Après un bon petit déjeuner à l’hotel, nous continuons notre voyage vers les temples de Prambanan. Il s’agit d’une collection de temples hindou, dont les plus grandes atteignent une hauteur impressionnante d’environs quinze mètres. Malheureusement, il y avait un tremblement de terre en mars 2006 proche de Yogyakarta. Des milliers de personnes étaient blessés ou morts. Les temples de Prambanan montrent encore aujourd’hui la force de ce tremblement: la plupart des bâtiments sont dommagé et fermé, et nous voyons des efforts de réparation partout.

Sunday Morning: It’s only a short drive to the Borobudur temple. We arrive around 11 o’clock, buy our tickets and hire the services of a wonderful guide. He takes us to the temple and first explains that it was built in the 8th century, by the buddhistic dynasty on java (the name of which i could not remember). Uncountable reliefs surround the lower levels of the temple, depicting stories of the holy books of buddhism.

For days ago, only a few hours after coming back from holidays in Indonesia, my roommate asked me whether I had heard about the conflicts in Burma, especially the fact that internet had been shut down there. “No”, I replied, and silently thought where exactly is Burma?

Since then, I read a lot about the demonstrations against the military regime of this south-east asian state. And that is exactly what I would like to encourage you to do. There have been many discussions about how bloggers should take part in these events. The Idea of an International Bloggers’ Day for Burma was proposed and also critisised. The debate made me think, and I agree that just crying Free Burma! is too simple.

But what can a blog, what can the internet do? Is not its principle function to transmit information? Isn’t it called web due to the fact that we can create hyperlinks to other sources of information? Aren’t blogs the major source of information we have for Burma, in these days where journalists prefer to stay anonym or cannot work at all?

Here, then, is a list of links to the Burma conflict which I have found helpful. Read them critically, but first of all read them, so these violations of human rights will not go unnoticed. And if you have other interesting bits and peaces to add, feel free to write a comment to this article.

• Wikipedia’s entry about Burma and specifically about the recent conflicts
• The dossier about Burma from Spiegel Online (German)
• A list of blogs reporting about Burma from Startupblogger
• Burma at news.ch (German)

Zusammen mit sieben weiteren Austauschstudenten düste ich letzte Wuche im Minivan durch Indonesien. Was wir in dieser eindrucksvollen Woche alles erlebten, berichtet euch dieses Blog. Dieser Artikel erzählt von unserem Abreisetag, dem 22. September 2007. Weitere Artikel in verschiedenen Sprachen werden folgen…

Some reader of my blog asked me last week, what I actually did for work here in Singapore, because all the posts on this blog seem to relate to travel, parties and so on. Well, here’s a little insight.

There are pearls on the internet, and pebbles… here’s a pearl. Let’s polish it a bit:

> You enter the third floor of a building, and the first question people ask you is “Oh, why didn’t you take the elevator?” Hmmm, why should I actually use it? But well, this happened to me yesterday. Not to mention air conditioners, water coolers, and the second layer of plastic bags…

Thanks a lot to all you who have been adding those nice comments to my blog. In order to honor that, I’ve put a “newest comments” block into the right-hand navigation. It’s getting a bit crowded there, but I hope you’ll still find your way through the site.

Hello!

Ds letschte Wuchenend isch schlicht und eifach genial gsi. Zäme mit ere Gruppe Ustuschstudänte han i Kuala Lumpur in volle Züg gnosse. Hie chasch du vo mine Erläbnis erfahre…

Le dernier weekend était tranquille, même très tranquille. Mais pour être honnète, ceci était exactement ce qu’il me fallait… après les nombreuses découvertes et évènements ces derniers jours, je suis allé pour un après-midi à Yunnan Garden.

Ich möchte endlich mein Versprechen einlösen, über Grace’s Geburtstagsfest zu berichten. Ich lernte an diesem Abend viel Interessantes über Singapur. Hier drei bleibende Eindrücke…