasi lemak and chicken at David's brother's place. They were so hospitable that they would shout when I tried to help them cleaning up. Meaning: a plate fell on the ground and broke because I insisted on cleaning up and they told me to sit down and enjoy their hospitality

Laketown Bukit Merah. My CS host David fishing while visiting his family.

A mixture between running, bushwalking and trekking

2010-01-25T22:19:00.003-08:00

Must we show the V after such a hard steep track where we couldn't hold on to any branches?

With Kate and Rowan, exhausted after an extremely hard and steep off the beaten track mixture of running and bushwalking

Who can forget to fill the petrol tank of a 4DW?

2010-01-25T21:46:00.003-08:00

Don't try to climb a rock that has no indentations. It's even difficult on a small rock:-)

How do you feel when the 4DW is "mogok"(get stuck) in the middle of a steep hill with winding serpentine roads? "The petrol tank is empty." said the driver. As I asked them why they didn't fill it beforehand, their only answer was:" Lupa(We forgot)." Next time I'll do a trip to SE Asia and will forget to fill the tank;-P

And remember, we are not allowed to bring our own 4DW unless we go through a 1-year-bureaucracy. So if ever you come to visit this beautiful hill resort from the British colonial era, you better get on one of these 4WDs for RM 6,- and remind them to fill the tank.

Bukit Larut, Perak, Malaysia

2010-01-24T21:54:00.000-08:00

My friend Alvin invited me to a place named Bukit Larut or Maxwell Hill as it was called during the British colonial days. He was very enthusiastic about the place and for sure he still had the memories of the times as it was still under the British Empire. The British officials used to have their holiday mansions and bungalows in this area, very similar to Penang Hills.

Bukit Larut is about 1100 above sea level, a beautiful lush green mountainous area. Most of the houses nowadays belong to the Malaysian government officials. So if you are lucky to know and be invited by these "Datuks(special award from the government), you will spend an unforgettable time in this rather cool and calm hills.

But how if you are a local or even international traveler? This place has not been marketed to international tourists yet and even those adventurous backpackers haven't found their way to this hidden gem. For sure this may be one of the reasons as to why I was curious to visit this place.

Most commercial guest houses belonged to the government and they charge a relatively high rate for a building that is totally run down. The food is not great and needs to be brought up by a 4WD which increases the price. The road up to the hill is a very narrow winding road but the street well-maintained.

In my opinion a good car or small 4WD will easily make it to the top. But for private cars you need to obtain a permit from the government which may take months. Too much hassle for a commercial tour company. So those who would like to go up, mostly quite well-to-do Malaysian citizens, will choose to use the vehicles run by the government.

The first vehicle started at 8 am. A smelly vehicle which history may have gone back to the middle ages. It had a hole next to the dashboard, where the exhaust coming from this ill-maintained car could get into the passengers area.

Oh my God....the catastrophe was still to come. Suddenly the car was stuck in the middle of the extremely steep winding road. The driver told us just in a very liad-back manner that he forgot to fill the tank with petrol.

Shall I get angry? Well, it was no use to complain and claim our money back. It would have taken another couple of months to fill in those various forms within the bureaucracy mill.

So we waited for the next 4DW which belonged to one of the hotels. They were so friendly to give us a lift and the car was by far better maintained than the one before.

We enjoyed the beautiful view from up high which goes far beyong Taiping to the ocean. The diverse flora and fauna were just waiting there to invite us to join into this peaceful untouched nature. Obviously the vehicle service was embarrassed and for our ride back they took us in a brandnew Nissan.

Asian women don't do this, Asian men do that etc etc

2010-01-22T21:48:00.000-08:00

Me eating vegetarian food using my hands at an Indian temple

It surprises me that some long-term travelers obviously haven't learnt anything from their journey. I don't want to mention any names in order not to name and shame anybody. For sure I will not bother to give negative references to those people although they bore me to death. There was that person A with prejudiced nearly racist opinions about the Thais. This sounded strange to me because this person was a professional and he should have more sense for logic and reasoning. We may not have differed too much in opinion because I have some discomfort in the hierarchy of the Thai culture too. Without my Thai host and her internationally orientated friends I would have been lost in this culture.

"I will never marry a Thai woman, the Thais think they are better than the others, I don't surf with a Thai, the Thais are only friendly when they can receive some bahts, the Thais are always right, foreigners are always wrong......etc......etc" said Mr. A. For my taste this is simply too much generalisation and heavy prejudice for an intellectual person like A. The Thai culture feels like inaccessible and impossible to put my arms around but there is always an acception to the rule.

I found that in most cases it was easier for me to connect with Malaysians than Thais but language barriers can make things hard in cross cultural communication. The very rigid structure of the Thai society makes it way more difficult for me to immerse in their culture. Anyway, as I asked where his opinion or prejudice came from he said that he read many articles on "The Thais". I need first-hand experience where I do take writings or opinions into consideration.

And there was that person B who had lived in Asia for long enough to gain more knowledge of the local people. She lived in Thailand for nearly one year. And yet her view on these cultures was still the view of the superficial spectator or visitor. She got a culture shock after coming to Perth but did not understand a tiny little bit of the Asian culture. Apparently she was disrooted in her own culture and not able yet to immerse into the new culture.

And my favourite sentence of her was:" Asian(!!!) girls don't hike." just because she couldn't find hiking shoes for women. Running off the beaten track with some Chinese Malaysian girls taught me better about the hiking Asian girls. I was impressed by their strength and stamina. Ah well....this woman was so stubborn that she wouldn't even understand what was being talked about."

And these people are supposed to be Couchsurfers or travelers. Well, maybe I need to learn that in a facility like Couchsurfing people are as diverse as anywhere in the world.

