Bill Walker, 55 years old travel writer

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2,1 meters high, 55 years old, still healthy and still enjoying this life by wandering around the globe. I met this wonderful guy unintentionally at Alun-Alun Bandung when i was taking some rest after exploring the city.

He’s a travel writer and i found one of his book on Amazon titled ‘Skywalker : Highs and Lows on the Pacific Crest Trail‘ and it has great review. I haven’t read it yet but i’m going to listen it on audible since it was narrated by Bill himself. Listening to his voice on the demo, reminded me of our meeting. It was incredible.

I didn’t expect to meet or having a conversation with anyone especially with someone who came from outside of my country, but the fate that i ended up spending little times with him doesn’t make me regret. In fact, i was inspired by him and i couldn’t thank more to my friend for taking me out there that night.

He was standing there in the middle of the field, stretching on his own realizing that most of the people around him is watching him in silent. He didn’t really care about the attention since he’s already used to it but one thing noticed me when one of the salesman approaching him and trying to explain something to ’em.

The rule of the place saying that you can’t wear a shoe while you stepping on the fake grass area, so the salesman tried to explain to Bill about that. Unfortunately, he can’t really explain it very well since Bill doesn’t even understand what his talking about.

So then i stepped in and explain to Bill what was the salesman trying to say. Fortunately, he got what i said. He was a bit confused because he thought that the salesman want to polish his shoes because he keeps pointing on his shoes while talking.

Eventually, we start talking to each other. He’s already become center of attention in no time since he came but it’s even getting more since we start having a conversation. Many local people start gathering and asking me things to ask him about. It’s understandable since Bill is a foreigner and damn he’s tall. Very tall compared to the local.

People were interested in his appearance rather than his personality. They keep asking me how tall he is, how old he is, how big is his shoes and so on and so forth. While in the other hand, i interested in his personality and how can he ended up there.

He told me that he was stretching a little and getting some fresh air since he have a long walk with someone and that place is a nice place to do it since it wasn’t that far from where he staying. He told me that he’s a travel writer and also he’s a business man.

We’ve talked about his journey, how’s his life’s been going and what will he do next. I’m surprised that at his age he still manage to travel around the world while most of people that i know on the same age rank would’ve spend their life by not going somewhere far or just enjoying what they have.

Apparently, he’s not only just traveling but he was also trying to find the love of his life. He haven’t married yet and still looking for someone and he said to me that he was going for looking someone shorter than him so that if one day he have a child, it won’t be taller or shorter than people’s average height.

He gave me some motivation and stories from countries that he have been visited. He also told me that he was also an English teacher. At that moment, i feel embarrassed since my English wasn’t that good. But i remember what he used to do in his class. He won’t let anyone out from class until they make some mistakes, so he told his students to speak up. I think it was a good idea to make someone learn to be better.

People often to be scared when it comes to make mistakes. As long as it’s not a bad thing, making some mistakes leading to you a better understanding on what to do next and how to do it better. You do a thousand mistakes, then 999 mistakes, then 998 mistakes and so on until you made way less mistakes and eventually become a better person who understand better at something.

You can visit his website at skywalker-pct.com

It was a nice little conversation that we had, but it didn’t last long. I hope one day i can meet him again and share more stories than we had, but i wish i will be the one who tell the stories more. Despite of how old you are or however your life condition is, you always gonna have to move forward since nobody knows what the future holds and it’s up to you about who will you gonna be.

If you want to know more about him, you can visit his website on skywalker-pct.com



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