Gara-gara sharing plan of trip (berupa itinerary, budgeting plan, dll) ke Rahne (yang memang sangat hip di jagat maya), itinerary ke Jepang saya jadi diminta oleh hingga sepuluh orang di hari yang sama :P Surprised sih, tapi saya (dan orang-orang di sekitar saya) mengakui bahwa saya ini orangnya terencana-dan-detail banget. Tampaknya membuat rencana perjalanan adalah salah satu output bagusnya, hehe.

Sebetulnya saya sendiri belum banyak flashpacking ke luar negeri. Pertama kali saya merencanakan perjalanan adalah tahun lalu saat merencanakan Euro trip. Dalam enam hari saya bersama tiga teman saya mengarungi 5 kota (Oslo, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Antwerpen, Brussels). Tidak maksimal dan capek di jalan, itu pasti. Maklum, pengalaman pertama dan waktunya memang sempit. Namun perencanaan perjalanan yang baik terbukti sangat berguna. Waktu itu yang ada di pikiran saya, “Ini winter, Brur, gawat kalau sampai nyasar lama-lama. Kedua, sayang sekali kalau ternyata sampai sana no-idea mau kemana dengan cara apa.” Syukurlah, berbekal rencana super detail dan improvisasi di hari-H akhirnya kami berhasil jalan-jalan tanpa tersesat dan pulang dengan sehat sentosa :P

Jadi saya akan berbagi tips & trik merencanakan perjalanan sebagai flashpacker. Flashpacker adalah orang yang melakukan flashpacking, dan flashpacking menurut Wikipedia adalah:

Flashpacking is a neologism used to refer to an affluent backpacker. Whereas backpacking is traditionally associated with budget travel and destinations that are relatively cheap, flashpacking has an association of more disposable income while traveling and has been defined simply as backpacking with a bigger budget.

Selamat  menyimak :)

1. Know what your destination(s) is famous for
Step ini adalah step yang paling exciting. List apa saja hal yang terkenal dari daerah tujuan kamu; landmark, museum, kuliner, dll. Misalnya Belanda dengan win molen atau Denmark dengan Danish cookies & pastriesnya (nyam!). Hal ini sebetulnya personal banget, misalnya waktu ke Oslo, saya keukeuh banget mau lihat lukisannya Edvard Munch. Untuk yang nggak berminat dengan seni rupa, mungkin ini nggak masuk ke dalam list. Oleh karena itu kalau perginya bareng-bareng, places of interest ini wajib didiskusikan. Oh iya, kalau nggak mencapai mufakat, jangan takut untuk jalan masing-masing selama stick with the main schedule.

Modal: Cita-cita, Wikipedia, Wikitravel

2. Know how to get around and get a map!
Setelah tau mau kemana, cari tau di mana letaknya! Berakrab-akrablah dengan GoogleMap. Membaca peta memang tidak dibiasakan untuk kita orang Indonesia yang tidak malu bertanya dan tidak segan menjawab, tapi ini penting untuk:

- Tau gambaran umum seberapa jauh tempat-tempat yang akan kita tuju
- Menentukan urutan berkunjung
- Memutuskan sebaiknya menginap di daerah mana

Kalau kamu pergi ke negara maju, nggak perlu takut tersesat. Biasanya rute, peta dan jadwal bus, subway, monorail, kereta semua sudah tersedia. Jangan buang waktu dengan menunggu sampai di sana baru tengok-tengok di stasiun atau halte. Googling lah rute dan jadwal sarana transportasi sebelum berangkat. Cari tahu, hostel dan tempat-tempat tujuan kita dekat dengan halte atau stasiun apa saja, dan berapa menit untuk menempuhnya untuk optimasi penyusunan jadwal.

