Port of disembarkation

Name as it appears in Passport:
Andreas Baeumelt
Nationality:
Swiss
Passport Number:
Fxxxxxxxx
Expiry Date:
xx.xx.20xx
Place of issue:
Zurich
Date of arrival:
13.09.2010
Intended length of stay:
3 days
Port of embarkation before Singapore:
Jakarta
Port of Disembarkation after Singapore:
Zurich

So, the last two days of my long adventure around the world are waiting to be lived. Wow... What shall I say? I'm speechless. First I was in Guadeloupe (in the Caribbean) for almost 6 weeks then I worked all over Switzerland. The best place was surely ORL in Solothurn. The people were so friendly, the city is amazing and the surrounding beautiful. The work too was so interesting that I never got bored.
From the surrounding although I think Thun was even better. You're just at the gate of the alps. You can go to the highest mountains or swim in the deepest lakes. It's absolutely fabulous. And there again I realized how much I love the alps.
Singapore... good old Singapore. I lost my mind, and found it again, lost my heart and found it again. So many things happened in these two months and still so little. So many memories; only the best remain!
Indonesia... I described it as good as I can in my blog. But it's impossible to describe all the things you can experience in that vast country with so many different cultures, landscapes and animals... simply impossible! Just go there and be amazed by yourselves!

So now I'm sitting at El's and Bjoern's place... waiting for the evening. Waiting for the inevitable. Waiting for time to linger on... for life to linger on!
What will it be like? Any different than what it used to be? No! The same old problems will be back again. Too much work, too much studies, not enough time. The same old complaints that have kept people from thinking too much, that have kept people from insanity.
I think that's how it's supposed to be. Right?
But what the hell! Of course it's gonna be different. Because I will know that there's not only one calvinistic world ruled by appointments, money and success. There's a part of the world where people have other values than WASPs .
But let's not get pseudo-socio-critical. We have a choice and they don't! (...) For them it's a mere question of surviving (...).
So let's not complain! We have it all in our shoebox!

Port disembarkation: Zurich

Let's see how much magic we can find in dirty old Europe! I'll try to find it... and perhaps... who knows... I might start a new blog with the name: Shoebox-diaries... or The Sulfur-Porters from Uetliberg... Or the Buerkliplatz-Dragons... who knows.
Wir sind Helden (we are heroes)! Never forget that!

Port of disembarkation: uncertain

Who wants to live forever?

Ok, so now I sit in Probolinggo to join the deluxe-tourist-bus to Yogyakarta. I still have 3 hours to kill. So lucky that internet is cheap here.

The last two days were quite busy! Yesterday I got up at 3am to have breakfast and then to jump on the motorbike (with driver) and ride the road to hell: 3.5 hours of bad roads with a crazy driver and me going nuts singing: "who wants to live forever? "... My muscles were sore before we reached the starting point for the short trek to Gunung Kawa Ijen. But who wants to complain? The trek was covered with fog and it rained and it was getting cold. But seeing all these Porters of Sulfur I thought: "Why the hell am I complaining? My life's toooooo good!"  
In Ijen they collect the sulfur spraying out of the volcano by cooling it down in big pipes, gathering the clumps of yellow stones. Then they pack it in big baskets and carry it up the crater wall and then down to the Base-Camp... You can't imagine but they carry 70-80kg each! I tried to lift one of these baskets... NO WAY! We're Europeans! We're too weak! I told the tour guide that I think most of the Europeans were too week to survive in such conditions. He meant that it's because we have a choice and they don't! We can chose if we like the work we do or not. For them it's a mere question of surviving some more years (and the work shortens the life span dramatically... they inhale Sulfuric Gases all the time).
Here's my question to all of us: Do you think, if you had no choice, you could lift up 80kg and carry them 200m up and then 800m down (altitude, the path winds 3.5km) twice a day??? I think most of us would die within a few days. So how comes that they're so strong? Is it pure will-power? It's absolutely crazy!
So on the way back on the motorbike I still sang the same queen song because my muscles were aching but it had a different quality! The song became different then before Ijen.

