Where is it and why go? The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is a collection of small states about 7 hours away from London. They have gained wealth from their oil reserves and are often associated with ex-pat oil workers. The UAE often hosts world class sporting events, such as the Desert Classic (golf), the Dubai Open (tennis), horse racing and rugby, to name but a few.

Abu Dhabi is the capital of the United Arab Emirates or UAE. It is the largest and richest state and widely known as the Garden City of the Gulf. Abu Dhabi began as a fishing and pearl diving centre, but is now one of the world's cleanest and most modern cities.

Dubai has always been known for its cheap duty free and the luxury cars it raffles off in the pink marble lined foyer of the duty free. It's now also a very popular holiday destination in its own right, boasting the world's first 6 star hotel, many other top notch hotels, golf courses, trips into the desert, a souk etc. You can still the old, traditional style of dhow plying up and down the creek that separates the city into two. Incidentally, Dubai's annual shopping festival takes place between 1^st and 31^st March when most stores offer significant discounts and savings!

Ras al Khaimah is on the northern tip of the UAE, only one hour away from Dubai. Here you can escape the busy crowds and commercialized shopping centres. Her you can find old forts and watchtowers, old villages and mountains.

Ajman is the smallest of the states and is some 25 minutes north of Dubai. It does not have any oil reserves, so it retains its traditional fishing culture.

A good tour of the UAE and Muscat and Oman would be to initially use Dubai as a base and explore: Day 1, spend time in Dubai, visit the Jumeirah mosque, the Dubai museum, take a trip along the creek and visit the souk. Day 2, take a day trip to Sharjah and wander around the restored old town and the new souk. Continue to Ajman and visit the museum that describes life in the UAE before the discovery of oil. Day 3, take another day trip to the east coast and the state of Fujeira. You can see mountains and gorges, oases and desert. Day 4, take another day trip to Abu Dhabi, see the skyscrapers and palaces and visit the islands offshore. Day 5, take a trip into the desert, climb up/roll down some sand dunes and visit the Haja Mountains. You could stay over night in a camp and be entertained by the inevitable belly dancer and cabaret – it's how it's done over there!

To extend the trip, you should continue down the east coast from Fujeirah to Sohar in Oman. Here you can see the pre-Islamic Nakhal fort, the Sohar fort and various souks. Stay overnight and on Day 6, continue south in Muscat and visit the fish souk, the Muttrah souk, Al Alam Palace and the museums. Stay overnight in Muscat and on Day 7, head south west to Nizwa and see the fort and souk and various (Jabel Shams Wadi Ghul, Al Hamra, Tanuf, Misfah, Bahla etc. Stay the night in Nizwa and on Day 8, head for Sur and see Izki, Sinaw, Wahiba Sands Wadi Bani Khalid. Stay overnight in Sur and on Day 9 return to Muscat.

The first two months of each year are a busy time for anyone interested in travel shows in London. In early January, we had the Daily Telegraph Travel Show that was held at Olympia. It was huge and included attractions such as a revolving climbing wall and a large inflatable pool for would-be scuba divers to try out their under water skills. The Globetrotters Club was well represented, as always – thanks to Dick for organizing the stand. A large number of Globetrotter members turned out on Saturday and Sunday to offer free travel advice to members of the public who were thinking of travelling; Central and South America seemed to be extremely popular planned travel destinations. All the usual adventure and overland companies were represented.

A couple of weeks after the Daily Telegraph Show, there was the Destinations travel show, also held at Olympia. This is more an opportunity for tourist offices to offer brochures and advice to help people plan their trips to specific countries rather than longer term round the world trips.

The final show, the Independent Travellers World show is usually in late February. It was again held at the much smaller venue, the Business Design Centre in Islington. Compared to last year's effort, (and previous years, which, quite frankly were awful!) this show was far, far better. The emphasis was mostly on independent and backpacker travel with fewer tourist offices being represented – more overland truck companies, gap year organizations etc. There were loads of freebies – these included baseball hats, key rings, free T-shirts, lots of sweeties (candies) and mugs from shipping insurance companies!

