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.

A Chinese boy died after falling from the landing gear of a passenger jet on take-off in north China. The stowaway, believed to be aged around 10, fell from a China Eastern Airbus A320 at the airport in Dunhuang, a popular tourist spot for Buddhist grottoes in Gansu province, Xinhua news agency said without elaborating. The jet, en route from Dunhuang to the provincial capital of Lanzhou, landed safely.

Last November, a 14 year old homeless boy who stowed away in the landing gear of a plane survived a 700 km (430 miles) flight across southwest China. A friend riding with him fell from the plane and died.

Two former America West pilots Christopher Hughes and Thomas Cloyd were removed from an Airbus A319 in Miami on July 1, 2002, and charged with operating a plane under the influence of alcohol.

They were in the cockpit as the aircraft was being towed to the runway for takeoff from Miami International Airport on a flight to Phoenix, Arizona. But after a security screener reported the pilots were red-eyed, flushed and reeking of alcohol, air traffic controllers ordered the plane back to the gate.

The jury were told that the pair had played pool at a bar until 5 a.m. before the 10:30 a.m. flight and consumed 350 ounces of beer between them, the equivalent of nearly 22 pint glasses (10 litres), after earlier sharing a bottle of wine with two flight attendants.

A completely new family of rodents, a kind of rat has been found in Laos. The animal has long whiskers, stubby legs and a tail covered in dense hair and was on sale in a hunters’ market. Dr Robert Timmins working with the Wildlife Conservation Society in Thailand saw that it was probably unknown to science and brought it to the attention of his colleagues. “It was for sale on a table next to some vegetables,” said Dr Timmins. “I knew immediately it was something I had never seen before.” “To find something so distinct in this day and age is just extraordinary. For all we know, this could be the last remaining mammal family left to be discovered,” Dr Timmins said.

Spanish travel group Marsans, which owns Aerolineas Argentinas, plans to create a new unit in Peru and begin flights there within five months.

An Aerolineas spokesman said they expected the debut of the new Peruvian company, called Aerolineas del Peru, to take no longer than five months because of the Peruvian government’s warm welcome.

As we previously reported, one of the key competitors in Peru, Chilean airline LAN, has become unpopular with the Peruvian government due to a scandal over an in-flight video depicting images of Lima considered offensive.

Spotted by Webmaster Paul, here’s a satellite photo from Google of Spaghetti Junction.

Spaghetti Junction

Reunion Kingston London Sunday 11th Sept 2005 for any member of Globetrotters

who travelled overland to India or on the rail tours organised by Butterfields. Please e-mail butterfieldashley@yahoo.co.uk

Pretoria was named after Andries Pretorius, a Boer settler and a folk hero of Afrikaners who later set up the apartheid racial discrimination system. The city council approved the switch to Tshwane in March as part of moves to make place names more African, but opposition campaigners say they feel marginalised. Hundreds of predominantly white South Africans have staged a demonstration against plans to change the capital’s name from Pretoria to Tshwane which means “we are the same”. and was the name of pre-colonial local chief.

According to a recent survey conducted by condiments giant Ajinomoto, it seems that traditional eating habits are changing fast in Japanese homes. The report says that only about 20 percent of married women in major city areas lay out eating utensils correctly in accordance with traditional Japanese etiquette standards.

The survey showed that modern families are showing little regard for traditional Japanese table manners, often placing bowls in the wrong spots or lining chopsticks incorrectly. The survey discovered that the role of soup, once an essential accompaniment of almost every Japanese meal, is declining as people consume beverages like tea with their meals instead of waiting until they had finished as had been the custom in the past.

Families served rice with nearly every evening meal. Proper etiquette requires the rice bowl be placed on the left and the soup bowl on the right, but the correct method was used by only 20 percent of the 235 married women from 20 to 64 living in and around Tokyo and Osaka.

According to correct tradition in Japan, chopsticks are supposed to be arranged horizontally in front of the eater with the fatter of the two ends where the sticks are held on the right. However, 21 percent of the respondents lined chopsticks with the fat end either left or right, another 7 percent placed them on a stand or holder, 6 percent placed them on dishes and 2 percent lined them vertically.

And finally, around 70 percent of women served beverages at the beginning of meals instead of waiting until after the meal as tradition demands.

You may have heard about Schappelle Corby, the Australian surfer who has been arrested and sentenced to 20 years in prison for smuggling in 4.5 kgs of cannabis in her boogie board case into Bali. Some people say that the drugs were put inside her case by luggage handlers in Australia – and if true, this is not the first time Australian baggage handlers have come under suspicion for this kind of thing. It makes you wonder about how just safe your luggage is from tampering. Many airports offer plastic shrinkwrap around suitcases and yet the US advises that luggage should be left unlocked so that customs can make routine inspections. What to do – what do you think?

Tens of thousands of Snickers and Mars chocolate bars have been withdrawn from sale in Australia’s New South Wales after the manufacturer was sent a letter threatening to poison a member of the public. The letter warned that up to seven Snickers and Mars bars in the metropolitan Sydney area had been contaminated. Police believed the products were randomly chosen and may have been tampered with.

