>> UJUNG GENTENG TRIP

last weekend i joined another weekend trip with my adventurer friends. although i was still tired from the KL trip a week before, i didn't want to miss the opportunity to go on another adventure trip. plus i already paid. i know it was going to be a tiring trip.. but as we arrived in the destination, it was worth all the zig-zag & bumpy roads. and it was indeed, a good decision to join them.

ujung genteng is located in the at the south part of java island.. all the way to the end of the south west part. it took us about 7 hours to go from jakarta to the destination and the road is unbelievably tiring. it was long and bumpy. the area is well-know for its conservatory of the sea turtles. it offers a nice simple life experience of the village, as well as the white sand virgin beaches, the waves, the forest path, the sunrise, the fisherman, etc. it was so far away from the world of consumerism and commercialization of the city.

this is truly an awakening experience. just to see the sea turtles come off to the shore in the middle of the night and nested its eggs under the sand and goes back to the sea, hoping that those eggs would survive from the predators. the truth is, out of the average 80-100 eggs they nested, only 2-3 sea turtles would survive with long age. the rest would either be taken while their still in the shells for human consumption, or when they actually break out from the shells, they would be eaten by the predators. there are so many of them out there, and these baby sea turtles are sooo delicate and fragile. hence, the explanations why they are almost extinct.

the conservatory is responsible to make sure they can nest their eggs safely and then locate the eggs to be taken to the safe place. the baby sea turtles will then be monitored within the compound until they are strong enough to be released to the sea. i saw those baby turtles. oh my god.. they are sooo cute and so active, yet so very fragile.



i saw one of the best sunsets when i was there, and i can't stop taking them. on the way back to jakarta, we stopped by at the city called surade then took a boat trip along the cikaso river. the river is still clean and the view along it are beautiful.. especially when we stopped to see the waterfalls.

you can see the full picture of the trip here.

you see, when i said you should enjoy your life, i really mean it. sometimes you work hard to achieve something. more money, better position, better life. but all that would be nothing if you don't enjoy what you have accomplished. people may act differently toward their enjoyment of life. i, for one, like to travel. and although these places are not easy to get and unpleasant in comparison to my city lifestyle, it is of course, my way of grounding myself to always be grateful for i have, no matter how small it is. sometimes we forget for how much stuff we have acquired and how much love we have been receiving. friends, family, convenient life. be grateful! be positive! less complaining! bring out that positive energy...


ps: happy birthday to my best friend, irma!! those baby sea turtles remind me of you. i would bring you one, but it would be unfair to them. so i bring their pictures for you.

:: sLesTa

>> posted on 6/29/2006 09:00:00 AM | [ ]

>> FAMILY TRIP

it's been a while that i took on a trip with my family. where we can spend quality time together, specifically because we're all there. although one of the main reason i decided to go back was to be able to spend more time with my family, the reality is, i spent more time outside of home than with them. i guess, it's part of us taking for granted for what we have.

i take for granted that i always go home every night and stay with my parents, that it's always easy to make time for them. the reality is, it's not. there are times that i would be busy with work and my other activities that i only see them less than an hour a day. and i would be travelling somewhere on the weekend that the only existence i have in the house is just some gifts (oleh oleh) and dirty laundry i brought from the trips.

not to mention my brother. if not because i go to work with him everyday in the morning, i think we can go on not seeing each other for a straight week, literally, sometimes even a month. ironically, his room is right next to mine. we only hear each other's wellbeing from mom, or through sms.

so when i brought up an idea to take a vacation and go on a trip together, it was .. well, took a lot of persuading at first, but we finally made it!

the trip itself was just to visit neighboring countries. but to maintain the purpose of the trip, i set up one that would allow us to spend time together for quiet a long time. so, i chose the road trip from indonesia to malaysia. took the plane to batam then ferry to singapore, then a 7-hour trip to kuala lumpur.





from top left, clock-wise:
(1) mom, dad, and bro (far right in blue shirt) on the train from singapore to KL.
(2) me & that special someone who joined us from singapore
(3) petronas towers
(4) the monorail from imbi station
(5) KL skyline, mirrored from the building in bintang walk area

it has its minus and plusses.. i now know that we had such different interests that it's too hard to put all of us together on trip. mom would want to go look for gifts, bro would only wanna go to get the best value of anything he wants to buy, dad only wants to have a great feast and back to hotel, and as for me, i want to take pictures and cover every sides of the city. but we tried to set a common ground. and it was, of course, another family trip to remember.

