If you have a mobile phone that works overseas, it's not a bad idea to take it, even if you have no intention of using it for phone calls. In case of emergencies, you can use it to send SMS text messages.
Got any travel tips for the Beetle? Then e-mail them to: the Beetle
As all travellers know, accessing home e-mails from a free service such as Yahoo or Hotmail is fantastically useful, especially for those long trips away.
From 16 July, Hotmail will end the free service that makes it possible to check e-mail accounts held with net service providers via its website. There are apparently around 110 million Hotmail users who before now have managed all their e-mail accounts via the site. Earlier this year, Hotmail rivals Yahoo and Lycos introduced charges for similar services. Anyone wanting to check other accounts, so called POP mail, will have to sign up for the MSN Extra Storage service which, in the UK, costs £19.95 per year. In addition to getting access to the POP mail service, those signing up for Extra Storage get 10 megabytes of space that lets them get and send larger attachments and ensures that their account stays live even if they stop using it for 30 days. Many net experts see the charging of fees for once free services as an inevitable part of the web's development.
Many companies with websites are looking for new ways to offset the cost of running their net business now that revenue from advertising is harder to come by and investor funds are scarce.
Anyone wanting to still use a free POP mail service can find a comprehensive list at emailaddresses.com.
Are you one of 28 million visiting coming to London this year? For as little as £22 you can gain free entry to over SIXTY top London attractions and more… londonpass.com
by Anja Heij / AeonGlobe.com
Twenty mountains on planet Earth bear the name Olympus, being the dwelling of the gods. On Mount Olympus burns the eternal fire of creation and this sign of a bond between the gods and the humans is kept alive and still spread around as the flame on the Olympic Games. In the region Lycia in Turkey we find a remarkable natural phenomenon: a high mountain from which small fires spring to 1 to 3 feet high. This phenomenon has been recorded for at least 4000 years. One can extinguish the small fires, but the natural gas inside the mountain will light them again in minutes. Although the mountain now goes by the Turkish name Tahtali Dag, in older days it formed part of the Greek civilization, was non-surprisingly called Mount Olympus, and in the neighbourhood one can visit the ruins of the ancient city of Olympus (founded around 300 BC). I believe this is the real Mount Olympus the chronicles speak of.
Mike is still looking for his missing friend. My missing friend is called Bob Arthrell and he is sailing a 40 ft. yacht named Tasneem. Four months ago he was at Nuku Hiva island in the Marquesas, and looking for crew to help him sail to Fanning (Tabuaeran) island which is a tiny part of the republic of Kiribati in the pacific ocean. If you can help Mike, please contact him by email.
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
If you are thinking about travelling to Lesotho, Swaziland, Angola or remote parts in South Africa and Mozambique, it may be worth looking at your itinerary and possibly re-routing. The World Food Programme (WFP) recently warned at a Johannesburg conference that 12.8 million people are on the brink of starvation in southern Africa and urgently need food aid.
Crops have failed across the region due to drought, floods and political breakdown. Hundreds have already died in Malawi but Zambia, Zimbabwe, Angola, Mozambique, Swaziland and Lesotho are also badly hit. The whole Southern African region needs 1.2 million tonnes in emergency aid and about 4 million tonnes to make it through the year, according to the WFP and the UN's food agency.
Hotel brochure, Italy:
THIS HOTEL IS RENOWNED FOR ITS PEACE AND SOLITUDE. IN FACT, CROWDS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD FLOCK HERE TO ENJOY ITS SOLITUDE.
Hotel lobby, Bucharest:
THE LIFT IS BEING FIXED FOR THE NEXT DAY. DURING THAT TIME WE REGRET THAT YOU WILL BE UNBEARABLE.
Hotel elevator, Paris:
PLEASE LEAVE YOUR VALUES AT THE FRONT DESK.
Hotel, Yugoslavia:
THE FLATTENING OF UNDERWEAR WITH PLEASURE IS THE JOB OF THE CHAMBERMAID.
