Welcome
HM Travels

The Sacred Monkey Forest is in the heart of Ubud, on the Bali Island of Indonesia. Ubud features a huge scooter or motorcycle culture and the narrow roads make the traffic gnarly at all hours of the day or night. It is quite a respite to have the green, lush Monkey Forest smack dab in the center of this hubbub. The entrance is flanked by two huge statues of dragons like lions on each side and the thousands of tourists that were in the monkey forest with me that day had paid

In a small town named Saba, by the bay, in the Gianyar region of Bali, lies Indonesia’s winery named Sababay and it has quite a success story. The story starts in 2009 when the founder discovered that in the northernmost town of Singaraja in Indonesia’s Bali Island, the farmers were only getting about 3 cents per kilo of grapes that they produced. Already a businesswoman, Mulyati, the founder of Sababay, struck a deal to buy all the farmers’ grapes for between 10 to 15,000 In

After a wonderful stay in the city of Mendoza, Argentina, it was time to fly back home. My flight was on Aerolineas Argentinas, the Flag carrier of Argentina. It was first to Buenos Aires from Mendoza. Then to Santiago from Buenos Aires. Then to US from Santiago on American Airlines. My Argentinean friends told me of the bad record of their national airlines and sure enough, the flight to Buenos Aires was delayed. I got four subsequent notifications of delays and luckily, I h

Shravan month, the 5th month of the Hindu calendar, corresponds to the monsoon season in India, and falls around August to September. Hindus consider this month as holy and people fast and worship during this month. Many people consider Mondays of Shravan to be especially auspicious. A holy site in Nashik, Maharashtra is Trambakeshwar, and it is part of the 12 Jyortilingas , devotional representations of the Hindu god Shiva. Brahmagiri is a hill near Nashik and is near Tram

Climbing the half dome in Yosemite National park is a popular hike which I did a few times in 1990s and the early 2000s, after which the park introduced a permitting system, making it harder to go on a spontaneous trip to climb the iconic dome. Three years ago, I had discovered the Cloud’s Rest hike, which is at an even higher elevation than Half Dome and had hiked it with a couple of friends. It was quite a grueling hike, culminating at almost 10,000 feet in height, nearly 2

In my drive north from Mendoza, Argentina, about 800km away through a beautiful drive on Ruta 40, I finally arrived at Fiambala . Along the way, I saw many beautiful mountains, plains, valleys, rivers and canyons. There were several wineries and bodegas on the route as well. Malbec, Torrentes, Cabernet Franc, Syrah and many other grapes were well represented, with entire bottle of wine priced from $3 and up. Enjoying sweet wines, dry wines, those with low tannins, sparkling w

I had heard of the Amazon River in Brazil for many years and had wanted to visit. I found ship boat named Iberostar which offered a tour of multiple rivers in that area starting from Manaus. From Rio de Janeiro, I took a flight to Manaus and a taxi to the port. It was raining heavily, and I reached the port a few hours before the ship was boarding. From where I was sitting, I could see many ships of different sizes some huge, and some small and all were destined to go on the

There are six micronations in Europe: Liechtenstein, San Marino, Monaco, Vatican City, Malta and Andorra. As I had just hiked the Camino de Santiago starting from the Pyrenees mountains, I wanted to seize the opportunity to see Andorra, which is nestled amongst the Pyrenees mountains, a nation that covers just 467.4km² with a population of around 78,000. Driving from Lerida in Spain, I passed through the rural green farming areas and came to the highway leading to Andorra’s c

Slovenia has a limited coastline on the Adriatic Sea on its west side and it is very picturesque. I drove towards Portorož from Ljubljana. It is a distance of about 80 miles due southwest of Ljubljana. As it was the Labor Day holiday, it brought a lot of Slovenians on the road. The mountains and houses on hills strewn all throughout the drive made for a very pleasant and scenic drive, however, when I reached the hotel for the night, I discovered it was in the old town that ha

Slovenia is a European country that was part of the Empire of Yugoslavia up until 1991 and has a lot of historical significance. Slovenia...