I am thinking

2010-01-21T08:54:00.000-08:00

Yes, when you are on travels you start thinking more about who you are, why you are traveling and sometimes the journey becomes a journey to your inside rather than the outside.

I have to see that I fulfill my research assignments. Daily phone calls, downloading my work on USB and spending my time offline also gives me a better purpose in life, Inbetween I have enough opportunity to meet interesting and not so interesting people.

So why am I on Couchsurfing then? The reasons are very simple: When you scroll down and read about my hosts David and Woranuch( I'll write an article about her on the next page), my guests Vitalii, Anthony or Molote, you will understand that CS gave me the opportunity to meet people that I wouldn't meet otherwise.

When I come to a less familiar place, it helps a lot to meet wonderful people like Ang Huah and Kim Gan who help you to understand the culture better. Cultures already differ within Europe or even within one and the same country. Here I'm exposed to city and rural life in Malaysia and crossing the border to Thailand everything will change into a totally new world.

Yes, Couchsurfing makes it a lot easier to meet and talk to people from the country you visit. Inspiring as I learn new aspects of life. There are also less interesting people that didn't particularly annoy me but I wouldn't have missed anything if I didn't meet them. Oh yes, they can be educational in the sense of not to be but I can meet them anywhere and there is no need of hosting them.

In the next articles I would like to find out the motivation of the people I met online and offline on couchsurfing. Can I still be the ambassador of some people I don't have the slightest things in common with? Let's discuss this in a new article

Laketown Bukit Merah, the hidden gem near Taiping

2010-01-16T19:10:00.000-08:00

We started off our day with a beautiful Dim Sum breakfast. I expected already a good meal while the place was full of Chinese. Beside the green tea we enjoyed several dumplings, steam rolls and other sumptuous small dishes for just 16 RM(3 EUR) for 2 persons.Today Dave expected a lovely cyclist couple from Australia, Rowan and Kate. As fellow Aussies we had much to talk about and they came on an impressive tandem. Rowan loves spicy food and seems to immerse very quickly in the Malaysian culture. Kate has been to numerous countries in Europe and SE Asia; she is even raised in Hong KOng.

Beer games a la Malaysia
Dave's friend invited us to join them for a beer competition. His nickname was the "Mafia boss" and naughty David bragged to him that I would drink him under the table:-). The Malaysian beer is very similar to American or Australian canned beer, low alcohol level but contains large bubbles. I can drink German or Irish beer very well despite of their higher alcohol percentage but the gas bubbles are really fine. So after just drinking half of the pint my stomach was so bloated that I couldn't finish most of the drinks.

The locals must have considered me crazy because it is still considered not normal for a lady to drink in this culture. So I was standing in front of the restaurant offering free beer to every male who passed by:-))). They were so generous, invited us to braised pork leg and ocra vegies. I tried nearly forcefully to put money into their pocket but apparently they were not drunk enough to put it back on the table.
Being still a bit bloated and dead-tired we visited Dave's friend who owns a bike shop and he showed us his huge collection of classical old bikes.

Visiting Dave's family in beautiful Laketown in the Taiping area
This was probably the highlight of the day and Dave invited us three to his family to join the Thaiponggol celebrations. We felt a little bit like intruders because we didn't find time to bring anything nice for them as a token of appreciation. Dave was very good at making us more comfortable and told us they would look forward to meeting international travelers. Indeed we hoped that the best present we could bring would be our presence and stories.

We drove into the more mountainous area of Bukit Merah into a small town called Laketown. It is a beautiful place by the Lake, quite expensive and the recreation area for local Malay people. I think it wouldn't take too long until tourist managers will market this place to a more international target audience. Dave's family rented a beautiful townhouse directly by the lake.

What a lovely family and so welcoming! Dave's brother is very well-read and therefore a fountain of information about what happened in the Malaysian history. He told us interesting facts about how the Indians came to Malaysia in the early 19th century. We shifted to the more current affairs in Malaysia but at the same time he was very curious about what happened in other countries.

Of course they prepared delicious food for us and just name it: homemade nasi lemak with pandan leaves, chicken curry, egg curry which was basically just the entree. While they were preparing chicken for the BBQ, Dave took us to Laketown which would not be half as interesting if I came with a tour group. Coming home the BBQ chicken was ready and they served a hot Tom Yam soup. Yummy and thank you for your hospitality and lovely company. The memories are unforgettable!!!

Exploring the fishing villages

2010-01-15T21:34:00.000-08:00

The fishers gave us one fish as a present. The restaurant cooked it for us for RM 8,-(EUR 1,60).
Fish broker who just bought fish from the fisher coming back from the ocean
PUlling the net with freshly caught fishes

The next day David took me in his car to go to the fishing village. On the way I saw different kinds of flora and fauna, whereas the fauna usually consisted of some unknown big insects or the more usual cows and goats. We passed a chocolate and kapuk(used to fill matresses and pillows) tree, numerous palm oil and pineapple plantations. It was also very interesting to watch a Malay woman who makes atap(roof made of palm leaves), something which is currently replaced by tin roofs. Nowadays we don't see as many ataps as we saw before in Indonesia or Malaysia.

We stopped by a man-made lake to watch the fishers throwing out their net. There were not many fishes but it really made me cry inside how to watch the fishes jumping, struggling and gasping for their last breath. Anyhow they do die naturally unlike the lobsters who die in pain by being boiled alive which takes about half an hour. We chose one red carp which we could bring to the restaurant to cook. So we had a fresh fish dinner for around RM 10,- for 2 including drinks. For the first time I tried the kopi cham which is a mixture of coffee, tea and chocolate.

