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In January, I traveled to Myanmar (also known as Burma) for a 12-day trip. Myanmar is a controversial country and while travel is extremely safe and pleasant, the country’s image still suffers from bad reputation. But Burma is the crown jewel of Southeast Asia. It’s the second largest country by landmass in Southeast Asia and one of the least visited. In 2013, a little over 2 millions tourists went to Myanmar, compared to 26 millions that went to Thailand. The Myanmar government is trying to encourage tourism and the number of tourists is increasing drastically. The year before, in 2012, only one million tourists went to Myanmar. Knowing this, I was very interested in visiting Myanmar sooner rather than later. The trip was organized by Insider...

Last night, it was going to be full and to rise above the North tower of the Golden Gate Bridge. After looking at the moon position, I did conclude that the moon would be aligned with the top of the tower with the Transamerica tower in the middle of the opening. The image above shows what my vision was. A very unusual hot weather is in effect in San Francisco right now, which meant that it was still in 70s at 9pm last night and there was no chance of fog and clouds to block the view of the moon. The combination of those factors had attracted a large number of photographers on the Marin Headlands, literally I was waiting for moonrise with 12 other photographers. Taking pictures of the moon is a bit tricky. First the moon moves quickly in the sky. Second there is a...

Angel Island is a California State Park in the middle of the San Francisco Bay. It has incredible views of the Golden Gate Bridge, the city of San Francisco and Alcatraz. In a previous post, I made a day trip there but this post is about spending the night on Angel Island. Depending on the season, the last ferry leaves the island between 3:30 and 5:20pm (make sure to check the schedule online) and unless you have your own boat that’s your deadline. But for a few hard core planners, it’s possible to secure a camping spot on Angel Island. In that case you will be sharing the island with at most 40 persons (including the park rangers, the kayak groups, and the large camping group). After the departure of the last ferry (which was 3:30pm in our case), the...

After more than two weeks on the island of Java, we crossed the Bali strait (1.5 miles) from Ketapang to Gilimanuk. I had 3 days left before my departure to San Francisco. Bali is a mystical destination for many but after 2 weeks in rural Java, it felt busy, touristy and more expensive. Suddenly restaurants were more expensive and offer pizza and pasta on their menu. Hotels were defintetly nicer and I’m not going to complain about it. It’s interesting to note that while the people of Java are in majority Muslims, the people of Bali are Hindus. Galungan marks the beginning of the most important recurring religious ceremonies. The spirits of deceased relatives who have died and been cremated return to visit their former homes, and the current...

This is the third part of my Indonesia trip (read part 1 and part 2). The program was to climb Semeru (an even harder hike than Merapi). Unfortunately a combination of a tired knee (really painful) and failing hiking shoes made me skip the hike. Instead I spent two days resting while Stephane and Christophe climbed Semeru. The view from Semeru was fantastic but the climb was grueling. Both Stephane and Christophe skipped dinner that evening and slept for 12 hours straight. Durring those two days, I explored the town, taking pictures of the local market and local taxi. The goal of the trip, the main reason I went anyway, was to photograph the volcano called Kawah-Ijen. It’s not a lava flowing volcano, but still a very spectacular one. On the way to...

This is the second part of my travel to Indonesia (read part 1). We left Yogyajarta for the North face of the Merapi. It was time to get serious about hiking. The second volcano on the menu was the Merapi (2,930 meters), our base camp was at 1000m. The plan was to get to the summit one hour before sunrise (5am local time). It’s a very popular hike among locals, who take two days to climb it. Unfortunately, we choose to do it in one long day. We left our camp at 10:30pm and we hiked the entire path in the dark. We had a local guide, who was over 60 years old, chainsmoked at each break and was wearing rubber boots all the way to the top. I, however, had light high-tech hiking boots, was reasonably fit but carrying a 25 pounds (12 kg) camera bag and tripod....