Easyjet one of the UK's low cost airlines has just announced flights to three new destinations: London Luton to Rijeka starting 30th June and also to Istanbul starting 29th June plus London Gatwick to Marrakesh starting 4th July. See their website.
All posts by The Beetle
Fave Website
Spotted by Tony of London: ever needed to know what the time was half way round the world? This website tells you the current time just about anywhere in the world.
In considerably bad taste, here's a website that offers tours to see Schappelle Corby in her prison cell in Bali.
Fly Me To The Moon
The Space Adventures company, the American company that arranged for multi millionaire tourists to hitch a ride into space on Russian rockets is planning to turn Singapore into the world's main centre for space tourism. The company wants to set up its own launch pad and astronaut training centre on Singapore and also make the price of a space flight more affordable. Space Adventures currently charges $20m (£11.5m) per passenger to arrange a ride into orbit on a Russian spacecraft. But it says the new service will be a comparative snip at $102,000 (£59,000) a head.
Know Your Riyals from Your Kwatcha
Need to convert currency?
Take a look at The Globetrotters Currency Converter – get the exchange rates for 164 currencies The Globetrotters Currency Cheat Sheet – create and print a currency converter table for your next trip.
Zimbabwean Mermaids
Sometimes you don't know you're being conned, but here's a scam surely to end all scams: a fake Zimbabwean traditional healer has been found guilty of scamming a businesswoman out of $30,000 to pay for “mermaids” to recover her stolen car. The healer said that money was necessary to import the mermaids from the UK and put them up in a local hotel and also to pay for a bull, whose genitals would supposedly help find the thief of her luxury vehicle. The woman healer also asked for money to buy mobile phones to contact the mermaids.
Mutual Aid
Need help? Want a travelling buddy or advice about a place or country – want to share something with us – why not visit our Mutual Aid section of the Website: Mutual Aid
Chris needs your ideas: he is planning to travel to India buy an Enfield motorbike and ride it back to the UK. If anyone has any information or knows any websites that could help him, please contact him on: glanrid@tiscali.co.uk
Can anyone help Bob? Here is his appeal: please don't think I'm a bona fide nut but I am going daffy trying to think of the international association of people who partake of exotic and eccentric foods. It's a well known “club”, of sorts, but the name eludes my friends and I. If anyone can shed some light on our dilemma, we'd love to hear from you – many thanks, Bob. E-mail address: ching3us@yahoo.com
Lost US Luggage
At a time when if you lock your case flying from the US, it will be forcibly opened and searched, news comes in from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics that more bags were lost, damaged, delayed or pilfered by U.S. airlines last year than in at least eight years.
Reports of mishandled bags on domestic flights rose 23 percent in 2005, from 4.91 per 1,000 passengers in 2004 to 6.04 per 1,000. That's an average of about 9,700 lost or damaged bags each day.
Of the 20 carriers that reported to the Transportation Department, Atlantic Southeast Airlines had the highest rate of baggage complaints — 17.41 per 1,000 passengers — and Hawaiian Airlines had the lowest, at 2.95 per 1,000.
EU Bans 92 Airlines
The European Union has issued a blacklist banning 92 airlines from operating in the region, stating that they fail to meet international standards. Most of the airlines are African based, including 50 carriers from the Democratic Republic of Congo, 14 from Sierra Leone and seven from Swaziland. The list is available from the BBC here.
Have you got a tale to tell?
If you have a travellers tale that your aching to tell. Then why not visit the “Travel Sized Bites” section of the Website and share it with the world. Travel Sized Bites
Ferry Collides with Whale
A high-speed Japanese ferry has collided with what is thought to be a whale, leaving 49 people injured, 13 of whom in a serious condition. The two-deck ferry, carrying more than 100 passengers and crew, was near the city of Kagoshima on the southern island of Kyushu when it happened. Ships in the area often collide with whales, a ferry company spokesman said.
Shark Stealth Spies
A recent BBC report tells of a British magazine, the New Scientist, that says Pentagon scientists are planning to turn sharks into “stealth spies” capable of tracking vessels undetected. Apparently, they aim to remotely control the sharks by implanting electrodes in their brains, “to exploit sharks' natural ability to glide through the water, sense delicate electrical gradients and follow chemical trails”. The next step for the Pentagon scientists will be the release of blue sharks with similar devices into the ocean off the coast of Florida.
Travel Warning East Sabah
At the end of 2005, the Beetle was diving around Sipadan, East Sabah, so she was particularly interested in an Australian travel issued 28th Feb warning to its nationals: “We strongly advise you not to travel to coastal resorts and other centres on and islands and dive sites off the east coast of Sabah because of the high threat of kidnapping by terrorists. Terrorists have, in the past, kidnapped foreigners from the eastern coast of mainland Sabah, and from the islands and sea off its east coast. If you are in these areas you should consider leaving. We cannot rule out the possibility of kidnappings.
Now at the beginning of March, the Malaysian authorities are a little upset by this warning and have asked Australia to retract its advisory to its nationals against visiting Sabah because of the risk of a terrorist threat. Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said the statement that Sabah was at risk of a terrorist threat was inaccurate. He said Malaysia had no knowledge of any report that might have been referred to by the Australian government for it to issue such a travel advisory.
