max-ein-hase-auf-weltreise

During the flight from New York to Berlin, the screen displays the flight route. I zoom in with my fingers over my traveled countries and think of Rainald Grebe's song Lonely...

The Amtrak train spits me out at Penn Station. I have arrived at my destination in my world tour. Little was concrete, but Christmas in New York, the Big Apple, was something I...

Robert and I sat in the back row for biology. It was one of those basic courses that always flew by because we could pass the time with bad jokes and comments. It was also one of...

In the fictional US series The Bear, five-star chef Carmen Berzatto returns to his hometown of Chicago to save his deceased brother's sandwich shop from bankruptcy. The series is...

Traveling by train across great distances in the USA feels like a time travel. It’s the exact opposite of the meticulously timed and super punctual train journeys in China and the...

'Macksamillion?', a tall guy calls out to me from the platform as I hurriedly walk towards the bus station. Dave, my driver, has singled me out in the dark among all the...

'All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.' Following Gandalf's wisdom, I contemplate what to do with my last month of remaining travel time. I find...

Sunset

The island rock

Stationary bear bell

Fukuoka from above

'Masimian, where are you going?', asks the hostel owner in Busan as I am about to step out the door. I actually intended to go to the jjimjilbang and get a haircut there. But I...

'Do you have to fill that out?', a fellow traveler, whom I estimate to be in his early twenties, stands opposite me at the table. The Arrival Card, which I am currently filling...

China rushes past me again. I’m following the timetable for my connection from Shanghai to Beijing live. Highlighted in red it says 'delayed'. It means two minutes. Ridiculous. At...

At 302 km/h, China's hills and cities rush past me. On the screen next to the speed display of the high-speed train, propaganda videos about the civil war alternate with...

Fire Department from Taipei 101

I hold my credit card up to the scanner for the third time, but the bus driver's gaze signals to me that it is still not readable. I didn't think too much about how to get from...

Cat in Hong Kong

'Squeak, squeak, squeak.' Leo is walking ahead again in his Crocs, this time uphill. We take the motorcycle out of the barn and head to the Sunday market. It's just before 8 AM,...

It is 8:50 AM and I'm sitting in the hotel lobby. My 'Easy Rider' was supposed to pick me up twenty minutes ago. The 'Ha Giang Loop' in Vietnam near the border with China is a...

Night sky over Hanoi

My new tour guide in Ninh Binh, unlike An, doesn't even introduce herself.

Evening lantern rides in Hoi An

Scooters Why walk when you can ride a scooter? Westerners who are not leisurely strolling or shopping on the crowded sidewalks filled with mopeds, but rather purposefully...

The young driver is way too hyper for this time of day. I tumbled out of the train at half-past five. The enterprising taxi drivers welcome you immediately at the train door: 'Hoi...

Da Lat in the Rain

About exactly seven years ago, I left Saigon with a cold. Now I am entering again with a cold. Perhaps a consequence of foreign germs, long bus rides, and the two 10-hour tours...

Angkor Wat at sunrise

When you change countries as frequently as others change their bed linen, you often find yourself at train stations or airports dealing more with practical matters rather than the...

'One day it started to rain. And it didn't stop for four months. We had pretty much every kind of rain there is. Rain with small pattering drops. With really nice thick drops....