Contrary to popular opinion, it is possible to travel independently around China. However, having said that, it has to be one of the most frustrating countries to travel in as the script is impossible to read for us Indo-European language speakers. Here is a trip that gets around mostly through flying, so it is a little easier to see the best parts of China this way and without having to use the services of a guide. Travelling in China in this way, you will need to arrange flights and accommodation and the rest you can fill in as and when you arrive at places.

Fly into Beijing and settle in your chosen hotel – there are plenty of good tourist class hotels. Spend 2 whole days in Beijing. Sites to see include the Forbidden City, Tian’anman square, the Temple of Heaven etc. You can take guided day trips to the Great Wall of China, the Ming Tombs and the Summer Palace.

Fly from Beijing to Xian, the Imperial capital between 1,000 BC and 1,000 AD. Spend a couple of days in Xian: see the Terracotta Warriors, the Small Wild Goose Pagoda and there are some hot springs close by. It’s usually quieter to visit the Warriors in the afternoons.

From Xian, fly to Shanghai, explore Shanghai for a couple of days, walk down the Bund, the main road by the harbour, visit the Yu gardens and the old city etc. Ask your hotel to book a day return train ticket to Suzho, a place in China made famous for its silk production. Explore the old town, stock up on silk clothes etc and return to Shanghai.

Fly from Shanghai to Guilin, arrive at the airport, arrange to be met by your hotel and ask them to book a day cruise down the River Li. This is the most beautiful journey – distinctive rounded hills, and you can get a chance to see life as it used to be many centuries ago. If you have more time, it is possible to take longer cruises down the River Li where you can sleep aboard. Your hotel will be able to advise. There are also some caves in Guilin: the Reed Flute Caves that are worth a quick visit.

Fly from Guilin to Canton, explore around and take the train from Canton to Hong Kong and finish your tour here after having spent a few days exploring around.

On May 8-10, the UN will be hosting the most important children's event since the 1990 World Summit for Children. We will gather at 4pm to start the march at 4:30pm on May 8 and converge on the United Nations Headquarters in New York. This will be followed by a rally and candlelight vigil, to end around 7:30pm. For detailed information on the march, please visit our website. The event will be a memorable experience for everyone involved and a clear message to the world. We hope that we can count on your participation and support to make this event a stunning success. If you have any questions, are planning to participate, or would like to help out in the final preparations for the march, please click here to contact us.

For those who cannot attend the New York rally, you can sign a petition against the use of child labour, to help kick Child Labour out of the world. Particularly timely, this petition asks that no child is employed in the football industry and the production of other FIFA-licensed goods and all children removed from child labour are rehabilitated and given opportunity to receive education. Please take a couple of minutes to read and sign our World Cup Campaign Petition.

This is the first time I have written an article for this publication and I should like to tell you all a little about the charity Trade Aid. It was set up in 1996 by a group of people headed by Brian Currie, a Salisbury businessman. The aim of the charity it to create sustainable employment in a village called Mikindani, a deprived and desperately poor part of Tanzania.

The first phase of the project was to renovate a badly decayed but very beautiful German fort, situated on the side of a hill and overlooking the spectacular Mikindani Lagoon. With the help of European experts, local people have restored this building to its former glory, and it is now open as a 6 bedroom, country-house hotel. All the staff are Tanzanian nationals and most are local people from Mikindani and Mtwara, the local town.

Now that this phase of the project is complete, we are concentrating on promoting the hotel and attracting visitors to this beautiful and unspoilt part of Tanzania. Mtwara has an airport and there are scheduled flights six days a week. The airport is 20 minutes from the hotel and guests are collected by the hotel staff.

There is a range of guest activities available such as a guided tour around the historic village of Mikindani, a trip to the Ruvuma River on the Mozambique boarder, snorkelling in the crystal waters of the Mnazi Bay Marine Reserve, or a two-day excursion to the fascinating Rondo Forest Reserve. Some guests may prefer just lazing by the pool at the Old Boma.

Each month we produce a newsletter written by our volunteers working in Mikindani, and I will include some of their news and activities in the next article. This is an item from our January Newsletter written by one of our Gap Year volunteers, Matthew Maddocks.

“Our Christmas at the Boma and in Mikindani was one I will never forget for a number of reasons. In George’s (a fellow volunteer) absence we awoke and had an exquisite breakfast of fresh bread rolls, jam, marmite and English tea. Eggs would have been a choice if Tanesco had been festive and let us have some power! But our palette treats were immediately withdrawn when Mtipa came through with a traditional soup he’d prepared that morning. His present to us was the intestines and internal organs of a goat he had slaughtered that very morning, stewed together! Ian and myself managed a tiny taste but we were all shocked, and playing ‘guess the organ’ was fun, but also highlighted the fact we simply couldn’t eat it all!

