First up, the amazing Gillian is treating me to a long weekend in Venice for Valentine’s. I’ve been to Italy twice (once a quick visit to Rome, and again during The Walk when I covered the north west of the country by foot), but never seen this particular place. I’m very much looking forward to it and we’ll be there from February 12th to 15th.

Next, we’ll be taking the kids to Egypt at the start of July right after I finish work for summer. It’s only for a week and it’s a package tour but we will be aiming to fit in some diving and a trip to Luxor from our base in Sharm El Sheikh.

Plans are already afoot for a fortnight in Thailand in 2012. Assuming the Aztecs weren’t right and we’re all dead by then.

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New plans!

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Given the “travel chaos” (i.e. Heathrow being rubbish) that hit around the time I would have been hoping to get a flight, this is perhaps for the best!

I may look at going somewhere for Easter. After watching the Top Gear Christmas special, I’m once again drawn to the Middle East. A shame that, unlike famous people, I ‘d struggle to get into Iraq. On the other hand, I don’t work for the BBC so Iran is permissible. Last year’s plan was for Syria, Lebanon and Jordan – I may resurrect that plan. Kind of apt for Easter.

Summer will be another call. I have “permission” to go away for a long break if I want to. It would be strange, what with the kids, but I do still miss the backpacking and I’m as ever drawn towards Vietnam. Having said that, I’ve still not managed to make it to South America. Or if I fancy staying closer to home, I still want to do Sweden, Norway, Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania and Bulgaria. Oh, and Liechtenstein. And more of Italy. And Germany.

Sometimes it’s a pain living in a world with so many interesting and exciting destinations!

Related articles

• Top Gear’s back: from East Coast to the Middle East (telegraph.co.uk)

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Limited travel

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Don't. Just don't use this company.

Just a warning to anyone out there. I’m trying to book a flight from Bangkok to Hanoi at the end of the month. Vietnam Airlines have one leaving at midday which is great as I’m due in around 7:00am from London, via Mumbai.

However, it’s around £130 booked direct. I checked using the excellent SkyScanner site and they found me it for nearer £70 through eDreams. I went through the shonky booking system – which changes the pricing twice. The claims partway through of “all fees” being included is a lie as they first of all add some unnamed fee, then chuck a tenner on at the end. Oh, and a surcharge for using a credit card. My £67 fair ended up being a shade over £80.

And that’s not the worst of it. When I booked it, I got a large page which told me there’d been a problem authorising my credit card. I was to expect an email with instructions. In the meantime my flight was “confirmed” – this despite them not having any payment.

Strange thing – I checked my credit card statement online and that sum seems to be sat as a “Pending Transaction”. This means the sum has been earmarked and is classed as “out of my account”. Which means there’s no issue at all.

Despite this, a day later I got an email from them telling me to fax a copy of my passport, credit card front and other details to an international number. Along with this were warnings about flight price increases, promo fares not allowing refunds and so on.

A quick Google found a stream of bad reviews of eDreams. And I mean bad. People in the same situation who’d had their cards charged and received no tickets. Another chap who faxed the details twice until they eventually said that had them… but that the flight was more expensive now and that he would have to pony up the difference or lose the tickets. And the money he’d already paid.

As such, I emailed them on both addresses they included in the initial mail explicitly stating that I was cancelling the order and would not expect any payment to be taken by them. See below:

Regarding your follow-up email, I have no means of faxing to an international number. Also, given my current geographical location I can’t telephone any of the numbers you provided to contact you.

I do notice that the fee has been taken from my credit card which tells me that your email is a lie – there have been no problems with the payment. Having checked online I have found many people with the same issue, and a huge number have not received tickets from you or have been told they must pay an additional fee once they contact you.

As such, take this email to be an official cancellation and expectation of full refund. I have contacted my credit card company and informed them of the dubious nature of this transaction and expectation of the end of this matter.

Half an hour later, I received the following short response:

Dear Customer;

The booking has been cancelled.
If you have more doubts, please contact us the most soon as possible.-

Thank you for trusting in eDreams

I will of course be checking very carefully to see if my card is billed. If so, the lawyers at that company can take it up. Their cancellation email is, in my opinion, an acceptance of my terms, to whit a full refund.

I am now booked on an AirAsia flight 2 days later which means 2 days in Bangkok. Not a bad thing, to be fair. I’m sure I can find something new to do. I might even be able to catch a film if the shopping centres are allowed to re-open!

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Avoid eDreams for bookings

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Front of shirt

Raffle entries closed yesterday and a huge “thank you” to the entrants, of which there weren’t many but each was very generous indeed. Please, if you missed the competition do consider still making a donation. As happens annually, the east coast of Vietnam has taken a weather-related battering and Blue Dragon needs your funding to help them rebuild their homes, and eat in the meantime.

I snipped up a few bits of paper and dropped them into a hat (actually a Tesco carrier bag, but let’s not be picky). A quick rummage and the winner that came out was…

*drum roll*

Janice!

Which is good for me as I think she’s the only UK-based entrant so it will keep the postage cost down. I actually met her a few days ago and I could have handed her the football shirt personally. Instead, I will trust it to our increasingly dodgy postal service. Keep an eye open for it in a week or so, Janice.

Again, thank you all for your entries and generosity!

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Footie shirt winner!

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Front of shirt

OK, folks. Here is a chance to own a very exclusive Real Betis Vietnam football shirt as worn by the amazing kids at the Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation. There were never many of these shirts and BDCF are looking for new sponsors so there simply will not be any more of this particular design.

