Bromo to Madakaripura Spirits were high after our morning adventure (previous post). We left Lava View Lodge soon after breakfast and got a look at the other side of the mountain village on the drive to Madakaripura. The sun was out now and brought life to the sky and fields. I wished we could have stayed for…
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Adventures on Horse & Sand We had just witnessed a fantastic sunrise at Penanjakan and now it was time to explore Mount Bromo. It was about 6:30 a.m. when my horse-ride started. I would have preferred my feet over a pony (to cover a 3 Km patch), but I was so tired and the sun…
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Getting there We reached Gupabal Station (subway line 3) at 7:00 a.m. in the morning. There’s a bus stop, on the same side of the road, around 5 minutes from exit 1. Most websites recommend Bus No. 704 (on the opposite side) or Bus No. 34. A taxi driver figured we were confused and suggested Bus…
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The minute we boarded the flight to Jakarta from Hong Kong, I was amazed by the cultural diversity of the people onboard and felt welcome by their smiles. We clubbed our trip with Basil’s conference (in Bogor) and our route would take us through an exploratory journey of Java (from Jakarta to Surabaya via Yogyakarta). …
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Two months back, I watched Sofia Coppola’s ‘Lost in Translation’ for the second time. I couldn’t make it to the end of the movie without escaping moist eyes and feeling a sense of loss. If you’ve ever lived away from a place you call home, or spent months away from family, or just followed your…
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Steering your way through Tokyo’s Monday morning rush hour can feel like a Herculean task. I was a bit rusty and had forgotten how to make a 100 metre dash for the train. Jimbocho Station was swarming with office-goers who knew precisely how to walk without stepping on someone’s toes. It was strange to witness order…
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Escape from Seoul In January, Seoul was hit by a cold wave and I desperately needed a break. Tokyo’s weather report recorded temperatures above 0 °C and that was good enough for me to accompany Basil on his business trip. The weather played spoilsport on the day of our departure and our flight was delayed by…
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The chase for autumn leaves peaks during October and November in Korea. It was our second autumn here and I was reasonably confident about figuring out the local transport network. And that’s how we decided to join the revelry of autumn chasers across the country. Now, it’s good to have a plan in place before…
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“perhaps, if one wishes to remain an individual in the midst of the teeming multitudes, one must make oneself grotesque.” ― Salman Rushdie I grew up in an environment of conformity. There was little room for free thinking in an all-girls Catholic school. Uniformity was the order of the day. Faith was always measured in morality…
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Saying goodbye is never easy… It was the fifth day of our trip across Central Mongolia. After spending two nights with a family of nomads and roughing it in gers; it was time to head back to Karakorum — the ancient capital of Mongolia. We would cover a distance of 130 km, along bumpy country…
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