"The World Is My Kingdom" King_Golo's Profile

Hiya!

Welcome to my travel pages! My name is Golo, I live in Oxford, England but am originally from Kassel, Germany. However, I spent most of the last decade living, studying and working in Chemnitz, Germany.

Travelling the world is a passion of mine: I love getting to know other parts of the world, the more different from Germany the better. So far, my travels have taken me to quite some places (see the list below). I was lucky to have had the chance to work in Hanoi, Vietnam, for six months. Another six months of my life were spent in Tartu, Estonia, where I studied for one semester in 2003 and worked for six weeks in 2006.

In my opinion, every country is worth visiting. That's why I would like to see as many of them as possible. Believe me: There's beauty everywhere, you just have to look for it. Even if parts of a country or a city appear to be ugly at first sight, one is able to discover beautiful things... There may be a beautiful doorknob on a run-down building, a bunch of flowers growing between the ruins of a factory or the smile of some children living in poverty in the Gaza Strip.

One of the most vivid scenes of this kind in my memory is from Narva, Estonia: Standing in front of the old, run-down town hall building which was at that time (and probably still is) surrounded by numerous incredibly ugly Soviet blocks, I suddenly heard someone playing a sad melody on the piano - a surreal, but wonderful scene!

It is essential to look out for the small stuff, and not only for the easy-to-see things!

Spring Impression

Particularly useful pages:

Oxford: The Gown Town (TOP 5)

Cornwall: Where England Ends

Dartmoor NP: The Sound of Silence (TOP 5)

Rain - Sun - Rain - Sun - Rain - Sun...: Exmoor NP

Bordeaux: La Ville du Vin

Tenerife: The Island of Thousand Landscapes

Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur: Sea, Sun, Markets, Perched Villages...

Hanoi: City of the Soaring Dragon (TOP 5)

Hoi An: Lit by Lampions

Angkor Wat: Temples of a Lost Civilisation

Plzen: What a Nice Place! (TOP 5)

Tartu: Oh Tartu Town... (TOP5 )

Kassel: Ab nach Kassel (TOP 5)

Chemnitz: A City in Transition

Québec City: A Highlight in Eastern Canada

New York City: I Woke up in the City that Never Sleeps

Other TOP 5 pages: Battambang, Vang Vieng, Sapa, Esslingen, Nida, Prince Edward Island, Fredericton, Lunenburg, Marianske Lazne, Bad Kreuznach, Lower Slaughter, New Forest NP, Mahone Bay, Pärnu and Peggy's Cove.

Very interesting are these travelogues of mine:

Porlock Weir

Oxford Gargoyles I, Oxford Gargoyles II and Oxford Gargoyles III

Jobs in Hanoi

Exploring the Villages around Hanoi

Hanoi's Markets

Angkor Impressions 2005

Angkor Impressions 2008

Lilienstein in October

Prospect Impressions

Early Morning at St. John's River

Don't forget to visit the famous Fridge Society, the coolest subgroup on VT !

Summer Impression

Although I've been to quite some countries I haven't got enough yet! There are roughly 200 countries in the world - so it'll take a long time to go to every single one! The world may be far too big to see everything in just one lifetime, but I will try anyway...

Here's where I've been (in alphabetical order):

Austria (in 1991)
Cambodia (in 2005 and 2008)
Canada (in 2007)
Czech Republic (in 2001, 2005, 2006 and 2007)
Denmark (in 1981 and 1983)
Estonia (in 2003 and 2006)
Finland (in 2003, 2006 and 2008)
France (in 1994, 1998, 2010, 2011 and 2012)
Germany (every year)
Great Britain (in 1990, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2002 (North Ireland), 2008, living there since 2009)
Greece (in 1986, 1988 and 1995)
Ireland (in 2002)
Israel (in 2000)
Italy (in 1987, 1993 and 1994)
Laos (in 2005)
Latvia (in 2003)
Lithuania (in 2003 and 2006)
Monaco (in 1998 and 2010)
the Netherlands (in 2002)
Palestine (in 2000)
Spain (in 2011)
Turkey (in 2008)
the USA (in 2000 and 2007)
Vietnam (in 2004, 2005 and 2008)

In addition to this, I've driven through or stopped in:

Belgium
Iceland
Liechtenstein
Poland
Switzerland
Thailand

I've also illegally passed the border to Kaliningrad on the Curonian Spit, but only walked on for some meters...

