Saturday, December 17, 2016

WANNA TRAVELING VS TIGHT BUDGET

“You’ve traveling a lot, Endah. Looks like you never run out of money”

I heard that words so many time, every time I told them that I’m going to traveling somewhere. Some of my friends always said that I have countless money, I printed my own money to the point where they think I have tuyul (a tiny ghost or spirit who always stealing money from other people for his master/owner). *laughing out loud* *evil smirk*

Who’s said I have a lot of money? Wanna prove? I’ll show my bank record book this month. If you still don’t believe that because you’ve said “That’s a few days ago record, you’ve probably has a huge amount of bank transfer for today”, I’ll give you my ATM and the pin code so you could check it for yourself and see how many money actually I have. *feeling meh*


Just because I always traveling, it doesn’t meant that I have a lot of money. Most of the time, I do traveling on an extremely tight budget. For example, when I went to Bali to join Inspiration Class by Teaching Indonesia community as photographer, trust me! I only have under 1mill IDR (Approx. 75 USD) on my bank account. Buying a Denpasar to Jakarta flight ticket for 400k IDR (approx 30 USD), I only have a little bit more than 500k IDR (approx.  40-45 USD) left. A flight ticket from Jakarta to Denpasar was extremely expensive due the long weekend holiday and the cheapest ticket was about 800k IDR (approx. 60 USD).

Trying to find another way to travel makes me doing a road trip from Jakarta to Bali for with total cost about 350k IDR (approx. 26 UD) using trains and buses and crossing 4 provinces in Java Island. I also get extra money from my aunt in Tegal, Central Java and my parents in Pati town, Central Java for being able to visiting them while doing the road trip. Not bad! *tapped myself in the shoulder*
Inspiration class by Indonesia Mengajar (Teaching Indonesia)
at Bangli region, Bali Province, Indonesia
Another example when I was traveling overseas for the first time to Singapore, trust me I only had cash money about 400k IDR (approx. 30 USD) when I’m board the aircraft. At that time, before entering the aircraft, I left messages to my aunt in Tegal and my mom in Pati said “I’m going to Singapore right now and I only had this amount of money. If you got a miscalled from a number start with +65, it was from Singapore and I run out of money. Please help me and transfer some money that you could loan to me. Thank you very much. PS. Only transfer the money if you got miscalled!”

Alhamdulillah! Thanks to God, while I’m traveling in Singapore everything was pretty much helpful and smooth. I got wonderful host in Singapore who provide me some breakfast, took me a ride with his car around Singapore and help me and my friend to everything I need in Singapore. With the 30 USD, I could even treat them a dinner, buy some souvenir for my family and went back to Indonesia with 3 USD in my pocket.

Another experience, recently my friend offers me a trip to an island in Jakarta. I do really wanna go because it’s been a long time since the last time I went to island and doing snorkeling but with the extremely tight budget, again, I have to think and think and rethink that offer, again and again. Because the money that I have now could buy me a 1 week food supply. At that time, I could only sent a message to my friend “I do really wanna go, but still tentative, still considering it!”

A day before the trip, a message came to my Whatsapp inbox said, “Endah, there’s a person has to cancel his trip and he already paid the trip. He said, you could take his seat so you will only pay this small amount”. Alhamdulillah again, Thanks to God when I got those message. God always know when you need it the most.

Sometime I wonder how I can do traveling with an extremely tight budget beyond belief and just a strong will to do that. But hey, in God eye’s, nothing is impossible. If there’s a will, there will be a will, Insya Allah, if God allow us. You just had to believe it and have a faith in it!

But, there’s a moment when I got a lot of money and day off but I still failed to traveling. For that kinda story, I’ll write it on another time! Soon enough! (EKW)


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