Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind.

Ada yang tau film itu? Itu salah satu film favorite gue, kalo kata wikipedia sih ini. Intinya ini film tentang gimana menghapus kenangan tentang hubungan dengan seseorang, but at the end it won't work. Some say "when it's a heart's call, you just can't deny".

Entah kenapa gue memilih judul itu untuk tulisan ini, tulisan yang sebenarnya akan mencerikan tentang fase saturn return yang gue alami menjelang umur gue berubah ke kepala tiga. Inget tulisan sebelumnya disini. Kalimat menempa mental supaya menjalani kehidupan dengan cara terbaik di usia mendatang, nampaknya itu yang terjadi sama gue.

Beberapa tahun lalu, gue pernah mengalami fase "the lowest point of my life". Iya itu fase dimana gue pengen banget ilang ingatan untuk satu hal itu karena "it's so damn hurt". Lalu gue pernah nonton di The Good Doctor (korean drama.red), dimana si dokter yang mengalami autisme dan kejadian buruk pada masa kecilnya bilang "saya gak mau melupakan masa lalu saya walaupun itu menyakitkan, karena ketika saya berusaha sangat untuk melupakannya, memori sel otak akan kenangan baik bersamanya  akan hilang juga.  Saya cuma punya memori itu tentang Ibu saya, jadi saya gak mau melupakannya". Gue berasa 'deg'.. Iya ya mungkin karena itu gue bisa dibilang gak inget banyak hal tentang kejadian-kejadian yang terjadi beberapa tahun belakangan terutama sejak 2007. Berusaha sekuat tenaga untuk gak inget-inget bikin gue justru melupakan memori baik yang yang juga terjadi pada masa itu.

No, you can’t go to Athens, you go back to Amman!

No, you can’t go to Athens, you go back to Amman!

That was pretty frustating and made me almost cried; yet I couldn’t show my tears in front of them, the Middle East Airlines officers!

After spending beautiful journeys in Jordan, time to continued my trip to Greece. I flew with MEA-Middle East Airlines that brought me to Beirut, Lebanon for 12 hours transit. It was around 10 p.m when I arrived. I actually already checked-in from Jordan to Greece and had two boarding passes. However, as a first timer having long hours transit, I came innocently to transit desk. I showed my passport and boarding pass, then they gave me two meals vouchers. They asked me a few questions; the reason why I wanted to go to Greece, did I have enough money with me, as well as how may days will I spend for my vacation in Greece. Right after I answered those questions, they said "I keep your passport here, you go to duty free area, find the restaurant and a place to rest. Go back here at 6 am tomorrow", I nodded thinking that this was a normal procedure.

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.