Saigon? Ho Chi Minh City? Whatever!

First time I arrived in Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon, this communist country. Communist sounds scary, eh? But it was all right there. :)

First impression was good. On the bus, I didn't have no idea where Pham Ngu Lao was, the backpacker area, so I asked old couple on the bus and they kindly told me everything they knew. And when I had to pay, I didn't have small money, so there was a lady who paid for my ticket. :)

I was alone. I missed Ed and my friends in Bangkok. But yeah, when you travel alone, you never be alone. I met some people just some hours after I arrived. They showed me almost all Saigon within a day. They took me to the upper class restaurant (yuck! I didn't like it!), to the Spanish Bar (fucking good!), and to the place for lower class and yeah budget traveler. hehe... They told me to move from Saigon, five days in Saigon was too much they told me. But I didn't like to move to one place to another without knowing anything about it. I don't like to just have a look, I want to see, to know more, to understand.

When I moved to dormitory, I met Damian, my room mate. We did lot of walking, talking, laughing, eating (oreo creamy shake was very good!). We also met Lisa, Liesl, and Laura through Kirsti. I told them about the Spanish Bar and we wanted to go there. But stupid me, I didn't know where it was, I didn't even remember the name. So we did an adventure to find the Spanish Bar. Walked down the street, asked people, with map in our hands. But still we couldn't find it! So we ended up at Sheraton Hotel! On its 23rd floor! It was good there, but our outfits were totally didn't fit for that place! We wore t-shirts, shorts, and flip-flops! hehehe...

Tour? No More!

Cu Chi Tunnels and War Remnants Museum must be two of the relic of Vietnam War. People there always asked me, "have you been to those places?" I answered, "not yet", "why not?" they asked me back. Ooh! So I had to go, eh!? I didn't feel like going, but ok because my friends wanted to go to Cu Chi Tunnels, so I joined them. With a tour! Jeez!

I think it would be the first and the last time I took a tour. I felt like stupid following one guy instruction to do this, to do that! No way! Cu Chi Tunnels was interesting actually. But since we went there with a tour, so when we were crouching the tunnels, we could only crouch straight heading to the hospital bunker. Along the way, there were many other ways, left, right, I really wanted to turned left or right, but I couldn't! Oohh....

I didn't go to War Remnants Museum, haven't got time. Well, next time maybe. But I think next time, I want to do Vietnam trip from south to north... I'll see.

Crazy Traffic!

I thought Jakarta's traffic was the most fucked up! But then I found out that Saigon's was even worst! Horrible!

Too many motorbikes (but many Vespa LX there). They didn't follow the rule. They went wherever they wanted. Sometimes they didn't even stop in the traffic light! Crossing the street would never be this challenging, 0r most suitable word, frightening! hehe.. Two thumbs up for them who can ride motorbikes and handle the traffic there. :p

So Damian and I wanted to hit the traffic! Damian's friend, Patrick, just bought a motorbike. So we wanted to do test drive, quite reckless though, because we didn't use helmet, didn't have driving license and paper motorbike. We rode down the street trying to find the Spanish Bar, but we couldn't find it. We found a Cathedral and a big park instead.

In front of the Cathedral, there was a Mother Mary statue and people were kneel in front it, praying in the night! Wow! Real life of Saigon aside of the backpacker area. :) But I kinda regret haven't got the chance to enter the Cathedral. It looked magnificent and I never entered churh before. hehe..

But we were lost. We didn't know the way back home. And it was hard to ask for direction, because almost nobody spoke good english. :( We tried our luck, but the police pulled us over! I told you we were reckless. They didn't speak good english either. Before they wanted to take the motorbike, of course we couldn't let it happen! Patrick just bought it 30 minutes ago! So after some bla bla bla discussion, they asked for money, 500.000 Dong! We didn't bring so much money at that time, we only had 170.000 Dong. We showed them all the money that we had. And they only took 100.000 Dong and let us go. We even asked them for direction before we left. hehe...

After that accident, we laughed all the way home... And it was my last night in Saigon.

More picture from Ho Chi Minh City

I Left My Heart for Pai

Before my itinerary was Thailand, Cambodia/Lao, and then Vietnam. But when I came to Pai, I knew that I would spend some times here. From the beginning, I fell in love with this place already. It was true, most of my traveling time I spent in Pai. I stayed there for two weeks.

Pai is a little town in the big valley located in Northern Thailand, between Chiang Mai and Mae Hong Son. So the view from the town is mountain, so beautiful. But too bad when I was there, the leaves were not green, maybe because it was not the season. But still beautiful. :) The place was so relaxed, good place for laid-back people. And the spirit of Pai itself, I think, was hippy. It was cool! And the weather was also nice. Though during the day it was very hot and in the night it was fucking cold! People there were nice, they didn't treat me badly like in Bangkok, though they still thought that I was a Thai girl.

