Volcano , Mt bromo

It has been long since I have written anything , so thought of starting it with one of the travelogue in Indonesia. There are so many natural landscapes to explore. Few of the world's most active volcanoes are here. It has more active volcanoes than any other nation. I alongwith three more office colleagues decided to go for one of them. By mid of the week, we decided to go to bromo and we were off to the destination on saturday. We took all kind of transports to reach there. Flight to surbaya, bus to probolinggo , taxi to ngadisari, van to reach the lava view hotel, jeep to reach the sunrise view and base of the crater, horses to go up the mountain and finally stairs to reach the tip of crater.

The site of this combination of cones and craters is a fascinating one, but little intimidating on arrival, but once you overcome your natural fear of volcanoes it's well worth the trip. Traveling on those mountainous region reminded me of schooling days in Nainital. The views on the way to base of crater and evening views of the mountains are impressive enough. But when the tour guide wakes you up at 3'o clk in the morning and make the trip across the sand sea at dawn, you'll have memories (and photos) worthy of any holiday.

The Bromo crater itself is the one which emits steam whereas, when viewed from Cemoro Lawang side, the Batok cone can be seen to the right of Bromo. There's a Hindu temple complex at the foot of the Batok cone and visits here can be made at any time. The Bromo experience is best at dawn. The journey on foot will take around 1.5 hrs but horses can be chartered as can jeep tours, you'll get a great feel for the place on foot as well.

Once we across the sand sea there's a rough little track to the foot of the steps to the Bromo crater rim. At the top of the 250th steps the crater is visible. On the way up, there is pungent smell of sulphur dioxide. Once you are at the rim of crater, you get a great view. The steam of gases still coming out of the rocks and acidic liquid at the bottom gave a rare view and also reminded of the nature fury. There were steep slopes on both sites when we were walking on the tip of crater.

I will soon post the link for amazing photgraphs ...

fav quotes

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

Albert Einstein

"Laughter is a tranquilizer with no side effects."

-- Arnold Glasow

Swimming - Mastering the art

It had been my long desire to learn swimming. After trying at so many sports, I pursued some of them and left some just after few days. I have tried most of the popular outdoor/indoor games. But swimming was the only one left untouched. Though in my small town, where I spent very few years of childhood, there were swimming pools but never bothered to try.
Coming to the boarding school, there wasn't a swimming pool worth trying. Moreover the place being in Himalayan Region, the water was so damn cold. Forget about swimmming, taking bath itself was a big achievement. Still when I remember the days when Geyser didn't use to work , a strong chill run down my spine.
Thats the brief background. This time when I went to Monroe , US. The hotel where I was put had a small swimming pool with depth of just 5 and 1/2 feet. There being not many friends to roam around with or rather any other better source of recreation on weekdays. I just thought of learning swimming on my own as there was no fear of getting drowned -:). During the evening after returning from office, I used to spend some time browsing on swimming techniques/videos on the internet and try to emulate them in pool. After couple of days, I could swim from one end of swimming pool to other but holding the breath. I had no clue about breathing technique and internet was also no more a help but I didn't want to give up after putting so much of efforts into it.
So, the first thing with in a week of landing in Cyprus, I did was to join the pool. I generally don't like going alone for all these extra-curricular activities. As usual tried to persuade 2-3 guys here to come along, giving them incentive that anything you try to pursue apart from routine work is always inetresting. One of of my housemates, CP seemed genuinely interested in joining and came along. Same way I had persuaded Dada(Debu) to join car driving class with me two years back -:).

It was tough time making the pool owner understand what we wanted as she could only understand greek and very little English. With the help of an interpreter, we managed and decided on two swimming lessons on mon and wed 8-9 AM before going to office.
The trainer is a nice gentleman who turns up only on wednesday and keep watching more than suggesting or giving tips. After so called 2-3 lessons, finally manged to breathe while swimming . I couldn't believe myself, felt like shouting Eureka. I have started learning other strokes and the saga continues............

I will just wrap up with the below quote:

A strong positive mental attitude will create more miracles than any wonder drug.

Patricia Neal

Sevens

Long time there hasn't been much of activity on my post, so after getting tagged by Skely,

I am trying to start again....

Seven things you plan (wish I could) to do before you die

1) Freak out in Antarctica
2) Visit each country in the world
3) Build a bungalow in the hearts of mountains
4) Have a Porsche
5) Bring India to league of developed nations
6) Spending couple of days on an isolated island with just my friends
7)

Seven things you can do

I can..

1) Give a nice company to anyone anywhere
2) Master the art of swimming -:)
3) listen to anyone genuinely interested in putting his views
4) sleep for quite long hours
5) drive in mountainous region
6) sit by the sea side and read novels.
7) Enjoy listening all kind of music and try feet at times on tunes.