I was amazed and taken aback at the same time. In a rural fishing village, life is not too different from the tough corporate life in the city. The mostly Malay fishers came from the ocean while the Chinese brokers were already waiting for them. They bargain and buy the fish from the fishers at a fairly cheap price. These brokers do all the marketing and sales work and sell the fish to the restaurant at a comparably high price.

We went home for a rest, then took a walk along the sea. On our way back we had drinks and watched the sunset while listening to the dangdut. It made me smile internally because a Muslim girl with covered hair sang a pretty sexy song. She just didn't move her body in a sexy way like most Dangdut singers but the text was pretty cheeky.

Our day finished off at the night market where they sold heaps of clothes, shoes and food. Busy but we finally got to eat our food in a cozy dark place where I didn't realise that I was being eaten by our partners the mosquitoes

David, my host in Penang state

2010-01-15T21:09:00.000-08:00

I was dwelling around Georgetown for some time, food hunting as always and exploring Penang hills. David sent me a message to invite me to visit him in the more rural area in Penang. he was a cyclist and given my poor cycling skills I thought:" Would he ever except me?" But I'm so interested in rural life and not an all that bad hiker.

I decided to take the plunge and David rang me on my mobile phone. It was noisy in the Penang Hill funiculaire and I could hardly hear his voice. The next day I took the ferry to Butterworth and the bus to Parit Buntar. It was a small town and at first not very spectacular compared with touristy areas. But my reason to travel was not the end but the journey into another lifestyle and culture.

Arrived at the bus station I nearly followed a taxi driver because he looked like him. Finally a jovial man who looked exactly like on the picture and approached me with "Soraya" came towards my direction. I felt comfortable with him straight away and we drove to his cozy house in the village.

David is the type of host you can only find in my old traveling days or in rural areas. He went out of his way and gave me the most comfortable room with own bathroom. And guess what:" He is a hasher." Of course a member of the Hash House Harriers is like a family to me and he was not less surprised as I introduced myself with my Hash name Miss Carriage.
http://www.hashhouseharriers.com

Hash House Harriers off the beaten track in the Malaysian bush
David drove me around the village a bit and we went to visit an Indian temple. It was the Thai Ponggol festival and people were doing the rice cooking ceremony everywhere. It was cooking sweet rice in a huge clay pot on charcoal fire. While the women were stirring, the drums were playing faster and faster. The children rang the bell and it also went faster. The kids were not shy and as I came with my camera they already put themselves in a pose.

I never expect to find Hashers in such a rural area. The on on(Hash party venue) and trail was at the foot of the mountain amidst beautiful palm oil and coconut trees. This club didn't have the usual cheeky ritual that I knew from any HHH(Hash House Harrier) club but we started the run straight away. The run was quite off-track, bashing through thorny muddy bushland.

From bush walking I know about wading in the water and jumping over little creeks. It was just that I was not prepared for this kind of off the beaten track running or walking. In fact it wasn't even possible to run because in order to climb up and down we had to hold on to certain tree stems. I was happy that I didn't bring my camera but it was too much a pity that I was not able to shoot a picture of this memorable experience.

After the run I had totally dirty shoes and was not used to the humid weather either. We had coconut wine which the Malaysian government didn't allow to be traded in the shops and restaurants because it was hard to control tax-wise. So only certain plantation owners received a license and had to pay the tax. It was interesting but it did have a taste which I really must admit that my palate needed to get used to it.

The final on on was in a Chinese restaurant where we had heaps of beer and great food, as always.

Molote, Anthony and Vitalii

2009-12-06T08:21:00.000-08:00

The year 2009 is about to say good bye.....A melancholic feeling comes up, preparing cookies and presents for Christmas, the tension we know all too well when we open up the next door on our Advent Calender.

My last surfers have been such good guests and I felt they were rather like friends or relatives than ordinary couchsurfers.

Vitalii
My mum just went home and I decided to host the next surfer. Vitalii from Canada with Russian roots was a new member but his profile was so impressive that I decided to host him on a fairly short term. He was interested in sports and martial arts like me, so it would be interesting to meet him. His messages sounded nice and warm and he definitely had read my profile in detail. A knock on the door and I saw a smiling, exuberant and warmhearted young man. He brought me my favourite Lindt chocolates...yummy....

Vitalii was different from most couchsurfers who came to Mainz. He didn't come for a short transit just inbetween 2 flights but to spend time in this area and meet the local people. We had a great and funny time Vitalii, chasing through Mainz and driving through the German wine country to Straßbourg France. I miss you and hope to see you one day whereever in the world....Toronto?

Anthony
Mainz is an unknown destination for international travelers and when they decide to stay, it is usually because they are on a stopover. Anthony Schmitt from the U.S. was not less interesting. I was the first Couchsurfing host that he found through Couchsearch. He had some hosting and surfing experience with other volunteers who were also on Couchsurfing. I have always been very intrigued by Peace Corps Volunteers, especially when they live in a rural area in Africa or Asia. What an interesting life, it reminded me of my time in Tanzania. He needed to travel a long way from rural Morocco to the next airport Fes and arrived shortly after midnight.

A nice and gentle guy who looked a bit older than his 25 years. We had a glass of wine, exchanged some information and went to bed. The next day we went on a long hike in the Rhine Valley, explored castles and made some photos. The day was nice and still long, so we went to Bacharach to look at the ancient half-timbered houses before we left for Mainz to have onion tart and new wine.

It was a strenuous day and I locked out his passport and the housedoor key in my trunk. Anthony remained calm and helped me a lot not to lose my nerves. Angela lived near my parking and fortunately she was at home and lent me her key. I could go home, fetch the spare keys and problem solved. Anthony was helpful and mature, had a lot to share about his life in Morocco and passion for travelling, he even offered a lot of assistance in the household. After he left I found a postcard from the place where he lived....Thank you Anthony, I will try to visit you.

