Page 361: Perjalanan Singkat ke Dua Kota di Thailand

Dua puluh tujuh. Usia ketika kali pertama saya memutuskan untuk memulai tradisi “birthday trip” di minggu yang menyelipkan tanggal kelahiran saya. Pengingat bahwa hidup harus terus melaju. Bahwa hidup bukan hanya Jakarta, kota tempat saya lahir, dibesarkan, dan kembali ditempati selepas kuliah di kota lain. Karena hidup tak lain adalah perjalanan, di mana bukan hanya kaki yang melangkah dari satu titik ke titik lainnya dan menuai lelah di raga, tapi juga pikiran dan jiwa yang mereguk pengalaman dan pelajaran. Lewat tempat baru, situasi baru, orang baru.

Bagi saya, ada kenikmatan menjadi orang asing di tempat asing. Berinteraksi dengan orang lain walau sejenak. Namun yang paling saya nikmati adalah interaksi dengan diri saya sendiri. Tentang memori, tentang perjalanan yang sudah lewat, tentang hidup. Kontemplasi, saat melihat wajah-wajah yang saya tidak tahu namanya di keramaian dengan secangkir kopi yang saya tangkup dengan kedua telapak tangan. Kadang saya teringat kata teman saya kalau mungkin saya sudah bisa punya rumah dan mobil sendiri kalau penghasilan tidak dikeluarkan untuk jalan-jalan. Kalau saya sudah seharusnya menabung untuk masa depan dan mengurangi “hobi” itu. Haha. Karena walaupun tradisi jalan-jalan pada saat bertambah usia baru dimulai lima tahun lalu, jauh sebelumnya saya memang sudah menikmati aktivitas menjelajah tempat baru.

Mungkin teman saya ada benarnya. Tapi kalau saya tidak melakukan perjalanan ke Bali di pertengahan tahun ini mungkin saya tidak akan bertemu sosok itu. Dia, yang mengajarkan saya untuk berani lagi memulai komitmen baru dan belajar untuk mempercayai orang lain, tapi terutama diri saya sendiri, bahwa perjalanan yang kami mulai akan membuat kami menjadi dua individu yang lebih baik. Dia yang akhirnya menjadi rekan saya menjelajah tiga tempat terakhir yang saya kunjungi: Penang di Malaysia, lalu dua kota di Thailand, Chiang Mai dan Pai– meski bukan untuk merayakan ulang tahun saya. Dia, yang juga menyukai secangkir kopi hitam hangat di pagi hari.

Bisa dibilang semua berawal dari Traveloka. Semenjak 2016, traveloka selalu menjadi bagian dari perjalanan saya. Proses mencari tiket pesawat menjadi lebih mudah karena user interface appnya tidak membingungkan. Menurut saya tidak perlu ada panduan karena semua jelas di situ. Favorit saya adalah fitur best pricenya karena mempermudah memilih yang sesuai dengan budget. Cara menggunakan fitur ini juga sangat mudah. Cukup masuk ke aplikasi traveloka, pilih penerbangan, tekan tanggal, lalu aktifkan fiturnya di bagian bawah layar, harga tiket paling murah di tiap hari nya akan muncul. Perjalanan ke Bali waktu itu pun juga mengandalkan traveloka. Senang rasanya kalau melihat angka-angka berwarna hijau yang pas dengan kemampuan kantong. Haha. Merencanakan perjalanan jadi lebih sederhana dan bisa dipersiapkan lebih matang. Terutama untuk para pekerja yang harus mengajukan cuti dulu.

Perjalanan ke Thailand awal November kemarin untuk melihat Festival Loy Krathong dan Yee Peng juga jadi bisa karena dengan adanya fitur best price finder. Pada awal pencarian tiket, saya mencari dulu jadwal penerbangan dan harga tiket yang tersedia dari Jakarta ke Chiang Mai, kota tempat dua festival tersebut berlangsung. Ketika ternyata melebihi budget, saya putar otak mencari jalur lain ke Chiang Mai. Pilihan akhirnya jatuh ke penerbangan ke Bangkok terlebih dahulu, lalu melanjutkan ke Chiang Mai. Fitur best price finder membantu saya melakukan kalkulasi dan komparasi. 

Perjalanan mungkin memang tidak terlalu nyaman karena harus singgah juga di Kuala Lumpur International Airport dan Don Mueang Airport untuk transit, sebelum akhirnya sampai di Chiang Mai. Tapi rentang harga yang cukup jauh dan kesempatan meluruskan kaki sembari bekerja di lounge bandara membuat saya bisa melakukan banyak hal sekaligus dan tidak merasa waktu saya terbuang sia-sia.

