Ben Tre to Ha Tien

Ben Tre is a nice quiet place and would be good even for a few days stay. Still, I decided to go to Phu Quoc, this however meant a long drive and a 3h ferry ride to get on the island.

Heading on the road just after Tet wasn't such a good idea and the traffic was pretty bad for most of the journey.
Some traffic jams and slow moving traffic meant I didn't make up the necessary time to even consider getting to Phu Quoc today.

Still, it was a nice drive overall and taking a ferry across the Mekong was also fun.

By the time it got dark, I was still not in Ha Tien but this didn't stop me from taking some photos along the way.

Finally getting to Ha Tien was great until I discovered all hotels and guest houses were full so this meant driving partly back where I came from to find a place for the night.

After the long drive over bad and bumpy roads, my back was complaining and I just wanted to find a place to get some sleep. I did manage to get to a place not too far out of Ha Tien for the night after some searching.

A Day in Holyhead

After a nice day and a half in Dublin it was time to go back to Holyhead with the morning ferry.

It was another sunny morning with a low sun and a bit of chill in the air but exactly as I like it when travelling early.

The crossing was relaxed and not very eventful but thanks to the free wifi, I could catch up with my blog updates and just browse in between taking some photos.

In Holyhead, I decided to take a later train back to London and have more time for a wander around.

The weather was very nice and people were out for a walk and hanging out by the beach which was a first for me to see.

It was a nice and relaxed stop over before getting back to London in the evening.

Ferry to Dublin

It's a long bank holiday weekend and as usual it starts off with rain. I didn't let the rain stop me from heading to Dublin.

After a rather packed train journey thanks to some cancellations and engineering works I arrived in Holyhead to take the ferry to Dublin.

The ferry was a lot more enjoyable and made for a relaxed journey across the channel. It might take a lot longer than flying and cost the same or more but the train and ferry are much better options to get to Dublin.

Once in Dublin I ended up spending most of the evening in different pubs sampling the local Guinness.

One thing that is great about pubs in Dublin is the live music which is a lot better than the usual unidentifiable background noise you get in bars and pubs in London.

The Lost Posts - Part 2: London to Cologne

Another set of photos that I never published despite preparing them to post.

Being back in London was strange and I didn't quite feel like I had much reason to be there at this time.

There was nothing to be there for so I decided to skip town for a while and go to Germany, spend some time with the family.

Now, there's nothing worse than having to take a bus to get anywhere (ok, maybe having to take the Tube) but as a last minute decision it was cheap and would get me there the next morning.

Being on the road again was however a great feeling.

Day 257 - From Fukuoka to Shinjuku

I woke up to the view of the tower in Fukuoka harbor and rain, lots of rain. It was a nice enough journey on the ferry, I slept quite well on the tatami mat so wasn't too tired and decide to brave the rain and go out to take some photos.

Day 256 - Leaving Busan

This was not quite a very efficient day on my part, I spent part of the morning walking to the ferry port to get myself a ticket for the Osaka ferry just to discover that they had no sailings as they told me yesterday.

Day 237 - A Ferry, Two Trains and a Stopover in Ipoh

It was still dark when I got up and left the hotel, despite it being after 6:00 in the morning. It has mostly to do with Malaysia being on a different timezone than Thailand and in my view they seem to be about 1h off because it only gets light after 7:00 in the morning. Nothing much happens either in the morning whereas in Thailand, Vietnam and other countries I visited where there is a lot of hustle and bustle going on from 5:00 already.

Day 232 - Train and Ferry to Penang

The train pulled in at the border only a little bit later than expected but the immigration process was very smooth and fast, so fast even that everyone had to wait around until the train started to continue the journey to Butterworth.

Day 75 - HCMC to Phnom Penh

After having my GXR and Surface charger stolen, I spent the morning running around every computer shop in Ho Chi Minh City in the hope of finding a replacement charger.

Unfortunately my search was unsuccessful as nobody has this charger. The Surface Pro is a fantastic device to replace your computer and especially as a travel device for photographers but the proprietary charger is the biggest problem. I hope I will find a solution or a charger in Phnom Penh.

At least I managed to pick up a new Ricoh GR for Tom so he can use while joining me on my trip through Cambodia and Thailand.

After all the running around trying to find a charger, I just about managed to catch the 13:00 Mekong Express bus to Phnom Penh.

Day 44 - Transfer in Xiamen

When I woke up in the morning and stepped out on deck, I could see China and all the big container ships departing or heading towards Xiamen port.

People were also out on deck enjoying the sunshine, dancing and chatting. Since there were a few tourist groups on board it was busier than on the way to Taiwan.

Using my knowledge of the Chinese queuing system, I manage to be one of the first off the boat and at the immigration desk. The immigration procedures were very fast and smooth and put the UK immigration to shame, where it always takes ages despite me having a EU passport.

The first task in Xiamen was to head to the train station and get my ticket for Nanning sorted or find a place to stay in case the train was full. I got my train ticket without problems for later in the afternoon and was set for a 28h journey to Nanning.

Since I had a few hours to spare, I headed to a nearby park and went for coffee after.

Once I boarded the train to Nanning, I had to find out that none of the plugs in the train worked so it meant 28h without power for my gadgets which were in need of a charge after being used during the day.
This put a damper on this journey as it meant not being able to do sort through my photos and try to make space on my drive. It also promised to be a very long and boring journey but I still had hope to find a working plug somewhere.