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My Son, Hot Sun
Culture, Sun, Sand, Shopping, Beer, Friends, Food and Family: Hoi An provides the perfect day.
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Silence
Kayaking in Halong Bay, we find true silence and it is beautiful.
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Surprise Cave, Surprise Announcement
In which we tour Halong Bay, see a surprising cave and are accidentally fêted as newlyweds.
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B.I.R.T.H.D.A.I.Y.E. Spa
In which I accompany Emily Benjamin to a day spa for her birthday and leave with a new pair of feet.
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The True Story Of The Hanoi Hilton
In which we learn the truth about the benevolent treatment of the Imperial American Aggressors at Hoa Lo Prison, Hanoi. They weren’t given champagne, but that’s only because they had bombed all the vineyards.
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Hanoi Blues
In which we are ripped off for transport, fail to see Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum, witness a really really sick turtle and generally have a crappy day.
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Lost In A Good Book
Fforde goes further into narrative deconstruction than he did with The Eyre Affair, using books themselves as a device for exploring new worlds and new locations. Famous characters from every genre and period fly past in a literary whirlwind as he once again demonstrates his passion for the written word. The repeated reliance on coincidence […]
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The Eyre Affair
Like Pratchett if he had an obsession with Victorian literature, Jasper Fforde weaves a funny and inventive narrative in an alternative-reality England. With endless wit and a pun on every page, he manages to breathe new life into old classics, wrapping them in pastiche and satire while still showing his obvious love for all things […]
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From Laos To Chaos
In which we swap the serene and peaceful town of Luang Prabang for the Kafkaesque traffic nightmare of Hanoi, and learn the mating call of the common Vespa.
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Disconnected
Not having a connection is fine. Having one that works 20% of the time isn’t.
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Slow Cooker
On Laos cuisine, which is beautiful, if and when it arrives, even if it isn’t what you ordered, which is usually the case.
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Fall In Spring
In which we head to a waterfall, hone our reflexes by tracking the world’s fastest mosquitoes, and climb to the top of a hill for a view that’s better from the bottom.
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Outliers
Gladwell has the knack of taking a potentially dry topic and creating a strong narrative around it. Here, his contention that luck plays a significant part in extraordinary success is logical and well-researched, and full of interesting anecdotes to support his case. He might not understand Twitter, but here he is on fine form.
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Green River
In which we travel south down the Nam Ou river to Luang Prabang, are joyfully disarmed by local children and observe the Laos way to fix a broken boat.
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Assault And Batteries
Arriving in Nong Khiaw, northern Laos, we subject ourselves to a legalised assault, then sit back to watch the world go by. It goes by sedately.
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Bussed A Move
Another full day’s bus travel takes us from Luang Namtha to Nong Khiaw, passing through lots of local villages. We manage to retain all our fillings, just.
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The Lost Symbol
There’s no denying the richness of the research and history here, though as is typically the case with Dan Brown it is used to dress up a routine thriller, this time with an unusually anti-climactic finale. The final reveal manages to be both confused and trite, with plenty of mixed messages and an ending that […]
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Virtual Light
As a straightforward thriller, albeit with an interesting McGuffin, this could easily be a pretty run of the mill story. However, Gibson’s language drips with distinctive grace-notes, which taken together weave a rich tapestry of the near-future, without succumbing to the need to invent hundreds of new words to sound futuristic. A novel you can […]
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Sabaidee Laos
Crossing the border into Laos sees me almost adopt a new Scandinavian identity, before becoming very well acquainted with fellow passengers on a bus with a load that would have made Atlas shrug.
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Long Tail Sally
In which we make our way from Thaton to Chiang Rai with 12 foreigners and lots of baggage in a boat designed for 10 locals and some fruit, along a river shallow enough that you could do a reasonable impression of Jesus. Cue grated nerves.
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On The Road Again
In which we travel from Chiang Mai to Thaton in a mosquito enclosure on wheels and see some of the beautiful northern Thai countryside.
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Equilibrium
One week into the trip, I reflect on the ways in which travel improves me as a person.
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Northern Soul
In which I try for a long time to describe Chiang Mai without using the word “love”, then give up and use it in the first sentence.
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Scenic Route
It’s hard to get lost in a city centre that’s bounded by a square of four very obvious, very ancient walls, but we managed it tonight.
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Travel Game: King
The Thai people love their king and aren’t afraid to show it, inspiring a fun new travel game.
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Taken For A Ride
In which we are taken for a ride, literally, make an unexpected purchase and meet a modern day Kharon.
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Accidental Activism
In which we visit the markets, have a BBQ, try not to take sides in Thai domestic politics and are driven around Bangkok on motorised tricycles.
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The Getaway
Day one of Monkey And The Benj Hit The Road almost stops before it starts at a Qantas check-in desk, then picks up the pace with alacrity on arrival in Bangkok.
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Down, Under, Over And Out
Reflecting on the six month backpacking adventure that turned into a five year stay, as I prepare to leave Australia for an extended period of time.
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Super Storm
I don’t know what Australia has done to piss off Mother Nature recently, but the worst floods in Queensland in 40 years, more flooding in New South Wales and forest fires in Western Australia are being followed by Cyclone Yasi, a mega storm on the scale that you might expect from Roland Emmerich. To get […]
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Retrieving The Past
The discovery of 95% of my website from way back when on the Internet Archive has given me a new task. Unfortunately, the site was only archived, not edited or improved.
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The Blind Assassin
Three chapters in and we’re already following three separate narratives in this complex, layered story. Atwood excels at giving each thread a unique voice and the story unfolds into a neat mystery that is resolved successfully.
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You Need A Montage
ImageMagick and GraphicsMagick are fantastic tools for manipulating images. Here, I outline the montage sub-command and use it to tile two photos of differing dimensions, so that they can be easily aligned in a column format with other images.
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The Great Gatsby
One of the most lyrically beautiful books I’ve read in a long time. Every character, moment and emotion is exquisitely portrayed and replete with descriptive grace-notes that immerse the reader in the period and bring warmth and character to what is a relatively uncomplicated story.
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The Crying Of Lot 49
Obtuse, deliberately so, but enthralling. Sentences that demand to be read three times and a thousand oblique references that I missed most of, it comes perilously close to being unreadable, but has a sense of humour that is irrepressible.
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Now Reading… More
On my recent joyful rediscovery of reading, a simple and inestimable pleasure that I let alone for too long, and a new bare-bones WordPress plugin I cobbled together tonight to list recently read books.
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Choosing To Choose
Self-indulgent nonsense about a very middle-class neurosis, and the difficulty in choosing where to focus my energies.
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An Erlang Matrix Module
A simple matrix module written in Erlang, using lists rather than tuples as its main implementation detail, which provides a number of standard matrix operations without the excessive copying and overhead that existing modules exhibit.
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And The Water Continues Its Inexorable Ascent
The recent floods have transformed Brisbane. Here I describe the mood on the night of January 12th as we wait for the flood peak to come.
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Giving Back: My 2011 Manifesto
Open source projects have immeasurably changed the world and my life for the better. With no formal employment for the bulk of 2011, I pledge to give time and effort to people that need help, and projects that inspire me.
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Howdy!
Technology and travel stories from a global roaming, kangaroo loving, sake drinking gaijin pom.
Check out my projects and my resume, take a look at some code on Github and feel free to contact me.