Modal:
Rajin googling dengan kata kunci “How to get to ___” “How to go to ___ from ___”. It works!
- Untuk keliling Eropa dengan kereta api, coba cek ini. Tinggal masukkan keberangkatan, tujuan, tanggal, tadaaa!
- Untuk Jepang, cek hyperdia.com
- Cantumkan itu di sebuah sheet, seperti ini:

- Bagusnya sih tetap bikin Plan-B seandainya kamu ketinggalan jadwal Plan-A. (Maklum, orang Indonesia kan suka ngaret :P)

3. Choose hostels with destinations as your main consideration
Untuk para backpacker dan flashpacker pasti sudah akrab dengan youth hostels. Untuk kamu yang masih bingung mau menginap di mana, memilih hostel itu semudah membuka hostelbookers.com atau hostelworld.com kemudian memilih negara serta kota tujuan kamu. Nah, kalau kamu sudah mengikuti langkah 1 dan 2, akan lebih mudah memilih hostel dengan lokasi paling sesuai. Selain mengoptimalkan waktu, akan pengaruh juga ke budget transportasi.

Oh iya, personally, selain lokasi yg juga saya pertimbangkan dalam memilih hostel adalah rating keamanan dan kenyamanan yang direkomendasikan orang-orang yang pernah menginap di sana. Ketersediaan female dorm juga penting banget untuk saya.

Biasanya setelah memutuskan mau menginap dimana, saya akan melakukan reservasi, lalu membuat listnya dalam sebuah sheet terpisah kemudian saya beri link ke halaman hostel yang bersangkutan.

4. Know your budget. Survey pasaran harga di sana. Buat currency converter sederhana di excel.
Budgeting adalah langkah yang paling bikin deg-degan :)) Pernah denger kan “Half the clothes and twice the money?” Well, ada betulnya dan ada nggak betulnya juga sih. Bawa uang kurang bisa bikin gigit jari, sementara terlalu banyak disediakan pun bisa membuat kita boros dan malah berhenti di tempat belanja terlalu lama (it happened to me!)

a. Saya mengelompokkan rencana pengeluaran menjadi: 1. Penginapan 2. Makan 3. Transport 4. Sightseeing. Itu bisa dibreak-down per-day. Sementara untuk belanja dan beli oleh-oleh biasanya saya akumulasi: pokoknya untuk belanja sekian.

b. Rencana pengeluaran tersebut saya buat berdasarkan survey. Untuk makan, coba cek wikitravel, selalu ada penjelasan soal range pengeluaran untuk makan sesuai kondisi kantong: on budget, medium atau splurge. Nah, menjalankan point 1 dan 2 dapat membantu memperkirakan budgeting transport dan biaya tiket masuk places of interests.

5. Tentukan rute perjalanan optimal.
Setelah tau mau ke mana saja, mau menginap di mana, berapa uang yang akan dihabiskan, barulah buat rute perjalanan yang optimal. Misalnya hari pertama merambah ke barat dahulu, kemudian hari kedua ke bagian selatan, dst. Beberapa hal berikut sebaiknya kamu pertimbangkan:
a. Siang dan malam. Ada tempat-tempat yang bagus dikunjungi di siang hari, ada yang tetap oke dikunjungi di malam hari. Saran saya, kalau kamu suka belanja, pergilah ke mall di malam hari, sementara siangnya dimanfaatkan untuk ke museum atau tempat-tempat yang jam bukanya tertentu.
b. Stamina kamu. Jangan forsir tenaga seharian penuh. Ketika pagi-pagi sudah jalan kaki dan banyak mengeluarkan tenaga, malamnya lebih baik bersantai ala daerah tersebut, wisata kuliner atau nonton pementasan kebudayaan (contohnya: Siam Niramit di Thailand).
c. Hari-hari tutup / libur dari tempat yang akan kita kunjungi, juga masa-masa crowded-nya. Ini dapat berpengaruh juga ke harga tiket masuk di beberapa tempat.
d. Transportation availability. Perhatikan jadwal transportasi pertama dan terakhir. Jangan sampai pada malam hari kamu membuat agenda pergi ke tempat yang jauh, kemudian ditinggal kereta terakhir. Saran saya, pagi-pagi pergilah ke tempat yang jauh (mumpung masih semangat!), kemudian bergerak mendekat ke arah penginapan. Dengan demikian perjalanan pulang ke penginapan tidak akan terlalu melelahkan.

