Day 13: Sat 7 July - Ho Chi Minh City The train rolled into Ho Chi Minh City at the ridiculously early time of 5am. I only had three beers the night before so I was still really tired. As usual there was a bus to pick us up from the train station on arrival. It was quite strange driving through the major streets of Vietnam’s largest city and seeing them mostly empty because it was such an early hour of the morning, but even then there were still a fair few motorbikes buzzing around the place. We arrived at our [View Full Entry]

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Day 7: Sun 1 July - Hue I woke up about an hour or so before and everyone was already awake. It was about 8am, and I woke up surprisingly refreshed which I didn’t really expect from sleeping on such a rocky train. My breakfast noodle box was very similar to those I was used to back in Australia with 2-minute-style noodles and dried meat and vegetable, except it was even more tasty than back home, but you’d except that in an Asian country. There was an urn full of boiling water at the end of the carriage and Jackie Chan [View Full Entry]

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Day 1: Mon 25 June - VIETNAM - Hanoi After getting a lift into Sydney airport I had arrived just before 9am for my 10am flight to Bangkok for my 2nd biggest overseas trip to date. After so much travelling around airports in Europe the previous year I was sick of waiting around after checking in, so I was surprised to arrive with no line up and to be informed that the whole flight had already checked in. I was also given no choice of seat on a fully booked and almost fully checked-in flight so I was given an unwanted [View Full Entry]

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Day 132: August 15 - morning flight Edinburgh to London, 5 hours at Heathrow, then to Bangkok Accommodation: overnight Qantas plane After hearing about the huge delays at Heathrow airport for everyone checking in for flights and loss of thousands of bags by luggage handlers, I decided the 2 hours given to me by Qantas to change flights at Heathrow would be pushing it for time to get my bags and myself from one flight to another, so I figured I'd go for a morning flight to give me a good 5 or 6 hours to get from one flight to [View Full Entry]

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Day 122: August 5 - Edinburgh, Dunkeld, Culloden, Inverness, Loch Ness [View Full Entry]

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Day 120: August 3 - IRELAND - Dublin, SCOTLAND - Edinburgh Accommodation: Princes Street East Backpackers Hostel, Edinburgh Another travel day today and I was out of the hostel later in the morning than I hoped. My flight was for 1:20pm but I didn't start walking towards the airport shuttle stop until about 11:30am. What I did realise was that the bus stop was some 15 to 20 minutes' walk away, and when I arrived there were several people waiting for the bus. It wasn't until just after 12pm that a bus arrived, and when it got to the airport it [View Full Entry]

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Day 117: July 31 - SWITZERLAND - Geneva, ENGLAND - London Accommodation: St Pancras YHA, Kings Cross, London Well this was it, I was leaving Europe and going back to London. It was just one sign that my huge trip was almost over. My next destination was Dublin, but I figured out it was actually cheaper to fly to London then get a train to the edge of Wales and catch a ferry across to Ireland. Bizarre as it seemed, I was happy to take anything cheaper, and I was able to see more scenery this way, as well as get [View Full Entry]

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Day 111: July 25 - LATVIA - Riga, SWITZERLAND - Geneva Accommodation: City Hostel, Geneva It was time to leave Latvia today, except my flight wasn't until 3:30pm. There was no strict checkout time so I set no alarm, and I had no key to hand in although there wasn't really a need for security in this hostel as the atmosphere was pretty friendly and trustworthy. I had another hangover this morning which was part of the reason why I didn’t get out of bed until 2pm. I almost freaked out at the time I had left to get to the [View Full Entry]

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Day 108: July 22 - ESTONIA - Tallinn, LATVIA - Riga Accommodation: Friendly Fun Frank’s Backpackers Hostel I woke up with a bit of a hangover this morning, nothing brutal but enough to be annoying. I stuffed all my belongings into my bags, grabbed some water and a quick bite to eat, and caught a taxi out to the bus station with only 10 minutes to spare after having trouble getting out of bed earlier. Luckily the bus was still boarding so I threw my bags on and found a seat. I only had one bottle of water and no food [View Full Entry]

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Day 106: July 20 - FINLAND - Helsinki, ESTONIA - Tallinn Accommodation: Tallinn Backpackers I tried to sleep in as long as I could today after the extra awake time forced upon me, and I had no plans after seeing what I wanted to yesterday, so I stored my bags and went straight for the net cafe, which was in fact a decent cafe with about 8 internet terminals. Surprisingly it's hard to find a net cafe that serves a good cafe coffee. I scored a yummy Finnish-style mocha and a cake to go along with a couple of hours of [View Full Entry]

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