Shits Happened in Egypt

Have u ever experienced any “shit happened” when you traveled?
On my last big trip, I've got lesson learned that shouldn't be taken un-seriously!

When I was happily landed on Cairo International Airport, I went directly to the immigration counter. Unfortunately, I needed to wait for my passport being further checking. It’s basically common in Cairo although I didn’t know the way they chose the tourists to be checked further. They said I have to wait at the back for 5 minutes. Almost 15 minutes there was no announcement that my passport had been finished checking. Then, I asked the officer, again he just said, “You have to wait for 5 minutes”. The hostel driver actually will pick me up when I arrived, so I called the hostel (yeah I turned on my international roaming -.-) and told him that I still needed to wait for my passport. I asked him the driver number, but he said the driver would come to see me and he asked me what I worn at that day. Because of the miscommunication, I couldn’t manage to meet the driver, and when I called the hostel again, he said better for me to take taxi, he would tell the address to the taxi driver, by the way.

Vertical Caving & Heritage Story

Jomblang Cave & Sendratari Ramayana Theatre– September 2014

Yeay I was back again to Yogyakarta. This time’s plans were to visit Jomblang Cave and watch Sendratari Ramayana in Prambanan temple.

So, who was your travel friend this time, Ri? Mmhm seriously? Are you asking me this question? I think that was rhetorical statement, you guys know lha with whom I traveled. Bwhahahhaha :P

As usual we were going to take train again and again (kere apa gimana sih gak pernah naik pesawat ke Yogya ;P). Taking Senja Utama Solo on September 12, 2014 from Pasar Senen Station, we left at 20.55 and arrived at 6 o’clock in the morning at Yogyakarta Station on September 13, 2014.

Goa Jomblang is a vertical cave with the forest inside, and located around the Kidul mountain area. It links to Grubug cave which has a “ray of light” or “Heaven Light” when you come before noon. It wasn’t easy to visit Goa Jomblang alone; we needed to book the agent to prepare us for everything needed such as rope and safety stuff to touch the ground of Jomblang Cave. It cost us 450k IDR per person (including lunch). Expensive huh, yet it was worth the price later on.

Being picked up by our driver early in the morning, we directly headed to Jomblang Cave. The directions from the agent weren’t clear enough. There’s also no sign on the way to get there. Fortunately our driver knew the area although we still needed to asked local people to find the place. We needed to turn right after the school, said the agent, and you know what? The road was really bad! Extremely bad! The agent said it was only one kilometre after the school, yet it turned out more than 1 km. We needed to drive over the cashew farm with the broken road. It took around 2 hours and half to get Jomblang Cave from station.

Just a Random Traveler

Tebing Keraton & Blue Doors Coffee, Bandung - Oktober 2014

Yes I am a random traveler. Gue memang benar-benar random. Jadi kemarin itu gue ada meeting di Bogor. Hari itu hari jumat yang gue tidak berniat nginep karena awalnya mau les dan gak ada nyokap jadi gak ada orang di rumah. Tapi mendadak gue random................

Random #1

Gue whatsapp wanda dan bilang "Wa, lo nginep di Bandung? ke Tebing Keraton yuks". Gue rasa sih wanda speechless (eh harusnya dia udah bisa sama ke-random-an gue). Dia cuma bilang "ya udah lo kesini aja dulu". 

Sembari makan malam, sembari cari travel ke Bandung. Agak susah juga cari travel jumat malem karena biasanya udah full booked. Akhirnya gue memutuskan usaha terakhir yaitu naik bus dari terminal Baranang Siang Bogor, kalo emang gak dapat juga berarti emang belum jodoh ke Bandung malam ini. Lucky me! bus-nya ada dan siap jalan. 

Random #2

Novel sama mp3 gue ketinggalan, jadi selama perjalanan gue gak ada hiburan, Alhamdulillah gue anaknya ngantukan, jadi yaaa tidur aja.. hahaha, cuma yaaa pas gue bangun, taraaaa.. masih di tol dalam kota --.-- Jakarta oh Jakarta!

Bus ini menuju terminal Leuwi Panjang. Ketika udah keluar tol gue mulai nyalain GPS gue untuk cari tau lokasi Hilton hotel Bandung. Di suatu perempatan si bus belok ke kanan yang mana kalo gue liat GPS itu malah menjauhi arah ke Hilton. Akhirnya gue memutuskan turun di situ, fyi itu udah jam 12 malam. 

