Reflections of Mr. Coconutyoga

Mr. Coconutyoga is already on the road since 18 months – and still three more to come – time to take a look back:

- I stayed until now more than ten months in Asia, seven of them in India
- 2+2 months in Germany: Visits back home
- 2+1 months in Greece on four islands: Crete, Santorini, Naxos, Paros and in Athens one month visiting my brother
- Visited Venetia twice, Istanbul once
- Big Cities: Istanbul, Delhi (3x), Bombay (2), Bangkok (2x up to now)
- Other Capitals: Kathmandu, Kuala Lumpur
- Islands in Asia: KoSamui, KoPhaNgan (Thailand), Gili Islands, Bali (Indonesia)
- 3x India
- 3x Delhi
- 3x Himalaya
- 3x Goa, 4 ½ months total including Christmas and New Year
- 2x Manali
- 2x Bombay
- More than 50000 km
- 1000 of them riding a scooter in Goa
- More than 10 ships, 14 indian buses and two long-terms including crazy Athens-Istanbul
- 4 train rides
- Much too many flights…
- Other kind of Transport: Mule, Camel, Jeep, TukTuk, Rikscha, Bike, Paraglyder, Bicycle, Trekking
- Uncountable good souls



What I remember most:



- Twice by night train from Munich to Venetia, 36h Ferry from Venetia to Patras, Bus to Athens and another overnight ferry to Crete

- Sick in Athens, sharing time with my brother, meeting Ulf, such a good guy

- Fire in Athens and Floodings in Istanbul, Zyclon over Mumbai just when I tried to get there…lucky me

- 20 hours drive overnight from Athens to Istanbul…Friendship Border…

- Totally lost in Delhi, trapped in Kashmir – lost in Paradise

- Trekking in Daramshala, Manali and Nepal

- Pushkar Camel Fair 2009  Camel Market in the Desert

- Bhang Lassi on the same event – paranoid in the streets, trying to find the place to the hotel surrounded by Gypsies, Snake Charmers, Gamblers, Touts, Cheaters and Beggars. Don`t Do it!

- Jaisalmer – Miracle Sandstone Fort in the desert

- Staying overnight in the Thar Desert while full moon

- Discovered Colomb Bay and the Laguina Vista and met a lot of very good friends – love you!

Greetings to: Noah, Axelle, Thomas, Wiebke, Dill, Roshan, Sanu, Wendy, Arik, David, Boris, Prakash, Nina, Pete, Thomas, Andy, Kika, Caroline, Alessandra, Domingo, Lilian, Catherine, Moreno, Thomas, Enrique, Tibhault, Maud, Santos, Valerie…Good Times in Goa!

- Mutated to Mr. Coconutyoga…Beginning of a new era


- First Return to Germany with a long beard – people recognized me as a Taliban – what the Fuck – now I know finally how a stranger must feel sometimes…is this still Home?

- Return to Goa


- Yoga Lessons with the Swami-Ji who used to live in a cave for ten years

- In love with an lovely indian woman

- What to do? Kathmandu!

- Apocalyptical Feeling in Kathmandu – heavy Depression

- Escape to the mountain- 20 day trek to the Everest Base Cap / Kala Patar from Jiri – Heavy Bag – No Guide – Solitudeness, Basic Life, than meeting Johannes, a great friend

- Everest Area (Kumbhu / Sagharmanta) – stunning – unforgettable Impressions

- Reunion in Pokhara - Chillout 24 hour

- Alone in Kuala Lumpur / Kuta (Bali)

- Magic Ubud (Bali) - Turning Point

- Gili Island – Philosophical Talkinbgs, Relaxing, Mushrooms

- Loosing Control in Bangkok including Gogonutyoga – missed the flight to Zuerich… no money, no honey…

- Surprise Guest in Switzerland on Tomas Birthday – Nice Food, Nice Music, Nice People: Great!

- Ten days in the Jura – great Time with my friends I met in Goa: Tomas, Noah, Axelle, Domingo, Boris, Wiebke, Laurence and Arik.

- Back in Benztown again – good times

- My Mother`s Birthday in Crete

- Tired, depressed in Germany and still pushing for one more adventure even when I felt like settling down

- Munich-London-Delhi-Manali- What a crazy trip!

- Wonderful and dangerous Bus Ride from Manali to Leh/Ladakh (Northindia) – the craziest and most impressive journey I ever did!!!

