A lot of factors helped us psyche up our upcoming travels. From movies to novels to travel articles, they all painted an image in our minds of how our trips would go down. Most of the time, we ended up experiencing a series of bumps on the road, sometimes the polar opposite of it, depending on what we expected—either such adventurous, epic failure-filled wandering or a walk-in-the-park stroll throughout the path we drew on our itinerary map.

Tucked underground at the Taman Sari Water Castle was a mosque accessible only in the past by a maze of underwater passageways. I first heard of its existence from my friend Gaye Emami a few days before I left Manila for Jakarta. The moment she described it, I was instantly fascinated. I told myself I must never leave Yogyakarta without seeing that mosque. The place was not easy to find as there were no signs saying "Underground Mosque this way". Following a hunch, I followed a group of young Indonesian students who seemed to be on a field trip as they trudged through the back alleyways of Taman Sari. I saw them debating which direction to take, so I reckoned they were also trying to find the mosque. I tried asking a local, but unfortunately, she could not understand English, so I chased the group of students as they entered a small arched hallway. Inside, we had to duck our heads so as not to hit the ceiling, and after a short length of striding and bending forward, we met a dead-end wall.