So I was in Manila with my travel buddy Elizabeth and we stayed at a place advertised as a ‘Home Stay’. It was actually an apartment which was turned into a hostel. We were placed in 4-person room, with two bed bunks. So quite naturally, I took up the top bed while Elizabeth took the lower bed. While most of the nights we had the room all to ourselves, there was one night when a traveller from Korea came in…
Kolkata seems to have long moved on from the time when Mother Teresa was still alive. I didn’t really see the sheer starvation that was portrayed in the books about her and her works. In fact I was quite surprised to see how well-off the people of Kolkata were in general. There were still beggars here and there but then we’d see beggars in big cities in other countries too so it was not really much of a big deal….
So I climbed Mount Kerinci in Sumatra a couple of months ago. It would be my second time conquering this highest active volcano in South East Asia. I was quite worried, not only because of the severe lack of preparatory training, it would also be my first mountain climb since I hit 40 last year. Due to the busy nature of my job lately, I had to rely on the little training that I did after work, climbing the stairs…