Browsing tag : The Kindness of Strangers
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A Christmas Miracle in Sapa
Posted onI arrived in Sapa in northwest Vietnam much earlier than I planned, at about 2am on the morning of Tuesday 25th December 2018 – Christmas Day. I’d been told that the bus would arrive closer to 6am, getting me there just in time to find a place to stay, dump my gear, rest a bit and then plan my adventures in this remote mountain town. Instead, I found myself in a sleeping city, with not a single hotel open for business.
By Ben Reeves
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Playing the Tourist in Tam Coc
Posted onI arrived at Ninh Binh train station from Hanoi as the sun was dropping out of a hazy sky. I had the general intention that I wanted to rent a motorbike and find a homestay (the Vietnamese name for a hostel), but that’s about as far as my plan went.
By Ben Reeves
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War Planes and Word Games
Posted onMy second day in Vietnam started with a hasty departure from the apartment I’d borrowed. My plan, formed the previous evening with the person who usually lived there, was to head to the train station and get a ride to Ninh Binh, which I’d been told was a beautiful and peaceful spot.
By Ben Reeves
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Isolation on Koh Rong
Posted onAbout four months ago, I was researching everything there is to know about Koh Rong – a tiny tropical island off the coast of Sihanoukville in Cambodia. While this was initially a work project, the information I found suggested that the place was very much like Koh Phayam in Thailand, which I had very much enjoyed visiting earlier this year. Realising I’d used virtually none of my annual leave up to this point, I decided to check the place out and have a week’s holiday there in December.
By Ben Reeves
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Lady Macbeth and the Beach of Doom
Posted onThe story starts just a few weeks after I bought the Lady – my 1997 Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo – while I lived in Muscat, Oman. Within a week of buying it, it had already had to go to a mechanic to replace the radiator matrix, so I wasn’t exactly filled with confidence about its reliability. However, I had the weekend free and grand dreams of seeing the galaxy.
By Ben Reeves
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Songkran 2016: Mad Dogs and Englishmen
Posted onI am delighted to report that I have completed the first of my main objectives for this bout of Songkran travelling, though at quite a significant cost. I came dangerously close to suffering from sunstroke and my camera is now inoperable.
By Ben Reeves