The day’s events didn’t really pick up until just after lunch when I slipped into the grotto we had put up in the courthouse and dressed myself in the mock up Santa’s outfit we had made. Dennis had said that it would have been the first time Mtwara region had been visited by Father Christmas and as I expected a few of the visitors were scared silly and ran out again given one glimpse of me! However, overall it was a big success and after asking names, ages, if they had been good, each child was given a gift (including George who had just returned and came to sit on my knee and tell me what a good boy he’d been.) One small Indian boy did ask me for a car however giving that he was 5 and perhaps not ready for such things I gave him 'the even better thing' from my sack!”

I hope some of you will visit The Old Boma, and see this hidden treasure of Southern Tanzania for yourselves. There is more information about the Hotel, the Charity and the project on our website www.mikindani.com The Beetle would just like to add that she visited the Boma, chatted with the staff, had tea by the pool at the Boma, and it is not only fantastic what the charity has achieved, but also the fact that they are genuinely giving something back to the community.

This summer, three students from Imperial College, London will travel on horseback to the remote and beautiful valleys and mountains of the Altai Republic in south Siberia. The expedition will leave the UK on the 21^st June and return in mid-August. Here they will work with Altaian colleagues to record and map the ethno-musical landscape of this unique area, where Islam and Buddhism have met and mingled with the indigenous animist Altaian culture.

This exciting expedition will be the first ethno-musical study ever carried out in the region, and will provide us with a window on this little-known world. The music the team encounters and record will be placed in the sound archives of Altai and Britain, to provide an enduring record of the unique and colourful Altaian culture.

The expedition has the approval of and is part-support of the Royal Geographic Society, the UK National Sound Archive and Imperial College

The team invites sponsorship from any interested parties, and can offer interviews, photo opportunities, articles and coverage for sponsors.

For more information contact team-leader:
Richard Scrase, 129C Sterling Place, South Ealing, London, W5 4RD
E-mail: Click Here
Web: Click Here
Tel:+44 (0) 207 852 1879 / 0778 779 4250

On Mardi Gras in good old Carnival style some 800 identically dressed men go to the streets of Binche in south Belgium to fight for their freedom from feudalism like they used to some 400 years ago. In colourful uniforms with padded bellies and hunchbacks individual Gilles walk chaotically up and down the town stamping their clogs rhythmically to the sound of their personal drummers to pick up some fellow Gilles from their homes. After a while small groups of them form and along with their personal drummers trot their clogs on the cobblestones from one drinking establishment to another.

There doesn’t seem to be any age restrictions so they start from the clog wearing age to wheelchair ones capable to stamp their feet. Although there seems to be some distinctions in the ranks. Novice Gilles get up early in the morning and wearing identical masks march straight on the Town Hall. “Approved” ones are allowed to trot through all the bars and tavernas till the early afternoon when the real battle starts.

Clans of Gilles turn to the streets with long baskets full of blood oranges to start defending themselves. Crowds of friends and relatives follow them with massive sacks of ammunition. It is not clear why oranges have been originally used as offensive weapon or how XVI century paysans managed to import some 6 tonnes of them from Sicily. Nevertheless they start marching through the centre of the town throwing them more or less violently into the crowd. Oranges get squashed, splatted, caught, eaten or collected for later. Interim result is that most people look like Sissy Spacek in Carrie horror movie. Ambulances get busy and the battle goes on for a coupe of hours till even the senior Gilles wearing some 2 meter hats of ostrich feathers get to conquer the Town Hall.

Slight drawback is that the locals keep spraying some sticky foam all over people and with complete lack of public conveniences there is little one can do to clean it off. Also serving good old Belgian beer traditionally in relevant glasses and in large quantities leaves the cobblestones scattered with broken glass and mainly blood from oranges running down the streets.

My score was: caught two oranges, got badly hit by one on the forehead, was handed one while licking off my face after the first hit and apart from two badly dislocated fingers I really enjoyed the event.

Take a look at Krys’ web site: www.krystyna.com/Gilles.html

Meeting news from our branches around the world.

Founded in 1982, Conservation Volunteers Australia is a national, non-profit and non-political organisation. CVA completes essential conservation projects, which could not be tackled without active community participation. The projects are as distant, diverse and unique as the Australian continent itself – for example, radio-tracking echidnas on Kangaroo Island; malleefowl surveys in Victoria’s Little Desert; construction of the Larapinta Trail in the Northern Territory; landcare projects in Tasmania and koala surveys in Queensland.

