Thailand has changed its immigration rules to deter foreigners from 41 countries, including the UK, from working illegally on tourist visas. The old arrangement allowed visa-free tourist entry for 30 days. Many tourists were taking advantage of this by leaving Thailand every 30 days to a neighbouring country and then returning. Under new regulations it will only be possible to do this for a total of 90 days, after which the visitor must leave the Kingdom for 90 days before returning.

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!!

Eleven employees at Indian Airways have recently been grounded for putting on too much weight. The airline which is being taken to court over the legality of firing its air hostesses for being too fat, claim that they should be able to select the ‘best ambassadors’ to represent the national airline, and the country as a whole, and will also claim that thinner employees are more agile and better equipped to tackle terrorist incidents and other emergencies.

An internal memo earlier this year warned cabin staff they would be banned from flying if random weight checks found them to be over a fixed weight, set out in a company chart. Although weight guidelines have always been in place, previously they were not rigorously enforced.

Lawyers for the cabin crew unions say that around 130 members of staff have been temporarily suspended without pay for putting on too much weight, although most are now back at work. ‘They want to discard the heavier women and bring in newer, thinner models,’ said Sheela Joshi, an air hostess who was grounded after a spot weigh-in found she was 1.9kg over the prescribed limit for her height.

So, how thin should you be to be a brand ambassador for modern India? If Kate Moss can win model of the year after her recent antics, and be a brand icon, then surely, Indian Airways can cope with some overweight air hostesses as long as they are good at their job?

Although Japanese Christians make up only 1% of the country’s population, about 90% of weddings in Japan are in the Christian style, complete with the words, “you may now kiss the bride” and the big white dress. There appears to be something of a roaring trade for Europeans to act as fake priests presiding at Western-style weddings to give a performance and add to the atmosphere. These are not legal ceremonies – the couples also have to make a trip to the local registrar.

The first of a planned series of tsunami early warning buoys is being put down in the Indian Ocean. The buoy, provided by the US, (who already operate a similar system in the Pacific Ocean) is being placed between Thailand and Sri Lanka, two of the countries worst-hit by the 2004 tsunami which killed more than 200,000 people. The buoy can detect sudden increases in pressure deep under the sea and send signals to a buoy floating on the surface. Using satellite communication the buoy passes the gathered information to tsunami warning centres around the Indian Ocean to give coastal communities early warning of a tsunami.

The plan is to create a network of 24 buoys that will extend to Indonesia and Australia, along the deep and unstable fault-line that caused the 2004 earthquake.

The BBC’s South-East Asia correspondent said that system will only be effective if proper warning sirens are installed in coastal communities – so far only a few have them.

Dubai-based Emirates will become the first airline to allow passengers to make mobile phone calls on its flights. Emirates expects to launch the service on one of its Boeing 777 planes as early as January next year. The news comes just months after Ryanair announced it planned to launch a similar service in mid-2007 – subject to regulatory approval.

Spotted by webmaster Paul: gapadvice.org Independent advice on gap years, for people of all ages.

A snake charmer who made a name for himself as Malaysia’s Snake King has died after being bitten by a king cobra. Ali Khan Samsudin, 48, gained a place in the record books for locking himself in small spaces with hundreds of snakes or scorpions for days at a time. According to local press reports, Mr Samsudin was reportedly bitten 99 times in his life so he was not unduly worried when he was bitten again, however, he died before he could receive hospital treatment.

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.

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

Kitty writes in: I am writing a short dissertation on the contents of people’s suitcases, the history of suitcase design and of special travel items (for example travel irons, plug adapters etc), as an indicator of cultural and social changes over the past seventy years or so. I have had real difficulty finding any material on this subject at all. I was wondering whether anyone at the Globetrotters club knows of any books published on travels trunks or suitcases, the turning points in design (for example when more people wanted to have a lightweight case, rather than making a big deal out of their journey with bringing a trunk…), or any history of packing. Kitty can be contacted by e-mail on: kittybennett@mac.com

British shoppers heading across the Atlantic to the United States have been warned by HM Revenue and Customs that they must declare gifts bought in the US totalling over £145. Officials warn that if shoppers fail to declare their gifts and pay the required duty, they risk prosecution, which is rather a pity as the US/£ exchange rate is the best it has been in years. Up to 20% duty can be levied on goods and on some items an additional VAT at 17.5% must also be paid.

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

Spotted by Mac: a well compiled and complete list of LCC – Low Cost Carriers – These are the cheapest of the cheap airlines, and NOT listed or sold normally by travel agents, you will not find these airlines in Orbitz, Travelocity or Expedia.com. However you will find them in the WIKI – Wikipedia.org.

