Dartmoor ponies roam wild near Haytor.

The rolling hills of the South Hams

Sunset over the open fields of the South Hams.

Light breaks through the clouds over Dartmoor, viewed from the top of Haytor.

And what better way to finish the day than with a Cream Tea: scones, jam and clotted cream.

My favourite moments have to be: hanging out with the monkeys at the Jigokudani hot springs, wandering the Forbidden City in Beijing, walking along an unrestored section of the Great Wall of China, eating at a lesser-known floating market in Bangkok, early morning at Bayon in Angkor Wat, visiting the slums of Mumbai, driving the Tioga Pass in California, sunset at Bryce Canyon, waking up on the junk boat in the middle of the rock formations of Halong Bay Vietnam and watching the clouds unfold at Lantau Peak.

Then, of course, with so much travel, there are things that I’d like to never repeat: such as having chronic diarrhea on the overnight train from Sapa, being driven around in circles in Hanoi, the endless chatter from the Vietnamese bus driver to Halong Bay… Hmmm… they all seem to be from Vietnam. Guess I won’t be rushing back there.

All of these images are available for sale as poster prints on request.

Instead, this year, I’m setting an objective based on personal development: “to shoot with a remote-triggered off-camera flash whenever possible”. That is, not just to settle for the ambient outdoor light that I generally do, but to concentrate on adding lighting a controlled manner.

Let’s see how it goes. Happy New Year everyone.

New Year’s Eve Fireworks over Kuala Lumpur.

I was embarrassed. This jerk was English and so am I. “Brits Abroad”, I thought. “No wonder we get such a bad reputation”.

I stepped towards the man. Part of me wanted to find of why he had something against the Press. Part wanted to know if he went around accusing every tourist with a big camera in such a way. Part wanted to calm him down because it was simply an embarrassing display of Brits Abroad.

In hindsight it turned out to be the wrong decision as the 6ft heavy-set white guy rose his fist above his head and brought it crashing downwards. I managed to move slightly so it just struck on the back of my neck, without any injury. The arm went up again and came down a second time. My right hand was carrying my camera, so the only thing I could do was block its descent with my left. I was a little shocked at the completely unprovoked attack.

A policeman stepped in and pulled me away. I wondered why he was pulling me and then I realized The Disgrace was far too big to be moved by the small policeman.

There the drama finished. I walked away, still having profanities thrown after me. What a shame people that behave that way are even given passports to leave the UK. And a word of warning to all you tourists with professional-looking cameras: you might be accused of being a member of the Press and beaten accordingly!

However, a small bad incident shouldn’t cloud an otherwise wonderful day; the pictures were fantastic. They’ll follow shortly.

Today is Boxing Day. I can’t remember a single Boxing Day when I’ve risen at 3.30am and washed so quickly before hiking for about 30 minutes straight up to a clear vantage point to see the dawn. We were at Sunrise Viewpoint. The pictures we’d seen we’re spectacular and I was almost running up the hill to try to get a good spot for the tripods. However, the weather wasn’t kind to us today and as the cloud-filled sky became lighter, so a dense cloud bank rolled through the valley. We gave it a good amount of time to see if it would clear like it had for us on previous occasions but it was not to be this time. The guide told us afterwards that the best month is November.

Afterwards we went down to the valley floor. The tourist attraction was to walk up to the edge of an active volcano, but we heard the lava had cooled in early July, leaving just a black crust, so we decided to give that a miss – one steep climb was enough for the early morning – and instead spent some time chasing the horses and their riders around the plains for some environmental portraits.

We returned to the Lava View Lodge, which actually has a very good view of the valley that we had missed the previous day because we had arrived so late, where we had some breakfast. Then it was time for the 8 hour (edit its actually 11 hours – 5 hours drive to the East coast, 1 hour on the ferry, and then 5 more hours drive) journey to our next destination, Ubud.

For those interested in going, the best way is to go to Hang Hau MTR. Then take green minibus #101 to Sai Kung. From there take bus #94 or a taxi to Wong Shek ferry pier. After that take a ferry to Chek Keng and then walk over the ridge on the Maclehose trail and keep going until you reach the beach (about 1 hour).

View Larger Map