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Scrambling the Unknown

April 2024 – July 2025
  • Matty Putra
Current
Matty’s travel diaries that began with planned and unplanned trips unraveling the world he has never seen before. Read more
  • Matty Putra
Currently traveling
+15

List of countries

  • Iran Iran
  • Armenia Armenia
  • Georgia Georgia
  • Azerbaijan Azerbaijan
  • Turkey Turkey
  • Nepal Nepal
  • India India
  • Show all (22)
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  • 65.5kkilometers traveled
Means of transport
  • Flight47.0kkilometers
  • Bus13.3kkilometers
  • Train3,622kilometers
  • Car1,162kilometers
  • Hitchhiking371kilometers
  • Walking-kilometers
  • Hiking-kilometers
  • Bicycle-kilometers
  • Motorbike-kilometers
  • Tuk Tuk-kilometers
  • Camper-kilometers
  • Caravan-kilometers
  • 4x4-kilometers
  • Swimming-kilometers
  • Paddling/Rowing-kilometers
  • Motorboat-kilometers
  • Sailing-kilometers
  • Houseboat-kilometers
  • Ferry-kilometers
  • Cruise ship-kilometers
  • Horse-kilometers
  • Skiing-kilometers
  • Cable car-kilometers
  • Helicopter-kilometers
  • Barefoot-kilometers
  • 71footprints
  • 459days
  • 588photos
  • 3likes
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  • Matty PutraTravelerScrambling the Unknown

    Van

    December 6, 2024 in Turkey ⋅ ☀️ -1 °C

    After a terrifying custom on the Turkish side, me and my Iranian friend managed to get a ride to Van. He helped me to get the ride although i didn’t have any cash with me while I promised him to pay him back once i get access to cash later in the bus terminal.

    The air was cold and I could see snow covered mountains all over the road as my watch showed me that I was in 2000 meters in elevation. I finally arrived in the bus terminal and was swarmed by the locals who I presumed wanted to show me my way to the bus I wanted to take for some small favor in return.

    I couldn’t find anything for the night ride to Istanbul, and the next ride is gonna be the morning after. Meaning I have to spend the night in Van. I was ready to spend the night at the terminal, however, I saw everyone already left after 10 PM. After securing a hard-to-believe del from booking.com, I marched to the accommodation which turned out to be a mistake in their system, and I did pay $5 for the private room with two bed.    Read more

  • Matty PutraTravelerScrambling the Unknown

    Khoy

    December 5, 2024 in Iran ⋅ ⛅ 3 °C

    I was hoping o catch another ride from Khoy directly to Van. However, again, I missed the ride for the day and had n choice but to spend another night in town to catch the ride on next day. Given that I have no local currency and I have no more food left, I decided to walk to the highway and hitchhike my way to the border.

    After walking for about an hour and a few hundred meters from the highway, a car stopped for me and a lady gave me a piece of her food. She probably thinks that I am a homeless man with no food and no where to go. It brought warmth to my hearth in the cold sunny desert of Iran.

    Not too long after that car left, another car stopped and the driver offered me a ride. I told him I am going to the border and he gladly helped me for that. He stopped midway and saying that he’s gonna go the other way, I stepped out of his car. However, he didn’t leave me there. Instead he waited for me and helped me to stop for my next car and when we found one, he even paid for my ride to the driver. It almost brought me to tears seeing all these kind souls giving help to a stranger they don’t even know, and not even speaking the same language as them. Iranian is truly one of the purest soul on earth and they don’t deserve the hatred the world throws on them.

    I arrived at the bder shortly after and even got a friend from Iran who is also about to cross the border to Turkey. I learned his name was Ali and he’s a tile maker and wanted to get a better job in Turkey for his family. At least that’s what he told me after using my phone to translate what he wanted to talk about.

    Crossing the Iranian border was quick and easy. However, after getting my passport stamped on the Turkish side, they did a thorough inspection on me. Probably a custom for foreigner entering the country from Iran.

    They found the food I received from the lady in my pocket and they decided to inspect it further by conducting a drug test on a white powder they found on it. What a way to start my journey by having the officer suspecting me of carrying cocaine to the country.

    Waiting for the liquid to pass through the 2cm test kit was probably the longest 15 seconds I have had in my life. It wouldn’t be funny having myself going to jail for a drug I accidentally accept from a stranger on the street. A stuff my father used to warned me when I was a kid. However, I couldn’t feel more relieved as soon as i saw the result was negative and the officer then released me and allowed me to go.    Read more

  • Matty PutraTravelerScrambling the Unknown

    Tabriz

    December 4, 2024 in Iran ⋅ 🌙 0 °C

    Arriving in Tabriz left me terrified, not because the rumors they had about the people. But I stupidly entered the country with no cash and there is no ATM that supports my cards due to the international sanction.

