Category Archives: Sidebar

Travel Quiz

Win a Frommer’s guidebook on the USA 2003. See www.frommers.com for info on Frommer’s guidebooks.

The winner of last month’s Frommer’s guide to Los Angeles is Nancy Haggarty.

Some people have said the quiz is difficult, we say do some research; try google.com or Ask Jeeves, if you need help with the answers.

  1. What is the telephone number for emergency services in the USA?
  2. In which collection of states do people often go to see that Fall Foliage?
  3. What is the name of the former capital of Russian America in Alaska?
  4. In which Mardi Gras city is can the French Quarter be found?
  5. What is the nickname of Washington DC?

Your Name:

Your e-mail address:


Sorry, we ate your missionary

Ratu Filimoni Wawabaluva, a chief from Navosa, on the Fijian island of Viti Levu, has announced that a traditional apology ceremony is to be held to apologise 136 years after their ancestors killed and ate a British missionary.

Fiji were once known as “Cannibal Isles”. At the time, it is said that one local boasted after scoffing the Rev Thomas Baker, from Playden, East Sussex, in 1867: “We ate everything but his boots.” The Rev. Baker’s descendants were invited to the ceremony. Some residents of Navosa believe they have been cursed with bad luck since their ancestors ate the Rev Thomas Baker. Accounts differ on how he came to be eaten, with one version being that he broke a taboo by touching a chief’s hair to take out a comb.

An archivist at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies said that the story could be a myth saying: “It seems Baker got caught up in some sort of inter-tribal feuding relating to his right to travel across the island.”

A spokesman for the London Missionary Society, which sent dozens of missionaries to the South Pacific, said Baker’s was “not an unusual story”. Another missionary made a “similar cultural error” in Papua New Guinea around the same time and was also eaten.


Answers to: So You Think You’re Well Travelled? Bangladesh: Dhaka Guyana: Georgetown Oman: Muscat Syria: Damascas Vietnam: Hanoi 0 out of 5 – you need to get out more! 1-3 – not bad 4 – very good! You are a Globetrotter! 5 – are you sure you didn’t sneak a look?

  1. Bangladesh: Dhaka
  2. Guyana: Georgetown
  3. Oman: Muscat
  4. Syria: Damascas
  5. Vietnam: Hanoi
  • 0 out of 5 – you need to get out more!
  • 1-3 – not bad
  • 4 – very good! You are a Globetrotter!
  • 5 – are you sure you didn’t sneak a look?

Discount on Karrimor products

Karrimor are pleased to announce to all Globetrotters Club members (please note, club members only and not Including sale goods) a 25% discount through their factory shop. They offer a mail order service and all products can be found on their website www.karrimor.com

Further details are avalible in Globe or our online members area


Money in Sick Bags

When you sit on that plane and feel for the sick bag, think again. Online auctioneer eBay has a section for unused sick bags from almost ever airline around the world, described as being in “mint and very fine conditions.” There are dedicated Web sites, including the Air SicknessBag Virtual Museum, which has bags from airlines, trains and ships — and even some from outer space. American Steven Silberberg, who runs airsicknessbags.com says: “I don't use them for their intended purpose, I just leave them at home in binders… most expensive bag I've ever seen sold was for $220. It was a Court Line Aviation bag, a company that folded in 1973,” he told CNN. Scandinavian bags are highly prized for the artistic impression on the bags where US airlines have plain bags.


Tourists Kidnapped in SE Iran

Three cyclists, two German, one Irish are reported missing between the city of Bam and Zahedan near the Pakistani border – a notorious opium smuggling route from Afghanistan to Western Europe. A ransom is thought to have been issued. Kidnappings there, as in the rest of the country, have been rare in recent years. A number of European tourists were abducted in southern Iran in 1999. We hope for their safe release.


Globetrotters Travel Award

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!!


Vietnam Airlines

Vietnam Airlines has announced that it will change the current two-tier price system for Vietnamese and foreigners from January 1 next year to boost tourism. Foreigners will no longer pay 20% more for domestic flights and will pay the same amount as Vietnamese nationals. A round trip ticket from capital Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City costs 3.3 million dong (USD$212) for foreigners while locals pay 2.7 million dong.


No Hunting Please – We’re Lions

A recent report from Oxford University’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit says that fewer than 20,000 lions may now survive in the whole of Africa, although they do not face immediate extinction. The greatest threats to the species are sport hunting and conflict with farmers over livestock. The estimate of 20,000 lions or fewer compares with a population put at about 200,000 in the early 1980’s. The researchers studied the impact of sport or trophy hunting in Hwange national park in Zimbabwe, surrounded by hunting concessions where the parks department allocates an annual quota: the hunters traditionally target male lions. Findings suggest the levels of hunting there were not sustainable. Of the adult males the team tagged or collared, 63% were shot by hunters in the surrounding area. WildCRU estimates there are about 42 adult male lions in Hwange, where between 1998 and 2002 the hunting quota in the concessions was set at 63 lions. It says the number shot annually far exceeded the recommended sustainable level of 4-10% of the adult males. The parks department is considering lowering the quotas.


