Holland (and Germany) post India

After 15 hours, two in flight meals and a movie I land again in Amsterdam Shiphol Airport. Hurray – I am happy that I brought my fleece pullover along. It is 5 degrees Celsius (Fahrenheit = you freeze) and what the pilot calls light rainfall (it is pouring).
I make it to the hotel in the city center and collapse on the double bed. In the past two months I had two afternoons off. Now is the time to sleep.
The next day debriefing and medical screening and a decent dinner. Then I pick up my beloved bicycle again that has waited for me in the office basement. We hug and cuddle and kiss and re-inflate its tyres and load it with all my stuff and off we go direction Utrecht and then Germany. Very fast I notice that the light clothes that I am wearing aren't really what I need in this kind of weather. Well, it wasn't really my plan either to still be in Holland in November. I should be in Italy by now! All my winter stuff is in Norway at my brother's...

Ah, stuff it – I'll do fine. I buy a fleece shawl and leave. The first night I regret not buying more warm clothes – I just returned from 30 degrees Celsius in India! I do freeze and sleep very little. The second night it rains and my clothes and the tent get wet. So I freeze some more, brrrrrrrrrr.



Then after three days I readjust to the climate and the cold weather becomes more bearable. I cycle past Arnhem and then cross the border to Germany in Bocholt. When I stop at the first organic shop to buy some real crusty German whole wheat bread and creamy full fat butter a girl starts talking to me. I am surprised (after all I haven't showered for 5 days and I look and smell it). If I travel far? I normally answer „Morocco“ because then people nod and smile and turn around and leave me alone. Instead, when you tell them you cycle around the world they always ask more questions, one of them being „Why are you doing that?“ I then want to shake them and ask back: „Why do you go to work every f..king day and later watch TV and eat processed, parboiled food when you could do so many other things with your little life?!“ But back to the girl. She says that her boyfriend Nils and she (Caro) just decided to quit their jobs. They each ordered a bicycle and are about to book a flight to Alaska because they want to cycle around the world. And, by the way, if I would need a place to stay, why don't I stay in their flat and we can chat over dinner...
Said – done. Just three hours ago I had found 2 kilograms of Porchini (Steinpilze) right next to the cycle path near the Dutch-German border. Look at that monster-mushroom; almost the size of my head! And not a single worm or maggot in it! With mashed potatoes, sautéed carrots and some wine and onions in the sauce this will make a fantastic dinner for three!



The next day I continue direction Kassel where I plan to visit some very special people. The weather turns rainy again and I prepare for cold and wet nights… and beautiful mornings with dew on the grass and fog caught up between the trees in the distance.

Medecins Sans Frontieres Bihar, India

When I visit my colleagues in the headquarters of Medecins Sans Frontieres in Amsterdam the emergency coordinator Vince gets hold of me and since I am not really busy with anything else at the moment he proposes that I fly (the very next day) into the flooded area for a couple of weeks to join the exploratory team during their assessment and initial response. Assessments and setting up a new project is always a very intense, energy draining job... but isn't that precisely what makes it such an interesting challenge? Before he ends his sentence I am already mentally prepared to go. And so I do - as planned - the very next day.
Meanwhile my bicycle will wait for my return in the basement of the Amsterdam office...

Now, almost 2 months after the Kosi river embankment in Nepal broke, many areas in the north of India are still cut off. People live in simple bamboo shelters and have nothing but what they were wearing on the day of the disaster. We have a difficult time finding out where people are and how to get to them. We operate two motorboats to transport our team into the flooded area. Transport along the rivers is fine. But often we get stuck in the muddy ground when going through rice fields. Some areas are so difficult to reach that we can only get out of the boat and wade through the water. We have several mobile medical teams roaming around the area plus a vaccination team to carry out measles and polio vaccinations (the original course of the Kosi river has one of the highest Polio prevalences in the world!) A Water and Sanitation specialist is looking into preventing communicable disease by chlorinating drinking water. I am almost at the end of my assignment (and at the end of my energy)...

Holland ante India

It is pure bliss after the B-Country. The cycling path winds through a vast landscape of dunes shimmering in all colours. There aren't too many tall trees, mostly scrub and grassy vegetation with flowers and occasionally patches of sand. There are cyclists everywhere in Holland! Hence there are cycle paths everywhere in Holland. Attentive white signs in the shape of an arrow with a small bicycle icon and destination printed on it guide the way. Ahhhhh.
I admit, here and there you find some ugly beach resorts. But hey, I just pretend it's a spill over effect from some sick Belgian investors who couldn't find more nature to plaster away with cement blocks in their own country. There would have been that one place back in Belgium where there are still dunes left. About 500 meters of them. But then again that spot was dotted with ex-German bunkers from WWII and thus turned into a war memorial... pity to get rid of that, no?

Alright, back in Holland. Or, back in the Netherlands. I never figured out what to say: Holland or The Netherlands? Some have told me that Holland is just a part of The Netherlands. And then as a people they call themselves the Dutch... grrrrrrr - can it be more complicated?
I cycle along the coast to Rotterdam, the biggest container harbour of this planet. Under a burning summer sun with almost no wind, it takes me something like two endless hours in an industrial Mad-Max like scenery along incountable amounts of massive reservoir tanks, pipelines, barbed wire fences, a refinery and what not – but the path is always nicely marked with a white sign in the shape of an arrow with a small bicycle (and ferry) icon printed on it saying „Hoek van Holland“. And hurray! - at the end I reach the tiny ferry that takes me across the Maas to – guess where? - Hoek van Holland.

