Friday 16 January 2015

How to Survive in A Country Where You Don't Speak the Language (and They Don’t Speak Your Language Either)

I was on a field trip a week ago to places faaar away from Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. So I went to Bhairahawa (Siddharthanagar District) and Buwtol (Rupandehi District) to check the implementation of community forest. I had to take a bus for 8 hours journey by myself, slept in a (kinda) creepy hotel, travel to the border of Nepal and India and went back to Kathmandu using an overnight 12 hours long bus safe and sound all by myself. Even my colleagues who are Nepali impress that I could do a one week trip to places I am not familiar with (include visiting Lumbini, the birthplace of Lord Buddha) by myself when I don't even speak the language and don’t know anyone there. So here are the tips on how I survive:


1. Smile
Smile is a universal language. When you smile, people will notice that you open a chance for friendship through your friendly gesture.

2. Learn Basic Language

You don’t speak their language but it does not mean you should ignore the language. Learn how to speak basic words such as sleep, eat, directions. It will ease your life a lot, trust me!

3. Trust your Intuition


Need more explanation? I mean, your intuition will always be right (at least from my experience)

4. Eyes

I always believe that eyes are the windows of heart. You can always tell if a person has bad or good intention through their heart.

5. Google Maps

Well, I am not a tech savvy nor that I depend on tech a lot. Yet when I am totally lost in the middle of nowhere, I really need this app to make sure that I am still on earth.



Few steps forward, I would have been in India already

Cheers,



Olivia

The Old Man Wise Words

Some wisdom thoughts from The Old Man (which the Universe planed for me to meet):

1. Most great leaders read relentlessly throughout of their life before they came out with great thoughts.

2. Religion exists to help you throughout your difficult times not only throughout your glorious time. Even atheist has a religion. Their religion is wisdom from words that they trust.

3. It is important to balance between positive and negative thought (but personally I tend to choose to trust my positive thoughts as I am a strong believer of ‘the law of attraction’)

4. Communist, Maoist and Lenin teach about live in simplicity and avoid greedy attitude.

5. Traveling open your perspective that the world is not as small as what you think. In fact, it is incredibly vast!

6. There are many things you need to learn in your life. Never stop learning (a.k.a stay hungry, stay foolish)

7. The glorious time made by your grandfather or great grandfather is just a history of them. You should make your own history instead of hiding behind their shadows.



Ps. I met this old man during a Nepali festival by coincident. He is a father of my new friend’s friend. He happened to study in USSR (now Russia) and befriended with Indonesian students while living for 6 year there. My encountered with him in his house resembled him a lot of the memories 44 years ago. He told me stories of how his Indonesian folks (just like me) really love to eat small super hot chilly (called cabe rabit in Indonesian). He narrated stories very vividly of how one of his Indonesia friends had to be hospitalized for a year after eating that spicy chilly along with vodka as if it happened just yesterday.


The afternoon, the sunny day, the foods, the hot milk tea, the companion, the warmth feeling, as if I was in another world. If only I could freeze the time. But good thing has to end, just like bad thing. Well, that's life. 



Love,


Olivia


Tuesday 13 January 2015

Homewards Memories

So it was like a never-ending discussion
And you and me and us
Tears, fight, laugh, and smile
But it is clear since the beginning

Twisting words, which I throw
Narrow it down to your personal experience
Yet it seems like we are never in the same page

The afternoon, the ice cream in my hand, the raindrops
And we took a shelter in front of a closed shop
I look up and you look up, watching the rainbow
Our heads filled with thoughts

1826 days and 25 cents
And there is nothing special about my birthday
It has never been special anyway
Other than that lousy chocolate cake you bought from a grocery supermarket
Since I was cranky

But memories are to cherish
As if all happiness and sadness we had were surreal
Or perhaps it was just a distorted emotion
Which last like an Olympic flame



Kathmandu, 12 January 2015

Friday 2 January 2015

2015 is (Not Just) A New Year Resolution

It was 2007, I was still a sophomore student of my bachelor study back in Indonesia. While attempting to collect data for my paper on Central Asia regional issues, I stumbled upon a website of a young Indonesian man who travels from China to Afghanistan, across Central Asia countries. Although I was just looking for articles of oil issues in the region, I could not resist not to stare at his exotic snapshots of Central Asian countries which names you barely hear: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan as well as the beautiful pictures of vast land of Western part of China (such as Uighur Xinjiang, Tibet) which picturesque views are always drowned by media explosion of its separation from mainland China. All the pictures were displayed very idyllically, the most rare and striking pictures I have ever seen my entire life. After tinkering his website for some time, I came to know that he is not only good at photography, but also writing and languages (other than his native Indonesia tongue, he could speak more than 5 languages such as Chinese, Japan, Persian, and other languages of Central Asia). Since then I start following his blog, his stories and reading his books. Unconsciously, he just became my inspiration. I never said to anyone nor that I realized that he inspires me until just recently.


