Category Personal

Wild horse crossing the stunning breadth of Monument Valley at sunrise.

Back in My Day

A road trip from San Jose to Monument Valley, Four Corners, and back. We had driven through this exact itinerary back in 2005, but things have changed considerably since then. After the first few quips, Annoying and Grumpy Dad was…

Matsumoto, or the Crow Castle, on a bitter cold December morning with the Japanese Alps in the backdrop.

5:00 am Walks

I am not a morning person. The early bird can take as many worms as it would like, and I wouldn’t care. Which is why, this blog title is special. There has to be something special about the location or…

Balkans, Czech, France, Greece, Italy, Japan, Morocco, Personal, Slovakia
Rowdy Planeteer
May 16

Un-earthly sunset, before midnight, somewhere in Eastern Iceland.

But we love our lives more: The Solitude of North Iceland

Northern Iceland is as remote as it gets. Tree-less wind-swept lava-colored landscapes. Mud-scaped roads to reach a town where Puffins camped out. The brown-blue-green palettes of old volcanic craters. The simultaneous solitude and ear-shattering thunder of massive waterfalls such as Godafoss and Dettifoss. The sulphur-tinged turquoise lakes around Myvatn. And barely any humans.

A lone SUV driving across the dusty road late at night on a sunny summer day in Iceland

The Gerua Crowd : Bollywood takes over Iceland

It has been said that Bollywood has done more for world wide tourism than any tourist magazine. Needless to say, this was a widely held view by the 2+ Billion Earthlings that can’t escape Bollywood, and also a view held…

Sparkling midnight sun and empty road to nowhere, Iceland

The White Walkers: South Central Iceland

When news outlets talk about Iceland being overrun by tourists, they are talking about South Central Iceland. The Wow Air travelers, and the Iceland Air 3 day stopovers. The Blue Lagoon enthusiasts, and the Continental Rift explorers.

View of the Taj Mahal from across the old town of Agra, on a foggy winter morning.

The Wuhan Pneumonia

This is the last image I have on any of my proper (read: non-iPhone) cameras. It was taken from our hotel room, right before packing and leaving on Jan 1, 2020 for the long foggy ride on the Yamuna Expressway…

They must be cooking something. Against the Buland Darwaza, Fatehpur, India

Sometimes, it just sucks

Sometimes, nothing goes right. The camera, the weather, the location, the post processing.

The winter smog-fog-mix makes it near impossible to see the fabulous UNESCO sights in the Agra-Delhi regions.

Throw in a bad camera setting that I realized much later into our walk, and it became near impossible to fix the images in post processing.

Kirkjufellsfoss, one of the most picturesque waterfalls in Iceland, at 11pm at night

Like Minecraft: Through the West of Iceland

Kirkjufellsfoss is the most picturesque waterfall of the Snaefellsness Peninsula on the west of Iceland, and is worth a visit just for that sight at sunset.

The Mont Blanc Experience

Chamonix is a charming little town sitting in the shadow of Mont Blanc and the Bossons Glacier - a welcome respite from the madness of crossing Mont Blanc.

Solo rides, the de facto way of traveling through North Iceland

Iceland: First Impressions

Iceland is a different planet. There are parts of Iceland that have served as various other countries on Planet Earth in a multitude of Hollywood movies. There are parts that were filmed as layers below the Earth's surface. There are still other parts that have served as entirely new planets.