“We can't do anything if a foreign country wants to issue travel advisories but, in the case of Sabah, we're sure the security situation there is under control, with many police and military personnel being deployed there. There are no untoward incidents happening in Sabah,” he said after receiving about 30 Umno Youth leaders led by Umno Youth Chief Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein, at his office.
“Any travel advisory would cause worry among foreign tourists and, therefore, it's our responsibility to do something so that this will not continue.
“Though we don't agree, though we're not happy with what has been done by Australia, we've to do something so that they can withdraw the travel advisory as soon as possible,” he said.
Plane Remedies
CNN recently ran an article, spotted by Webmaster Paul about what do you do when you are on a plane and surrounded by people coughing and snuffling or you are the one with a cough and cold. A US doctor recommends these actions: as colds and the flu spread through droplets and close contact, it's important to wash your hands frequently with soap and warm water, particularly after touching surfaces others have recently touched or after shaking hands. Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth, because germs are easily spread that way. If you're coughing or sneezing, it use a tissue to cover your nose and mouth, if you want to go that extra mile, wear a mask that covers your nose and mouth.
Chopsticks Are Extra
The Chinese government is introducing a 5% tax on disposable wooden chopsticks in a bid to preserve its forests. It produces about 45 billion pairs of chopsticks a year, consuming millions of trees and bamboo plants.
Bird Flu Update
According to the World Health Organisation, the number of people who have died from bird flu around the globe has reached 103 since late 2003. The latest deaths from the H5N1 strain occurred in Azerbaijan, where five have died since February, the WHO reported.
Confirmed human deaths:
- Vietnam – 42
- Indonesia – 22
- Thailand – 14
- China – 10
- Azerbaijan – 5
- Cambodia – 4
- Turkey – 4
- Iraq – 2
MEETING NEWS
Meeting news from around the world
Meeting News from London by Padmassana
Our first speaker was Gavin Fernandes, who showed us life and death at Varanassi. Daily life including everything from bathing, praying, meditating and funerals taking place on the ghats by the side of the river. We saw ash covered saddhus and Bollywood films being made. Gavin also showed us the Kumb Mela, (a grand Hindu Festival and Ceremony, taking place every four years,) where millions of pilgrims go for a dip to cleanse their sins in the Ganges. Gavin got to know some of the Saddhus who allowed him to take photos in return for some copies for themselves.
After the break our second speaker was Alistair Humphreys, who took four and a half years to cycle round the world, covering over 46,000 miles in the process. His route taking him via Europe, Middle East, Africa, by boat to Rio, from where he took a bus down to the tip of South America so that he would be able to say he had cycled the whole way up to Alaska. He took a ship to Siberia and cycled through temperatures of minus 40 in Russia, then down through Japan and along the great wall of China, then back though central Asia, disappointingly having to miss Iran because of visa problems. 46,000 miles over four and a half years condensed into 45 minutes for Globetrotters, well done Alistair.
By Padmassana
Forthcoming meetings:
- Saturday 4th March, Jane Robinson – “The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands” and Neville Shulman OBE –Climbing the Equator
- Saturday 1st April (no joke!), Jonathon Kaplan – “A surgical Sojourn in the Mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan” and Anne Mustoe — “The Amber Route”
Full Details can be found on the website London Meeting Page.
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. There is no London meeting in August, but we will be back in September. For more information, you can contact the Globetrotters Info line on +44 (0) 20 8674 6229, or visit the website: www.globetrotters.co.uk
Overseas Meetings
We used to have meetings in New York City and New Braunfels, Texas. Regrettably, after having done a superb job, neither organisers are able to give their time to Globetrotter meetings. If you are based in New York or New Braunfels and have the time to commit to pick up where our previous organisers left off, we'd love to hear from you – please see our FAQ or contact our the Branch Liaison Officer via our Website at Meeting FAQ. If you are based elsewhere and are interested in starting a branch of the Globetrotters, please feel free to contact us.
Meeting News from Ontario
For information on Ontario meetings, please contact Svatka Hermanek: shermanek@schulich.yorku.ca or Bruce Weber: tel. 416-203-0911 or Paul Webb: tel. 416-694-8259.
Meetings and travel presentations are held on the 3rd Friday in January, March, May (4th Friday), September and November at the Old York Tower, 85 The Esplanade (SouthEast corner of The Esplanade & Church) – two blocks east of the Union station. Public parking garage is at the foot of Church Street right next to the Old York Tower at 8.00 p.m.
Padmassana Visits Lebanon
On Christmas Eve I flew from London to Beirut on BA and landed during a spectacular thunderstorm. I managed to get in for free after buying a visa at the airport bank for $18, the immigration man said it's free today, go, and get your money back, so we did! By total coincidence, the next morning the first person I saw at breakfast was Katerina, a fellow Globetrotter from London!
