It was such a great opportunity for me to be able to join the ASEAN Blogger Festival (ABFI) 2013 in Solo, Indonesia. I was fortunate to attend such event in Kuala Lumpur and Bali, few years back, so I can be able to say that now I’m part of the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Community, with friends all over ASEAN countries. To me, ASEAN community is not started in 2015, it’s already happen now.

This year, #ABFI2013 has a new theme “Re-inventing the Spirit of Cultural Heritage in Southeast Asia“. In this 4 days event, attended by more than 300 participants all over Indonesia and other ASEAN countries, we discuss about all things that will enhance the awareness of ASEAN community 2015, a security, economic, and socio-cultural community, the topics of the seminars and breakout sessions varied from travel & tourism, social media to blogging itself.

I was moderating a session about ASEAN Tourism Potentials with Ibu Nina Soemitro from the Ministry of Travel and Creative Economy Indonesia and also Pak Widdi Srihanto, the chief of Travel Department of Solo. The combined population of the 10 member states of ASEAN is around 600 million. The number of international visitor arrivals to ASEAN has increased rapidly to over 81 million in 2011. The travel and tourism sector has become an important driver of growth and prosperity for many countries and it has a vital role in realizing ASEAN vision.

The panel has been a great inspiration for me, because at first, I never thought about travel and tourism in ASEAN way, a bigger perspective. Now I can see how much potentials we can bring to each other. Fellow ASEAN countries can complement each other, highlighting our best and unique attractions then package it as one major destination for international traveler. ASEAN committee members have seen this big tourism potentials and they’ve prepared a strategy, launch a new logo along with a new website informing about 10 destinations in ASEAN countries.

Well, I saw the website, they had this calendar of events across ASEAN countries, I’m curious on how Indonesian’s going to fill that section. Since, we don’t have an exact events list of the year of our own :P Solo, in the other hand, has been inspirational. With low budget plans, they make a full year of interesting events list, put it in a catalog, and they’re now ready for tourists. They also have an excellent airport! (compared to you-know-which-one).

Tonyo Cruz @tonyocruz, my long time blogger friend from Philippines, was presenting about “It’s More Fun In The Philippines”, Philippines official travel and tourism campaign. It was really inspiring. They encourage blogger and social media user to share about Philippines, to the world, in a fun way. They have a hashtag for that too #ItsMoreFunInThePhilippines – I said to Tonyo, since we’re now bestfriend and we’re collaborating for ASEAN’s sake, please make a new campaign #ItsMoreFunInThePhilippIndo :))

I know we have a great official website Indonesia.travel – but it’s not enough. Our neighbor Malaysia has more than 24 million tourists every year, we CAN’T just satisfied with 8 million tourists! As a part of solid community of Indonesian bloggers, we have to see this event as an opportunity to help think the best way to promote our country with our social media power. These are some of my ideas of an action plan:

• Like Pak Hermawan Kartajaya @hermawank and Pak Hazairin Pohan @hazpohan said, Blogger is a marketer and by using English, you can reach to wider audience. You can start by blogging in English for any of your traveling posts.
• Try to commit to blog at least once a month about Indonesia or South East Asia (SEA). Remember, your own home town has a lot of stories too! @Kounila and @PreetamRai were excessively promoting Da Lat when we met at ABFI in Solo. Now I’m planning my trip to Vietnam, thanks to them! Nila share about Da Lat in her blog.
• Using specific hashtag for sharing the link, for example #FaveASEAN
• Submit your story to Indonesia.Travel
• Put a specific link or banner to highlight the travel category of your blog, so it’s easier for people to find your content
• Take more beautiful pictures of Indonesia or SEA region (don’t forget to use the hashtag)

I also speak in a breakout session about the potential of Indonesian Startups and I saw the energy in the room. Everybody wants to create something. With 60% of 240 million people in Indonesia are young people under 35 years old, I’m very optimistic about the future of our country.

So, are you ready to start a history and make us all shine?

