A hike through Germany

Why hike in Germany? Well, after travelling around the world twice it has been a while since I have done any extensive hiking in Germany and I have simply gotten homesick a bit. I have enjoyed or "suffered" through camping in swamps, deserts, limb-dropping eucalyptus trees and tropical jungle - now I just want to be in simple German pine forests. No 40 Celsius temperatures, no 90% humidity and please, no tropical thunderstorms. Just normal German spring weather.

It also fits well into my schedule. I need some time to prepare my upcoming trips. The time window for the Yukon thrupaddle is very narrow, too - we do not have much choice other than to start around June 1st. And that left me with about 1 1/2 months time before flying to Alaska. Not enough time for a long exotic trip, but definitely enough for a little hike through my home country. And then other things fell into place as well: I wanted to visit my Swiss paddling partner for a long planning weekend. He lives close to the German border which then became a natural starting point for my hike: Waldshut-Tiengen. The finishing point was easy as well: I want to visit an Austrian hiking friend of mine (whom I had seen last at the very beginning of all my travels back in May 2008) and so I wanted to end up as close as possible to her in Germany which meant Passau as the finishing point.

Having decided on the two termini of my hike I now just had to find trails between them. Actually this turned out to be easier than expected. The first point of consideration was that I would be hiking in spring and therefore all high alpine routes could be excluded. Instead I would go for the low mountain ranges in Southern Germany. One website proofed to be incredibly helpful for planning this trip: http://www.wanderbares-deutschland.de/ This website not only describes almost all longer hiking trails in Germany, but also shows them on an interactive map. For most trails there even is an English description. I just had to link existing trails together. When I planned the whole route in Mapsource for my Garmin GPS another website came in very handy: http://www.wanderkompass.de/ On this website you can upload gpx tracks for almost all long trails in Germany - for free! This was kind of a new approach for me: Before I had just embarked on one long-distance trail about 1,000 km or longer. As most long distance trails worldwide are maintained by some sort of voluntary organisation trip planning has generally been very easy. Just get in touch with the relevant organisation - mostly just through their website - order maps and guidebooks there, ask them all the questions you have and off you go. This time was different as I had to piece together my own route and consequently planning took much longer. Still it was a fun process and now that I have the practice I will do the same thing for my UK thruhike...

But back to Germany - this is the route I am planning to do and it can be downloaded here in wikiloc:



I will start out in Waldshut-Tiengen on the Mittelweg up through the Black Forest to St. Georgen (100 km) and then go eastward on the Querweg Lahn-Rottweil to Rottweil and then freestyle up the the Swabian Alb (40 km). There I connect with the Schwaebische Alb Nordrandweg and follow that almost all the way northeast to Harburg (323 km). This is where the Frankenweg starts and I will hike that about 150 km up to Holnstein where I change onto the Jurasteig. The Jurasteig is followed eastwards for about 70 km. Then I connect to an old pilgrimage trail for 50 km before eventually joining the Goldsteig, which will lead me 253 km through the Bavarian Forest all the way to Passau. Garmin mapsource tells me that this route is exactly 972 km long! This will take me about 1 month and depending on how much time I have left (that means how many people / castles / museums I will visit on the way) I will even continue into Austria. There is a new long-distance trail along the river Danube from Passau to Grein called Donausteig that would be another 140 km. And in a last push I could continue on to Krems a.d. Donau where my friend lives on the Waldviertel Weitwanderweg (130 km). I definitely want to get to Passau, anything further than that is an extra bonus. But after reading about (and remembering!) the famous Austrian sweets like "Marillenknoedel" or "Kaiserschmarrn" (I won't translate that - have a look at the linked website or even better: you just eat it) I have a great incentive to continue hiking.

Two more weeks of fattening myself up in Germany - and then my tent will be my home again.

A lot of work back in Berlin

I am back in Berlin and have 5 weeks to prepare my next adventures. As usual the first problem has been logistics. Luckily friends had found me a place to stay and even bought and installed a laptop for me. It still took almost a week before everything was running smoothly: Get the bare necessities out of my selfstorage unit, find a German SIM card for my cell phone and lap top to be able to communicate, download programmes onto the new laptop, get health insurance for Germany etc.