Uganda has imposed a smoking ban in all public places, the environment minister has said. Smoking in restaurants, educational institutions and bars will now be an offence with a fine for offenders of between $10 and $50 if arrested by policemen who have been instructed to enforce the law. No-one is sure yet how rigorously it will be enforced.

A US official has said that International travellers should get used to having their fingerprints taken or their irises scanned because traditional airport security tests are outdated and open to abuse.

“As a general principle, certainly in the area of international travel, biometrics is the way forward in virtually every respect,” said Michael Chertoff, US Homeland Security Secretary.

“When we screen based on names, we’re screening on the most primitive and least technological basis of identification — it’s the most susceptible to misspelling, or people changing their identity, or fraud. Biometrics is the way ahead.”

Mr Chertoff visited the Netherlands, which will pilot a scheme later this year to allow passengers flying between New York’s Kennedy airport and Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport to pass through border controls using a biometric card. If they produce the card, travellers will not be subjected to further questioning or screening.

The scheme is the first of its kind to be launched between the United States and a European country and, if it works, could be adopted elsewhere.

The United States hopes the use of biometric testing will help prevent potential terrorists entering the country and cut down confusion about who is allowed in and who is not.

The UK is one of 27 countries whose citizens do not need a visa to enter the United States if they intend to stay less than 90 days. Washington wants all 27 to issue new passports by October 26 this year containing a computer chip and a digital photograph of the holder.

Virgin Atlantic Airways have started direct flights from the UK to Cuba that are expected to boost growing British tourism to the communist-run Caribbean island. “This is good for Cuba, because British tourism has become our second most-important market after Canada,” said Cuban Tourism Minister Manuel Marrero, at the airport to meet Branson on the inaugural flight. Tourism generates 40 percent of Cuba’s foreign currency earnings. Cuba hosted a record 2 million tourists last year.

Virgin Atlantic’s rival British Airways stopped flying to Havana three years ago. The number of British tourists visiting Cuba rose 35 percent in the first quarter of 2005, to 43,900 arrivals. British visitors have outnumbered Italian, French and German tourists this year, Cuban officials said.

Branson said Virgin Atlantic expects to carry 42,000 passengers to Cuba in the first year, flying a Boeing 747-400 twice a week from London’s Gatwick Airport to Havana. The airline could be flying 150,000 to 200,000 people a year to Cuba within three to four years, he estimated.

Camels were introduced to Australia in the 19th Century as desert transport creatures. Australian officials say the country’s camel population has grown to about 700,000 in recent years and because they have no local predators, their numbers are growing by an estimated 11% per year, and population size has been doubling about once every eight years. State land officials decided a cull was the most efficient way to manage camel numbers. “The simplest, quickest and most cost effective way of doing that is an aerial cull,” said rural lands inspector Chris Turner. Marksmen riding in helicopters would track the camels and shoot them from the air, Mr Turner told Australia’s ABC radio.

Have you ever wanted to present a travel programme? Do you see yourself as a budding Judith Chalmers or Michael Palin? Or, do you just have a passion for the Island of Ireland? If the answer to any of the above questions is yes, then this is the challenge for you.

We’re on the lookout for two friends to front Ireland’s first ever online ‘travelmentary’, filming daily reports on the trip of a lifetime for thousands of Internet users. A camera crew will follow the lucky winners as they are chauffeured around Ireland in their very own Tourism Ireland luxury ‘taxi’ and given the chance to win up to г10,000.

To enter, just send a one-minute video clip of you and a friend explaining why you should be chosen to enjoy the Taxi Challenge. For further details on the challenge and how to enter visit www.tourismireland.com/taxi

So, find a friend, get out your video cameras and send us a one-minute clip telling us why you should front the Taxi Challenge.

Remember all you have to do is visit www.tourismireland.com/taxi

John from London wrote in to share some information about getting to London Stansted airport. He says:

I share your frustrations about the cost and unreliability of the train service to Stansted, but do you know about the National Express bus service from Stratford BR/Underground station?

It costs £7 single and £12 for a return, (a saving of £2), it leaves every half an hour, even during the night and takes 45 minutes because it’s only a spit from Stratford to the M11.

For more information, see: NationalExpress.

Pieces of a man’s body including the right leg, part of the spine and a hip, struck a garage roof of the home in South Floral Park, New York, before landing in the backyard are believed to have fallen from the wheel well of a South African Airways passenger plane bound for New York’s Kennedy Airport. A US customs inspector discovered the rest of the man’s body after Flight 203 landed in New York from Johannesburg. A South African Airways spokeswoman said it appeared to have been a stowaway attempt and that the plane had stopped in Dakar, Senegal, on its way to New York. During the flight, Smith said the pilot felt more “vibrating sensations and heard pounding, but nothing appeared wrong with the plane.”

86 mainly teenage migrants from Ecuador and Peru, have been found by Costa Rican officials adrift in their packed boat for three days. They sent a message in a bottle saying: ‘Please Help Us’. It is believed that the group were abandoned by people smugglers when the vessel got into trouble. The smugglers stripped the boat of radio and communication equipment when they left it. The bottle, and the SOS message it contained, was found by local fishermen who alerted officials. The group was hoping to reach Guatemala, from where they wanted to cross the border to Mexico, according to a spokesperson for Costa Rica’s public security ministry.

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!!