    We waited for two hours for our bus to clear the immigration. And finally arrived at the bus terminal after an easy one hour ride from the border. I had booked an accommodation a little far from the bus station and I have already cancelled it after passing through the immigration. So, as a brave man I used to be, I chose to sleep inside the warm bus terminal.

    After trying to converse with all the bus counters in the morning I realized there wont be any ride for me to Van from Tabriz. However, I found a ride to the town of Khoy, the closest town to the Turkish border.

    The bus guy then escorted me making sure that I get to the right bus bay and he talked to the driver also making sure that he drops me in the right place.

    The ride wasn’t long, but the scenery took my breath away. I never expected Iran has one of the most amazing scenery, at that point I sort of regretted not preparing myself for a longer stay in the country.    Read more

  • Matty PutraTravelerScrambling the Unknown

    Yerevan

    November 30, 2024 in Armenia ⋅ ☁️ 5 °C

    It was time to leave Tbilisi, the capital that felt almost like home to me. Being surrounded by like minded people of fellow travelers and refugees, and the friendship I made during the two weeks i spent there. Sure it was full of good memories, but it wouldn’t be anything I would cherish if i get too comfortable with myself. So I decided to leave to Armenia.

    I was warned by a lot of content I watched online about how they will interrogate you in Armenian border if you have Azerbaijan stamp and vice versa. But it was just a mere question of formality by the officer, or it could be that my face did not qualify enough to become a spy.

    Arriving in Yerevan took me by surprise with the freezing cold temperatures. It was a solid zero degree once I stepped out from the Mashrutka I took from Tbilisi. Even more so, the driver dropped me in the middle of the road, forced me to walk to find a nearest metro to get myself to my accommodation. Slightly different than Tbilisi, Yerevan’s metro required you to generate a QR code upon entering the gantry but thankfully my credit card is accepted at their ticket machine (another reason to not get some cash.

    I spent the next few days with Ama and we visited the city’s landmarks. We decided to book a tour to the outer city of Yerevan the day after and we met Gregory, a retired French businessman that has traveled here world since.

    We also went to watch a few performances at the Opera house. Just in time for their holiday season where they have performances almost every evening. We managed to watch the Nutcracker ballet, and it was my first time seeing a ballet performance in person. The excitement was real, the ballerina, the musicians, it was arguably one of the bet performance i have ever seen. It surprised me that the musician and ballerina was highly skilled and have really good sense of art. My time in Yerevan couldn’t have been better.    Read more

  • Matty PutraTravelerScrambling the Unknown

    Kazbegi

    November 24, 2024 in Georgia ⋅ ☁️ 7 °C

    After procrastinating for a long time, i finally decided to go to Kazbegi, the part of Caucasus mountain that is the closest to Tbilisi, with a friend I just met, Ama from France who also stayed at the same hostel I do. We also accidentally met Li Lou, another French Chinese girl I met earlier for Kinkali night with other fellas. What a small world.

    We spent whole journey laughing at some stupid French jokes I picked up while spent time with Antonin in the mountain for months. Tasting wine if the mountain winery and another round of chacha made the situation even funnier. While another Ppolish American, Damian joined us for another round of chitchatting.

    We made it to the “basecamp” of the Kazbegi, and we took our winning shot.    Read more

  • Matty PutraTravelerScrambling the Unknown

    Tblisi

    November 12, 2024 in Georgia ⋅ ☀️ 12 °C

    After dropping from the van I hitchhiked, I decided to walk to my hostel which was about an hour walk from the point the driver dropped me off and also after being skipped by the city bus.

    Scouting for photo spots was the first thing I did after I dropped my bag in the hostel, and managed to get myself in an on-going construction site where it was super dusty and risky for my camera. But it was arguably the best vantage point a man can get without a drone, so i stuck with it until I realized there was another view point up in the abandoned construction site. I immediately moved all my gear and did the entire shot there while hiding from the construction workers to not get kicked out. And gladly I made it through the sunset and went home.

    Ironically, Tbilisi is one of the first capital that I learned when I was a toddler, messing around with my brother’s maps with my cousins. The name sticks to my mind since because it just sounded so weird in my head and the memories of me playing the “Where’s Waldo” game with the map still vividly emblazoned in my mind. OK, I think that was a little too much of cringey poetic writing.

    I met a bunch of French travelers at the hostel shortly after I arrived. And we spent the rest of our stay hanging out together. Let me get on the list in alphabetical order to get everyone onboard with this amazing circle.