It was a touristic place, both for local and foreign tourists. But still nice. It was not as crowded as Khaosan, for sure. And it was not that expensive there. We stayed in a private bamboo hut for 150 Baht/day.

In the center of the town, normally activities started in the evening. The walking street turned out to be a shopping area. People sold many things, from food to accesories. Pai also had many bars and restaurants, and they were all cool! Always had live music every night. Even they played music in the street. Awesome! Moreover, I love wooden stuff, and almost all the bars and restaurants there had wooden decoration inside. Splendid!

When I was there, I didn't go to any tourist attractions like elephant riding, jungle trekking, and etc. I only went to the river to had water massage, to the canyon to saw it by myself, and to the hot spring to relaxed myself. It was funny when we were about to go to the hotspring, we almost ran out our petrol. And way to the hotspring was so challenging, up and down, and from the main road, it was pretty far. We were afraid we couldn't make it and already prepared ourselves to sleep in the jungle, more challenging though. hehe.. But we made it!

Like I told you before, in the night time, it was fucking cold there! That's why we need campfire! Never in my life I saw campfire inside the bar, but you can find it in Pai. ;) And there was one bar, Bamboo Bar! That place was cool. People only came there around 2 am - 6 am. There were three campfires inside the bar. But the music -sometimes- was cheesy. Sometimes people brought their own guitars there and played it, but they didn't turn off the music! Errr.... But that bar was cool! Really cool! I spent most of my nights there, drinking, talking to people, or just sitting around the campfire. And if I wanted to have the real live music, I could go to almost every bars. Because every nights they had live music. My favorite was duo Aom and Norbert. Aom, a hippy girl with unique voice, and Norbert, an eccentric guy who played his guitar excellently.

When I was there, there were two parties. One was in the art gallery, hippy party. The other one was reggae festival. Awesome! I liked both of the parties. In the art gallery, first time I saw fire show. It was incredible! And because the ticket for the reggae festival was expensive, so we didn't get it. But we had fun outside the venue, because people were jamming there, dancing, drinking... Fuuuun!

When I was about to leave Pai, I felt so sad. It was the longest time I stay in one place when I'm traveling. And it felt good. I was sad because I had to leave when I already knew the people there, when people knew me already, when I felt so attach to the place. It was sad...

Even I'm thinking to stay in Pai for good. Well I'll come back, sooner or later. :)

Meet and Break!

Well, now I'm going to tell you about my love life. Feel free if you want to skip this part.

This traveling was somewhat like a couple holiday. Because I had a long distance relationship with my ex-boyfriend and we didn't meet for two months. So we expected this holiday would be nice.

But life is really a big surprise, eh? Instead of felt happy about our met up, we broke up after 10 days together! We broke up in Pai and I didn't know why. I really left my heart for Pai. Pai gave me both good and bad memories.

Actually couple holiday is boring. And no one would talk to couples! So when we were together, altoghether three weeks, we spent only two of us. And somehow we both couldn't do like we always did before when we traveled alone. It felt not the same. But I still happy. I was happy because finally I could meet him again. But might be he was not feel the same way. I didn't know.

He introduced Pai to me. He has been there three years ago. And it was awesome he said. But when we were there, everything was not the same anymore like three years ago. And I knew he felt disappointed about it. But things are changing, we can't expect everything to be the same forever! So I thought when we were there he trapped in his own memories with Pai three years ago. It was so painful for me. Because he was there, but I couldn't even feel him! I knew his mind and his heart were not there with me.

After we broke up, it was very hard at the beginning. I didn't have someone to talk to and I didn't want to ruin someone's holiday by whining about my love life. So I kept it by my self. I had to be strong! I decided to stay together with him for the next 10 days. I knew it was gonna be painful for me by choosing to still stay together with him. But on the other hand, I realized maybe it would be the last time we met in the real life (well I hope not). So I wanted to spend it as long as I could. And since then, I started to feel jealous with another couples! Because they looked happy with each other, they seemed to be ok. Why we couldn't be like them??

Well, now I know next time I would never ever traveling with my boyfriend anymore! Ever!

Hitchhiking, Addictive!

I tried my first hitchhiking in Pai. It was fucking awesome! I got addicted to it.

My very first hitchhiking was a motorbike, only for short distance. Since then, altogether I hitchhiked three times in Pai. And the most cool hitchhiking experience ever until now was from Pai to Chiang Mai!

We decided to hitchhike because I wanted to experience the real hitchhiking. So we walked out of Pai. Some cars stopped by but they couldn't take us in because they didn't go to Chiang Mai. After almost half an hour walking, finally there was a car heading to Chiang Mai. So we got our ride, a cool pick-up!

