However, the Dell case, a Precision T5400 case, cannot hold more than four hard drives and I used another case to house the 12 hard drives and a bunch of DVD drives.

This presented another problem – cables were needed to connect the computer to the hard drive case. And these are not ordinary cables. The RAID controller card, an Adaptec 31605 has four unified SAS/SATA ports – each with four lanes – giving a total of 16 lanes – ie, 16 directly attached hard drives (more hard drives can be added than this to the controller by the use of an SAS expander, but that’s a budget I can’t justify). So the data cables have to have these kind of plugs:

The image below shows the data expensive data cables coming out the front to the case below:

Now these ports do not have a normal home style SATA type socket – there are many more variations on the SAS/SATA sockets than what is seen in the home computers – this rules out long SAS/SATA cables that you can get for about 2 quid on eBay. I needed a 2 metre four-lane cable with specialist male external plugs on either end. And four of these.

The price for each of these were 40 quid, so its expensive stuff. Add to that bill are two four female sockets to accept the cable and convert to a 4-lane internal socket.

From there it finally split off into four cables each to the hard drives.

SAS hard drives do have similar power and data connectors as SATA drives – with one annoying caveat – there is no break between the power and data ports on the SAS – it form one long continuous connector – so you can’t use the individual power and data cables like you do on home SATA drives.

The DVD drives were simply connected by 2.5 metre SATA cables straight off the motherboard and out through into the hard drive case.

The hard drive case also need to be powered separately.

This makes for a rather untidy and inelegant setup. So – I’ve long pondered transplanting the Dell motherboard into another, larger case that could accommodate all the hard drives and DVD drives.

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1) It would mean all expensive cables are now redundant (although if I use more hard drives in future, then these would come in handy again).

2) Dell computers are famous for their non-propriety parts. I was concerned that while the motherboard looks like an EATX server board standard, the screw mounts may be offset ever so slightly. Their power supplies were famously non-standard – the plug would fit but the wiring were switched, leaving one with a fried motherboard. I’m told this was in the old days but it certainly fills me with confidence.

3) I wanted a case that was not too tall, to fit on the shelf in the cupboard which had a low sloping ceiling. It needed to support two power units as well.

In the end, I went for the Lian Li V2010B. It supports EATX sized boards, two power supply units. I believe Lian Li no longer makes these and there are newer versions perhaps.

It took around 45mins to remove the Dell motherboard completely from the Dell case and install it onto the removable motherboard tray as shown below:

It took another 15 mins to mount it inside the case along with the Dell PSU. I chose not to buy a third-party PSU yet as I’m unsure about the second power connector on the Dell motherboard – I know I’d need to make sure I get a third party PSU that is EATX compatible at least. I’d like to so I don’t have to use two power switches.

Immediately two problems became apparent as I began to add the bits and pieces

- the heatsinks for the CPUs will protrude into the Lian Li CPU cooler fan. Luckily the fan is quite adjustable.

- the PCIe/PCIx slots on the Dell board do not line up precisely to the Lian Li PCI openings. Only two of the lowest slots will fit, but as you go up the slots, it becomes more and more out of alignment – which is annoying as the higher slots are where my graphics card and RAID cards belong and they need to be well supported.

I have sort of bodged it by placing some thumb screws into the PCI brackets below those cards to support the cards. The top level card, which is a PCIe x8 slot wired as x4 and is used the the PCIe x1 wifi card and is completly out of alignment with the Lian Li PCI openings. Fortunately, the wifi card is light enough to be self supporting in its slot as long the external antenna cable isn’t pulled in the wrong direction!

The PSUs I have, both the Dell and the weird no-brand XPOWER PSU from Maplins has screw mounts that do not line up with the Lian Li PSU screw mounts – I could only get two screws in for both. Not ideal for such heavy things.

The 3.5″ hard drives, all are noisy 15,000 rpm SAS drives had to be taken from their 5.12″ to 3.5″ mounting brackets and put on Lian Li screws with rubber grommets. When the drives are slid into the case’s drive bays, it actually use those rubber grommets as the support points, not the screws themselves.