Now that most of my gadgets are touchscreen, it’s natural to wanting a touchscreen Ultrabook for my daily use. And finally I got to experience it with my new Acer Aspire S7. It’s using the powerful Intel Core i7 and Windows 8. Hottest things combined in an already stylish, ultra-thin Ultrabook.

The first difference I notice was from the Metro UI start screen in Windows 8 and the swipe side ‘Charm bar’ that allow us to search, share, go to start screen and setting. It took a while for me to get used to it. But once you get the ‘rythm’, the swipe and type to search will come pretty handy.

Just like in tablet, you can install any apps possible from the store. Once you open an application, you can swipe down to close the app. swipe up to see the option of the apps, or swipe right to move to other applications.

Windows 8 is mentioned as one bold move of Microsoft because its ‘radical’ change from the previous Windows 7. Some of my notes about Windows 8; One of the apps that I often use is Skype, but for this Windows version, the feature in that app, is not complete. I can’t send files, and that can be annoying in business discussion. It’s also want me to use my Live account for accessing the apps, synchronized things, when I wasn’t really using Live that much, so I had no contacts nor calendar to synch from there. One more thing, multi-tasking is not very seamless in this OS, you constantly need to move from Metro UI to desktop. But I finally get a way of splitting the windows, so it can works side by side.

With S7 touchscreen Ultrabook, like in tablets, you can tap to select, pinch to enlarge, and doing so many other multi touch methods. It’s fascinating! So, if you’re like me, and you love to hang out in cafes, get ready to be asked by strangers about your chic S7. It’s proven to be a very effective ice breaker!

Saya merasa di Indonesia, menulis belum mendapat ruang yang cukup di sekolah. Padahal saat ini semua dilakukan dengan menulis. Mulai dari menulis email, menulis pesan via whatsapp/bbm, ngetwit sampai update status. Semua membutuhkan keahlian menulis. Jika tidak biasa menulis, bisa-bisa yang ditulis akan menimbulkan kebingungan dan salah kaprah banyak orang, pesan dalam tulisan tidak akan sampai dengan baik. Belajar menulis bukan soal menulisnya itu sendiri, tapi belajar menganalisa, belajar berpikir, belajar berkomunikasi secara efektif.

Saya percaya salah satu orang yang harus jago nulis adalah guru, terutama guru di sekolah, dalam berbagai mata pelajaran. Kenapa? Karena guru lah yang berhadapan dengan murid setiap harinya. Guru berpeluang membuat murid mempunyai kebiasaan menulis mulai dari usia dini. Caranya? Ya dengan memberi contoh dan banyak memberi ruang untuk menulis di dalam kelas.

Seperti Bona @allewunder, guru Bahasa Indonesia, yang selalu mencontohkan bahwa ia suka dan rajin menulis, sehingga excitement-nya menular ke murid bahkan guru lainnya. Guru lain di sekolah yang akhirnya ikutan menulis bernama Steve @Steve_me_pure.

Steve adalah seorang guru olahraga. Lazimnya, guru olahraga hanya mengajarkan tentang praktek olah tubuh yang baik dan benar. Tapi Steve juga mengajarkan dan menginspirasi anak didiknya untuk olah pikiran. Ia menyemangati anak muridnya untuk melakukan kultwit tiap hari sabtu dan minggu dengan hashtag #infopenjas Ia bahkan membuat blog http://penjastar.wordpress.com/ yang berisi tulisan tentang dunia olahraga dalam perspektif pendidikan, human interest, dan lainnya. Menarik dan seru banget!

Karena gurunya menulis, murid-murid Steve jadi termotivasi untuk selalu berlomba menuliskan informasi-informasi mengenai olahraga, jadwal pertandingan dan hasilnya, isu-isu hot seputar olahraga, gaya hidup dan kesehatan. Mereka belajar dengan menulis.

Teman baik saya @nataliardianto, COO Tiket.com, di awal karirnya juga seorang pengajar. Saya perhatikan ia terbiasa menuliskan solusi masalah yang ia temukan pada saat coding atau hal teknis lainnya di tumblr-nya. Contohnya adalah postingan yang ini. Ini tentu memudahkan sehingga orang lain bisa menemukan pemecahan masalah dan tidak harus jatuh ke masalah yang sama. Ia pun belajar untuk mengidentifikasi dan menganalisa masalah, hal penting untuk mengasah critical thinking yang dibutuhkan seorang leader.

