I was born with definite character that I can’t stand being at home too long. I know that everybody needs warm feeling of family or people they love but somehow I just seek the balance that I should go out, make some friends, connections, and see things outside a building called house. I’ve read some articles consist of stories about journey and sometimes they are really hard to define what home is. People say home can be defined as where your heart is but I just still don’t get it. Is it about the feeling you feel like you miss something in your city or what? If you know I’m still looking for where my home is.
I know having this big trip is kind of wasting lot of time. On the other side, I have been forced to work on my thesis too but who cares? I have promised to myself that I really must be able to make it possible simultaneously. I know I messed up my mind in last year. Year when I should have been able to finish some chapters but I decided more to start it by the beginning of 2015. I needed time to settle everything. I was firstly interdicted by my parents to go alone. Since my brother had a trouble related to his thesis so yeah, I’m sorry because my ego was too high to control then I really wanted to keep going. This is like what I’m mostly scared of. I’ve been doing so many things with just myself and I was thinking if there was a time when I really had to be alone in a trip, then I really couldn’t understand what it was all about.
I started my journey with a friend from Bekasi, God blessed me, thank you. She decided to buy the same flight with the exact same date as me but she only wanted to go to Vietnam. We got flight at 09.50 and had to connect flight at Changi International Airport Singapore. I left home after Subuh which was about 5 am. I have promised to myself not to cry during my journey, for whatever the reason, I mustn’t cry. It was a principle. But how could I hold these tears when I found my dad hugged me really tight before I left? While my mom cried because I could see her tears through her eyes. My mom accompanied me until I got the airport bus. I couldn’t even see the sun yet. All the city lights still flamed and told me to take a rest as I boarded to the bus. I just took 2 hours of sleep but I couldn’t sleep and finally broke my own promise. I don’t know where my mind was gonna lead me to but some sooth music seemed to shut my ears so that I couldn’t hear when my heart kept saying ‘stop crying’. I knew one of the reason, I really knew it and I hate it. What I could’ve told, what I could’ve said, what I could’ve got, it was everything about what if but I should’ve been done with it.
First night in Ho Chi Minh, Baptiste picked us up at the airport and we decided to take bus which only cost 5000 VND while cab would cost us more than 200,000 VND to Pham Ngu Lao Street, a tourist area in Ho Chi Minh city. It took us only 30 minutes by bus then we arrived at Benh Thanh Market then walked a distance the area.
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| Just a common bus, nothing special |
The Bus in Ho Chi Minh has been a popular public transportation since it doesn't have train like maybe other modern cities do. Most people tend to ride motorbikes so it is no wonder when I could see the street was full of motorbikes with little amount of cars. Bus is running with no conductor so the payment system always goes when the first time we board to the bus. Luckily, it was air conditioned.
Amalia has planned to stay where Baptiste stayed but I still preferred to stay at the dormitory. In the other side, the hostel where Baptiste stayed didn’t have any dormitory. They just had private room. Then, my friends helped me to get into Eco Backpacker Hostel. It was actually a hostel which I have been targeting in the first place. I mean when the first time I knew I was going to Ho Chi Minh, this hostel was the first hostel that took my attention but since I found another hostel which cost less, so I put it away. Thank God, Baptiste finally brought me there just like what I really wanted since the first time.
I didn’t make any friend in the first night at hostel. I just put my backpack, took a shower, and had one hour to get prepared until Amalia and Baptiste picked me up for dinner. I thought they would drag me to somewhere outside the area but hell they just made me step some footsteps into the restaurant next the hostel’s door haha. Since Amalia and I didn’t eat any pork and always looked for halal food, we just tried to play safe by ordering pizza.
We’re done with dinner then I said to them to help me with the ticket to Cambodia. Since it was my first time having like parallel trip to some places which needed a real plan about tickets and stuffs and I was like too scared if I didn’t get the bus like I planned on the certain date. Actually, I stayed in Pham Ngu Lao Street, District 1 which has thousand of hostels, guest houses, restaurants, cafes, bars, and also travel agents. It sounded quite made sense not too afraid about the bus since it wasn’t a big day (oh, maybe Lunar Year) and if I didn’t get the ticket from one travel, I could easily move to the others. Anyway, my French friend just suddenly and randomly entered a travel agent called Panda Travel Company at 303A Pham Ngu Lao Street, District 1, HCMC. We were welcomed by two guys. One of them seemed so interactive and had good level in marketing communication tsaaaaaah hahaha but he was really nice to me. He guessed that I came from Philippines. Okay lah :D
I paid 11 USD for a ticket to Phnom Penh on February, 15. I chose the second bus which planned to depart at 8 am instead of catching for 6.30 am. Ohhhh I must be failed. I firstly thought about using service from Mekong Express. I know it would cost me more but all the blogs and article reviews on the internet I’ve read before I started my journey, said that Mekong Express was probably the best and the safest transportation many tourists have trusted. They said the guide could speak English well and bla bla bla but then my friend made me realized by saying ‘what is your definition of safe? If I were you, I would take the cheapest one. You could be safe too though you pay it less’. Fine, forget about Mekong Express haha.
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