Nirvana sunrise over Borobudur...

Beep beep beep...

I open one eye, it's still pitch black outside. It's 4 in the morning of September 11th. My alarm just went off. Today, no way to hit the snooze button, i stop it, jump out of bed, head to the bathroom, brush my teeth, quick morning pipi. I wash my hands and my face. Put on short, T-shirt, hoodie, sandals and head lamp. Pick up my bag, and out the door.

It's 4:13 in the morning. I lock my hostel bungalow and jump on my rental bicycle. Though it is quite chilly at such early hour, the pedaling quickly warms me up. I'm now actually sweating. Ufff...and yet, still another 20 minutes to go.

As I am passing through little villages on the surrounding of the world heritage Borobudur Buddhist temple, the deeper I go the less street lighting. After 10 minutes, I am in total darkness. The myriad is bright stars and the half smiling crescent of the moon are just about the only lights at sight. Not enough to guide my way through the rough dirt path of the farm land I am going through. I suddenly arrive at an open space...fields of tobacco spreading around for acres. I was here yesterday afternoon, and very well remember that right above my right shoulder is the gigantic temple of Borobudur which I would be able to see easily on the horizon and atop the hill. I look up. Too early. The temple is still asleep, and waiting for the sun to give it the signal to raise. I keep pedaling. Almost there. At the end of the path, and across the little mosque, I make a right.

A much more narrow path lays before me now. Thank god I have my head lamp!

I keep going. It's getting steeper and steeper. A few more drops of sweat...am there. The ticket counter. Yes, it seems that Indonesians manage to exert profit from just about anything that tourists will do or go to.

I lock my bike against a tree. We are now in the jungle.

I pay my foreigner's fee. 30,000 Rupiahs. About USD$3.

Between the cold, the night, and the pedaling, I am now drenched in sweat.

I start hiking an even steeper dry mud path. Half steps, half uneven path. Through the woods. Turning right, turning left.

When will I get there? It's now 4:35am. Please Mr Sun, wait a bit more. I can't miss a single second of your awakening.

4:50am. Finally, I reached the top.

I thought I was going to be the first and only one.

A group of locals is already here. They are loud. Just like all the local tourists. Disrespectful of the peace of others. Oh well...

I sit down on the edge of the mountain, overlooking what seems to be a gigantic valley of palm trees, bamboos, and little traditional huts. All this, overlooked by its majesty Borobudur's temple and two high volcanoes.

Not a single cloud.

The whole landscape is under the protection of the immensity of the sky and its gazillions of shiny stars. It's already magical and the spectacle has not even started.

Slowly, more and more tourists start to immerge and gather around me. Bummer...I really naively thought no one else would have the same idea. Naive indeed....

It's a bit after 5... The show is about to start.

Every single mosque in the valleys is singing the first call to prayer, almost as if they were also praising the spectacle about to begin. For several minutes, the whole valley is in sync, giving the impression to be thousands of years back in times.

All of a sudden, it's happening, the dimmer is being turned very slowly. The light is peeking through the horizon, behind the main volcano, Mount Merapi.

It doesn't take me long to understand why this place is called the nirvana sunrise viewpoint.

Wow! Though the local tourists are still disrespectfully as loud as before, the foreign tourists and myself are in awe, speechless...and trying to play with the settings of our cameras to get the right aperture and right exposure to capture the photo that will capture this moment as best as possible.

The spectacle continues. And now the best part.

As the sun is rising and slowly showing its glorious face, we are witnessing the second act. Because of the vegetation, the humidity and the cold or the night, the whole valley is waking up layered with thick white fog or morning dew. This is giving to the landscape a feeling of far away and ancient oriental mysteriousness.

The whole valley seems to be trying to yawn and unfold its palm trees to liberate itself from a giant cotton veil. Magical!

And the spectacle goes on until the sun is way up and the dew is evaporating up towards the sky and off the ground.

It's now 5:45 am. Every one is gone, either to make it to the 6 am Borobudur temple opening time, or to catch their bus to Jakarta or Jogjakarta. I a, the only left, aside from a couple of old farmers who are delaying the moment they will walk down the hill to get to their daily farming chores. The sun is high up, it is getting uncomfortably hot, and the light is blinding. Squads of swallow birds play with the sun rays around the high trees above my head. I close my eyes and breath in as much of the sun's energy as I can. It feels good and rejuvenating.
I'm ready...too hot to stay here anyway.

The farmers are gone.

I get up and hike back down to where I parked my bike.