Kepada guru-guru (bisa guru di sekolah, guru di rumah atau orang tua, guru di masyarakat, semua pemimpin komunitas), yuk lebih banyak membaca. Dengan banyak membaca kita tak hanya akan terinspirasi untuk menulis, tapi juga mengetahui tata bahasa yang benar, cara penyampaian yang menarik, mungkin yang tidak menarik juga bakal ketahuan, membaca juga membuat kita menjadi lebih open mind, berwawasan luas, sehingga kita mampu dengan cepat menganalisa fakta dan mencari koneksi antar hal-hal yang sepertinya tidak berhubungan.

Untuk mulai menulis dan mengajarkan menulis pada anak murid, silahkan cek beberapa referensi berikut:

Best practices
Teaching writing skill
Writing model bank

Mulailah dengan hal yang termudah, seperti membuat blog atau rutin menulis di Facebook Notes, jadikan kegiatan menulis sebuah fun activities, kombinasikan dengan social media agar tetap ‘dekat’ dengan ‘lingkungan’ gaul murid sehari-hari. Bikin kompetisi menulis agar murid makin bersemangat, dan di akhir tahun, gunakan kesempatan untuk mengumpulkan tulisan anak-anak dan self-publish dengan NulisBuku.com

Mimpi saya, satu tahun satu anak di Indonesia bisa menuliskan satu buku. Tapi, sebagai awal:

satu guru satu buku satu tahun

Anda siap?

It’s an honor for me to receive the Kartini Next Generation 2013 Special Award – Inspiring Woman in ICT by Ministry of Communications and Information Technology Republic of Indonesia with other inspiring women in several sectors like education, entrepreneurship, social community and creative media.

My love to technology started when my dad bought me my first laptop when I was 13 years old. I started to get connected to internet, find new friends all over the world, curious on how to make a website, starting my first web consultant company in highschool with the name ‘Kalong design’ :)) Creating websites with Geocities for my teachers.

Not many people knows, because I want to travel the world, I took ‘International Relations’ UMPTN test at Gajah Mada University. But I failed and went to Jakarta instead to take Information Technology. There, I met my friend Irman Fauzi and we have our own web consultant XUFOS Labs. and create our startup called Suka2Kamu.com it’s like a Facebook, basically :))

I took IT in college because I thought I will learn more about web developing, but turn out I only have it a little moment in 1 semester so I have to learn everything about web developing by myself. But the college experiences, meeting a lot of smart geeky friends who mostly men (only 20% of class are women), really matters for my personal development and understanding the tech world without being intimidated by it.

Before I finished college, I teach HTML and web building at Nurul Fikri. I was paid per hour and I was happy with my salary (compared to what I get from being a lab assistant in my campus lol). I also happy to see my students learn from zero to hero on how to make a website. Later after I become a writer and I started writing how-to books, this feeling grow stronger everytime I get an email, appreciating me for writing the book because it changes their life.

IT has changed my life indeed. Working my first and last job as web developer at Plasmedia IT consultant really teach me a lot about work and about life. My boss Mark Eliasaputra taught me to trust to myself and be confident. I know it’s hard for you to imagine, back then, I had no confidence in coding (afraid to make mistakes) and I was afraid to meet people (because I was a behind desk programmer).

It was all changing after I decided to be an entrepreneur, creating online bookstore Kutukutubuku.com with my bare imperfect-coding-skill hands and leave my full time job. Mindset has changed, I met a lot of people thru networking events, make new goals, create startups with visions and hopefully bigger impact for society.

With my partners at Nulisbuku.com, we tried to give solutions and solve ‘publishing’ problems for new aspiring writers. It was meant to solve my own problem at first, I can’t find publishers who want to published my not-so-popular-in-topic kind of books. Now, Nulisbuku has 30,000 members and help self-published more than 2,000 books in our print-on-demand platform. Generating tens of success and life altering stories, from people who believe in their dreams.