As a foodie, I had heard about San Sebastián for a long time and wanted to visit it. The Camino de Santiago also goes through it, if one is walking the route Camino Norte. After my Camino De Santiago walk by the Camino Frances route, which I finished 9 days faster than planned, I took the opportunity to visit San Sebastián. It is about a five-hour drive from Madrid. As I neared the town, I came across the iconic city gates which are two on each side on the river Urumea . They

Today was the final day of the long walk, and I woke up by 5AM. Aaron and I had decided to walk together, and we headed out at 6AM sharp. It was dark outside and the path was very steep at various points. Over the 31km walk today, a climb of 1900 feet was expected. We were walking pretty fast and there was no one on the path. Before dawn, we missed a marker and walked about half a kilometer before realizing and course-correcting. The dawn started with beautiful colored sky. T

Knowing that I was at least 10 km behind Aaron, I got up before 5 AM and was walking on the path by 5:15AM. The Argentinian fast walker had also been up and I left while he was still getting ready. The path was dark, my headlamp battery was fading, and soon I was almost in a ditch by the roadside. As I righted myself, I saw the Argentinian walk steadily behind me with his headlamp shining brightly. Aaron was up and had texted me that he would start a little bit later in the d

Sarria is the starting point of hiking the trail for majority of the people as it is 115km away and that is nearly the minimum distance one has to walk in order to get a certificate showing they walked on it. With my long walk of 51km yesterday, I started the day a bit later than usual. I was surprised to see Aaron, the young fast walker from England to be at the same Albergue as me, and we both saw each other as we were starting out. We were out on the path at 7:30AM and saw

I was amazed at myself to get on the road by 4:45AM. It was a dark, starry night. As I walked in the cloudless sky, I pulled out my Sky Tonight app and could see many constellations, including the Ursa major as well as Leo. It was quite a hilly climb right from the start today. At least 3600 feet climb was expected in the 44 km I had planned for the day. Walking 5km, I reached the highest altitude in the area, and the low lighting made the picture above look quite interesting

Today’s goal was a 37 km walk with about 5000 feet climb so it was surely not a trivial one. The temperatures were getting higher and mornings were in the high 40°F. No rain was predicted for the next several days. I got a 6 AM start while it was pretty dark, but quite peaceful and the headlamp was enough to illuminate the path. Passing by the ‘Santuario de nuestra señora de las Angustias’, I took a picture and proceeded. The dawn was again quite amazing with the slow illumin

Many of my photographer friends have shown me pictures of the Milky Way and I am always amazed at their fantastic photography. I personally have never been able to take such beautiful pictures. Mostly because I just use my iPhone all the time which does not have that level of capability. I started walking and found the full display of stars in the absence of light pollution. I was happy to take one picture where at least some stars are visible. Today, the path was very hilly,

I started walking at 7:45, after spending over 11 hours in bed and really getting a great night's rest. A half hour in the walk, the sun was rising, and the sky turned into beautiful colors. It was a great sight to see the sun peak out from the horizon. Another pilgrim came from behind me and started talking to me, I recognized him as my bunkmate from a couple of days ago in Léon. It was beginning to be quite steep, and I kept walking up the relentless hill. At the crest was

Today it was 32°F, which is 0°C, freezing, and I started walking at about 6:45 AM. Right off the bat, I stubbed my toe three times in a row and lost my way a couple of times. Luckily, the Buen Camino app was my rescuer and eventually I was on the right path. Last night, the municipal Albergue which had one room with 12 bunkbeds, had a lot of activity. The pilgrims were a little noisy, snoring, waking up multiple times in the night, making it a little hard to get continuous sl

I started by 7:15 AM from the Albergue and had a plan to walk 37 km, not too much and not too little. The destination was Léon and that is one of the biggest towns on this Camino. Today, the next town from start was at a 13 kilometer distance and that signified an over two hours of walk to finally get the caffeine fix. As I stopped to admire and take a picture of the crucifix, I saw two people walking in front of me and another walking in front of them. It was raining and mis