Hotel, Japan:
YOU ARE INVITED TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE CHAMBERMAID.
Write in and tell us your funny sign! Drop a line to the Beetle! E-mail the Beetle.
Thomas from Munich wrote in to say that he read the Beetle’s story about the confusion between Oman and Amman. The same thing happened to an African friend of his who went back to his home country with his family of 4 people. He booked a flight to Dakar in Senegal or so he thought, instead he received, five days before his departure, four tickets getting him to Dhaka, Bangladesh. Imagine the hassle to change the booking of four people 5 days before the intended departure. Madness!
Funded by the United Nations Development Programme, The Secretary General of the World Tourist Organisation, Francesco Frangialli, has signed agreements in North Korea, to help develop North Korea's tourism potential.
The World Tourist Organisation has been involved in projects with North Korea since 1989 – including giving the Communist state assistance in developing the Mount Kumgang, or Diamond Mountain, resort. Mt Kumgang is now open to foreign visitors, including tour cruises from neighbouring South Korea. New tourist sites, such as Mount Chilbo in the country's northeast, are likely to be earmarked this time. But the tourist organisation says its efforts will largely focus on capacity development and training.
Only about 200,000 tourists visited North Korea last year, although officials believe the country's tourism potential is huge – despite current problems with access, infrastructure, lack of training and its rigid centrally planned economy. Ecotourism and cultural tourism are two areas that experts believe could be developed, bringing the country much needed hard currency, as it opens its doors a little more to the outside world.
Voting has finished in Sierra Leone and political pundits believe that for the first time in 10 years, peace will ensue. Perhaps now, tourism will return to a country with a beautiful unspoilt coastline, mountains and national parks. Watch this space!
Ferry accidents are very common in Bangladesh, a country criss-crossed by hundreds of rivers. Two large rivers dissect Bangladesh in two, east and west, the River Meghna and the River Padma and there are hundreds of off shoots. In a country where travel by boat is a daily part of life, and the main means of getting about, another tragedy occurred on May 4th, when a passenger ferry travelling in stormy weather collided with another boat and capsized near the south eastern port of Chandpur. Officials say that the number of people on the ferry amounted to about 150, but survivors say that this was more like 300-400. No number has been placed on the number of fatalities, but it is thought to be in the 100s.
Apart from restricting the numbers of passengers, the tragedy could have been avoided if the nearest rescue boat had proper equipment. Most Bangladeshi ferries travelling on local routes do not keep passenger lists or issue tickets. Most accidents are blamed on overloading or on unskilled skippers, correspondents say. Nearly 200 people were killed when a ferry sank in the Meghna river early last year, and there have been many more smaller ferry disasters.
Under 24? 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!!
This web site provides links to a very wide range of information – everything you might need to plan a trip: links to the latest travel warnings for British, American, Australian and Canadian citizens, lists of travel agents in each of these countries and Pacific Asia, info on cruise lines around the world, national parks, internet cafes, embassies around the world, world time zones, restaurants, exchange rates – you name it!
You may have read recently about one of Buddha’s fingers being brought from Thailand to Taipei in Taiwan. This got the Beetle wondering about other parts of Buddha and where you can see them. It is possible to see the casket containing the left incisor of the Buddha in the sacred temple in Kandy, Sri Lanka. The Beetle queued up for some time to walk past this sacred relic – it was certainly an experience! It seems that there are three of Buddha’s teeth in existence: one in Sri Lanka, one in China and one in Thailand.
Buddhists in Sri Lanka celebrate “Buddha Tooth Festival” which begins on 1st of August every year and lasts for twelve days. Every night during the festival, grand parades can be seen starting from 8:00pm until 11:00pm. The Chinese tooth was found by a monk in 475AD and hidden in what is today Nanking, in China. In times of war, it was taken to Beijing and placed in a stupa. In 1900 when Beijing was invaded, the stupa was destroyed, and monks found the tooth in the rubble. In 1964, the stupa was rebuilt and the tooth placed in the pagoda of Beijing. The third tooth is alleged to have passed into Tibet and transferred to India during the Cultural Revolution before its final resting place in Thailand.
