Back in December 1999, I decided to quit my job, forget about my 2 university degrees and explore the world. There was something magical about the year 2000, a time for big changes. I found myself a rusty 1967 4WD Mercedes truck and had the crazy idea of driving it from Belgium to India.
I was always intrigued with the Woodstock times and decided to make it a kind of peace and love mission. How to turn that rusty old vehicle into a mind-boggling message-to-the-world transmitter?
I had enough crazy artistic friends to get that done. One friend had become a famous tattoo artist and another was a secret graffiti artist. Yes, I do love fusion and the result was astonishing, have a look yourself.
As you can see, there is this old-school tattoo style in the banner with crazy spray graffiti art in the background.
Looking at that painting, I saw myself on my mission already, what a piece of art to drive around with, what a childish dream taking off right at that moment.
The most amazing aspect of working with spray cans is the speed of creation. In barely 5-6 hours, these 2 artists painted both sides of my truck. With no questions asked, they went straight to the back fulfilling their own desire to leave not 1 spot unpainted.
They sprayed what they saw as my portrait, a huge heart with the cap of a mad man on top, what a final gift!
Once you set off on a journey like this, you should go where the path leads you and accept what the path has to give to you. I arrived in India 6 months later with a pregnant girlfriend and we never came back.
My 2 children grew up in the truck but after 7 years, the truck became a bit small for a family of 4. We also had 2 big dogs so it became really crammy inside.
7 years is a beautiful cycle, maybe it was time for a change…
One of our last trips in India consisted of checking out some strange flyer hanging in a Gokarna beach-shack, “Building an eartship, volunteers wanted”. Some crazy chap @eco-alex had a vision of constructing some gigantic self-sustainable house with tyres and other crap straight from the garbage.
His choice of land was excellent. At 2000m high in the mountains of South-India, a baba was sitting on a lot of land and renting out plots for lifetime for almost no money. There are no building regulations in India so you can realise your wildest imaginations.
We also fell in love with the place and we have built our own sustainable place about 500m from the earthship. A beautiful stone house with loads of wood. We have a waterfall and pool 50m from our house, paradise exists!
If you want to know everything about earthships, you can follow @eco-alex, he finally found a medium – We love Steemit - to start blogging his experiences, https://steemit.com/life/@eco-alex/diary-of-a-first-time-eco-builder-or-the-creation-of-my-life-s-dream-a-totally-off-grid-self-sufficient-home-earthship-karuna
This post is a bit my story of how I ended up at the earthship and especially a tribute to @eco-alex. Thanks to him, I build my own sustainable offgrid little paradise and last but not least, I would never be on Steemit without him :-)
Here and now, we are again 7 years further, our children are now 10 and 13. They are the most amazing children but they are a bit tired of sitting on a mountaintop with no other children around.
7 years is a beautiful cycle, maybe it is time for a change…
We are currently looking to move back somewhere to South-Europe, our ears are open for the whispering advice from the road ahead. Do you know where to go in South-Europe?
Take care,
bub
ps: Check out the ecoTrain highlight posts, showcasing our amazing passengers every week
Nice one. I hope there is more to come.
I would love to see pictures of your place.
I have been to India a few times, first time in 1992 for 9 months, so I am also interested in how you manage to stay there long time.
Also stories about your build would be much appreciated,
Thanks likedeeler, not much more to come i think, no plans on blogging on history, love
Wow @bubke !! That is so awesome and inspiring. Well done for following your heart and dreams - and doing it in such amazing style.
It'd be great to hear more of your adventures, especially about the trip to India in that incredible psychedelic truck.
Resteeming this - hopefully it may bring a lead to your next destination...
Thanks for the resteem @stillgideon, the next destination is absolutely not clear yet although it is absolutely clear that change is in the air, exciting times ahead...
you know one of our passengers is headed to portugal to help build a new eco community?! ;-)
who is that and where? I'm very interested. A chance to catch up with ecotrain passangers and Build ??? Yes please where can I sign up ?
check out @markwhittam .. hes doing many amazing things.. and soon will hear to portugal..
Inspiring story! I really enjoyed reading it :) sometimes the 'usual' or 'normal' path isn't the one for us, and your story of just letting life take you was very cool to read. Thanks for sharing!
Also, really cool vehicle! It definitely stands out (and looks amazing) haha. Any plans where in Europe you will move?
Thank you for this beautiful comment maha devi, the real path is no path i guess. Things are happening in Portugal, Spain, lots to check out...
Portugal.
Any place you end up will be a new adventure and experience which is the important part!
I haven´t been to Portugal yet, but Spain is nice and got lots of anarcho stuff going on. In Europe I also like Greece because of the many islands.
What I don´t like about them, is that they are in the EU and Eurozone and because of this there are many problems. So if I would leave Germany I´d rather be outside of the EU, Asia or South America I guess.
Outside is always the Visa issue, very annoying, i plan on posting something about that tomorrow in light of the ecotrain freedom subject
That´s true, but freedom has its price. :-)
I don´t know if you are familiar with EU rules and regulations, but for me it is just an annoying bureaucratic, lobbyist, corporate cesspool with tendencies towards totalitarianism and not exactly conducive to freedom. And if this monster wasn´t enough, they created another one with the Eurozone.
But I found that Panama or Paraguay for example have reasonably priced residency programms.
Georgia is another rising star (the one besides Turkey)
Looking forward to your freedom post.