Conservation Volunteers Australia welcomes everybody with a love of the outdoors and interest in the environment to take part as a volunteer. Our volunteers come from all over the world, including Korea, Denmark, Japan, Britain, Canada, USA and Germany. If you are looking for an opportunity to:

· visit some amazing locations,

· meet a broad range of people,

· learn about the Australian environment, and

· volunteer overseas

then volunteering with Conservation Volunteers Australia and having a Conservation Experience is for you. The Conservation Experience is a six-week program especially designed for overseas visitors to Australia. It is the perfect way to visit some of Australia’s special places. The cost of AUD $966.00 (just AUD $23 per day – around £8.20) includes all meals, accommodation and project-related transport. You can join the Conservation Experience on any Friday (subject to vacancies), from any of CVA’s office around Australia. For further details, visit our website at www.conservationvolunteers.com.au or email info@conservationvolunteers.com.au or write to Conservation Volunteers Australia, Box 423, Ballarat Vic 3353

6th April Kevin Morgan kicked off with a wonderful slide show of dolphins, whales and other marine and bird life ranging from Antarctica to the Bahamas! We all left feeling wiser and almost confident of being able to distinguish bottle nosed dolphins from spinners! His slides finished with an evocative tape of the sounds made by whales.

After the break, Cass Gilbert showed us some fabulous pictures of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan (and other places ending in “stan” that the beetle cannot spell!) Amazingly, he completed this incredible journey by tandem, through parts of the old Silk Route, past ancient cities, churches, mosques, and markets, occasionally, with his female tandem partner cycling in veil and long trousers, much to the bemusement of many locals.

London meetings are held at The Church of Scotland, Crown Court, behind the Fortune Theatre in Covent Garden at 2.30pm the first Saturday of each month, except that due to public holidays, May’s meeting will be on Saturday 11th May at 2.30pm. June’s meeting will be held at 2.30pm on June 8th.

For more information, you can contact the Globetrotter Info line on +44 (0) 20 8674 6229, or visit the website: http://www.globetrotters.co.uk

Oman is a fascinating country. For anyone who has been to Zanzibar, there are striking architectural similarities, but it is not all about modern or ancient towns, there’s desert, mountains and, of course, the Arabian Sea! Most of the dive operators are attached to hotels. There is one dive operation, called Dive Oman which is about 45 minutes drive south from the airport at Muscat Dive Oman is run by Bernard and Stephanie, a lovely couple, (French and Dutch) and is part owned by the poshest hotel, which is close by, called the Al Bustan. Bernard can be contacted on: diveoman@omantel.net.om

Here, you can stay right on the beach in a range of accommodation, from air con rooms to a shared dorm. The bay from here is superb, not much to see snorkelling, but it is very pretty, and a short boat trip away, you will be able to see dolphins.

The diving is very good for the novice and intermediate diver: there are no currents to speak of, you’ll find it difficult to get deeper than 20m and the visibility is generally 15m +. The corals are not as colourful as say the Red Sea, but this is more than made up for by fantastic amounts of fish! Great for macro photographers too! You get loads of them and they are so unafraid! The Beetle did not see anything particularly large, but there were lots of turtles, and the occasional docile reef shark, and in the right season, there are whale sharks. Visibility ranges from 15m+ and the water temperature is around 25 degrees C.

Dive Oman is a very safe dive operation, not run by cowboys, good air – reasonable equipment although the Beetle has her own. A proper briefing preceded each dive and although few dives were guided, it was very safe and almost impossible to get lost!

If you stay at Dive Oman, they are stuck out in the middle of nowhere and only have food at weekends i.e. Thursday and Friday, so you'll have to hire a care and go off and find something yourself the rest of the time.

If you are British, you can buy a visa at the airport, around £16 or $23. If you have an Israeli stamp in your passport, forget it, you’ll have a hard time getting in. Also, the Omanis are the worst drivers the Beetle has ever seen, even worse than the Egyptians! And that takes some doing! So driving can be fraught! The Beetle drove as a female over there, which is possible but a major novelty, so she had cars overtake and then sit on the other side of the road just staring in as she drove! The dress code is long and baggy: don't wear shorts outside the dive centre and females should wear long baggy trousers and long sleeved shirts or long short sleeved T shorts.

Other dive operators include Blue Zone and Ecodivers bluzone@gto.net.om

Dive Oman have a web site: http://www.diveoman.com.om/

Next month: more on the sites of Oman