In the afternoon bus to Probolinggo I could sleep a couple of hours. When I got out I couldn't believe my ears: "Sorry the last bus to Bromo left already, but you can still go by motorbike..." So again I took a motorbike, but this time with all my luggage and rode the 1.5 hours to Bromo without complaining but singing the painful version of the Queen song.
The arrival in Cemoro Lawang was quite disappointing. The hotel and the stuff were just boring and absolutely overpriced. But what the hell was I expecting. It's BROMO! THE tourist attraction! So this morning I woke up at 3.30... oh no wait a minute. At 3.15 there was this guy knocking furiously at my door: "Mr. Andreas... you going to Bromo today?" - "Uhm, yes..." - "It's at 4o'clock!" - "Uhm, I know... Is it 4 already?" - "No but you need a jacket, only 20'000Rp!" - "Uhm, no! Thank you." - "Yes it's very cold." - "I have one, thank you!" SILENCE So I wanted to get the rest of the remaining 15 minutes sleep. But suddenly this man tried to open the door... "What the hell?" - "Show me your jacket it's not enough! Sometimes freezing outside!" So I showed him the 3 layers of clothes, my sweater, my jacket and the two blankets I brought. "Oh, this is not enough! Buy jacket!"
Ok, I am really patient with the touts (I learned from my sister and now I'm very friendly with most of them...). But not at 3.20am! I told him: "Trust me it is enough. I can stay with these clothes in -20 degrees for 3hours without freezing... THANK YOU!"
Whoever wants to live forever... Don't wake me up at 3.15am to sell me anything I don't want.

The "sunrise" at Bromo wasn't really a sunrise... It was more a riddle: "Behind which of these clouds is Bromo?" So we continued the road through the rain to the rim of Bromo from where you had a nice view to the bottom of the crater where all the sulfuric smoke rises. It's miraculous. It's one of the last mysteries of this world. Nobody has ever seen what lies behind these layers of stone, beneath the thin layer of the thin eggshell we call earth. The last mystery! Perhaps some day mankind will invent some machine able to resist the immense heat and entering the streams of lava they might find some new world. Just as Columbus did 1492...For a short moment I though: "If only I lived long enough to read the news in the year 2525... What will they know we don't know yet?" But then again Freddy Mercury tickled the inside of my auditory tube: WHO WANTS TO LIVE FOREVER?

It doesn't matter if we can chose or not! In the end it's all a long road we walk upon (sometimes we ride it on motorbikes with crazy drivers). Some are blessed with luck some with misfortune. Some are blessed with the choice of work , some with the sunrise above Bromo and some are not like the sulfur-porters of Ijen or the Jacket sellers of Cemoro Lawang. The biggest blessing though remains happiness. And believe it or not. The Ijen-Porters were still able to smile and to make jokes. BIG LESSON TO BE LEARNED!
And happiness is the only thing we can gather without buying it before all starts to crumble. (Some might mention love as well... But love is just one form of happiness... isn't it?) And as long as each of us manages to carry 70-80kg of happiness in his heart it's not all lost! But beware: carrying something up means carrying it down again. The porters will tell you!
Maybe the year 2525 will be different... But who wants to live forever?