6. Susun itinerary berupa time table.
Langkah ini adalah hasil akhir dari semua langkah sebelumnya. Artinya ini dibuat berdasarkan perencanaan dan perhitungan yang optimal. Karena saya orangnya detail, jadi saya buat per-6 jam, hehehe. Ini contohnya:

The last but not the least, jangan malas untuk browsing atau koresponden dengan orang-orang yang sudah berpengalaman ke sana atau bahkan tinggal di sana. As for me, merencanakan perjalanan is a part of the whole fun. :)

Oke, sekian dulu post super panjang ini. Mudah-mudahan berguna :)

—–

Dedicated to Naya, Lala, dan Dinda.
It’s been a year, and I still miss our trip.
I simply miss you guys :)

Some things else changed. My brother; he grew taller and stronger and normally started to watch porn with his friends. My best friends changed also. Well, Noumi was still Noumi and Wiena was still Wiena; all of them were still them. We still laughed the way we used to. We still gossiped about some particular people and sang the song from particular phase we had in common. Only, some of them got jobs, one or two got married, and I wasn’t sure about how many that got drunk. All of them had different plan A’s then B’s and I started to realize that I had to redefine my ‘home’.

It’s said that the only constant thing is change.

“And if you feel just like a tourist in the city you were born
Then it’s time to go
And define your destination
There’s so many different places to call home”

Death Cab for Cutie – You Are a Tourist

—

When I feel so bad about myself.

“And We have certainly established you upon the earth
and made for you therein ways of livelihood.
Little are you grateful.”
(QS Al-A’raf 7:10)

Well, I’m not a gadget reviewer, but as a reader, I recommend it. It’s light, handy, and the battery lasts up to 2 months (they say) without music & wi-fi on. Music & wi-fi? Yes, it’s got an mp3 player so we can play music while reading (I put sounds of the rain and other natural tracks), and wi-fi so we can highlight some catchy lines and tweet it with a couple of touches. Don’t worry about our basic needs for reading like adjusting the font-size or adding bookmarks for they are surely available. My favorite feature in Kindle, by the way, is the dictionary letting us see the definition of a word just by touching it. For those who like to read, it’s probably the best way to spend USD99. (wait, plus 8.5% for the tax, Felany said)

Now let me tell you about the case. I didn’t ask Fel to buy the screen protector or the case. The price of the case could be a quarter of the Kindle price itself, and I didn’t find anything so charming. Then I remembered Mbak Tarlen (Vitarlenology) with her handmade stuff. I met her in Pasar Seni 10.10.10 and regularly checked her blog ever since. So I mailed and asked her to make a customized Kindle case for me. It was tricky because I only told her what I wanted it to be and gave her the dimension. However, after some hard works, it came true and I LIKE IT VERY MUCH.

It’s red outside, batik inside, and titled after my favorite novel.

Well, there are some frequently asked questions from people who are not familiar with e-book reader yet. Here are some of them (hopefully you’d find it informative).

Where did you buy it?
My friend bought it in US and brought it to Indonesia for me.

Can I buy it in Indonesia?
Well, no. However, there are some people who sell Kindle family via Forum Jual Beli Kaskus.

Black and white?
Yes it is. It’s so paper-like. Any colored image would be displayed as black and white, just like newspaper.

Capacity?
4GB device memory. They say it’s enough to carry approximately 3,000 e-books.

Isn’t Kindle coming with colors as well?
Yes, it’s Kindle Fire. It’s more like tablet. Check it here.

