Bangkok, March 2025

 Khao San Road in Bangkok – the notorious backpacker hotspot. Crowds of – almost exclusively white – Twenty-Somethings stroll up and down this car-free road, flanked with tourist-trap restaurants, street food stalls selling fresh juices, cannabis or grilled insects, and massage parlours. The latter are the only reason why I came here in the first place, since I don’t have much time, it is late already, and I don’t know the city – the reception lady at my hotel recommended me to come here as the best place to get a cheap massage quickly, and the parlours remain open until 1 or 2am.

I walk into the first one that looks decent, and as I lie on my tummy and get my treatment, I strike up a conversation with Phan, the masseuse. Her story touches me. Her home is in the North of the country, she came to the city looking for work about a year ago, following her divorce. With her, she brought her 2 sons, now 2 and 6 years old. I ask her who is watching them now, does she have any help – she replies “no”. They must be alone at home. I suppose the older one looks after his little brother. She explains that she needs to work, continuously, to be able to sustain them. “They eat so much”, “Me no work, no money”, she says, and laughs, just like most of her sentences, in typical Thai fashion, are accompanied by a small laugh. Perhaps to soften a bit the hardness of the reality contained in these sentences.

 

Leaving Bangkok. A sweet little scene at the check-in counter at the airport. The agent hands me back my passport and informs me of the departure gate. “But I don’t want to leave Thailand, what can I do?”, I joke. He picks up on it, saying “And I want to visit Zurich”. “Okay, so we swap! I sit in your seat here, and you get on the plan.”, to which he responds “Give me your passport.” We laugh. But we don’t execute this plan.

Manila, Philippines, July 2018

“It’s more fun in the Philippines!” – this is actually a tourism slogan well thought out. Surely there is a range of reasons why you could have fun here, including beaches, crystal clear waters and the like. I didn’t have time to explore all this, sadly, as I came for just (4!) days through a work trip. But I did get to experience what must be one of the main reasons why this country is enjoyable: the Filipinos.

Well-known for their friendliness and kind-hearted nature, they make you feel good about being here. Like Joel, my Grab (the Philippines version of Uber) driver, who shows me in passing the “best place to see the sunset of the sun”, tells me that this is his full-time job, and when I ask whether he enjoys this work, he says “Yes, I enjoy it. Like right now, I enjoy talking to you.”.

Or like Ellen, who flies in as my guardian angel, after I had been roaming through the old town of Manila, Intramuros. Trying to get back to my hotel had proven more challenging than I had expected. For about an hour already, I had been trying to get a taxi, but they were all either full or refusing to take me to my hotel on the other side of town, as it is rush hour and Manila is notorious for traffic jams. The taxi drivers prefer to get several shorter rides rather than one long one during which they end up being stuck in the jam forever. Slightly exasperated, as well as exhausted from the humid heat and the fumes, I ask a security guard in front of one of Intramuros’ colonial buildings whether he can help me hail a taxi. He proves to be no more successful than I was on my own. Enter Ellen: She sees my peril, decidedly insists on taking me to a Starbuck’s down the road, ignoring all my objections. Even Grab drivers are difficult to get during rush hour, but Ellen keeps on re-sending the request to the app on her phone and stays with me until a car finally pulls up in front of the coffee shop 45 minutes later.

 

Another Filipino trait: Resilience. The Manila Cathedral was rebuilt 8 (!) times.

A day before, during the workshop for which I am here, I had learned what “it’s more fun in the Philippines” also means: three young women who work for the organization that hosts the meeting perform a karaoke song (“Colours of the wind” from the Disney Pocahontas movie – since we are in a meeting on nature conservation!) to motivate the delegates (government representatives from 7 countries, by the way…not boy scouts) during the final stages of a group exercise. Wouldn’t happen in this way in Switzerland, I dare say…

It’s not all fun and games in the Philippines. I get a glimpse of that as well, even without visiting army prisons, remote rural areas, or the red light district. Another driver, this time I am on the way from the hotel to the airport. He asks where I am from, then tells me that he almost went to Switzerland last year: One of his high school class mates works in Zurich, and had invited the whole class to come for a week. He committed to provide for all expenses. Eight of them went, but not my driver. “Why not?”. “Because I had to work.”. He tells me that the hotel doesn’t give him any vacation to recover from his 12 to 15 hour working days, apart from 1 day off each week. So he missed the opportunity to visit Europe. I ask him what he likes about his job, remembering my conversation with Joel. He says “I get to see so many places all the time. I could not sit in an office all day long.” He didn’t see Switzerland, but he contents himself with seeing the different neighborhoods of Manila.

Tel Aviv / Jerusalem, Israel, April 2018

M. says, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem have nothing in common apart from the language, and that is our impression as well.

Tel Aviv is a thousand pubs, coffee shops, bars, cafés in the middle of the road, breakfast places, ice cream parlors, hummus stalls and so on. Jerusalem is a labyrinth of old town alleys to get lost in and suddenly find yourself inadvertently having crossed from, say, the Moslem into the Armenian quarter, with cave-like shops selling tourist souvenirs, clothes, art, jewellery and religious artifacts.

Tel Aviv is young, fit and good-looking - muscular shirtless guys show off their beach bodies in open air gyms. Jerusalem is orthodox Jews in traditional black robe and with side earlocks, some with heavy fur hats, accompanied by women in skirts and dresses (never pants) often wearing wigs (showing your natural hair is not allowed).

Tel Aviv is dogs, dogs, dogs.
Jerusalem is a Jewish soldier guarding a mosque, a Muslim woman cleaning the toilets in a church.

Tel Aviv is laid-back and open-minded, and the best place for LGBT people in the Middle East.
Jerusalem is charged and intense - you can feel some sort of sizzling in the air, and every taxi driver (they are usually Palestinian) will tell you unasked about his frustrations with the Jews and the state - how the Arabic writing above one of the old town gates supposedly was replaced by a Star of David overnight. How formerly Palestinian neighborhoods have turned Jewish and the former occupants were forcibly removed from their houses. Having come too close to the entrance of Al Aksa Mosque, we are being told off in a rather hostile manner. Driving through the streets at night, we see a large gathering of religious Jews in what looks like a riot or a demonstration, with lots of police, military and burning trash cans. When we mention it back at the hotel, the receptionist merely shrugs and informs us that "there is always someone protesting in Jerusalem".

Tel Aviv has no history to speak of, the whole city is barely a hundred years old and sports an eclectic mix of architectural styles, from Bauhaus over Jugendstil to the glass facades of modern skyscrapers.
Jerusalem has more history than most other places on Earth, with some of the most significant places, buildings and structures of three world religions being within walking distance of one another. Standing next to the tomb of Mary,  or the place where Jesus preached to his followers on the Mount of Olives, it is hard to believe that this is the same soil they would have stood on, the same view they would have had.