Gosh, what a magical way to start a day. The locals don't realize how privileged they are to be able to witness this spectacle every single day, and each day with its own variations.

UNESCO has classified the Borobudur temple a world heritage monument, while the true treasure of the site is the Nirvana sun rise spectacle.

Hello again Indonesia!

Today is September 11th 2013. It is 5pm. I am in Jogjakarta, in a student dorms, hosted by a young couch surfer named Paul.

Ha! Such a good feeling to be back on the Indonesian land.
I landed in Jakarta on September 7th.

There, I got hosted by an amazing host, Janice, who is friend of Marylin from AU. I couldn't have been in better hands. Well, not only does Janice work for USAID and so has such interesting projects and initiatives to talk about, she is incredibly well traveled, but also a great cook! So yes, I got spoiled again. :-)
My first evening in Jakarta, we went to a Georgian Supra diner at some US embassy people's house. Wow! What a night filled with super conversations, delicious Georgian foods and wines, and amazingly well traveled and cultured people.
The following day, a rather lazy day, was all eating and chatting about life and work. So inspiring and motivating. Janice, your life/job rocks! Marylin, your friends rock!

So after a 9 hour train ride which left at 7am from Jakarta, I finally made it to the mysterious-sounding city of Borobudur.

And there guess what?! My luck again.

I had connected with a couch surfer named Dina to find out about where to stay for cheap and what to do in the town. Well, Dina, aside from being super well traveled, a very experiences scuba diver, and speaking English as well as I do, she also happens to be the UNESCO manager of a project aiming at developing and promoting tourism in the Borobudur area. Ha! Could it Ge any better?!

So I got a long description of the best places to dive in the country, a full speech about the area, its history, resources, challenges, and so forth. Dina even took me to all the nicest places for sunset, delicious foods, and artisans villages. What luck I got! She even took me to a all mushroom restaurant. Wow! Unbelievable mushroom sate, just as if it was chicken sate, but with mushroom. A pallet firework!

I must say though, that while Borobudur's site entrance fee is higher  than that of Le Louvre, yet in all honesty, the site does not compare even close to what Le Louvre has to offer. However, when visiting some little side museums about the history of the temple, and when realizing all the work that has been done to restore the monument to what it is today, I am speechless of respect for the people who did such work.

Around 25 million tourists visit the monument each year. Multiply that by $20 and you get $500 million. This is a huge amount of money which we don't seem to see being reinvested at al in the development of the site of the town. And yet, you can see that the villagers are close to the poverty line, and fully rely on souvenirs sold to tourists on the side of the street to survive. Sad...so much profit made and all pocketed by some rich individuals in Jakarta.

Overall, the Borobudur region is under rated by tourists. The monument is far from being the only thing interesting to see there, and you absolutely don't need to have loads of money a ne stay at those $800 per night ultra luxurious hotels yo have a magical there.
Just make sure to give a call to Dina, and she will be the best of hostess.

Selamat jalan!

5 weeks later...Malaysia, Thailand, France, Canada...

Today is September 4th, it is 11am in Bangkok. I am sitting at Franck and Delia's computer, in their house in Bang Na.

I cannot believe 5 weeks have already gone by since I last posted an entry on my blog! Time does fly and at a crazy speed!

It is indeed about 5 weeks ago that I departed from Indonesia...with quite a pinch in my heart. Indonesia was simply amazing. 

I have travelled quite a lot thus far in my life and I have been to quite numerous countries, each more amazing than others. But after spending these three months in Indonesia, I can only reinforce the fact that it is not how many countries you visit, or how many "amazing-sounding" countries you visit that will make the time you will spend in each country amazing, but rather how much time you spend in each country, and how much effort you put in trying to see as many aspects of the culture of each country. By amazing I mean fulfilled on multiple levels: culture, education, adventure, soul, spirit, relationships, human interactions, challenges, joys, etc...

Off course, I would never dared saying that I know a country, no matter how long I stay in a country. But I can definitely say that I have a much better and deeper understanding of a country the longer I stay in it, and the deeper I dig into its culture.

So yes, those first three months in Indonesia have allowed me to dig quite deep into its culture and grow personally on so many levels.

To this day, I am still amazed at how well and peacefully Christians and Muslims manage to live and cohabit together. To some extent, Canada is the only other place I have seen that can pretend to doing so as well. Simply admirable. It just goes to show that YES, it is possible to have two drastically different religions share the same land without any conflict. France, Egypt, Israel/Palestine...learn! Indonesia might not be as developed as you nor economically strong as you, but they sure have a lot they can teach you in terms of inclusion and acceptance of everyone's differences.

