This is my first request to your excellent newsletter. I'd like to know if anyone knows of anywhere in Tibet where a young (23) year old guy could go to learn overtone chanting. Have you any ideas/sources/reports of young people. I'd love to know, and I can then pass the message on: di.hinds@ntlworld.com
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 Forum section of the Website: Mutual Aid
From the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office: You should be aware of the risk of indiscriminate attacks by terrorists in public places, including tourist sights, throughout the world. Although there is no recent history of either domestic or international terrorism in Bulgaria, we believe there is an increased general threat to visibly British institutions and organisations from global terrorism as there is in all other countries in this region.
Crime levels are roughly comparable to the UK. Organised criminal groups are active in casinos, nightclubs, prostitution and elsewhere. Much local violent crime is the result of turf battles between criminal groups. You should beware of groups of young pickpockets (often children) in city centres, especially busy shopping areas and underpasses. Thieves and pickpockets also target holidaymakers at Black Sea coastal resorts. You should leave passports and other valuables in a hotel safe or other secure place. (You are strongly advised, however, to carry a copy of the information pages of your passport as proof of identity).
Car theft is commonplace. Thieves target prestige and four-wheel drive models, but any unattended vehicle is at risk. If possible, you should use alarms and other visible security measures.
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.
An airline passenger discovered the a frog perched on a slice of cucumber while on a Qantas flight from Melbourne to Wellington in February. “Naturally there was a bit of consternation by the passenger who called back the attendant,” Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry quarantine general manager Fergus Small said. The flight attendant removed the salad and the 4 cm (1.6 inch) whistling tree frog, which was killed by quarantine staff when the aircraft landed. Qantas was not immediately available for comment but a spokesman told The New Zealand Herald newspaper the airline had since changed its lettuce supplier and introduced “additional procedures into the salad supply process.”
I went to St Moritz for a week in February – on a course in a place called Randolins in Survetta, a little way outside the town – not skiing. Randolins is a not for profit organisation that caters mainly for groups, such as children on ski camps or adult learning. It's a very nice place, simple, but comfortable – definitely not your 5 star kind of place. It has shared rooms and you have to take part in the chores, so things like going and getting the food for each meal and wheeling it down to your building on a trolley, washing up, laying tables etc. If you are looking for a group venue, it's not a bad place.
St Moritz is in the Upper Engadine. Can't comment on skiing, but can say a few things about the town. It's quite small, easily walkable, very posh with a very high fur coat count and is pretty expensive! There are two parts to St Moritz: there's the dorf which means village and this is above the lake. This is where the posh hotels, restaurants, shops etc are. St Moritz-Bad is about 2km away southwest down on the lakeshore and is not such a pretty place, lots of concrete flats and other buildings.
The name of St Moritz
has an interesting story attached to it: the story told to me was
that Maurice (later turned into Moritz) was a Christian and came
from Egypt. He served in the Roman army under Julius Caesar
and led a Theban legion for the Roman empire and fought in the
Alps. He refused to obey the order of the Emperor Maximian
and sacrifice some Christians to the Roman gods because he was
himself a Christian. On hearing this, Maximian ordered
Maurice's regiment to be decimated – i.e. every tenth person
killed, and this went on until no-one was left. And so
commanding officer Maurice became a saint. Legend has it that
the rock used by Maurice to lay his head on so that he could be
beheaded is at St Moritz. Like England's St George,
St. Maurice is a patron of knights and soldiers. From the
12th century, due the similarity between his name and Maurus, he
was depicted as a Moor, so he became the black saint.
Even after Roman times, St. Moritz was known during the Middle Ages for its mineral springs and healthy climate and it became the first alpine winter sports and tourism centre in Switzerland. It also hosted two Olympic Winter Games (1928 and 1948.) It became the famous ski and alpine sports centre that it is mainly due to the British, who went over in the 1860s and liked it so much they went back and stayed an entire season, and the word was spread.
To get to St Moritz is very easy, you can take a train from Zurich. I flew from London to Zurich on Easyjet (AKA Sleazyjet) and that was a good price at around £75 including taxes. Swiss Air and BA all fly there too from the UK but are more expensive. There is a train station underneath the airport at Zurich and you can take a train from here to the main train station in the centre and go to Chor, change there for St Moritz. The whole train journey from Zurich took about 3 1/2 hours.
