Seeing life in natural way
Day trip to Gopeng a different kind of fun
What Ironman triathlete Irene Tan said about running long distance got our columnist Xandria Ooi thinking.
In an interview with the jam break on capital fm 88.9 last week, actress and Ironman triathlete Irene Tan told us that when she runs long distance, she sees how “beautiful life is”.
I asked her if she meant the view and her surroundings, but it wasn’t that.
“It is hard to describe. When I run, I see things differently,” she tried to explain. I asked her if she could give an example. “There are people in life I don’t get along with for a number of reasons, but when I run, I some how see that our differences don’t matter. I appreciate being alive, and there is no space or place for enemies.”
I understand why it was a difficult thing to explain. The rewards she gained from competing in triathlons went beyond the many medals she brought home.
The medals are tangible. The way her perspective changes and her positive outlook on life are not rewards you can see or hold in your hand, but they are there, perhaps more priceless than any trophy.
Some people meditate to reflect and find peace. Some write and some play music or sports.
This ‘appreciation for life’ feeling is strongest when we are in a zone of not just thinking of ourselves and/or for ourselves. It is when we are able to let goof anger, emphatise with people and live life not trying to win, but trying to be happy.
It’s a zone that’s incredibly hard to be in when surrounded by constant noise.
Noise, in the general context, refers to sounds. Loud noises can be distracting.
Yet, what’s even more distracting is the constant chatter in our minds. We can be in a completely quiet setting yet are not quite focused or at peace.
Noise can also be very pleasant. Maybe because we’re so used to it that we find it disconcerting without.
That would explain why when we’re watching TV, we are also checking Facebook. Why, when we shower, we blast the radio or watch the news. Why, when we have breakfast, we need to either read, surf the web or watch TV.
We’re master multi-taskers in the least relevant way. We are masters at digesting noise upon noise, piling one on top another until we’re happily distracted by all the chatter in our head.
When the weekend rolls along, we anticipate all the sleeping, eating, shopping and catching up on movies we can do. When we’ve worked so hard during the week, all we want to do on the weekend, is nothing.
More often than not, doing nothing isn’t sitting at home staring at the wall. Our definition of doing nothing is doing some pleasurable — our reward for the week we’ve conquered.
Different people have different ways of enjoying their weekend, but for many of us city folks, the only difference between our weekdays and our weekends is that we are not physically at the office.
The level of noise we consume hardly goes down, and in fact, it might even increase on the weekend.
Last Saturday, my friends and I went to Gopeng for a day trip. None ofmy friends knew where (or rather, what) Gopeng was, all they knew was that I had been talking about it for a few months. Our itinerary went something like this:
Wake early. By 8:30am, we were all ready to go.
Breakfast, and a visit to the quaint Hup Tuck Soy Sauce Factory in Gopeng.
Lunch at Adeline’s Rest House
Waterfall Abseiling. We brought along towels, gym clothes and shoes for this little adventure.
Tea at Adeline’s Rest House
Played a round of Dixit — a boardgame we brought along.
Dinner at Lung Seng restaurant in Tanjung Tualang
Dessert at my house, where we chatted till midnight before calling it a day.
Going on a road trip requires effort. Certainly more effort than sleeping in and deciding what to eat for lunch, which I was tempted to do.
I’m quite certain most of my friends were thinking the same, with some even sheepishly admittng to thinking of pulling out at the last minute (but in fear ofmy wrath, did not!).
When it comes to doing something and doing nothing, my inclination is always towards the latter. Yet, I did not like being confined to a tiny little bubble of living life the same way, every day.
That was why when I started my production company, our first project was Xandria’s Weekend Discovery. It was a food and travel show and the objective was to encourage people to go away on the weekends, to explore different places and towns in Malaysia.
Discover Perak just aired on the Asian Food Channel, and that was how I discovered that Gopeng, a quaint, quiet little town in Perak, was also a place perfect for caving, waterfall abseiling and white water rafting.
Travelling to different parts of the country, shooting travels shows, was like a education.
Like Irene, I cannot describe what an experience it was, except that it added so much more colour to how I perceive life.
For our road trip to Gopeng, my friends and I brought our phones and gadgets, but by midafternoon, none of us were using them except to take photos.
It also helped that there was no phone signal. It may sound tragic but in fact it was a relief. We eliminated so much noise in our lives just by not using our mobile phones.
By the end of the trip, we felt like we’ve done more than we thought possible in a day. Anyone who have been to camp would understand the feeling of saying goodbye at the end of it— with a little nostalgia.
We can catch up with our friends and family in the house, in themall, in the restaurant, but there is nothing quite like bonding on a road trip.
Nothing quite like travelling together and experiencing something new for the first time, together. We are privildged to live in a country that is surrounded by nature and great food. It is such a shame if we never experience some of the magic that is Malaysia.
Doing something different changes our perspective on things. Like Irene Tan said doing our interview, “You have to do it to understand”.