- One week in Ladakh / Higher Himalyas, located around the mighty Indus River – unbelievable mountains and Rock Formations, like a moon landscape, out of this world – Paradise!!!

- Two Flights over the Himalayas

- Goa Reloaded – why like this?

- Back to the real India: Hampi: stunning temples and unbelievable rock landscape

- Laid Back Gokarna

- Scooter Addicted in beautiful South Goa

- Found Friends for Live and love in Goa - so hard to say good-bye!!!

- Why like this? No Question! Gute Laune! Nothing!

- Invited to Bombay: Thanks, Pooja!!!

- Sick in the modern India: The Mind needs a break

- Crazy Bangkok II – Ping, Pong, Sir?

- Full Moon Party: Mushrooms, Freaks, Music, Lights – an experience!

- Wonderful Jungle Retreat on KoPhaNgan (Gulf of Thailand)

These have been Moments and Periods of Joy, Love, Self Confidence, Doubts, Sadness, Confusion, Tiredness, Desair, Hapiness and Fullfillment.

I felt at home in different places, I felt lost and homeless and homesick.

I have seen Jungles, Beaches, Volcanos, Rivers, Stone- and Sand-Desert, Snow, Storm, Temples, Shrines, Buddhas, Mad Traffic, Crazy Citiesm Retreats, Yoga, Meditation, Ayurveda, Accupuncture, Muay Thai, Gurus, Swamis, Criminals, Angels, Sea and so on…I will never forget anything about this travel

Next destination: Cambodia

Can U now understand why I feel sometimes very very tired? But actually not at the moment.At least not my mind. So I try to ride the actual wave until end of April, when this journey should end. But you never know…

No Regrets…Much Love…I would be nothing without my friends…keep in touch…

Mr. Coconutyoga

Full Moon Party in Hat Rin, KoPhaNgan, Gulf of Thailand

Here is finally my little report about the Full Moon Party on the Island KoPhaNgan, located north of KoSamui and south of Ko Tao in the Gulf of Thailand, around 500 km south of Bangkok.
Our evening started on KoSamui. We had met in our place another German, Dirk. We had decided to share the experience. He was really looking forward especially for the music. A nice guy from Cologne, who was trying to relax from his stressful job as a kitchen chief. We got driven to the Big Buddha Beach, where already a big crowd waited. The Boat Ride to HaadRin on a speed boat was very nice. Arriving at the Entrance it was already clear this would be a very mainstream event. But I had expected this. Most of the Backpackers trying to get once to such a Party. You could buy a lot of shirts, huts and other accessories, getting painted with neon colors, tattooed or whatever. Like mostly I just ignored most of the business.
We had already some Whiskey-Cola on the way (it says this Whiskey contains ephedrine) and some Red Bull. It should be a long night. Our Boat would head back around seven in the morning, so we had almost twelve hours to go. We had some more Beer and the unavoidable buckets. Horrible Stuff. The sold mostly the some Wiskey-Cola mixture we had already, Wodka-Orange or Gin-Sprite.
We discovered the whole surrounding Area and have been surprised, how small the Party Beach actually is. As we have been still very early it wasn`t too much crowed that time. Good to get an image about the Location.
Between ten and twelve o-clock it was getting more full and around two o-clock the Party was full on.
We ended up sharing two mushroom shakes, the first soft and the second very strong. Like always I needed some time to get on the right track. The first half an hour I just watched the scenery from the edge. All this crazy-painted Travellers, some looking like Tigers, Gypsies or just mad, watching the nice illuminated rock at the one end of the beach, where they have built some really nice bars.
After a while I just decided to walk some minutes on the beach to test if I really feel prepared for the crowd. Finally I ended up walking along the whole beach, following the flow, until I reached the other end of the beach, where the music just become too aggressive, the place just too packed and also the mood of a lot of the people staying there much worse. You could see a lot of early drug victims.
