This is my travel journal for the year 2013. I have talked about the firsts that I did this year.

1. A Travel Journal
2013
MILIND JAGRE

2. A TRAVEL JOURNAL
2013
MILIND JAGRE

3. © Milind Jagre
All rights reserved. All content, both text and images are
property of Milind Jagre.
Milind Jagre
36835 McKinney Avenue Apt 204
Westland, Michigan, USA 48185
www.stochasticity.travel.blog

4. To my beautiful family!

5. PROLOGUE
I am trying to showcase my travel entries in this journal. I am
starting from the beginning, the year 2013.
I am going to talk about the firsts that I did this year, in the
travel category, obviously. I took my first flight in August from
Pune to Bangalore. It was fusion of emotions, both good and
bad, as it was the first time I was flying. I experienced my
first night out with my friends from Cognizant, and witnessed
how the youngsters from the big cities have a good time,
slowing morphing into one of them, which I liked. I did this
in October.
The night out was followed by my first ever trek/hike in
November. I went to Kudremukh National Park with a couple
of my friends and theirs to this wonderful place. I instantly
fell in love with hiking and discovered my roots from a
village helped me gain that.
The year ended on a high as we celebrated the New Year’s
Eve in our rented apartment/bungalow in Kammanahalli. It
was a fun night surrounded by many friends.
Looking back at 2013, it was a life changing year for me as I
started working for the first time in my life this year and
made some friends for a lifetime.

6. 1 - AUGUST 03, 2013 - MY
FIRST FLIGHT ✈
THE EXCITEMENT AND ANTICIPATION!
“It was the first time I was having a coffee in an
airplane, and I still remember my weird face after the
first sip.”
☕
Oh my God! How can I forget this day!! It has been one of
the most memorable days of my life.
It all started with me receiving the joining location from
Cognizant. When I learnt that it was Bangalore, I was so
happy. Bangalore had been one of my favorite cities, and I
was about to visit it. Before receiving the job location
notification, I knew that the weather was really good in
Bangalore. Plus, given how big the city is, there were endless
opportunities for outdoors, which I was dying to do.
I remember receiving a call from one of my friends. He
told me that he got Bangalore as the joining location, and
was waiting for my notification. We both were optimistic that

7. we will get Bangalore as the joining location. And boy, we
were right! The first thing I did was to call him and tell him
the good news. That’s when it struck me, we can fly to
Bangalore, which will be our first air travel.
The problem with this plan was we were from different
places in Maharashtra. Maharashtra is one of the states in
India and is mostly famous for Mumbai, its capital and the
presence of Bollywood. Our decision of flying to Bangalore
was final, and so, we decided to take the flight from Pune to
Bangalore. Pune seems to be the ideal choice for the both of
us. It was the same distance from us and the flight from Pune
to Bangalore was super cheap, which we both preferred.
Let me talk a little about our excitement before the flight.
As this was the first time, we were not aware about the
check-in, security, and the boarding process. The wonderful
and helpful people at the Pune airport helped us a lot and we
are thankful of them. When the Indigo officials informed
about the boarding, we looked at each other, and silently
conveyed that this is the time, we both were happy.
I vividly remember the time the pilot announced that it
was time for take off. Oh man, such an adrenaline rush. I was
not sure what to expect. I did not own a good phone at that
time, so could not capture the moment, but my friend did,
and thanks to him we could capture those moments forever.
At one point, we were too scared to click picture, because, we
thought the air hostess would come and scold us and will tell
us to stop it. We were a bunch of newbies. Now, I look behind
that moment and can’t help but laugh.
It was time for lunch followed by a choice of tea or coffee.
This is where the western Milind took over my true self. I
have been a tea guy and should have gone with tea, but, NO!
I had to choose coffee and instantly regretted it. That was the

8. time I realized you cannot throw away the leftover coffee
outside when you are 30,000 feet up in the sky. It was some
task to finish that coffee. The air hostess came and took away
our dirty plates and cups and I don’t know why felt like she
gave me a “look”, but hey, it was our first flight. We were
supposed to do dumb stuff. It is inevitable.
Here’s one the clicks my friend took during the flight.
Nearly 90 minutes in the flight, it was time for the landing
and both of us were scared. A slight mistake here and there
and boom, everything goes into flames. Fortunately, nothing

9. of that sort happened and we landed safely. One thing that I
noticed, I get more anxious during landing when compared
with take off. May be, it is my thing, I don’t know!
We made safely to Bangalore
The first impression of Bangalore was very cool. We saw from
the flight that the soil is red, which was new for both of us.
The airport was obviously bigger and better than Pune
airport. We clicked a few pictures outside the airport and
headed to our destination.

