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I’ve been writing a lot about Thailand in their sequence of events over the last few weeks, but it’s time to mix things up! Since this blog is all about deviating the norm, I thought I’d deviate my blogging norm for a moment to wish everyone a Merry X-Mas!
I am writing from a house-sit in New Zealand. A lovely family is away for the holidays and they are allowing me the opportunity to take care of their adorable dog and relax in their home for the week.
During these last 3+ months of travel, I have found the solo travel lifestyle to be a perfect way to deviate freely and openly. Without surprise, I have spent very little time traveling alone. Even traveling between locations, like my overnight train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, I have rarely been by myself or kept to myself. I meet couples, other solo travelers, old friends from back home, and locals. I strike up conversations, exchange contact info, and sometimes I even temporarily combine travel plans. But not being tied down to people in a permanent way has led me down alternative paths to other exciting adventures.
In this post I am going to highlight one of the best parts about solo travel through a moment when I was in Thailand and my plans with another traveler went awry. Why would being a solo traveler be a good thing in this case? Read on to find out.
I was going to call this post “Monks and Motorbikes” but then I realized you would all picture monks riding motorbikes around and that would have been completely inaccurate. My in-depth post about my interactions with monks will have to come later. Instead, this post is about the day I got over my fear of riding a motorbike which included a ride up to a Buddhist temple near Chiang Mai.
West of Chiang Mai is Doi Suthep-Pui National Park. Just before the Doi Suthep mountain summit (1676m) is the temple Wat Phra That Doi Suthep—a famous Buddhist pilgrimage site. Other travelers staying at the Julie Guesthouse suggested going there as a fun day trip. They mentioned songthaews and buses as the means to get up there. “Or you could just rent a motorbike,” said one traveler.
Many of my friends and family back home are aware of my affinity for costumes and cosplay. Naturally, one of my favorite times of the year is Halloween—where you can dress up as anything you want, party until dawn, and eat lots of candy. What’s not to love?
When I realized I would be in Thailand for Halloween, missing out on all the fun parties back in New York, I was determined to find a costume to wear and party to attend. Halloween is not typical to Thai culture, so I was expecting to have to deviate the norm a bit to find a suitable costume and party. To my delight, I ended up receiving a zombie makeover, attracting the attention of many Thai locals with my undeadness, and partying with Thai people and other backpackers until the wee hours of the morning. A Halloween worthy of my high standards.
Hello from New Zealand! I am now over 3 months into my year of deviation. I’m a little late with this post because I was on a 2-day overnight hike up a mountain in New Zealand. I know I keep saying it in these updates, but traveling for this long has a funny way of feeling like time flies by and slows down all at once. It’s gone so fast and yet feels like a year has already passed! Countless times I have lost track of the day of the week or date in the month. Just a few days ago, I wrote my next post about my remaining experiences on Ko Toa in Thailand. I woke up the next day and realized, “Whoa, tomorrow is already December 1! Time for an update!” And so I wrote that, too. But then it took 3 days to be around WiFi to post—hence the tardiness.
Before coming to Thailand, I had done an exorbitant amount of research on what to expect, what to avoid, and what to absolutely see and do. But as a rule in life, and also when I travel, I try not to have hard and fast expectations about things—I like to let my first-hand experience influence my impression and direct my path. This is how I create my own personal norm, tailored to me.
Pretty much every person and blog said something along the lines of “avoid the tourist trap of Khao San Road” or “go to Khao San Road just to experience it, but don’t stay there.” I decided to go against this advice completely by, instead, booking my first night of accommodation in the center of it all. I had researched some good, reasonably priced hotels in Bangkok and the one which stuck out to me was called the Rikka Inn. It was calling my name—literally!—and so I didn’t care about its location or its higher-than-usual price compared to the guesthouses in the area. I just knew I’d need a good night of sleep after the 11-hour flight from Munich.
I was in Germany for 6 weeks and traveled from cities to countryside visiting Bielefeld, down to Cologne, then Frankfurt, Munich, Regensburg, and finally up to Berlin. After spending so much time in Deutchland, I feel like I got to know the country very well. By the end of it, I had a pretty good idea of what I absolutely adored and you can see this in my many enthusiastic posts about Germany.
