Bye Bye Asia! Hello Australia! Living Nomadic…

After 11 month in the mids and depths of Asian culture, the day to move on is finally there!
The day our trip takes me back to Oz and Kathie the first time in her life south of the equator!

Today, the 31th of October at 23:30 we will take off from this city of hustle and bustle Kuala Lumpur to Perth – Australia – the most remote capital on the planet. Once we will leave Perth behind us, we will finally leave the cities for a good long time up to nearly a year perhaps. Right in time for the in great anticipation awaited end of the Mayan calendar.
Not that I would believe in apocalyptic theories for that day, but I believe in the permanence of insecurity of cities.

However we are really excited for this new big episode in our lives and travels. Today we take off to Oz to stay down under for the anticipated next two years at least. We will be living in Australia and New Zealand that has the combined land mass of Europe and the population of Scandinavia!
So excited! Space! Nature! Wilderness! Breathing freely! …to an extend seldom found anywhere else in the world today!
We are looking forward to own a house on wheels, that gives us total independence – out there in the bush! Taking our nomadic life style to a greater level!

This short film NOMADISM is made by my friend Marty who I met in 2009 in Bali.  He and his girlfriend Jeanette have become one of my most beautiful travel acquaintances. Coincidentally we had planed to be in Kuala Lumpur at the same time! Thus this last week of October, so incredibly, we did meet again! We spend the last days in Kuala Lumpur together in amazement.
Marty is a really great photographer! Enjoy his work – NOMADISM !
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We will take so much positive ideas and inspirations from Asia! It was an incredible journey so full of amazing ideas, thought and feelings. We have learned so incredibly much! I have changed more and faster than ever before! Both of us have grown incredibly.
Non of what we have experience, I had ever expected despite of having been travelling extensively for more than two years before. Everything was different on this journey. So different again! It is beautiful.

This journey has lead me to find what I have been looking for, for so long. I am on my path. I am not a blind man among blind man any more. Still blindfolded though, I am now stumbling with intention and direction – towards something I sense is good!

We have gained so much more freedom in this year. Leaving our alcohol and nicotine addictions behind us, strengthening our fight against the misbelieves

Four Berliners off to Sumatra!

Today we are off to Sumatra in Indonesia, which is the 6th largest island of the world, to head to a truly
magical place a super volcano and in the same time the worlds biggest volcanic lake…

Babe and Danny both friends from Home have joined us for this trip!
Babe arrived in Kuala Lumpur on the 3rd of September. She had a terrible flight!
Her plane had to returned after 3 hours flight over the Indian ocean, back to the airport with
technical problems! What a nightmare! Kathie left Melaka in the morning to surprise her at the KL airport.
They went to an island off the west coast of Malaysia called Pulau Pankor for a few days.
Danny is travelling around  Asia since March and he had visit us a few weeks ago in Tacomapai already.
He has also visited Panya for a course in Food Forestry here is a video from his BLOG.

Across the channel by ferry, probably more than 20 hours of sitting in a bus a head of us…
We are all in great excitement and anticipation of this magnificent place I have visited before
on my trip in 2007 and that I had fallen deeply in love with called Danau Toba!

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An amazing band I want to show you!  #Mother Falcon# – from Austin…

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Since I will close my account on Facebook soon, sign up your E-mail address on the BLOG at the Top – right hand site
so you can get an E-mail message when I have posted a new article.

Kai

We are still out here

 

Hey friends or I almost want to say brothers and sisters !
Kathie and I have pretty much just arrived in Melaka Malaysia. Our awesome adventure in Thailand is officially over.
We are looking back to a super intensive time of learning and understanding to new ideas and thoughts, an amazing network of beautiful people, connection with nature, permaculture, monks and nuns and monasteries, the forest…
Now after a short stop here in the old town of Melaka, Indonesia will be our next destination soon!!!

As you already know, do I have no interest in writing another diary like travel blog about what we do and did and will do.
I am writing with the intention to inspire. So in the past weeks I guess we have done some inspiring things that I soon
hope to have time to write about at least quickly – cause it has been a lot!!!
I hope you have found some interest in the stuff that I have written about Permaculture and Panya.
I am sure it is hard to comprehend and gain interest in it, from far away and from a mostly city perspective.
Nevertheless, I am hoping to plant a tiny little seed in you guys that may one day grow into a beautiful flower… 😉

I’ll get on the writing and posting soon and thereby share as much as I can all that I have to share with you…
Even though the days and weeks to come, almost don’t allow the time in front of this controversy machine ..
it is a tool to work with in these changing times though, for until it will become just a cloud of dusk
blown away with the wind of the past…

Ha!