    Aymeric, a passionate middle age cyclist with a mission to travel the world as much as possible on budget.

    Ben, a former Tesla employee, and a cyclist with a green campaign on his back with a mission to meet local entrepreneurs and shares his idea about carbon mitigation and environmental awareness.

    Carol-Ann, one of the few passionate female cyclist which turned out to be a very sweet fellas.

    Laurine, on her mission to get to South Korea to work without flying.

    Taufan, an Indonesia yoga teacher who has traveled the middle east for months.

    We spent almost to weeks together making endless feast and night out until one by one of us disappeared.    Read more

  • Matty PutraTravelerScrambling the Unknown

    Redbridge

    November 11, 2024 in Azerbaijan ⋅ ☁️ 14 °C

    After taking an overnight bus from Baku, I managed to get to, Redbridge the border crossing between Azerbaijan and Baku. Although Azerbaijan land border is closed throughout the country, exiting the country is permitted through land, which was also the main reason I took a flight to Baku previously from Istanbul.

    The Azerbaijani officers were surprisingly friendly and it was one of the easiest border control I’ve been through. However things took a bit of a turn when I arrived on the Georgian side. The officers immediately stopped me even before I got into the line and took my passport. He asked me a bunch of common security clearances questions which I am obviously prepared but then he disappeared for an hour without saying a thing. He came back later with at least three more officers asking me the same questions, their main focus was to know how much money i have on my bank account. I showed my Singapore bank account to them with a small Euro and US dollars (less than 10 for each, which I didn’t know where did that come from). And they were focusing on those amounts instead of the SGD I actually have. It took me about 10 times showing them using Google’s conversion rate to tell them how much money I actually have un USD. And thank God there was a younger officer who speaks fluent English and she ended up translating everything for me and convinced the supervisor that everything about me was fine. The officers then let me pass through afterwards.

    Upon exiting the Georgian side of the checkpoint, I noticed they didn’t have any public transport to the city. Which made sense since the traffic was quite low due to Azerbaijan-side border closure. However, after dodging countless of taxi drivers who were trying to rip me off, and exchanging some cash, I tried to get a hitchhike ride about a kilometer from the custom office and immediately had a big van stopped for me. I ended up giving him 25 Lari (~USD 10), which was a little too expensive to my expectations. But still better than 70 Lari the taxi driver quoted me to Tblisi.    Read more

  • Matty PutraTravelerScrambling the Unknown

    Baku

    November 6, 2024 in Azerbaijan ⋅ ⛅ 12 °C

    The turbulent weather of Caspian sea marked my approach to the city of Baku where my plane was shortly landed.

    The immigration was quick and efficient and I spent a bit of time chitchatting with the sim card staff at the airport looking for the best prices. But nothing seems like a good deal to me. So I left without any internet connection on my phone.

    After figuring out how to use the bus card dispenser machine I finally saw my bus which turned out to be on the other side of the terminal. The bus driver was kind enough to let me in although the next departure is still 30 minutes away due to the freezing cold weather of Baku while a pull over was the only thing I wore.

    Started my first day walking around the bay of Baku only to realize that the COP29 is happening at that very city. United Nations annual conference addressing the climate change where more than 50,000 climate activist gather, in the upcoming days for two weeks. Meaning the accommodation prices is gonna rise, and boy I could not be more right. They did rise the prices, by a whooping 1000%, yes 10 times. I could not leave the city fast enough.

    But I was quite grateful to be able to see Azerbaijan’s Flag Day and the fireworks after attending the Republic Day in Antalya, Turkiye. Seeing two countries national day in the same week, sure is quite a good luck for me.

    I had to do a series of hostel hopping due to different places rise their price at different time. Although my stay turned out to be shorter that I wanted but I managed to made a few friends, an I was so thrilled of meeting Timor, a guy who fled Turkmenistan to marry an Indonesian girl he met in Turkiye. I would love to hear more from him, but we didn’t manage to spend enough time to know each other enough.

    It was a lovely short stay and I couldn’t wait to take my night ride to the border of Azerbaijan and Georgia.    Read more

  • Matty PutraTravelerScrambling the Unknown

    Istqnbul

    November 1, 2024 in Turkey ⋅ ⛅ 17 °C

    Coming back to Istanbul for a couple of days to catch my flight to Baku, Azerbaijan. Only to find out that I booked it for the wrong week when I tried to checkin at the airport counter. Had to rebook it for the day after, thankfully i could get most of the fares back. I even manage to meet a few more folks for a night out before I leave.Read more

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