Yesterday night, when I was on bed, I realized I did not even have an idea on how many times I have visited Malaysia or Indonesia, and which between them is the most visited country for me.
I pulled out my current and two previous passports, counted all the stamps (some of them are lousily stamped and hardly recognizable), and consolidated some statistics. Speaking of stamps, some customs give very neat stamps, such as Japan and HongKong, while some customs stamped very grossly, such as customs in Guangdong and Australia, who just stamped anywhere on any page they wish to without linking the entry and exit stamps at all.
Based on the statistics, Malaysia is the country I have visited for most number of times at 22, followed by China at 18 times. 10 of the 18 times were made for the sake of visiting my parents and others. Surprisingly, I felt I have visited Indonesia as many times as I have visited Malaysia (probably due to the many domestic flights and ferries I took travelling across the islands of Indonesia), but I actually have only visited Indonesia for 10 times. Duration wise, I have spent a total of 54 days in indonesia versus 84 days in Malaysia.
In fact, I do visit more Indonesia than Malaysia recently. The relative fewer times of travelling in indonesia than Malaysia is due to the difficulty in obtaining indonesian visa 5~10 years ago. Indonesia has remained as my biggest regret of not being able to travel much in my undergraduate days. Well, look ahead, I have at least 40 years ahead of me, drawfing the whole undergraduate 4 years, so I have plenty of opportunities.
In total, so far, I have crossed border successfully for 160 times (not counting singapore) and unsuccessfully for 3 times.
1) refusal of entry to malaysia (I have bought a bus ticket but my visa expired).
2) refusal of entry to Indonesia due to no blank passport page for visa-on-arrival (3 airtickets were wasted).
3) refusal of visa to Australia due to the act of exclusion of Chinese males (I bought the ticket to Sydney and planned to go via Australia and Auckland to South America). Though South America was my target, the stupid anti-chinese aussie goverment failed my first big travel plan.
LOL, reading stories behind the stamps of an active traveller with Chinese passports is certainly a bit tragic or dramatic. But looking back, the struggles become a special kind of fun, in a way.
Lastly, I spend 18% of all my time outside of Singapore, that percentage will be much higher if my compulsory working days in Singapore are excluded. I have never used a single annual leave day not for travelling oversea, and I have spent an absolute majority of national holidays away from home. So oversea experience certainly characterizes my life, but in what ways...
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