So, because I know how technology has changed my life, how it became the enabler and catalyst for my growth, I try to spread the words to ladies to not being afraid to use technology for all their life purposes, to help solve problems within the community and eventually help the world. Technology is not complicated, it’s sophisticated

I want to mention some brave young ladies in IT, mostly my good friends, who have been using technology as part of their success and have inspired me:

• Angeline Anthony; Co-founder Kutukutubuku.com, NulisBuku.com. Background: Design. My long time partner and bestfriend. We worked together side by side when we were working full time. Our similar passion in books unite us. She’s reliable and effective. It was pleasure working and traveling with her (we’re spa lovers!)
• Shinta Dhanuwardoyo; Founder Bubu.com. Background: Architecture, Business. A ‘Goddess’ in Indonesia digital industry. One of Indonesian women role model in IT. She initiate Bubu Awards and ID-Byte, one of Indonesia’s largest digital event. She’s beautiful, very fashionably chic and a batik lover.
• Anantya Van Bronckhorst; Co-founder & Executive Director of Think.web. Background: Communications. My partner in Girls in Tech Indonesia. A very neat and solution oriented lady. Named one of successful young entrepreneurs. Love her!
• Nuniek Tirta Ardianto; Founder HamilCantik.com, Octovate Network Relationship Manager. Background: PR. My partner in StartupLokal. Highly connected, understand IT world really well because she marry Natali Ardianto Co-founder of Tiket.com
• Alexis Brille & Febby Tan; Founders of Va & Co. Background: Computer Science & Information System (Alex) & Computer Arts (Feb). A dynamic, ‘crazy’, highly creative, brilliant and super smart girls. They’re doing things that I don’t understand :)) (like doing augmented reality at Gedung Sate). They’re my bestfriends who I can talk about everything, from UX, business, art, to love and life.
• Titi Rusdi; Co-founder of 7Langit. Background: Finance. She’s growing a successful Blackberry apps development company with her partner Oon. A happy & cheerful friend <3
• Angie Marsha; Co-founder JasaPembantu.com. Background: Secretary. She treat me like a mentor, she asks a lot of critical questions on how to build her company. But she never asks me if I want to be her mentor, like most people do. Instead, she just went directly pitch her ideas, vision and ask questions. I found chemistry with her and she’s now one of my best girls.
• Diajeng Lestari; Founder of HijUp.com. Background: Social Science. Running a successful Hijab fashion marketplace, she started as a fashion blogger, with vision. She brainstorm a lot with her husband, Achmad Zaky, the founder of BukaLapak.com, to start building her own dream company.
• Dhyoti Basuki; Head of Public Relation at Intel. Background: PR. Ask her anything about processors, she will give you the details. Nuff said Chic, feminine and pearly lady. I love her books collection
• Astrid Warsito; PR & Digital Communication Manager at Acer Indonesia. Background: Communications. She’s the woman behind the successful Acer Indonesia campaigns and make Indonesia one of role models for Acer global. Lovely cheerful lady with beautiful babies <3
• Trinity ‘The Naked Traveler’; World traveler, travel blogger at naked-traveler.com. Background: Communications, Management. I call her Miss T, one of my favorite travel buddy, she utilize her blog to share her traveling story. It became successful, and even more successful when she turned it into a book. Now she’s traveling around the world in a year. I believe she’s in Ecuador now
• Yuditha Sitinjak; Founder Hakunamatata.co.id. Background: Design. Really impressed with Ditha. We met for 5 minutes after my talk in a conference, then she asked some suggestion for her startup, I gave her quick advice, then not too long after, she already make my suggestions into reality! Highly passionate and motivated girl!
• Hanny Kusumawati; Creative Director at Maverick, Co-founder Coin a Chance. Background: PR. She’s been using social media as tool to promote her social campaign on coin collecting. Now Coin a Chance already brought children back to school and put smile on their face. She’s a romantic writer, and my lovely poetry writing buddy <3
• Ainun Chomsun; Founder Akademi Berbagi. Background: Communications (I haven’t confirm :D). She’s been using social media as tool to spread information and create free classes with a lot of subjects to learn. Now her Akademi Berbagi classes are available in 38 cities in Indonesia. I have been teaching in several classes in Jakarta, Depok, Solo and Semarang. It was a valuable experience. One of Akademi Berbagi students, Mas Muadzin co-founder of Semerbak Coffee, finally finished his first book after he participate in my writing class in Akademi berbagi. She’svery inspiring and full of energy!