Back again

Hey guys, it's me again...
Why the hell am I writing again?
Ok, I tell you... I'm in Bondowoso. - Where? - Exactly... nowhere. I got here last night because it's the starting point to Kawa Ijen, wich some say is much better than Mt.Bromo. But I got here at 3 in the morning and didn't want to go for the trip on the plateau at 4 am... so I spend one whole day of doing nothing in nowhere. But in nowhere I'm the only "tourist" (how the locals like to call me). Finally I'm not called Bulleh anymore (which means "the white").
No one will believe me that the only english speaking person I met was the receptionist in the hotel. And I've been wandering some time along the market of Bondowoso. The people are amazed by a Bulleh. They want to address you somehow and hence the only English sentences they know are "Hello mister, whereyu come from?" and "What is your name?" I had to repeat thousand times "Selamat malam, Swiss (they think that Switzerland is a town in Australia, so make sure to say Swiss, everyone knows Swiss...), Andy, Terima kasih..." But this is unfortunately it. I can't speak with any of them and you can see that these people would love to know more about you, and I would love to know more about them.
At least I learned the numbers, so I can buy something to drink and ask for the price. But as soon as I say "Satu air minum, tolong" (Literally: One drinking water, please) people start shouting something that must mean "Ah, you know Bhasa Indonesia, how great..." And all I can do is shake my head and say "Tidak (No)..."
What a shame that there's so many languages we don't speek... In all these languages we loose the possibility to be a different person. Cause my Great-grand-mother used to say: "In every language you speak you are a different person." And I would love to be as many different characters as possible just to meet as many different people as possible to learn about as many different cultures and even more customs... Does this change something? No! But it's part of my curiosity! It's part of me. I want to know, I want to see... I think I would have gotten out very well with my great-grand-mother...
This still doesn't answer my question, why I'm writing again. To be honest... Just to escape the crowded streets with all the people shouting: Whereyou come from and Whats your name...
What a hypocrite I am... Pretending I want to learn, too lazy really to learn... But laziness is the big brake everyone of us bears inside his brain... So I better be off watching television.
Big hugs to all my friends and those I haven't met yet. Make sure to tell me your story!

Indonesia at last

So finally...

I promised to some of my latest friends, that I would write some blog-entry in English, so they might share my thoughts. Maybe this will be my first and last entry in a foreign language... But I'll give it a try. Allthough I already know this entry will be different than the previous ones. Usually I talked about different stories and mingled them together in the end. So there used to be a conclusion or something similar. Don't expect anything alike this time. My thoughts are too crazy right now to make any sense to what I write or think. My day started with a Dolphin hunt (among 2000 other tourists), continued with Luwak Coffee, followed by the hot springs in Banjar and finished at the beach buying useless souvenirs out of pity!

What can I tell you guys? As most/all of you know I've been traveling Indonesia for the past 5 weeks. The first three weeks I was accompanied by my lovely sister. She's so amazing! We crossed Flores in 3 weeks and we've seen so many things... I mean it's crazy how much you can live in such a short time. We entered Batman's home (a cave stuffed with thousands of bats) just with our flash-lights... We played the guitar with locals, drinking Arak and learning Indonesian songs... We watched the foxes fly at the 17 islands national park (although it's 21 islands...)... We watched the perfect sunrise on the 3 colored lakes (where I found the black lake to be probably my tomb some day)... We chased the Komodo dragons (the largest lizards worldwide) with our cameras... We dived with sharks and snorkeled with mantas...
How many people can say they have lived only one of these amazing experiences? What gives me the right to be so lucky to see all of these things? How can it be that I'm even so lucky to share some of the best moments of my life with a person I love crazily, my sister? What a lucky man I am!

The weeks after her departure became less exciting but still I don't want to miss a single moment. I went to the Gilis where I did diving, diving and diving again. I saw sharks, turtles, huge morays, puffer fish and and and...  it was such a nice time... but the day I decided to leave I checked my mails and what happened? A friend of high school which I haven't seen for years wrote me: "Hey I've seen you're traveling through Indo, where are you. I'm at Gili T." So he was jut two islands far away. And hence he just finished his dive-master we did two more dives in Gili T. together... which was amazing. What a coincidence. 
It's amazing to see how people change. And in his case I can say it was for the good! But, do we really change or is there everything already inside us. All what we believe to be "coincidence" or "choice" or even "luck" might just be a given path that everyone's given the day the sperm inseminates the ovule... But then who sets the path for you? Is this just coincidence or is there a plan we cannot see? Or even a deus ex machina in the literal sense? 

