If you are in London in June/July you might want to check these events out, you can get free tickets from culturalco-operation.org, Cultural Co-operation is an independent arts charity that promotes cross-cultural contact, dialogue and understanding. Their main activity is the international summer Music Village, Europe’s longest running festival of world culture.

Are you passionate about photography?

Taking pictures of family, friends and places you’ve been? Maybe you’ve captured a magic moment, an unusual situation or some humorous, crazy slice of life? Whatever it is, if you have a photo you’re really proud of, you should enter the Amateur Photo of the Year contest and you could become the 2004 Panasonic Batteries Amateur Photographer of the Year and win one of their fantastic prizes!

See this link for more details: Panasonic Photo Competition

Under 30? A member of Globetrotters Club? Interested in a £1,000 travel award?

Know someone who is? We have £1,000 to award each year for five years for the best submitted independent travel plan. Interested?

Then see our legacy page on our Website, where you can apply with your plans for a totally independent travel trip and we’ll take a look at it. Get those plans in!!

In China, looking for an internet café? There will be fewer around. China has closed more than 8,600 cybercafes over the last couple of months because of fears that the Net could corrupt the minds of youngsters. This latest crackdown on unlicensed Internet cafes began in February after authorities warned that cybercafes can affect the “mental health of teenagers” while spreading “unhealthy online information”. As part of China’s bid to protect youngsters, authorities also ruled that Internet cafes are not to operate in residential areas or within 200 metres of primary and high schools.

The Beetle is often asked for advice on how to go about getting a job teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) overseas. My best advice is to look up TEFL courses in your area and get qualified as an English teacher, and then get some experience. This website has a huge number of jobs for qualified TEFL teachers and provides career advice etc.

http://www.tefl.com

MTV are looking for people who are planning to backpack around Europe this summer. If you are interested, see: and would like to be on the MTV show “True Life: I’m Backpacking in Europe” www.EuropeBackpack.com.

Take a look at modern day adventurer John Pilkington’s website. In this, you can see details of the latest and most exciting of John’s journeys which took him up the world’s twelfth longest river from the South China Sea to Tibet and beyond. Starting among the rice paddies of Vietnam, he made his way via Cambodia, Thailand, Laos and Burma and through the gorges of China’s Yunnan province, meeting river-people of seven nationalities along the way. In a climax to the trip, he and two Tibetans reached the glacier on Mount Guosongmucha, north of Tibet, where the Mekong rises at over 17,000 feet.

A pilot for Japan’s All Nippon Airways fell asleep at the controls for several minutes while on a domestic flight and had to be awakened by a government inspector who was travelling in the cockpit. An official from the Transport Ministry, who was in the cockpit for a routine inspection, woke the pilot after he fell asleep as the plane was cruising at 12,000 metres (36,000 feet), but he dozed off again and had to be awakened a second time. “He was asleep for two or three minutes,” the spokesman said. The spokesman said there was no danger to passengers since the plane was on auto-pilot and the co-pilot was also present. The pilot, who has been suspended, is undergoing medical tests.

New European low-cost airline WIZZ Air plan to start flights from Budapest to seven European cities from June 24. Destinations include London, Barcelona, Athens, Rome, Paris, Prague and Katowice from Budapest. From July 1 it would add Paris, Munich, Athens, Barcelona, Dortmund and Stockholm to its destinations from Poland, it added.

Qantas, Australia’s biggest airline has announced that it plans to start a new low cost Asian airline in November 2004. The new airline will be called Jetstar, the same name as Qantas’s new low-cost domestic venture. The new airline will be the fifth budget operator to fly to and from Singapore, following Thai AirAsia, a joint venture between Malaysian budget carrier AirAsia and Thailand’s Shin Corp, and Jakarta-based Lion Air, which both already operate flights. Valuair, owned by ex-Singapore Airlines staff, has just started flying. Tiger Airways, a budget venture between Singapore Airlines and Irish discount airline Ryanair is expected to start operations this year.

European travel agent Thomas Cook has said that its airline Condor planned to offer cut-price flights on long-distance journeys. Proposed services include flights to the US, Caribbean, Africa and Asia with prices starting at EUR99 (USD$120).

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.

Here’s a little Beetle quiz based on capital cities. See how many you get right! Go on, have a guess!

What is the capital city of the following countries:

1. Botswana
2. Gabon
3. Armenia
4. Turkey
5. Norway

For the answers, see at the end of the e-newsletter.

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