I know there are more ladies in IT, but I’m going to stop the list now. I’m looking forward to write a new ladies in tech list in my next posts!

Share me your own version of most inspiring women in IT in the comment box below!

“I have longed to make the acquaintance of a “modern girl,” that proud, independent girl who has all my sympathy! She who, happy and self-reliant, lightly and alertly steps on her way through life, full of enthusiasm and warm feeling; working not only for her own well-being and happiness, but for the greater good of humanity as a whole.” — Kartini, 1899

That was the first mail Kartini sent to Stella more than 100 years ago. This young Javanese Princess already can mention how ‘modern girl’ in her vision, should be: happy, self-reliant, full of enthusiasm and working not only for herself but also for her community. Think about other people well-being as well.

When Director of Education, Service and Industry, and his wife from Batavia, visited her father to seek advice about making school for native girls, Kartini take that opportunity to speak her mind to the ‘mevrouw’. She wanted a vocational school as well for the native girls. The school wasn’t there yet and she already giving input on how it should be done to give more skills for girls.

As a letters lover, I’ve been enjoying reading Kartini’s letters and each time I got different insights from her (Download Qbaca apps and read Kartini letters there for free, also you can download a book by Armijn Pane about Kartini ‘Habis Gelap, Terbitlah Terang’). It’s amazing to me, a 20 years old girl, living in a strict Javanese culture in the year 1900s, to have a critical thinking like that. Excessive reading and the love of writing, I believe has build her mindset.

Speaking at Kartini Day event by UseeTV & Qbaca with Dian Nitami, Ainun Chomsun & Vivian Wijaya

What I’ve learned from her letters, she knows exactly what she want, she recognize her dreams: freedom for women to have equal education, she plan on what she wants to do when her dream’s come true and she speak to people about her dreams.

Right now in 2013, women no longer have issues in having the same level of education as men, girls can freely answer the question that once Kartini asked to her father, ‘What am I going to be when I grow up?’ -and now everything is up to us: do we want to sabotage ourselves and hold back from unleashing our greatest potential, or do we want to realize our dreams, move forward and live a meaningful life?

For all the things Kartini has fought for, I hope you choose your answer wisely.

Dreams are splendid, but what would become of us if we dreamed for ever?
We must make ourselves nobler, by trying to make our dreams real. -Kartini, 1902

Di antara group kami Muslimah Backpacker yang rata-rata perempuan dewasa, ada satu anak perempuan yang diajak orang tuanya untuk berpetualang bersama kami. Namanya Syifa, umur 8 tahun. Selama perjalanan, tidak pernah saya mendengar Syifa mengeluh. Ia mengikuti semua itinerary kami dengan hepi. Bahkan dia sudah berencana akan bercerita banyak pada teman-teman dan gurunya soal Mesir.

Keputusan orang tua Syifa untuk mengajaknya backpacking banyak mendapat pujian. Di usia yang sangat muda, Syifa mendapat kesempatan untuk belajar banyak hal tentang kekayaan sejarah masa lalu dan menghadapi tantangan di kehidupan nyata sehingga diharapkan ia akan tumbuh menjadi manusia yang bijak dan terbuka pikirannya dalam mengatasi masalah saat ia dewasa.

Ternyata banyak cerita-cerita yang terinspirasi dari buku ‘Cerita di Balik Noda’ karya Fira Basuki yang ikutan di kompetisi #UlasBukuRinso bulan lalu. Dari cerita-cerita yang saya baca, terbukti bahwa ‘berani kotor’ itu baik.

