Category Archives: Misc

Dragon House

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Blue Dragon Children's Foundation

Blue Dragon Children's Foundation

I’ll be cross-posting this to the other blogs shortly so apologies for duplication. I just heard from Mike at Blue Dragon about an author, John Shors, who’s written a novel based on street kids in Vietnam. Mike read the draft and has approved it – which is impressive given the usual stereotypes of street children. Apparently Shors has avoided all of these and Mike should know, given the fact he’s been working with these kids for so many years.

The book, Dragon House, is published by Penguin and available pretty much anywhere. You can order an autographed copy direct from John at the official web site… or if you go to Blue Dragon’s page and donate upwards of $100, John will send you a free one! Either way, part of the proceeds from the novel will be wending their way to the kids in Vietnam.

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THREE YEARS!

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A decorated birthday cake

THREE YEARS!

Today marks the third year I’ve been traveling. Eek. On March 14th 2006 I headed for Heathrow and boarded a 1-way flight to Bangkok.

The intervening years have been interesting to say the least, but one constant has been my folks back home. Despite whinging constantly about how I need to come home and get my “damn stuff out of the cellar so we can insulate it” they’ve been utterly awesome.

Proper blog posts will resume tomorrow, most likely. In the meantime, I’m enjoying some beers and a barbie with Ves, Mike, Rod, Marg and some others who’re heading over in a bit. Traditions here are the same as the UK – it’s been nice and hot all day and the rain clouds are rolling in as I type…

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Win a holiday!

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ebookers

ebookers.com

Thanks to the folks at ebookers, you could win yourself a couple of flights to some rather tasty destinations. Just head to ebookersquest.com and try out the travel quiz there. Tell your friends and get entered into a draw for a 7-day holiday in Hawaii!

Yeah, I know I don’t normally plug stuff on here but if it gets some of you out there and traveling then it’s worth it. Plus, ebookers are a genuine company I’ve used before and they do often come up with the cheapest flights out of the UK.

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More bookings

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Airbus A330-200

Will be using a few of these

OK, after mulling and plotting and planning, I’ve booked some flights. And sorted a visa. My current schedule is to fly out to Bangkok on the 27th of January on Etihad airlines via Abu Dhabi. Their return flight was only £402 – less than £50 more expensive than the cheapest single flight I could find!

Yes, you read that right – return. I have to hit France again for work in late May so it made financial sense to book the flight back at the same time.

In addition, I’ve sorted out a flight on Air Asia X from Kuala Lumpur to Perth on February 26th which cost a smidgen over £70. The usual going rate for this journey is nearer £250 – I checked Tiger Airways as well. They’ve dumped the old Singapore / Darwin route that I used so many times, but Perth works well for me as far as circling Oz is concerned.

Good news is that for those who qualify, Australian eVisitor visas are now free of charge. I applied for mine and according to their online system have qualified for it and now have 12 months of multi-entry (subject to a maximum 3-months at one time). I’ve not received the email yet, but that doesn’t matter.

So. I land in Bangkok and have a month to kill before my Australian flight. I’m applying for a Cambodian e-visa to save time and will travel there via a different route to last time, aiming to get to Sihanoukville for some diving. Then a bit more exploring and down to KL for the flight. I may go via Bangkok for my eye operation, or I may leave that until the end of my trip just before I fly home.

I’m not sure if I’ll have the time I was hoping for to do Japan, South Korea and China. Flying to Japan isn’t going to be cheap, especially if I do it from Melbourne which is looking most likely, but that’s how it goes. I can’t not visit Vietnam, so I may find myself skipping one of the other countries so that I can visit Blue Dragon once more.

That’s all still to be decided yet!

Task for tomorrow is to send off my e-visa application complete with dodgy passport photo. Hopefully the one I took tonight will be good enough. It certainly looks nothing like me so I guess that’s acceptable.

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