10. 2 - OCTOBER 26, 2013 - MY
FIRST HIKE 🥾 - KUDREMUKH
NATIONAL PARK,
CHIKKAMAGALURU,
KARNATAKA, INDIA ⛰
DISCOVERED MY LOVE FOR HIKING!
“The soothing calmness in my heart made the four
hour strenuous hike worth it. You could witness it
from the top of the Kudremukh mountain.”
🧘
This has got to be the most treasured thing I did in 2013.
The funny thing about this trip is that I did not even plan a
single thing. I was just tagging along a couple of my friends.
They had already made all the arrangements, so it was a win-
win situation for me, and I am so glad I did this trip. I learnt
and discovered many things about myself during this two day
trip.

11. The trip started with a bus journey to Chikkamagaluru.
For those who do not know about Chikkamagaluru, it is one
of the districts in the state of Karnataka, India. This district
has been blessed by many sacred temples. It is also famous
for its mountain range and waterfalls. I was excited for this
trip, because, it was the first trip I was going on after joining
Cognizant. I had my single backpack for this trip. I had
managed to cram my supplies for two days in a small
backpack. I was so proud of myself.
We reached Chikkamagaluru district early in the morning.
Got freshen up and headed to the place where our guide was
supposed to meet us. It was very thoughtful of my friends to
book a guide, because, you can easily get lost in the thick
mountain range of Kudremukh. Apart from guiding us to the
summit, the guide has one more job to carry supplies for us,
especially the food. I remember stopping at a place to have
some Idli and Vada brought by our guide, and us making fun
of those because they were so stiffened, we could barely eat
those. Alas, we did not have a choice so we quickly finished
those, had some much needed rest and started heading
towards the summit.
If you have never been to Kudremukh, you must keep this
in mind that the place is filled with leeches and other bugs.
Our guide told us in advance to bring leech repellent oil,
which we forgot 😟 . This is where both the guide and the
local vendors helped us a lot. There was a local store at the
beginning of our hike. We bought a couple of bottles from
them to share among five of us. We should have bought
more. Anyway, our guide has some extra oil with him, so he
lent us a little bit to fight off those leeches.
It took us more time than expected to power the summit,
but the moment we did, every step we took to accomplish the

12. summit, felt worth it. I could not describe my feelings in
words. Every one of us were silent for good five minutes,
soaking in the moment and just relaxing. We were literally
above the clouds. We took off our shoes and just rested there
for a few minutes before clicking a few pictures.
This is me having a break after climbing the summit. You
can see (or maybe not) the feeling of accomplishment on my
face. It was a big deal for me. The soothing calmness in my
heart made the four hour strenuous hike worth it. You could
witness it from the top of the Kudremukh mountain. I
realized having grown up in a small village helped me a lot
both physically and mentally to finish this hike. I was so
happy at the end of the day, that I could not feel any pain
even after walking for more than seven hours that day.

13. The night was filled with some not so delicious food
and stories from my friends.
The next day when I woke up, I could feel a little sore from
the hike the previous day, but it quickly vanished when I had
some idlis for the breakfast. Soon, it was time to go home.
I was taking many memories with this trip. I was more
deterministic and decisive than three days ago, all because of
this trip.

14. 3 - NOVEMBER 30, 2013 - A
NIGHT TO REMEMBER 🌃 -
RASTA CAFE,
MAYAGANAHALLI,
KARNATAKA, INDIA 🍻
A GROUP OF FRIENDS GREW CLOSER
AFTER THIS NIGHT OUT!
“The cold and wind did not deter us clicking more than
100 pictures while waiting in line to get in the cafe.”
🤳
It all started with someone mentioning the name of this
place - “Rasta Cafe”. The name sounded really interesting
and I was soon hooked onto the idea of visiting this place.
The most fascinating thing for me was the hours for this
place. I was told this cafe opens up about 10 PM and closes at
around 4 AM. I have never visited a place during this time in

15. my life, so was super excited to have this experience,
because, why not!
We chose one of our friends birthday as the day to visit
this place. As we all wanted to enjoy together, we booked a
semi-RV, and hired a driver.
We reached the place in no time. It felt like no time as we
had so much fun in the “van”. God knows what we were
discussing. The only thing mattered was we were having a lot
of fun. Here’s the picture from our drive to the cafe. You can
see only a half of the people in this picture.
Once we made it to the cafe, it was time for us to stand in
a long queue. Glad we had a couple of friends who had
already been here. They put down our name in the list to get
in and we were all set to have fun.
I don’t even remember how long we waited outside in the
cold, because, we were lying on the grass outside the cafe
and having the best time of our life, and we clicked hundreds
of pictures to capture that moment. We were teasing, making
fun of each other, bringing up random topics, basically being
stupid, because that’s what you do when surrounded by

