there's gotta be more than wanting more;

Ayah had a talk with me yesterday, a nice talk, not the usual. He says I gotta work to achieve my dreams and I can't wait around for something to happen cause it won't budge if I continue on like this. Then he says I gotta be different and try experiencing new things and rebel if I want! I asked him what he meant by rebel so he gave examples like wearing pink socks to school and having cornrows in my hair. Then I was like "Ya Allah..." but he said who cares! Then he showed me this photoalbum and told me that when he was 23 or something he went on a trip to Nepal all by himself for 1 and a half months to climb this hill. By hitchhiking most of the time from singapore to johore to batu pahat to godknowswhere to langkawi to burma to bangkok then to nepal. No plane! He rented a motorcycle in Langkawi and drove all night around the island. And he had no place to sleep in Bangkok so he slept at a busstop. In Nepal he stayed with some commoners in their village. Then in Burma he met this arab girl who was very friendly and asked him to go to bangkok to visit her family and meet her boyfriend. She said her boyfriend was buddhist so her parents disapproved of him. Ayah has a picture of her boyfriend and her family! Anyway her family welcomed him in bangkok with this feast and he said it was one of the best meals he ever had. Then he made friends with a french couple and they rode elephants together. And he visited the birthplace of Buddha! And he met some opium smokers in this village and took a picture of one of them, with his eyes all misty.

Thing is, Ayah did all this with only 3 pieces of underwear, a pair of jeans, 2 shirts, some money, sunglasses and a mousy bag. For one and a half months. He said by the time he reached the mountain he wanted to climb, he had no money so he had to go home soon after. I asked him why he decided to go alone. He said noone really wanted to go and he was tired of waiting.

So we spent an hour going over every photo and I listened to all his stories about the people he met and the stuff he did. And my mum was constantly saying "I married that handsome man...".

Inside I'm thinking, I never knew Ayah was so cool.