1. Good Karma

   The world should be governed by well travelled people. We know how important it is to do well by the people we meet, be they locals or fellow travellers. And in the end you will get back whatever you paid forward. This is something I strongly believe in.

2. Food

   Being a traveller is like being a soldier. Eat while you can. You never know when your next meal will be. Food is one way of taking in a new culture and experiencing new things, so when it comes to food you should always go local or at least have a go at it.

3. Camera Memory Cards

   Murphy’s Law in this case states that whenever you see something truly amazing your camera will angrily flash at you and give you the finger. By the time you deleted some of those old crappy stupid photos your first ever elephant will have vanished into thin air or only show you his bum. Always have enough memory left by the time you leave your crappy guesthouse room in the morning and always have a spare memory card, so you can switch. And always switch early rather than too late.

4. Patience

   If you’re not patient on the road you’ll be miserable a lot. There’s misunderstandings, people around you when all you want is being left alone and there’s waiting, a lot of waiting actually. There are language problems, a lot of hassle with touts and loads of other people trying to take advantage. Just take it easy. After all you could be sitting in an office being bored beyond witless.

5. Passport Photos

   This is something you seriously can’t have enough of. You’ll need them for visa applications, visas and then some more visa applications. In some places getting just four passport photos made can be ridiculously expensive, so stock up when you’re in a cheap place. Get like 20. You’ll thank me later.

6. Condoms

   Although it might be slightly awkward carrying an extra large pack of your favourite flavoured little friends around it’s always a turnoff not having one ready when you so desperately need one. Remember to pack them in a cool and shady spot in your backpack and use them fast. They don’t travel very well.

7. Drugs

   Mushrooms, ganja, alcohol or whatever else takes your fancy. Travellers love trying new things and drugs seem to be very much part of the rite of passage. On the low side they can get you into deep trouble. The kind of trouble where you look at the same room for 10 years or even the kind of trouble that dramatically reduces your life expectancy to zero. On the high side drugs, if used sparingly and if you stay clear of the hard stuff, can make you perceive your surroundings in a completely new and different way. Drugs travel even less well than condoms!

8. Time

   Without time you only have haste and that’s the death of every genuine memorable experience. 23 countries in as many days is not the way you should travel. I’m the last person to tell you how you have to travel, but just this once I’ll have to do exactly that. Take your time, travel slowly, and get to know a place rather than rush through it. Not seeing everything you wanted is just a reason for another trip.

9. Fun

   This one’s quite obvious and it almost didn’t make the list. It’s very important, though. There are many times when you have anything but fun. When you’re sick, frustrated or just plain fed up with it all. This is normal. The trick is to have more fun than not and maybe develop a bit of a selective memory. Forget the bad stuff, except when it makes a great story, and remember the fun.

10. Diarrhoea Pills

    Bombay belly, the bane of all travellers. Very hard to avoid unless you have a stomach that’s not upset by copious amounts of chilli, foreign bugs or undercooked chicken. Once you stood under the shower for hours with food and drink coming out of every opening you realize that what you need is the biggest and most powerful stop-the-runs pill ever produced. Seriously, pack some!

11. Money

    Some backpackers have hit the jackpot. Literally. There was one English dude who won a million bucks on New Zealand’s Lotto system. In case you haven’t been that lucky and mum and dad don’t feel like financing your global escapades, then you need cash. Spend it wisely. Not saying you need a lot of cash to travel, but the more you have the longer you can travel without the inconvenience of work.

12. Common Sense

    Sometimes you can get yourself into a bit of a situation. Thailand and its lady boys or drugs or gambling or a combination of all of em are just a few examples. Just ask yourself what would your mum want you to do? And remember, if she’s got bigger hands than you, put that drink down and have a closer look before you take her home.

Do you have anything to add to this list? I welcome your comments!

This list, which only existed in my head until now, started out with number 3 around 20 years ago and I’ve added destinations and trips to it as I found out about them. In time places moved up and down or disappeared completely as I visited them. There’s obviously many more places I want to see and things I want to do, but there’s got to be something special to make it onto my top 10…

