The Lost Journal #3: The Day When Everything Went Wrong

“When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable.” – Clifton Fadiman

30/8/2013
-Ventimiglia, Italia-

A photo to peak your curiosity

"What the heck should we do?" asked Ken. I had nothing to respond to him. I didn't know what to do either. Adam was trying to find a way to get inside our rented car, a silver Ford Fiesta, working his way around the doors to make it open. Hafiz was helping him. People around were figuring out what we were doing with the car, and I fear that some people thought that we were stealing our own rented car. A police patrol car came and two policemen asked us what the problem was. We explained everything in French, they understood French and told us to break one of the windows. There was no other choice.

We were at an R n R near Ventimiglia, on our way to Florence, Italy. It was in the middle of the day and it was still summer here in Italy, the heat here felt more or less the same as in Malaysia.

So, my fellow blog readers, you may wonder what actually happened here. Let me rewind and start from the beginning;

2 days after I arrived back in France (I was in Malaysia two months with my family), I was invited by my juniors to join them for their trip to Florence. We rented a car and departed from Aix-en-Provence at 10 am, and soon reached Nice at 12 pm. Along the way, I was hoping we would come across the lavender fields like the year before, but unfortunately we didn't. Nevertheless, I have photos of the lavender fields plus sunflower fields we took, back in summer 2012.

The air smelled fresh and fragrant

We were all Aixois (students studying in Aix-en-Provence)

Lost in the sunflower fields

We were just passing by Nice, an underrated French city if you compare to Paris. Personally, I think people might have enjoyed spending time at the south of France (Nice-Cannes-Marseille-Monaco) rather than Paris.

The city of Nice itself is clean, and looked ravishing this time of the year. We didn't have the time to dive or relax on the beach. So we continued on our journey.

From the top of Nice, a photo taken in 2012

After a few minutes from Nice, we reached the Italian border. We actually passed the speed limit somewhere around here, because we received a 90 € fine after we got back from Italy. Already one bad news for the day, and it was only the beginning of a series of unfortunate events.

We stopped at a rest area near Ventimiglia, and took some pictures of the blue sea. We were travelling along the French Riviera (Côte d'Azur in French) which is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France, also including the sovereign state of Monaco. There is no official boundary, but it is usually considered to extend from the Italian border in the east to Saint-Tropez, Hyères, Toulon, or Cassis in the west. (Copied this from Wiki, LOL)

Le French Riviera

When we got back to the car, that's when we realized that we left the car keys inside the car, and the car had an auto-lock system. So it locked itself from the inside, leaving us no chances of getting back the key. Genius.

The first thing we did was blaming each other. Me, I was thinking that the vacation was over before it started. Well shit, maybe we should go back to France and call it a day. But wait, we can't get inside our car. Basically, we can go nowhere. Then, we started to think rationally. Ken and I went to ask for help at the nearest shop, he was speaking in Italian and I don't understand Italian, but in the end the man gave us a hammer, which meant breaking one of the windows was the only option. Qisti, Maryam, Halim & Faris, my juniors who were going to Venice stopped and helped us. One hour later, that was when the police arrived (we're back to the start of my blog entry).

Two hours have passed, some people tried to help but didn’t succeed, we watched as many people come and go. We didn't want to break the window as it was a rented car.

Finally, we decided. "Let's break the small window near the windshield, and tell the rent company that we've been robbed,"Adam said. And with the help of an Arab man, we broke the glass of the smallest window, and reached the car keys. As the car was rented, we would have a lot of explaining to do. We thanked him and his family for staying with us for at least half an hour to help. Thank you to Qisti, Maryam, Faris & Halim for staying with us too. Sincerely from us, merci beaucoup et Grazi :')

Oh la la, Grand Theft Auto

We were glad that we could still continue on our trip. But that wasn’t the last of our problems.

3 hours later...

-Italian Hinterlands-

Deep areas of Italy, right before it went dark

"Push!Push!" I yelled as we pushed the car backwards (gear set in reverse mode), with Adam inside the car on the pedale. Light was quickly disappearing, we were stuck in the small village in a rural area of Italy, nowhere near Firenze (Florence in Italian). We realized that the GPS brought us to a flight of freakin' stairs (long-wide ones) that are normally used by pedestrians of the Italian village.