Gue tanya bapak-bapak arah ke Hilton atau Stasiun kalo naik angkot, eh si Bapak malah nyaranin naik taksi aja. Dalam hati gue, yailah pak kalo naik taksi juga mah gue gak perlu nanya... hehehe...eh tapi mungkin dia bingung juga kali yaa "mau ke hilton kok nya naiknya angkot :p" .. Hahahahaha

Akhirnya gue nyebrang ke tempat angkot ngetem dan naik angkot yang mana gue tetap harus nyambung lagi. Di suatu pertigaan gue disuruh turun dan nyambung angkot lain. Have no idea sih gue angkot apa yang harus gue naikin, pokoknya yang jurusan stasiun, iya stasiun Bandung karena Hilton deket stasiun.

Tapi dari beberapa angkot yang lewat belum ada yang menuju stasiun sampai ada satu angkot yang bukan tujuannya tapi mau ngelewati stasiun dan akhinya malah nganter gue sampai depan Hilton. Thanks to si Bapak Supir. Oh iya sebelum turun gue sempet ngobrol sama si Bapak tentang Tebing Keraton, menurut si Bapak lebih murah naik taksi daripada sewa angkot.

Failed Flying Lantern

Yogyakarta., Magelang - May 2014

The second Arisan movie! yes it was the movie that encourage many people to come to Borobudur to see flying lanterns on the Vesak day. Me also becoming one of those people. Provoking by a friend I finally booked a train ticket to Yogyakarta. 

Taking Senja Utama Yogya from Pasar Senen Station on May 24, 2013, We arrived at 5 o'clock in the morning at Yogyakarta Station. It was May 25, 2013, The Vesak day, this is the feast day for Buddhist. Well, May 25, 2013 was being unforgettable moment for tourism, Here's come the story.....

We took a bus from terminal ... to terminal ... (shamed on me that couldn't easily remember a name -.-). Taking bus to Magelang from Yogyakarta took us around 2 hours, from Magelang bus terminal we continued taking another bus to Borobudur and go straight to our guesthouse. 

While waiting another friends to come we decided to sleep! hahahaha... 2 hours sleeping was a good thing to start a long day... 

It's 1 o'clock in the afternoon and we had our lunch. The restaurant was really close to the gate of Borobudur, so we walked while waiting for procession. It was really crowded! totally crowded with the domestic tourists as well as foreigners, standing applause for Arisan movie who had successfully brought many tourists to Borobodur on the Vesak day! *sad smile*

A glimpse of distraction

It's just a glimpse of distraction and it's just happened.

It was somewhere in June, 2013 when he and I first met. We are just friend. We are not even close to each other, bahkan perkenalan kita absurb. Remember my story when I said "gak pernah terpikir saat itu akhirnya gue berani ngomong cuma dengan pancingan yang bikin senyum, pun gue gak pernah berniat cerita lagi ke siapa pun". Pertama kali janjian pergi karena gue minta bantuan untuk urusan temen gue. Entah gimana ceritanya dia memberanikan dirinya untuk gue bisa curhat sama dia, dia bilang "gue tuh jadinya lebih deket sama elo kali, Ri daripada si X". 

Well, ya saat itu memang yang akhirnya gue ceritain hanya garis besarnya aja. Then come another day ketika gue nemenin dia nulis untuk buku barunya. Without much talking, I just sat in front him watching he's writing. Dan tiba-tiba dia "curhat" (sebenarnya nih anak ngarepnya gue yang curhat..Hahaha). Tapi entahlah saat itu gue gak mau bahas apapun lagi. It's like my gesture said "can we change the topic?". I guess he understood!

Tapi kekuatan gue untuk gak curhat cuma sebentar, semakin malem gue makin gak tahan untuk cerita (yaa, dipancing mulu sih yaa.. jadi bawaannya pengen meluruskan aja tuh cerita.. hahaha). Kala itu hari minggu di bulan Ramadhan yang akhirnya kita sepakat untuk sahur bareng sambil gue terus bercerita apa yang sebenarnya terjadi ketika itu. Anak ini cuma manggut dan bilang "gue baru tau kalo ceritanya segitunya", gue lanjutan dengan "apapun yang lo denger dari gue, gue gak minta elo mengerti bahkan memihak gue. Gue masih sanggup kok untuk membela diri karena gue tau gue gak salah (<--- anaknya gengsinya tinggi). It was midnight then I finally said "makasih yaa udah dengerin gue ceritaaa, asliek gue gak berhenti ngomong", hahaha... and he said "anything for you, Ri"