Do I have a favourite destination?
No, but there are several wonderful places. I am usually very fond of pure and wild nature, such as Donegal's rough landscapes in Ireland, the Judaean desert in Israel, the Laotian mountains overgrown with jungle, the rugged coastlines of Nova Scotia in Canada, the tranquility of Estonia's largest island Saaremaa or the serenity found in the vast Finnish forests. On the other hand, I love the hustle and bustle of big cities, such as never-sleeping London, the millions of motorcycles in Hanoi, getting lost amidst the skyscrapers of New York City or the international flair of San Francisco or Berlin.

Winter Impression

Here's where I MUST go to, ideally as soon as possible (in alphabetical order):

Alaska
Argentina (especially Patagonia)
Australia & Tasmania
Baja California in Mexico
Bhutan
Bolivia
Botswana
Brazil
Bulgaria, Romania and other parts of Eastern Europe
the Caribbean (especially Cuba, Jamaica and those smaller islands that are not yet spoilt by mass tourism - if they exist)
Chile
China
Ecuador
Fiji or any other South Seas paradise
Greenland
Iceland (as I only saw it from the plane to Canada)
India
Indonesia
Japan
Kenya
Korea
Kyrgyzstan
Madagascar
the Maldives and/or the Seychelles
the Middle East
Mongolia
Montenegro
Morocco
Myanmar
Namibia
Nepal
New Zealand
Norway
Peru
the Philippines
the Pyrenees
Romania
the Sahara
Scotland
Siberia (especially Kamchatka and Lake Baikal)
South Africa
parts of Spain
Sweden
Tanzania
Thailand
Tristan da Cunha
Turkey
the USA
Uzbekistan and the Silk Road
Venezuela (Angel Falls)

and the rest of the world! ;)

Piccadilly Circus, London

1. I hate beer (yes, there are Germans who don't like beer!).
2. I love gummi bears.
3. I hate touching wet doorknobs.
4. I love photography and prefer it to any other kind of art.
5. My first photograph showed half of my mom and grandma and a lot of fir trees. (Actually, this might not be true: When browsing through some old albums, I found several pics that were captioned "Golo's first photograph"!)
6. I have lived in Kassel, Chemnitz, Tartu, Hanoi and Oxford.
7. As a child, I used to collect stamps, cigarette packs, crown caps, quartets, and Walt Disney comics.
8. I've got a passion for passion fruit juice.
9. I don't smoke.
10. Panda bears are my favourite animals.

11. Sometimes, I'm a misanthrope.
12. There's nothing better than the sea.
13. Consequently, my favourite birds are seagulls.
14. I enjoy really big anonymous cities.
15. I hate going by train. German trains are always late. Don't believe the Deutsche Bahn if they try to convince you that they are actually on time while you have just missed your connection and are stuck in Kleinkleckersdorf for the next 5 hours!
16. I couldn't live without music.
17. My first CD was "Wind of Change" by The Scorpions. I got it at the age of 10 before my family owned a CD player...
18. My favourite colour is blue. (Green is alright, too.)
19. The three things I'd take to a desert island are: my laptop (I hope that there's highspeed internet on that island?!), most books you can find at Blackwell's in Oxford, enough sunscreen.
20. Sunday is the most boring day of the week.

21. I love the smell of freshly cut wood and grass.
22. I could walk barefoot all day. (I really should!)
23. I love sand, especially beneath my bare feet.
24. The glass is half-empty, not half-full.
25. I'm fond of creative writing and have taught several classes.
26. My first story was about a dog, a flour sieve and a potato.
27. I hate dogs. They stink, bite and bark.
28. I enjoy cooking (and experimenting with new recipes!) with my wife.
29. Tea is better than coffee. In fact, coffee makes my head ache.
30. I like to discuss.

31. I am fascinated by the theory that a chain of six people can reach every person in the world (and would love to prove it with myself in the beginning and a person I have yet to choose in the end).
32. I love sunsets.
33. I'm dreaming of having a summer cottage on Saaremaa, Estonia.
34. My dreams at night are probably the strangest one can think of.
35. I'm interested in everything that is connected with languages (tongue-twisters, case systems, crazy phenomena of German grammar...).
36. To travel alone is better than to travel in groups.
37. I usually regret wrong decisions for a long time.
38. I love reading and writing (and I hate spelling mistakes!).
39. I'm good in remembering telephone numbers and birthdays.
40. I'm bad in remembering names.