Thanks go to Frank in the US for the following:

At a Budapest zoo: PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE ANIMALS. IF YOU HAVE ANY SUITABLE FOOD, GIVE IT TO THE GUARD ON DUTY.

Doctor's office, Rome: SPECIALIST IN WOMEN AND OTHER DISEASES. Hotel, Acapulco: THE MANAGER HAS PERSONALLY PASSED ALL THE WATER SERVED HERE.

Car rental brochure, Tokyo: WHEN PASSENGER OF FOOT HEAVE IN SIGHT, TOOTLE THE HORN. TRUMPET HIM MELODIOUSLY AT FIRST, BUT IF HE STILL OBSTACLES YOUR PASSAGE THEN TOOTLE HIM WITH VIGOUR.

Write in and tell us your funny sign! Drop a line to the Beetle!

When he's not tying his body into knots, Padmassana is a bit of a globetrotter on the quiet. Here are his nominations for best and worst airports:

Best:

1 Dubai: great facilities, clean, everything is so cheap and it is the only airport where you see Rolls Royce's and Ferraris inside!

2 Hong Kong: well organised, lots to do if your plane is delayed

3 Zurich: the escalators are constructed in such a way that you can wheel your trolley onto them and the wheels lock into place!

4 Tokyo: clean, well organised, the conveyor belt has traffic lights so not too much luggage is loaded on to it at any one time, so that bags don't fall off!

5 Moscow: the best for entertainment value – you have to guess which gate your plane leaves from and race there! (The Beetle would like to add this also happened to her at San Jose in Costa Rica airport too!)

Padmassana's worst airports included Luxor for bribery (the Beetle also experienced this after a diving holiday in the Red Sea. At Hurgahada the man who x-rayed luggage wanted a tip/bribe, as did the man who checked you in, as did the man who lifted your bags on to the conveyor belt to the storage place prior to the plane arriving), Goa where the conveyor belt chews your luggage, Islamabad where the customs official ate Padmassana's Milka bars, Guilin, in China, where the runway lights were switched off on final approach. Scary!!

Write in and tell us your best airport nominations! Contact the Beetle!

Meeting news from our branches around the world.

We had two excellent speakers in February! First was Alastair Lee who gave us a multi-dimensional view of his travels in China and his very close up views of climbing various horrifically vertical mountains in Northern Yunnan. He spoke of the friendships he and his girlfriend struck up with people who lived close by who were fascinated by some of his climbing equipment, the weather which looked like it was going to defeat them and entertained us with some great poses and a dancing finale! Alastair has published a fabulous climbing guide on New Zealand. Take a look at his web site: posingproductions.com

After the tea and coffee break, Ben Nimmo spoke of his cathartic pilgrimage complete with trombone from Canterbury to Santiago de Compostela, in Spain. He regaled us with hilarious tales of some of the larger than life characters he met en route, the amount of beer and wine he sampled, all out of a sense of duty and through a spirit of comradeship, of course, and in particular the story of how he became a god father to a little girl in France. Funny stories, great pictures, wonderful trip, Ben! Ben has written a highly moving and entertaining book called Pilgrim Snail documenting his pilgrimage. Pilgrim Snail is available now in bookshops and the following website fireandwater.co.uk and Ben's next book 'In Forkbeard's Wake' is out in January 2003.

Coming next, on Saturday 2nd March, we have Philip Koniotes talking about “The Antarctic Peninsular.” Philip has regularly travelled to the Arctic dog-sledding and has travelled extensively, including diving around the world and making five polar trips – the Antarctic has been his most recent journey. He loves the space and trying to capture it on film. After the break, Mark Elliott will be talking on “Saving Kilum Forest” set in NW Cameroon – about curious kingdoms and unique mountain forests. Mark is standing in for Juliet Coombe who is unable to attend the Globetrotter meeting due to a car accident in Australia. She is okay but not yet fit to fly

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 on Saturday 1^st September. For more information, you can contact the Globetrotter Info line on +44 (0) 20 8674 6229, or visit the website: www.globetrotters.co.uk