Category: Travel Musings

Amsterdam: a different kind of déjà vu.

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Every time I travel, I discover a new reason why I love travelling.

Everyone knows that I’m addicted to travelling, but no one, including myself, can really explain why. There are many reasons to it for sure, and I guess it is a continuous self discovery process. I started out thinking that perhaps it is because I love looking at new sights, the famous landmarks that I have only seen in movies or heard people talk about. And it could have very well started out that way when I first set my foot in a foreign land on my own as a wide-eyed girl discovering new places. However, my last trip to Amsterdam a couple of weeks back made me rethink of this notion – that there is definitely something else to travelling that makes it so dear to me, apart from simply seeing new famous places.

Before the said trip, my first visit to Amsterdam was six years ago. It was my first travel out of Denmark when I was studying abroad in Copenhagen. And back then I liked the place alright, but apart from the Mexican burger and the Samurai fries we had there, nothing made quite an impression on me to make me want to visit the city again.

So when the offer came to go for a road trip to Amsterdam a couple of weeks ago, I jumped at the opportunity not because I was in love with the place and had been having the urge to visit again, but more because of the company and the spontaneity of the situation (we came up with the idea on a Wednesday night and left for the 10-hour drive on Friday morning).

However, something startled me when we reached Amsterdam. When our car entered the city centre, my breath was taken away immediately by the sights of the canals. And when we were walking on the lamp-lit streets by the water, I started to wonder how in the world I could have not fallen in love with the city the first time I went there.

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Kuala Lumpur, this time.

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Kuala Lumpur, we often rubbed each other the wrong way.

Five years ago, we met after a very long time and I was frustrated by the chaos of your traffic and the craziness of your city. Which was ironic because I came from the city with probably the worst traffic condition in the world. Needless to say, it was partly my fault – I was too pampered after living in the orderly Singapore for a year, where everything works the way it should.

Last year, I travelled far for you, for a festival that got cancelled the moment I arrived after a six-hour bus ride. Not to mention that my bus broke down for three hours in the middle of nowhere on my way back to Singapore. If not for my company at the time, it was probably my worst trip ever.

So I have to be honest. I was not looking forward to seeing you again last week.

But this time, you surprised me. This time, you were gorgeous.

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Lessons STILL not learned from the road.

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Travelling makes you realise a lot of things about yourself. It puts you in touch with who you are and over time you will realise some things that you are good at, some improvements you have made, and some things that you just stubbornly can’t master.

As I’m nearing my last travel in Asia (for a while at least), I reflect and realise that I’m hopeless at these few things – no matter how much practice I have got, I still behave like I’m a novice.

Booking accommodation early

Trust me, things like airbnb.com, hostelbookers, agoda, booking.com have made life easy for everyone. But it is just ingrained in me that I have to leave things to the last minute because I’m too lazy to check locations for accommodations, read every single review etc, so much so that all the good places are always snatched up by the time I decide to move my lazy fingers and type those websites in. Thank goodness that we are spoilt with choices, I still manage to end up with some decent places whenever I travel.

Sense of direction

I can get lost anywhere I almost think it’s a talent. I have been lost on countless streets of every country I’ve visited, in the malls or buildings in general, bathrooms (I kid you not), hotels, etc. I honestly don’t know I have survived this long living in general, let alone travelling.

And something closely related to this…

Reading maps

I tend to abuse all paper maps that I get hold of, turning and turning while I am stuck at crossroads until the criss-crossing lines start to make sense.

With the advent of Google Maps, one would think that things have improved for me. But no. I still turn my phone around and curse at it whenever the map rotates along with it.

Bringing a pen

Pens are almost always essential in every travel. You would need them to fill in those immigration forms, pen your thoughts down in a travel journal or just for taking general notes on the go. But despite telling myself sternly countless times to bring a pen for my next trip, I still don’t, and will only realise it when it’s too late, like when I’m already in the taxi on the way to the airport or worse, on the plane a few thousands feet up in the air when they start distributing the immigration forms.

Although if this pen is magical, I would have so much more motivation to carry it around with me.
Although if bringing this pen means that I can find my prince charming right away, I will have it with me ALL THE TIME.

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“To travel is to live.”

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I have never truly appreciated the wise words of Hans Christian Andersen until the end of last year, when I am denied of my ‘freedom’ to travel because I have decided to take up a new job. I have been very fortunate in my previous company, being able to take many days off to explore the world while still doing relatively well in the office. But all good things must come to an end when circumstances changed and I decided to take the leap and get my hands on a different career path.

My lifestyle for the past nine months have been by choice, travelling less in the name of pursuing my career. I have travelled exactly twice thus far: once on a cruise trip to Langkawi and another on a semi-photography mission to Bali. This is pale in comparison to what I have been doing the past few years – I used to plan a travel on average once a month, both to neighbouring countries or somewhere further north like Nepal and Alaska.

This low travel period has made me realise something. I have been bitten by the travel bug (to put it in a cliche term), and there is no turning back. I have attempted to be more grounded, using steep learning curve and lots of reading as substitutes to packing my bags and seeing the world. Those substitutes or rather, distractions, have not worked and I find myself daydreaming, browsing through old travel pictures and reading others’ adventures.

I crave to feel alive again and not run away from my calling. The only thing that has helped so far is changing my mindset about Singapore – that I can travel by staying put and that there are new places for me to discover. I start to appreciate the little things around me more and marvel at everything as if it was my first time seeing all of them.

But even this also makes me realise that perhaps 9-to-5 jobs are not for me, at least for now. I feel that there are so many other things that I could be doing rather than being tied down on office chairs, staring at spreadsheets and emails, leaving office only to continue doing work at home. I haven’t found meaning in what I do, and while I still have the energy, hunger and means to see the world, I should.