Terima kasih untuk teman-teman yang sudah sharing review dan pengalamannya sendiri tentang ‘berani kotor’. Berikut 2 orang pemenang yang berhak mendapatkan voucher Sodexo senilai Rp 1.000.000:

• Putri Andina dengan tulisannya Hari-hari tanpa Ibu
• Tomi purba dengan tulisannya Di Balik Noda ada Cerita

Selamat untuk pemenang! Hadiah akan dikirim langsung oleh Rinso kepada kalian berdua ya ^_^

Sampai ketemu di kompetisi selanjutnya!

I’ve been wanting to do a single column blog and I’ve found a suitable Theme for that. I tweak a little bit, making my new logo, choosing slim web font as I like, fix menus, widgets and all the details. And I’m done.

It is important for me to make a progress in my life, that would give a positive impact for my next plan. After completing a book of 80 poetry with Hanny @beradadisini for 5 hours on Saturday, as silly as it might sound, this new blog look, is how productivity looks like to me.

Quote Source: Paulo Coelho, The Pilgrimage

I have very limited knowledge of all questions that Marie asks, but I try to answer them. I thought I want to share it with you.

Please introduce yourself

I’m the Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of NulisBuku.com, the first online self publishing in Indonesia and co-founder of Kutukutubuku.com, one of top online bookstores in Indonesia.

I’m also a writer of 25 books, varied from novels to how-to books. My passion in books, writing, and technology make me selected as one of 10 women in Indonesia IT world 2011 by Infokomputer Magazine, and recently picked as one of 25 inspiring women by Tabloid Nova.

I’m actively organized #StartupLokal, the biggest startup community in Indonesia and Girls in Tech Indonesia, to encourage more women to use technology to improve lives.

Economy & entrepreneurship

You launched several businesses in Indonesia, such as StartupLokal or Project Eden. How was it for you, as a young Indonesian woman, to create your own business? Is it a common thing in Indonesia?

Actually Startuplokal is a non-profit organization. Project Eden is an incubator supported by StartupLokal. My business activities listed in my LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/in/salsabeela

Entrepreneurship is not a common thing at first but it’s more and more getting a positive promotion by the government and private sector. When I started my own business, when I was  23, I have to ask for my father’s permission to quit my job and focus to my business. Because basically when you’re single you still going to live with your family until you’re married. But now I’m living on my own and I do my own business. Not much Indonesian women are like me. But entrepreneurship soul started to grow, basically Indonesian women are very creative in creating opportunities.

Is StartupLokal an answer to a lack? How is entrepreneurship in your country?

With Startuplokal, we make monthly meetup with entrepreneurial topics to help young entrepreneurs solve their problems, meet people, meet investor and media. So we’re trying to promote entrepreneurship, more specifically in IT industry.

What do you think entrepreneurship and innovation can bring to Indonesia?

We’re a big country of 240 million people with a wide area that is similar to London – Istanbul, govern by 1 president. So we can’t hope our government to solve our problem. Entrepreneurship allow us to help ourselves and eventually help our community.

So, what are for you the main economic assets for Indonesia?

I must say human resources. We’re a young country with median age of 28 years old. More than 60% of our population are young people under 35 years old and they’re full of potential.

Diplomacy

Let’s talk about one other field: we know that Indonesia is a great player inside the ASEAN. How is its role perceived in Indonesia?

Personally I think we should have played the role better, but current government don’t seem to decide where we should stand

On a bigger scale: 15 years ago, Indonesia was described as a failed State, regarding its political instability and the crisis it went through. How are this current boom and this great integration within the international system seen in Indonesia? And how do you explain it?

After 1998, gradually everything’s getting better. Middle class and consumer market is expected to boost in Indonesia due to better economy, we’re now politically stable and freedom of speech is one of things we’re proud of, we’re now among the 1 trillion dollar economy so the world start seeing us as a valuable market and also partner. In IT sector more and more investors coming to check our potential. So, it’s a very favorable time for us now.

Democracy

It brings us to one other point, democracy. In occidental minds, it is often an important criterion. In your opinion, is Indonesia an achieved model of coexistence of Islam and democracy?