Five years later, in February 2013 during the launching of his recent book to be exact, I finally met this man, Agustinus Wibowo, the man who subconsciously has been my inspiration for traveling (if not for life). It was nothing really special because for me his writing is more special than his short-talk explanation of his journey. He might never realize this fact but his writings (aside from Paulo Coelho’s writing which has touched thousands of souls) have changed my life. I would never have a courage to go to the land of nowhere by myself before reading his stories. In many nights after strolling upon his blog, I would be dreaming on how incredibly beautiful those lands are, how exotic their culture are, how their face resembles me with people of my own yet they are so different in tradition, culture, language and other social aspects of a human being. He made me want to travel, to learn languages, to be good at writing and telling stories of fairy tale lands. He does not only help me inventing my dream to travel around the world but also fuelling my courage to follow through. And I came into conclusion that ‘You never know how powerful your writing until it changes people’s life. So never estimate the power of writing.’


Back to my present life, yesterday (precisely 1st day of 2015) while walking towards the temples with my roommate, an adorable Nepali girl, she suddenly came with a question ‘Olivia, what is the place that you miss a lot?’. I did not answer the question immediately because I did not have a specific answer. ‘Um… to be honest, I don’t really miss any place, I move to different places frequent, there is always something new and I always need to move on’. Then she said ‘Ah your life is so interesting. I think you should write your biography’. I nodded. It is something I always want to do and someone just hit me straight to remind me one of my purpose of life, to inspire others that traveling is about learning and that there are so many beautiful things that you can learn by stepping yourself outside your comfort zone when traveling.


While waiting for her doing her ritual in the temple, I was mesmerized by how different and authentic the blend of culture and religious ritual in Nepal. I saw statues of Gods (along with statues of animals who they believe are best friends of the Gods), the candles, the flowers for offerings, the campanes, the small doors, the artistic windows made from woods with high details of sculptures. In short everything that I could only read and imagine from Agustinus’s writings. Then I came to realize, I have just become like him! I travel around the world to the most exotic yet unpopular places by myself to explore the differences of the society. Early last year I was backpacking solo from Vienna (Austria), Budapest (Hungary), Bucharest (Romania), and ended up in Sofia (Bulgaria) by land (bus and train). Places whose names I firstly heard during my 1st year of my bachelor degree (because I did International Relations for my bachelor degree) .

My roomie and I 
See, she is so adorable!

Praying to God.

Candles for Godness. 

Agustinus was only 25 when he decided to start his journey, ignoring his prestigious degree from Tsinghua (one of the best universities in China) and rejected a scholarship offer to continue his further study. I might have a different path from him that I chose by my own decision. I just turned 26, graduated from one of the best universities in Indonesia, currently conducting my further study from a scholarship that I always wanted since my first acquainted to Australia, 6 years ago. I might not spend years of my life traveling and living in those exotic countries, learning the social-cultural-political issues of the society that I could hardly heard from mainstream media. Yet I think him and me still have one thing in common, the excitement of traveling to the odd part of the world. I travel to the land of nowhere whenever I have time (and money) not just for the sake of seeing beautiful tourist objects, but also to understand that the world is full of things undiscovered and that by discovering it you will realize how vast the world is and how amazing life is.


At night that same day (1st Jan 2015), I was having a dinner with two of my university friends in Australia who happen to be in Kathmandu for different purposes. One of my friends started a conversation by asking me ‘So what is your NY resolution?’. I did not answer immediately as I was trying to figure out the right quick answer. However, instead of saying that I want to write a book of my traveling journey I ended up answering her ‘I want to travel to South America’.

Ah, perhaps the universe just directed me to find my two main resolutions for 2015.

Having dinner with two of uni friends.

Happy New Year from Kathmandu (Nepal) everyone!




Love,



Olivia




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