I continued my trip to Bali... which first was very disappointing. After the lost paradise Flores, Bali seemed to me like a crazy, touristy hell. I imagine Fort Lauderdale during spring brake must me peanuts. I went to Ubud straight away. Where I could find some nice spots. But the diving was still tickling my mind. So I changed all my plans of going to Sumatra, packed my bags and ran away to Nusa Lembongan. Finally an island that is touristy as hell and still charming. I don't know how they manage to do it. I guess it's because you can't do there anything else than diving and surfing... gee and the surfers are cool folks, everyone knows that. It might be nescessary to mention that divers are even cooler! :-D
Anyway I did some of the best dives there and met some of the coolest guys from all over the world. What a time! One day I even tried surfing. I went to Nusa Ceningan and found the secret beach (which by the way is officially called like that). I drank a coke in the bar and the guy asked me if I want to surf. I was like: "yeah, sure... but I've never tried before." Then he was like: "It's a good day for beginners." Then I was like: "Sure I'll try!"

So, now I'm in Lovina... Back in Bali again. I had two of the most beautiful days ever. I don't even know why. Probably because I stop asking myself: Why is it me? How comes I get to see all this beauty. Perhaps it's because I start to realize that soon I'll be back home. Who knows?

I me precedent blogs this would have been the place to place a statement or to summarize all of it again in a different point of view. But today it's just not possible because I've experienced so many things in the past few weeks... and I should stop asking why. I should be able to accept gifts. But I've never been and I'll probably never bee. As long as I won't believe in a higher above there'll always be the question: Why! Is it just luck, coincidence or is the road paved for everyone differently? Does our choice make any difference? Exists difference?

Epilog

Am 27.Juli um 18Uhr MEZ ist mein Grossvater vaeterlicherseits verstorben. Er war ein Mensch an den ich nur gute Erinngerungen habe, jemand der seine Familie ueber alles liebte und immer wusste, was er hat. Ich wuenschte, ich koennte nun bei meiner Grossmutter sein und ihr Beistand leisten.

Allen die mit ihr trauern wuensche ich viel Kraft und Hoffnung in dieser schwierigen Zeit!

Meine Schwester und ich denken an euch!

Resume

Nun hab ich die Haelfte meiner Zeit in suedost-Asien schon hinter mir. Es bleiben noch eine Woche Praktikum in Singapur und 7 Wochen Reisen in Indonesien. Zeit fuer ein Resume:

Zwei Monate Singapur, eine Stadt, die niemals schlaeft. Ich muss zugeben, es waren strenge zwei Monate. Die Arbeit im Krankenhaus war extrem langweilig. Ich durfte kaum etwas tun und konnte nur den Aerzten nachlaufen, die einem eh nur das Gefuehl geben, ein laestiger Blutegel zu sein. So wurde meiner Freundin Ani mal gesagt: Go to this doctor, he's the one you can leech on... Na, nicht gerade freundlich. Aber was solls.
Ich hatte nach meiner zweiten Woche einen Schlachtplan ausgefeilt... Immer wenn ich mich wie ein Blutegel fuehlte, vergegenwaertigte ich mir, dass ich ja 107.-S$ Anmeldegebuehr bezahlt habe, um mich hier ausbilden zu lassen. Fuer dieses Geld will ich wenigstens was geboten kriegen. Und so konnte ich - im Vergleich zu den anderen Studente - relativ viel tun. Im Vergleich zur Schweiz oder geschweige denn Bruessel war es aber immer noch das langweiligste Praktikum. Aber hey, was solls... Ich hab die letzten 8 Monate so hart gearbeitet, dass ich mich richtig gut gefuehlt habe in der Langeweile. Wer weiss, wann ich mich das naechste mal so sehr langweilen werde? Das konnten die Studenten hier nicht wirklich verstehen, dass ich mich ueber Langeweile freue. Na, man kann nicht immer verstanden werden... :-)

Im Privatleben gings dafuer umso mehr drunter und drueber. Man lernt hier so schnell Leute kennen. Doch das hab ich euch ja schon alles erzaehlt... Das Clarke Quay Bingo... Aber gewisse Leute bleiben einem erhalten. Und mit denen verbringt man dann auch immer wieder schoene Abende... Was sich nicht gerade positiv auf die Arbeitsmoral ausuebt. Erst recht nicht, wenn man gar keine richtige Arbeit hat! :-)
So schleagt man sich dann uebermuedet durch die Tage und lebt am Abend wieder auf. Wann man schlaeft? Ich weiss es nicht, wahrscheinlich waehrend der Arbeit. Doch das merkt keiner... nich mal man selbst! Ob man dabei etwas aufnimmt, etwas lernt? Nein... Es ist mehr wie ein 2 monatiger Halbschlaf...

