Diary of a journey to myself / The Sixth Insight

12/31/2014, Hotel room Luang Prabang

Feel like in a storage room. It's 10:00 a.m. and I actually slept well and had nice dreams. The only dream image I remember is the cheesecake with blueberries that I ate. “This is definitely the darkest and ugliest room here in Luang Prabang, overflowing with hotels, guesthouses, and inns, wanna bet?” I'm really mean to Fabian, who responds very calmly and understandingly to my complaining: “But I couldn't find another one. You forget that it's New Year's Eve today and there are probably more tourists here than usual. Probably also many locals'. The fact that it's New Year's Eve doesn't exactly improve my mood and I grumpily throw the duvet aside and stomp to the bathroom.

It's really dark in here and even though it's beautiful sunshine outside and at least 25 degrees Celsius in the shade, my mood is almost at its lowest point. Honestly, I don't really know why this windowless room makes me so angry. Maybe precisely because it's so beautiful outside and you can't see any of it in here. The room is big and spacious, elegantly furnished with a beautiful ornate colonial-style bed, matching wardrobe, chest of drawers, and armchair. There are even power outlets and a toiletry shelf in the bathroom, but no windows, again. It wasn't so bad in Hanoi, but it is here. “Why did we get this damn darkroom again? Are we just unlucky?”, I mutter to myself. “You always have something to complain about. Now we're in such a beautiful place, the sun is shining, and you finally have the temperatures you wanted. I can't change it either. Let's go have breakfast now”. While he puts on his shorts and winks at me, I only grumble, but more peacefully now: “Yes, right, as soon as I finish writing this”.

A little after 8 p.m. Back in the storage room

I think I will draw on the images I collected today, many of which I captured with my beloved tablet, for a very, very long time. Admired several gold-plated Wats adorned with the most beautiful carvings and impressive exterior and interior decorations, all just around the corner from our guesthouse. Bought a beautiful colorful bag at one of the stalls in the courtyard of the first temple, with handmade towels, bags, postcards, and mobiles, which I want to bring Sarah. Then had breakfast. My vegetarian sandwich was so delicious that Fabian had eaten half of it before his own arrived.

As compensation, he ordered us a cheesecake with blueberries, which tasted simply fantastic. We could hardly believe that it was cake that caused such a taste explosion in the palate. A true dream of a cake. It's really strange that I dreamed about it this morning. I even wrote down the dream. “And, does it taste as good as in the dream?”, Fabian beamed at me. “Especially for you, my beloved angel”. I look at him a bit suspiciously.

How could he possibly have known? I mean, how delicious the cake is or is it just a coincidence? Anyway, we enjoyed the view of the Mekong River and the small suspension bridge, where orange-robed monks strolled with umbrellas.

What a quiet, almost mystical atmosphere.

Then we continued through these pretty side streets with lots of glass mobiles and lanterns in the trees, small cafes, pagodas, temples, restaurants, and bars of this former capital of the historic kingdom of Lan Xang and the French protectorate of Laos. Until the abolition of the monarchy in Laos in 1975, this beautiful city was the royal city and rightly recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage site and one of the most important tourist destinations in the country in my opinion.

We then strolled from the city center with its two river banks and numerous connecting roads, each more beautiful than the next, and one impressive temple complex after another, to the foot of Phousi Mountain, considered the spiritual center of the city.

We climbed 329 steps up the approximately 130-meter-high hill through a palm grove, where one golden Buddha statue after another sat in the shade of the trees in a cross-legged position or lay on a large rock plateau on its side (named after each day of the week from Monday to Sunday Buddha) and lined the path up to the top temple.

Some were also squatting in a rock cave surrounded by incense sticks, seemingly waiting only for visitors like us. Maybe it was the heat that made us almost the only ones who had ventured onto this path, and I was definitely the only one who bought one of those wicker baskets with two tiny birds from one of the old women with the birdcages and carried it all the way to the top temple on the mountaintop, sweating profusely, to release the little birds there. I have no idea what this tradition is all about, but it was a nice feeling to set the little ones free there and see them fly.

It was also a nice feeling to see the happy faces of the children to whom I bought the small handmade dolls for Lasse. The 6 to 7-year-old girls beamed all over their faces when I wanted to buy five dolls for the dollhouse I had given him for Christmas, which he could really use.

I hope my grandson retains this joy and modesty that still makes him so incredibly adorable, just like the many children we have encountered here and in several other countries. It is so strikingly obvious that children who grow up in relatively poor conditions and spend a lot of time in nature or on the streets, albeit involuntarily, often seem so much more content and friendly than the children who don't know what to do with themselves in their overcrowded bedrooms.

Neither in Tunisia nor in Armenia, certainly not in Ethiopia, certainly not in Cuba, and not even in Senegal have I ever noticed children having a tantrum at the cashier because Mom or someone else didn't want to buy them the surprise egg or chocolate bar. I can't even remember ball pits in the most expensive mall in Dubai where you were supposed to pick up the howling Alisha or crying Karim. So, wealth of the parents alone is not necessarily the cause of the quarrelsome, argumentative, and simply spoiled behavior of many children in our Western culture, based on my observations. Maybe I'm too one-sided or somehow see things wrong, but based on my experiences, there is a fundamental difference between the behavior of many children from our Western culture and those from Asian, Eastern, Middle Eastern, South American, and African cultures. Admittedly, I haven't been to all countries in the world, and this statement definitely cannot be generalized, but there is something like a general trend or, I don't know how to describe it, a kind of basic mood that I find in our culture and don't like. And this doesn't just apply to children, on the contrary, I'm often like that myself. 