Things to take on your Travels – Padmassana’s rules
As well as the usual Lonely Planet guide and phrasebook here are a few other essentials.
1. Half the luggage you originally put out to take!
2. A sense of humour for when you just miss that boat, plane or train.
3. A sixth sense to keep you safe.
4. A rucksack cover gives an extra level of security and stops straps being mangled on airport luggage conveyor belts.
5. Combination padlocks, saves carrying/losing keys.
6. A good compass and map, particularly for places (Japan, China etc) where you cannot read the local alphabet and where there are a definite lack of street names and building numbers.
7. A bite Zapper, tiny almost weightless electric pulse to relieve those nasty bites and stings, worth it’s weight in gold!
8. Little presents to repay good turns, like postcards of home.
9. And when it’s time to go home be a responsible tourist, leave nothing but footprints and take nothing but photographs.
Got any travel tips for the Beetle? Then e-mail them to: the Beetle!
May 6th 2002, the United States has added Cuba, Libya and Syria to its “axis of evil” – nations it claims are deliberately seeking to obtain chemical or biological weapons. In a speech entitled “Beyond the Axis of Evil”, US Under Secretary of State, John Bolton said that the three nations could be grouped with other so-called “rogue states” – Iraq, Iran and North Korea – in actively attempting to develop weapons of mass destruction.
Source: Reuters
Plans for the first new bus service in central London for over a decade have been unveiled. The route to be known as Riverside 1 (RVS1) will link together more than 40 arts and tourist attractions, five underground stations, three national rail stations and five river piers. It will go from the Tate Modern and the London Eye to the Tower of London and Covent Garden. The Beetle can vouch for the fact that this service has started.
Also free, the nearest tube is: A visit here can be combined with a visit to the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum, but maybe not all on the same day! This has a fabulous display of fashion over the last few hundred years and includes wonderful 1920’s gowns by Schiarpelli and Channel and some more outlandish but nevertheless design classics by such designers as Vivienne Westwood. Other exhibits include examples of design from Tudor times to modern day. Weekends are the busiest time since the admission fee has been scrapped, so try and visit during the week, if you can. Visit vam.ac.uk or tel: (+44) 020 7942 2000.
Since December 2001 we have chosen to dedicate our overland bicycle expedition to help raising funds for the Gray Cancer Institute.
Many people know of someone who has been affected by cancer and there does not appear to be any discrimination. The Gray Cancer Institute is one of the leading centres for research applied to cancer treatment, working in close collaboration with clinicians at Mount Vernon Hospital. It was originally a radiobiology research unit with its focus on radiotherapy, but research in tumour physiology has led to new initiatives in cancer chemotherapy and it is introducing new ways of exploiting modern molecular biology.
We would like to raise £1 per mile cycled but at the moment we do not appear to be doing very well.
Our website is financially maintained solely by Kiwisonbikes and the generous donation of time by Mike Fisher. If you have been enjoying the website and to date we have had over 16,900 hits, please help us achieve our goal by donating some money to Gray Cancer Institute.
It's simple. All you have to do is send a cheque or money order to: Gray Cancer Institute PO Box 100 Mount Vernon Hospital Northwood Middlesex HA6 2JR United Kingdom
Please mark Kiwisonbikes clearly on the back of the payment.
Or if you would like to donate online then Gray Cancer Institute uses the Charity Card system. Please then email us or Grays to say the donation was on behalf of Kiwisonbikes.
£1, £5, $10 or even more. Please give today and help make a difference. kiwisonbikes.net
If you are thinking of travelling in Chile, it might make sense to investigate an air pass with LanChile and Ladeco flights. The pass is valid for 1 month and must be used in 14 days of arrival in Chile. Backtracking is not allowed. Special fares to Easter Island can be incorporated. Ask your travel agent about the pass before you book your international tickets.