In memoriam Molote Massilo
Probably my last guest this year was Molote from Johannesburg, South Africa. He was an outstanding and unique guest, a linguistic acrobat with versatile interests. Once you get used to constant business calls and mails, having him as a guest is highly recommendable. As I wasn't well because I was stressed out with work and the change of the weather didn't do any good to me, he proved to be an excellent companion. I was kind of fatigued and suffered a headache. Molote cooked a wonderful Spaghetti Bolognaise, did the dishes and we had interesting conversations about CS, South Africa and differences between cultures within and out of South Africa.

We got to know each other quite well given the very short space of time. Molote came back for the second time to stay with me and I nearly forgot him. Otherwise I would have organised something like a party with other CSers or friends. Nevertheless, the conversations with Molote were really eye-opening. Where should we start? Lifestyle, outlook on the world, international politics, economy, people inside and outside CS, the new South Africa after Apartheid, women, men........

Like with most of my surfers, we cooked together a lot because he was a homey person exactly like me. This time we had roast duck with potato dumplings(Knödel) and red cabbage or Rotkraut because Molote initially wanted to try out Sauerkraut. Like most South Africans Molote prefers a rich breakfast like steak but we agreed on a rich German breakfast with fresh rolls, cold meat balls and fresh bacon.

After that we went out to see Mainz, had a second good breakfast before heading to see Frankfurt and enjoy a sumptuous Mongolian Buffet. This Mongolian buffet at Shangrila actually deserved an article on its own. Thomas Hervouet from France, my surfer who came earlier this year, also had the pleasure to enjoy this marvelous restaurant. Name it, they have Chinese dumplings, duck, curries, vegetables, fruits, sushi etc along with ice cream, cakes and Asian pudding. But the best of all is a large selection of fish, giant green prawns, kangaroo, beef, pork, mutton cooked in front of you with fresh vegetables.

UPDATE May 2011:
This summer(South African winter) in 2011, Molote sadly passed away due to bacterial meningitis. He was attending a CS meet on Saturday, suddenly developed high fevers which the doctors didn't take seriously in the beginning and as it was diagnosed it was too late......He passed away on Thursday.

I have shut down my couch due to health and work reasons before hitting the road again
Unfortunately I have caught a horrible cold bug and had pseudo-asthma attacks for 2 weeks. Bad enough to irritate but not threatening enough to fear for my life. Sylwia from Warsaw would have been the next guest but I was so sick that I couldn't host her and needed to cancel on a short term. She was already the second guest this year that I needed to cancel due to unforeseen health challenges. Those things happen and it again reminded me that we always need a back-up host or hostel

Farm area will be lost forever

2009-08-04T05:23:00.001-07:00

For those people who are not aware of the previous history, please read this articleThe Mainz court has decided in favour of the stadium without even going through the many environmental and financial issues. We will now check with the lawyer how much chance we have to appeal for a higher court in Koblenz. Once they have started with the actual construction, we will have the opportunity to launch a complaint again? But how many chances do we have? So be prepared to say good bye to the beautiful land.

Abuse against nature

2009-07-23T04:23:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-20T04:22:00.000-07:00

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

Penang Bridge

More food

2009-07-20T02:20:00.001-07:00

Melinjo, A Malay Indonesian bitter vegetable

Malay food

2009-07-20T01:17:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-19T11:22:00.001-07:00

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?

2009-07-19T10:58:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-19T07:25:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-19T07:19:00.001-07:00

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

Noumea

2009-07-19T07:12:00.000-07:00

Me waiting for the rental sail boat at the Noumea Harbour

Me and indigenous woman in Noumea, New Caledonia

Nic and Annelies, my hosts in Vienna

2009-07-18T02:15:00.001-07:00

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

2009-07-18T01:45:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-16T00:24:00.000-07:00

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 depend 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. Therefore here my unbiased basic 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.

Thomas Hervouet

2009-07-15T08:48:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-15T08:34:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-15T04:16:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-15T03:26:00.001-07:00

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

2009-07-15T03:06:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-15T02:39:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-15T02:18:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-14T08:51:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-14T05:29:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-13T10:14:00.000-07:00

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.

My last minute guest in Sydney

2009-07-13T09:44:00.000-07:00

My only real last minute guest in Sydney was Pierre Jean. He wrote to me about 5 hours prior to his arrival at my place. I told him not to write copy paste messages and to mention my name instead of just a hey. He apologised for this and we started a 2-hour mail contact which I found quite extensive. I could find out quite much about him and his journey. He has been travelling to the icy northern part of Mongolia, not a particular tourist destination, as well as the dangerous Timor Leste and East Indonesia. All his stories about a ferry ride in East Indonesia as well as staying with locals in Timor Leste caught my attention immediately. His photo at the ice lake in North Mongolia ignited my interest. He was French and could not speak English very well, so this was a great chance for me to practice my French language. I told him that CS or Couchsurfing was not a dating site and he assured me that we were both not cannibals......good analogy.

I was still at work as my mobile phone rang. An Australian girl was on the phone and told me that my "friend" was lost. Jeezz....I gave him such a detailed description and I could already expect some sort of messy catastrophic person. Anyway, as I arrived home he was already waiting for me. He looked like a playboy on his profile photo but in real life he looked older than his 26 years. A bit bald already, thin, shy and rather underfed. He looked sick and tired thus I did believe him as he told me that he didn't sleep for 2 days. Sydney was cold at that time of the year and he used to sleep outside in the park because he was too proud to ask for a couch..

