Five weeks to get to Bali

graphic: taz

German Journalist Nick Reimer, who works for the Berlin based newspaper 'die taz', finally made it to Bali he decided to try and go by train and boat and not to fly and he's been writing about the experiences on the way. It certainly makes our 27 hour journey to Sibiu earlier this year seem pretty tame. He clocked up 9,000km by train and 3,000 by bus. However, in the end he had to take a plane from Vietnam when the train in China just didn't seem to be going any further.
He's come up with nine pretty tough rules if we're to have a chance of saving the planet - just to give you a taste, flying and eating meat both need to be seen as forbidden. This is a report just 2,500km in, and this is from the Aral sea after just 4,400km. Whereas this one is about the lack of water in central Asia. Nick Reimer also has a climate neutral blog, but it hasn't been updated for a while. Other links to his stories can be found here and here.
Anyway even if his solutions seem to put him with the so-called new puritans (being a non-conformist Cromwellite I think the puritans were rather good) he's certainly pushing for each of us taking responsibility as well as for much greater collective responsibility regarding climate change. I also think it's a very creative thing to do and the journey has obviously taken him through many more environmental stories than if he had flown to Bali straight off. If it takes you longer to travel maybe you think a bit more about how necessary the journey is.