News from Malaysia says that motorists driving along the East-West Highway in particular the stretch of road leading to Banding and Kota Baru in the east coast must not honk or switch on the car headlights when they come across elephants on the road. Perak Wildlife and National Parks Department director Shabrina Mohd Shariff said the advice was among other tips put up on a signboard to inform motorists on what to do in such a situation. The signboards, she said, were put up following reports of elephants straying onto the highway located next to the Belum Forest Reserve, which is the elephants’ habitat. “By honking, the elephants will get agitated and may attack the motorists,” she said on Monday.

Europe From a Backpack series travel books have just published Italy From a Backpack and Spain From a Backpack. This is how the publishers describe the Europe Backpack books: despite their numbers, few, if any travel books have told their stories. Now, we have collected the best from more than 1,000 submissions.

They cover a wide range – changing one’s life on the 600-mile Camino de Santiago pilgrimage (“To Be a Pilgrim”), throwing 90,000 pounds of tomatoes at Buñol, in Europe’s biggest food fight (“Tomato Fight!”); sneaking past Vatican guards to view Michelangelo’s Pietà (“Sneaking Into St. Peter’s”); meeting the forebears at their luxury hotel in Sicily (“The Old Country”). Some are thoughtful (“Off the Map”), some ridiculous (“The Curse of the Tassled Loafers” and “Hostage of the Hostile Hostel”) and some sublime (“What I Learned About Coleoptera By Having a Few Climb Up My Shorts”).

Free Book Offer: If you can’t make up your mind between the Italy and Spain book, just buy them both.
E-mail your receipt from Amazon.com, Bn.com, or Powells.com and we will send you a book of your choice (Italy, Spain, or Europe) for free. Deadline is Jan. 15, 2007. EuropeBackpack@aol.com

News from Italy reaches the Beetle of cheese raids, with criminal gangs hijacking lorries containing wheels of Parmesan cheese, cutting them up and selling them to stores. The Italian farmers’ union is experimenting with microchips which can be hidden in cheese crusts and then traced by satellite.

According to a recent UN report, up to 30% of girls in some Kenyan resorts are involved in the sex industry.

The UN children’s fund UNICEF, which looked at resorts along Kenya’s coast, found that 15,000 girls aged 12 to 18, said to live in the resort areas districts of Mombassa, Kilifi, Malindi and Kwale were engaged in casual sex for money. Another 2,000-3,000 girls and boys were involved in full-time prostitution, said the study – carried out jointly with the Kenyan government.

Poverty is the reason, UNICEF says: many families see the sex industry as the only way of putting food on the table. European men represented half of all their clients, the report said. Italian, German and Swiss nationals are the most common clients of child sex workers among tourists – at 18%, 14% and 12% respectively. Kenyan men are the largest single group of clients, comprising 38% of the total.

China is to build a 1,315 km railway line running north – south connecting Nigeria’s two main commercial cities, Lagos and Kano. Nigeria’s leader President Olusegun Obasanjo said the five-year railway line was the first phase in a 20-year modernisation programme. The existing railway along these routes has fallen into disrepair and new tracks are to be built under the deal with China.

This is the latest of significant ventures invested by China in Africa – it is said that China now imports more oil from Angola than from Saudi. Some commentators raise the question of China colonising Africa, rich with resources and governed by corrupt leaders.

Australia’s Treasurer Peter Costello has said there is “no point” Australia signing the Kyoto Protocol on climate change unless it applies to China and India too. Australia, like the US, has refused to ratify the Kyoto agreement which places curbs on greenhouse emissions.

We normally associate Venezuela’s president Snr Hugo Chavez with outrageous pronouncements. Peru’s President, Alan Garcia has entered the fray for the title of most controversial remarks: he recently suggested that the coca leaf, from which the drug cocaine is derived, should be used in cooking and salads – that coca leaves had many valuable uses, including giving relief from sore throats and colds. Mr Garcia suggested the legal use of coca as a way of fighting cocaine production and trafficking.

Peru is the world’s second largest producer of cocaine behind Colombia. Mr Garcia’s comments came at a press conference for foreign correspondents at the government palace in Lima. Whilst some of Mr Garcia’s ideas sounded unorthodox, he insisted that the coca plant could be used for nutritional and medicinal purposes. The president likened coca leaves to the herb rosemary and to rocket, adding that he personally had cooked with coca leaves. “You can put coca leaves in your roast dinners, in the oven, you can make many things which it will give a special taste to,” he said and that the best way to fight illegal coca plantations was to open new markets so that Peru’s land could be used to produce coca for legal purposes.