Seven things you say/write the most

I say..

1) Yeah
2) Oopss..
3) Yaar
4) oh my god
5) Sorry
6) I see
7) ok

Seven things you can't do

I can't..

1) stop talking about great ambitions
2) live without nice Indian cuisine
3) stay glued to TV for long hours
4) resist doing adventures
5) stand monotonous work
6) sleep less than 8 hrs normally
7) press my shirts, offlate started just wearing t-shirts.

Seven things that attract you to the opposite sex

1) Eyes
2) Beautiful Smile
3) positive outlook
4) Innocence
5) Dressing sense
6) Enthusiastic/fun loving
7) not too shy

Seven celebrity crushes
--Subject to change

1)Catherine Zeta Jones
2) Preity Zinta
3) Drew Barrymore
4) Salma Hayek
5) Ash
6)..
7)…

Boring day at office

Today is one of the most boring days at office here as nothing much to do. Browsed so many pages over the net ranging from cnn to rediff. At the end decided to write something, but what is the 64'tsand dollar q?

Fun at New Orleans

After working two consecutive weekends in Office, I decided to go somewhere last weekend. There couldn't be better place in vicinity to go for. I made up the plan on Friday evening and convinced one of friend at off here to come along with me. We booked hotel on Saturday morning and made sure its near bourbon street which is in downtown. We started our drive from monroe at around 10 AM, the distance need to be covered was around 300 miles. I drove for around 100 miles and just switched as other guy was eager to drive. We were cruising as usual at 80-90 mph. All of a sudden a guy tried to change lane without seeing us in rear, Thank God we escaped narrowly. Also great maneuvering by my colleague.
There was lush green trees all along the way and also swampy areas by the side of highways. We managed to reach there around 2:00 pm. After checking in to the hotel. We landed up at the world famous bourbon street and teh fun starts there. Ppl are partying the whole day here. There was all around Jazz music, rock band performing in different pubs and discs and needles to say drinks flowing everywhere. We went to into couple of places and enjoyed the live bands, disc etc.

2nd Trip to US

I was just back to Cyprus on Moday, 4th Aug'05. Suddenly, got news to go to US on business trip. The place, I never heard before, Monroe a small suburb in Louisiana. My travel was via amsterdam-New York and more than 24hrs stay at NY. Beside me a Dutch gentleman was seating in the flight and was going to NY related to his food processing business. The moment my lunch pack arrived, he started explianing me about each food item and other general topics. It was great to talk to him during this long journey.

I always used to see manhattan skyline, bridges etc in hollywood movies and wanted to see once. After visting Hongkong and Singapore, there wasn't so much of excitement in seeing these tall architectures. But it was great fun roaming in and around manhttan with my school friend, Alok. He stays just two hours away from NY. It was really great to see him, the moment I landed there. It was too nice of him to be there to see me inspite of his extremely busy schedule in residency. That too I just told him on Friday that I will be coming tomorrow to States.

So our day started at around 10pm from Times Square. We took couple of snaps in and around Manhattan, quite a few at Empire state Bldg. By the time we were tired, it was alread 2'o clk. Next day, didn't do much of stuff. Experienced the the ride in subway there and arranged a meeting with my college friends staying in New Jersey at Newark Airport.
The next flight from memphis to Monroe was a small one 19 seater propeller driven plane. I had never sat in such a plane and felt little apprehensive about it, but it was just an hour journey..
Anyways reached the destination with a along and fine journey....

Will post more about monroe in next article.

My Taipei Life

I am here on a trip to this beautiful island for over 3-months now. Initially for couple of days, I was bit apprehensive about everything here. Now, I started liking this place, people and everything here. Been to some of the countryside, few kms away from taipei like keelung, danshui and a beautiful flower garden near Intl airport. These are some of the places quite unforgettable.
That was all about day life. At night for party and disc goers, its heaven. You have n number of choices to choose from. From teh wednesday night itself the fun begins and goes on till saturday. The best part of it is atleast you can manage once/twice to hang out at these places. Without fail, I have been to quite a few discs/pubs. To name a few starting from MoS, Luxy, Plush, room18, carnegies, Roxy, brown sugar, TU, disc 151, brass monkey. I have been to these places atleast twice. the ambience of all these places are amazing. At some of the places you can keep rocking till 7'o clk in the morning.
My other favourite place was to sit and read some books at 24 hours bookstore at dun hua road and the one near fuxing N. Rd near to the hotel fullerton where I was staying.
Oh man, how can I miss the computer markets nova and ganguar full of gizmo gadgets.

Thats it for now from taipei.

Finally my trip ended after around 4 months there.....Its a amazing place to be..

My first blogging

Today, I enterd into the amazing world of blogging.