I wasn’t convinced those rubber grommets will do much good in dampening the 15krpm drives’ vibrations and noise. Furthermore, modern hard drives shed their heat by thermal contacts with the case mountings. And 15,000rpm drives do get very hot, probably hotter than those 2TB drives. However when in the case, I was amazed that the noise and vibrations were substantially reduced – those tiny grommets worked wonders. And my drives were cooler in this Lian Li case than in the old hard drive case with traditional mountings. This is in no doubt due to the dedicated 120mm fan blowing cool air over these drives and the resulting hot air sucked out by the PSUs’ fans on the other side. It’s a testament to Lian Li’s superb airflow design.

In fact, the 4 hard drive 2.5″ single 5.12″ backplane by SuperMicro is the nosiest component that can be heard from outside the case no thanks to its screeching tiny fan that runs at full speed irrespective of conditions. This isn’t the manufacturer’s fault as it was never designed for the home environment, it is usually for those noisy server rooms.

Wiring up 8 hard drives, and four DVD drives and a further 4 2.5″ drive backplane required careful planning if you want to keep it neat and tidy. That’s 13 data cables (the backplane uses one 4-channel data cable) and 13 power cables. It is made all the more worse when the 3.5″ SAS drives use a splitter to get its power through Molex sockets – damn inelegant! An example of it below:

In the end, I managed to get it as tidy as this with the help of some braiding to help with the cable management and improve airflow.

And isn’t it one very classy looking Dell Workstation?

And the desktop in the other room…

So to sum up – it was a relatively straight forward physical transplant of the Dell Precision T5400 EATX server board to a third party case with the following caveats:

1) The front panel with two USB sockets, audio sockets and the power on/off/reset switch is Dell’s properiety standard and have not figured out the pin layout except for the power on/off pins. Dell do not publish these and no one on the internet has done any homework yet!

2) The PCIe/PCIx slots may not line up with the PCI brackets on the case

3) The power supply for the board – I have not yet tried a third party PSU and kept to the Dell PSU for now and the screw mounting do not line up with Lian Li’s case screw mounts.

–

All the specialist SAS/SATA cables, ports and backplanes were brought from www.span.com – an IT company based in Surbition in South West London, UK – see bottom of page for full list of components and links should any of you are crazy enough to try it out!

–

Computer specification:

Dell T5400 Precision workstation
Lian Li V2010B extra large EATX tower chassis case
2.4GHz E5140 Intel Xeon processors (x2)
16GB FB-DIMMS, 666MHz
2GB Palit ATI Radeon 4870 OC hard with non-reference cooler PCIe x16 card
Adaptec 31605 16-port RAID PCIe x8 card with 256MB cache and battery backup
Wifi PCIe x1 card

Storage:

15,000 RPM SAS hard drives, 3.5″ (IBM, HP, Hitachi) (x8)
15,000 RPM SAS hard drives, 2.5″ (HP) (x4) (soon to be x8)
4-hard drive 2.5″ in 5.12″ backplane, SuperMicro x1 (another one to come)
Blu-ray rewriter and HD-DVD reader drive, LG, SATAII
DVD-Writer drives, Dell, x3

PSU:
Dell Precision 850 watts PSU
XPOWER 600 watts PSU
Total: 1450 watts

UPS:
Belkin 1200 kVA unit

Monitor:
Dell 3008WFP 30″ 2500×1600 connected via DisplayPort / alternatively via Dual DVI

OS:
Windows XP 64bit (considering going Windows 7 64bit Professional)

Span.com shopping list:

In final single case:
2x SFF8087 (miniSAS-36) Controller to 4x SFF8482 (SAS) Device, 75cm internal SAS/SATA, Multilane fanout [From RAID card direct to SAS 3.5" drives]
1x SAS/SATA Internal Backplane, CSE-M14TB, 4x 2.5″HD SAS, 1x 5.25″Bay [2.5" SAS backplane]
1x (miniSAS-36) to SFF8484 (SAS-32), 50cm internal SAS/SATA, Multilane [From RAID card to 2.5" SAS backplane]

If having a two-case setup, below is required: (Remember each cable carries four SAS/SATA signals)