I enjoy the summer on the beach. Every evening I pull my bike on a sandy trail up the deich and down the other side and camp in the dunes. Camping on the beach is forbidden. What did the instructor use to say again when I did my driving license? „Right, Tim, the speed limit here is 60. However, you can always run as fast as you feel like. Just don't get busted!“ Camping on th beach is just great: big ships passing by, birds screeching, the constant sound of the waves, the sunset, the salty smell in the air and a permanent warm breeze on my skin...




After three days I arrive in Amsterdam. Time to relay with my friends from Medecins Sans Frontieres and a fat spliff. By coincidence, my friend Tamara has everything prepared; a friend of hers invites us for a boat ride in his small motorboat on the „Grachten“ (=small waterways everywhere in Amsterdam). We pack a bottle of rosé and join into a happy go lucky group of strangers all high on mild summer nights, wine and whatever was in those cigarettes...
We follow a few other boats to the outskirts of Amsterdam and soon find ourselves inmidst a crowd of boats all moored together next to a big green where a group of Techno DJs spin their records and another group sells Heineken from the tap. Lovely – I mean two hours ago I sat sweating on my ride...!






The next day I pass by the Headquarters of the Dutch section of Medecins SansFrontieres to say „hello“ to a couple of old friends and colleagues...

Belgium *...shudder...*

I am hesitant to write anything at all about this place. No, not because I hardy spend 12 hours there but because of its crappyness. I've been to Brussels before, or Bruxelles. Fine, I could also go to Berlin-Wilmersdorf or Steglitz instead and I wouldn't notice much of a difference. For the Belgian coast, I've seen my part. To be precise, I've seen all of it, every centimeter – I've suffered through it.



Look at this!!! You come from France where you find sandy beaches with lush scrub vegetation and where you lose yourself in endless dunes that fade into empty beaches... In the Netherlands the dunes are criss crossed with cycle paths winding up and down, left and right. Then you have the occasional overcrowded beach resort with ice cream stands and beer stalls. But here in Belgium? They raped their entire coast with high rise buildings!!! Believe me – for kilometers you will fail to find a single plant here (not even a potted one!) - who are these mindless people, aaaarrrrgggGGGGGGHHHH! Ok, there is a beach, a white one and a wide one. It ends into a kind of high dam made from concrete that rises at a – say - 45 degree angle to a height of 5 meters (for the American audience that would be 200 inches, degrees are the same in your country...). On top of that dam is a wide platform, at least 10 meters wide and the come – yes, high rise buildings. Each with a shop in the basement that sells either ice cream, crap souvenirs, waffles or other sweets. Some rent out bicycles where several people can ride at the same time. The maximum number I observed was 7. Adults that is – I guess Belgian adults enjoy doing things like riding on a cement beach in big groups, who knows? Now for the buildings itself. You would find this kind of architecture in books with the title: „What went wrong in the 60s?“ or „Old people's homes on a budget“ or „How to achieve more balcony space with less investment?“. Horrid. Disgusting. Shame on whoever participated in this widespread commercial coastal rape here. Investors as well as architects as well as city planners and politicians.




Frustrated, I turned to what frustrated people do: eat. Belgium is famous for its „frittes“ (French fries) and for its waffles – abroad this type of waffle is called „Belgian waffle“.
The frittes: I ask around where to find a good shop for frittes and several locals recommend this one shop where I then ride to. I go inside and the comforting smell of sizzling vegetable oil embraces me – a good sign. There are lots of containers of sauces on the counter (they all have different labels) – another good sign. I order a large frittes with... what does it say here on the labels? „Ranch sauce“, „American barbeque“, „Thousand island“, „Spicy Masala“? Uh, uh! I go for plain mayonese and the guy behind the counter splashes a blob of sauce on top of my fries of a size that should ring an alarm bell even in the most obese of brains. Alright, I am not here to judge but to taste. The fries are good. But what is this weird looking long deep fried something that everybody else here eats with their fries? I ask around and learn that it is called „Frikandel“. A Frikandel is about 20 centimeters long and 4 thick and it seems to consist of some kind of processed meat. I go back to the counter and ask the guy what the ingredients of this thing are that looks like it suffers through the last stage of leprosy. He shruggs and doesn't know. I go outside and ask the lady sitting nextt to me. She doesn't know either. On the next table everybody smiles politely but nobody comes forward with an answer until a 13 year old girl finally says: „Trash. It is made of trash.“



Waffles: I finish my frittes (my appetite for Frikandel wasn't that big anyway) and look for a waffle baker. Lots of people waiting in line – a good sign for quality. My waffle has the size of my hand and is about 3 centimeters thick. It is fresh and warm and comes with chocolate sauce on top (Belgian chocolate is also famous so they say). I take a good bite and only finish the thing because I need enough calories to keep cycling: too sweet and it sticks not only between the teeth but even on top of them. Phew!
Belgium, you had your chance. The fact that during my whole stay I don't see one single person that either qualified as „beautiful“ or that genuinely smiles finishes it off.
For a change - here is a good thing about Belgium: If you sleep in France right at the border to Belgium (as I did) and you start your trip early in the morning (as I did) and you keep on cycling with just a short lunch break (bring some bread, cheese and tomatoes from France) then you make it all the way through Belgium in one day (as I did) and you can sleep in the beautiful dunes of Holland.
When I cross the border between Belgium and the Netherlands I let go a small sigh of relief... and then I start looking for a place to pitch up my tent.

... So whoever is frustrated about our EU delegates in Brussels earning half a million Euros per year... let them have a whole million for the mental torments that they must be going through every day. I swear you could give me five millions and it wouldn't keep me here...