When I was in Indonesia, I caught myself thinking a various occasions: they say that Indonesia is not that touristy at all, but they must be blind. This place is filled with tourists everywhere!

Ha! Well, so I thought. You should have seen my face when I crossed over the border and landed in Malaysia. My two destinations on mainland Malaysia were Penang (to check out the famous culinary reputation of the place) and the Perhentian islands (to check out the world renown dive sites and gorgeous islands).

Hahahahahahaha! I am still laughing about it when I think back at how shocked I was when arriving in each place.

Penang: where the hell are the locals???!!! Impression of Penang's population breakdown: 20% Chinese, 20% Indians, 30% backpackers, 20% white retirees, 10% Malays. Just unbelievable. And what does the city have to offer? yes, numerous food stalls with above average quality. But thats about it. If it wasn't for the street artists contracted a few years ago to spice up the walls and streets of the city, I am not sure really why travelers or even white retirees give it so much credit and importance. Anyhow...that is my opinion. But go see for yourself, then we will compare notes. This being said, I am not saying at all that I had a bad time there.

Two interesting things that happened in Penang though:

1) I couchsurfed at the apartment of an Indian called Ram. We walked around the city and its many Hindu temples, and though he is Hindu himself, I remember him telling me that he did not really know the meaning of everything that's happening in a temple, as he was simply following his family's faith and religion without really ever trying to understand everything behind it.

2) I met a young Chinese traveller, Charles, who, to my big surprise, was the very first person I had met on my trip who told me when I asked him his religion: I believe in myself. The exact same answer I have been giving to people asking me this questions thus far. So interesting. Chinese usually tend to seriously follow their family's and ancestors' cultures and religions without a doubt nor questioning. Not Charles. 

Perhentian Islands: are you serious?! everything (except the diving) is at least twice more expensive than anywhere else I have been on my trip so far. There were so many tourists on the beaches of the island that it felt like the beaches of the French Riviera during the Cannes Film Festival, or even better, the beaches on south beach during memorial day weekend. Wow! I was so stunned that I wanted to take off the moment I laid foot on the sand. But hey, I figured I would give the island a chance. This place is so touristy that the locals have grown a sort of negative feeling and behavior towards the tourists. We can see a similar phenomenon in Marrakech nowadays (for those who know Marrakech quite well), simply due to the fact that tourists have invaded the place thinking they were the kings of the world and allowing themselves to treat and disrespect the locals constantly. In any case, I thus decided to focus my stay there on my diving skills rather than my social interaction skills. So I went diving everyday for a week. I improved my skills a lot and had a great time every day with the crew of Spice Divers. Ha, thank God Sha was there! :o)

But as I have been telling everyone I have talked to since then, I was more than anything shocked by the concrete cultural difference between Malays and Indonesians, when it comes to human interactions with foreigners. While the Indonesians will be super open, curious, welcoming, and smiling, Malays will be cold, mean, closed, and unwelcoming. I realize I am basing this observation on two very touristy mainland sites in Malaysia, as Borneo was not that similar. Yet, if you recall, when I crossed the border between Tawau and Tarakan on Borneo, I made quite a similar comment on my blog.

So after these 10 days in mainland Malaysia, I walked and crossed the border between Malaysia and Thailand. There again, quite different. The Thais were right away so welcoming.

I knew there was a train going from the south tip of Thailand all the way to Bangkok. According to the internet, the ride was between 10 and 15 hours, a walk in the park. So I went ahead, and got myself the cheapest ticket I could. Something like the equivalent of $12 I believe. When I read the ticket it did indeed say something like Departure time @ 11:00, Arrival time @ 10:00. Ha! Perfect! Just 11 hours. Easy breezy! Ha! Surprise!!!!!!!! the 10:00 was not PM, but actually AM...the next day! This still does not sound all that bad...23 hours in a train...ok...well...until I saw the train facilities. I wont say more. Remember, I bought the cheapest ticket they had. That should be enough for your imagination to do the rest. The magical part of this train ride though (yes, there was a magical part. Yes, thats me, I try to find beauty and positiveness in everything, no matter what!) was that I was sitting in a compartment with 95% Muslims (so I guess mostly Malays and barely any Thais). And watching them pray 5 times a day (at least the most committed ones) but also break their fast as the train is speeding through the sunset and the rice fields, was just amazing. There, just like in that mini van in Medan, I could witness a concrete sense of religious community. And it was beautiful.