1. Travel up the Congo River
   The Congo, in the heart of Africa, represents for me the magic I associate with that continent. Lush rainforest, genuine experiences and extremely hard travelling!
2. Drive from Capetown to Marrakesh
   When I was little my Dad always brought travel magazines like Tours back home. A lot of them dealt with off road tours through Africa, how to outfit cars, which routes to take and so on. It obviously left an impression on me.
3. Hitchhike from Munich to Beijing
   I was around 9 years old when I first thought it’d be awesome to drive all the way from my hometown to China. In time this has morphed into hitchhiking, as a cheaper, more flexible, but probably more dangerous alternative.
4. Dive and travel Antarctica
   Huge icebergs, penguins, sea lions and many more amazing animals. Just imagine what the underwater world looks like there…
5. Navigate the Mekong River
   I have crossed the Mekong many times in many countries and the idea to help navigate a boat from China all the way to Vietnam has been growing ever since.
6. Explore the Bamiyan valley in Afghanistan
   Ever since I heard about the huge Buddhas I wanted to see them for myself. Even though they have been destroyed by the Taliban regime I still want to go and explore the little caves left behind by Buddhist monks.
7. Experience the Hajj
   I am not a Muslim or very religious, but there’s something about the pilgrimage to Mecca that I find fascinating. Maybe it’s a couple of millions of people in the same place actually believing in a God. That’s got to make for a special atmosphere.
8. Live among the Orang Laut for some time
   The Orang Laut are scattered all across Southeast Asia. The name literally means ’sea people’. Their way of life, so closely connected with the ocean they live on, has always fascinated me and in a way I can identify with that.
9. Travel to the (original) Burning Man
   Nowadays there’s a few BM branches around, but I’d like to see the original in Black Rock Desert in Nevada.
10. Cross the Sahara on the back of a camel
    Just another one of my weird dreams. Call me a romantic with no sense of realism, but I think this would be a fantastic experience.

Will I ever make it to all of those places, do all of those trips? To be honest, I doubt it. There are too many variables. Some of those countries aren’t really that safe (yet), I am perpetually in a state of near bankruptcy and a couple of those trips shouldn’t really be done. That’s not the point of this list though. My wish list ,or dreams if you like, are an indication for the kind of experiences and adventures I want and seek and usually they push my limits a little bit further out. It’s my minds way of telling me that I’m ready for the next step away from my comfort zone.

It’s important to have dreams as well. Without them I might as well work on my tan on Ballerman 6. What are your travel dreams?

Crossing a border can be a daunting and nerve wrecking thing and that might not necessarily have something to do with those 2 kg of cocaine hidden in between your smelly socks.

I always think that customs officials are being trained to put on mean faces, to make you as uncomfortable as humanly possible. You might be getting the look, when you’re in trouble with your girlfriend, but that has nothing on your average customs guy. It’s almost like they have x-ray vision, but they use their superpower for evil and not for good.

I have crossed many borders in my travel life and most of the time it was a smooth experience, meaning I didn’t get strip searched and none of my body cavities got violated. Please let me clarify, that I am not in the business of smuggling drugs (I do have smelly socks), but even so, seeing a sign that basically says that you will be hanged until you’re dead if drugs were to be found on you (even if someone else put them there) doesn’t make me exclaim in delight.

Before I go through customs I usually check all the parts of my backpack where something could have been hidden. You don’t want to be caught off guard. When do you think was the last time someone believed the words ‘Those are not mine!’? At the same time I take the two padlocks off that secure my biggest compartments. Then I make sure I have my travel documents ready. If there is a visa fee to pay, then I get that money out as well. Customs guys seem to love paperwork with all those arrival/departure cards and stamps and visas, so I usually fill both cards out beforehand and make them staple the departure card into my passport (lost departure cards can cause serious mental meltdowns). All of these things make it easier for officials to check us out and wave us on. If you can’t beat em, join em, right?

Sometimes, though, you can do everything right, but you’ll still get screwed. I was travelling down to Malaysia with my girlfriend. She was unlucky enough to get her purse with her passport stolen while we were on Koh Samui, Thailand. Now this involved numerous trips up to Bangkok to her embassy, which was very annoying already. But when we crossed the border at Sadao my girlfriend was taken away and questioned by police. Apparently her old passport had left the country already with a new owner and the police now thought that she was the imposter. We stayed there for about two hours answering questions and waiting for phone calls to be made, but eventually we were allowed to leave.

When things like these happen try to stay calm, even if you feel a bout of Tourettes coming on. It’s important to make a good impression, so apart from not using your favourite obscenities that includes dressing properly, aka wearing clean clothes, and smiling occasionally. It’s always surprising how far you can get with a smile.

