Travel

Let’s inspire not impress each other

How I Learned To Spend Money
What is left is always writing: the force of words works even for those who feel absolutely powerless. When reality is overwhelming, you don't trust your ability to write one proper sentence. And yet you see the words combine themselves on the screen in front of you, as if they are living their own lives. ...
Personal story: How to tell the story of our car explosion
We're doing fine. I'm sitting in a bar in Zaragoza, watching an old man waiting, a glass of brandy in front of him. He looks at his watch. The Chinese children on the bar are yelling, and the television plays football. It is eight and I am here to write. Words are increasing their subjective ...
Preparing for East Africa
We have been living in Istanbul for six weeks and love this city a lot. But if all goes well, we will move south to Nairobi soon. We are, after all, on a mission. Istanbul has treated us very well and we were able to get ourselves more or less organized for the upcoming journey. In this ...
June 1. Stay another day…
On our extra day we visit Peuan Mit again, have a nice cup of coffee there and I donate what is left in kip to their program. That is a no-brainer for travelers, of course. Whatever you have left IS part of your budget so don't come with "I don't have money" it won't work ...
May 31. Worst War crimes ever?
Cornflakes and coffee, and it's already ten. Lazy bastards, you think. Where's the early morning gymnastics, the 2-mile-walk, the 150 pushups and the rigor-vigor?


Anyway, we visit COPE today and have a good look at the museum that displays handmade prostheses, we are talking about wooden leg, cast iron pparts nailed together with ...
May 30. Volleyball in rural Laos.
It is so nice to have 100cc of boiling hot metal shafts between my legs, that I decide to rent a motorbike in the afternoon and tour around Vientiane. We take the main highway north (direction Vang Vieng and Luang Prabang) with the option of taking a dirttrack to a beautiful waterfall. An option that ...
May 29. Borrowing vintage bike.
Shaun, a friendly Australian guy living here offers us his little vintage motorbike in the morning, and we gladly accept that enhancement of our mobility.

We will be taking that green bike to the friendship bridge and back today. Not that there's much to see - the friendship bridge is essentialy a concrete corridor ...
May 28. What is ten dollars?
We have a brunch with a German lady, Dagmar, who tells us her compelling story: she is editing and publishing an autobiographical book about a Lao monk. It's what keeps her here, and what keeps us listening. It is really nice and I hope she will publish the book.

I pick up my Vietnamese ...
May 27. COPE-ing with UXOs
Our arrival in Vientiane should be different than Vientiane, I think, and stick obstinately to my idee fixe when we arrive at the bus station. NO tuktuk, we are FINE, we know our way around. We walk a couple of miles and indeed, reach central Vientiane and lose about an hour. We make ourselves comfortable ...