Excuse the strange characters; I’m usıng a Turkısh keyboard and fındıng the correct keys for everythıng would probably double the amount of tıme I’d need to type thıs.
I thought ıt was tıme to do the Gallıpolı thıng, gıven that I was so close. To that end, last nıght I left Istanbul by bus to Eceabat [...]
I find myself saying “Wow,” a lot, recently.
I’m staying at the Mavi Hostel, Sultanahmet, Istanbul. For 16 lira I get a bunk on the roof. It’s a little cold, and the call to prayer wakes me up at 5am, but the view of the Hagia Sophia more than makes up for these minor annoyances. I [...]
Bangkok spreads out below me. The view from above is prettier, if somewhat worse labelled, than the Nancy Chandler version. Drops of lights pump through her wide arteries. Bangkok is still in party mode, and I think you can tell, even from a few thousand feet.
I float above the floating lights below.
City of Angels [...]
Take 60 million Thai. Give every man, woman and child a bucket of water, and/or a water gun, and/or a bucket of whitewash. Give everyone a few pints of Singha. Give every second person a bottle of whiskey. Turn every street-facing building into a discotheque. Add three days of public holidays. You can probably see [...]
I’m back in Bangkok. Made friends with the lovely Catrina (NSW) on the flight from Saigon, and after a slightly more stressful than usual taxi ride, we’re staying at the Asha guesthouse in central-ish Bangkok. Apparently we’re somewhere close to Poenchit station, which will make getting around really easy over the next two days. I [...]
I no longer have a mobile phone. The phone in my hotel room is dead. The staff won’t let me use the phone at reception, but they do ask the hotel next door. They won’t let me use theirs, either. I can’t buy Skype credit due to some bug/quirk/feature of their online billing system. These [...]
District 1, Ho Chi Minh City, is quite a nice place at 6am. Hardly anybody hassles me (maybe it’s because anybody who arrives here by bus at this time of day has probably travelled the length of Vietnam already and is unshakeable), it’s cool, and there’s hardly any traffic. Picking a hotel was as simple [...]
Spent the morning SCUBA diving. I’ve always loved anything that gives me an extra axis of freedom, and today was no exception. Warm water, beautiful marine life, and a fairly enteraining crew. I also skin-dived to 10m to get some sand from the bottom, which was probably a new record for me.
The Vietnamese postal system [...]
Just a quick note to say that I’m in Nha Trang. Seems like a fairly relaxed place, despite its size. Lots of Asian tourists, and a fair share of Westerners too. Not so atmospheric, but that’s ok. After arriving on the bus at about 6:30am, I spent the rest of the day sleeping, swimming, playing [...]