Chiang Mai mengingatkan saya akan Yogyakarta. Sulit rasanya untuk tidak mencari perbandingan kota di tanah air sendiri tiap mengunjungi kota di Negara lain. Otomatis saja saat sudah mulai melepas lelah dan mengobservasi situasi kota, bukan karena berjaga-jaga agar bisa mendeskripsikannya ke orang lain. Saya tiba 31 Oktober malam hari. Setelah beristirahat, esok paginya kami mulai menjelajah Chiang Mai. Tidak jauh-jauh, hanya di china town, sekitar tempat kami menginap. Terutama karena saya masih harus menyelesaikan beberapa pekerjaan, begitu juga dia. Hotel tempat kami menginap memberikan informasi mengenai acara-acara yang berlangsung selama festival beserta lokasinya, jadi kami bisa lebih mengatur rencana.

Sebuah kuil di Chiang Mai

Sekadar informasi, Festival Loy Krathong dan Yee Peng adalah dua festival yang berbeda namun diselenggarakan pada kurun waktu yang bersamaan dan kerap disebut Festival Cahaya Thailand (Thai Festival of Lights). Puncak acara Loy Krathong adalah menghanyutkan lentera di sungai. Lentera ini terbuat dari batang daun pisang dan dihiasi oleh bunga, lilin, daun pisang dan batang dupa. Puncak acara festival Yee Peng juga ditandai dengan pelepasan lentera, hanya saja tidak di sungai, melainkan ke langit. Lentera yang terbuat dari kertas akan mengembang karena udara panas yang dihasilkan saat sumbu lentera dibakar. Berdasarkan tradisi, mereka yang berpartisipasi di festival ini bisa mengucapkan permohonan sesaat sebelum menerbangkan atau menghanyutkan lentera karena dipercaya bisa membawa nasib baik selama setahun ke depan.

2 November menjadi hari pembuka festival yang berlangsung selama 3 hari tersebut. Tidak banyak kegiatan pada hari itu, hanya pertunjukan tarian tradisional Lanna di mana banyak perempuan – berdasarkan pemantauan saya mungkin jumlahnya mencapai 100 – memegang lilin yang menyala di sela-sela jari tangan dan berbaris rapi sembari menari di sepanjang jalan. Esoknya, tanggal 3 November, hari yang menjadi puncak festival dimulai dengan seremoni penyalaan lilin di kuil Wat Phan Tao pukul 18.30. Setelah menghabiskan satu jam menyaksikan festival, kami memutuskan untuk bergerak ke lokasi ke-dua yang menjadi pusat pelepasan lentera ke langit yang terletak sekitar 1 kilometer dari kuil tersebut. Di jalan yang saya lupa namanya, ratusan orang berkumpul dan siap menerbangkan lentera. Usai mengucapkan permohonan, kami melepas lentera yang untungnya tidak tersangkut di batang pohon atau terbakar.

Setelahnya kami beranjak untuk mengisi perut dan pulang karena esok akan melanjutkan perjalanan ke Pai. Tanggal 4 November pagi hari, kami berkemas dan menuju stasiun bus Chiang Mai. Pai adalah kota yang bisa dibilang sedang naik daun dan banyak direkomendasikan oleh para traveler dan warga setempat saat sudah di Chiang Mai karena letaknya yang hanya

Page 320: A Brief Exploration of Gloomy Glasgow and Vibrant Edinburgh

One shirt and one sweater underneath my coat, and I still shivered. It was 3 AM in Carlisle, a city in UK where bus passengers who wanted to continue the trip to Glasgow had to transit. Traveling with bus wasn’t my first choice. I’d booked a flight to Glasgow but then I missed it, and it’s too expensive to buy a new ticket. So I decided to take a bus from Victoria Coach Station, London (ticket price: GBP39). After 8 hours on the road, the driver told me to wait at some tiny shelter with nothing to protect me from cold wind. I was pretty surprised, because I thought the shelter would be more..decent. Haha. “That..shelter? Ah, lovely” I told that middle aged man with a chagrined smile on my face. Thank God I wasn’t alone. There were 3 women with their kids who also waited for the next bus. They shivered too. So it’s not because I was such a tropical baby.

It was my first time visiting UK so of course, Scotland was on the list. But with only 3 days to spend, I had to forget the idea to see Loch Ness, a place where nessy legend was born. As a cryptozoology enthusiast, it was quite a bummer. Nevertheless, the excitement to visit Glasgow and Edinburgh wiped that frown off my face.

The bus to Glasgow came sooner than I thought. I hopped on the bus and slept until it arrived at Buchanan Bus Station at 5 AM. The first thing that I did was trying to find a charging station. I kinda hated myself for not bringing a power bank for this trip, because unlike in Indonesia where you can easily find outlets in public space, plug the cord and charge your phone for free, in UK you have to pay GBP1.5 for 30 minutes of charging.

