Living In My Dream House

I have always wanted to stay in a house over viewing the sea, with stables and green fields where horses graze, preferably set with a background of a huge majestic mountain. I never thought the dream came true for me, even though just for a 2 days stay. I  booked a hotel for my stay in Cape Town just through reviews on TripAdvisor, but little I know that it is actually a house, and as I am the only guest for the whole of my stay, I got the house all to myself! The house is situated in Noordhoek, a little bit far from the city centre of Cape Town, making it a very peaceful township. The best thing is that it overviews the sea on one side, and is surrounded by mountains on the other. So there is a horse on my backyard and I have no idea what to do with it. I think no amount of words can do justice towards how beautiful the place is, I'll let pictures do the talking, and this is the theme song for my stay here, Bic Runga's Listening For The Weather. For some reason the song reminds me of horse stables, haha and that is why it is the song of the day!:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9VcabruWc0

The Time of My Life

Longest itinerary I ever had

In a few hours time, I will be starting on what I think would be one of the best times of my life. It will be a 4 months journey across the globe from Kuala Lumpur to Johannesburg to deliver my One Young World speech in front of the likes of Kofi Annan, Richard Branson, Professor Muhammad Yunus, Jamie Oliver and Bob Geldolf. Then to Kruger National Park, staying INSIDE the safari for 3 days to catch sight of the Big 5: the lion, African elephant, Cape buffalo, leopard, and rhinoceros. Then flying off to Cape town for my 3 days stay hosted by the Malay-African Cape people, to marvel over the magnificent Table Mountain and observe the cute penguins at Boulder Beach

Afterwards, I am going to Norway to deliver a Keynote Lecture at the Global Health and Vaccination Research Conference 2013 at the University of Bergen, riding what is deemed the best train ride views in the world from Oslo to Bergen. Perhaps I will visit the Fjords of Norway afterwards, one of the great natural wonders of the world.

Once I'm done in Norway, I would make my way back to South-east Asia, to Cambodia for Hospitals Beyond Boundaries Health Screening Project for 3 days. Then coming back to Malaysia for my convocation. Then I would attend the Global Social Business Summit in Kuala Lumpur, 7th-9th November as one of the 6 youth ambassador selected across the world by Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus' The Grameen Creative Lab

On 11th November, I will fly off to Geneva, Switzerland to start my work as an intern at the World Health Organization (WHO). What happens afterwards? Only Allah knows. I am very thankful for all these opportunities He gave me. I've never felt so blessed in my life. Thank you to all my family members who supported me and believed in what I do

Of Mountains an Volcanoes: The Bromo Experience

The trip to Bromo was absolutely one of a kind experience. From the conference in Yogyakarta, I tagged along with my dear Indonesian friends Oghe and Yodha to the city of Malang 6 hours away. However, they both just recently went to Bromo. Luckily, there were also 4 other people already registered as we went to the tour agent, so my travel that day will be along with those other four.

I met all of them at 1 a.m. at their hotel and our tour starts at the same time. The journey to the top was freaking scary with narrow and bumpy roads. It was so dark all you can see are the stars and the path ahead shined by the jeep. It took 3 hours to get to the base point. We reached the base around 4, and there we met so many other people from other tours. They were all preparing for the last hike up to the top, and were having breakfast, coffee while waiting for the sun to rise around 5 a.m

We went to the top around 4.30 a.m. It was freezing cold, and the air up there was thin so we easily get breathless as we hiked up the hill. It was still dark, and the skies were amazingly clear. There were a lot of people up there waiting for the sunrise, watching the stars. The stars were beautiful, and we occasionally see shooting stars, and everybody will go ‘Oooh’ everytime they see one. It was kinda funny

Then, the first orange streak appears above the horizon. Sunrise was coming, everybody was so excited, I’ve never seen people so excited seeing a sunrise before, people usually dread waking up in the morning. Haha. As the sun came out, the grounds below became more and more visible. The mountains seems floating above the clouds. The view was absolutely amazing, I can never be able to describe it in words. We were there for almost 2 hours just marveling the beauty of Allah’s creation. 