1x Standard 300W PSU; uncabled, DA-18, 18-Bay 5.25″ Case [Case is designed for DVD/CD Drives, may require changing 300W PSU for larger wattage if you have lots of power hungry hard drives like me - read hard drive specifications and add plenty of watts on top per drive for headrooms (eg, for spin-ups) and PSU with enough Molex/SATA plugs]

12x 5.25″ to 3.5″ mounting brackets – get them from eBay Search Results in this link

2x miniSAS (SFF8087 to SFF8088) – PCI Bracket, 4 port SAS/SATA backplate (internal to external/vice versa), 4 multilane ports – for Areca cards, use another internal/external backplate card on span.com

3x miniSAS-26 to miniSAS-26 (SFF8088 to SFF8088), SAS/SATA external cable, 3m, Multilane [From one internal/external backplate to another]

3x SFF8087 (miniSAS-36) to SFF8087 (miniSAS-36), 30cm internal SAS/SATA, Multilane [From internal/external backplate to 3.5" hard drives]

3x SFF8087 (miniSAS-36) Controller to 4x SFF8482 (SAS) Device, 75cm internal SAS/SATA, Multilane fanout [From backplate direct to SAS 3.5" drives]

–
Other things handy to know:

If you have a separate case for hard drives, DVD/CD drives, and you buy a separate PSU, chances are, it won’t power up because you haven’t plugged in the redundant ATX motherboard connector. So, you can wire up two pins on the ATX plug to a switch or simply join them together. See http://www.directron.com/2powersupplies.html#addatx - but beware of old propriety Dell ATX connectors!!! Also, do not power on without at least one device draining electricity from the PSU or the PSU will burn out if nothing is connected and is powered on. Do this at own risk, do some research and if in doubt, leave it, I am not responsible for you making a mistake.

It is difficult to get hold of internal SATA cables longer than 2m – because SATA is not certified for longer lengths. 2m ones can be found on this eBay search link If you want to go longer than this, then get some cheap SATA to eSATA PCI brackets and you can get long eSATA cables (possible to get 2 ports per brackets). I don’t fancy doing this for data critical SATA hard drives, but DVDs/CDs/Blu-Rays seem fine.

Having more than one PSU is typically better than one very high wattage PSU due to efficiencies. This is because it is difficult to find a very efficient high wattage PSU (this is by limitations of technology and design) while you can get an 80 Plus Certified PSU, look closer and you can see the efficiency is less than 80% at maximum output. For example, 1000w is burned just to give you 750w. And since you are using just one PSU, you’re going to work that PSU harder – ie, need more watts out of it to power everything, potentially close to its maximum ratings where the efficiencies tail off, more heat and more fan noise. Two lower wattage PSUs can share the load, and because the load is shared, they aren’t working at their maximum draw and reach that nice apex in the PSU’s efficiency curve.

It is far easier to manufacture a 500w PSU that can reach as high as 87% efficiency, and probably higher still at slightly less than maximum draw. For example, a 500w PSU could have 90% efficiency at 480w and gives you 432w – two PSUs means 960w being burned to give you 864w instead of one PSU burning 1000w to give you just 750w.

The above is a crude example to illustrate how two PSUs can be better than one if you have high power draws – so it is worth doing your research on how much power you use and what PSUs are available on the market – not for greenie points but simply to make your PSU last longer, less heat to worry about, less noise and gives your backup UPS more battery time when the power goes out!

People keep asking me what Cambodia is like. Especially those who haven’t even left their own country.

I often answer very succinctly – “It’s different”. Obviously it an extremely vague answer, but it does sum up the country well. Every aspect of life is different, especially compared to the more developed countries, and I don’t mean just the western world; it’s quite different from neighbouring Thailand and Vietnam.

A track in the fields, Kampong Thom province, Cambodia

Living activities in Cambodia – one gets a sense it’s one long street outside the main cities of Phnom Penh, Battambang, Siem Reap and Shihanoukville (Kampong Som). Again it’s an unhelpful description of mine. In the western world, people live in a patch of area off the main road (in general), residential areas like cul-de-sacs. Main roads (high streets, first streets, Street 1, etc) tends to be shopping areas. In Cambodia, everyone lives on the throughfares of some description.