Glasgow in the morning. So many biiirrdsss

As soon as my phone got back to life, I asked my friend to pick me up. We had coffee and talked for almost two hours before headed to her apartment. On the way, she told me a little bit of this and that about Glasgow and Scotland. Like the origin of the name Scotland, “skotos” which means “darkness”, or that Scotland’s national animal is the unicorn (a fact that amuses me since it’s one of my favorite mythological creatures).

To me, Glasgow was like a slow burn. At first, I saw it as just cold and gloomy, but the next day, i realized there's something beautiful about the gloomy atmosphere in this city - the light brown bricks they used for their buildings and the cloudy sky are enticing. If you’re an arts enthusiast, it’s not hard to find places where you can feed your artsy fartsy side in Glasgow. But during my trip, I only visited 3 places; Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA), Glasgow School of Art and Lighthouse. CCA reminds me of Dia.Lo.Gue, an art space where you can find interesting exhibition, artshop, and a café. Glasgow School of Art has a regular exhibition of students called “Degree Show” that you can see for free. I love the souvenirs that you can get there. Well..it depends on the artists I think, maybe it’s just my luck that some of them provided nice postcards that “frame-able”. The third place, Lighthouse also has a space to hold an exhibition. When i went there, they had this nice architecture exhibition.

I always think it won’t feel like traveling if you don’t try the local cuisine of the place you visit. For Scotland, it means Haggis, deep-fried mars bars and Shortbread, at least. Haggis is a savory pudding containing pork or sheep's pluck (heart, liver and lungs); minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock. If you don’t eat pork, you can try the kosher version of it – it exists, trust me. I didn’t try the deep-fried mars bars, but I wasn’t that curious either. I was more curious about this ice cream store in Edinburgh that my friend had been telling about, Mary’s Milk Bar, which I will tell you later. Shortbread fits with coffee or tea, because it’s not that sweet. Not a huge fan of it, but it was okay.

There’s a franchise in UK where you can find cute things for your house called Tiger. Gosh, if only I didn’t have maximum checked baggage weight (and more money to spend, haha) I would’ve bought so many things. I didn’t take the picture of the Glasgow branch I visited, but I bought a set of espresso glasses there. Another nice spot to chill in Glasgow was near River Clyde where people can sit on the green grass where sometimes seagull will join you. Haha. My friend said that seagulls here are like stray cats in Jakarta, they will come to you just to check whether you have food to share or not.

I visited Edinburgh on the second day. My friend and I took the bus from Buchanan bus station and we only had to pay £3.5 per person for round trip, because they had sale or something. You can buy the tickets online and sometimes they give discount. So make sure to check the website one or two days before your trip. Edinburgh was so different from Glasgow, more people and vibrant. The first destination was Edinburgh Castle, one of the famous tourist attractions in that Scotland’s capitol. When we went there, they were building some kind of extended stadium for a festival, we assumed, since Edinburgh is famous with its festivals. The ticket to enter the castle was expensive, £16.50 for adult (16-59 years) and £9.90 for child (5-15years), so I decided to just take pictures in front of it. Haha.

After that, my friend took me to get around the city. We saw street performers here and there, most of them are street musicians carrying bagpipe and wearing Scottish traditional dress – kilt included. We also found a man dressed like Mel Gibson in Braveheart in front of The Scotch Whisky Experience, a 25 year old place where visitors can buy whisky at the shop, take a whisky tasting tour and or whisky school. Our next destination was Mary’s Milk Bar! Yeay! Finally! Located in Grassmarket area, this small place offers more than just delicious gelato (Italian word for ice cream). They also have floats and chocolate bars, but the star of this place is course the ice cream. The price for one scoop was £2, £3 for 2 scoops, and £4 for three. I chose salted caramel, raspberry, and dark chocolate. OMG they’re absolutely amazing! With the perfect level of sweetness and texture, they melted in my mouth in a very delightful way. I like the vintage decoration too, it plays old music and is filled with vintage furniture and has a 60-year-old milkshake machine that’s still in perfect working order. The owner, Mary Hillard, who was there too during our visit, also looked like a girl that came out from a vintage photo. I hated myself not to take picture or having a conversation with her. I googled her and found out that she’s a trained chocolatier and an ex-student of Gelato University in Anzola dell’Emilia, near Bologna, Italy. Gelato University! Didn’t know that they have a university to master the art of gelato making!

We continued our journey by visiting Scottish National Gallery and had dinner at this nice spanish restaurant nearby. After that we went to Elephant House, the restaurant where JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter books. Like Edinburgh Castle, we didn’t get in, just took photos in front of it *insert innocent grin here*. We also visited Greyfriars Kirkyard by accident. I was attracted by a statue of Greyfriar Bobby, a dog who became known in 19th-century Edinburgh for supposedly spending 14 years guarding the grave of his owner until he died himself on 14 January 1872. Near the statue, there was a cemetery and a church inside, so I was curious and asked my friend to explore a little bit. There I found out a flyer, saying that it’s one of the most haunted cemeteries in the world and they even have a regular tour to show visitors famous spots where poltergeist activities often take place around the graveyard. I told my friend that Indonesia has potential market for this kind of tour since we’re superstitious and have so many places that are believed to be haunted. We just need a better marketing strategy, hehe. We didn’t stay long because it’s 10 PM already and the summer sky has started to turn dark, so yeah, it was creepy. Haha.