It is amazing how many little things have piled up in the 14 months that I have been away and that have to be done now: I had to go through the mail of 14 months (luckily not that much), do my tax declaration (I even got money back from the tax authorities) and look after my bank affairs - and seeing several doctors. The dentist could not find anything, my eye doctor said I am still seeing fine and the yearly cancer screening was negative, too. My biggest concern was a constant pain in my right hip that had been accompanying me since the road walks in Florida and that got worse after I had stopped hiking. Being a hypochondriac I could already see the end of my hiking career due to osteoarthrosis, but luckily my friend Wulf directed me to a chiropractor. I had never been to one and actually had never believed in them either. But this guy examined me, performed a completely painless joint reduction and now, a couple of days later, the pain is almost completely gone! Well, my shoulder is hurting now instead.... but never mind. Seriously now: My visit at the chiropractor's has been an epiphany for me. Before, I had only consulted orthopedic doctors and they usually gave me bad news. One recommended glucasamine injections into my knees (which I had luckily declined and the pain went away anyways) and others have predicted an artificial hip joint at age 65 (I am only 43 now, so we will see...). Only the chiropractor had actually done something that brought immediate relief.

And now I am mostly sitting in front of my computer. It feels really nice and decadent to be inside all the time even when the sun is shining outside and half of Berlin is sitting in an open air cafe. But there is a lot of planning to do for three different trips:

• hike through Germany (about 1,000 km)
• thrupaddle of the Yukon River (about 3,000 km)
• hike through the UK (about 2,000 km)

For the two hikes I had to download maps and plan the routes in Garmin mapsource. Because I am mostly piecing together existing long-distance trails  I can often download gpx tracks from the internet and link them together. But I do not want to rely in my GPS device alone in the field. In 2010 two devices broke without warning and left me standing in the rain. Therefore I will carry guidebooks and/or maps for my European hikes, too. And this is why I have been pilferring my existing maps and guidebooks and bought a lot of new stuff. Some maps I had to print out. Of course everything has to be lightweight and so I cut out pages and copy on back sides of print outs and so on.

Equally important are logistics: Where en route are grocery stores (especially my favourite Lidl!) and outdoor shops in order to buy new gas cannisters? How do I get to the terminus and back to Berlin again? Is there anything interesting to see along the trail? Are there any friends and acquaintances that I could visit? Are there any potential couchsurfing hosts for rest days? All that involves a lot of internet research.

Then there is gear maintenance and replacement and here I have been especially lucky: First of all Colin, a British UL hiker whom I had met on the AZT, has asked me to "test hike" his new UL back pack - and therefore I will get a brand new and very interesting new back pack for free. And then even more amazing I was given an almost brand new Tarptent as a present! I had been posting on a German UL hiking forum and when a forum member realised I was about to buy a new TT Rainbow he offered to give me his as a present - just because he likes what I am doing! And I had never even talked or seen this guy before...thank you so much! Still I had to do a lot of research and buy new gear especially for the upcoming paddling trip as I do not have any paddling specific equipment like neoprene gloves or life jackets . The room I am living in looks like a mess: guidebooks, maps and hiking equipment are strewn all over the place and even I sometimes lose orientation.

Preparing the upcoming trip is almost like working again, although I love this kind of work. But I also do some recreational stuff and visit or call all old friends and family. Being culturally deprived after 14 months on the road I love to visit theatre plays and museums. And the very best is that I can go shopping at my beloved Lidl and Aldi (which are just 2 blocks from where I am living now) every day and eat German chocolate, real bread, cheese and butter all the time. I definitely have to go hiking soon or I will become overweight.

The long way home

I did not fly straight from Kuala Lumpur to Berlin but had a week-long stop over in Great Britain. First I flew into London-Stansted where European reality hit me again. I had always complained about the inefficiency of Malaysian public transport, but now I had to realise that Europe is not much better. It took me 5 hours from leaving the plane to getting to my couchsurfing host in London.

Colin May 2010 in Arizona

Passport control for European citizens is automatized in Stansted. You have to put your passport onto a scanner, then your face will be scanned and compared with your passport picture. Sounds very efficient, but took twice as long as dealing with a human immigration officer. Shuttle buses here were on time, but all full - and therefore I had to wait 45 minutes in the cold in a long bus queue. Things got worse when I got into London Tube. Due to a bomb threat and/or flooding trains were not running on all lines and I had to make great detours. And of course, there are no public phones inside the tube to call my couchsurfing host and tell her that I would be late. Leaving Kuala Lumpur I had been very relaxed, but 3 hours in London transport turned me into a nervous wreck.... Luckily I had a very nice and understanding couchsurfing host!