Wow, @bubke. (I want your life!) What an amazing and inspiring story. Not to mention the Love Van. That's how life should be. That's the best use two university degrees can be put to.....FREEDOM. I want to be under that waterfall and hope we're going to see more. South Europe? I'd do Portugal but can't wait to see where you guys end up.
Ha, freedom, that's the next topic... Thanks for your beautiful comment. By the way, i have my 100% naughty vegan recipe post ready, how to participate?
I think you might be talking to @clara-andriessen here, @bubke :) But 100% naughty vegan recipes are always welcome in our house too :)
This is exactly the way to go. Don't hang on to the path you 'should' follow, tracked by society and make use of your degrees until you are allowed to retire. Life's short, life is to the fullest. I'm gonna follow you on your path
I see you get the point @arnoldus-k, will follow you too
Oh wow, I had no idea you`ll ever like to leave paradies! :-)
I dont want to, my children want to :-). @Blueperegrina, i see your name everywhere, do we know each other?
Oh, i forgot being incognito on steemit. Yes, have been at Karuna for the little earthspip, build for the tibetian workers. I had pizza at your house, and i remember you've been the cook, making this extrodinary meals for us. But, as i have been one out of many, you might not remember me. From Germany (if it helps).
Your name might help, a picture might help :-)
have a look at facebook, hihi, perhaps it helps.
I am a bit biased, but I highly recommend the north of Spain, that is where I cme from and where we are moving to on Jan 2018. We are seeking to do something pretty much along the lines of an Earthship and we know there is a budding sustainable community that we would love to nurture. The planning is not as lax as in India but it is definitely more ameanable to this sort of thing than the UK is... There are many abandoned rural homes with 1-5 hectares of land for about 60k Euros.... Plus look at the place! This is MY paradise. Mountain and beach within 1 hr drive of each other.
Image sources; 1, 2
BTW, this is our initial design. Will plan to make the top floor out of straw bale, we are researching the feasibility of mixed construction methods.
Husband is a heating engineer so he is playing with different heating systems if we find temp is not quite what we hoped, and we are planning to introduce a rocket stove mass heater that will incorporate underfloor heating and a hot water tank in that small understair cupboard to charge the thermal battery further in the winter.
Hi Olayer, Where in the north of Spain if I may ask?
Asturias of course! ; -)
Hi @olayar, i never replied to your amazing pictures and plans for Asturias. It looks astonishing there and i am following you now in the hope of getting some 2018 updates on this! Love from India
What an inspiring story! I have been researching earthships for a while now and am trying to figure out if I can make a small one for a "storm shelter" and avoid the problems with building codes.
I will follow and check out your other links as well. Also I am resteeming this.
Thanks for the nice comment and the resteem @stillwatersart. If you want to know more about earthships, you should really check out @eco-alex, he is currently blogging earthships from start to finish. Love.
Yes, I am already following @eco-alex His blog is great!
Had a look at your blog, some very nice posts, a bit too much resteems but following you for the "hippie at heart" :-)
Thank you @bubke. I was away from home for 3 days over the weekend and wasn't able to create much content, but plan to do better this week.
Thank you for sharing your story! What a great journey and I'm interested to read where you will head next with your family.
Mostly welcome, I am also interested to know where we will go next :-)
You've got my attention. I love these type of life journeys. I took a leap of faith myself to give it all up and live off-grid, albeit in my same U.S. state. I'm looking forward to future posts.
Hi merry lotus, nice to meet another nature lover. Much love.
Wow, What an amazing truck, you had told me the story but now seeing the truck it all becomes clearer some how.
I love the randomness of seeing a flyer and ending up building a home a stones throw from @eco-alex beautiful earthship.
Thanks for sharing this with us, stories like this is what life is all about, adventure, open roads, and connections with people like Alex and now all of us on steemit.
Steem ON! @bubke
It's really great
Wow! What a fantastic story! I didn't realise you guys lived in the truck for so long! Yes, times change, what will we do without you on our mountaintop? Maybe it's time for a change for us too? We are keeping our ears open for that advise from the road ahead... Maybe we can inspire each other.
Waw man, this really looks like true freedom to me :)
Im planing to go on something similar with a friend of mine after a month too.. Bless you and enjoy your amazing adventures as they are more expensive than anything else that can be bought.
Great memories of your beautiful Track ....Thanks @bubke
lovely story.. and what a story! that truck was so cool!
very happy to have met you and your amazing family!
7 years... Mmmm.. ;_)
Awesome @bub! You are an inspiration to me, you created your world around you.
I know the waterfall you are talking about. I think I have some recollection of your association with Alex online a few years back.
It's wonderful to see the story behind your connection with Karuna.
One Love
Oh man what an Epic Journey, and the chances of meeting Alex wow!!! I hope you find your new destination mate and if you ever do and need a hand from a Natural builder, I would love to come help.
This story, your journey so far, and imagining where it might lead, the fact that somehow, very normal life me is even afforded a glimpse at this is incredible. I just finished reading the post again and all the comments and replies. There is a lot of positive energy flowing. I have a feeling there is a path forming for your family and more inspiring journeys ahead. I will enjoy my perspective as a kind of a fly on the virtual Steemit wall. Good luck!
I hope your feeling is right, there was indeed a very nice positivity in these comments which i enjoyed a lot. I am encountering quite some travelling families on Steemit now, the path is forming :-)
Nice post, i'm from Belgium and been to India 4 time's. So you haven't come to Belgium for like almost 20 years if i understand correctly?
Cool, Flemish or French? I am still in India but I try to see my mother now once a year, she is +80.
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