We then went to some restaurant who served many variants of beer and coffee before taking the bus that took us back to Glasgow. And that’s the end of our journey. The next day I flew back to London, hoping someday I can go back to explore Highlands and Aberdeen.

Page 291: Birthday Trip to Gili

Bleeding knee and head full of wishes. It was midnight in Gili. 10 minutes before I accidentally hit a guy -- I blame it on that stupid bike, besides of course, my stupidity too. I turned 30 and I sat on the beach. In front of me were the dark water and the dark sky.

“Now what? What’s next?” said the voices inside my head. I didn't answer it, but I promised that I would keep chasing things that I think will make me a happier person. And to keep this tradition, too: having a birthday trip ever year, to remind myself that life is a journey, and as long as I’m breathing, I will do what I love and do things that make me feel alive.

This year, I decided to go to Gili. 4 days 3 nights. I took a fast boat from Bali (IDR350,000) and stayed at Denaya Lodge (500,000/ day).

Gili was amazing. I snorkeled (IDR100,000 a day), I rode bike (IDR70,000/ day), I saw a big turtle in the sea, I giggled uncontrollably when I saw crabs on the beach (no, i didn't consume the magic mushroom. I just thought that it's hilarious) and I had tons of fun with two amazing people. My life isn't perfect but I thank God for everything that I have and everyone in my life. Getting older doesn't mean that you have to let go of things that make you happy just because some people told you to do so. As long as it doesn't against the law, do it. Seriously, I think you should just do it. Do things that make you happy, learn things that can make you a wiser person, and be kind. People will say whatever they wanna say anyway so just live your life, because it's yours. Embrace, explore, enjoy. And again, thank you, everyone, for the birthday wishes and gifts. 

Page 260: Oh Hello 29!

Last year, I decided that I have to go somewhere outside Jakarta every year on my birthday. To remind myself that the traffic and shitty parts of this city haven’t made me immune to that thought that I have to make my life more interesting with traveling.

It’s kinda hard actually, because in January, especially in this island where I live, Java, monsoon occurs from September to February. If only I had that power to turn every single hair on my armpits into diamond, I could easily go to anywhere I want. But of course, I can’t, and because of the budget, I have to plan my trip wisely.

So last year I went to Bromo and this year I went to Kawah Putih, Bandung. I was planning to go to Mount Prau, Dieng actually. But with the rain and wind, I changed my destination to Kawah Putih, Bandung. And I didn’t regret it. Not at all. It’s safer and I still had beautiful scenery right in front of my eyes.

I went with cool people who also took a trip with me to Vietnam and Cambodia. Have you ever had that feeling when you finally found your travel buddies? Those people you can travel with because you know you won’t have that urge to kill them immediately on the first week exploring new places with them? That’s how I feel about them. I heart their idiosyncrasies and quirkiness. I had fun.

And when I got back, my most favorite foreigners in Jakarta gave me surprise with music performance, gift, and scrumptious Japanese food. Happy belly! Thanks buddies!

Turns out, being 29 isn't that bad. So far so good. Although I still have lotsa questions in my head, inexplicable feelings about life and erratic dreams with no map that could show me the fast-right-safe path to reach them. Not to mention bombarded with silly questions about decisions I made for my life from people who (maybe) just want me to see them as good role models.

I can’t tell whether I’ve surrendered and just embrace whatever comes or not. Not for everything, just for some parts. I’ve learned to sincerely let go of good people who have carved good memories in my brain and heart (because some of them will be in other countries this year and yes I know I can just utilize technology to keep in touch with them, but for me it won’t be same). I’ve learned that I still have trust issues when it comes to friendship and relationship (because although you have treated people nicely, some people just wouldn’t have that consideration that you’re important for them), but I still think that if I treat people nicely while keeping my expectation low will guard me from being hurt.

No. I can’t tell whether I’ve surrendered and just embrace it.

But I can tell that I’m wiser and calmer.

I think.

Thank you 2013. Thank you 28. Thank you good people. Thank you God. J

So take the photographs, and still frames in your mind

Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time

Tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial

For what it's worth it was worth all the while

It's something unpredictable, but in the end is right,

I hope you had the time of your life.

Green Day - Good Riddance

Page 84: A Picture Tell Advices

life is short: absolutely agree

life is simple: wait. wait. hmmm... not really ahahaha

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accidentally found this interesting picture here