Pierre Jean was extremely well-mannered and polite as a guest. He was clearly a disorganised person in his head; creative but catastrophic. He never liked working on a career, left school at the age of 16 despite his parents being well-off and educated. Pierre Jean was good at language learning and picked up foreign languages in quite a short time. He told me that he could play the piano, offered to play for me many times although he never studied it and never learnt to read music. His stories about Mongolia, Indonesia and Timor Leste were amazing, he met a lot of local people on ferries and surfed their couches without this website. I could believe this because that was what I did before the era of Couchsurfing and the internet. He was considerate and talked to his mother on the phone a few times a day. I also experienced that his mother sent him money immediately on the same day. The first thing what he did was to invite me to an Italian restaurant, something that I wouldn't expect from a backpacker.

The ways on Couchsurfing are strange because Pierre Jean was not the type of person I would make friends with under normal circumstances. It was the French language, his travels and his considerate attitude towards hosts where I was sure that he learnt it during his travels in poor countries. Pierre Jean stayed with me for 6 days and I helped him to contact Alain Funel in New Caledonia. He wanted to look for a job to finance his travels and did not have a working visa for Australia. As a Frenchman he could reside in New Caledonia without any problem and take up a job. Alain's wife was given training because her school background was not strong enough to find any type of work. I suggested these opportunities for Pierre Jean and he seemed interested.

Pierrre Jean was an immature and quite crazy guy but I thought he could succeed in New Caledonia. He has always been very polite, clean and tidy in my house, helped washing the dishes and showed a lot of respect. I just had some difficulties to get him under the shower and brush his teeth. He was grateful, gave me a wonderful reference in French and went off to New Caledonia......

Jeffrey, my host from Singapore

2009-07-13T08:02:00.000-07:00

Jeffrey!!!! He has become one of my closest friends on CS and we are still in contact until today. I was posting to the Singapore group and saw his subgroup: The Singapore EAT EAT EAT group. He answered positively to my post on his group and offered to meet up and share food together. Singaporean food is famous and I thought this would be the chance to experience food in the company of a local friend. We have been mailing a few times and I got to know his need for clean surfers very well. I'm a clean person but I don't shower 3 times per day and don't wash my hair every day. My hair and skin is rather dry and it would become brittle if I wash it everyday. It is a matter of fact that even in a tropical country, fresh sweat doesn't smell and is by no means dirty. What we normally smell is old sweat starting to decay after a few days exactly like rotten food. Indeed a few backpackers smell horribly because some of them find it cool not to shower and change their clothing for a whole year. Would Jeffrey find me clean enough to surf his couch?

I arrived in Singapore with a sore stomach and diarrhoea. Jeffrey and his family already waited for me at the airport. He looked exactly like on the photo, so does his lovely family. We went to some place in Singapore that I didn't remember and ate congee(rice porridge with condiments). It was so delicious and my diarrhoea stopped immediately. The next days were unforgettable as I joined the family shopping in Johor Bahru Malaysia, buying gold paper money for the rituals in Singapore and helped them preparing for the feast. The family was so hospitable and never let their guest contribute to anything.

Jeffrey prepared for the Feast of the Hungry Ghosts, something I had heard of as I lived in Malaysia and Indonesia for some time. However, I never experienced it from a close-corner viewpoint. I enjoyed the private preparation much more than the real function with CS because I felt like being a good friend or member of the family. Everyday we went out eating while preparing for the big feast. After the food offering ceremony we could eat all the delicious food Jeffrey cooked himself.

Apart from being a generous and kind person, Jeffrey was a skilled driver and perfect organiser. We travelled together to Penang and Hat Yai and I met his friends Anthony and Joe who joined us in the car. They remained great friends on CS and I hoped I could meet them again soon. The weather in Penang was horrible and we had to wade through shit water to get to the gourmet restaurant. But nevertheless, the experience was so special, the food excellent and Georgetown a beautiful old city with a background of durian plantation and the sea.

We drove the whole night where I discovered that Jeffrey was a good driver too. At the border between Thailand and Malaysia we stopped at a small restaurant next to fruit plantations. The fruit was very cheap but the cempilak was finished and so was the durian. I saw real Malays eating grilled chicken and melinjo vegetables with their hands. Not a single tourist and backpacker, exactly the kind of rural life I would expect in SE Asia. After this we crossed the Thai border and Jeffrey started to teach me a bit of Thai. It was just later that I found out that it was crucial.

"Couchsurfing" in a Thai nunnery, a special experience
We stopped at a nunnery and I always wanted to experience the spirituality in a Thai temple. I decided to "couchsurf" in the temple. The nunnery was located in the middle of the forest and has impressive traditional architecture. Their meditation was very simple but deep, similar to Taijiquan without the martial arts component. Instead, they related the meditation to daily tasks such as household, sewing, cleaning etc. I had the best durian I could imagine with thick flesh and small stone, dry and sweat taste with a colour as yellow as butter. We could have this for breakfast and lunch because lunch at noon would be the last meal before the next morning. The nuns realised that I was not accustomed to this kind of lifestyle and gave me a chance to adjust slowly and allowed me to have a light dinner. Jeffrey, I spent most time surfing and travelling with you and I still would like your family to stay with me whereever I am, in Sydney or in Germany.

Lukewarm nearly negative surfing experiences

2009-07-13T07:22:00.000-07:00

What would life be without some a bit less than positive experiences so now and then? Isn't life including Couchsurfing like a dish with various types of spices? Sweet, sour, bitter, spicy? I needed less than extremely positive experiences to be able to grow up as a person. To be true I never had any really negative experience on Couchsurfing but sometimes it didn't click or probably the circumstances were not right to live up my ideas of Couchsurfing.