That was it. We were officially LOST.

I remember that there were Italian children and their parents looking bizarrely at us from their homes, two teens mumbling in Italian, and an old man wearing only his boxers, cursing at us in Italian. They must have wondered what the heck were these Asians doing in the middle of nowhere, at this time of day. Getting out of the small space of pedestrian road was also a bit tricky. A few helped us turn the car around. I asked one of them ‘Firenze? (Florence in Italian). Many tried to explain, but I did not understand a single thing. They don't speak English nor French. Yeah, despondency at its best.

I heard they say some word, ‘Carrara’ and ‘Autostrada’ but did not know what they were. After a while, the sky had gotten dark, the moon was already glistening palely through the trees. And we were still lost. Everywhere we went, we only saw trees and more trees. We asked a few more people and they said the same thing, Carrara and Autostrada. Honestly, it scared me to be lost here.
I looked at my watch, it was 8 p.m. which means it's 2 a.m. Malaysian time. It was already 31st of August 2013. Malaysians were celebrating Hari Kemerdekaan (Independance Day) and we were stuck here in the hinterlands of Italia. Yay us.

At last, miracle arrived. We saw a sign marked Carrara. It was a name of a town. I finally got it. Autostrada meant Highway or 'Autoroute' in French. We went straight for 20 minutes and finally found the highway which led directly to Florence. We reached Florence at 10 p.m. when we were supposed to arrive there at 3 p.m. (according to Google Maps). It was one hell of a day.

Thank you for staying with me till the end of this entry. Everything went well in Florence. I'll tell you more about it in The Lost Journal #4, stay tuned.

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Bye! Au revoir!

As Our Paths Cross #1

"We don't meet people by accident, they are meant to cross our paths for a reason".

We cross paths with random people everyday, while going to work, while going to school, and in most of my cases, while TRAVELLING. Sometimes it just takes a simple 'Hi' to turn strangers into acquaintances. As you know, devices today are already equipped with the most efficient GPS technology designed for us to find locations easily when we are lost.

Here's a tip, LOOK UP.

What I'm trying to say is, when you are pretty sure you are near to your destination, LOOK UP from your device, and start asking actual people around you where this place actually is. Well, of course it won't be as easy as using your device. First, you have to find someone you can speak with, ie. someone who speaks languages you understand. As for me, I would yell:

"Anyone here speaks English?"

"Ya-t-il quelqu'un qui parle français?"

But if I see a Malaysian somewhere along my journey, the first thing I would say is "Belacan!" to see if they turn their heads. Haha

So, once you have someone you can refer too, you can ask them whatever you want. If you're lucky, the person will bring you straight to your destination and sometimes you'll become acquaintances and have a short conversation along the way. If you are REALLY lucky, they'll invite you to a drink and you exchange contacts. That's the power of communication. Here's a quote I would always say to myself;

"Communication works for those who work at it".

If you communicate, somehow you boost your confidence and speaking skills. In 2012, I have met some of the nicest, warmest, and most unique people in the world. They are:

Me and my foster dad looking as Malay as ever.

1. My french host family.

I had a host family when I first arrived in Aix-en-Provence. Here's a photo of me avec my foster dad, his name is Jean Pierre Tomaszek. He's a very warm, friendly, funny and cheerful person. I met him a week or two after my first day in France, and we clicked, tout de suite. He respects that I am a muslim, so he and my foster mum doesn't serve me pork and only serve Halal meat. He believes that 'Terrorism Has No Religion'. And that is why we still kept in touch to this day. Any problems I encounter in France, I refer to this man.

Unfortunately, he only speaks French, and therefore many won't know how nice he really is :(

Avec my foster mum at the dinner table.

This is me avec my foster mum, Danielle. She cooks the best french dishes; Spaghetti, Ravioli, Ratatouille, Tarte Tatin etc. She never gets angry during our stay and speaks in a calm, soft, motherly manner.