I was part of an organised tour of the Lebanon and
there were 10 of us. We left Beirut on Xmas day and headed south
via the Corniche to the port city of Sidon. On the way we passed
near to the sports complex behind which there are massive Shatila
and Shabra Palestinian refugee camps, where the massacres in the
1980's happened. In Sidon we visited the Caravanserai where
there is a collection of photographs showing the hours leading up
to and the assassination of president Hariri in February 2005;
the devastation from the 350kg car bomb has to be seen to be
believed.
Also in Sidon we saw the Crusader castle which is reached by a stone bridge across the sea. The castle is well preserved and there are lots of towers and ramparts to explore, though at lower levels of the castle we had to avoid the massive waves that were breaking over the castle. In Sidon we also visited, the market and the soap museum, which is quite interesting.
Our next stop was the drive up into the Chouf mountains to Deir
el Qamar to our Auberge, a lovely place to stay run by an
eccentric old French lady who had a roaring log fire, just as
well as it was very cold. Our Christmas dinner was a meze: loads
of meat and bread, etc, very nice, and no sheep's eye balls
to be seen. (My mother had predicted a Christmas dinner of
sheep's eye balls)! 
We had planned to go walking in the Cedar forest, but the rain in Beirut had been 3ft of snow in the mountains so that was abandoned. The snowy trip over the mountains into the Bekaa valley was precarious and our driver had to be careful not to hit parked vehicles that you couldn't see as they were buried in snow. On the other side of the mountains we visited the Ummayad ruins at Anjar which borders Syria, but again it was raining, so we saw the main buildings and temples, but it was too cold too really take our time, so after a chicken shawarma and chips it was up into “Hezbollahville”, aka Baalbeck, famous for its fantastic ruins.
Our hotel was right opposite the ruins, and pretty spectacular
they are too. We had a local guide to take us round, as Baalbeck
is quite a big place, and also home to Hezbolah. There were
yellow signs showing a fist with a Kalashnikov all over the place
and local people try to sell you Hezbolah flags and t-shirts and
there are people collecting for the cause. I had a wander around
Baalbeck in the evening, a nice place and despite those that run
it, it was not in the least threatening, bought some sweets off
an ex-Australian Lebanese who called me “mate”!
We were supposed to go straight to the Qadisha valley from Baalbeck, but because of the holiday weekend we had not visited Beit Eddin, due to it being Christmas day on the Sunday and the day off for public building employees on the Monday. Beit Eddin is a fantastic palace, very much in the style of the Alhambra in Granada, lovely architecture, beautiful fountains and gardens. We had to make quite a detour to this, but it was well worth it, we then skirted back around Beirut and then up to Byblos on the coast.
Byblos or Jbail to give it its proper name has some nice Roman ruins and a castle. It was also where our guide Nasim lives so as there were only 10 of us we went round his house for tea and cakes with his sister and Father, which was nice. During that night the PFLP (Peoples Front for the Liberation of Palestine) lobbed a couple of Katusha rockets over the border into Israel, a while later 30 miles south of us the Israeli air force bombed a Palestinian camp in South Beirut, we heard “something” in the night but didn't find out what had happened until the next morning.
Went next to Tripoli, a lovely old city by the sea, fantastic
castle to clamber over, ramparts giving great views with sheer
drops off the side, in Europe there 
would be “Don't climb the
ramparts” signs and a huge big fence to stop you, not in
Lebanon, go where you like and we did.
Then went down into the market great fun eating hot bread straight from the bakers. We got into the big mosque too. I love the architecture of these places, the girls with us were given all covering pink robes, looked like a day out for the KKK or a bunch of druids at the Solstice. Then we drove into the mountains to Bcharre, home to the writer/painter Gibran. His stuff is not my kind of thing and there's no chance of it ever touring Saudi Arabia or Iran as nobody in his pictures has a stitch on and as for what they are getting up to…..After a quick look round we came out and built a snowman and had a snowball fight!
We spent the night in an Hermitage called St
Elysee, whose back wall is actually the rock of the mountain
behind. To get to the place we had to go down a steep mountain
road that was a sheet of ice – which was exhilarating, but the
next day we had to come out by the same way and ended up using
snow chains and taking runs at bends to get round them. We were
also supposed to do a walk here, but were forewarned about the 12
inches of mud and 2 ft of snow by another group that had tried
the walk and had to give up. Instead we went to Byblos for lunch
and then down to Jeita Grotto, a fantastic series of caves which
were brilliant. After the caves we went to Jounie and got the
cable car and funicular up to the top of the hill behind the
town, which has a giant statue of the Virgin Mary, but we just
made it for sunset.
We finished up in Beirut and first visited the
famous Corniche that runs by the sea, the place to be seen in the
1970's but now a bit tatty. Then down to Martyrs square which
is the start of the “Green Line” that divided east and
west Beirut during the war. The buildings directly on the line
have been rebuilt or restored, but you only have to go a street
or so east or west to find the evidence of 15 years of war.
Beirut is on an extremely high state of alert. There are tanks and armed police and army all over the place – they are expecting something to happen. The bars and clubs in the city that last year were packed have been cancelling New Years eve parties as nobody is buying tickets. The city dwellers do not want to be in a place with a large crowd that would be a target for the next bomb. But having said that Beirut is a nice place, the people are extremely welcoming, there are lovely shops and cafes and I'm really glad to have visited.