We stayed on the beautiful island of Samosir surrounded the mystical Lake Toba in Sumatra at an expense of around $22 per day. Rate 1 USD = 10,800 IDR Rate 1 USD = 60 INR Expense Item Per Day (USD) Total Stay 17 Days (USD) Per Day (INR) Total Stay 17 Days(INR) Breakfast 4.17 70.8 250 4250 Lunch 2.22 37.8 133 2267 Dinner 2.22 37.8 133 2267 Special Dinners / Eating Out 2.31 39.4 139 2361 Juices / Drinks Etc 2.31 39.4 139 2361 Accomodation 6.48 110.2 389 6611 Water 0.83 14.2 50 850 Laundry / Miscellaneous 0.93 15.7 56 944 Total $21.48 $365.2 1289 21911 We know its not easy to keep a track of your expenses especially while traveling but we did it. And we have renewed our love for PIE CHARTS. Where we spent our cash: 1. Accomodation: Rooms are cheap at Lake Toba. We got a beautiful, spacious room with a huge bathroom at 70,000 IDR. 2. Food: Breakfast 45,000 IDR Lunch and Dinner would usually be one dish each about each costing 12,000 IDR so average IDR 24,000 We kept our health in check and had a glass or two of juice each day about 8000 – 10,000 IDR. One 4 nights we ordered Vegetable Pizza’s and always ended up getting a 2nd one. Each costing about 30,000IDR. 3. Eat outs: We ate out only once at a place called Junia which was way expensive than Liberta Homestay and one meal cost us about 100,000 IDR at our friend’s recommendation. He later agreed that the food at the guest house we were staying at was not just the best value for money but most appealing to taste buds as well. 4. Sightseeing: All the sight seeing we did was on foot, but we paid entry …

How many days can you stay back for this view? When we started this trip we intended to go to quiet places, find a comfortable place to stay with open spaces, preferably close to a water body where we could relax, read, talk, write, walk and introspect all day. And when we look back there is one place more than any other that could be the stress free abode that matched all the necessary criteria where we stayed on amazingly low budget with amazing hospitality and courtesy extended by the owner. Even at the end of seventeen nights we were not willing to leave and had to drag ourselves out because our visa was about to expire. That place was what we like to call is Mr. Moon’s traveler’s heaven – Liberta Homestay. Mr Moon is a kind gentleman who was once a farmer before he moved to Samosir Island in Lake Toba in Sumatra to run this place that was set up by his brother and his wife. His brother and sister-in-law decided to go back to Germany while Mr Moon willingly took over Liberta homestay that he now happily manages with the help of dedicated staff and family members. This the first and only place rooms in all of our travel that offered rooms at fixed prices only – no negotiations or testing the waters with each traveler. The prices are written on the reception and are so reasonable you wouldn’t want to bargain. And even during our stay there was never any overcharging or issues that were not readily dealt with. Mr Moon’s Batak houses are split level accommodations with bathroom and sitting space at the bottom and you climb a cute little staircase to sleep at the top. They are neat, spacious, charming, well built and …

Ishwinder can’t swim. No she cannot. But that hasn’t kept her from jumping into water bodies if I am already in there to hold her hand and with a life jacket she knows no bounds. We had been on a snorkelling trip once before in Malaysia and thought we could certainly manage a close to the edge of the sea snorkelling here in Pulao Weh.  Did I tell you yet that the clear waters of Pulau Weh are considered one of the best places in the world to go Snorkelling? We could see fish swimming in the water right from our balcony which was located over the sea. Well, more about that later. But know for sure that it was a beautiful day. The sea was turquoise blue. There was no wind blowing which was a good thing because leave alone winds even mild breezes make the sea in Pulau Weh turbulent. And turbulent sea is fine for me but just that poor Ishwinder hadn’t slept for two nights. For someone who could sleep on a bumpy bus, to a rocky flight or even in wedding parties, not being able to sleep for two nights was something I secretly found very funny. Somehow, the waves hitting on the wooden foundations of our hut hanging off a rocky cliff didn’t feel very safe to her. She would spend the night researching our next trip and sleep only a couple of hours in the morning when she was sure that I was awake and in case there was a tsunami I would alert her. What I will be able to do in that situation was not her concern. Why are we talking about tsunami here? Because this region, this middle of nowhere was one of the worst hit areas of Tsunami in …