A random street in southern Cambodia

There was one place I visited in northern central Cambodia that actually was a cul-de-sac. I was gobsmacked. Of course, it’s not your average estate, but a collection of hut with a *dedicated access track* leading to it.

Living by the roads is a necessity for the vast majority of Cambodians. It seems the country is a nation of shopkeepers, hoping for some trade by passing people. Fuel in Johnny Walker Red Label bottles for your cycle adapted with a lawnmower engine, fruits, foodstuffs, drinks, cigarrettes, cows, baskets, engines, and body shells. Young babies and dogs are amazingly cunning at when to cross the road and avoiding being squashed.

Puncture? Nah, just take it off! Kampot, Cambodia

Corruption is endemic and so ingrained in the Cambodian pysche that when a corrupt transaction occur, absolutely no effort is taken to conceal it. People mutter in disgust behind closed doors and know it is a problem but no one really challenges it for fear of reprisals.

Life may be tough, but it’s a whole lot tougher in a Cambodian jail. Reading an English-language newspaper, the Cambodian Daily, I recollect a story about a westerner behind bars. Apparently he only get a thimble full of rice. Rice that was swept off the floor of a rice mill. He then need to boil it himself, but the only water available, allegedly, is from puddles. Sanitation, what sanitation? It must have been a shock for the westerner, but equally for the Cambodians behind bars – some probably thought it couldn’t have gotten any worse before detention.

The local people who work with us are paid very generously. One of our Cambodian staff paid a lady 500 riels as I didn’t have cash on me and I later repaid him. He said it doesn’t matter, it’s only 500 riels, it’s nothing. I pointed out that before he started working for us more than a year ago, 500 riels was not pocket change to him, almost like 5 quid to a minimum wage worker in the UK. This still can buy a few staple goods or an hour of internet access in my case. 500 riels is about 9 pence/14 US cents.

The Cambodian countryside is a rich variety of vibrant greens from the different stages of the rice agricultural cycle in the wet season. Come dry season, much of it is parched to a dusty brown or dull green colour.

Fields in Takeo province, Cambodia

The dry season can be very hot, 40c in Battambang in April, the hottest month, is not unusual. Closer to the wet season, humidity goes up like towering cumulonimbus clouds. Distant thunders rolls on relentlessly and flashes of lightning are frequent in the night sky.

Summer 2008 saw a notable lack of rain – sure it rained but not much. However, the following summer, it rained, rained, rained and rained. Days became like a UK winter up in the far north of Scotland – you notice a distinct lack of light and it seems like the sun is going to bed at 2pm despite the summer days becoming longer. It rained so much that a dam under construction upstream of Kampot has burst. Luckily the river is pretty wide at Kampot, that the effects was a bit of localised flooding.

Children in Cambodia, at first glance, appear to grow fast. Kids go to school and then come back home to take a cow for a walk, do some work, sell items, begging, look after their even younger siblings or ride a motorbike before they can ride a bicycle. But they really do let their hair down when it is time to play – be it in a river, lake, tree or a set of swings in a park and they are pretty aerobatic and I’m sure they could give the underage Chinese Olympic gymnastics a run for their money judging by their performance on the swings – way too high even for me when I was a kid! If they fall, they just pick themselves up, dust off and get back on again or tend to themselves if they bruised something.

Sadly, the time has come for me to leave Cambodia. I will miss the Honey Bar in Kampot – if you’re ever in the area, do give the bar a try, the two girls there are fantastic, plenty of music and a pool table at good prices and is fairly popular with the local expats.

For really good food, the Ritikiviki (damned if I remembered how to spell it) hotel/restaurant/bar on the riverside is extremely good, but they charge Phnom Penh prices (ie, pricey but relatively cheap to westerners). Nice balcony view of the river too.

Kampot, Cambodia

Goodbye Cambodia, will be back!

I’m not big on touristy places or being around more than 2 other tourists in the same spot – so that means going in the off-peak season, and as I like the remote areas, Western Australia in March seems ideal.