So I suppose it is only natural for me to decide to leave my job to pursue something different. I will reveal the details much closer to the date, but it is exciting (!!!) and will involve me moving out of this little island that has been my comfort zone for the past nine years.

For now, all I can say is, thank you Hans Christian Andersen for the beautiful words that have been my mantra all this while and brought me to the most incredible places in this world.

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Header of the Month: What the kids in Nepal taught me.

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When it comes to procrastination, I think I’m the queen.

I have been wanting to write this post for a while, and it took me two YEARS to finally get around to it.

I think part of me wanted to make this post perfect, since I felt that this travel story that I’m about to write deserves the best. Everything that had thus far come to my head never sounded good enough – I don’t even know if this post is going to cut it.

It took a terrible earthquake that practically damages Kathmandu to shake me out of this mentality, and I decided to write this post about the kids in Nepal, because I’m thinking of them, and I’m praying for their safety.

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The historical tower built in 1832 that collapsed because of the earthquake.

I went to Nepal exactly two years ago on a mission. I had never been much of a charitable person, and definitely not someone who would proactively make time in the weekend to help people in need. And for that, I felt genuinely horrible, as if I were a very evil person. So I decided that perhaps a trip to the poorest country in Asia would make me more charitable.

I expected the living conditions and the tough terrain of Nepalese mountains would teach me a thing or two. And I did learn something from them. But the credit for the best lessons learned should go to the kids, really – I went there to teach them some Mathematics and English, but I came home feeling that I have learned so much more from them.

Here are some life lessons that I had the privilege to be taught by the wonderful kids:

Go the extra mile (or two) to learn

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I remember complaining in my head when I arrived at the mountains and found out that we had to wake up at 6 AM the next morning to prepare for the materials because the kids are scheduled to start their class at 6 30 AM. Grudgingly I set my alarm, only to be woken up the next day before my alarm went off by the chirpy noise of the kids outside! The kids were there an hour early! What made me feel even more ashamed of myself afterwards was that I found out that some of them lived two hours’ walk away, which means they woke up at 4 AM, just to attend the classes that we were going to teach! I never recalled having so much motivation to learn, even though I had all the access to education right at my doorstep…

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A regret and a keyring.

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People deal with their miseries in different ways.

One of my main sources of miseries is from regret of not doing something that I could have done. It was something I had known right from the start I wanted, but over the years, I got distracted and the possibility of fulfilling that wish seemed a lot more remote than how it had been in reality. I could have visited London 2012 Olympics had I worked hard enough for it, but I had not. So the Olympics came and went and my life is still Olympic-less.

It is so unlike me to dwell in past regrets, especially those that happened a few years ago. But I just finished reading ‘Stardust’, a novel by Neil Gaiman and re-watched the movie subsequently. It was then that I remembered that the end credit of the movie was Take That’s ‘Rule the World’, one of my favourite songs of all time. Naturally, I went to YouTube to search for all the different versions of the song, and this came up:

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This feeling.

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It’s been a while since I felt this way.

My heart is racing and I can’t focus. I smile at everything and at nothing in particular. I want to keep this feeling a secret, but I end up telling the whole world about it. I toss and turn on my bed before I sleep and I look forward to waking up in the morning. My life has basically gained back its colour all because…

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I’m travelling again tomorrow! 😀

A Christmas gift.

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Happy Christmas everyone!

Christmas has always been a special time of the year for me. When I was younger, my family always travelled close to Christmas time since that was the time we could escape from the tropical heat and went somewhere cold. As I got older, I had the habit of travelling on Christmas Day since that was when flight tickets are cheapest. In 2012, I had one of my best Christmases ever when I decided to take on a solo trip to Copenhagen and London after being deprived from my beloved Europe for two years.

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As of last year, Christmas Day has just gotten a little bit more special, with the birth of this blog. Not only has this been my travel diary for this year, but it has also become one of my main sources of comfort and helped to get me through tough days – from days when I get a little stressed out over travel preparation, or when crappy things happened during travels to when, like these days, my travel plans look bleak and I feel miserable…

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Header of the Month: Waterloo Bridge.

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On Waterloo Bridge where we said our goodbyes,
the weather conditions bring tears to my eyes.
I wipe them away with a black woolly glove
And try not to notice I’ve fallen in love

On Waterloo Bridge I am trying to think:
This is nothing. you’re high on the charm and the drink.
But the juke-box inside me is playing a song
That says something different. And when was it wrong?

On Waterloo Bridge with the wind in my hair
I am tempted to skip. You’re a fool. I don’t care.
the head does its best but the heart is the boss-
I admit it before I am halfway across

– Serious Concerns by Wendy Cope

The Traveller’s Mother.

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It is not easy to be the mother of a traveller.

In a society where girls are expected to stay put, learn how to cook, dress up and hone skills to be a good wife, frequent travelling is certainly not the conventional thing to do. What with the many horror stories that befall on girls who travel, it takes a certain courage and sacrifice from a mother to let her daughter roam and discover the world.

I bet it is hard for her to understand, the mother who spent most of her life at her hometown and only after she got married did she move to a different city, to have a daughter who is only 25 but has lived in four different countries and travelled to a lot more.

It must be hard for her to comprehend, the mother whose life after marriage has always been to fulfill her duty as a wife and mother and spend every single waking moment with the family, to have a daughter who is still flighty as a bird and always dreams of living at faraway places.

It must be hard for her to accept, the mother who left her job to be able to spend more time with her kids when they were young, only to find that when they grow up, they all live away from her to pursue their education and career.

It must be hard for her to appreciate, the mother who never spent a single cent on herself, not on expensive bags nor clothes nor even on good food in cafes, to have a daughter who spends considerable amount of her savings on flight tickets, but never once has she ever questioned her on her use of finances.

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