I expect from Couchsurfing some sort of friendship between different cultures where people also become friends and host each other. Even before I joined Couchsurfing I have never been a friend of hostel dorms but rather prefer non tourist spots and immerse in cultures. It has been quite disappointing when I sense that somebody originaly has nothing else in mind but to save money at somebody else's expenses. Hopefully people can understand how it feels to be used a free B & B, even when they are respectful and try to connect to you.

The free hostel from XXX in country Neverland
This time I would keep privacy and will not mention the place, name and city where my next host comes from. I will call him host XXX from city XXX. Host XXX was definitely a friendly and laid back host with a hospitality that I cannot imagine. He enjoyed the world coming to his place and was a generous host. However, being hosted back-to-back is not my cup of tea and queueing for the bathroom would make me feel like canned sardines. As I arrived at his place I was totally disappointed because I had to sleep on the floor without a mattress and sharing with strangers I wouldn't be in control of the numbers. The surfers kept coming so I wasn't even sure who was still coming and how many surfers would end up at his place. As the last surfers came I already had panic attacks and I was not used to wait so long for the shower.

I was already aware that we could not rely on Couchsurfing alone and that we should be prepared and have money for a hostel or hotel. That was probably the first mistake that I made. Host XXX and me had email and phone contact for about 3 months. My mistake was of course that I did not ask exactly for my sleeping arrangements. City XXX was busy in the high season and had few hosts compared to other places. I'm not enthusiastic about hostel dorms and hotels were all fully booked and charged triple walk-in rates for those who didn't book far in advance. The budget hotels and single rooms in hostels were booked out for a few weeks and so were the low rates for good hotels. If I knew that host XXX hosted so many people I would have booked a good hotel far in advance for a reasonable rate.

What have I learnt from this experience?
Some hosts don't have limits for the number of their guests and more comparable with free hostels entertaining party guests. Nice......but I prefer personal connections with my prospective hosts. Nowadays I would not only read their profiles but would also ask carefully about sleeping arrangements and make sure that I will be the only guest in the house, let alone sharing a room with a traveler. My idea about Couchsurfing is to focus more on the lifestyle of the hosts and therefore find other surfers rather disturbing. I was too polite to ask about sleeping arrangements because I thought that I should concentrate more on the relationship with the hosts. However, how could I be serene enough to relate to the host when I have 7 sleepless nights?

In total I had only one lukewarm experience hosting somebody and three people that I threw out of my NYE party in Sydney. Being in control of your guests seem to make the experience much more tolerable. In the future, I will book a hotel far in advance for a couple of days parallel to searching for a host. This learning experience was definitely necesssary for me to live up the wonderful ways of Couchsurfing.....

When I think back to all my hosting and surfing experiences: Nearly all of my hosting and surfing interactions were between positive and extremely positive, except of one horrible surfing in Perth with a person who in my opinion was not made for hospex sites. I was traumatised and other unpleasant experiences resulted from this surfing fatigue and trauma. Couchsurfing is definitely a factor with several unknown variables and if we are not up to an unpleasant surprise we can only do our best to avoid it.

From Bourail to Noumea

2009-07-13T06:47:00.000-07:00

Olive's house was in the middle of the Caledonian bush or brousse and we had no neighbours except of wild cows, dogs and horses. Zita his dog couldn't stop playing with me because she was young and strong. Every time she brought a piece of stone and deliberately dropped it on somebody's foot(ouch) to invite them to play with her. She never got tired no matter how often and how far you would throw the stone. Bourail and the bushland is said to be the residence of many "Caldoches", the French white people who have been living in New Caledonia for more than 5 generations. As a tourist and foreigner, I tried to be very careful about saying something with a double sense like Caldoche or Kanak(indigenous person). The safest for a foreigner is to always use neutral words and expressions.

The Bourail market was really interesting with the many exotic fruits which remind me a bit of Malaysia or Indonesia. Indigenous women in very colourful traditional dresses sitting around chatting or selling their products was typical for the Bourail market. In my opinion they were more interested, educated and curious than the Australian indigenous people back home. I bought an indigenous vegetable called chou Kanak or indigenous cabbage which looked more like spinach to me. The Caledonian indigenous people were curious and wanted to know much about the indigenous people in Australia. I always had hangups talking about the indigenous people in Australia and was happy as Pierre came to pick me up. The woman was surprised that my friends were white because as I told her that I stayed with friends she probably expected anything else than a "Caldoche". As a foreigner I often prefer not to voice my opinion too clearly because I was not always sure whether irony in that particular case would be suitable to express the double sense of matters.

The bus from Bourail to Noumea was late as usual. Jean Lugand, my third host, expected to pick me up near the cinema where the bus stop was. He was a handsome, kind and neat young man who worked as an engineer for Air Calin. HIs written English was excellent but as I asked him he preferred to speak French. This suited me very well because I liked to practice my French as much as I could while I was in NC. Indeed my French became very fluent and I started to use irony, humour or any type of slapsticks. Jean initially treated me as a couchsurfer and he clearly said that he wouldn't change his life for a couchsurfer. Of course I would never expect any host to change his life for a surfer or guest.

We went out Salsa dancing to the prettiest dancing I could ever imagine. Jean said it was an appealing place with friendly guests and staff. I couldn't agree more with him on that place. It was built in traditional Caledonian architecture in the middle of the sea, so we had to walk a small bridge to cross a small part of the water to be able to enter the disco. We had a salsa course where men and women were separated. Jean was tired and went home earlier. I still stayed and danced with many people then I slowly walked back to Jean's apartment in the noble suburb Anse Vata by the sea.

Anse Vata is a suburb with predominantly European or sometimes Asian residents where you hardly see any indigenous person. Sometimes I could observe a few indigenous people sleeping on the beach. The next day Jean didn't have time for me because he had a business dinner. He gave me the key of his apartment which he normally didn't give to surfers. I'm trustworthy but people who don't know me need some time to find out and I'm glad Jean trusted me. I walked a long way until Baie de Citron and further up but as I had sneekers and jeans on, they didn't admit me to the disco.