Shoud I buy Kindle or Kindle Fire?
Well, it depends on how you are going to use it. If you want an e-book reader, you should buy Kindle with e-ink technology (Touch, Keyboard, DX) for your eyes convenience and for the battery life that would last longer. With Kindle fire, you can do the music-listening, video-watching, gaming, browsing and of course reading, but remember, the battery would only last for 8 hours.

Do we have to buy books in Amazon?
No. We can download a lot of e-books freely. For example, gutenberg.org, it provides free downloadable classic e-books like my favorite Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland :)

What is the format for the e-books?
It should be .mobi, but Kindle can read .pdf and .txt. However, I use Calibre to convert the pdf to mobi. Calibre is also cool for managing your e-books collection.

Can we use it for browsing and check Twitter and Facebook?
Yes, we can. Kindle’s got built in wi-fi, but it’s not really nice for browsing. (Trivia! You can access Facebook from Kindle Touch through touch.facebook.com)

But I like buying the real books. I like the feeling of coming into a bookstore and smelling a new book. I like the excitement of finding the book I’ve been looking for and bringing it home.
So do I! As for me, having kindle doesn’t stop me buying new books. Don’t worry :)

See, I just bought a new book this week :)

Happy (belated) New Year 2012 :) I wish all joy for everyone of us and may the best is always yet to come.

So how has the first everything in 2012 been?

Mine; I spent the new year eve and my first day of 2012 on the rig because the wireline logging tool got stuck on the borehole and we needed a couple extra days for fishing operation. It was a thousands-dollar experience (literally). Not bad, though. The midnight roast corn & cold Coke weren’t bad at all and I had pie and cake and even roast duck for the first lunch of the year.

As soon as I stepped my feet back on the ground, it was a happy new year, with greetings (and good news) from best friends. I received one from Bolivia as well yesterday which made my day. Another thing was the short conversations of appreciation from my boss(es) about my work. It was relieving.

And it’s a happy new year because I’ve got loads of good plans for this year including:

- Recuperation for 2 weeks starting from January 13th
>> Short trip to Jogjakarta and visiting Zakki in Magelang
>> Meet-ups with best friends in Jakarta and Bandung
>> Rewatching my Ghibli movies collection
- Getting my own Kindle and special customized case from Mbak Tarlen 
- Death Cab for Cutie this March
- Japan in April (yes, Japan!) :)

Shall we end it with Another-New-Year-Resolutions? I decided to make them simple.

• Healthier life with fruits and vegs
• Anger and gluttony management with fasting every Monday & Thursday
• To give more
• To enjoy life and travel more
• To do my best

Alhamdulillah – Bismillah.

Maka biar aku
menjadi biru sarung bantalmu,
merintik hujan di kaca jendela,
lalu menggulai kopi pagi.

Sederhana saja.
Seperti itu.

2011 has been a wonderful year. I always said that 2007 was my best year because I achieved my dream for Institut Teknologi Bandung and started a new life (which was super great). But then, running through the finish line felt super great too.

2011 has been the year of flying for me. I’ve been flying for (almost) the whole year. People around me have been flying (in with hello and out with goodbye). The year itself’s been flying quietly; far & fast.

January: Flying to Borneo for On Job Training. Flying on helicopter for the first time to a drilling rig called Maera (which became the name of my future daughter).

February: Flying back home to fly again. Flying to Norway for “The Scream” in Oslo then ISFiT in Trondheim. Flying back home from Amsterdam after leaving pieces of heart in Gothenburg, Copenhagen, and Brussels.

March: Ended the ‘flight’ of being a functionary in Liga Film Mahasiswa ITB. It wasn’t a literal flight, but a life-flight.

April: Started doing my thesis. Not flying, but spent days on the 21st floor in Jakarta for and look through the glass windows with broken heart while handling a cup of instant coffee. Felt more or less the same though.

May: Flying to Thailand for family holiday with  the magic of Oriental India. Flying back home for finishing the thesis.