Colin March 2011 in Scotland

After 2 short days of sightseeing in London I took the train up to Edinburgh in order to meet Colin. I had met Colin and his later partner Kimberlie on the AZT in May 2010. We had always stayed in contact and now Colin had asked me to be the test hiker (or guinea pig) for his new UL backpack. Of course this was an offer I could not resist.... Also Colin had hiked John O'Groats to Land's End in the UK and had offered to help me planning my UK thruhike. And therefore I travelled all the way to Scotland for a long weekend of trail talk - which turned out to be a long weekend of ME talking because Colin had such a sore throat that he could hardly speak....Bad luck, but we still got all the planning done. And then, after a day of sightseeing in freezing cold Edinburgh I eventually headed back to Berlin.

Malaysia: Kuala Lumpur

In the bird park

 I will fly back to Europe tomorrow - hurray!!!! I am ready for it! The last town I stayed in was Kuala Lumpur. And although Kuala Lumpur is definitely not the most interesting or exciting place on earth, it has been quite nice here. I have found a cheap and quiet hostel and having so much time left I visited any crappy museum or crocodile farm that there is here.

I think I have never seen so many zoos, butterfly and bird parks, crocodile farms and aquariums in my entire life before. In Kuala Lumpur alone I went to a bird park, an aquarium, a National zoo with Butterfly Park and a Hibiscus Garden. But I liked it - especially the bird and "multi-animal" shows, where cockatoes  were rising Malaysian flags and cycling on little bird bicycles...

But other than that there was not really much to do except to hang out in posh shopping malls - and there are loads of them. And to my big surprise they are all full, too! Luckily they usually have nice food courts.

My favourite mall

A last highlight was my visit to the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra. I was very much surprised to find out that there even is such a thing. And I was very delighted to hear that the cheapest ticket is just 4 EUR. But there was one thing I had not expected: There is serious dress code for any concerts. When you buy a ticket you are even given a little piece of paper with the details: No slippers, flip-flops or sneakers, no shorts, no jeans, no T-shirts! Great! With my hiker outfit that did not leave a lot of options - especially shoe wise. But I was assured that I could borrow a pair of shoes for free - and so I bought a ticket and went to a concert featuring Britten and Bruckner. I nearly made it inside without my sneakers being spotted, but in the last minute I was called back and had to get "decent" shoes. They actually had quite a big variety, but no woman's shoe would fit me - and so I ended up with black men's shoes. I would not have won a fashion contest before my shoe change, but afterwards I looked outright ridiculous. But at least I was allowed into the concert. Most of the musicians were Europeans or Americans. Even the conductor was German. And half of the audience was expats as well. But it was a nice change to be in a classical concert again, that's for sure.

Petronas Towers

After my concert visit I discovered that cinema tickets are even cheaper at 3 EUR and so I spent my last evening watching movies - something I never do in Germany. And because there are only about 23 million Malaysians, it is not worth dubbing the movies and therefore they are all in English - great!

Despite all these distractions I was really ready to leave in the end. I was counting days and stretching out my sightseeing options. And finally, on March 2nd I boarded my cheap Air Asia flight (Kuala Lumpur to London Stansted for only 144 EUR!) and went back to Europe... where I am now freezing my butt off!!!

Malaysia and the Islam

One of the things I was really worried about in Malaysia was the influence of Islam. I have travelled in other Muslim countries before and mostly it has not been much fun for a single female. Malaysia is officially a Muslim country, but being such an ethnical mixture it is a pretty relaxed country. Almost half of the population is non-Muslim: The Chinese and Indian.

Malaysian War Memorial

 So let me start with the positive thing: Malaysia really is a very relaxed country. I did not get any of the aggressive hassling I had encountered in North Africa. Actually, I was not hassled at all. But on the other hand I have seen a lot of women in head scarves - and that always makes me feel uneasy. I talked to a Malaysian woman about the headscarf and got a very interesting answer: Malaysian woman like the scarf because this way they do not have to worry about their hair cut!!! Whether this is true or not - I cannot tell.... At least the women here wear bright and colourful scarves and dresses. Only occasionally you see a woman in a full black burkha - and those women are obviously not Malaysian, but Saudi women on a holiday in Malaysia. You only see them in posh shopping malls...

After visiting loads of Malaysian museums I realised another interesting thing. In photos taken before the 1980's Muslim women hardly ever wear headscarves. But after that - up to today - every official portrait of a Muslim woman shows her with a headscarf. On the other hand Chinese women in Malaysia are running around very "lightly" clad here - they would arouse curious stares even in Europe!

