NOTHING REMAINS AS IT IS
Book 2: Don't Ask For Sugar
🌎 True adventures across Australia, India and West Berlin
After being left by his great love Suzanne, Chris hitchhikes 12,000 kilometres across Australia – from Perth to Port Augusta, Sydney, Cairns and finally Cape Tribulation. Heat, highway, outback – pure, restless freedom 
.
At New Year’s Eve in Cape Tribulation, he kisses a woman from Berlin in the pool 
. Minutes later, a towering man screams that he will kill him. Chris ducks, pushes the man into the water – but later, during what should have been a relaxed chess game 
, a brutal punch strikes him out of nowhere. He blacks out.
When he comes to again: a split lip, a swollen right cheek – and complete darkness in one eye.
A few days later, back in Cairns, Chris tries to get work on a diving boat. He waits for the swelling to heal, spends two weeks on the Great Barrier Reef 
– but without a visa and with almost no money, the situation becomes impossible. Giving up, however, is not an option.
During a phone call with his mother 
, Chris learns that his brother Ralf is currently in India.
After the call, a familiar memory returns with full force: Ralf has been smuggling hashish for years.
A dangerous idea begins to take shape – find Ralf, earn money, keep moving.
Although Chris still holds a return ticket to Germany, he gets off the plane early, in New Delhi ✈️. In Jaipur he finds Ralf in a shabby hotel. Together they push on:
→ the ferry to Goa 🚢
→ two friendly Swedish tourists 🇸🇪
→ a severe food poisoning in Kerala 🤒
→ three days in a coma
→ heading toward Nepal
→ and an unsettling night at an Indian railway station, classical music from loudspeakers and a man dressed in black walking straight towards them 🎼
Shortly afterwards, Chris is robbed in his sleep:
Bag gone. Passport gone. Money gone. Everything gone. 🎒❌
Ralf lends him 300 DM and a few rupees – just enough to make it back to Delhi.
In the waiting room of the German Embassy, Chris reads about the Bhopal gas disaster 📰.
Two weeks later, he returns to Germany with a new passport.
After a short stay with his parents, he flees from impending military service and reaches West Berlin through a ride-share – travelling across the snowy GDR transit route ❄️🚗.
There, a new chapter begins:
his first nights sleeping on friends’ couches,
a chaotic and almost absurd search for an apartment amid snow, hope and Berlin madness 🏘️,
finally an old flat in Neukölln –
and a job at a CNC lathe in Charlottenburg 🛠️.
Nothing Lasts Forever is an unfiltered travel memoir about bad luck, courage, detours and new beginnings – a true story from a time when people travelled half the world with little money, a bit of luck and a great deal of wildness.
📸 At the end of the book, you will find accompanying photos