The original route was from Darwin to Perth via Broome – over 4,000 km.  However, it is off-peak season for a good reason – major rain storms pound the Kimberleys from December to April and there’s only one sealed road connecting Darwin and Broome as far as I could see.  And this road do get under water for weeks at a time, especially near Fitzroy Crossing.  As I only have three weeks, that wasn’t a risk I was prepared to take!

After ooh’aahing and thinking about cyclones off the north-west coast, I finally settled on Perth to Broome via Monkey Mia – some 2,500 km if I remember rightly.

I hired a 4×4 Bushcamper from Maui.  (Backpacker, Britz and Maui are all the same company – they are different by the quality of the vehicles and kits you get, and is ultimately reflected in the price).  They also do unlimited miles and it was surprisingly hard to find a hire company that doesn’t have a km fee.

There’s scant little information on the internet about the 4WD bushcamper – all I can say is that if you’re not going off the beaten track, get a larger vehicle, as it is pretty cramped in the back for two people.  That said, there’s plenty room to sleep for two people – it’s the setting up after a drive that is a hassle and constant re-arranging stuff – eg, you can’t open the cupboards with the lower bed out – nor can you sit on the couch while the upper bed is out.  It does come with a very efficient freezer/fridge that runs for a while on its own battery if the engine is off.  No air condition makes it a hot place to be at night in the tropical and humid north.  Two fans were brought from a hardware shop to try and get some breeze in the back overnight!

The 4WD Maui Bushcamper

Don’t get me wrong, the Maui 4WD Bushcamper is an extremely capable and well designed vehicle – with a powerful V8 4.5 turbo diesel engine, full frontal protection, snokel, off-road recovery kit, good *road* tyres, and two long range fuel tanks holding a whopping 180 litres in total – enough to drive a good 400-800km depending on your driving style/terrain.  Personally I refilled every time the main tank is near empty and only used the reserve for the last leg of the trip before handing the car over.   The vehicle comes with a water tank, gas tank and rental company provides a full gas bottle for use.  A gas cooker/sink bench can be slided out the side of the car.

It is a noisy car on the highway – everything rattles – if it’s not the cultery drawer, it’s the pots and pans, if it’s not those it’s the dashboard, or the snorkel.   Off-the-road, any vehicle is going to rattle anyway.

Go for the pop-up if you choose a bushcamper – this means the car isn’t so high when driving, less wind resistance, better fuel economy, and it means getting under those trees a bit easier in the bush.   Finally, it does say in the contract that the vehicle is to be returned in a clean condition – but what they really mean is that don’t bring the vehicle back if it’s been through a mud pit without wiping off the EXCESS dirt.  It does not have to be spotless.

Perth CBD

The Pinnacles (1 day’s drive north of Perth)

Kalbarri sandstone coast:

Hamelyn’s Pool – near Monkey Mia – the stromatolites – our living ancestors, unevolved over three-thousand million years (3,000,000,000 years).

Monkey Mia – it’s a bloody long way to get there!  Even by these Australian standards.

Most of this part of the coast in north-west Australia are coral reefs.

Ningaloo Reef, at Coral Bay, south of Exemouth.

Eighty miles of beach at… wait for it, Eighty Mile Beach, a good half day’s drive south of Broome.  Not a German and his towel in sight!

And no, we couldn’t swim in the water – a recent storm has brought up all the stingers to the shore.

Crocs at Broome Croc Park…

Broome at Sunset, and good-bye to the Indian Ocean as we make our way to the Red Centre…

After a brief stay on Rottnest Island (yes, we went back to the Indian Ocean again), we head to Ayers Rock Resort.  This resort is all owned and operated by one company.  And it’s a bit disappointing that they are not keeping up with maintanance and happy to charge an absolute fortune for the accommodation – food/drinks prices are better priced – that is, more on par with typical hotel rates.

Thankfully nature can always be relied on to be… reliable.