However, both Jean Pierre and Danielle never got married. When I asked him why, he said,"If someday someone prettier likes me, than I might leave Danielle," and he laughed, I remember Danielle was sulking and he consoled her, still laughing though. But the second I saw them together, I knew they are a genuinely loving couple. The pair that will always be together till the end :)

2. Miki and Mariko

These two women are from Japan. They are also under our host parents' care. I don't recall their full name, but on the left, she's Miki, and the other is Mariko. Miki is much younger, but even so, Mariko's 50++ years old but she still looks young for her age! Miki prefers to travel so she's never actually at home, and she travels alone. All her photos don't include her in it, and selfie sticks weren't yet invented in 2012. Mariko, on the other hand, wasn't very good in French, but I know thaat she worked hard. Both of them were staying for French language studies for a short while in France.

We miss you brah

3. The Brazilian Guy

I know, he's a heartthrob for you girls out there. He's Haïk Bouillart. He's a fun, outgoing and cheerful guy. We were classmates for 2 months during our intensive french classes. He was one of the closest international student to us Malaysians. His dad is Brazilian, his mom's French. My Malaysian friends and I actually taught him to curse in Bahasa Melayu, and at one time he said 'Gila Babi' out loud, and a Malaysian lecturer was surprised and laughed upon hearing it. I wish we could lepak lagi bro, just like old times.

4. The Colorado Friends

Top photo: Ashley, Sarah, Joe, me, Amir.

Below: Abbey, me, Maureen.

These were taken during Fête de la Musique (Music Festival) in Aix and it was a memorable night. Music Festival is celebrated every year on 21st June (Summer solstice), which marks the longest day of the year and the beginning of summer. At one time when a band was playing Rock n Roll, we Malaysians actually danced with the Americans. Some of us did the 'Twist'. It was a great ambiance and a joyful moment, that I wished we had a video on.

Haïk was there with us too on that night. He was really drunk, so we barely saw him with us. Haha. So, Joe's a philosophic guy, and actually a really cool and fun guy if you force him to dance. I remember the look on his face when said, "Nah, I don't dance". But he slowly moved his body and danced a little when he saw everyone else dancing. Me? I was and still am a bad dancer. Next, I don't remember much about Sarah, all I remember was her vomiting due to excessive alcohol intake. Now, Abbey is the sweetest of them all. She was always smiling. She doesn't speak French that well, therefore she was glad that I could converse with her in English. She's now happily married in America :)

And Maureen, this girl is a great american french speaker. She sketched a lot during class and never really listened to our French teacher. I asked her to do a simple sketch for me as a farewell gift, so here it is:

Maureen, if you ever read this, Thank You!!

These people from Colorado are fun people. I miss you guys :'(

5. These guys I met in Zurich, Switzerland.

A French, a Malaysian, a Spanish and 2 Chileans

Frankly, I don't remember their names, but I do remember each of their stories. I met these guys when we were staying in a hostel in Zurich, and boy, these guys love to partayy.

So I'll just fix their names like this,

From left: French, Chilean #1, me, Spanish, Chilean #2

Le French: So this guy has issues with France, his own country. I'm not sure if he was drunk or sober when he was talking to me. He said he has found his true love in Switzerland and he's never going back to France. We conversed in French but at one time he said this in English to prove his point, "The french are egoïste. They only think they are the best. To them, this is La France (drawing me a star-shaped land in the air), and all the countries around it are shit". He really hates his country and wasn't planning to come back. Ever.

On the other hand, the two Chileans are brothers. They travel around the world and party along the way. We spoke in English. They said that they didn't learn English at school. They learnt it during their travels. By what I heard, their English is good, which meant that they have been travelling A LOT. I've also learned that Chileans speak Spanish as they were colonised by Spain some time ago.

The Spanish is a waiter at a fine dining restaurant, I'm not sure where exactly. He speaks 4 languages, English, Spanish (his mothertongue), Italian and Portuguese, which proved to be very useful in his line of work.

Well that's about it for now. These are the people whom I met and hung out with in 2012. I will tell you about more people I met in my journey in my entry As We Crossed Paths #2.