41. I'd love to speak more languages - especially Estonian and Finnish, Dutch, Icelandic, Vietnamese, Swedish, Turkish, Chinese and what have you...
42. Sometimes, I just need fast food.
43. I'm 1,76m and weigh 70kg.
44. The first concert I went to was "Die fantastischen 4" back in 1993.
45. I hardly ever carry an umbrella - after all, it's only water!
46. I'd love to go hot-air ballooning over Kilimanjaro sometime.
47. Autumn is the best season.
48. I hate fat-reduced products because they don't have any taste anymore.
49. I used to write as a freelancer for the newspaper of my hometown for 5 years.
50. I love windy days.

On the market in Aix-en-Provence

51. All the floors in my flat are aslant. *sigh*
52. I skimmed through a cosmology book at the age of 15 and surprised people with my "knowledge" about Super String Theory.
53. I very much enjoy games nights with friends.
54. My favourite movies are “The Fabulous Destiny of Amelie Poulain”, “Blues Brothers”, “The Big Lebowski” and “Pappa ante portas”
55. I hardly ever get up later than 9am.
56. I’m not night owlish at all. In fact, I usually go to sleep at around 10pm.
57. I still like to catch snowflakes with my mouth.
58. Boxing and Curling are the most boring sports imaginable. And Tennis!
59. I sometimes wonder whether I’m the only intelligent person in the world.
60. I've never had a pet.

61. I still enjoy the computer games of my youth. Guybrush Threepwood is my hero!
62. German bread is the best of the world and I could never live without it.
63. German sausage is the best of the world and I could never live without it.
64. I love the spooky atmosphere of run-down buildings such as abandoned factories.
65. Despite having seen dozens of shooting stars, all but one of my wishes didn't come true.
66. I’m good at Biathlon. Watching it, that is!
67. I don’t eat fish. But as a child, I didn’t even eat tomatoes and cucumbers and neither rice. So I guess I’ve become riskier, haven’t I?
68. I’d love to have a nice suntan, but I only get sunburned.
69. Living without TV wouldn’t be too much of a problem for me as long as there is Internet.
70. I learned playing the flute and the piano when I was a child - but I forgot everything.

71. I'm very good at mental arithmetics, but bad in everything else connected to maths.
72. My whole family is smaller than me.
73. I'm not religious.
74. No movie can ever be as interesting as the book it is based on.
75. I read nearly all books by Astrid Lindgren and Enid Blyton.
76. The hottest food I've ever eaten was a beef dish in Phonsavan, Laos - and unfortunately the waiters had decided to watch TV so that nobody was there to bring me some water.
77. My first name always causes confusion (interestingly in basically every language I've had contact with).
78. I'm quite sarcastic.
79. My lucky number used to be 27. It turned out to be right!
80. I like to end sentences with…

81. I can sleep better at daytime than during the night.
82. I only sat on a horse once at the age of 9, but as it almost unhorsed me it’s likely to have been the last time.
83. The westernmost point I've been was San Francisco, USA. The easternmost point I've been was Mui Ne, Vietnam. The southernmost point I've been was Can Tho, Vietnam. The northernmost point I've been was Oulu, Finland.
84. I don't understand vegetarians – they're missing soooo much!
85. After finishing school I worked with elderly people for a year.
86. My favourite cocktail is Malibu Brazil (Malibu, Passion Fruit Juice & Lemon Juice).
87. White wine is better than red wine. Or is it?
88. I took almost 100 photographs of the tiny harbour of Porlock Weir in Cornwall - places like that are incredibly picturesque.
89. My first trip took me to Denmark at the age of 1 ½.
90. Famous people I met personally: Hans Eichel (Germany’s ex finance minister), Hans Meiser (German talk show host), David Cameron (leader of the Tories) and two of The Kooks (alternative rock band).

91. The first movie I saw at the cinema was "The Jungle Book" at the age of 6 or so. I definitely felt very adult!
92. Girls shouldn't wear make-up - I prefer the natural looks.
93. I enjoy watching sumo on TV and will certainly visit a basho if I ever make it to Japan.
94. I've never owned a car but have driven more than 20 different ones.
95. I enjoy observing people when sitting in a street café or so.
96. I've been to 14 capitals and have driven through another one.
97. My ancestors are from the Baltics (Latvia to be specific; Riga / Kuldiga to be even more specific).
98. I could read at the age of 5.
99. As a child, the first thing I usually did when coming home from a holiday was running around our house once.
100. I like lists of all kinds of things :-)

Children on Cat Ba Island, Vietnam

Let's take a trip back to the 80s! Remember how it was back then? Just close your eyes...

