My Kazakhstan trip -- blogposts or a book?

Assalamu’alaikum

Hai. So, haritu aku pergi melancong ke Kazakhstan for two weeks.

OMG YESS, KAZAKHSTAN!! TRAVELING! I KNOW RIGHT?!! :D :D

It was like a dream come true, Alhamdulillah. Masuk tahun 2016 haritu langsung takda bau-bau pada tahun ini aku akan melancong ke luar negara (not even Thailand or Singapore!), pergi canyon, tengok pokok pine etc macam yang aku selalu angankan. Masa tu aku masih hari-hari cam biasa scroll instagram tengok gambar lawa-lawa dengan mata bersinar-sinar dan berangan one day aku akan buat semua tu tanpa aku tahu Allah dah tulis aku akan dapat pada tahun ini. Surprise besar sangat ni, ya Tuhanku. Terima kasih!

So, trip to Kazakhstan ni actually under Summer School program organized by Faculty of Communication and Media UNISEL (fakulti aku la tu). 3 students have been chosen by the Dean himself, and I’m one of the lucky ones. Aku dapat berita terpilih ni pada cuti semester bulan May yang lepas dan aku pergi pada pertengahan August. So, can you imagine for how long I’ve been keeping this to myself and only among my closest ones before I finally revealed it to the public (lol I mean in social media)?? Can you imagine the amount of pressure I’ve been when searching for the flight ticket?? (baru aku tauu berselirat otak tahap apa bila masuk bab tiket ni ya ampunn), panjat turun naik pejabat Dean all because of this and also the pressure when the plan changed for God knows how many times.

At first we were supposed to go to Almaty, Kazakhstan but for some reasons we have to change it to Turkey, then when we almost bought the ticket suddenly ada bombing semua di sana oh God you guys should put yourself in my shoes so you know how does it feel to have your excitement crushed for many times. Then, other participants withdraw from the program some more (so we have to find replacement). Then flight fares increased around RM500 just in one day. At this point I swear I almost gave up. I really want to go but the pressure is real I don’t think I can handle it anymore. I started to think this is not gonna be happening. I started to doubt is my months of efforts are gonna be worth it? But then, ummi and ayah kata kalau withdraw sekarang the same problem will be repeated again and again, dan kesianla Prof (our dean) yang dah susun macam-macam. So, I was holding on. And finally alhamdulillah, sekarang dah selamat balik dah pun dengan membawa lebih kurang dua ribu gambar hasil buruan di South Kazakhstan sebagai stok Instagram untuk setahun. The 3 months++ pressure has finally paid, yeay me!

So, after coming back home I started to think whether I should write a few blog posts about this trip (easiest way to increase my blog traffic, lol) or should I write a book instead? One of my lecturers that I admire his thinking has been suggesting me since the second day I was in Kazakhstan to collect as much info as I can and write a book later on. Me, being inspired especially when thinking about the money I could get by writing book (tu pun kalau laku la haha!) have bought a book about traveling named Travelog Mr Traveller as my personal reference coz I don’t have any idea what do people write in a travel book coz I never read any.

But then, after reading the first few pages of TMT, I noticed how details the author is. He even counted for how many trains that he took when traveling! And he put the train number some more!. And me? I don’t even know the name of the trains’ stations that we went! Yes, I can just Google them but still, that’s what I’ve read in just first few pages of his book. What else did I miss? Oh God. I don’t like this feeling of regret for not jotting everything down in my notes.

But wait, I think it is okay if I sell the book cheaper than him, well just in case anybody complaining how general my writing is. I mean not as details as him. Hee. Aci kan? Plus I have so many things to share with everyone. Plus I am a journalism student so I should have my own book! Plus our experience there is might different than others that may have been there traveling coz we were living with a Kazakh family itself, then we went to their villages, attend Uzbek’s wedding (we even dance there!), tasted their traditional foods like horse and duck meat, crazy evening at Mashat, we made friends, we went to university and school, and also visiting tourism places. And what’s more the crazy-laugh-till-our-tummy-hurts moments, the super annoying tour guide and our life as princesses there. I told you guys, the experiences we get there is priceless. And plus, I don’t think there’s book about traveling to Kazakhstan in Malaysian market now. Kalau ada pun tak banyak. And I don’t even found much about Kazakhstan from the internet, I mean the one yang santai-santai cerita pengalaman masing-masing not Wikipedia. So, what do you expect from a book? Sahih tak banyak nii. It means my chance is bigger!

So, yes! I want to write a book about my trip there. But the question here is when?

………….

*few moments of silence to respect my excitement but didn’t believe I would make it out at the same time*

……………

Okay whatever. Time will tell.

For now let’s pray for another unexpected rezeki for the rest of this amazing year. And also our life.

Alhamdulillah for all.

Btw nah few random photos that I took during the travel sebagai penyeri blog yang jarang bergambar ini. 

Bye!