Sometimes crossing borders can be fun as well. When I lived in Thailand for a bit I had to do a monthly visa run down to the Malaysian border. There were maybe six or seven of us leaving Thailand. The Malaysian customs officials always gave us a huge smile and warmly welcomed us to their country. We would then walk around the customs house and line up on the opposite side to get stamped out of Malaysia. The same customs guy would roll in his chair from the window we’d just been over to us and then ask us in a really sad voice if we no like Malaysia, then brightened and send us on our way with a ‘See you next month!’.

As a final note, you probably shouldn’t get too cosy with new found friends while crossing the border. I went from Cambodia into Vietnam and had just met two Englishmen living in Saigon. Our bags only got cursory glances from customs and we were basically waved through. Later that evening we met up in a bar and after a few drinks I was told that they had just successfully smuggled heroin into the country. This might have been just a drunken story, but you try to explain to the police that the only other foreigners at the border aren’t your friends, even though you just look like best chums.

What do you think? Have you got any border crossing stories to share?

It seems that something bad and shocking is always going on in some place of the world. Be it terrorist attacks, diseases or natural disasters, like cyclone Nargis in Myanmar or the recent earthquake in China. Most of the time this results in western countries issuing travel and security warnings either for the whole country or just for affected areas. This obviously is a good thing or rather it could be a good thing. After all travellers and holiday makers need some kind of safety indicator and their own government should be the natural choice for that. The problem here is that the general population with little travel experience takes those travel warnings at face value and doesn’t usually bother reading them themselves. All they hear in the news is that there has been a catastrophe somewhere and that travel warnings have been issued.

By that point the damage is usually done. Holidays get canceled, travel plans get changed and while everybody feels sorry for the victims everybody is glad not to be caught in the aftermath of it all, even though their specific holiday destination might be completely safe. Obviously you can’t blame people for doing that. It’s a natural reaction, but does it really have to be that way? And then there is the moral question of it all. Should you be enjoying your holiday when there are people suffering and dying just a couple hours flight away? This is a very difficult question and one everybody has to answer for themselves.

On Christmas 2004, when the tsunami struck Aceh Province, I had been living on Gili Trawangan, Indonesia, for about 10 months, teaching diving. Visitor numbers started to drop within a few days of the disaster and kept on dropping over the next weeks, even though our little island was more than 2500 km away from Banda Aceh. In an industry, where your income depends mostly on commission, this is tantamount to suddenly losing your job. Still, I and other dive instructors were in a relatively good position compared to some of the local people. We had savings, had earned a lot more and didn’t need to support a whole extended family.

When disaster strikes it never only affects the people in the disaster areas, but large parts of the overall population, at least in countries that are dependent on tourism and visitor numbers. The financial consequences of the Boxing Day Tsunami were felt all over Indonesia. It was a disaster after the disaster. Millions of dollars were donated, but I dare say that not much of that money made it to the indonesian people not directly affected by the tsunami. Travellers and tourists further worsened their situation by switching to alternative travel destinations.

Only a little bit of research could show that your initial travel destination is completely safe and if it isn’t then there is always the option of travelling to a different spot in the same country. It will help the local population there immensely. Of course that still leaves the matter of morality, but if you had asked an Indonesian after the tsunami what he preferred, then I’m sure the answer would have been that he’d rather earned enough to put food on the table…

Guidebooks

Lonely Planet

The one good thing about them, though, is that whatever you want to know is probably in them. In my case I wanted to know where I can stay cheaply, what I can do during the day and what’s happening at night. The choice of budget accommodation isn’t that great really, just eight hostels are in there. What was surprising really was that the prices seemed to be almost up to date, ranging from 18$ to 25$. On second thought, that just means that prices have been stable over the last couple of years. As for activities, anything you want to do you can find in this Lonely Planet. There’s a good choice of paid and free activities. Prices here are definitely not correct anymore. AJ Hackets 3-bungy jump packet is posted at 300$ per person, whereas on the internet it says 425$. The info on nightlife is pretty good as well. Most of my usual haunts are in there.

Downloadable PDF Chapters

PDF

Wikitravel.org

Wikitravel

Travel Forum

BootsnAll

Anyway, I posted the same message to both forums. Here are the two discussions on Thorn Tree and Boots’n'All. I basically asked for the same information again. Accommodation, activities and nightlife in Queenstown. The wait began at 10.47 am. 40 minutes later I had the first replies on Thorn Tree. What I got was quite informative. Even though I didn’t get many prices for backpackers, I did get a link (24$ for that hostel) and lots of infos on nightlife. I basically got everything I wanted, except the prices for the bungy, in less than an hour. That’s pretty good for free advice.