So I headed back to meet again with my two friends.
I was now in a phantastic mood. I didn`t felt like dancing or moving fast at all and even not to talk, but I just enjoyed being there, listening to the music and watching all these strange people, some obviously very nice, some appeared like I didn`t wanted to have any contact with them.
There was for example one guy from Croatia with a Russian Name – Igor or something – who came to us to tell us about how much he like Germans. I hate this – I don`t feel like a typical German and there has been some reasons because I left Germany as well… I don`t want to say it isn`t a nice country, but there are other reasons behind soccer, drinking culture and some few electronica music artists from Berlin… I think you get the point…
He stayed there in a bungalow at the beach front of Hat Rin with a crowd of more Russians, most of them women… He told us he met Sven Vaith on another Island in Thailand and got so much drugs. I don`t doubt it. For sure he said the truth. He was full on drugs, loud, straight forward and euphoric.
When I met him some hours later he was sweetening like hell, his girlfriend was just running away from him with all his money (she returned after a while) and he was totally down. I gave him a cigarette and he was really ashamed that I saw him in this constitution.
I don`t want to change with him, even if I know that he really had a phantastic mood before. But why like this??? What to do…
Actually my friends had already left our place, because I have been longer away than estimated.
That was all right, but it wasn`t nice that they didn`t came back to look after me.
So I stayed in this place again and again. Actually it was the most quite place on the beach, what was far away from being any quiet… And so it got filled up with more and more too drunk or drugged people, who went to sleep or in a kind of coma. What the fuck!
I left the place from time to time to have another walk over the beach, watching these crazy idiots jumping over a burning rope and getting burned. Smiling over the whole face and being in fully peace with myself, not disturbed by anything.
Or checking out all the places on the rock, in hope to find the two other guys… no chance
Finally I was thinking about leaving the island on my own, because I got bodily very tired (always not good to drink first and then taking mushrooms, the opposite is so much better).
And I had enough staying there alone. As I already wrote - I wasn`t in the mood to meet new people.
But then the reappeared and we stayed some more hours. Christoph kept on drinking and danced for a long time. But Dirk and me didn`t liked the music anymore. It was getting worse and worse the longer the night lasted. So I showed him the places on the rock, where the music was much nicer, actually exactly the music Dirk was looking for the whole night and enjoyed the magical view over the whole illuminated beach. Great!!!
Then we went one last time over the beach. Now the beach ws covered by garbage, even if some Thai workers cleaned it all the time. I was often thinking on this evening if this whole event is all right (instead of only getting mainstream) and if the people are really dreaming the right dream to change some things on this planet instead of just proclaiming: “One World – one Love”. Actually I don`t think so and I am not blaming anybody for this. But I am looking for something else or say on a different track. And I have seen people disillusioned, desperate, disappointed of not fulfilled love, sad and destroyed. But at the same time a lot of shining people, full of love, Happiness and Fulfillment, dancing in ecstasy. I don`t know if I will ever see this event again but it was very interesting and worth to go once, especially as I haven`t seen any Big Festivals before.
For sure there are some Events out there that fit better to me…
That`s for now,