The mandatory Ayers Rock snap…

Then off to the east coast to Sydney for a couple days…

The Opera House

I still like the US of A better if I’m totally honest!  But then again, I only sampled a tiny part of this vast continent – so will have to come back one day and check out the east coast, probably on the Great Savannah Highway route and chuck in both Melborne and Adelaide in too.  But not before I tried New Zealand.

Against my better judgement, I took it for a swim, not realising that the water was much deeper than anticipated! Don’t try this unless without a snorkel unless you like the prospects of a hydrolised engine and/or malfunctioning electrics!

Still, after two hours of people trying to pull my car out, it was still running fine! Even the electrics (touch wood) are still going good.

Now that I’m back at work in Cambodia, my brother has the unenviable task of taken the carpet out to dry!

My brother’s car in the foreground and mine in the background…

Though I must say, later on in the day, I did end up with a contaminated air sensor – not sure if it was dirt or water that caused the sensor to fail.

Snorkels are next on our shopping lists! Any suggestions – I’ve looked around, and some just look crap?

Both Nissan Terrano II are fitted with a 4″ body lift, 33″ mud tyres (don’t get Broncos) and a bunch of other necessary things…

Both Europeans and Chinese would feel at home in Hanoi, with its distinctive and well preserved colonial and Chinese architecture in the city. However, the Ho Chi Minh city memorandum is distinctively Soviet/Communist looking with its cold blocky outline and devoid of features. Yet its sheer scale is impressive. Meanwhile, a theatre does a water puppet show, a Vietnamese traddition dating back 1,000 years – get the front row seats!

The Temple of Literature, situated in the heart of the city is an impressive place – people here took poetry, perhaps way too much, very seriously. It was built around 1,000 years ago in honour of Confucius and has been an university for over 700 years. I don’t know if I heard right, apparently graduating in this place was a pre-requisite to be an emperor of Viet Nam – a rather enlightening thought considering the place was built in AD 1070 – only 4 years after William the Conqueror defeated King Harold at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

A three-hour ride eastwards to the South China Sea from Hanoi takes you to the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Ha Long Bay – it is simply jaw droppingly beautiful with limestone jutting brutally out of the flat grey sea – these islets are remnants of an ancient karst landscape. It is possible to go inside one of the islets and see how the limestone has been eroded by rainwater percolating through the rocks.

It’s time to head to the old walled capital of Viet Nam – Hue, located in the central part and a very popular 1-hour Vietnam Airlines flight serves the Hanoi-Hue route. It was full to the brim on a big Airbus 330 when I was onboard, out of season.

Hue is home to a walled city and used to be the capital of Vietnam between 1800-something to 1945. The citadel has an absolutely gignatic flag – the flag towers over the massive old city walls of Hue in the photo and the flag is a good half mile away from the vintage point:

Around Hue are numerous historic monuments that earned it a place in UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites – one of the most spectacular ones has to be that of Khai Dinh’s tomb – the 12th and most unpopular emperor of Vietnam who reigned for just nine years between 1916 and 1925.

Several hours drive to the south, through some high hills, takes you to Da Nang, with some limestone hills jutting out of the town and reminiscent of the Ha Long Bay limestone peaks. Fantastic marble furniture can be found here at really cheap prices, made by hand by local people.

Nearby is the old town of Hoi An which is a better place to visit with its fantastic sandy beaches, tailor shops and the Thu Bon river. The old quarters is an UNESCO World Heritage site due to its well preserved example of an ancient major south-east trading port. Here I got two tailor-made silk shirts for $25. An utter bargain! Be sure to get some tailor made shoes here if you have the time! Also the town has lots and lots of paintings, and are well worth looking at, even if you have no intention of buying. A small museum contained weird exhibits from the mysterious Champa people who were around the area in 7-15th century.

Flying from Da Nang airport to Ho Chi Minh City takes a little over an hour with Vietnam Airlines. Saigon airport is much more modern and better catered to international travel with more shops. Just 12 hours after I used the domestic terminal, half of it burnt down! Allegedly an electrical fault.

