Ten months later.

After nearly a year hiatus from writing in this blog, I feel like I have so much to say yet nothing at the same time. I stopped writing about my travels right after I began to recover from dengue fever, an illness that took me to the fringes of death and shook up my entire existence. After going through that experience, I began to see life in richer colors and every experience to be savored and felt fully, which meant there was no time for hunkering down to type up an entry.

And really, no time to spend getting from one place to another stuck in the purgatory-like scene of public transportation third world style. By the last month of travels, I was ready for a home base and did less moving like a crazy nomad and more taking in the details of the present environment. My environment of choice was the island of Bunaken, which is an hour by boat off the coast of northern Sulawesi. I stayed there for ten days and lived about 10 meters away from the best snorkeling reef on the entire island. If I wasn’t swimming, snorkeling or scuba diving, I was eating. If I wasn’t eating, I was reading. If I wasn’t reading, I was slacklining. If I wasn’t slacklining, I was swimming…and so forth. My body felt so fit and fresh from the daily movement and sun. It was complete paradise. Most importantly, that environment offered me the chance to be totally present in the moment and take in the rich details around me.

After those ten days, I went back mainland for half a week to visit Tankoko National Park and see lemurs (small nocturnal primates with big eyes). After Tankoko, I had the itch to return to Bunaken for a few days, where I spent my last remaining solo time before I flew back to Semarang to visit my family. From Semarang, I flew to Singapore. And from Singapore, back to New York City, the city I call home.

On April 9th, 2013, I returned to New York City. In these last ten months, I have slowly and deliberately started building roots while planning out my next steps. I will write more about the mission statement I have thought out for myself in my next entry, along with further reflections about traveling in Indonesia and my personal identity. Hopefully, it will be shorter than ten months in between entries!