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In Taharabad city, which is in the district of Nashik in Maharashtra, lie the ancient temples carved by monks of the Jain religion. Nashik city is about 140km away from Taharabad and we decided to do a half-day trip including the hike to the two peaks, Mangi and Tungi near Taharabad. This is also a ' Siddha Kshetra' , meaning a gateway to Nirvana in the Jain religious beliefs. Many sculptures of Tirthankaras in Padmasana , the lotus position is seen in this place. Starting

Near Vietnam's northern border with China is the Đồng Văn province. It is a very beautiful, hilly region and has many UNESCO world heritage sites. Many international tourists land in Hanoi, rent a moped and ride a 1,100 km loop that includes Ha Giang. You can also take a luxury bus that takes 15 people in about 6 hours to Ha Giang and start riding from there. The bus costs only $20. It is super clean because as soon as you step on it, you are given a plastic bag to put your s

Two hours train ride on the express train from Taipei is a city called Hualien which has the Taroko Gorge National Park. The train itself is fast, clean, good looking and goes over 125kmph. The train stations are clean and also have a lot of food spots. As you get out from train station to the city, you see a nice picture spot that most cities have now a days, for people to pose and remember that they have visited that city. Next to the train station is the bus stop where al

An hour's bus ride from the Taipei main train station is the Yangmingshan national park. It has a short but moderate to challenging level hike to the Mount Cising Peak, which is at 1,120 meters (3,396 feet) representing nearly 2,000 feet elevation gain in the hike. To get there, a bus stop right across the main train station offers the bus number 260 which runs every 20 minutes. The bus is pretty clean and efficient, and the fare is only 30 NT$ which is about $1. Once at the

Just 2 km from the big island of Davao in Philippines, is the Samal island. From the Davao ferry terminal, a 20 peso ($0.35) ticket is charged per person on the car ferry to head over to Samal and it is a short 15 minutes ride. The waters are calm and there are many huge ships anchored around the ferry terminal area. Approaching the island, you can see that it is aptly named as the garden island because it is densely forested. There are scooter rentals as well as the ubiquit

Kalsubai is a peak near Igatpuri which is a smaller city near Mumbai, India. It is a 5,400 feet elevation peak with a trek that is attractive to hikers. About an hour from Igatpuri, the start of the hike is near a village named Bari. The entrance to the hike goes through a small road along the homes of the paddy farming villagers. To come to the point where the hike gate is visible, you have to pass through a small stream of water, which was so overflowing to about hip depth

Rinjani is an active volcano in the Java sea, with an altitude of 3,726 meters, over 12,000ft high. Many years ago, I had climbed Mount Batur, and was very happy to be to see its giant caldera. Since I was close to Indonesia, after my Kokoda trip, I decided to climb Mount Rinjani, which is in Lombok Island, an island east of Bali. To get to Lombok, I took a flight to Praya Lombok airport from Jakarta and it stops at New Yogyakarta airport. Air travel in Indonesia is very comm

I love Google maps. I merely have to type in the destination, in this case the trail head for Mt. Kaimon, and choose the train option, and it shows a multi-part plan. It also indicates which train type to take, the platform number, how many stations to destination, and these stations' names. While you are in any particular segment, the Google maps also shows you your exact location at that particular moment in time. Since few Japanese people speak English, this map feature ma