Tentang sekali-sekali spontan

Saya selalu merasa kalau saya adalah orang yang sangat terencana. Saya selalu punya agenda dan to-do list, untuk mencatat apa saja yang akan dan harus saya lakukan. Saya suka merencanakan sebuah acara, perjalanan, termasuk juga ketemuan dengan teman – in advance. Kalau bisa paling tidak 3 hari sebelumnya semua sudah jelas.

Mengenai rencana perjalanan, saya termasuk yang agak obsesif. Harus tahu kita akan kemana hari pertama, hari kedua, hari ketiga, dst. Atau paling tidak, sudah ada list tempat-tempat yang akan dikunjungi. Jadi ketika sampai di tempat tujuan hanya tinggal memilih saja yang mana yang paling nyaman itinerarynya.

Lalu, beberapa bulan yang lalu saya berpikir – I want to be more adventurous! Lebih spontan, lebih berani mengambil keputusan, dan lebih “ayo!”. Saya suka iri ketika adik saya bilang dia mau ke Karimun Jawa minggu depan, atau ketika teman saya bilang dia akan pergi ke Anyer besok. Waaah, senangnyaa!!! Aku ingiiin!! – begitu yang ada di benak saya. Tapi I’ve never done anything like that.

Sampai tiga hari yang lalu. Ketika dia mengajak saya untuk pergi ke Bali, menemani dia menemani seorang teman/partner bisnisnya dari Jerman. Kebetulan saya pernah bertemu dan pernah diajak jalan-jalan menyusuri sungai Rhein tahun lalu ketika mampir di Köln.

on Bali

Still with its alluring beaches and deeply-rooted culture, Bali drew me to her again.

This June, after 7 years, I went back to Bali again. This time I went with two of my best friends, a backpack, a hotel voucher, a return flight ticket, and a strong will to have the most memorable journey – a tribute to H who is going to get married in October. And there it was, a 4-days journey that was indeed memorable.

Day 1. It was a Thursday evening that we decided to leave from Jakarta to Denpasar, flying with a local airline – Batavia Air, that was supposed to leave at 18.35. We hurried to the airport after office hour, arriving almost too late at 17.50 and rushed directly to the check-in counter. Thanks to the flexibility of ours, Indonesians, we managed to check in just in time… We then ran to the waiting room F3, found the half-empty, half-lighted room, and sat in one of the benches. It was 18.25 when we realized that the officers at the desk still haven’t called us for boarding and we decided to ask. “Oh, the flight to Bali is in waiting room F2,” was what the officer told us. Half-panic, we ran to the next-door waiting room and found the overcrowded room, thinking “Ah, yes, the flight to Bali was supposed to be this full…”. We sat and waited, and the flight was about an hour delayed, and finally arrived at Bali at 22.00.