Eyes Wide Open

Youth time is not that long, yet it will be fading out quickly. Do what you always dream to do since you have the time, you have the fit body, you have smaller risk…just simply do what you want!

Note to self:

- Be great at swimming and diving

- Try horseback riding

- Try wall-climbing

- Learn musical instrument, like guitar. No, don’t think its too late!

- Cook more! Be great at traditional food..

- Make running/ jogging become a habit

- Do more traveling

- Write write write!

- Don’t change your self just for the sake of acceptance, especially from a man. If they love you, they will bring out the best in you, not pushing your qualities down just to please their egoistic self

- Don’t listen to much on what people said! Don’t wish for acceptance, wish for an inspiration!

Being away from home, family, usual food and friends for almost two weeks..and start to miss them.. I’m just this kind of girl! :) Good news, will fly from Bangkok to Bali, Indonesia tomorrow morning!! I surely will eat a loot and call my friends and family..

I miss you all..

( Alone, together with hundred of sleepy passenger-to-be)

Arrive at KL at 11.30 pm malaysia time. The flight from Jakarta with Air Asia was smooth, except the fact that I sat next to a handsome young man who didn’t speak but sleep the whole time. You just missed your chance, man! It was the second time I arrive at this airport, so once I passed the immigration check point, I walked around observing or just hoping to see something interesting. I saw a sign of import restriction stating that it is against the law to bring fruits, plants, food from outside, especially from Thailand, except it is already pass import regulation. I guess that’s a way of Malaysian government to protect local producer from cheaper stuff from outside and keep the economy works. Quite sad remembering how Indonesian producer fight against Chinese product without significant effort from government. No protection, no support.. When I moved to another direction, I saw a big booth of Malaysian tourism, just next to the exit door. Complete brochure guide, no officer though but the booth was quite big for you to miss. Another learning point for Indonesia. I don’t think we have any tourism booth in arriving hall of the airport. All you can see only booth of car rent, taxi, hotel etc. When you step outside, you’ll only see a big billboard of old tourism ad. Visit Indonesia 2008 or something. Or billboard of a province tourism ads but filled with big governor picture, nothing relevant with the message. There’s a lot to be developed..

Okay, topic changed. This is my first experience staying alone in airport the whole night. Before, I thought I will sit in McD or something, but I found out that there are a lot of people staying and sleeping in the waiting hall. Most of them are backpackers (looking at their big back pack and appearance). So, I feel like I am just exactly same with them, not alone, nothing to be nervous about. Even though it was difficult to sleep, I got enough rest. I can sleep during the flight though. Looking at the people next to me, they are just diverse. Chinese, american, indian, malay, african, etc. I don’t know, but this is just exciting!

It is a nice beginning. I hope to see a lot of nice people during this trip and experience a lot of new things. I’ll try to always write it for you.. :)
My next flight to Hanoi is at 6am. I gotta go!

I am at Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Got a lot of story to write. In brief, it is a nice city, walkable, crowded but still manageable. Compare to Jakarta, it has traffic, but more because of motorcycle than car. It is hot and more humid. One thing that I love the most is it has a lot of community/city parks where people can do activities like learning salsa, waltz and cha cha, workout, hang out with family, friends and loved ones. I want it at Jakarta!! 

City tour and shopping are what we did at the first day. I am more to city trip and museums visit as you know, not a fan of shopping thingy actually. However, my team love shopping soo much, and as I accompanying them, I bought some stuff as well. It is actually useful to observe what Vietnamese do for a living and how they interact with visitors. The things they sell were really cheap, I am not gonna get that price in Indonesia. For one pretty and unique bag, I only pay 100 Vietnam dong, or less than 5 dollars. But as always, we need to bargain. You’ll never imagine how far they can cut the price if you know how to bargain. At the city tour, we visit some historical building with France touch at the downtown, like opera house, post office and independence palace. I didn’t visit the War Museum because rain fall and we need to go back to hotel soon. I should go next time. 

At the 2nd day, we went for Mekong Delta tour. It is quite far from our hotel, about 2 hours by car. After that, we ride a boat to visit one of the island at the Mekong Delta. At this island, we visit some traditional village where people make coconut candy, stuff from crocodile skin, and grow tropical fruits. Its pretty much the same with village in Indonesia, and I think Indonesia has to be more proud to introduce what we have to other people. We also ride a traditional boat to go through a smaller river and one thing that I noticed, people really keep the river clean. For lunch, we eat fried Elephant Ear Fish (or Gurame in Indonesia) with some fresh vegetables. Like how Vietnamese eat, we take wet rice paper, put some vegetables like cucumber and pineapples, fish meat and then roll the rice paper, put it slightly in sauce and eat it. Delicious!

(gotta go, I’ll be right back)

Okay, I am back. This is my 3rd day at HCM. Today we went to Cu Chi Tunnel, the remaining prove of Vietnam victory in American war. The tunnel was designed smartly and well-planed. The entry door is sooo small, I bet no US Army can get in since their body is big. I tried it and yup..it really fits my body, and I need to raise up my hand so I can put my shoulder into the hole. I’ll post a picture soon, so you can see how it works. This is the prove that as long as you have bravery and faith, you can always find a way to protect yourself, your country and your people even though you have no high-tech gun, machine and stuffs. The Vietnam people survived the war only by using bamboo trap, well-designed tunnel, used gun and bomb that they recycle to make other simple yet deadly tools. Seeing this amazing place has raised my respect to Vietnamese.. 

And for the last night in HCM, we went for a cruise dinner at Saigon River. We had a nice dinner at a 3-level cruise with other tourists. I saw more than 5 cruise served the tourist at that night. A nice touch to complete an experience in this city. The dinner was great, the music and dance was awesome. That was my farewell dinner with NHA team. Gotta say goodbye to Ibu Becky, Ibu Mar, Mba Sari, Yunita and Tire since I’ll leave the office the end of this month. What a wonderful 2-years experience and this HCM trip has became a beautiful ending. I really hope that I left such a nice memory in their mind, even though may be I did a lot of mistakes. I do hope they will still keep me in their heart as I’ll always do.