1:00 am in the night, at Patnitop 120 kms from Srinagar Don’t remember what the date was. We had spent a month zig-zagging, criss-crossing, bumping over the roads (or roads that could be paved) in Ladakh. We were returning home via the beautiful Kashmir valley. The clouds were bleeding over us. But we stopped not breaking our ‘no riding at night’ rule. We kept going like there is a tomorrow, and we must get to this place, any place outside of Kashmir before tomorrow gets here. We stop. We stop only when reach that and knock on the door of the first hotel in sight at Patni Top at 1:00 in the night.   5 hours ago at 7:45 PM, 55 kms from Srinagar on the way to Jammu The local traffic police official asked us to leave. “What are you waiting for? If you want to get out of here, then now is the time. People are all in their homes breaking their fast. Leave before they return. Tomorrow morning the stones will return to be pelted at you. God knows what will happen. Leave! Leave! God will take care of you. Khuda Hafiz.”   5 hours ago 2:45 PM, 55 kms from Srinagar on the way to Jammu Ishwinder refuses to eat anything before she gets home and sees “mumma” again. She can’t stop crying. A kind uncle who is the owner of the hotel where we were staying waiting for the curfew to be lifted tries to pacify her. We feel like we are in a movie when he offers us to bring something from the house of Hindu shop owner in case we feel eating at Muslim’s house violates our religion. Ishwinder in a gust of emotions touches his feet and tells him he is like …

We got married on 15th Jan 2012. After a four day honeymoon in Goa where our family had joined us, we were both heading back to London to resume our jobs. Our parents bid us farewell at the airport and said to each other, “Here they go, these two weirdoes tied for life to each other and the settled life. Thank God they married each other otherwise who else would marry them.” Little did they know that by the end of the year 2012 the two weirdoes would return home in the middle of the night knocking on the doors to tell them that they had both quit their jobs, said goodbye to freezing London to travel the world and enjoy the coconut water in the sun for a little longer than a weekend. “How long is this travel thing going to go on?” –            An year… Maybe, two years. “What! Two years.” –          “No, No, certainly not two years, one year it is. For sure” “Nothing doing, you come back here in two months and start working again.” we were told. –          We simply nodded. But in two months we were only getting started. Eight weeks went by in spending time with our families and enjoying yet another joint vacation on the Konkan coast in Maharasthra. We kick-started our time off with a 10 day silent meditation training where Vikram & I stayed in separate male and female quarters and were not allowed to meet. The experience was indeed unique not just because we didn’t see each other for 10 straight day but because we discovered the inner turmoil when all else outside was calm. It was my first meditation experience of any kind and the first check off our travel/experience list. We next headed to our favourite place …

Delhi – Pushkar – Ajmer – Chittorgarh – Kumbalgarh – Ranakpur – Udaipur – Bundi – Jaipur – Delhi Bundi – Jaipur Distance Covered (210 kms) Time Taken 6pm – 11pm Room At Rawla Mrignayani Palace – 1000, One of the nicest rooms we found in Rajasthan. A great deal for 1000 but came with a big draw back. The rooms were super cold and in the chill of the January Winter, this drove us out of Jaipur after two nights. This place would be ideal if you are visiting Jaipur in Summers. Everything else about this place was perfect right from location, ambience, staff, cleanliness. Food items – Rawat ki pyaaz kachori, kesar doodh.  Found the kachori to be over hyped, the Kesar Doodh was the clear winner. Like all other places in Rajasthan, Jaipur set the bar for food really high. All the places we ate at served good food at reasonable prices. The only food experiment that we did not enjoy in Rajasthan was the Dahi Ka Saag at a local restaurant. It was like any other mixed veg raita. Sight Seeing – Amber Fort. A 30min drive from the city takes you to one of the best preserved Palaces in Rajasthan. If you are driving down, make a note that you can take your vehicle right up to the entrance of the Fort. The fort is huge and the audio guides make a nice companion in the 3-4 hrs that you will easily spend here. The guides at the entrance will try to persuade you against the audio guides claiming that is cheaper to hire a guide and that your audio guides won’t answer any questions. We went with the audio guides and were happy by the end of our visit. However if you are short …

The beach is empty and quiet. Really quiet. Not the quiet when you can still hear murmurs and see people in the distance. It is the quiet when you are the only one outside while others are all inside their huts, shacks, rooms and homes. The beach is empty. The beach belongs to me this morning. Those foreigners drinking beer. Those workers from Himachal and Nepal. Those smug locals. No one is here. The beach belong to me. Just me. The sunbeds are tucked elsewhere. The umbrellas stashed out of sight. The music boxes silenced and the candles blown out. The fancy is gone. I am the only one here this morning and The beach belongs to me. Just me. Besides me the dogs are here too. They are walking behind me wagging their tales. I pick up an empty beer bottle to scare them away. I am no good to make friends right now because I am alone here and I am scared. Oh, its totally dark except the moonlight. Oh, I could bumped into bull sleeping on the sand. I must turn on the flashlight. I think that the beach most certainly doesn’t just belong to me. I see some people walking in the dark just randomly moving around. Where could they be headed at this time of the day? Are they here to scare me because the beach clearly just belongs to me. Its scary if a dog approaches me or a man walks by. To be mugged would not be cool. I am scared. I realized I must be scary too to someone else. My own shadow on the sand scares me. I feel like a ghost walking in black pyjamas and hair flying in the wind. Let me just go back to the room. But …