Kai

 

Kota Bharu

Kota Bharu was our last destination in Malaysia before leaving to Thailand. Khota Bharu is just another relatively relaxed Malaysian city in the rather strict Muslim state of Kelantan.
Here, similar to other places in the more serious Muslim states of Kedah, Perlis, Kelatan and Terengganu, the Imam calls for prayer 5 times a day. It can actually be quite tiring.
In Kuala Terrengganu for instance, the calls and talks from the Imam which are held via the several speakers of the Minaret’s, were almost non stop and extremely loud too.
I don’t know if it would have been better if  we had understood what he said. That way it just felt really intrusive and intimidating although otherwise,

Pulau Kapas

 Pulau Kapas is a small tropical Island just 6Km offshore the small town of Marang at the east coast of Malaysia. It is an protected Marine park with a few rather small and quiet resorts.
After two weeks of jungle environment we didn’t have enough of the outdoors but we wanted to change location.
We were missing the sea so we decided to travel to another tropical island. Since it was still Monsoon season we knew it was going to be very quiet on the island. We had read that there are beaches without any human constructions which was perfect for us because we wanted to keep staying outdoors and make camp rather than getting a room. We decided to give it a try and hoped to find a Robinson island.
What we found was indeed quite a paradise. It wasn’t as remote as the Island of Alexander Selkirk the real Robinson but we found a beach just for us!
We camped under a  nice shady beautiful tree on the beach.
All along the shallow water there were corals and colorful fish. The jungle was full of coconut palms. We had all the time we wanted and all comforts one could hope for in the nature. Us the sea, the burning hot sun, corals and a nice place to be…
Apart from the food we brought to the island we also fed on coconuts and seafood. Drinking water also wasn’t a problem. We found a small cave were water came dripping out through the rocks which we collected drop by drop. Beautiful mineral water!
We quite enjoyed our time as voluntary island castaway’s!

Taman Negara – Kuala Koh

Taman Negara means national park in Malay and  was our next destination.
It is in fact Malaysia’s biggest national Park covering over 4343 square kilometers (434,300 hectares) of primary forest. This dense jungle has a reputation as the world’s oldest tropical rainforest and is believed to be  130mio. years old. Taman Negara is the home of some rare mammals, such as the Malayan Tiger, Sumatran Rhinoceros and Asian Elephant. Apart from these rather big animals it also inhabits as many leeches as there are stars in the sky. The park also is amazing when considered that Malaysia like so many other countries has cut down more than 60% of its rainforest. The logging industry is one factor another one is the palm oil industry, a major economy in Malaysia, which clear cuts huge rainforest areas to  replace them with oil palm plantations . On the way to the entrance of  the protected NP we drove along these plantations for mile after mile… .. .

back to civilization…

We are back to the city after more then 4 weeks  of which we were outdoors most of the time. It were 4 weeks of internet abstinence as well – when did that happen the last time???
Now we are in the city of Kota Bharu in the far north of Malaysia from where we will head to Thailand in the next few days. For now we are back to the box like shabby accommodations with filthy mattresses and malfunctioning everything and claustrophobic walls. This will be our setting for a couple of days to do nothing but internet stuff and eating on the great central food market of Kota Baru…
We are excited to travel to a new country after almost 3 month of being in  Malaysia, though worried about the amount of tourists we might encounter with in mass touristic Thailand after a relaxed time in Malaysia…

Kuala Lumpur

Kuala Lumpur is a city one can stay for a while. It yet hasn’t reach astronomical population figures like other Asian
metropolises and it makes combined with its modernism and comprehensible size a comparably relaxed city.
Kuala Lumpur offers not as infinite opportunities as other Asian cities might do, nevertheless it has something that makes you stay and return. Since Malaysia is an Muslim country of which Kuala Lumpur is capital, alcohol is not so popular. Since Malaysia is an immigration country one can still find people to sell the overpriced booze. Indians or Chinese usually run these stores. Under Muslim law called sharia which is used besides the constitution, Muslims can be punished with imprisonment, a high fine or whipping for selling, offering or consuming alcohol!
I bought my most expensive beer in a shop ever. It cost 4€ for a 650ml Carlsberg that’s like four real good meals in a street stall or the equivalent of 8 Sternburg in a Berlin shop. Anyway it’s just booze.
The non drinking is probably not even such a bad idea, if it wasn’t create by fear and force.
With the drinking limitations comes the party limitations, Kuala Lumpur is a city that does sleep at least for a little every night,
to reboot and start all over again at early morning for the noise and bustle of the day!
Annoyingly the Malaysians seem obsessed with shopping. It really seems like shopping embodies the deeper meaning of life here, but well don’t know if they are really worse than us… Plastic is another obsession. Everything is made from it, wrapped in it multiple times and then, of course it’ll always come in a plastic bag. Pollution would probably be worse if there were more people, luckily there aren’t. Malaysians have the bad habit of keeping their engines turned on. Taxi drivers while waiting for costumers or at night with seats folded down to sleep, the engine is running. Some guy on a scooter talking to some other guy, the engine stays turned on. People sit in their parked car with running engines. Even empty cars you can sometimes  find with engine running! It is almost like it was a sin or embarrassing to turn them off! …
What we did enjoy here the most apart from all these rather critical observations and we stayed here almost 3 weeks was for sure the food our chilly billy guesthouse Le Village and the few spots we found to relax like Merdeka Square and the library.

Today we are going to travel north to a national park called Taman Negara after that we might head to Thailand in a few weeks time. We found a permaculture project in the north of  Thailand that wants to host us so we will slowly make our way towards them. The projects is called Panya.

A few images of Kuala Lumpur from our perspective…

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