Featuring the Real Betis badge and name, BDCF logo and Catholic Relief Services on the sleeve, the shirt has a large number 7 on the back along with the charity URL. It’s lightweight material with “breathable” fabric under the arms and down the sides. It is brand new – I’ve worn it once to check it for size and fit.

The size is “XL” and this is a western XL by my judgement, not a Vietnamese one. The V-collar means it hangs off me. I’m an average size for a 35 year-old white guy.

Back of shirt

So here’s how it works. I will cover all costs involved in this little raffle including postage to wherever the lucky winner resides. Hopefully we’ll raise more than the overheads! “Tickets” are one Australian Dollar each and you “buy” them by making a donation to Blue Dragon via PayPal. When you donate, please leave a comment here and tell me how much you donated and therefore how many times your name will be popped into the hat.

The donation page is here

We’ll say the deadline is October 15th 2009 which gives you the thick end of a month to save up. I’ll pick the winner at random then and get in touch with them via email, so please include a valid mail address on your comment. Don’t worry – nobody can see your email address except me and I promise with hand on heart that I will only use said address to let you know if you’ve won and to get a mailing address from you.

So… what are you waiting for?

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Exclusive football shirt raffle!

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But right now I’m residing in Scotland as I managed by some miracle to jump onto a PGDE Secondary course at Strathclyde University. It’s a one year course with a one year probationary year immediately afterwards. As a teacher I will get those nice long summer breaks which will allow me to get a decent foreign trip in!

Long term, I don’t know what will happen. I may opt to go straight onto a PGDE Primary course if the job market’s still slack in 2 years. I might get a really good offer and stay in the UK. I might remain here for a year or two working and then use that experience to get myself a job overseas – perhaps Bangkok or Hanoi.

Right now, my priority is to complete the course. Lifewise it’s to meet Ms Right and settle down, wherever that may be. Or to convince a Ms Right I already know that such is her surname and she’s just not realised it yet!

I guess we will see.

But in the meantime, I’d recommend you bookmark the page and check back once in a while; subscribe to my Twitter feed (not always family-friendly but I don’t go too overboard on it); or click on the RSS link and add me to your feed reader. That way when I add something new you won’t miss it.

Thanks for the company over the last 3-and-a-half years, people. It’s been a great ride and I look forward to seeing you all again soon for the next trip. Whenever that may be!

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It’s gone quiet here…

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I’m currently in KL awaiting the (4-hour delayed) arrival of Leah from the UK courtesy of a security scare at Edinburgh Airport yesterday. We’re both here one night then I depart for Bali and she for Perth. Her luggage will hopefully follow soon after.

I arrive in Bali at 22:00 local time, have to find somewhere to stay and depart for Kupang the next afternoon around 15:00. One or two nights there then on to Dili. I’ll be there somewhere between seven and ten nights before flying back to Bali. During that time I have no idea what my net access will be like, so I’ll be tapping stuff up on the netbook for the next time I get online.

Similarly in Bali, Leah and I will be island-hopping and so forth for a fortnight. I’ll try to get updates done, but likely it’ll be a huge deluge once I get to Bangkok around the 6th of August.

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Update infrequency

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I need to decide when I need to get to KL. I have friends there I’d like to see, but that would mean getting there before the night of July 6th. However, the bus journey arrives at 5am which would mean spending another entire day in a city I’m not a huge fan of and have seen everything in. Pre-dawn is never a good time to arrive anywhere!

I might, instead, opt for getting there early on the 7th instead and enjoy an extra day on Ko Tao – or a stop-off on Ko Phang Nga. Decisions, decision! Either way, around £13 for a 22-hour journey isn’t that bad.

The route is roughly thus:

• Get a ferry from Ko Tao to Koh Samui in the afternoon or evening
• Spend the night in Koh Samui
• Set off on a bus from Nathon at 7:30am
• Cross on a ferry, with the bus, to Don Sak on the mainland
• Continue on down to Hat Yai
• Wait around two hours and board a second bus at 6pm
• Arrive in KL at 5am

Better start booking…

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More plotting – Ko Tao to Kuala Lumpur

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I think the plan right now is to circle round from HCM to Da Lat, then Nah Trang, Mui Ne Beach and back to the city again. If there’s time I’d love to get as far up as the DMZ near Da Nang, but that might be pushing it.

Next up, TravelFish on Twitter put me in touch with Matt who’s been able to provide me with some very useful information regarding flights to and from East Timor. I was about to give up on this adventure (mainly due to time constraints), but now it looks like it could be both affordable and enjoyable. I may try and make part of the journey there by land, but fly back out to Denpasar. He’s done this journey before and knowing this gives me a quite a bit of comfort.

I’ll likely be flying with Mupati. Unfortunately, their web page is still at the “under construction” phase so I wasn’t able to check times and prices on there. The only other alternatives were from Singapore (far too expensive) and Darwin (stupid long route round and as a result, very expensive as well). Flying from Bali is still not cheap, but it’s a lot cheaper.

Any other time I’d have just turned up and winged up, but two to three years ago I wasn’t on any real schedule. I also had a hell of a lot more money!

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Vietnam and East Timor take shape

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I have a friend in HCM who I’ve not yet met and I’m hoping we can work out a 3-4 day moped-based trip to Dalat and back to HCM from where I’ll get another flight up to Hanoi. I would use the bus, as usual, but tim constraints make that difficult.

My main task now is to work out how to get to/from East Timor, and how quickly I can get to Ko Tao from Bangkok airport.

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Vietnam flights booked

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