16. friends. When we were having this much fun, we were
notified that we were let in and we got the best seats in the
cafe - right in the middle for a group of fourteen people. We
ordered our drinks and started the celebrations (kind of).
We talked, gossiped, and had a really nice food. We were
so engrossed in having dun that the time spent at the cafe is
such a blur to me. I can hardly recollect what we talked
about. The only thing that I remember is our drive back
home.
We were so tired that everyone wanted to get to their
respective places and just lay on their bed and enjoy the lazy
Sunday morning/afternoon.
Everyone made it safe to their respective places. I
remember talking about this night for days to come.
One thing that I realized after this night out is that it is
important to spend some time with your friends. At the end,
all you are left with are memories. People do not remember
their grades or how much money they made, but the number
of hearts they touched in their lifetime. You can be a
millionaire, but you are worthless if you are not surrounded
by people who love to have you in their lives.
Post this night, I told myself to stop being the “studious”
Milind that I was try to be, and go out there have fun. I was
so glad I was part of this night out.

17. 4 - DECEMBER 31, 2013 -
NEW YEAR’S EVE 🎊 -
KAMMANAHALLI,
KARNATAKA, INDIA 🍻
A NEW YEARS EVE FILLED WITH SO
MANY EVENTS!
“We were grateful for our landlords; they were kind
enough to let us party late and bring some cake!”
🥮
The plan of celebrating the new year at our place started
when we rented out a huge two-bedroom apartment in an
awesome area called Kammanahalli. If you have never been
to Bangalore, Kammanahalli is the place where most of the
youngsters hang our from the north eastern part of
Bangalore. I really loved this place and used to spend my
weekends there, so when my roommate and I decided to
make this as our place to stay, I was over the moon. I was

18. excited for this next step in my life and was looking forward
to it. Here is the place that we decided to stay in. Doesn’t it
look grand!
We were a total of 10-15 people celebrating this new year
together. It was a fun bunch and I was glad we were
celebrating the New Year’s Eve together. Everyone got their
drinks, food, and smokes, and the party started.
By this time, everyone knew that I never smoked and
drank in my life, so, obviously, everyone started “forcing” me
a drink or two, which I courteously declined. Glad that they
did not force me more. One thing I did that night was I tried
hookah for the first time. I think the flavor I liked that night
was paan masala. I was dumbfounded by how similar the
flavor felt as compared to an actual paan. For those who are
not aware about paan, google suggested that it is a betel leaf
which is pounded with Areca nut. That was the best way I

19. could describe it. Sorry for the disappointment. 🤷 I think I
have the cropped photo of me enjoying the hookah.
Let’s get to the fun part of the night. As the night
progressed, people started drinking; I was happy with my
coca-cola. We started chit-chatting, playing games, clicking
many pictures (obviously). One thing that I was happy about
that I was enjoying and being myself. There was no one to
judge or stop you from doing anything. And this was the first
time I was celebrating New Year’s Eve in a big city like
Bangalore, so it was kind of special. 🤘

20. I don’t remember eating food that night, or may be I did
and just don’t recollect doing that. As any party does, we had
a couple of arguments, which was fun to watch, as I was
among the sober people at the party. At first I thought why
would anyone bring up topics like that in a party, but soon
realized I guess that’s what people do when they are under
the influence of alcohol. Everyone handled the situation quite
nicely and made sure it does not go out of hands.
Now, I am not completely sure when our landlords came
up, but they sure were happy to let us party and have a good
time. They even brought some cake for us. It was a plum cake
and I think it had either wine or rum in it; again not clear
with the details. It was such a blurry night! 👨🦯
The last thing I remember about that night is letting
everyone know that I was going to bed and that was
around 2.30 A.M.
I don’t have the slightest clue about what happened after
that, but, when I woke up, the place was not the same. We
had food and drinks everywhere. I went to the bathroom and
discovered the the wash basin filled with the vomit. Oh man,
I cannot get that picture out of my head. I was the first one to
wake up as everyone else went to bed quite late. I don’t
blame them. It was a new year, and that’s what you do.
It was a good night though, no doubts about that.
And that is how my 2013 came to an end.

21. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I have been an avid traveler my whole life. Apart from
traveling, I like to read and write. Reading biographies is my
favorite pastime and I like to help the fellow students and
data enthusiasts by making tutorial videos on Big Data and
Hadoop.
I am a true believer in hard work and determined enough to
not give up until I achieve my goal.