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The Lost Journal #2: Interlaken, Switzerland

"Not all those who wander are lost". -J.R.R Tolkien

I start all my blog entries with travel quotes by famous people.

As I am writing this journal on my journey to one of the most magnificent places in the world, Interlaken, I am currently at my home in Grenoble, with the weather outside being too cold for me to handle. The city where I live in now is surrounded by the Alps, which explains the weather conditions. It is not snowing at the present, but it was a few days ago, unfortunately at that time I was in London. Well, most people don't consider it unfortunate though. Looking outside my window, I see the Alps from afar, the godly mountains covered with thick snow on top, which ensuite reminded me of the first journey to these mountains.....

30/10/2012
-Interlaken, Switzerland-

I remember the first glimpse of Interlaken. As the moon was glistening through the trees, I saw its reflection on the lake's surface on our way to the hostel, magnificent yet magical as it was. Despite the obscurity, we could make out the silhouette of the mountains, slowly becoming clearer and clearer as we drove along the lake. Interlaken actually meant 'Between two lakes', which indicates the town's location, with this lake being one of them.

View from Grindelwald

The next day, we went to Grindelwald by train, a village situated not very high up the mountains of Jungfrau. At this time of the year, it was the changing period between autumn and winter. As a result, the view was spectacular.

Autumn and Winter.

Panoramic shot of the mountains

Along the way, we met two Malaysian auntys travelling to Bern. They were not sure about the trains, but I remember we tried our best to help them. Before we parted ways, we took a picture and exchanged contacts. Thinking about it, when I checked just now, I think I lost their contact number. To Aunty yang ada dalam gambar ini, if somehow you have come to read this blog, contact saya pleaseee! Kita pernah berjumpa di Interlaken pada 30/10/2012 :(

It's a long shot but it's worth a shot kan?

Us avec the two auntys from Malaysia!

We also met a new Malaysian friend, I call him Bro Daeng, he was on a vacation with his family. They were hanging out at a park. We were not sure if they were Malaysians until one of his son said ,"Nakkkk!". By then we were sure. His family and him were staying in Paris for his wife's work with PETRONAS (They stayed until mid 2013 before going back to Malaysia for good). He insisted for us to call him Bro instead of Uncle. Lol

Bro Daeng, his son, and us.

This trip strengthened our bonds of friendship. Every step we took when travelling created a whole new level of trust between us. As we live miles away from our family, we needed to learn to depend on each other.

Coolest peeps in Interlaken

 During your trips, you will meet new friends along the way. If you are lucky, they will give you a hand when you are in need. Bro Daeng gave me a place to stay in Paris a few months after I met him here in Interlaken, he lives there with his family. Alhamdulillah, they treated me well, provided me food and shelter.

We're lost but we're cool with it

 Thus, your friends are now considered as family, because all of you are like branches on a tree, you grow in different directions yet your roots remain as one. Appreciate your friends, because you’ll never learn to appreciate something until it’s gone.

I'm not even sure what this is

Before we head back to our hostel, we searched for a place to picnic and wait for sunset. We found a perfect spot by the lake. The sun started to sink, and Subhanallah, the sight was amazing. I have never seen such a wonderful view in my entire life.

View from a camping post.

The spectacular view

This is Interlaken

We waited as the sun sank between the mountains in the twilight, wishing that the time could go slower so that we can enjoy the beauty of God’s masterpiece. The sun slowly disappeared, turning the bright blue sky into absolute obscurity.

The sun's going down.

The sun has gone down

This was the one of the most memorable trip I’ve ever been to. I was given the opportunity to see this, the chance to see the other side of the world. Things people are longing to see. Sure, life as a student here is not easy, but I am grateful to Allah for giving me wonderful moments like these, moments that I will cherish forever.

That's it for my Interlaken trip.

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Hope you're not bored reading it like this cat over here we met in Interlaken:

The Lost Journal #1: Lausanne, Switzerland

"A journey is best mesured in friends, rather than miles". - Tim Cahill

Date: 28/10/2012Location: Lausanne, Switzerland

Brothers forever -Amir, Arif, Afiq, Syahmie-

‘Do you want to build a snowman?’ said Syahmie, as he landed himself on a thick blanket of white snow in the middle of nowhere. Here it was heavy snow. We did snow angels and formed snowballs.