June: Not flying. Too busy staying on the ground, cities-switching from Bandung to Bekasi to Jakarta in ‘repeat and shuffle’ mode. Cried quite much but then finished the thesis and completed the bachelor program. Attempting to come back to Borneo by sending CV and transcript. At the end of the month, cities-switching to Kebumen and Magelang because Zakki, my brother, got accepted in Taruna Nusantara high-school. Another farewell.

July: Flying again to Borneo for job-interview and getting accepted as a junior wellsite geologist in Total Indonesie (which might be every fresh-graduate’s dream ;D). Flying back home for farewell-s and graduation ceremony. Flying again to Borneo for a brand new life.

August: Turning 22. Started flying to work by helicopter. Holy Ramadhan and Eid on the rig.

September: Flying to work. Work and work.

October: Flying to work. Flying back home. Coming for another graduation ceremony and being there in the last moments of my (best) friends before flying away.

November: Flying back to Balikpapan. More flying to work.

December: Flying to work. Planning the flights for 2012.

Another accomplished missions were ‘to write more’ and ‘give more and more’. However, my biggest achievement for 2011 has been the part of keeping smiles on my parents’ faces and inspiring Zakki.

I know some of you might think that I’m so lucky. Yes, I am indeed, but I have to say that I’ve been working hard. Things got difficult. There were tears and doubts as much as loneliness and too many good-byes. There were too many things I missed on the ground while I was flying.

There were too many feelings to handle, too many promises to cancel, and too many drops of rainfall.

What a year, but at anyhow, the best is always yet to come.

Until then, Alhamdulillah.

Borneons Donate was originally inspired by Shoebox Project, initiated by Beriozka Anita in Jakarta. Shoebox Project has slogans: “Karena berbagi adalah kebutuhan, bukan kewajiban” (“Because sharing is a need instead of a must”), and “Karena sepatu yang membutuhkan kotaknya, bukan sebaliknya” (“Because it’s the shoes that need the box and not vice versa”). Earlier, I didn’t really notice about the second slogan, while the first one has existed in my family.

Since I was little, Bunda (mum) has got me used to doing such things, sharing and interacting with the less unfortunates. She told me that when she was young, she didn’t have much money so she usually just came to the nursing homes and talked with the grannies. It wasn’t about ‘giving’; it was ‘sharing’. When she came, she sometimes cleaned the room, put some air freshener, or reorganized their stuff. Until now, Bunda is still doing this, even better because she can give some money as well as energy.

One of the biggest lessons I learnt was the importance of interaction. Especially when it comes to children and the seniors who are more or less the same; on the phase where money doesn’t matter that much (yet / again). They need the feeling of being meant and needed. They also need the feeling of being human being.

But then, if we rethought about it, we would realize that those needs are not only theirs, but also ours (the relatively-more-fortunate-s). Let me repeat: the need of feeling meant and needed; the need of being a human being. For some of us it might also be the need to see happy smiles on others’ faces.

That’s how we have a need to give and share. “Karena berbagi adalah kebutuhan, bukan kewajiban.”

So I’ve just noticed that shoe is a good analogy: No matter how expensive a pair of Jimmy Choo stilettos is and no matter how papery the box is; it’s the shoes that wouldn’t be okay without the box.

No matter how wonderful you think you are, if you are really great then you would always need the others, no matter how small you think they are.

—–

PS: Some other of my favorite photos are here.

Will I ever be ready for another series of goodbye-&-hello?

My father told me, when it came to working, we couldn’t choose whom we were going to deal with. He also told me, that working was not something like shopping, that we could buy things we liked then leave what wasn’t tempting.

That’s how I see that working is not always about passion, but patience.
Not always about being good, but having the attitude.
Not always about ability, but adaptability.
Not always about skill, but will.

My father told me, working is another life-jihad.

Did your father ever tell you anything about working?

—

PS: If you are an Indonesian moslem, I suggest you this reading: “Kerja adalah Ibadah” by Quraish Shihab.

Do you know what is the worst part of befriending geologists?
They fly away.

Do you know what is the second worst one?
They love the past.