How often am I dissatisfied and upset about the smallest things, like this darkroom here. What caused this attitude? Why are there people who obviously have hardly the bare minimum to survive and yet are happy and share the little they have with others and are happy about it, and on the other hand, there are people who don't lack anything and still get sick with dissatisfaction, don't want others to have anything, and walk around grumpily, even though they can take their children to Ikea on Saturdays to buy the latest Dröna toy storage system.

Something is going wrong there and I would like to understand what the reason is. In any case, I am on the trail of it and the more opportunities I have to observe other people in other countries, but also in Germany, the more likely I am to find out this secret.

Lost in thought and relaxed, we ordered lemon juice and sandwiches in a small restaurant overlooking the river, and thus passed the time until we could go to the pier, where the one-hour boat ride on the Mekong was about to start, which we had quickly arranged along the road on the way back. Less nice were the increasingly darker clouds that were visible on the horizon on the way back and were now dark and threatening, letting the first raindrops fall on my cheese sandwich. “This probably won't work out with the sunset, it's starting to rain just now of all times”, I grumbled a bit grumpily about the fat clouds that were gathering more and more. “Just wait, maybe it'll stop soon”.

First, the boat went upstream past local plantations, fishing boats, and other tourist boats, while it gradually got cooler. The drizzle actually stopped and the clouds raced across the sky, which slowly turned from gray-blue to purple-blue. When the boat then turned towards the sun and sailed downstream, it slowly began to set, coloring the sky with such a spectrum of colors that I had never seen before and which would hardly have been so spectacular without the clouds, as they really brought out the contrasting colors. The sky turned blue, purple, purple, red, and finally orange before the sun disappeared completely behind the mountain on the horizon and we took numerous photos of the sunset alone and as a backdrop for some romantic selfies, which I just looked at again here in our darkroom.

I absolutely have to send these last pictures of the year 2014 home or post them on Facebook. Right now, my DJ colleague Isi sent us a song via Soundcloud with the comment that we certainly don't need any encouragement with these great photos, but now we can finally listen to the song out loud. The last time she sent us a song during a vacation, we were stuck in the hotel in San Ignacio/Belize due to continuous rain and were very disappointed that the caves were closed because of the rain, which we had traveled to this place especially to see and unfortunately couldn't. The cave called Actun Tunichil Muknal was only discovered in 1989 by Thomas Miller and was described by the Maya as Xibalba (Entrance to the Underworld). National Geographic even ranked the ATM Caves as the number one of the 10 holiest caves in the world, and many travelers we met along the way who had already visited the caves were overwhelmed and strongly urged us not to leave Belize without seeing the caves. We sat in the hotel room in San Ignacio while it was pouring outside. Isis song really cheered us up back then, and I wrote that to her, which she was happy about, in turn. Well, we don't need encouragement in that sense, but I am a little nostalgic.

In a few hours, this year comes to an end, 6 hours ahead of home. Send Thorsten and Janet, whose birthday is today, birthday wishes and a happy New Year, with the remark that I hope they also miss us a little. This is the first time we are celebrating completely on our own, without the two of them and without Sarah and Lasse, whom I am really missing at the moment. How nice would it be if you could just beam yourself home for a few hours, toast to the new year together, and then beam back here. I'm curious to see what it will be like here in a little while. In any case, I'm open to whatever may come.

I actually don't understand why my inner attitude constantly changes and I can't rely on myself, at least not my moods. Even at the restaurant this afternoon, when it briefly started to rain, that dissatisfaction was back in me and that calmness in him. He always mirrors my own inadequacy, and even though this calmness initially makes me even more irritated, I love him for this way of looking at things, even though he definitely grew up in my Western culture. So maybe it's really more a question of basic attitude towards things or accumulated experiences?

I remember a lecture by Prof. Gerald Hüther that I saw on YouTube some time ago. I have been interested in brain research ever since I read "Anna, the Dear God, and School" by Richard David Precht, in which he repeatedly refers to the research of Hüther, who in turn scientifically substantiates Precht's theories about learning or learning experiences, which he extensively describes in his book. According to Hüther, there is a superordinate pattern that controls behavior. The inner attitude or stance of a person determines how they react in certain situations, and this attitude does not arise from someone telling them how to behave, but it is the result of experiences they have made throughout their lives. Each experience has an emotional component that is activated in the right hemisphere of the brain and a cognitive component. These two networks are coupled and anchored in the brain at the moment we have an experience. And this pattern or anchoring cannot be dissolved by someone saying: Now behave differently. Stop thinking so negatively or stop being so lazy or similar. Only when the person has the opportunity to make a different experience themselves can these couplings be dissolved and they can adopt a different attitude. Against this background, I am very excited about the experiences I have yet to make. There will probably be opportunities for that, otherwise I wouldn't be here and wouldn't constantly throw myself into these adventures outside my comfort zone.

Insight No. 6:

The darker the clouds, the more beautiful the sky when the sun shines through the clouds. Without the dark, we wouldn't be able to see the light. Without sadness, the human wouldn't know what happiness is. Without the top, there would be no bottom, and without evil, we wouldn't recognize the good. Everything is interconnected and always has a counterpart. Only the contrast brings out true beauty.