Recently, the Beetle was asked about Guidebooks – what is out there and can she make any recommendations? Below is a commentary on a selection of some of the guidebooks available:

Eyewitness guides, published by Dorling Kindersley produce glossy guidebooks with lots of pictures on cities and also countries. The city guides are especially good although a little heavy and longer than most of the others. The Beetle particularly recommends these for short city breaks as they provide lots of background detail about certain sites or attractions and exploded diagrams of the insides of churches or palaces etc. They are not so great about telling you how to get to and from some of the attractions, although the Istanbul guide was excellent and rated better in a recent trip there than the corresponding LP on Istanbul. See www.dk.com

Fodor’s used more by the North American market and for slightly more wealthy travellers than backpackers, although they do have shoestring guides too. They tend to be fairly slim volumes and are particularly strong on North America, Mexico and the Caribbean. Take a look at www.fodors.com/

Footprint guides have very good guides on South American countries. They also do Canada, (not the US), selected European and African countries, Middle East and a good range of SE Asia. At the time the Beetle was backpacking around South America, the Footprint individual country guides were a lot better than the LP guides, in particular that awful huge tome LP produces on all S American countries! For more info, see footprinttravelguides.com

Frommer’s – used more by the North American travel market and appear to be aimed at a slightly more affluent market than backpackers – unless anyone would like to write in and disagree! The maps are generally good, and a lot of emphasis is placed on reviewing pubs, restaurants, hotels, bed and breakfasts etc. A quick look at a guide on Ireland, Jury’s Court Inn in Cork is described as inexpensive at $61 and up for a room. Otherwise they offer slightly pared down info on LP and RG. Frommer’s also do portable guides that you can download onto your palm pilot or similar not to mention a magazine and an e-newsletter. They are strong on the number of Caribbean titles. For more info on Frommer’s guides, see www.frommers.com

Insight Guides publish over 200 titles, again quite glossy, good photos – more of a coffee table book than a guidebook to take with you on a trip. This kind of book may be useful for planning a trip as it has the glossy pictures, but I would not take it on a trip to use as a guidebook. For more info, see http://www.insightguides.com

Lonely Planet – see also the Lonely Planet Thorn Tree website for sources of travel information. Lonely Planet, or LP is the granddaddy of modern guidebooks. People tend to either love LP or they hate it, and if the latter, their usual choice is Rough Guide (RG). The Beetle prefers the LP because it usually has good maps, (some colour pictures!) and she likes to know about every single restaurant and hostel available at the time of writing and feels quite aggrieved when only a selection are given (as in the RG)! Whilst prices change, you can always work out the ratio of increase so that you still have a rough idea of potential prices. See www.lonelyplanet.com

Moon has been going 25 years and produce guides covering Americas, Asia, and the Pacific. They are slightly biased to the US market but do nevertheless produce good guidebooks with good maps and lots of detailed information. The Beetle finds that Moon Guide distinguish themselves on regions, particularly US states rather than entire countries, for example excellent guides on New Mexico, Kauai, Mexico City etc. If I were to visit a US state, then this is the book I would take with me – lots of good maps, and local info. They also have city guides called Moon Metro and include San Francisco, New York, Paris. For more info, see www.moon.com

Rother guidebooks are about walking. They are a very handy size, good for slipping into a pocket, they usually have around 50 walking routes per guidebook, with fabulously detailed maps, giving you all the info you need such as grade of walk, approximate time to take, refreshments available en route, how to get there and return. The Beetle likes these books very much – if you are a walker, then these are for you! Destinations covered include many different parts of the Mediterranean, and Norway and Iceland. For more info, see www.cordee.co.uk

Rough Guides – as discussed above, we tend to find that people either love these or hate them. They have just as good a range in titles as LP, and they are very popular. They are just as comprehensive in terms of information as the LP, but in a very different format. Both LP and RG publish language guidebooks and a newsletter. Rough Guide tends to place hotels, hostels, restaurants etc in price brackets, but nonetheless give you enough info to make a decision re restaurant or hotel. For more info, see www.roughguides.com/

Trailblazers a small UK based company that do excellent guides particularly on walking and trekking, so if this is your thing, then these books will give you very details routes with distance, estimated times, danger points, and a whole load of walking or hiking – even climbing activities. For more info, see: www.trailblazerbooks.co.uk

Ulysses publish two series of travel guides and are strong on Canada, the US and Central America. The Beetle bought Ulysses guides on Panama, Honduras and El Salvador when there was nothing else available, and they were really very good. They also do language guides. For more info, see www.ulyssesguides.com

Do you have a favourite guidebook, or one that was just terrible? E-mail the Beetle and let us know about it!