There are still many positive aspects of the country I missed mentioning, such as how much I appreciate Germany’s commitment to providing free education to their citizens, the just amount of historical responsibility they demonstrate through the many memorials to holocaust victims found all over the country, and their high standards for education requiring even carpenters and plumbers to go to college and obtain a degree in their trade to begin work in that field.
Dance and music have always been a big part of my life. A secret bit about me many people (and most readers) probably do not know is I was a tap dancer for 17 years. I also played flute in my school band for 7 years. More commonly known is my love for going to local music shows, dancing around to alternative rock and punk or bopping along to singer songwriter’s jams. I went out to dance and listen to live music often while living in NYC for the 6 years it took to complete my graduate degree.
With all of this music in my life, I couldn’t miss out on Berlin’s nightlife scene where music and dance is rather unique compared to much of what I have experienced back home. I was elated to find myself being transported back to the 1920s at a social dancing night, party with some French synth pop artists, and even get into Berlin’s famously exclusive nightclub, Berghain.
Typically, an airport tarmac is filled with airplanes, luggage transport cars, and people directing plane traffic. Berlin’s Tempelhof deviates from this airport norm, however. In 2008, in an effort to reduce air traffic in Berlin, the airport closed down. Since then, the airport has been turned into a space for large fairs, tradeshows, and festivals. Berliners have also reclaimed the Tempelhof as a park, but the people of Berlin had to take to the streets to keep this space open for public use.
Initially, the city mayor had the vision to build a shopping center, condominiums, and plazas in the big empty plot. These plans were quickly extinguished. As I’ve written before, the people of Berlin despise such gentrification and they protested against it.
When I travel in big cities, I love to gain insight into the city’s culture by seeing what’s for sale at local flea markets. In Berlin, I visited one small and one large flea market event on consecutive Sundays. But if you’re not tired out from the first, you could easily visit both in one day!
Sundays in the south of Friedrichshain-District, there is a small flea market circling a “box” or block. Make it your first stop, but give yourself enough time! I told my buddy Frank to meet me in half an hour so I’d have time to make my way around. By about half way through, I had to quicken my pace and skip over a lot in order to meet him on time. There was just so much to see!
The night marked the first of Berlin’s 10th annual Festival of Lights. Buildings all over the city are lit up with colorful lights and video displays. Most of the city gets into it beyond just these buildings. Tree-lined blocks are lit up by colorful lights and neon cars for hire will pull you all over the city to visit each landmark’s light show.
I was lucky enough to be in town for its opening ceremony and planned to meet a bunch of random couchsurfers who were organizing to meet for it. So far in my travels, I’ve found couchsurfing events to be a fun and easy way to meet local and foreign others while traveling solo. This was the first night I learned how these meetups can go awry.
Is it one month since I last checked in already? Two months ago, I left American soil to travel around the world for a year. And two nights ago, I pulled out my SILK sleeping bag to use at a hostel in Bangkok and was reminded of the first week of my trip—the last time I had used it regularly. At the beginning of September, I spent 6 days traveling Iceland’s Ring Road staying in hostels with a French Canadian and a Swede. The SILK sleeping bag has become a sort of symbol of the first week of my travels around Iceland.
Since then, I have spent 6 weeks traveling all over Germany. I mostly stayed in the lap of luxury—with family and friends who had plenty of linens (and so much generosity!) to spare. Then, after a near-empty, but long flight on Thai Airways from Munich to Bangkok, I treated myself to a nice hotel for two nights. Even for my first week in Thailand living in a bungalow on Ko Tao, I found I didn’t need my sleeping bag—it was too hot for it! I only needed to pull it out again at the hostel in Bangkok. Being brought back full circle to my memories of Iceland seemed proper at 2 months into my journey.
