Cycling & Sailing Around the World • 70,000 Kilometres by Bicycle & 22,000 Nautical Miles by Sail

Japan in Monochrome

Benji — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 05:09:34 +0000

This is the start of what I intend to be an extensive photo essay on Japan—shot entirely on film—and hopefully the world if I decide that the value of a 35mm SLR out weighs the inconvenience and physical cost of luging it around. This is an old issue for me that comes up every time I . . . → Read More: Japan in Monochrome

First Stage Slideshow

Benji — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 01:06:41 +0000

Here I’ve cobbled together a selection of photos from the first stage of the journey. The photos are more or less in chronological order representing the 10 countries travelled: Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, China and Japan. There’s 150 images so if you have the stamina you could set the speed slider (top . . . → Read More: First Stage Slideshow

New Toy

Benji — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 14:53:21 +0000

I was pretty happy yesterday when my film scanner arrived in my sleepy little town from Tokyo, or wherever the Amazon warehouse is located. It’s no substitute for the darkroom (as a friend once said, “You lose all the beautiful filminess!”) but at least I’ll finally be able to digitise the film I’ve shot in the last . . . → Read More: New Toy

Hand Painted Signage in Asia

Benji — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 12:25:44 +0000

I just spent the weekend trying to (finally) bring this new version of my website up-to-date, reposting the old journals and attempting to put some sort of logical order to things. And I figured while I’m at it I should finish sorting out my photographs from the first stage and archive them properly. It was the . . . → Read More: Hand Painted Signage in Asia

First blog, I think

Benji — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 18:38:11 +0000

This is my first blog, I think. I admit that I wasn’t really sure what a blog is or is supposed to be, so I looked it up in Wikipedia. I learnt, for instance, that blog is contracted from web log. Blog, unlike frog or clog, slipped into my vocabulary without fully knowing its definition. That’s . . . → Read More: First blog, I think

New earthodyssey.net site

Benji — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 07:13:13 +0000

My new earthodyssey.net site CURRENTLY UNDER CONSTRUCTION!

Dear all

Apologies for disappearing the last couple of weeks. It’s been a necessary inconvenience in order to set up a new site for my journey around the world. If you sent me an email in December or January and haven’t received a response it’s because my account was temporarily disabled.

I . . . → Read More: New earthodyssey.net site

Japan

Benji — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 07:42:49 +0000

#11

10 January 2008—12 February 2008

‘You have only to see what you see and feel what you feel.’ —Mineko Iwasaki

I had a fundamental decision to make. One that had been rolling around in my head since day one, and I knew I would have to face up to it in the next year: east or . . . → Read More: Japan

China

Benji — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 07:25:41 +0000

#10

26 November 2007—7 January 2008

One of my final glimpses of Vietnam was of a motorcycle loaded sky-high with caged chickens, hitting the skids and coming to grief on hwy 1A. Considering my experience there, a road accident full of chickens seemed an unsurprising and appropriate image to depart with. Needless to say, the chooks were pretty . . . → Read More: China

Laos & Vietnam

Benji — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 05:02:37 +0000

3 November 2007—25 November 2007

BACK INTO THAILAND

Contrary to information I had received in Bangkok from the Laos embassy, I discovered that visas aren’t in fact available on entry at the Cambodia-Laos border on the Mekong River, which had supposedly been recently upgraded to International Status. This meant I had to make a visa run to Phnom . . . → Read More: Laos & Vietnam

Thailand & Cambodia

Benji — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 08:55:07 +0000

9 October 2007—2 November 2007

‘A person who thinks all the time has nothing to think about except thought.’ —Alan Watts

BANGKOK

In Southeast Asia all roads lead to Bangkok, and if you can see through the smog you’ll see that even in Thailand’s capital city the Thai live by their maxim ‘chai yen’ or ‘keep a cool heart’ (meaning . . . → Read More: Thailand & Cambodia