Apart from starting your own discussion on these forums, you can browse through existing ones. There’s probably a wealth of information to be dug up. A search for ‘queenstown’ on Thorn Tree got me 12 pages of search results, whereas Boots’n'All produced 285 results in total.

Personal Travel Blogs

Hm, this one was a hard and fruitless search. On Googles blog search I tried any combination of travel, accommodation, activities and bungy with queenstown and came up with zilch or rather so much that it became overwhelming. I then tried several blog ranking sites, where you can find travel blogs quite easily, but then you have to search through each of those sites again, which would turn into a mission I don’t think I have the patience for…

Travel Networks

Matador

Another such site is Travellers Point, where the experts are called travel helpers. And there are heaps more than at Matador. There is also a nifty forum feature that notifies the travel helpers when you specify their country of expertise, thus combining the strengths of a forum with the knowledge of ‘experts’. Here’s the discussion I started. There is also a wiki, but from the looks of it it suffers the same limitations like it’s big brother at wikitravel.org.

Conclusions

Travellers Point

And here I am, more than a day after I first started a discussion in a forum. A quick look showed that out of the three forums I posted in, I have now received responses in every single one. It is probably a good idea to post the same question in multiple forums. The combined responses should get you an almost complete answer to your question. Be prepared to wait some time though. Around 10 hours in the BootsnAll forum and 11 at TravellersPoint in my case.

Only one answer from TravellersPoint so far, even though they have a large amount of travel helpers who all got notified of my discussion when I posted it. This is something Matador should implement on their forums. I did get a fast reply from their expert after all, even though he couldn’t really help me. What he did was give me some general information and point me in the right direction.

So, what’s the best way to get onto the travel information highway? Well, one thing I noticed is that the good old guidebook, albeit all its limitations, isn’t dead yet. It’s alive and kicking, as it’s still the most comprehensive source out there. It might be heavy, but you always have access. It might be outdated, but it gives you a rough idea and with the introduction of the PDFs the future for guidebooks looks rosy. Just print the chapter you need and you have a lightweight version of the big cumbersome guidebook.

So is that the answer then? I know that many travellers love their guidebooks, but there is one important source missing from that list above. The human factor! All the people you meet while actually travelling. Locals, fellow backpackers, staff at hostels, expats and so on and they are the best source of knowledge you can get. Here you can get accurate up-to-date information on virtually anything. I reckon your best bet are PDFs coupled with loads of local information. At least until sites like wikitravel.org take off and more detailed information becomes available. It’s got the potential to kick the guidebooks off their throne. We’ll just have to wait and see, I guess…

What’s your take on the matter?

Once in a while you meet someone who is out and about busy “finding him or herself”. I have never fully grasped the concept of this idea. What is it exactly that people try to find? Is it their real self, how they would be without the influences of todays society, or is it how they really want to be?

While this undertaking seems somewhat realistic back in their own country, I find the idea ridiculous when travelling. What makes people think they can find themselves in the alien surroundings of a foreign country when they couldn’t even manage it back in the familiarity of their homes?

The expression in itself implies that somehow somewhere along the road they got lost, otherwise there would be no point in going looking for yourself. And they obviously seem to have a problem with being lost. They might not be happy with themselves and want to change things. But it’s funny how naive some people are. Travelling is not an express ticket to a new personality. It is true that travel changes people. Without my trips I wouldn’t be the person I am today. But even when travelling, with all its amazing experiences and impressions, this is a gradual process and does not happen overnight or during a two week trip.

Moreover I think all this takes away parts of the travel experience. How much can you actually take in looking for yourself in every corner, when you should be looking for new cultures, new experiences, new friends…

The same is true for the problems you carry around with you. How many couples do (or should I say ‘did’?) you know that decide to take a break from their routine and go travelling or on a holiday, just to break up after a couple weeks on the road? Travelling does not solve your problems for you, at best it just puts them safely away somewhere for easy retrieval on your return. And more than likely your problems will try to surface at times. If you drink too much alcohol, then you won’t suddenly become a AA advocate, just because your favorite pub is halfway around the world.

What travelling does, though, is giving you a chance to start making those changes you always thought about on New Years Eve and forgot about after the third drink. Your usual temptations are gone, you are out of your normal routine and you are basically free to do whatever you want. All you need is patience and time. And who knows, you might even stumble upon your lost self somewhere on the way.