So I finally arrived in Bangkok...exhausted, disgusting, and quite starving (all I had on board the train was a whole loaf of whole wheat bred, and a few Kopikos).

Bangkok was nothing like when I visited it with my family in the late 90's. What a change! How modern and CLEAN!!!

Anyhow, I managed to zip through the train station and subway station as if I had been living here all my life. Delia's directions were so clear and easy to follow.  :o)

In BKK I had planned to stay with my good friends I made back in Kuching, Franck and Delia, from South Africa but who have been living in BKK for the past 10 years, and who are both kindergarden teachers in a Thai school.

Well, my following week in BKK was just phenomenal. Delia and Franck, as well as their best friends and south african neighbors Thea and Lourens, gave me the best welcome, and were the most amazing hosts. The four of them live in a building a bit like in Friend's, the US sitcom. It totally made me want to have a similar lifestyle later on in life. Sebastian & Alma, let's make this happen!!!  jeje!
I had always been curious about teaching and more so, teaching kids. So I decided to shadow Franck, Delia, Thea, Lourens, and a few other teachers each and every day for the whole week. Wow! I would never have thought that teaching English to Thai K1-3 could be so challenging, yet so much fun at the same time. Note that the school who only teaches kindergarden has about 1,000 kids!

Oh, and other highlights of my week in Bangnania (as they call it) was that every wednesday evening, my hosts (F&D&T&L) organize a ping pong (rather table tennis, as in BKK< ping pong can be understand for something else. lol) evening. Ha! God knows I LOVE ping pong! And on thursday afternoon, park time for some unicycle training. Looks a lot simpler than it actually is. And well, cherry on the cake...Delia's and Thea's cooking. yummmmmmmy!!!!!!!

I must say that between their cooking, my mom's cooking the next week in France, and Alma's cooking the week after that in Toronto, I got quite spoiled for the rest of my trip. Thank you Mesdames.  :o)

So a week later, I departed, late at night, for the airport, direction Nice, France. Home sweet home...to see my lil niece, Lola. What a treat. Gosh, she was so small and adorable. A croquer!!!!!

Being home was quite word I must say. Since my parents moved to Morocco, the house is empty. No furniture. No hot water (our hot water was not electricity based). Our fridge had even broken down. In other words, and to an extent, the conditions were not all that different from the rest of my trip. haha! I said to some extent!

It was great to see my family and catch up. Yet, living so far away for many years now, there is only so much we can catch up on. Sad truth of such circumstance. I tried to enjoy Lola as much as possible, when she was not sleeping. I had brought her back from Indonesia a typical swing, like they use all over there, in markets, in the streets, at home...not knowing how effective it would be. Wow! It worked like a charm. Put her in there, pull a bit on the spring, and she snoozes right away. :o) Made me happy that I could bring something useful.

For some personal reasons though, being at home in France is never as pleasant as being at home in Morocco. Both my parents and sister share this feeling I believe. It is just that we have been trying to sell the house in France for so many years now, and no success so far. So now it has become more of a burden (financial and maintenance wise) than anything. So every time I go back I always have that bitter feeling in my guts.

I was shocked though to see how the south of france has changed. So much concrete has taken over the what used to be magnificent eucalyptus, mimosa, and rose hills years ago. As you drive through the villages it screams so loudly how corrupted the mayors are and how they are purely dedicated to making big bucks rather than preserving the authenticity that has made the south of france or provence so famous in the past. 

The week I spent with my family went by as if it were only 2 days. Unbelievable! I barely got to do anything while at home. It almost feels like I barely got to see my family. 

My flight from France to Toronto departed from Paris. So I decided to spend 48 hours before my flight with my super duper good friends Alex & Fio. I just cant manage to spend a whole year without seeing them at least once. Thats just the way it is.  :o)  This little weekend allowed me to not only spend some good quality time with them and discover another part of France I didn't know: Tour and its surrounding. Magnificent area!

Toronto! Ah Toronto! I just love this city. Especially at this time a year. The vibe exuding from every neighborhood is just magical. I just love it. I hadn't seen my friends in such a long time. I can say that still today, my heart is in Toronto.

It was long overdue that I hang out with Sebastian and Alma, like we used to when I was living in Toronto. If only Juana had been there. Those days were golden. We even managed to go for long bike rides through the city and the parks like we used to before. Toronto on a bicycle is even more magical. Riding through the streets and parks gives you such a strong feeling of belonging.