:: sLesTa

>> posted on 6/26/2006 02:14:00 PM | [ ]

>> A BOOK ON A TRIP

everytime i'm on a trip for vacation or business, i always bring along a book with me. in fact, i bring a book with me everywhere i go. i don't have the luxury to read them as much as i want like i used to.. not as much as when i was still riding the subways to and from work when i was still in new york city. these days.. i'm too tired during my commuter trips, that i'd rather catch my rest in between.

nevertheless, i always yearn for a good book to read. that's why, eventhough i may not even flip the pages in days, i do keep them in my purse, just in case i find myself in a situation where i have to wait with nothing to do for a long period of time.. books are always a good cure during the wait.

on my last vacation trip, i was lucky enough to go to different book stores and found this nice great sale in one of the bookstores i found in kuala lumpur. for a price of 1 book in jakarta, i was able to buy 3 great books. i was on it right away, even though i was reading another book at the time. one of the book's title i bought is "tuesdays with morrie". i've been wanting to have it for a long time since this book has been out a while and has been an international best-seller since it first came out .. but knowing that i have a bunch of unread books sitting at home.. i figured i'll wait until at least it's on sale, or when i know i would have the time to read it.

as soon as i opened the book, i was sorry. i was sorry that i didn't buy it any sooner. this is such a good book on lessons of life, a true occurrence told by a dying old man to his student on a final thesis. it's his last wish to transfer knowledge upon life's greatest lessons about dying, about love, about emotions, family, culture to his student. every page of the book contains a great wisdom, and i read it carefully so i understand its full meaning, and won't miss a thing.

it was just such a wonderful book. people usually relate their important moments of a trip through songs or music. mine is through a book. it was "da vinci code" (dan brown) on the yogya trip, "boulevard de clichy" (remy sylado) on the gili trawangan trip and tons of others on my trip to and from work back in the days. and i added another one.. "kamu sadar, saya punya alasan untuk selingkuh kan sayang?" (tamara geraldine) on the recent batam-singapore trip and "tuesdays with morrie" (mitch albom) on the KL trip.

the latter being my recent favorite. here's the sneak peek on the first page.. on "the curriculum" of the last class the author took from his professor, which i thought a brilliant opening for the book.


"the curriculum"
the last class of my old professor's life took place once a week in his house, by a window in the study where he could watch a small hibiscus plant shed its pink leaves. the class met on tuesdays. it began after breakfast. the subject was the meaning of life. it was taught from experience.

no grades were given, but there were oral exams each week. you were expected to respond to questions, and you were expected to pose questions of your own. you were also required to perform physical tasks now and then, such as lifting the professor's head to a comfortable spot on the pillow or placing his galsses on the bridge of his nose. kissing him good-bye earned you extra credit.

no books were required, yet many topics were covered, including love, work, community, family, aging, forgiveness, and, finally, death. the last lecture was brief, only a few words.

a funeral was held in lieu of graduation.

although no final exam was given, you were expected to produce one long paper on what was learned. that paper is presented here.

the last class of my old professor's life had only one student.

i was the student.

:: sLesTa

>> posted on 6/22/2006 05:08:00 PM | [ ]

>> ENJOYING LIFE :)

after taking a short vacation, i spent every night staying late at work with little time to do anything else ... but work work work! (yahh.. namanya juga di kantor sih yaa... hehehe..)

i know i'm a hardworker. but i also like to enjoy my life. so what's better to do after the short vacation and 2 long weeks? :)

yep.. go on another vacation trip!!
i'll see you next week ;)

work hard.. play harder. enjoy your life!


:: sLesTa

>> posted on 6/14/2006 08:50:00 AM | [ ]

>> VACATION: GILI TRAWANGAN

vacation. it's a nice thing to do to relax and get away from the routine, but one thing i hate the most about it is when the vacation's over and you had to go back to work.. and you'll see a pile of things you have to finish. i only took a one day vacation, but the impact was that i had to stay late from work the entire week after i returned. it was one hell of a setback after a nice relaxing 3 days vacation.

3 days?? yep. 3 days. the plan was that we left on thursday morning and came back by sunday evening. so that's 4 days of vacation. ahh.. but one can only plan. just when we all arrived in the airport at 5.30 am and excited to think that by lunch time we'll be arriving in lombok..., one of our friends, who happened to hold the tickets for all of us, woke up late that morning and didn't arrive at the airport until 6.15am.. for our 6.30am flight!!! just as figured, we weren't allowed to check in anymore so we ended up staying in the airport for another 2 hours, running around to find if there's any free seats on any other flight to take us to surabaya and catch our connecting flight to mataram. and of course, as figured, all flights were full as it was a long weekend.

so after several phone calls, running around from terminal to terminal, and penalties paid by the late-comer, we finally got the same seats for the next day flight. same flight.. just lost one day!! fortunately, i'm inviting such a great bunch of people at this trip. we all were very supportive of each other, regardless of this one friend who blew up an entire day for us. we were still laughing and be positive towards the rest of the day. it was just a start of a great trip and a great relationships we created by the end of the trip.

the next day, making sure that everyone will be on time and awake, i called every one of them by 5AM. i made sure that they were ready and on the way to the airport. we finally got up to the plane as scheduled and arrived at mataram airport at 12.30pm. as arranged, someone from hotel vila ombak picked us up and took us to the port where we then took the speedboat to gili trawangan. the 45 minutes trip to the port was taken through the forest road and we saw a bunch of friendly monkeys on the road. the weather was wonderful and as we arrived at the port we were already amazed by the view and the beach.