There are plenty of taxis outside St Moritz train station and the drivers seem to speak every language in the world between them. Swiss Italian and Swiss German seem to be the predominant languages – and be warned, whilst many Swiss people are amazing linguists and speak good English throughout, if you were thinking (like me) to practice your German, think again, Swiss German is quite different.
Swiss trains are a delight – always on time, clean, and I especially like the double decker trains. Whilst the airport is non smoking throughout – a fairly recent change, I think, the Swiss do allow smoking on trains, so be careful about which compartment you get into, if you are a non smoker. I got on an intercity from Lucerne to Zurich and inadvertently sat in a smoking section, which by the time I realised, was too late to move as it was packed full.
Buying a Swiss rail pass makes a lot of sense. I paid £105 for a pass that allowed me free travel on three specified days. The days do not have to be consecutive. The pass also allows you to receive substantial discounts on other trips. You can buy rail passes for different lengths of trip.
I also went to Lucerne or Luzern. Beautiful! It's about 4 hours from St Moritz by train – and only an hour or so by the fast intercity train from Zurich, which also goes direct to the airport as well, which is pretty handy. It is situated on a lake and has lots of history. The river Reuss separates the old town from the newer, although that seemed pretty old to me too! Then it flows into the lake. The town is also very easy to walk around and was my highlight on this trip to Switzerland. The train station is very close to the edge of the lake and close to the Art Museum and within easy reach of the hotels by foot.
I stayed in the Hotel Krone which is a Best Western and is in the Old Town, it was very nice and has free internet and the people there were very nice.
There are lots
of bridges across the River Reuss, it reminded me a little of
Ljubljana, especially with some of the dragon symbols, some of my
friends said Stockholm. One of the most famous is the Chapel
bridge built in the 14th century as a part of the city's
fortifications and named after St. Peter's Chapel, which is
located nearby. It has paintings on it including some info on the
city's patron saints, St. Leodegar and our friend St.
Maurice. There's also a very splendid 17th century
baroque Jesuit church. I really liked the water spikes that
act like a lock to regulate water levels like in a canal. and
you can see the remains of water mills.
There are lots of old squares and beautiful buildings with pictures on the walls, red spires and steeples. The Weinmarkt is one of these old squares, and is by the Hotel Krone – very pretty. There's also a great restaurant, and not too expensive (for Switzerland!) in the cellar of the town hall, or Rat Haus that has its own micro brewery inside – great beer, and good food, especially the Braui special which has lots of different types of pork and sauerkraut. It is also a good place to go and talk to local people, as everyone seemed really friendly.
On my final day in
Lucerne, I went to the tourist information centre at the train
station and asked where I could go in the mountains. They
suggested a trip to Rigi Kulm, so, using my rail pass, instead of
paying 79 Swiss Francs, it cost me 29 Swiss Francs. It was a
great adventure! I took a boat across Lake Lucerne, and then
a funicular or cog wheel train up the mountain to the top of Rigi
Kulm, about 1,800m, so not too high, and then the cog wheel train
to the half way point and a cable car down to Weggis back down by
the lake, and the boat again back to Lucerne. It was a
wonderful half day trip, where we could see above the clouds, the
mountain tops poking through, then there was the lake and the green
of the alpine pastures leading up to the mountains. There are
a couple of other mountain type trips you can do like this whilst
based in Lucerne.
Then I took the train from Lucerne back to Zurich airport, the direct trains run at 10 minutes past the hour and it took about 1 hour.
I’d definitely recommend Lucerne as a base for 2/3 days to explore.
Spotted by our webmaster, this is a really neat idea. The BBC have put together a ‘Disease map’ that lets you click on your intended destination region and then shows you a brief overview of the diseases that are present in some or all of the countries there, and the vaccinations that may be required.
This is for advisory purposes only; many countries in the same region have widely differing immunisation entry requirements – it is best to consult your travel agent or GP well before departure to ensure that you fulfil these.