I have just uploaded a bunch of picures of the last weeks and the gallery is now up-to-date:

Malaysia
- Kuala Lumpur
- Melaka (Malacca)

Singapore

India
- Kolkata
- Varanasi

In the next couple of days I will write some blog posts about my journey in these places.

Yesterday I witnessed the arrival of the monsoon for the second time in the last fortnight, this time in Varanasi (aka Banaras|Kashi).

I was walking in a small lane, half way from my guesthouse to my tabla teacher, when I had to stop to take some pictures of the incoming clouds. You can see the result on the right. Shortly after that shot it started to pour down like crazy and despite my umbrella I got soaked from head to toe within seconds, the contents of my wallet and my travel notes suffered the most. Within minutes the lanes were transformed into torrents. Luckily my camera did survive, but I did not dare to take pictures during the downpour.
Today I saw a picture in the morning paper taken at the Dasaswamedh Ghat (also called Main Ghat). It showing massive amounts of water rushing down the steps of the ghat. It looks incredible.

When I was sitting there soaked to the skin, I thought at least the lanes will be clean afterwards. But it did not stay like that for long. Just a few hours after the rains stopped, the lane looked again like a garbage dump. This is one of the things in India I will never be able to understand, how can one do this to ones own living space?

found in the toilet of the Raggae Bar, Kuala Lumpur

At the moment I am sitting in the Farang Bar in Chumphon, waiting for my train which should bring me over the border to Malaysia.

I plan to be in Singapore in 2 weeks. There I will hopefully meet my friends Kai and Emilia.

On the way I plan to stop in Georgetown (Penang), Kuala Lumpur, and Malacca (Melaka). You can always check where I am and what my ever changing plans are on the Map.

On my last day in Nepal I picked up a book titled Mistress of Spices of the writer Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. I remember that I picked up an advertisement flyer at an Indian superstore in Zurich for the movie with the same title and with Aishwarya Rai as heroine. Back then it failed to catch my interest.

At that time I did not knew that the movie script is written after a book. When I saw this book in a second hand bookstore, it made me curious and I bought it. I did not regret it, it is one of the best books I have read during the last seven months of traveling.

It is a story about witchcraft and magic, about tragedies and loss, about a secret order of sorcerers who try to help with ailments and problems of people in disguise of old shopkeeper women in spiceshops, and finally about the longing for forbidden love.

I am to lazy to write a real review, if you are interested, you can always ask google or read the reviews on amazon

After a couple of days in Bangkok (crazy place, and quite “dangerous” for single male travelers…) I moved on directly to the island Koh Tao in the Gulf of Thailand.

Here I started scuba diving again, after 7 years of forced abstinence because of insufficient funds. It feels absolutely phantastic to be under water again! So far I went diving every day (there is not much else to do here anyway besides diving and partying, and I am not that much into the latter). Tomorrow I will complete my 50th dive, would be nice to spot a whaleshark on that occasion to celebrate my scuba diving career

Now I really regret that I have only calculated one month for Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore, I would love to stay longer and check the diving sites next to peninsular Malaysia at Pulau Perhentian or to make a trip to Borneo. I checked if I can change the flight date, but it is not possible with these ultra lowcost tickets. The only way to stay longer would be to let the tickets expire and book a new one way ticket. Lets see what I feel like when I reach Singapore…

btw that is me in the picture