One World – One Love ;-)
Mr. Coconutyoga

KoPhaNgan - Conquering the Kao Ra

Time to tell you about my latest little adventure. At the moment I am staying in a nice jungle retreat in the heart of KoPhaNgan, very close to the Kao Ra, the biggest “mountain” of this Island. It is more a hill with its 627 meters, but it isn`t really less for such an small Island (12 km North-south and about 9 km east-west). I can just recommend it. Our place is just wonderful. These time we (I am actually travelling with my friend Christoph for four weeks together) got a place recommended at our place in KoSamui, what wasn`t that exciting instead of the Full Moon Party (small report is following soon), but a good place to come down after 6 days in Bombay and another three in Bangkok.
Our place is located in the middle of the jungle. They have five really nice bungalows and a nice chill out with an amazing view and a phantastic kitchen. We haven`t been lucky with the weather, but so much better to be in such a nice place instead of being bad-mooded at the beach, waiting for sun. SO we didn`t do much the first two days, instead of reading, writing, thinking, planning and relaxing in the hummock and enjoying the food, the scenery and a good smoke…
Today the weather wasn`t still good, but it stopped to rain all the time. So we finally started our small trek to the Kao Ra, about three km away. The well-marked but small trek guided us through the jungle. Small Rivers, Mushrooms, Ferns, Palm trees and a few huge trees (the biggest around 40m tall) surrounded our ascent. Very irritating was the sounds of the crickets. I have heard a lot of them in a lot of different countries, but never these ones. When you hear them first, you can`t imagine animals producing that sounds. You think about aelectronically source. The sound is really disturbing, very, very loud and after a while it hurts in the ears and you feel like getting in trance. It could be a forbidden garden. I had to think about the creatures in the Tales of Odysseus. It’s the episode when he had to put wax inside his ears to stop hearing the tempting sounds of the beautiful but dangerous creatures.
The Humidity was almost 100 % and it was a steep ascent, especially the last km. But it was worth it. We arrived at the top and the view was zero, everything covered in clouds.
But it went better after half an hour. The clouds disappeared slowly and the view became amazing.
We could see the close coastline, the wonderful Cha Lok Lam Bay and a lot of untouched jungle.
Just perfect. We stayed finally one and a half hour on the top and made a lot of pictures.
I devoted an incense stick for the Gods, we shared our sandwich, packed in a banana leaf and had a smoke. Finally we had to go down and it was still nice even if we got tired a little. Okay, these are not the Himalayas, but the ascent was steep, the motion in the last weeks less and the humidity…
But no regrets. Check the Videos and the Pictures!
Soon we will head to Cambodia, to visit Angkor Wat and Pnom Penh. My plan afterwards is to go to Laos and finally to the Philippines. I will probably not visit Myanmar, because I heard the situation there is not really safe there in the moment. I talked on the Boat from KoSamui to KoPhaNgan with an English guy, who is already ten years abroad as a photographer. That was a very interesting conversation. He is living and working in Kabul for six months a year and the rest mostly in Southeast Asia. His fried, a journalist just left Myanmar in a lot of trouble. And he had seen people getting shot at the boarder to Thailand. SO sad, I would love to see this country. But it is also a very difficult decision if it is correct to visit this country. As you are paying government taxes you help the government, a brutal regime to get money, but if you don`t the people there stay isolated and also can`t earn anything out of Tourism.
And I still would love to end my trip in the Himalayas. Thoughts about Tibet. But this is really a very small option. But maybe I could go one more time to Ladakh. My Indian Visa allows me to visit the country until the tenth of April.
Crazy that I still (or again) can imagine to travel more and more. I am already so addicted to this life style. I am also dreaming about Hawaii, Mexico, South America and Africa. Could fill a life…
What could be more realistic is heading back from Asia to Istanbul or Rome and make from there my way back to Germany. End of April is the limit of my travel if I am not choosing to earn money in Australia. But I just think it should be enough for a while…
Let`s see. One thing is sure: It will be not my last travel and I am thinking a lot about my ideas to make an independent living. About making something out of my pictures and stories or running a small business and selling books.
And I keep meeting people from Berlin, who are telling me I would belong to this City.
The weather is still not nice, but it has to change finally. We would share a boat with three other Germans, who are staying in the same place and visit a Island National Park. Would be so great!
Keep updated. I am working a lot to put new stuff on Coconutyoga`s World.
Hope you are all well out there, without you it wouldn`t be possible. Stay true!

Much Love from Mr. Coconutyoga

Full Moon Party Ko Pha Ngan

As I just survived the Full Moon Party on Ko Pha Ngan with a big and crazy crowed, I wanted to share some impressions to give you a first glimpse with some keywords about my good and bad feelings and about the athmosphere.
A detailed report will follow. As I am now already 18 months on the road (what the fuck; such a long time...unbelievable...and it feels even so much longer) I will take some effort to keep you updated.
I will also write and upload short stories about Ha,pi. Gokarna, Goa and Mumbai and Bangkok as fast as possible. Tomorrow I will finally move from Ko Samui to Ko Pha Ngan...

Full Moom Party, Ko Pha Ngan, Hat Rin Beach, Thailand, 2011

FREAKS ELECTRO COLORS MADNESS BUCKETS FIRE LIGHTS MAGIC-MUSHROOMS LOVE DRUGS WIRED-BODY-PAINTINGS DANCE VIBRATIONS AGRESSIONS HAPPINESS SPECIAL-SHAKE DONGKY-KONG-ISLAND EXTASY WASTED VICTIMS GARBAGE WAVES FULL-MOON BLACK-LIGHT DESIGNS ENERGY DISAIR DESPARETNESS FULLFILLMENT FRIENDS SEX FEAR POWER YOUTH EXPERIENCE SEARCH MONEY BUISINESS MAIN STREAM STRESS OUT-OF-THIS-WORLD GOOD-TIMES

DO IT NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWW !!!

I am not sure if I will ever this crazy festival again, probaly more a smaller version in another location. But it was worth to see it once. No Regrets even if I havent seen only the good sides. But I was relaxed, enjoyed it and got a lot of power (says my mind: my body is not sure about that ;-) )

Keep updated the next time and stay true!!!

Much Love from Mr. Coconutyoga a.k.a. Orlando a.k.a. Oli Baba