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 are held on the third Friday of January, March, May, September and November. Usually at the Woodsworth Co-op, Penthouse, 133, Wilton Street in downtown Toronto at 8.00 p.m.

24 more sites of “outstanding universal value” have been designated world heritage sites by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). These include the ancient Iraqi city of Ashur and Afghanistan's Bamiyan Valley, where towering statues of Buddha (see picture right) were destroyed by the former Taleban regime.

The first eight of the new UNESCO heritage sites are as follows:

· Purnululu National Park, Australia: Located in the state of Western Australia, it covers an expanse of nearly 250,000 hectares. The park's Bungle Bungle Range contains sandstone eroded into the shape of beehives over 20 million years.

· Three parallel rivers of Yunnan protected areas, China: A 1.7 million hectare site in Yunnan province, containing parts of three of the great rivers of Asia: the Yangtze, Mekong and Salween. The rivers run parallel through steep gorges, from 3,000 metres (10,000 feet) to 6,000 metres high.

· Monte San Giorgio, Switzerland: A wooded mountain shaped like a pyramid. Contains some of the best fossil records of marine life from about 250 million years ago.

· Uvs Nuur Basin, Russian Federation/Mongolia: About a million hectares. Contains a rich diversity of birds and is home to the gerbil, jerboas, the marbled polecat, snow leopard, mountain sheep and the Asiatic Ibex.

· Phong Nha – Ke Bang National Park, Vietnam: A dramatic, forested highland which includes underground caves and rivers and is mainly covered by tropical rainforest.

· Bamiyan Valley, Afghanistan: Previously home to two colossal statues of Buddha, which were blown up by the Taleban in February 2001, provoking worldwide condemnation. UNESCO says the choice “symbolises the hope of the international community that extreme acts of intolerance, such as the deliberate destruction of the Buddhas, are never repeated again”.

· Quebrada de Humahuaca, Argentina: A major trade route over the past 10,000 years. Shows traces of the Inca Empire (15th to 16th Century) and of the fight for independence in the 19th and 20th Centuries.

· Historic Quarter of the Seaport City of Valparaiso, Chile: An interesting example of late 19th Century urban and architectural development in Latin America.

Source: BBC News

Globetrotters meeting on July 12^th

The Texas branch will celebrate their 2 year anniversary – 24 months of meetings – in July! Their monthly meeting participation averages around 20. People come and go. Since their first meeting in 2001, close to 200 people have attended. Thanks to Christina for keeping the meetings on track and Mary Jane for spreading the information about the meetings, the Texas branch is a definite success.

The Texas Branch of the Globetrotters Club will meet July 12th 2003 at the New Braunfels Public Library – note back to old location. Dan and Jensie will present the July program. The topic is China. As always, there will be time for sharing and networking.

If you like independent, adventuresome, fun, daring, exciting, “off the beaten path” travel, this club is for you. Our meeting begins at 2 P.M. Come early so you won't be late! Enjoy handouts, travel talk time, and door prizes!

Dates of future meetings: August 9th and September 13

For more information about the Texas Branch or if you would like to help Christina, please contact texas@globetrotters.co.uk or register for e-mail updates at our website (click here) or call Christina at 830-620-5482.

Gary, from the US is planning to cycle 1,500 miles around the UK. He started his journey on the 16^th of May 2003. Since that date he has travelled over 1,100 miles on a recumbent bike. At the time of writing, he has approximately 400 mile to go to complete the trip. Gary says: “The trip has been a real adventure. It's been absolutely fantastic!”

I had an interesting day today. I left Banff this morning around 9 am, and was heading for Elgin. It was raining, but not hard. Fifteen miles into my ride my rear tyre went flat. It was a good spot on the side of the road and the rain had stopped. I managed to get a new tube installed, but, evidently, I damaged the tube and the tyre immediately went flat – again. Well, I was on the edge of a village so I pushed the bike to town for help. There wasn't a bike shop or garage in town. The first person I met was a chap taking pictures of the bay. We started driving around in his car looking for help.

We came up to some workers working on the water mains. The boss wound up taking me to the next town five miles up the road to a bike shop. He wouldn’t hear of me compensating him for his troubles. He said he needed to do his part in increasing tourism. Luckily the bike shop was open. They are closed on Wednesday's. The fellow that owns the bike shop had his wife make me up a cup of tea. She also invited me in her home so that I could clean the grease off my hands. By this time it's three o'clock in the afternoon, so I decided to call it a day, and found a lovely four star B&B. People here are so friendly and generous here it's unbelievable.