Cu Chi Minh tunnels, about 45-minutes drive out of Saigon is well worth visiting but be sure to bring some mosquito repellent as you’re going to a very wet and dark sheltered area where mozzies abound and they will give you dengue fever if you’re not careful! Dengue fever have become an epidemic in Saigon in the last year or so. The tunnels and traps are tantamount to the ingenuity of the Vietnamese people – extremely clever devices, both simple and sophisticated were made with the simplest of materials yet painfully effective for the unfortunate enemies – such as foot trap where downwards facing hooks would trap a foot and the more you try to wiggle out, the more the hooks would become ingrained. And they would put snake poison from many species on the spikes. Tiny and well hidden holes in the ground where a large dog would struggle to go through, have been used by the local people to escape into and hide. Huts are made out of leaves that are not only flame retardant but also extinguishes any flame that took hold.

Meanwhile back in Saigon, the Vietnam War museum is a must-see, a stomach-churning account of what the Americans did in Vietnam – no doubt this is biased heavily against the USA, but there’s some pretty compelling evidence in form of photographs in the museum, some are extremely gruesome. If you don’t leave with a tear in your eye, then you’re a very very cold person or didn’t look through the museum!

Nearby is an excellent handicraft shop, its employees are disabled, some disabled by the effects of napalm bombing by the Americans, and others from UXOs. They painstakingly produce lacquer plates of all sizes using egg shells or mother of pearl shells and produces stunning pictures. Some of the biggest pictures are just $200, though if you go for the pearl ones, that can treble the prices!

It is also worth taking a look at the old parliament for South Vietnam before the 1960s conflict – it has a good, if very short history and probably give clues as to how current governments around the world operates.

Onwards to extreme south, to Cantho, 4-5 hours by road, in the vast rice plains of the Mekong Delta. This town is very much a party town for the local people, and probably serves the best cat meat in the country. From here, take a cruise through the floating market on the Mekong delta and then ask your boat captain to take you through the maze of backwaters to look at the rural and watery life for another world of living differently.

On the way back to Cantho, drop by MyTho for a visit to some of the islands in the Mekong delta and a ride on a Sampan boat, and try out a wide range of fresh fruits picked on the island. Watch out for the python snakes though!

Prices in Vietnam:

$1 == 16,000 Dong / £1 == 30,000 Dong (as at October 2008)
Roughly $0.75 to $1 for a bottle of local beer.
Roughly $4 to $7 for a good meal
Roughly $2 to $10 for wee handmade souvenirs.
Roughly $550 a year average salary of Vietnamese people.
Ho Chi Minh City is the most expensive place to buy things, but Hanoi is probably the priciest for properties!

Everything can be bargained for – offer to pay for less than half the price they ask for, to pay for half price!

I think Vietnam is a fantastic, hugely underrated country that have some unusual things waiting to be discovered by visitors. Something in the country will surprise you and something else will shock you. 10 days was not enough for a north-south tour, easily 2.5 weeks to be put aside for this!

My next flights are also with them, same route and will happen after a month’s time. So, we’ll see if anything changed.

Dear Mr Sterry

Thank you for coming back to us.

We carefully consider what our customers tell us – not only here in the
customer relations department but right up to Board level. So when a
customer has been dissatisfied, as you clearly were, you can be
confident your voice has been heard at the highest level in British
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We meet with our Board every month to share our customers’ views with
them. This means we can invest in and improve the areas that matter
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We recognise this is an aspect of our service we need to improve. We
now have a specialist team whose responsibility is to achieve exactly
that, and they report directly to our Board.

Thank you for contacting us and for choosing British Airways. We
genuinely appreciate your custom and look forward to welcoming you on
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After my last experience with British Airways, when I flew a return trip from London to Los Angeles way back in 2004, I was hesitant to try BA long haul again. For short trips, I like BA over other airlines in Europe, even for all its faults, the ride is more enjoyable than with other airlines.

But long haul is a different story.

First, in-flight entertainment is pretty much essential – you can only read so many pages of a book before you’re all booked up – and with me being a very fast reader, I can finish a book in a few hours in a flight. Back in 2004, on that return trip to LA, a flight of some 10 to 11 hours, there were about three movies out of 12 that were subtitled (in English) on the outbound flight, but the return leg had no such subtitled movies at all. I complained to the duty manager at Heathrow airport on my return and she upgraded my domestic flight for me as I was so travel wary by that point.