I spent 2 weeks visiting Berlin where I stayed in the neighborhood of Kreuzberg. I walked all over this neighborhood and got to know it very well. Walking around there, I couldn’t help but notice all of the amazing street art everywhere I looked. While I could admire the street art for what it was, I knew absolutely nothing about any of it. Who did it? Were they allowed to paint there or was it illegal? Is it valued by locals or seen as a defamation of property?
ll of these questions and more were, thankfully, answered by going on a free (tip-based) walking tour with Alternative Berlin. This tour was perfect for getting an authentic, off-the-beaten path understanding of the Kreuzberg neighborhood and culture. Guided by an Australian turned Kreuzberger/Berliner, I learned so many stories about the counter-culture and community of Kreuzberg, including its street art, squatter settlements, neighborhood resistance against capitalism and authority, and much more. I gained so much respect for Berlin and its people as a result of the knowledge I gained from this tour. So I am very excited to finally get to share these stories now!
I ate and drank so many new foods in Germany, I already had to start describing some of it in previous posts, like the weisswurst mit brezn I had at Oktoberfest or the flammkuchen I had at the Rhein in Flammen. But there was so much more!
As a foodie on the road, I always want to try the foods unique to the place I am visiting. While German food is incredibly hearty and tasty, I’ve learned there is such a thing as too much of a good thing! I am fairly well known among friends and family for eating very healthy (when I’m at home). For breakfast, I typically eat a very light meal of yogurt and granola or cereal. On weekends I have egg and a small slice of toast. Germans, on the other hand, go wild with bread!
When I realized my trip to Germany was perfectly timed with the annual Oktoberfest, I knew I had to go. As a New Yorker, and specifically a former resident of Astoria known for its Bavarian beer gardens, I was already well aware of what Oktoberfest is all about: drinking beer. But my visit to Oktoberfest in Munich, the birthplace of the event, proved I was only partially correct. Although copious amounts of beer are consumed, Oktoberfest involves so much more than just the beer!
Oktoberfest, locally known as Wiesn, began over 200 years ago when Prince Ludwig (later King Ludwig I) and Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen were married. The celebration of their marriage took place on the same field as the festival in Munich today but with horse races as the main attraction. When they repeated the horse races the following year the event was dubbed Oktoberfest. Each year that followed, more shows, attractions, and carnival booths were added to the festival.
“Do you want to go camping this weekend?” my friend Steffi asked me. The message came a few days before my return to Frankfurt after a week-long visit with family split between the two German cities, Bielefeld and Cologne. By chance, Steffi had found out the last of five Rhein in Flammen events of the year would be taking place the weekend I would be staying with them. Rhein in Flammen is an annual event every year in the summer involving fireworks and wine festivals at different locations along the banks of the Rhine.
My cousin Frankziska and her husband Stephan and I were out for the day walking around Bielefeld, Germany’s 19th largest city known for its University. We had just visited Sparrenberg, a castle built before the 1250s and mostly destroyed in WWII. The castle had been rebuilt and you can still see parts of the original structure on the grounds and if you take a tour of the cellar. I enjoyed this castle mostly because the views of Bielefeld were beautiful, and also because of its very typical castle look & feel. Sparrenberg felt a little like a Camelot but maybe that’s because there were two men practicing sword play below near the castle walls. The nerd in me was thrilled to watch them.
Whew! What a month!
Today marks one month since I left the United States to embark on my year of traveling the world. I made it to Iceland for a whirlwind journey around the whole country and then flew to Germany 10 days later where I am located at present. Suddenly, time has seemed to go by incredibly fast. In the same breath, I look back astonished at how much I have done in what is actually a very short time.
Here are just some of the things I have already written about doing.
I have seen and done so much in Germany since I arrived here nearly 3 weeks ago, it’s difficult to determine where to begin writing about my second country on the year of deviation tour. I’ve traveled from Bielefeld to Cologne to Frankfurt to Munich to Regensberg – and that’s just half of my time here so far!
Instead of going chronologically, I’ve decided to do some highlights starting with a list about things you must do in the city of Cologne (Köln). I spent 3 days staying with relatives in a small town about a 30-minute train ride into the city center. Cologne was mostly destroyed in WWII, but some historic gems remain, and many modern sights and cultural features together make Cologne a great introduction city to Germany.
After dropping off the rental car and checking into our hostel in Reykjavik, I had a few hours to spend before the backpackers from Akureyri would be back in town. I took the opportunity to wander and see more of the streets of Reykjavik. I wanted to get a better feel for the city and pick up a few small souvenirs to bring to my hosts in Germany from the shops along Laugavegur. Here are a few highlights.