At first, I was a little bit sick, because I didn't get used to it. But after some times, I could sleep good on the back. :) If we took bus, it took around four and a half hour from Pai to Chiang Mai. With hitchhiking only two hours. Better, faster, and cheaper it was for free! I want to do it more...

More picture from Pai

More picture about Meet and Break!

Life in Bangkok

I never been to any countries but Indonesia. In Malaysia, only transit. So Bangkok was the first country outside of Indonesia where I stepped my foot in.

Bangkok! Home?

After stopped in Kuala Lumpur for a while, took another flight to Bangkok, finally I arrived in this elephant country. I had to wait for Ed at the airport. We almost couldn't meet each other, since he thought I was already gone to Khaosan. Since we arrived at midnight, so we decided to wait at the airport until morning comes. Suvarnabhumi Airport was a really nice place, sophisticated. Even we considered to spend our days in Bangkok at the airport, because you can sleep there, eat there, drink there, even take a shower there. And it provides you with almost everything, AC, benches, restaurants, toilet, book store, and music! hehe.. But we didn't do that, no worries.

In the morning, we went to Khaosan Road by tourist bus! Not so easy to find a hotel around Khaosan Road, especially we arrived there before 12 pm when normally people haven't checked out. So we walked to one hotel to another asking whether they still have room. And we got a hotel with discount! Not so bad.

Bangkok was pretty much the same like Jakarta. Typical of big cities. I didn't really like it. Almost same city, same buildings, same traffic, even people looked the same. Well not so interesting. And since we don't like tourist attractions, so we didn't go to any of them. We wanted to go to floating market or jatujak market, but then we had to wake up in the morning and it was far, outside Bangkok. So laziness won. :D

And Khaosan Road and around were like another shopping center. You could find almost everything there. It was good. But then it made that place fucking crowded!

Are You Local?

What the difference does it make when I leave my country just to see the place which is almost the same like home? Where people also think that you're local and give you the same label? Well, actually it's nothing wrong to be locals, especially when you can get local price. ;) But since I was there with my ex-boyfriend, and he's a german (farang in Thai), so people would think that I was a local girl with a farang! And yeah, there people always thought that I was a Thai girl and always tried to talk to me in Thai! Jeez!

Don't get me wrong, it's all pure my opinion. I think in touristic places, local people do not treat local tourists as well as they treat foreign tourists! Same like in Ubud, same like in Bangkok, same like in Saigon, everywhere the same I think! But until now, Bangkok is the worst, well especially Khaosan Road and around.

You know in every tourist places, there must be street sellers. If you recognize it, you would know that they rarely offer their stuff to local tourists! As if they do not exist! Though sometimes it's good, because mostly street sellers are annoying!

I told you already that for me the worst until now is in Bangkok. One time I was eating with my ex-boyfriend in the restaurant, but he didn't eat. He just accompanied me. After I finished my food, I asked for the bill, and the waiter gave the bill to my ex-boyfriend instead of me! Hey I was the one who ate here, did you think I couldn't afford my own food!?

Another local-look-alike experience, also In Bangkok. Mostly in every touristic places, hotels do not allow local people to get inside the room. Once, after worked and before we ate, my friends wanted to take a shower. So they must get back to their hotel. So together we went to their hotel and when I was about to get inside the hotel, the lady there asked about my id, and she asked me in Thai! Errrr... So my friends had to explain to her that I was not a Thai. She didn't believe it, so she asked for my passport. Here, you can keep it! Err I was fed up!

The funny thing was when they knew I was not a Thai, they treated me well soon after that. Funny.. So funny!

Back to Bangkok!?

I spent most of my traveling time in Pai. When it was almost close to the end, I had to go to Saigon, because my flight back home was from there. I could do overland to Saigon, but I only had 10 days left. And if I wanted to do overland, I had to pass either Cambodia or Lao, and both needed visas. It would be more expensive. So I decided to take plane, but then I had to go back to Bangkok. Oh my God!

At the beginning, I thought my another 4 days in Bangkok would gonna be soooo boring. We arrived in the morning and we directly went to Khaosan Road. Ed left for Penang on the same day, spent maybe two hours in Bangkok before leaving. After he left, I was officialy alone. I supposed to feel happy because eventually I was alone. But no, I was not so happy, because I knew I would miss him so much the next days.

