Autor: Carsten Nolte

Hello all!       (–> Text übersetzen in Deutsch)

Jordan is another country in the Arabic world that we did not know so far. Even if we had a great time in Jordan, visiting the famous World Heritage Site ‘Petra’, Mount Nebo and the Dead Sea, we – of course – found much more tourism than in the months before in Saudi-Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq etc. That made a significant change to our perception: the pure Arabic soul was not to be seen so clearly, often we had to struggle with the side-effects of tourism (e.g. when it comes to bargain fair prices without getting ripped of). That was not a big problem, but during the months before we really enjoyed experiencing the pure Arabic spirit, friendliness and honest hospitability (that we liked so much).

But still: Petra, Mount Nebo and the Dead Sea were great (if we don’t think about the millions of flies that come over at the Ded Sea to say hello in the afternoon :-0)

Best wishes from
Heike and Carsten

Hello all!       (–> Text übersetzen in Deutsch)

after 3 months altogether we are back in Saudi Arabia (Jeddah). But why did we had to ‘come back’!? What happened? Unfortunately we had to pause our world trip for three months since my (Carstens) mother unexpectedly passed away in May 2023. Of course, this very sad event did change a lot for us. We flew back to Germany to take care of family and things. But before we had to find a place to park Wischnewski for an uncalculated long time. That was not a simple task to organize. Where do you put a (9,5m, 14t) truck? It is our home and we of curse wanted Wischnewski to stay save. And: leaving a vehicle in a foreign country outside of Europe is a big and difficult task to arrange. The customs authorities absolutely hate that. But again, the hospitability and friendliness of the Arabic people solved the problem within hours. A new good friend from Jeddah – Fayez (our hero) – organized a save place right away and gave us what we needed to leave the country without our truck. Now we only had to cross fingers that Wischnewski could stand the heat. Summer was coming up in Saudi with expected 40-50°C.

Good news: When we returned in September all worked out well with Wischnewski. The (Mercedes) engine started immediately willing to move on. We only had to clean up and had to fix minor damages. Especially plastic and all that is glued did not like the Saudi summer heat…

The other good thing was that we could meet again with our friends from Spain/ Ecuador (Magy & Carlos) to travel together in the next months.

Best wishes from
Heike and Carsten

Hello all!       (–> Text übersetzen in Deutsch)

today we send a different kind of blogpost: we made a 5 week break of travelling and went to Thailand (Chiang Mai). That city is well known for us. We visited Chiang Mai the 4th time. This time the plan was just to relax and eat all those delicious food. For 10 days inbetween we also got a visitor from Germany: ‘Anna’ (the daughter of very good friends from Düsseldorf) joined us for eating lot of beautiful food in the streets of Chiang Mai 🙂

So the pictures we brought today show – of course – a lot of that delicious food. Enjoy! …you very likely will get a big appetite after watching the pictures 🙂

Best wishes from
Heike and Carsten

Hello all!       (–> Text übersetzen in Deutsch)

in April 2023 we (for the second time) went to Saudi Arabia. That country is so big that it needs months to investigate. As we already indicated in our first blog post, we quickly became big fans of Saudi Arabia. Since this country offers so much positive surprises, wonderful people, astonishing cultural understanding and a great landscape to visit. The heat became a bit of a struggle for us but that did not come as a surprise (desert without heat? No!). By the way: driving through the desert is just the best!!

One thing is clear: Saudi Arabia is a perfect country to visit for overlanders. It is still developing everything that is related to tourism but maybe this is what it makes so extratordinary. A real adventure. And so good to experience that Saudi and the Arabic world is nothing like we think it is (from the media). 

Best wishes from
Heike and Carsten

Hello all!       (–> Text übersetzen in Deutsch)

a very special part of our trip in Oman was a trip that we took through the Omani desert ‘Wahiba Sands’. We met in a group of 5 offroad trucks to master the desert. That was extraordinary. Driving on dunes and through sand is very special. So is sitting around the campfire place in the night enjoying the beautiful stars of the milky way (nowhere better than in the desert). We formed such a great group of overlanders, that was very big fun and definitely a highlight of our overall trip so far.  

Best wishes from
Heike and Carsten