Digitally Exploring the world

30th March Bangalore : Just the other day on the tennis court , I was telling one of my friend's how much fun it use to be this time of the year when we were at school , with exams over and no worries of the world and upcoming summer vacation usually meant a trip out and it struck me that life wasn't that bad after all even today. I had booked my tickets to Indonesia , a short summer vacation after all for a working person but nevertheless. The day of the journey started with my first photography exhibition at IIM , Bangalore ,after a bit of running getting prints done and framed and also the jitters of first timers.I was exhibiting my travel pictures and lots of interesting conversations happened about places, travels, photographs and some folks even wanting to purchase them to my utter surprise. I headed home from the exhibition and got myself all set for the late night flight out of the city. The only booking I had was the return air tickets. My exploration plan w...

06th April  Yogyakarta  The bus reached Yogyakarta (pronounced ‘Jogjakarta’ and called Jogja in short) at 4:30am and I tried asking for a Guest House I had in mind and read good reviews on the internet but that turned out to be far away from the City and there were no buses at that hour. It was pitch dark and just a few people around , So I got down at Sosrowijayan street where most of the guest houses are located and asked around for a place to stay .I was told that few would be vacated around 8am , so had to sit around for few more hours. It was a grueling wait since I was tired after almost 1.5days on the road after Ijen and in the same hiking clothes.  I found a nice little pension Losmen Uttar and dumped by backpack , had a shower and just crashed out for few hours.  It was a long weekend (Easter holiday) and when I woke up and headed out to the Malioboro Street to get some food , it  was jam packed with people. Jogja , is the cultural hub of J...

This is post on my wanderings around some active volcanoes in Java. 31st March Jakarta I reached Jakarta on Saturday morning and after getting the Visa on Arrival stamped (25$) , took the Damri Bus (Shuttle service from Airport) to the Gambir Train Station. It was quite humid and there was some rain  as the bus passed through the polluted streets of Jakarta. I managed to get an evening train ticket out to Surabaya. The train station was fairly big with lots of eating joints and convenient stores and I spent all my time walking around , grabbing some food till the train took off. 1st April Surabaya The overnight train to Surabaya was AirCon Chair Car with lots of leg room and luggage lofts and reached the pit stop at 7:30am about 2hrs late. I walked out of the train station and bought myself tea and then found taxi drivers trying to talk me into taking a ride just like it happens in India. I had the details about getting to a hostel by local bus and after talking around...