One thing I really missed about Bangkok only the street food! Noodle soup especially. So some hours after Ed left, I went to one of the best street food stall in Rambutri Soi, near Khaosan Road. The noodle soup didn't taste the same like the last time, but it was still good. After I finished and wanted to smoke, then I had to roll the cigarette. Oh yeah this rolling thing, I coulnd't find Sampoerna A mild there, I don't like Marlboro, so the only choice left was rolling tobacco. I couldn't roll, I always messed it up. When I was trying to roll my cigarette, for maybe 5 minutes, then the guy next to me asked, "Do you want me to roll?" Oh thanks God! hehe... ;)

I didn't realize before that this guy would change my stay in Bangkok into an unforgettable one. Oh, his name was Roberto. First, we talked about cigarette, and he told me I could buy Sampoerna here. WOW! So in the evening, I met him in his work place, a club (but the club was fucked up)! There he introduced me to his partner, Diego. So we three went to find Sampoerna. But we couldn't find it. :( We went back to the club and they introduced me to their friends. But because these two guys were good looking and people rarely saw them with a girl, so many people looked at me jealously. Moreover, they must think that I was a Thai girl, ooh made everything more perfect! :|

Even a lady boy wanted to hit me at first, Diego told me the next day. Jeez! The midget always looked at me from head to toe. Another girl always looked sad everytime I was with them. People changed their behaviours to Rob and Diego when they were with me. Ooh I felt bad because of it! but they assured me it was not my fault, but they made fun of me telling I had to be careful because people might do harm to me.

So next days I tried to be friend with their friends. And it worked! Day by day, things were getting better. :) So soon my second time in Bangkok was very good! Rob and Diego have been there altogether three months, so no wonder they knew a lot about that place. And thanks God, we didn't have talk like most of tourists do, like "have you been to...?", "ah.. I've been there before, and it was...", "my plan is, I will go to..." I didn't like it. I never make plans, go with the flow. I don't have any Lonely Planet books. Everything more fun and challenging.

So did Roberto and Diego. We talked about life and people instead. Why they did like this, like that. Why they dressed like this, like that. It was a little bit funny, when sometimes I saw some people were very stylish. I didn't know whether it was the real them or not. Me myself when I'm traveling always try to be as simple as I can. So then I can carry less stuff. Another interesting thing was they even told me to distinguish between real girl and lady boy, straight guy and gay guy, hehe.. :D

Since I spent most of my time in Bangkok at Khaosan Road, soon I knew the place was crazy! Totally crazy! Even some said it's a heaven for backpackers, regardless the rate of violence which happened there. Many drunk people, people fought in the street. And for tourists, they cannot hit local guy and girl, if they do so, they could end up in jail. But they may hit lady boy.

I didn't stay in Khaosan Road though. I stayed in Phra Atit road, it was cheaper. And if I wanted to go to Khaosan Road, there was a shortcut to Khaosan Road from Rambutri Soi (the street next to Phra Atit Road) from the back door of Israeli place. There were two Israeli places and both provided free internet service and the food there was good!

When you eat something, even they give you chop stick, they must give you spoon, because it's impolite to eat without spoon. And oh yeah, Thai food was very delicious! Soooo tasty! And do not forget to try foot massage!

If you notice this, Thai language always put "cap" for men and "caa" for women at the end of every sentences to show politeness. Men always say "cap" firmly, while women say "caa" with long and low intonation. And mostly Thai people say the letter "R" not clearly. People who can speak the letter "R" clearly considered well-educated.

In Thailand, do not dare to say anything bad about The King if you don't want to end up in jail! Thai people love their king so much. Even in particular times, there will be a song being played and all Thai people will stand up to show their respect to The King.

In the end, I liked Bangkok because of the people there. They were awesome! :)

More picture from Bangkok

Let's Get Out of This Country!

Started in Jan 13, 2010 and ended in Feb 10, 2010. It was my first time traveling outside Indonesia. So I was very excited about it.

My mom and my brother drove me to the airport, well I think it was the first time they drove me there, yeah they wouldn't see me for the next 4 weeks, so no wonder. Arrived at the airport, I still had some times before check in, around 2 hours away, so I was not in a hurry. I thought I could check in an hour before my flight departs.

I got inside the terminal right an hour before my flight departs, thought everything was gonna be all right, but I was wrong! The queue for checking in was sooooooo long! Jeez! So I had to wait, a little bit worry though. So I intended to cheat, I walked to the first queue and asked the officer whether I could check in now or not since I was in a hurry, but he said no! Oh ok! So, waited, waited, waited... After some times, I glanced at my watch, oh my god! My flight would be depart in 15 minutes! I didn't want to miss my flight! So I ran to the officer, told her about my problem, and I could check in! Oh thanks...

But it was not over yet. I had to pass the security check and immigration check. After all that finished, I ran again to the gate which is pretty far from the immigration desk. Ran, ran, and ran! I entered the plane 5 minutes before the door closed. Fiuhh...

So now, let's get out of this country!

Ready, Steady, Go!

Finally.. After almost 5 months waiting, tomorrow I'll leave this country. Yeah, I'll be back though, but at least I won't see this country, Jakarta especially, for a month or maybe more. It's my first time traveling abroad. I'll see what will happen. ;)

See you!