One thing I've learned, it doesn't take much to survive. I'm on a seven week trip with roughly two of everything. I have to keep clothes in three groups – clean, only used one or two days, and definitely need to be washed. If I can't find anybody to wash them or too embarrassed to ask, I wash out a set in the sink with hand soap and hope they dry by morning. More than once, I had to put on wet clothes. I'm sure this isn't the kind of news you were waiting to hear, but that's the reality of the trip.

I've tried almost everything on the menu, but one of the things I haven't tried is black pudding. They tell me it's very good, but someone said it's fried pigs’ blood. I haven't been able to bring myself to trying it. Maybe it's something I'll never have the opportunity of experiencing.

I'm still slugging along. Today I was feeling so smug. I was ready to bestow expert map reader after my name till this afternoon. There were conflicting signals on the trail and I went left instead of right. The outcome was too bizarre to go into much detail. The upshot was I was lost and in the middle of a field that a farmer was cutting hay. The hill was steep and slippery. When I tried to apply the brakes, my feet snagged the cut grass and I was catapulted headfirst. Luckily, I had a soft landing. Well, I finally made it to my destination of Falkland at 6 pm. It's a real small town with a castle and huge cathedral. Yesterday I was talking to the sheep all day.

I was in Inverness. I don't know how everybody keeps putting up with me. I'm constantly asking for directions to somewhere- bike shop, streets, B&Bs', you name it. Everybody is so patient and willing to help in any way they can. I'm not shy when it comes to asking for directions. When you're on a bike you can kill a half hour real quickly going in circles. I met a couple of hikers around my age (nearing retirement) over breakfast at the last b&b I stayed at in Buckie called the Rosemount who are from the Orkney Islands. They looked at my map and it so happens I'll be passing within a half mile of their house. They asked me to stop by for a cup of tea. What a small world!

When I was eating dinner last night I noticed on the menu they were featuring lamb imported from New Zealand. Now, of all the things the Scotts need to import you would think the last thing would be sheep. Somebody said in a grocery store a couple of days ago, “You've seen more of the UK in the last four weeks than I've seen in my whole life”. I suspect that's true!

If you enjoy writing, enjoy travelling, why not write for the free monthly Globetrotters e-newsletter! The Beetle would love to hear from you: your travel stories, anecdotes, jokes, questions, hints and tips, or your hometown or somewhere of special interest to you. Over 7,500 people subscribe to the Globetrotters e-news.

To see your story in cyber print, e-mail the Beetle with your travel experiences, hints and tips or questions up to 750 words, together with a couple of sentences about yourself and a contact e-mail address to Beetle@globetrotters.co.uk

European no-frills airline Ryanair says it is to stop accepting American Express charge cards. They say Amex makes higher charges than most other companies and that they will refuse to take bookings on the cards from the end of June 2003. Ryanair emphasized that it would continue to accept other credit cards.

Ryanair reported a big rise in net profits in its last financial year. Net profits of EUR239.4 million (USD$281.4 million) were 59 percent up on the previous year and the carrier says it expects to see passenger numbers in 2003/04 to soar to 24 million from the present 15.7 million. They are predicting that they will overtake both British Airways and Germany's Lufthansa within three years.

And finally here is a very sad website, for all those who would like to “virtually” fly a Ryanair plane. http://members.lycos.co.uk/virtualryanair/AboutVirtualRyanair.htm

Tokyo Haneda airport is the largest and the busiest airport in Japan – over 300 flights take off and same number of flights land each day and around half are Japanese domestic flights.

There are two railways connecting the airport terminal building (Haneda Kuko station) and Tokyo city center. The Tokyo Monorail line from Hamamatsu-cho on the JR Yamanote line is a circular line connecting to major places in Tokyo. The monorail runs every 4 or 5 minutes and takes 24 minutes journey from Hamamatsu-cho into the town centre, costing 470yen (US$4 or £3).

The other train is the Keihin Kyuko (Keikyu) line from Shinagawa also on the Yamanote line. There is a direct service every 10 minutes, although you must change train at Kamata station in the early mornings and late at night. The journey takes between 30 and 35 minutes from Shinagawa, and costs 400yen (US$3.50 or £2.50).

There is also a direct train to and from Narita every 80 minutes, taking 105 minutes journey. There is also a bus service between the terminal building and major places and hotels in the Tokyo area.