I wont get into any details, but Tequilazo did hit again, and quite hard this time. jajaja!

I did spend a good 3 full days, from early morning to late afternoon, sitting at the Second Cup under Scotia Plaza, taking coffee after coffee, and tea after tea, catching up with people, back to back. I did make quite a few friends friends while working at Scotiabank, and to this day I still treasure these friendships. I am really grateful for having the friends I have. Really!

During Carlos' wedding (Carlos and Vanessa, I wish you all the happiness in the world. You both looked so happy on your wedding day, it was so moving and inspiring. Stay true to who you are, always. And dont forget: forgive, and forgive, and forgive, and forgive...lol), Juan, his brother said something that really hit home. I knew of it before, but I guess I never got fully really aware and conscious of it: when you live so far away from your family, your friends become your new family. And yes, indeed. At that moment, I understood why the feelings I have had for my friends are just beyond simple friendship, but are more of brotherhood, sisterhood, fatherhood, motherhood, depending on the role each friend plays in my life. This does not mean at all that my family is less important than my friends. Not at all. It just explains how I can manage to compensate for the lack of the presence of my family in my day to day life, and also why the older I get, the more I feel the need to live closer to my friends than I used to in the past.

Seeing my friends and catching up with them after having been away for so long since I moved from Toronto to Miami only made me realize even more how much I miss them.

And seeing everyone with their partner, and/or their baby made me realize even more how single I am. sad. Not as I wasn't aware of it before. lol No. It's just that having a family of my own has always been so important in my heart, yet for a while, until until now, I think I had put it aside unconsciously. But this time, seeing everyone so happy and fulfilled woke up that feeling of emptiness in me. That craving for having my own family. Yes, I know...quite contradictory with my current endeavor. I realize that. 

I used to be way to idealistic when it comes to romance and relationships. I think this trip has helped me see clearer in that area. Not necessarily because of what has happened during this trip, but rather because of how much thinking I have put into this topic since I left Miami. I am now undoubtably convinced that Love is a matter of decision. One decides to love and make a relationship work. It doesn't just happen magically. You meet someone with whom everything works fantastically well, then you have to decide whether you will love that person for the rest of your life and whether you want to do everything you can to make this relationship work and sustain. It wont just happen. No way. Therefore, as a consequence of this, I do also believe that there is no such thing as "the one" anymore. You decide to make your partner "the one". 

While this might not seem like a big thing to most people I know, for those who really know me, this is a MAJOR shift for me. MAJOR! And it is such a relief to have made this "discovery".  So yes, this trip thus far has been quite productive for me. This is not the only thing that has resulted from the trip, off course, but I am still trying to fully grasp the rest. Work in progress.

It's strange...seeing all my friends, and how happy they were with their partner and or baby, their job, their house/condo, and their daily life kind of made me envious. Very envious actually. What else can one want from life? (They are all quite well travelled already) But at the same time, when I think back, all of them seemed quite envious of the life I am having right now. Ha! Are we ever happy with what we have in life? Is the grass always greener on the other side? Is there a middle ground? The more I think about it and the more I think it all has to do with your dreams. We should have a clear idea or list of what our dreams are, with some sort of order of priority. And we should spend our time/life striving to accomplish those dreams. Dreams should not just be dreams, but rather goals. Some might take longer to reach than others. But when we really want something badly enough, there is no reason why it should not work. I strongly believe that the lack of trying is the first mistake people make. Funny enough, I saw a poster in the street yesterday in some random part of BKK that said: Give 100%, Live 100%. So right on!

I am now in Bangkok, mostly to get my visa to Burma (which I got yesterday) and my visa to India (which I hope to get by friday) before I depart to Indonesia on saturday, but also to spend more time with Franck and Delia who are very devote Born Again Christians. So far it has been quite an interactive and interesting few days of very deep conversations about religion and faith, while, coincidentally enough, I am reading at the same time the last novel of Jose Rodriguez dos Santos. So stay tuned...the week is not over yet, and I prefer to wait more before commenting on it.  
But I remember of one diner time last year, at Sonja's house in Woodbury, with her little monkeys, her mom and Dulip, and Sonja reading my horoscope for the year to come. It said at some point that that year would be a very spiritual year for me. Well...yeah! I believe it is indeed.  :o)

Oh, and I gathered my favorite photos of my trip so far into one album, in which I finally put a comment under each photo. I also finally bought a new camera (Canon G15), so my photos will finally show better quality, at least that's the goal. :-)

Stay tuned for more insight in my life and thoughts.