In den letzten paar Tagen haben die meisten guten "Singapur-Freunde" das Land verlassen... entweder fuer Urlaub oder fuer immer. So geschah diesen Freitag tatsaechlich das unmoegliche und ich habe den Abend alleine zu Hause verbracht. Es tat gut. Und heute bin ich (nach einer durchgefeierten Nacht) einfach nur zu Hause geblieben. Keine Leute, keine Sehenswuerdigkeiten, keine Inseln. einfach mal gar nix gemacht. Naja, ich bin zum Buddha Tooth Relic Temple, der hier um die Ecke ist. Immer um 3 Uhr fangen die eine 2 Stuendige Rezitation an. Ich gehe manchmal dort hin um zuzuhoeren. Es ist alles auf chinesisch... doch das macht nichts. Man wird fast high, wenn man den repetitiven aneinandergereihten Konsonanten zuhoert. Man fliegt in eine andere Sphaere... (Gell Tanja :-) )

Ich war schon immer jemand, der dachte, dass es irgendwo, irgendwie, irgendwas mehr gibt, als das, was wir sehen, als das was wir erahnen. Vielleicht sind diese Moenche ja auf dem richtigen Weg und es gibt so etwas wie eine Erleuchtung. Vielleicht werden sie sie erreichen durch ihre Uebungen.
Doch vielleicht wandeln sie ganauso schlaftrunken mit halbverschlossenen Augen durch die Welt wie ich durch Singapur nach meinen kurzen Naechten. Vielleicht unterscheidet uns gar nicht so viel. Vielleicht geht es nicht darum, was man alles tun darf bei der Arbeit oder bei der Meditation. Vielleicht geht es nur darum, was man erlebt.
Viellecht sind unsere Schicksale auch vorbestimmt und wir fahren alle auf Gleisen durch unsere Zukunft... fuer die einen steht die Erleuchtung bereit, fuer die anderen ein langer erholsamer Schlaf. Wer weiss das schon?
Ich werd auf jeden Fall weitersuchen auf meine verpennte Art und Weise. Wenn ich so etwas wie die Wahrheit finden sollte auf meinen Reisen, lass ich es euch wissen. Und bis dahin werd ich mein Haus sein!

Just a thought

Just a thought...

Dieses Wochenende war einfach nur friedlich... Schoen feiern, schoen ausschlafen, schoen Nip/Tuck schauen... Was will man mehr?Man will immer mehr... Oder?
Heute habe ich dafuer auch mehr gekriegt!
Bei der Morgenvisite wurde mir erst mal ein wenig schummrig... Ich musste mich hinsetzen um nicht zwischen die purulenten Wunden zu krachen. Na, immerhin hat das noch geklappt. Danach, beim Kaffee, meinten zwei Aerztinnen, ich sehe etwas blass aus, ich solle doch nach Hause gehen. Ich meinte nur, das sei eine gute Idee. Doch irgendwie konnt ich es nicht lassen und bin noch "kurz" auf einen Sprung in den OP. Natuerlich war heute alles anders als sonst. Keine sechs Aerzte sondern nur zwei. Was sich hiermit aeusserte: Andy, hast du was zu tun? - Ne. - Dann kannst du uns bestimmt helfen!?! - Ja, natuerlich.
Ich hielt dann auch meine Haken schoen brav bis 5 Uhr Nachmittags. Kein Aussetzer, keine von meinem Gesicht verschmutzte Schilddruese. Uff...

"Life is a one-way street, and if you could paint it
I'd draw myself going in the right direction
So I go all the way - like I really really know -
But the truth is I'm only guessin'"
- Gnarls Barkley