Following on from my recent experience with a sniffer dog who got it wrong, I thought I’d look into the success rates of these working dogs. In Australia, they’re not convinced. Following research into sniffer dog accuracy a couple of years back, it was found that only one quarter of positive sniffs yield drugs. I don’t know…
Category: Travel – bon voyage!
Travel, travel and more travel
Epic Meets Sniffy the Customs Dog
At long last, I flew to Amsterdam for Blog08 last week, with the clogs I’d promised to wear packed dutifully in my case. Friday’s conference was packed with interest and Monsieur joined me on Saturday for some Amsterdam sightseeing. We packed five museums and a lot of clog photography into the weekend, and then we flew home. Separately….
Epic and the curious Vietnamese “spice”.
Monsieur and I were floating about on a junk in Ha Long Bay, the Unesco wonder site that is a maze of jagged islands and floating fishermen’s villages, when we encountered a tasty condiment on the lunch table. It appeared with a plate of cucumber slices with floral edging, an indicator of Vietnamese cuisine’s obsession with…
The Blue Elephant, Bangkok – and the orchid travels…
Following on from our ‘date’ at Sirocco, high above the bustle of Bangkok, Monsieur and I descended the sixty-something floors with ears popping in the express elevator and jumped in a cab to The Blue Elephant. Our driver looked more like a cutting edge DJ than a taxi driver (perhaps he was both?) with long…
The Clogs are off to Amsterdam!
Pinch me hard ‘cos my clog blogger competition entry just won the Blog08 prize. In a nutshell, that means that I am now going to Blog08 in Amsterdam. This also means that I will be wearing clogs. All. Day. Long. The competition was a huge amount of fun to take part in and the other entries were…
Monkeys at work
You may recently have read my post about the Blue Monkey that Planetross sent me from Japan. Well, here’s a link that all monkey lovers out there should truly appreciate. This is a Japanese restaurant with a different sort of staff, and it’s already on the Epicurienne list of Must Eat There One Day. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7654267.stm
Blue Monkey Oracle Visits London
Planetross has a Blue Monkey Oracle who gives him Life Advice. Blue Monkey got tired of doing that in Japanese and decided to travel to London to stay with me and learn Engris. He got here yesterday. PR had warned me that the packing was plentiful and it was; Blue Monkey arrived intact, although a…
Vietnam Itinerary and Flights
Before I start divulging the many and different tales from our recent trip to Vietnam, I thought it might help to post the itinerary we followed. Day 1 Evening flight from London Heathrow to Bangkok. Day 2 Arrive Bangkok. Transfer to Mandarin Oriental Hotel. Day 3 Explore Bangkok with Driver Daeng. Day 4 Fly from…
9-11, The 7th anniversary
Everyone who was alive when planes hit the twin towers of the World Trade Centre knows where they were at the time. Seven years later, the legacy of that attack is still with us, in our actions, in our racism towards anyone who looks vaguely Middle Eastern, in our fear of flying, in our reactions…
Goodnight Saigon, Billy Joel
Here’s another Vietnam track to jog your memories. It’s one of my all-time favourite Billy Joel songs (along with ‘Allentown’ and ‘Honesty’). I listened to it over and over when I was (um, well) a lot younger than I am now and in the long version, the beginning of the track where the sound of…
Vietnamese, English and Roman Manholes
Pat Coakley keeps her readers busy. There’s no excuse for boredom with Pat on the case, inventing new homework for us all with astounding regularity. One of her recent challenges was photographing manhole covers. At the time I took up Pat’s challenge, Monsieur and I were in Nha Trang in Vietnam. Easy peasy, I thought,…
Epic Meeting – Adam of Vietnam Travel Notes
For some time now I’ve been pestering my blog-buddy, Adam, for help with planning our trip to Vietnam. He’s been saintly in his advice, recommending all sorts, from sights to guides, whilst whetting our appetite for this amazing country with his evocative photos. How does he know so much? Adam Hurley’s the man behind the blog, Vietnam…
Epicurienne 