20 minutes later, we arrived at the hotel with warm welcome and free refreshing drinks. the room was huge and more than enough for the four of us. the bathroom is located at the back of the room, but it's outdoor. at first it was kinda weird to take an outdoor shower like that, thinking that someone could just peep us from the buildings across, but after a while we got used to it, thinking that there are no tall buildings around anyways. what the hell lah.. heheh.. one interesting about this hotel is that this is probably one of the nicest hotels in the island. but the showers & the running water comes from the beach. it was said in the announcement that they are using the salt water from the sea because the island has very limited sources of fresh water. since the fresh water are the supplies for the locals, they do not want to take their portion. so instead they gave us a big bowl of fresh water with separate plumbing that we can use for final wash or brushing teeth. it was a nice gesture and we really didn't have any problem of showering with salt water, after long days at the beach...

gili trawangan is a very small island. there are not that many things to do except biking, snorkeling, swimming, or diving (but you must have licence to dive there). the total population of the island is less than 300 people. most visitors who comes to the island are foreigners. so when 4 asian girls came to this island, we sure was easily spotted. the island is so small that you probably meet up with almost everyone within short period of time. all of the restaurants are very catered to the foreigners with western servings (by plates with side dishes) and oh.. tons of wood-oven pizzas around. it's the one thing i don't expect from the island yet i don't see much in jakarta.. in fact at this island i've tasted the best pizza so far since i'm back to my homeland. this is surprising for us, thinking that not many domestic tourists come here and we felt sorry that they had to miss such a nice view. of course since the island is very small.. you can only walk around and there's no shops really for you to do some shopping. which was a perfect situation for us... since we didn't want to be bothered with shopping anyways. and unlike in bali, in gili, you won't find locals coming at you trying to offer you something. you were just left alone.

there is no motor-running vehicles allowed in the island. so you can only bike or take cidomo, a local horse carriage we may be familiar to call it as "delman" in java. so the first day we were there, we rented a bike and cycled around the island.. which only took us about an hour. we stopped for a while to catch the sunrise on the other side of the island. the sunrise is overlooking the bali island, with the sillhouette of mount agung in bali. it was just a magnificent view. we were enjoying our moment of silence as the sun set.

as i said.. there's not that many things to do in the island except for water sports. with such clear water you just can't stand no to be in it. and it was indeed such a marvelous vacation. 4 girls in an island and the only thing we have plenty of is spare time. we find that time runs very slow in the island. and it was really a nice change to our daily routines. one of my friends even said that she had her best sleep in the island. it was so quiet. the air is so fresh and free from pollution. the people are nice and helpful yet they give us space to do what we want to do. it was just a perfect vacation.

as for the nightlife, we tried it for one night. because the island is very small, the resto takes turns on holding parties. so the night we were there was "rudy's pub" night. pretty much all of the visitors and locals come to this place. as expected, more foreigners than domestic tourists.. in fact, we're probably the only domestic tourists. since we're all 4 girls, we were really on heavy alert, just in case. regardless, we were having a wonderful time.

from this vacation i learn that sometimes you should just take a vacation where you can do absolutely nothing and enjoy what is around you. i'm lucky to have such wonderful friends and we really bonded after this trip. the overnight talk, the silence over the sunset, the sunrise over mt. rinjani's sillhouette to start our day, watching the fishes under your feet while swimming in the clear water ocean.. it was just priceless.

so let me share 4 pictures from the trip. only 4? well.. i can only upload so much.. hehe.. hopefully i'm not too lazy to re-select them and upload them to the site. but for now.. please just enjoy the 4....

(1) these are my companions for the trip. the picture taken on the last day.. if you look closely, the background is gili meno, another island near gili trawangan.

(2) this is the sillhouette of mount rinjani in lombok island, taken during sunrise

(3) this is taken in the afternoon after the rain. can you see the rainbow?

(4) this is hotel vila ombak, taken as we drove away on the speedboat, back to lombok island to catch the flight back to jakarta. isn't the water like what you see in the swimming pool? it's so clear, you just always want to jump in.

oh.. hidup.. ini...


update:
so, whaddyaknow? i actually made time to create this album after work.. so you can see the rest of the pictures of my vacation in gili trawangan. enjoy!

:: sLesTa

>> posted on 6/07/2006 11:30:00 AM | [ ]