I have just uploaded another handful of collections to the online gallery, taking us from Hanmer Springs to Queenstown in New Zealand. More coming soon! Also, check down the right hand side of this page for a rough itinerary of where I’ve been and where I’m going (and approximately when). I’ll be concreting plans over [...]

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 A quick, or perhaps not, update as I’ve not posted in a few days. Mainly as I have been busy. Getting drunk. If one can class that as busy. The rest of the time I’ve been recovering from being drunk. Oh, and being robbed. But I’ll get to that. The photo at the top of [...]

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As part of my World Trip thingy, I’m trying to raise a bit of awareness about other cultures and also about animals – in particular those that are endangered. In NZ, I’ve seen kiwi. In Thailand, I worked with tigers. I hope to get to Indonesia and see the Komodo Dragon. And when I return [...]

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I woke this morning having slept very badly. Each time I rolled over, even with lovely soft clean sheets, it felt like someone was rubbing my back with sandpaper. Ouch. As a result, I was utterly pooped so cried off work and instead sat at the hostel and worked on Blue Dragon’s web pages. They’re [...]

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I’m likely preaching to the converted here, but “ignore the BBC Weather reports – they’re complete rubbish”. Last weekend was supposed to be clear skies and over 40 degrees. It was cloudy and around 33. This weekend is supposed to be sunny spells around thunderstorms for 4 days. It’s over 40 degrees and there hasn’t [...]

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Today wasn’t exactly busy. I went for a wander to the supermarket with an Irish guy who now lives in Belgium. Earlier he’d been for a walk for lunch and got talking to some Vietnamese – in German! He was heading for Sapa in the evening and needed some supplies for the train. I accidentally [...]

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 Today I had a day “off” from playing… I mean working with the kids. Last night I’d got talking to a girl called Fiona from “Harrow-gate” (she’s a bit posh) who’d had an interesting evening. After arriving in Hanoi, she’d decided to go out for dinner by herself. On the way back a tall Nigerian [...]

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 I checked out my room this morning and it smelled of soggy cabbage. On mentioning it to the staff on the front desk they said they’d make a call and by mid-afternoon it was fixed and the temperature back down to a much more civilised 17 degrees. Champion! The morning was spent loafing around downstairs, [...]

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Today’s class at Blue Dragon was a challenge. Again, I had no translator, but again the children were fantastic. Armed only with my Lonely Planet phrase book (which has about one word in twenty that I try to look up) and an ability to mime and repeat myself that all British tourists are born with, [...]

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I mentioned yesterday about Ryan “Killer” MacDonald being a great name for a thriller writer. Well, he had his own thrills today. He’s doing voluntary work for a foundation that is helping Vietnamese who are suffering from the ongoing effects of Agent Orange used in the Vietnam War – effects that the US government as [...]

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