With a last minute guest but a welcome return appearance by Dick Curtis at the lectern…
The January London meeting format was 4 shorter talks rather than the usual 2 longer ones. Our first speaker was Tessa Mills, who spoke about Gap Years for grown ups. Tessa was on the point of buying a house but suddenly decided to buy a round the world ticket and have some fun, wouldn’t we all like to be able to do that! She headed first to a chilly Vancouver before heading across the Pacific to the warmer climes of Australia and Cambodia’s stunning Angkor Wat. In Vietnam Tessa did a cookery course in Hoi An, via Thailand to India to see the Taj Mahal and Rajastan, before landing in Vienna on her way home.
Our second speaker was Barbara Brooks, who also was lucky enough to take a year out. Although she again travelled RTW, her main goal was to reach Easter Island (AKA Rapa Nui), a place that has captivated Barbara’s imagination since childhood. To get there she went via Polynesia, though going via Santiago in Chile is the other option. She told us that Easter Island is a volcanic island, it has 3 volcanoes, is largely barren of trees, because these were used to transport the giant Moai carved figures that the island is famous for. We saw lots of pictures of the Moai looking out to sea and also ones that were still being carved. The island hosts around 1000 tourists at a time. Barbara recommended that anyone going should visit the Museum first to get an understanding of the island and Moai.
After the break Neil Harris took us to Taiwan. To enter Taiwan you don’t need a Visa (UK Nationals), but although Neil had pre booked his hotel finding it was another matter as Taiwan is lacking in English tourist information, luckily he had the name of his hotel in Mandarin, so eventually found his bed in Taipei. Taipei does have a metro system for getting around with signs in English so Neil was able to explore the city, taking in the SunYat Sen Temple, The Imperial Treasures and of course his reason for going to see what was at the time the world’s tallest building, 101 building. On a quirkier note Neil also showed us “The Bog Tea shop” and the “Iffy Coffee” shop!
Our last speaker was Gavin Fernandes, entitled Chinese Press gang. Gavin spent a year in China studying photo journalism. During this time he was invited to take part in an exercise to help promote tourism, by being taken to Hubei province to photograph tourist sights, local factories and the people. In return for free travel, accommodation and food, plus matching yellow t-shirt and photographers jacket, he had to give the organisers 150 of his photos to be used in their publicity. Gavin photographed such delights as a 2000 year old tree, photogenic toddlers as well as being taken to photograph more mundane subjects like a car factory. While the western press pack were snapping away, they themselves were being snapped by local Chinese press. Some of Gavin’s work was used in local papers as well as publicity material including a great photo of a warrior monk in the Shao Lin temple.
As is customary after the January meeting we then enjoyed our New Year’s Party, which as usual was well catered for with members bringing contributions, but also thanks to Jacqui Trotter who once again spent the afternoon underneath the hall in the kitchen producing lovely hot food. Happy New Year
By Padmassana
For details of the forth coming meetings of the London branch, December 2008 through to July 2009 – http://www.globetrotters.co.uk/meetings/lon09it1.html.
London meetings are held at The Church of Scotland, Crown Court, behind the Fortune Theatre in Covent Garden at 2.30pm the first Saturday of each month, unless there is a UK public holiday that weekend. There is no London meeting in August, but we start afresh in September. For more information, contact the Globetrotters Info line on +44 (0) 20 8674 6229, or visit the website: www.globetrotters.co.uk.