Every bigger town has some sort of Islamic museum where you can learn about the Muslim way of life. Mostly these museums are pretty boring, but Kuala Lumpur has a huge Islamic Art Museum that was really fascinating. I was really impressed - until I starting browsing the books in the gift shop. To my big surprise there were a lot of books in English, even children's books. To my great horror I read in a children's picture book that a true Muslim must hate "Jews, Christians and others who are in the way of Islam". Things got even worse when I went to the adult section and started reading a book about how to become a pious Muslim woman: I learnt that a Muslim husband can beat his wife if she does not obey. I also learnt that a Muslim woman should never give birth in a hospital because she might be seen and touched by male doctor there. Luckily they closed the bookshop then before I could read more and get even more upset!


This photo shows an exhibit in the Malay police museum. This innocent looking handkerchief has been confiscated by the police because if you fold it in right way it shows a pornographic picture.... I don't think that many Westerners would go for such a subtle pornography.

Today I went to the Art Museum and there I was expecting a lot of critical modern art, especially some critical outlook on Muslim fundamentalism. But to my big surprise there was absolutely nothing in that direction. Most art works even had an explicit artist's statement - so I am quite sure I did not miss anything. Instead of seeing some critical statements on fundamentalism I was totally surprised to the complete opposite. One artist talked about  "Zionist attacks" on innocent Muslims all over the Muslim world and some installations were even glorifying Koran texts. A lot of artists called themselves "Muslim" artists. There were hardly any female artists exhibited.

Jungle Trekking: I am defeated

I have just come back from my second attempt in jungle trekking and I am not ashamed to confess that I got utterly defeated again!!! This is the hardest hiking I have ever done in my entire life and I have no inner urge whatsoever to try again now. I am just not made for this climate. So what happened?

Pitcher plant

After suffering from bronchitis for over 10 days now I thought I had sufficiently recovered to try some hiking again. I went to Bako National Park which is just outside of Kuching and the major tourist attraction in this area. The park is all jungle, but bordering the sea and is supposed to have some nice beaches. When I arrived I encountered the first bad surprise: Despite low season all accommodation was fully booked. I had my tent with me and could have camped at the official campsite, but the whole place did not look too nice and was more or less completely flooded.

But I remembered reading in my guidebook that there is a nice beach at the other end of the Park where you can camp for free. I enquired about it and was even told that there are even shelters there - great in these torrential downpours that my tent would probably not withstand. It is only 13 km from the park entrance to that beach and it was only 10 am - so no problem. Well, that is what I thought... I would normally hike 13 km in a bit more than 3 hours... here the trip was rated 8 hours!!!

Pitcher plant

I set out and realised that I was just doing 2 km per hour - and I had to take constant breaks. The climate here is very difficult to describe - the combination of heat and humidity is a real killer. As soon as you start the slightest movements you start sweating. Just from walking you will sweat so profusely that the water is constantly dripping down from your face. All your clothes are soaked. But on top of the climate you also have to deal with really difficult terrain - a constant steep up and down. The trail is overgrown and the blow down palm trees all have thorns. And I have a backpack to prove it, as I ripped it more in these 2 days than in the whole 12 months before. If you slip and try to get hold of something it will very likely have thorns. And I have lots of scratches to prove that, too. But worst of all everything is slippery, real slippery. Everything is wet and overgrown. If you step on a rock, you will probably slip.

After 4 hours and only 6 km I thought first of turning back, but I still could not believe that I am not able of hiking 13 km and I pushed on. I got down to 1 km in 45 minutes and got weaker and weaker every minute. I had to take breaks every 500 m. I was physically just not able to hike on - I had to sit down, drink water and recover for 10 minutes before I could attempt the next couple of hundred meters. After 6 hours and 8,2 km I realised that I would not make it. I was so weak that I could hardly walk straight anymore. I was sweating like a pig but was shivering at the same time. Being a hypochondriac I assumed I was either suffering from a Malaria attack or a heart attack was imminent. Neither option sounded good. I could not do another 5 km to get to the beach and the shelter, but turning back was equally bad. I was in the middle of the jungle and everything was completely overgrown and steep. I did not remember seeing any feasible camp site. I almost panicked and started hiking back. I had not even managed one km back when I realised that I was about to collapse. This had never in my entire hiking career happened before. I was just too weak to continue - physically impossible.

