In the Beginning was the Word

In the beginning was the word: We’d been talking a lot about taking the Trans-Siberian Railway – the pronoun here encompassing my good friend Michael, my little brother Philipp and, well, myself. We had pondered, planned, but we never did it. Until we did.

Words

After the word came the feeling, of heaviness, restlessness, thirst – a knot. It was two years ago that I found myself struggling at work, changing jobs and then abruptly quitting a new business venture a mere couple of months after I’d started it. The prospect of hopping from one work engagement to another started feeling less and less right as the days went by, until one day I surprised Philipp – and myself just as much – by calling him to make the plucky proposition: “Hey, you’re just finishing university and you don’t have a job yet – take the Trans-Siberian Railway with me and travel the world a bit?” After a When?, a How long for? and 30 more seconds of suspenseful silence, he committed. And for this spontaneity I love him.

Deeds

So two months later, with a little, albeit sketchy, planning, we found ourselves sitting on the train to Vienna, Austria – our first stop.

The plan was to travel from Ketsch, a little town close to Heidelberg, in Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany – and the place we grew up – to Beijing, China, through eastern Europe, Russia and Mongolia, using no other means of transport but trains. Then on from China we would see Japan and Taiwan and Hong Kong, from where I would embark on a South East Asia trip solo while Philipp would fly back to Germany and find a job. And that is – just about – what we did.

Traveling for me – and this epiphany came with the experience - is not so much about seeing as many sights as one can; especially on these longer trips, it is more about making friends, seeing the countries through the lenses of the locals and, what turned out to be an integral factor for the both of us, eating. Trying all the local specialties there are.

During that long trip, a big first amid a myriad of short, regular vacations and a lot of business travel, for the first time I kept a diary. Well, diary is perhaps a bit of an overstatement – let’s just say I took some notes and a lot of pictures.

About

This blog is an attempt to share some of my memories, and maybe also some of the more or less useful experiences with you. But this blog is also an attempt to preserve my memories and keep their flame alight for myself. For a life without memories is no life at all.

Initially we were thinking about how to monetize going to foreign places and have fun and eat all day and quickly come up with a TV show – but I guess Philip Rosenthal beat us to that. So a website it is.

In the countries sections you’ll find travel posts sorted by region and location. It is mostly recommendations of places I liked, flavored with personal stories and experiences. There are also some food related posts, containing restaurant or food recommendations, as well as a series of posts about burgers in the various cities of the world – a thing Philipp and I had when we were traveling together and I tried to keep up after. I dedicated a section to travel’s little necessities and contains packing lists and app and travel accessory recommendations. Finally, the Misc section is for, well, random posts.

While the first entries are taking shape, feel free go ahead and take a look at the accompanying Instagram feed.

Enjoy, maybe with the first article, bun or bus – and please don’t hesitate to criticize!