63,113,904 seconds of sundries.

It’s not about saying goodbye that makes me sad, it’s what I have to leave behind that’s hard. In my case, it’s leaving a great partner like Riva.

On our first year in Lowe Bangkok, Riva and I lived nearby; we used to walk together on our way back home from Lowe, little did I know that those walking have taken a big part of my Bangkok memory.
One of our creative directors always wonders about what we talked during that 20 minutes walk after spending time sitting side by side all day at work.


Being away from home, in the land where people don’t talk your language -nor English- is hard, but with a good companion like Riva, it’s doable. I feel like his presence is one of the whys I could survive till this far.

I took a short walk to recollect what Riva and I have done together these past two years but I ended up thousand miles from where I started.

When we came to work in Lowe Bangkok, let alone had ideas of how to manage a life there, we'd never been there before. And many times on the couple first months, we wanted to leave and got back home, somehow we didn’t. We never bought things because we didn’t want to end up piling up stuffs we didn’t know how to take home. We felt alienated when we talked to the locals and we felt left out when we talked with our colleagues who mostly were much more senior.

It’s just like we were thrown back to our teenage years where the firsts happened. We were excited, we were lost and we hung on there by creating our own new theories of survival.

I question where did our two years fly to? We felt like Bangkok has stolen our time being. Friends who were singles now parents, friends who were reckless now restless. And we, we always thought that as if we were capsulated in a time machine.

But really, it’s not. Riva’s no longer having 3 digits weight and has a great future with an adorable girl; I’m no longer having crooked front teeth or celebrating New Year as a single. We now accept the fact politics happen everywhere, shit happens, bad energy exists and only pure heart saves. We have significant deposits in our accounts. We believe that only good works matter. We do not worry much. And we are closer than we were before.

There are times we experienced that’s defined by a singular emotion but most of important times in our 2 years together are defined by a mix of feelings that blends perfectly like a quintessential cocktail. The ingredients are simply: supporting each other, being ears and mouths for each other and some others odds that I’m not able to describe. All I know is that cocktail tastes nice, strange and a bit spicy, enough to make my eyes water.

And I am glad that it was Riva. Quoting what our dearest friend: Iwan said: “Well, actually when you’re no longer working with Riva, you should be happy, cos now you and Riva are officially best friends, not colleagues.”