Fast forward exactly four years. London to Hong Kong means stuck in a metal tube for just shy of 12 hours. I hoped the in-flight entertainment system has been upgraded. It was. It has over 100 channels of entertainment thanks to the marvels of computer technology. You’d be forgiven if you thought there would be at least ten channels with English subtitles (seeing as British Airways mostly operate out of the UK to far flung destinations). Nope, there were just two channels with subtitles – Ironman (a blockbuster movie) and some kids movie. That’s it. I have another 10 hours to kill.

I was very disappointed that my complaint four years ago has fallen on deaf ears and that BA haven’t used the new technology to provide subtitles. They lag behind competitors like Virgin Atlantic who provided portable DVD players with DVD in 2004 for deaf customers during flight. Malaysia Airlines had at least 20 movies with English subtitles. So did Singapore Airlines. If they can do it, why can’t BA match them or do better and subtitle the documentaries too?

A staff member at BA doesn’t seem to get it at all… the first paragraph seems to suggest I can’t watch subtitled programmes! I fired off a reply so we’ll see how this develops…

[quote="British Airways Customer Services"]
Thank you for writing to us. I am sorry you were disappointed with the
in-flight entertainment on your recent trip to Hong Kong. I can
understand how frustrating situation it must have been as could not
watch any programme with English subtitles. Please accept my sincere
apologies.

People’s tastes vary widely and we do try to meet the expectations of
our range of customers. We are now in the process of revolutionising
our onboard entertainment systems to give you more choice and control
over what you watch or listen to, and when, throughout your flight.

On all our long haul flights we are installing individual touch control
for every seat – with control over a choice of 100 films, TV programmes,
music albums, radio channels and audio books.

There will be a touch screen or handset fitted in each seat for you to
start, stop, fast forward and pause your own entertainment. For our
younger customers, we offer a dedicated Skyflyers selection of
children’s movies, TV, music and stories. In our FIRST, Club World and
World Traveller Plus cabins there is also a new choice of 20 games.

Another great innovation is the touch-screen questionnaire, so you can
tell us exactly how you feel about the entertainment selection on your
flight, and how we can improve it for you next time.

It will take a little while to roll out the new in-flight entertainment
system on all our aircraft, but I hope that next time you travel you
enjoy the range of entertainment on offer.

By way of an apology, I would like to offer you Highlife Shop! vouchers
for £50 with my compliments. You can put them towards items on British
Airways flights where the Highlife Shop! range is available. The expiry
date is shown on the voucher and they are not renewable. You will
receive it shortly at your postal address.
[/quote]

Cambodian election parades

Today is the national elections in Cambodia. The third one since the democracy was reinstated in 1993 and Hun Sen, prime minister since 1985, is expected to win yet again with his Cambodia People Party.

With each national elections, violence has decreased, and this one looks to be pretty smooth, with demonstrations by rival parties being allowed – normally it is unlawful to organise a mass of people on the streets. Parties have taken advantage of this window of opportunity to rally up supporters and go on a parade throughout Cambodia.

The people here certainly seem very much the opposite of apathetic people in the UK where perhaps as much as 40% of the UK electorate votes.  I suspect the incentive is stemming from being a young democracy and the recent bloody past remains a constant reminder of how bad things can get.

Cambodia election parades

Cambodian election parades

If you like to know more about it – email my brother at leigh [-at-] sterry.me.uk as he did most of the work! (I had to walk the dog instead).

Anyhow… the following additions have been made…

* Quickshift gear lever
* New black 16″ by 10.5″ wheels
* 33″ MT tyres by Bronco
(I don’t recommend buying from them as they are unreliable with deliveries – promised to deliver 6 tyres within a week, then admitted none in stock but the factory has it and be ready in 3 days, then said it’s ready in a week – it took six full weeks – it would be fine if they’d said this in the first place!)
* Bull bars re-fitted (needed new mounting brackets after body lift)
* Roof racks (seems it stuck up there as it’s too high up to reach and take off!

More (and bigger pictures in the gallery)