Everybody who has been travelling for a bit longer knows that eventually there comes a time when all that saved up money doesn’t amount to that much anymore. You’ve probably seen it coming and acted on it by having rice and sweet chili sauce three times a day, all washed down with a yummy glass of water. The times when you look at your bank account grow longer in the hopes that the problem will just disappear. Then you realize that the first step to solving your problem is to acknowledge it, so you decide to deal with it by listing all your possible options. One option is to just go home, although this is just a temporary solution. What exactly will you do when you get back home? Most likely find some work, save some money and then book another plane ticket. So why not try to get some work while travelling? Now, let’s look at some of the other options out there…

Work & Travel

There is a good chance that you’re from a country that has some kind of agreement with other countries allowing you to work there for up to one year. The most popular destination for that is undoubtedly Australia. There are many more countries out there though. For example New Zealand, Japan or Canada. The maximum age is usually 30 years, which is a bummer really (for me anyways!). It is a very good way of picking up any suitable work, doing it legally at the same time and finding a base for a certain amount of time to chill out. Let’s face it, travelling can be tiring and sometimes you just need a place where you can dump your backpack for a bit longer than just a few days.

Teaching English

This is a very popular method of bolstering ones wallet. In many countries, especially Asian ones, it’s often enough to just be a native speaker. An advantage is to have a proper certificate, like from TESOL or the various TEFL organizations. If you’re not a native speaker, but your english skills are very good, you could hold conversation classes. There may be even opportunities to do that in your native language.

Seasonal & Casual Work

Although it is better to be able to work legally, there are many jobs available where people look the other way. Many of them can be found in the agricultural sector, like fruit picking or harvesting. Generally, when the available legal work force isn’t sufficient, there will be people working without a work permit. Most of Australia, for example, is usually very strict, but if you head into outback towns like Mt. Isa you can pick up well paid bar work during summer. It’s always worth talking to other travellers. There’s usually lots of stories floating around where it’s possible to work without a work permit.

Diving

I have worked in Thailand and Indonesia as a Dive Instructor and apart from the odd setback, like a Tsunami or the bird flu, I have been able to make good money. You do need a certain amount of money to get started, though. First you need to pay for the different courses from Open Water Diver to Rescue Diver. This will set you back around 700 USD. All your equipment, which you must own yourself, will cost around 1500 to 2500 USD. The first professional course is the Dive Master (DM), which allows you to guide already certified divers underwater. Some shops let you work in exchange for the fees, which is around 650 USD. Once you are a DM you can then find work in the various diving hot spots around the world, maybe even saving up money towards your Instructor Development Course (IDC). This will chip away a big chunk from your budget, close to 2000 USD, including a couple specialty instructor ratings. While your DM salary will just about cover your costs, you will be able to earn a lot with your Instructor rating. It’ll be between 25-30% per course per person. It won’t take long to earn all those expenses back. Check out the PADI website.

Final Thoughts

The world can be a very exciting and sometimes nerve wrecking place, especially when you are about to run out of money. Always keep an open mind when it comes to finding work. You never know when the next opportunity arises to make some money. During my travels I have worked as a DM, a Dive Instructor and Boatmaster; I have worked on construction sites, in bars and I have driven a bulldozer and soon I will help build roads in New Zealand. If you have any special jobs or opportunities to add to my list, then feel free to leave a comment.

I have done quite a bit of travelling over the last few years. Out of the last 8 years, I have been away from Germany for roughly 6 years and out of all the countries I have been to, I liked Indonesia the best. That definitely had something to do with the people and the surroundings and the underwater world, but a big chunk of it was the actual travelling. Getting from place A to place B. As a traveller you spend an unusual amount of your time on various modes of transport and in many countries that can be an extremely dull experience and you actually start contemplating jumping off whatever vehicle you are on right now or even slitting your wrists, just to relieve the boredom a little.

A hut in Timor Leste

The Theory

The theory of progressive travel states that the more budget travel experience a person has the more he or she will want to travel to remote and inaccessible places and the more he or she will disapprove of travel in approachable and accessible places.

Bar in Australia

Over the years I have found a few places that fit into the above categories, although it was very rare to actually be the only traveller around. I came pretty close though quite often and, mostly, the other travellers I met then had the same frame of mind than me and funnily enough quite a few had been to the same places, often around the same time, than me. There is nothing like a lonely planet anymore. Anywhere you go, most likely there will be other travellers. And that isn’t a bad thing either. Language and cultural barriers often prevent you from really getting to know the local people in those far-away places. All you might be allowed to see is a glimpse of their life. And that is understandable and makes a lot of sense. How would you like some strange people barging into your village and disturbing your life? One result of that is that you do get to know your fellow travellers so much better there than in one of the big nameless backpacker chains or even the Thai-style beach bungalow accommodation.

