A friend of mine was recently writing about how he believes that life is made up of Firsts and Bests. If that is the case, these past two weeks have summed up a lot of Firsts for yours truly. Not sure if they’re also Bests but I guess we’ll see about that later on 🙂

1. First time I’m traveling alone. Big first there. One I felt quite doubtful about. I really  did not know what to expect and so far it has probably taken me through all the range of human emotions: fear (mostly caused by that “if something were to happen to me now, who would now?” thought); panick (extension of the former feeling); excitement (look at me now suckers!!!); loneliness (missing people and wanting to have someone who really knows you with you); complete and utter freedom (you can literally do whatever goes through your head!!!); pride (I can’t believe I actually did that!!!). I heard a lot of people saying that what they miss most when traveling alone is having someone to share that with. I don’t necessarily have that. I just never realised how much i took good conversations and witty remarks for granted. And I sometimes miss those. Cause you have times when you really don’t want to meet new people and talk about your life histories again. You just want to talk about whatever and make silly stupid jokes!

2. First type on means of transportation that I would normally be scared shirtless of. Namely, boats and scooters. Yesterday I just took an hour long boat ride from Lombok to Bali. Now, Indonesian boats (or any transportation methods for that matter) don’t place that much emphasis on safety. For some reason however, and despite the fact that no was petrified,  I ended up riding on the roof of the fast boat…basically me and 6 other French people. For most of the ride I kept thinking “am I insane?? What was I thinking??”. For the other part of the ride I kept telling myself ” this is amazing!! I should do this every day!!”. Yes, I a a Gemini, hence ambivalent 🙂 Today, I also had the pleasure on going for one hour on a motorbike…the owner of my hostel took me, as I had to get to the previously described temples, and this was the only cheaper way! So I armed myself with all the courage I could muster and I went! It was quite a smooth ride (apart from a few fast racing maniacs) but more importantly than that…the scenery was lovely!! Absolutely stunning! And I was relaxed enough to actually be able to enjoy it!! If that is not growth than I don’t know what is!

3. First time I went hiking alone (I will write about my mount rinjani adventure in a bit also). I was not necessarily alone cause I went with a group. But it was the first time I didn’t have anyone i knew and trusted with me. It was a bit weird. And what I found was weird was that I missed mynhiking people mainly when it came to motivation. Turns out, people are quite selfish when hiking…especially if it’s a strenuous hike (like this one was). They want to save any type of energy or motivation they might have for themselves and friends. If you are “friendless” then it’s only up to you to stay motivated . And when that freaking mountain is tall and difficulty…welll…you might need an external push once in a while 🙂

4. First time to try out Indonesian stuff. So far the most memorable have been the snake fruit (weird stone like texture but crunchy and quite yummy when you eat it) and Arak (local alcohol concocted from coconut). The latter one is quite disgusting when on its own, but they drink it with lime and honey which makes a loooot of sense! And which restores happiness to my tastebuds 🙂 I also had some rice wine from locals, only that was very similar to what I had in Japan… So no first there I believe

5. First time that I’m travelling without having any idea of where I will be or hat I will do tomorrow I had written earlier also about how Malaysia makes you live VERY in the moment. Well…my trip is like that too. And I cannot say I hate it. On the contrary…it raher fun and relaxed. I still am not sure of how i will get to yogyakarta in 2 days time but I am sure I’ll figure it out as I go along 🙂

I am very grateful for all these Firsts. Especially because, since I’m coming very close to 30, I had thought to be somewhat past the age when you can have so many Firsts in so little time. The even better part is that I am sure that many other Firsts will follow in the next 2 months that I will still spend in Asia 🙂