nomad4ever

I usually don’t use Money Changers at all. Other than the ones at Singapore’s Changi Airport or big, official Banks with receipts and all I just don’t trust them. It’s what you read and hear, that most of the time people get cheated or aren’t paid the agreed rates or simply have less money at the end, then what they bargained for. The next episode only confirmed those worries:

Over the last 3 weeks we had some visitors from Germany and Singapore. Driving around the Island it became almost inevitable that someone had to change their cash EURO oder Singapore Dollar into the local currency Rupiah.

written by Chris

Keep you in the dark
You know they all pretend
Keep you in the dark
And so it all began…

written by Chris

When Adolf Hitler chose the Swastika Symbol for his National Socialist German Workers Party, better known as NSDAP or the Nazi party, he was actually already a failed Politician. He was involved in the Munich Beer Hall Putsch (Coup) of 1923, but got arrested 3 days later and had to spend 8 months in jail.

There he came up with his ‘infamous’ book “Mein Kampf”, in which he laid out his racist agenda, to eradicate most if not all of the Jews, other ‘Races’, like the Sinti and Roma ‘Gypsies’ and other inconvenient people. He formulated his plans to conquer most parts of Europe to get more ‘living space’ or ‘Lebensraum’ for the German Volk.

written by Chris

There was this guy who painted this picture to mark the toilet entrances for male and female in Vang Vien, Laos. He obviously smoked too much Marihuana, as he couldn’t remember, which side was for which gender.

Nothing unusual so far. Not in Vang Vien.

But laziness comes with it as well. So instead of starting all over again, drawing a new picture – he just switched the sides ‘top-side-down’.

Uhhhh – done! That wasn’t that hard, was it?

written by Chris

Wanted to share with you quickly some interesting reads I found recently on the web:

The Case For De-Cluttering Your Life Right Now

Over at Brave New Traveler, which always has great, original and inspiring write-ups about travel in the 21st century, Jenn DiPiazza wrote a great article about the ‘hoarding and gatherers instinct’, which is still somehow in most of us. The thing is that we collect more and more ‘stuff’ during our life, which makes us more ‘im-mobile’ and fixed to a certain location. You amass a lot of useless things, waste plenty of money and end up needing more and more space for it.

written by Chris

On the Philippine Island of Bohol, just South of Cebu in the Central Visayas, there is a ‘Magical Place on Earth’. An Area of low, conical and dome-shaped hills, known as the Chocolate Hills. They are an unusual geological formation which is composed of almost 1.300 perfectly cone-shaped hills of various sizes (30-120 meters high), spread over an area of more than 50 square kilometers.

These Hills are covered with a carpet of rough grasses that are green when it rains but turn brown during the dry season, between February and May – hence, the name. They look so perfectly shaped that one can easily get the idea, that they are man-made.

written by Chris

I know that religion is a controversial subject but a powerful force in the lives of many. Just sometimes a little prayer is all that it takes, right?

Here we go again. Oha – I’m proudly presenting the official prayers for all major faiths, to prevent your aircraft from crashing down.

It’s up to you to decide, if you prefer to pray – or crash (sleep) it out in your seat until you arrive.

These ‘Invocations’ were taken from the Inflight Manual of Garuda Airlines; but I’ve seen them with most Middle Eastern and some Western Airlines as well (only English texts here):

written by Chris

When I was going to Singapore for my bi-annual Visa Run last week, I brought my Laptop with me, because it showed occasionally some flickery display. Sometimes white colours would turn into green light shining through the LCD, pretty strange behavior. Looked like a cable inside the thing was loose or not properly installed. No problem, I thought – still warranty. Down at the Asus Service Center in ‘The Adelphi’, right next to Funan IT Mall, I unsuccessfully tried to to reproduce the Error for the Service Staff to see – when disaster stroke.

written by Chris