The last day of my stay in Noumea I went to the famous municipal market located just on the waterside of Noumea Harbour. It was another beautiful building with a blue roof and water views. Here they had the prawns NC was famous for and plenty of Vietnamese and Indonesian food. So I had quite a good value coffee, breakfast and hot lunch here. After breakfast I was looking for diving and surfing opportunities but it was not as easy as in Sydney. I needed to pay much for a boat which could bring me to the diving and surfing points. Because I was alone I needed to pay the fee for the whole boat because it was off season but school holiday time. All the flights were booked and everything was more expensive because of the school holidays and I couldn't find a flight to the Pine Islands. Finally I decided to just take a day cruise.

A must see in Noumea is the Centre Culturelle de Tjibaou or Cultural Centre. It is a a piece of land located by the sea, a beautiful spot with interesting indigenous shows, landscape gardening and the real indigenous houses. Just the bus ride along the coast provided a different side of coastal Noumea. I initially thought that Noumea was not worth a visit. But this city is multicultural and -ethnic, so even a cruise ship full of Australians will just be absorbed in the ethnic diversity of Noumea. I spent the last day with Jean and invited him to dinner at Baie de Citron. He was very caring and organised a shuttle bus to catch the very early flight. Public transportation was extremely unreliable in New Caledonia s I couldn't thank him moer for that. I was really prepared to catch an expensive taxi at the risk that they rip me off as a tourist. Thank you Jean for your hospitality and it was a great pity that I couldn't spend much time with you to get to know you better.

The New Caledonian Bush - Oliver

2009-07-13T05:53:00.001-07:00

The long distance bus in New Caledonia is quite a horror. Firstly they are never on time and if you arrive at the station, you will be totally confused by the disorganised and unlogical manner of both passengers and drivers. I arrived early and still didn't get a proper seat because everything was so messy. Thank God that Bourail was not too far. At least I have learnt that I needed a rented car to explore New Caledonian Bushland or brousse. It was so stupid that I haven't brought my driver's license with me. I arrived in Bourail about 8.30 pm.

The bus was full of indigenous people whose way of thinking and behaviour I found difficult to follow. But they were very polite, good French speaking and friendly. After we arrived at Bourail bus terminal it was time to say good bye to them. A gentle nice young Frenchman approached me and said:" Soraya, is that you?" Well, Oliver looked like a daring playboy on his profile picture but in real life he just looked like the Frenchie next door. Oliver's friends were already waiting at the nearby cava bar, a really cosy place where people sat outdoors around the crackling fire chatting their time away. They asked me whether I knew cava and I told them about my experience with Alain.

Soon I felt quite comfortable among these people and I was treated more like a friend than a stranger sleeping over. In multi-ethnic and -cultural New Caledonia you hardly stand out as a tourist, especially if you speak French. I began to really understand why French people liked to live in New Caledonia despite the extremely high cost of living compared to the infrastructure or economic standard of the country.

We arrived at Oliver's house which was about 3 km outside of Bourail. Zita, the dog truly welcomed me with her strong temperament. Mimi, the cat couldn't stop caressing her body to my legs. Olive's business partner and housemate Fred was as hospitable and friendly as he was. He had a simple but catching humour, exactly the contrast of the more serene Oliver. He was as much a host as Oliver to me and made me feel rather like a friend than a stranger sleeping over. Couchsurfing really gave me the opportunity to make instant friends and this extremely positive New Caledonia experience gave me the feeling that all hosting and surfing experiences were as wonderful as this one. I slept in Olive's office and later I heard that Fred used to sleep here but took the guest couch instead.

Olive's friends felt more like friends than hosts to me and I had the feeling that I knew them for a long time. As a surfer I would behave exactly as I would at a friend's place. The kitchen was not particularly organised and I cleaned and washed the dishes. Fred was very surprised and happy because I did this but it is just something very natural for me to do.

The next day Oliver and Fred helped his friend Pierre to build a party shack on his private property. He invited me to join. The property was in the middle of the bushland and provided an amazing view over the Ile de Verts or Green Island in the mmiddle of the ocean. While they were working, I went to the beach but walked back soon to help them taking photos of their construction work. The photo shots started from the first stone laid with Pierre's signature and date of construction. We also visited Pierre's brother's party shack and private beach in another part of the bushland. How amazed and surprised I was by the shack because it provided a kitchen and shower next to a sheltered party shack. This beautiful private bay area with mountains in the background was called Baie Tisse or the Bay of parties. A very tricky wordplay because the French word betise which is pronounced the same means stupidity.

I was so impressed by the vast space of the private bushland. Similar to Queensland we had to pass a barrier to enter this huge private property. We had so many parties and I enjoyed their company so much that I nearly cried as I had to leave Bourail. The bus was 2 hours late as usual.....

Alain Funel from New Caledonia

2009-07-13T05:35:00.001-07:00

I had 2 weeks off work and which country should I visit? Preferably something with a different culture and language. The holiday was planned on quite a short term and I had only 4 days to look for a host. During this period I needed to turn down a nice request from nice people from Ireland. After browsing the net, I decided to write to 4 hosts and 3 hosts said yes. Woohoo........

Air Calin or Air Caledonia started late and I arrived at 8 pm. I was looking for my first host Alain Funel and he was already waiting at the airport. Normally I don't ask people to pick me up but with the poorly organised public transportation in New Caledonia, I was more than happy to accept his offer to pick me up. He was shorter than I expected but I have been realy impressed by his warmhearted kindness. We arrived at his house and greeted by his girlfriend Yolande and the 2 students from Vanuatu.