Everything was bigger, far bigger than it is now. My brother and I lived squeezed into a 12sqm room and it didn't even feel small. Our garden was a paradise of trees to climb, bushes to hide in, lawns to run on, fruits to pick and eat and all those treasures that you forget after childhood...

I went to school 1km away from home, which meant walking past several gardens with angry barking dogs, passing the playground where I once was stuck in a bitter snow fight as the only neutral person, and of course entering the "Grüne Bude" for some sweets after school. The owner was the grumpiest old man to be found in Kassel!

The summers seemed endless, days and days of sunshine and heat, of leisure time in the garden or at the local swimming pool, of eating dinner alone in the hut my dad had built - we felt so grown-up! In autumn, we collected chestnuts to build chestnut animals, in winter snowmen grew everywhere in our garden, in spring the lawns were covered with forget-me-not and it finally was time to climb the old lilac tree again...

On holidays, we were constantly on the lookout for good playing sites. Churches, museums and nearly everything else that was on our parents' agenda was such a bore! Instead, a little brook meant hours of diversion: building dams or tearing them down, flooding the lawn or the path nearby. There were highways and low ways next to the actual path that were sooo much cooler to walk on. Sticks and stones were carried along for kilometres only to be forgotten at the next cafe we stopped in. And although hiking was the most horrible thing parents could go for during holidays, every hike provided hundreds of things to discover for us.

Music was only good if you could sing along - which usually meant terribly wrong lyrics and invented words! Cool bands were either German because you then understood the lyrics, or everything that was played on the radio. Admit it, even you've been listening to Modern Talking! There were no such things as Internet or mobile phones or MP3s or cable TV. Actually, watching TV was limited to one hour per day and it felt incredibly unfair! But advertisements were so interesting that we knew them by heart (and still do now!).

Every afternoon, we met to play hide-and-seek, to build yet another dam in Geilebach brook or a secret hut in the bushes, to chase the younger children and to be chased by the older ones. When it was raining, we played games inside or simply invented new ones... or we just stood next to the window pressing our noses against the glass and counted those daring enough to pass by in the storm.

People weren't judged by what clothes they wore or what kind of mobile phone they owned. The only thing that mattered was that the clothes lasted longer than the first game played in them! (And maybe whose clothes were the most colourful ones...) It was serious business who your "real" best friend was, and who was only second rank. But friends were friends, and you saw them at least once a week. And any argument, bitter as they sometimes were, was forgotten sooner or later... just forgotten!

Everything new and unknown was either scary or exciting. The dark gloomy room with the central heating in our cellar never lost its scariness, but thoughtlessly skateboarding down a hill where you couldn't see the junction you had to cross at its end was great!

Remember all those plans we had? "When I'm old, I'll become a construction worker!" Later, scrap metal trader and inventor, bus driver, and famous superstar were high on my list! Of course we knew whom we would marry when we'd be old, and what our children would be like.

Now, open your eyes again, return to the present and keep that dreamy smile on a little more if you know what I'm talking about...

Those were the days, my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day
We'd live the life we'd choose
We'd fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way. (Mary Hopkins)

Jumping at Pico del Teide, Tenerife, Spain

Ah, there's so much more I could tell you. However, I should stop here and invite you to take a look at my travel pages. They will be updated as soon as something new happens (i.e. if I'm actually travelling) and I hope you'll find them interesting and helpful. If so, please send a comment and rate them!
Have fun, take care, and happy travels!

"A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world." (Oscar Wilde)

PS: You might already be addicted to VT - here's how you can find out! Or here!

PPS: Just for the record - I've met the following VTers in person: Jefie, AgentJX, Tartu2005, Vita500, White_Lemur, Radasonea, Ovlarrec, as well as Mr. Tartu2005 whose nickname I've forgotten. :)

PPPS: A note concerning my travel map: I have deleted all empty pages as it is my belief that VT is mostly about tips and not about showing off how many places one has been to. As mentioned above, I've been to more countries than shown on my map. So when you click on a page of mine, it is certainly one that might be helpful in some way or the other.