Faliraki Club Reps

Club Reps, a bawdy real life UK TV documentary on the goings on in the town of Faliraki on the Greek island of Rhodes is blamed for an increase in drunken behaviour. A British policeman from Blackpool, (another delightful part in North-West UK), with similar issues has been dispatched to Faliraki to liaise with the Chief of Faliraki police after a British man was stabbed to death in a bar brawl and a woman jailed for baring her breasts.

Based on a successful model used in Blackpool, the UK police said the key to tackling problems is stopping the “aggressive marketing of drinks promotions” and bar crawls. Independent tour operators have sprung up which were taking 400 or 500 people on bar crawls. Suggestions have been made to install CCTV cameras on the streets, improve lighting, and increase police presence and officers are “firm but fair” early in the evening, to nip problems in the bud.


Giant Squid Found Dead

Four giant squid, one of which is said to be the length of a bus – 12 metres long – have been washed up on the northern Asturias coast of Spain. Spain’s marine agency believe that naval exercises have been causing shock waves that have contributed to their deaths, although the Spanish navy deny this. Giant squid, as in the monster that attacked Captain Nemo’s Nautilus in the Jules Verne adventure 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, is the world’s largest invertebrate and lives at depths of up to 2,000 meters (6,562 feet).


Answers to: So You Think You’re Well Travelled?

1. Austria: Vienna

2. Ethiopia: Adis Abbaba

3. Mauritius: Port Louis

4. Swaziland: Mbabane

5. Vanuatu: Port Vila

  • 0 out of 5 – you need to get out more!
  • 1-3 – not bad
  • 4 – very good! You are a Globetrotter!
  • 5 – are you sure you didn’t sneak a look?

Danube Wrecks

Due to the unseasonably hot weather Europe has been facing over the summer months, the Danube has fallen to its lowest level for over 120 years. This is normally bad news as it prevents the usual convoys of ships – tugs barges pulling barges from travelling between the Black Sea and the rest of Euope. However, in one stretch of the river, between Serbia and Romania, this has revealed the most amazing find: wrecks from the second World War of German warships, once Hitler’s Danube Fleet.


Discount on Karrimor products

Karrimor are pleased to announce to all Globetrotters Club members (please note, club members only and not Including sale goods) a 25% discount through their factory shop. They offer a mail order service and all products can be found on our website www.karrimor.com

Further details are avalible in Globe or our online members area


Mutual Aid

We are a couple in our mid 50’s in Australia. We are experienced campervan travellers who wish to travel in UK during mid April 2004 – mid August 2004. We are looking for a campervan/motorhome exchange site. We have a Toyota hi-Ace LWB 2/3 berth hi-top & looking for a similar exchange. Can any e-newsletter reader help with a site or we would not mind a private hire arrangement. Nadia, e-mail: nadiak@picknowl.com.au


Visiting Iceland?

Gudbjorg offers his services to e-newsletter readers. If you are planning to visit Iceland, he can arrange a variety of trips. He is a trained tour guide, has transport and can find suitable accommodation in Iceland. He says: “be among the first to experience the West fjords in Iceland, where hardly any tourists ever visit. For more information, contact Gudbjorg Bragadottir on: guggabraga@visir.is


BBC Appeal for Help

We are looking for help with a programme we’re making for BBC2 called 1001 Things to Improve Your Life. Would you be interested in being filmed? The show is about making the best of modern life, and we want to feature tips on how to improve things when you travel. We’re keen to get some really good insider information in this area. It may be that you know a fab way of keeping flies off in a hot climate, or the essential carry-on items for a long haul flight…or something more fun and original! We want to hear from really knowledgeable, enthusiastic, amateurs – quirky characters – to actually show us their tips which we will film. The tips should be unusual with perhaps a sense of magic, clever, or something most people will be delighted by. Please contact Sarah on 0207 684 1661 or e-mail: sarahb@ideallondon.com


Accomodation in Mysore, India

Anyone planning a few days stay there. Globetrotter Ashley recommends a newly built ‘penthouse’ above a village type shop 2km from centre in Mysore. There is a sitting room, dining room with breakfast bar tea coffee and toast making facilities, double bedroom with mosquito nets, hot water geezer and roof terrace. The charming family who own the shop will cook meals (full breakfast 30 rupees) Indian dinner 50 rupees. Cost for 2 people is 750 rupees per day. Tel Mysore(0821) 450483. I will be happy to e-mail more details and map of how to get – Ashley@indiarail.worldonline.co.uk


Fave Website

Our webmaster spotted this: an on line travel magazine for more mature travellers, with a guide book, links directory and travel article library. For example, the travel article section includes information on bird, nature and ildlife, cruises and trains, Haaii, the Med, European travel, Chinese and Asian cultures. See:

Travel With A Challenge


Malaria Treatment Breakthrough

The World Health Organsation (WHO) says that affordable and effective treatment against malaria should be available by about 2006. More than one million people, mostly children under the age of five are killed each year by malarial parasites. The new treatment is based on the plant qinghaosu, or sweet wormwood, which Chinese doctors have recognized for centuries as having anti-malarial properties. Another component of the new treatment, pyronaridine, was also first developed in China and has been proven effective in treating malaria in the Hunan and Yunan provinces, according to WHO. The new medicine could be taken as a single tablet dose and appears to be well tolerated by most patients. there’s also a big problem with forging of these pills, as the plant only produces the drug when grown in parts of china.