Delhi – Pushkar – Ajmer – Chittorgarh – Kumbalgarh – Ranakpur – Udaipur – Bundi – Jaipur – Delhi Total Distance (233 kms) Time Taken – 6pm – 12:30pm Room at Shivam Tourist Lodge: 700 and 550. The phone booking procedure for hotels and guest houses in Bundi is time consuming. Be prepared to answer a long set of questions right from Number of people, where you are arriving from etc. The moment you mention you are Indian, the voice on the other side takes a new role and the questions become more direct and specific. We said we were two couples, so one of them how we are travelling together. There is a certain dislike for Indian tourists in Bundi. Food Items Tried – Pyaaz Kachori, Daal Kachori with special Heeng ki Chutni. A must try when you are in Bundi.  Krishna ji ki Chai – You get the creamiest of Chai’s here along with lots of gyaan from the owner. The walls of his shop are covered with some innovative and funny paintings / graffiti Bundi is picture perfect. It lives up to the image of Rajasthan that has been painted for years. The locals are not used to seeing many Indian tourists, so when you are there, everyone knows you. Most cafes have a stunning view of the palace and food is pretty much the same. Our top pick was the Tom and Jerry Café. We went there on both evenings in Bundi. It is run by two brothers who call themselves Tom and Jerry and roll out fairly good pizzas using a non-stick pan. Sight Seeing : 1. Local Pottery Village. You need to drive out 15 odd kms from Bundi to get to this village, and most guide books have a mention of this. This can be …

“Yes, Calangute and Baga are crowded, choking you with vehicle pollution and cacophony of city life you intend to escape from. Anjuna? Come on, everybody who comes to Goa goes to Anjuna. It’s for wannabes. Let’s be a little different. The truth is its expensive. How about Arambol? Well isn’t that for penny picking travelers, drug addicts and hippies. Anyways, lets give Arambol a chance. Let’s go to Goa.” And that’s how we arrived in Goa and in Aramabol in Goa. The start wasn’t good. But by ten in the night, we had a room we sort of liked. Next morning we were ready to check out and head to Hampi, Kerala, anywhere but here. That is when things began to get better. We started the day with beautiful walk along the beach that quietened the soul. Where else in the world will you find people hitting the beach to do yoga independently in such large numbers? Well, some of them were looking away from the sun therefore aiming the surya namaskar wrongly, but what the hell, its okay, they had a pursuit of the higher in mind. A bunch of people seated in the sand singing bhajans, some practicing Tai-chi, some walking their dogs and about a hundred others simply running along the beach. None of them was Goan but they all looked like they belonged to Goa. A lot of them looked they may be walking here but are present somewhere else. Most were in deep introspection. What is it about Goa that makes you question life? Is it the new age pilgrimage of the industrialized world? And hey I realized that those people with dreadlocks, no they are not here to smoke up and drink till wee hours. People with no dreadlocks and corporate jobs are more …

Goa has always been tedious for me because we are: Not willing to take flights to save money and why the hell are the train stations in Goa so far from everywhere Not willing to be duped by taxi drivers and the Goa heat is ideal only for beach bumming and not for bus rides Not willing to live in cheap beach huts for howsoever much beaches are fun but after sunsets we need four walls around us Not able to go with recommended guest houses because you see our definition of budget doesn’t include dirty shit hole of a room Therefore, getting to Goa, getting to someplace when you are in Goa, and then finding a room was a challenge I didn’t feel I was upto. I remembered Goa for: the beaches full of young couples parading the tiniest clothes in their wardrobes the babies of IT boom buying beer after beer men displaying their recently waxed chest and new sunglasses the tiny lanes around Calangute and choked with SUVs of wealthy families from surrounding cities breathing smoke and stress and the shack owners not happy to serve brown skinned Indians and giving extra of what we call footage to the fair skinned cientele For those operating businesses in Goa, you are just another wave in the many million waves that hit Goa beaches. There will never be smiles to welcome you. They look at you, size you up and blurt a number quoting a price, take it or leave it. The room, the service, the food quality doesn’t matter. Forget it. You can’t reason with them. This is Goa. If you leave someone else will come and take your place. But Vikram was convinced that if we have been traveling for over a year, then we have to …