I think by far we’re a country with biggest Muslim population in the world and keep being very democratic in freedom of speech and many other things compared to any other Muslim countries. So I’m proud of my country on this

Do you feel democracy is well anchored in the minds of people? Or is there still work to do?

Yes, things are very different after 1998, and now democracy is a part of our life

Indonesia is made up of a multitude of islands. Some people say this diversity and characteristic geography is a factor of instability. Do you think it really is?

I disagree. There are thousands of languages, cultures and more than 5 religions in the country and we’ve been living side by side, using national Indonesian language and national clothes. Jakarta is a melting pot and a good example of this harmony.

Society
You are active on Twitter, Facebook, and blogging. There is a growing importance of social medias in Indonesia, because more and more people are connected and use them: do you think it helps to federate people or not? Which role do these networks play within the civil society?

Social media plays a very important role that is now already can ‘control’ the headlines of biggest newspapers in Indonesia. So what we voice in online can goes offline easily. We’ve been using our social media accounts to make social campaign and promote good stuff.

Moreover, you are involved in many fields, including for instance culture, with your online self-publishing, or fashion, with your SalsabeelaShop.com. Do you feel there is an Indonesian “soft power”?

There’s plenty of them in form of culture like our traditional dance, and fashion like traditional fabric (batik, songket, etc) and hijab/muslim fashion.

Conclusion

So, would you gamble on Indonesia as a “pivot-State”? If not, which country in South-East Asia do you feel is the most fitted?

Yes, we’re definitely one of the best pivot-states in SouthEast Asia (Well, at least after some little upgrades on infrastructures, services and supportive government regulations :D)

***

Anything you might want to add for the interview you can put on comment box below so Marie can read. Have a nice weekend!

My backpacking trip to Egypt has so much stories that I can’t contain in one blog post. So, I thought, I want to share some of the ‘behind the scene’ photos of my trip thru Cairo, Luxor, Aswan and Alexandria, all taken with iPhone. Enjoy!

Eating burger and fries, Egyptian way

My Ollie shoes by http://mamamiew.blogspot.com – you can order your own shoes to her ;)

Syifa, 8 years old, the youngest in our group

I was tired after long walks and the heat, quick nap solved everything

We were too tired to walk and no bus or anything seen around Bab Zuwayla, then we decided to rent a pickup from the local :))

On my way to Luxor by train, I woke up to this view of sunrise

We must thank Risyan, Shohib, Linggha and Furqon, to be our male bestfriends for the whole trip who's been protecting us, taking our pictures and help us bargain in Arabic :))

At a small crowded toilet, in a Mosque in Luxor, I managed to spread my makeup brushes and put on full makeup. Victory!

The cleaning girls in the restroom had been watching me put on my makeup and when it's done, they cheer and give out their thumbs to show their support :D

At McDonald's behind Luxor Temple; This must be McDonald's with the best view ever

One of our best hotels while in Egypt

Our group always been the center of attention wherever we go

Inside the busy commuter train in Alexandria where I carry a 20kg luggage and another 8 kgs bag

Some parts of Egypt are surreal like in 1970 movie set

Bibliotheca Alexandrina, one of the biggest library in the world, my heaven on earth

Egypt has the best mango juice in the world!!

Playing board games at Farouk Cafe in Alexandria

The grave of Hussein ibn Ali, the grandson of Prophet Muhammad at Al-Hussein Mosque, Cairo. It was really packed on Friday.

Bought black abaya at Khan el-Khalili market, and asked Rahmah to take my photos around the neighbourhood :D

He recited Quran for us at Sultan Hassan Mosque, Cairo, Masha Allah beautiful recitation

Yes we went to the Mall like a true Jakartan :)) I went to get a book by Naguib Mahfouz, a Literary Nobel winner from Egypt

Unexpected meetup with my 'twitter twin' salsabeelaa What a coincidence! She said I should've speak about writing in front of Indonesian students in Cairo. I forgot to plan talks, because I thought I won

Finally witness this heartwarming moment with my own eyes

People may argue about definition of backpacking, but let's agree to disagree and let me just travel in style like the way I've always been ;)