This was the second time we experienced snow, and never in our minds had we thought that we could get enough of it. The first time was much more exciting; as we were travelling on the French highway to Switzerland at night, snowflakes started to rain upon our windshield and Amir quickly searched for the nearest RnR. As soon as we stopped, we pushed ourselves out of the car to play with snow. And it was one of the most memorable, and also coldest, moment in my life. The first snow was always the best feeling.

Playing snow for the first time ever.

Back to Lausanne, I felt the absolute intense as the gust of wind blew right through me, with drops of heavy snow emanating from the clouds, falling softly onto my face and hair. There was no one around, apparently no one was crazy enough to go out in such a weather, so we decided to dance all around the snow like there's no tomorrow.

When it got too cold, we rushed back inside our car and continued exploring. As the snow got thicker, we realized that we can no longer push through without fixing chains on our front tyres. So, in the middle of nowhere, with not a single person seen, we stopped the car and fixed the chains.

Fixing chains

Making sure chains are well-fixed 

Lausanne is a known as the olympic capital in Switzerland, people here speak French as it is closer to the french border. It is a city located not far from Geneva. The four national languages of Switzerland are German, French, Italian and Romansh. From what I've heard, not everyone in Switzeland knows all four of these languages, but they have English as an intermediate language.

This lake on this photo below is Lac Léman (Leman Lake) which stretches from Lausanne to Geneva. We visited this lake the next day, before we got on the road to Interlaken.

Lac Léman 

Lac Léman 

Ain't Lac Léman a beauty? At least one hour was spent admiring this amazing view by the shore. This video sums up our days in Lausanne. Watch it. Its funnnn :)

So, off we go, from Lausanne to Interlaken. See you again on my next entry.

That's it for my Interlaken trip.
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Introduction to my Blog: Enchanté!

On top of Chamrousse (one of the skiing stations near Grenoble, France, saying 'Malaysia Boleh!'

First things first

Je m'appelle Mirkhael. It means "My name is Mirkhael".

Why is it in French? Well primarily because it sounds cool, and secondly because I say that all the time when I introduce myself to someone. I am an average nerdy Malaysian boy aged 22, currently studying Mechanical Engineering or 'Génie Mécanique et Productique' as you say it in French.

I speak French, and of course, English and Malay. 

I am staying in Grenoble, a wonderful French city surrounded by mountains thickly covered with snow, which we call the Alps. Do you remember where Michael Schumacher had his ski accident? He had it on of Grenoble's snowy mountains. There, senang nak explain kalau tak tahu :P

This is Grenoble from the top of La Bastille, the most visited tourist attraction in this city.

It's been three years I'm in France, my first and my second ones were in Aix-en-Provence, a small town near Marseille, where it is much warmer, and where the sun shows more of its presence compared to here in Grenoble. I'll tell you more about Grenoble and Aix-en-Provence on my future entries, Inshaallah.

This is Aix-en-Provence.

This is my first time blogging

My blog may not be as awesome as most bloggers. But I hope I could do my best in telling you about the tales of my travels. Basically, I'm a noob in blogging. I only use Facebook and Instagram as my medium to post photos and tell stories.

I am a traveller, and finally after 3 years of staying in Europe, somebody knocked me in the head and told me, "Why didn't you write about your adventures around Europe? You are one of the lucky students who are given the chance to study in the overseas".

And I thought, "Yeah why not?". Why not sharing my tales with my buddies in Malaysia. And heck, one day when I have wrinkles I would read my entries and reminisced the times where I had fun, discovered new places, experienced new experiences, and meeting new friends along the way.

Alhamdulillah, I've been travelling a lot. So far, I've travelled to Switzerland, Italy, Monaco, Greece, Spain, Denmark, Ireland and United Kingdom. So yea, I'll write some journals about my adventures.

So that's enough for my first entry. Soon I will bring you with me on an adventure!

For starters, follow my adventures here:
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