We had a lovely meal and again this was not anything that I expected. Fried manioc with prawns. Alain was my only host who grew up in New Caledonia but born elsewhere. All my next hosts immigrated to New Caledonia from metropolitan France. Alain took me to his office which was in the center of Noumea, the capital city of New Caledonia. He gave me the address of a lady who worked for the tourism office and I noticed that he knew a lot of people. We went to the night fair showing traces of the original indigeneous culture of New Caledonia. It really felt that I was not a tourist and his friends treated me exactly like a local.

Alain had time for me after work and he showed me around the city in his car. We went to a cava bar to sample cava, a typical drink from Vanuatu. I do know that the cava cava plant contains analgesia which can be effective for arthritis. The cava bar is a Vanuatuan tradition where people sit there in the dark cave, drink cava and socialise. Alain warned me already that it could become heavy and make you tired. I tried them and you could spit it somewhere in case you hated it.

Walking through Noumea gave me a lot of insight into the New Caledonian culture and the very subtle conflicts between the ethnic groups. Not only that my French language improved but I could also learn about the diversity of the various ethnic groups. Very soon I realised that I needed to walk a very fine line in order not to offend any group. Indigenous people spit on the ground which was something I needed to get used to. Time passed by very quickly and it was about time to say a temporary goodbye to Alain to continue my travels to the New Caledonian bush. Public transportation especially the long distance buses are a very special topic in which I'll talk in the next article.

Garry Graham

2009-07-13T05:22:00.000-07:00

I spent the next months attending many CS meetings and found a couple of new friends. On Australia Day I had some work-free days and decided to embark on just a short trip to Port MacQuairie. It was just by chance that I found GArry Graham through another friend who came to my NYE potluck in Sydney. He answered immediately and very positively to my request.

Garry already waited for me as I arrived late night in Port MacQuairie. He looked exactly like his picture, welcoming and hospitable. As I arrived at his house I was a bit disappointed because I couldn't have the guest room due to "friends" staying. For sure my first intention was to experience the area, looking for some opportunities to live there and spend time with Garry. But I can't deny the fact that I do have the need for my own room without the need to live out of the suitcase. On Couchsurfing I could get to know a person I wasn't really aware of....myself.......After a few sleepless nights I was not the nice person I used to be....

I enjoyed staying with Garry and we became really good friends. He had a neat organised household, loved tea and cooked lovely gourmet food. He showed me around the area, took long stretches into the Hinterland with me but the amount of freshwater didn't allow us to surf. He didn't seem to be happy with his friends Lynn and Phil whom I found ignorant and rude. Our dissatisfaction in Lynn and Phil's company created some bonding between us and we spent more quality time together. We discovered another interest that we share next to beaches and surfing - Martial Arts. We trained Hapkido together on our last night. Garry was quite a multitalented person and I regret that my stay was so much troubled by Lynn and Phil. He introduced me to his friends and I was invited to their birthday drinks. Lynn and Phil wore me out though and I had sleepless nights. My headaches became so bad that I needed to cancel my next host in Byron Bay.

Garry, you are a good friend and I look forward to hosting you in the future.

Hans-Jürgen, Enrico's father.

2009-07-13T04:58:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I thought that Couchsurfing was the wrong place for me because the majority of the members were under 30. Simply too young for me to come closer in real life friendships. Enrico, a nice couchsurfer from Germany wrote me a somewhat strange request. At that time I was not even aware of Couchsurfing safety precautions and that every person should have a separate profile to make the host or guest feel safe. In case of problems it is also easier to report a separate profile to the MDST(Member Dispute and Safety Team), a team I just learnt about later.

Enrice wrote me a strange request for his 48 y/o father who was not good with computers and didn't speak English very well. Enrico's request was elaborate and showed very clearly that he bothered to read my whole profile. I decided to host Enrico's father because he was older........

I expected a worn-out silly old man who couldn't speak a word of English and possibly could not even leave the house without being run over by a car. The doorbell rang exactly at the time as I expected him. "Well, German punctuality." I thought. Surprise...surprise...I saw a fairly young-looking and athletic man with a beard and interested lively eyes. He entered and gasped a bit as he saw the breathtaking 180 degree view of the Sydney Harbour.

We spoke German for most of the time and he quickly lost his initial reserved behaviour. He...a married man with me, a woman living alone in a small flat. But we soon found some topics about his travels in Queensland and the European background of Kirribilli. We spent a warm Sydney evening enjoying the Sydney Harbour and drinking red wine. He had so many interesting stories to tell about the time as East Germany's wall was still reality. As a customs officer he told me exactly the same stories that my neighbour and friend from East Germany told me. Touching stories and the opinion from the other side: How arrogant they found the Westies and how they have been looked down at.

His son Enrico told me that I could possibly change his life by showing him more than the usual triad: working, shopping and watching TV. Hans-Jürgen wasn't lucky with the weather because it rained nearly all day and I had to work. So we spent quite a lot of time watching TV and the German DVDs that I brought from the university library. I cooked him an Australian Bratwurst made of lamb and rosemary and he could enjoy a sweet breakfast with mango ginger jam. He was more independent than Enrico described him. During the day he walked the Harbour Bridge to the centre of Sydney, visited Aldi in North Sydney and Luna Park just on his own and took a few pictures of Kirribilli. A seemingly less spectacular experience with just a common man who started to see the world and learn at a very moderate pace.....Oh, he was an excellent guest where house rules were totally redundant. I could see that his wife had taught him everything a good guest on Couchsurfing should know:-))))) He was not a particularly rich man but he was generous. I appreciated the bottle of red wine and the yodeling mole he brought from Germany.....