This post is straight from the heart, from a personal experience, a soul crying inside or so during expat life. I am an indian interested in traveling and i got an opurtunity to live as an expat in Indonesia. I was very happy about it till my tenure was over and then felt that i still havent seen anything of indonesia.
The project was in the island of borneo, third largest in the world, rich rainforests, only place where you can see orangutans in the wild, where human intervention is very less, and people are very friendly, thousand of rivers flows, it rains almost throught the year, and numerous offbeat places which the world has never even heard off(Whole world knows about bali, but not even heard about these places) and i had an oppurtunity to live there and i stayed there, enjoyed my life and after my tenure is over, returned to india and then i read this blog by wildwayfarer why i choose not to work abroad and the i straight away commented about the pain i endured rather than what i enjoyed.
First let me list my joyous things i did there.
- Experienced south-east asian hospitality.
- Made new friendship with the local people.
- Savoured delicious indonesian foods
- Cycled around 1000 kilometres mostly inside borneo rainforests.
- Island hopped around 7 islands.
- Trekked and hiked at least every month for an year.
- Visited Jakarta, Yogjakarta, Bali, Ubud, Balikpapan, Samarinda, Bontang, Berau……..
- Learnt to speak a little Indonesian language
- Inspired locals to go cycling from sangatta to bontang
- Swam in labuan cermin
- Swam with stingless jelly fishes.
And yes experiences cannot be quantified or measured. The are treasures that stay in our memory as long as we dont out do what we had done earlier.
Painful feelings
- Have to go to work despite knowing that these many things can be done. You are living in the rain forests and yet you are spending your time at work. What is the point in working inside an AC room when you can breathe frsh oxygne from the abundant forests just outside your home?
- Indonesia is an archipelago made of 17000 plus islands and visiting only 7 island and few other cities did not do justice to my stay there.
- I could visit most of the places there only like a sight-seeing tourist and not as the traveller i was.
And i leave it upto you to decide whether travellers like me are greedy that i am asking for more traveling and time?