Stickfighting on Flores

Obviously, how you travel doesn’t have much to do with what you can see. Undoubtedly there are many amazing destinations in Australia and other ‘easy’ countries, but I really have to push myself sometimes not to just pack my things up and leave in pursuit of a more demanding experience. But the thing is that I really do want to see those countries, all of them actually, so I guess I just have to put up with their ‘shortcomings’. I have made the mistake of leaving a country prematurely once and I will not do it again.

All in all, I think I’m just weird in that respect,but I’d like to know if there are more weirdos out there.Have you experienced something similar?

Can’t believe that I have been travelling already for six months. Time flies when you’re having fun, right? Anyway, time to have a look at that past half year….

Some of the things that happened or that I did:

1. Bought a car in Australia, drove it for 7000 km and then wrecked it!
2. Watched two sperm whales, five pigs and one turtle get hunted, killed and gutted in Indonesia
3. Had 9.473 unique visitors, which isn’t that much really, but my thanks go out to those boys and girls that do drop in for a visit and maybe even leave a comment!
4. Climbed the volcano on Lombok and lost four toenails in the process
5. Drank far too much Arak/Sopi/Palm Wine…
6. Almost froze to death in Canberra
7. Took 4 different Pelni boats and was the only foreigner on any of them
8. Survived the Outback
9. 37 people have subscribed to my english feeds and 4 to my german feed
10. Dived Alor and snorkelled Banda, two places I had been wanting to visit for years
11. Visited 4 countries (Oz, England, Indonesia, East Timor) and 3 continents
12. Spent 8000 EUR on God knows what…
13. Saw the Komodo Dragons and did not get bitten, yeah!!
14. Sailed the Whitsundays. Loved that and just remembered I didn’t even put a post about that online. Well, it was only a day trip, but to make up for it, have a look at the picture on top…
15. Saw my first two Wombats and then accidentally killed them both with the car. I added some seriously bad karma on to my shoulders that night!
16. I received 4 donations totalling around 90 EUR and my Google ads cam to about 15 USD, so that’s almost my hosting fees for another 3 years, which doesn’t mean I’d reject more donations or would frown at people clicking on me ads…
17. Visited gorgeous Kelimutu again
18. Managed to brush up on my Bahasa Indonesia
19. Worked a lot on my tan
20. Read like 30 books
21. Wrote 29 posts (actually 30 including this one), which could have been more, but I was probably too busy sunbathing…or reading…
22. Took about 8 GB worth of pictures, of which maybe 2GB were worth taking. Have a look at the photos I put online!
23. Managed to free dive down to 25m with a dive time of 1 minute 37 seconds on Banda
24. Was involved in a motorbike accident in Indo
25. Was kind of involved in a car accident in Indo, which provided a fascinating few hours for the locals that happened to be there
26. The average life expectancy of my sun glasses dropped down to roughly a day
27. Met some great people and a few weirdos…
28. Managed to teach an American how to open a beer bottle with a lighter, which was hard work!
29. My Google Page Rank went on a rollercoaster; from 2 to 3 down to 1 up to 2 down to 0 ; I must be doing something wrong, but honestly, I couldn’t give a monkey’s bum…
30. Visited the youngest nation on earth!

If you want to know more about what I’ve been up to these last six months have a look at my archives or click on some of the links above. Enjoy!!

Happy Times

Gunung Api

First Encounter Of A Smelly Kind

Beach on Pulau Ay

Second Encounter Of A Smelly Kind

Fort Belgica on Bandaneira

The Sneaky English

A flower on Pulau Ay

The Naive Dutch

Entrance to Fort Nassau

Status Quo

Nutmeg on Pulau Ay

The English Confusion Strategy

Cliff at low tide on Pulau Ay

Jan Pieterszoon Coen

Pulau Ay's western beach

The Confused English

Girls on Pulau Ay

Now What?

Entrance to Fort Nassau

The Master Plan Returns

Cliffs on Banda Besar

Twice Actually…

A little brave lizard

The End (Kind Of…)

A morray eel

There obviously is a lot more to Banda’s long and often sad and violent history, than what I have written here. If you want to know more, then I suggest you read ‘Indonesian Banda’ by William A. Hanna, upon which most of this post is based.