Wild bearded pig

To make things worse a thunderstorm was approaching. I had to do something now and quick. This was an emergency and I considered camping on the trail which is a really bad option. First of all animals use the trail as well and I did not want to be overrun by a band of wild pigs. Also when it rains here the whole trail changes into a river bed. I was getting desperate and managed to make it to the top of a small hill. At least here the water would not wash me away. And then I got lucky!!! I saw a tiny little clear and flat spot in the jungle. I tried to clear it as good as possible - I was so weak that I had to hold on to the trees in order not to collapse. The terrain was difficult and it took me forever to set up the tent with thunder rolling above me. When the tent was finally standing I just got inside and collapsed. I was so weak I did not even have the strength to inflate the Thermarest. I was afraid I would be sweating inside the tent, but the temperature was bearable. As long as I did not move I was hot, but at least not sweating. And after one hour of rest I felt recovered enough to force myself to eat something. I then also realised what had caused my collapse: I was still suffering from bronchitis and could not stop coughing. I think my body had not gotten enough oxygen while hiking in this vicious climate.

Pitcher plant

I was lying in my tent thinking that things were not so bad after all: The rain had just turned out to be a drizzle, my campsite was quite good and I felt almost totally recovered. But then I looked out of my tent and could not believe my eyes: My backpack, my shoes and the front of my tent were all covered with giant ants!!!! These ants were huge - over 1 cm long!! I have never seen anything like this. And they were all over my stuff. Luckily my tent is fully enclosed and they could not get in, but they were so big that I was worried they would actually bite through the tent material. And how would I get out of the tent in the morning without being bitten? I watched the horror ants for a while and discovered that they were just after salt. They were all over my sweaty backpack and shoes, but they left my trash bag alone. Eventually I fell asleep from pure exhaustion.

In the morning I was dreading to look outside, but when I did all the ants were all gone!!! I never knew that some ants are night active only. I packed up and faced a long walk back. At least now I had a full day for 8 km. I walked slowly and took a long break every km. Now that I knew how difficult the trail is and how bad my bronchitis I took it easy - and that paid off. It still took me a long time to get back, but I was not nearly as exhausted as the day before. I made it back to the park entrance and finally to my guesthouse in Kuching.

Bottomline: Although my bronchitis greatly contributed to my collapse, I had to realise that I am not made for this climate. My body just does not deal very well with the heat and humidity. This has been my last attempt for jungle trekking - I will not try again.

Malaysia: The animals

As I have mentioned before there is not that much to see in Malaysia and therefore I jump to every opportunity to do some half decent sightseeing. The town of Miri does not boast many attractions, but it has a crocodile farm and there I went - not expecting much. But for once I was positively surprised.

Of course, there were crocodiles - and lots of them! They were all comfortably lounging in a wonderful mud pool in the sun. They were even sleeping with their mouths open! Only about every 10 minutes there was some movement. But after closer inspection I realised that the crocs were maybe kept a little bit too close to each other, because a big number of them had missing or invalid limbs. Apparently they had just bitten off each others legs! I was very careful not to throw my camera, wallet or other valuable things into the crocodile enclosure - I guess the staff would not be too willing to retrieve it.

Sun bear

But there was also a mini-zoo with some debatable practices. There was a little monkey and bear on a leash - for snapshots with tourists. The poor animals were frantically running back and forth within their limited little radius - a truly disheartening sight. But at least I learnt that there are bears in Malaysia - something that I had never expected. They are called sun bears and they are truly small, but have an enormously long tongue for licking up insects, termites, ants, whatever. In the zoo you just feed them bananas.

The feeding was the most interesting part of my visit. I bought bananas and set off to find out who would eat them. Result: They all eat bananas in Malaysia - only the way differs. There are of course the monkeys and they just grab their banana, peel it in split seconds and it is gone. Their social behaviour was most interesting: In one cage the alpha male chased every monkey away that tried to get a banana from me. Of course I would not give him any, but he had decided that if he doesn't get anything, nobody else should either. Reminded me a lot of some human behaviour... I spent hours and 2 kilos of bananas with the monkeys.

A week later I visited an Orang-Utan rehabilitation centre. The apes (monkeys have tails and therefore Orang-Utans are apes) are roaming freely in a huge nature reserve but usually come to the feeding area for the twice daily feeding with bananas. Of course there were loads of tourists - but also loads of apes climbing around in the jungle above. I truly regretted not having a better camera then! First the Alpha Male, a huge and very hairy guy called Ritchie had to be fed and then the rest of the group could eat as well. The babies cling to their mothers (one called Hot Mama because she bites at least one tourist per season) and the teenagers are running around catching each other. One was happily showing off his private areas for inspection and scratching his balls - making all the (human) girls giggle... Great photo shot if you have a decent camera - unlike me... The apes even drink milk out of bottles - but litter them after use!!!!