 Then we went down by the jeep to one of the hills with the same view of Mount Bromo. I had a really nice coffee overviewing the volcano. Best coffee experience ever! As I was sitting there looking at the volcano I saw small miniature boxes moving around the volcano leaving the trail. I looked more carefully and realized, heck, it was the jeeps! I never realized the volcano is so freaking huge until I compare it with the size of the jeeps which looks so minute next to the volcano. Then we made it down to the volcano crater itself.

We stopped by at ground level near the volcano to have some breakfast. The place was like a desert, full of sands and dusts. We literally ate dust along with our breakfast. We took a few photos and continued our journey to the volcano crater.

We had to stop 2 km away from the crater and started hiking again. It was so tiring, but on top, we can see the crater so deep and scary you’re gonna be so dead if you slip into one of these  

Then we went down and passed through a somewhat grass field that looked that African savannah. It was beautiful as well, and we took a lot of pictures, and went ahead to see some of the hillside farms, watched the people growing various fruits and vegetables, and lastly went to a waterfall.

The trip has taught me that the Creator’s creation is so magnificent, amazing and huge and we are just a speck of dust in comparison to the universe he created. Sometimes when we are so stuck up in our daily life, we forget these things. We forget that your troubles is just a speck in a dust in a universe. I need to take times for this kind of trips once in awhile. It reminds me that whatever you face in life, there is always a way to get through it, and when you don’t, don’t worry. Life is so much worth living to see other beautiful things on earth

Living The Moment

Many people asked me shouldn't I be a specialist first, learn hospital management, business and management or something to run Hospitals Beyond Boundaries? Oh well, if I spend all my time studying to be ready, I will never stop studying, and I will never start. A good idea evolves over a long time period. It is important to start while you are young and have the energy to execute. Many people are so afraid of making mistakes, they become paralyzed. But it is necessary to learn from mistakes. Contrary to learning theory from books, you can never forget the experience and pain of a mistake. There is no mistake you cannot recover from except if it kills you. I am doing something that I really care about, something I have passion in, something I love. For me, that is more worth it than a bunch of degrees and certificates hung on the wall. I've had some tough times convincing people about my idea, but then it occurred to me: If they don't like my idea, I never have to see these people again

Of Simplicity and Detachment

I think the best thing I learned these couple of years is to live a life of simplicity and detachment. Many associate detachments with apathy, detached of emotions and meaningful relationships with other people: being a robot. But actually detachment and apathy are very different things. I think it was through the words of dead Ottoman Muslim poets I discovered in Istanbul that I learn the true concept of detachment.

Detachment is being detached from the consequences of your thorough choices, from things that make you feel negative or sad, detachment from materialistic things in life that you must have in order to make you feel good everyday, or from the things that a person mistakenly say or do instead of the person itself. It is about letting go of utter control and feel okay with it.

Being detached, you will have peace of mind knowing that what is meant for you will come to you, and what is not meant for you will pass. When you are free of attachments, it gives you freedom and courage to venture out into the world, travel far and wide to see the world in search of meaning and marvel in the creation of the Creator. You will know that you will have nothing to lose with travelling. All the money you spent is replaced with experiences that stretch your mind wide, that it is impossible to return it to its original narrow dimensions.

Being detached, you will love and appreciate the people around you better. You love someone with no strings attached, not because of what the person has, what the person says or do, or what the person looks like. Attachment towards a person will only make you weak, you are hurt by the slightest negative remark, you become overly sensitive and you would stop loving someone just because the person said the wrong things in the heat of emotions. You will learn to love unselfishly.

For me detachment has a lot to do with simplicity, because when you live simply, you are not attached to many things. I have always been a devotee of simplicity, a minimalist. I am a minimalist in arts & designs that I like simple, sharp angled and crisp things. I like things that are simple but refined, like a piece of square block that looks insanely simple from afar but look closer and you see chiseled carvings that has a story to tell. It gives meaning. I clean and organize my room regularly and I found out it is a good way of avoiding your mind turning into a mess.I like to travel simply and lightly, so I don’t have to worry about having to stay in the smallest spaces for the night, worry about my belongings getting lost or having to move my luggage frequently from one place to another. 

Living simply does not diminish anything. The only things you diminish are clutters and rubbish in life, that in the end leaves more space to fill in things that has meaning. Heavy baggage, either physical or emotional, drains you. So live a simple and detached life, clear out all the physical and emotional clutter. You will feel happier, lighter, more creative, more energized, and you will realize sooner or later that your life becomes more fun!