Having grown considerably over the last couple of years, couchsurfing now claims to have more than 4 millions members in over 80,000 cities. With it’s unusual concept of free accommodation the company also gets the occasional media appearance. Couchsurfing states its mission as promoting inter-cultural understanding, but what sticks with many people is the free accommodation. Mainly the ‘free’ part. In a city like Bangkok the hosts (i.e. people who provide a place to stay) get flooded with requests while ’locals to hang out with’ might only get one request per month.

My current home is a very maritime place and as it happens with such, there is ships coming around quite often. Last weekend the sailing ship ‘Alexander von Humboldt II’ (the first is still afloat as well) was one of them. It was built less than a year ago in nearby Bremen as a training vessel for traditional seamanship. My brother has spent weeks on the ships’ predecessor and eventually became a regular in the crew.

In direct comparison with the D40, the S95 has a few aces up its sleeve as well. The D40 is one of the smallest and lightest DSLRs on the market but still weighs almost four times as much as the S95 (750g vs 200g). Not to mention that it doesn’t exactly fit into the pocket of my pants. During my travels there is hardly a moment where I am without camera.

Since the last summer I have learnt a lot about photography and about cameras as well. I saw a lot of my pictures from a new angle and realised the limitations of my compact camera, a Canon Powershot S95. It is an excellent camera but there are some limitations of the compact format that even a camera that good can not overcome. Thus at the end of my stay in NZ I spent a whooping NZD 280 (USD 225, EUR 170) on a used Nikon D40 DSLR with an 18-55 kit lens.

To whatever place I carried my backpack so far, I always wrote about the local food. My home country shall be no exception to that. One of the most unsual (visually) dishes prepared in northern German kitchens is Labskaus. Basically unknown to the south of Germany, this traditional seaman’s dish always creates a raised eyebrow when served to somebody who hasn’t savoured it before. “I haven’t eaten it before but it sure looks like I did” is a common remark.

This is a little follow up to last week’s post about the risks of travelling in SEA. Recently published numbers revealed that every year smoking takes a toll of 140,000 dead in Germany. Alcohol is responsible for another 74,000. Traffic accidents in Thailand kill 13,700 per year in a slightly smaller population. Per 100,000 population the death counts for Germany are: - Smoking: 175 - Alcohol: 92.5 - Traffic: 4.5 - Medical malpractice: 2.

Every now and then I had a chat with monks in SEA and never before have I come across religious persons so easy to get along with. They are curious, friendly and never made the slightest attempt to push their beliefs on me. Being a monk is not a life-long commitment, many young men leave the temples when they have finished their education. Others join at a later age but are not required to stay till the end of their days either.

Asking people from Australia for their reason to go to Europe, a common answer is ‘To see old stuff’. As the country had no influence from the western world before the 18th century, they lack all those castles and picturesque villages the Middle Ages brought forth in Europe. One of these old places is Bad Bederkesa, which has been around for some 900 years now. When the place grew, the need for a castle arose and building such a castle was always a lengthy endeaveour.

Two weeks after my return I am getting used to being back in Germany. Culture and climate shock are mostly resolved and I feel more comfortable than I initially feared. My tenant contacted me, telling me he’d leave my flat by the end of May. That’s a bit of a bummer as I’ll be living out of a backpack for another six weeks. I was hoping to get settled a bit earlier.

Safety is still a big issue when travelling in developing countries. When I told people I was going to Cambodia, I was asked “Are you sure that’s safe to do?” more than once. By my experience people think mostly about diseases and crimes when they think about safety in developing countries. It is an important point but needs to be considered in relation. The intentional homicide rate in Thailand for example is six times as high as in western Europe.