Traveling has provided me with priceless insight about the world and human nature. Every step in the journey made us a little bit older than we actually are.

I never got to write a full blog about that one memorable backpacking trip in 2015. I traveled to Indonesia with my childhood friend. I ended up writing a short fiction inspired by that trip instead.

It was during a short moment in the trip when I was just people watching in Borobudur Temple. I had my eyes transfixed on this young woman wearing a bright neon t-shirt. While I was sitting on one of the temple steps, it was as if my mind was crafting this story of a life that I didn't know until that moment when I was just looking at her. 

She ended up being in one of the shots I took during that trip. I forgot about her until I saw the photos which I also lost when I purged social media in 2017. It was looking at the photo I took of her that I started to write down the stories I had drifting in my head that time. She had her back on me all those while so I had no face to remember. For me she would always just be the girl in a pink neon shirt.

The thoughts started drifting in my head with the idea of catching a glimpse of a person in a beautiful backdrop. The idea that everyone was busy exploring every inch of the temple, but seeing this one person sitting there unbothered and I too at that short moment, unbothered but observing, gave my mind that creative inspiration to write. I certainly projected a portion of my life and experiences into the life that she might have lived which made it into the fiction I wrote of her. 

So you see, traveling is also not so much about being from point A to point B. For me, it's those thoughts that we had and the perspective we gained on the journey. It's also the discovery of our old selves that our present life kept buried.

I have not traveled enough than I would have liked, but I do have a lot of stories to tell and a lot of perspective to share. I have not been consistently writing fiction, in fact I stopped reading fiction in the last two years for the sake of my mental health, and I haven't had time to write fiction for five years as well.

I also have recently revived this blog and brought back some of my writings that I found a copy of in the worldwide web.

The Internet has also changed a lot in the past years. The cancel culture brought out a certain hostility that made old creators take a step back.

I would like to take a chance to crawl my way back in one writing at a time, not expecting a lot but just finding that small spot in the Internet that would attract people who could connect to my content and writing.