Sue (Deputy Chair, London) would like some advice/tips/pointers on where to go and what to do in Buenos Aires at the New Year. Please contact the Beetle with any advice: Beetle@globetrotters.co.uk
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
Charlie Loram, the intrepid trekker/philosopher first visited India in 1992 and visits the Himalayas almost every year. Who else is so well qualified to talk about trekking in Ladakh and to talk about life and the people there. Charlie showed us some superb slides of the area, interspersed with maps of his routes and some of his own philosophy about eco-tourism and the quality of life. You can order a copy of Charlie’s book, Trekking in Ladakh (Trailblazer) online from www.trailblazer-guides.com.Fantastic, Charlie, and we look forward to seeing you again!
Just when you thought things could not continue on such a high, Paul Grogan took over the gauntlet in the second half and entertained us with some of the highs and lows of his adventures kayaking across Siberia with his babe magnet friend. Paul amazed us using slide and video footage (well done to Webmaster Paul!) starting with his moments of getting stuck in mud on the way to the source of the river Amur, flat calm days, sinister watch towers, political bureaucracy, gorgeous girls (!) and getting sozzled on a Chinese boat and waking up finding a very nasty plastic watch strapped to his wrist in exchange for his nice one! Brill!
Next, in London on 3rd November, Tim Burford will look at the varying styles of architecture in his talk on the Castles and Churches of Romania. Tim is a regular at the various London travel shows (along with the Beetle) and has impeccable guide book writing credentials and is author of both Bradt’s Hiking Guide to Romania and the Rough Guide to Romania.
Sebastian Hope will be talking about the Sea Gypsies of South East Asia, finding and travelling with the maritime nomads travelling the coasts of Borneo, Burma, Thailand, Sumatra, Sulawesi and Sulu Archipelago before returning to Sabah to search for Sarani a sea-gypsy chief and his friend. Another author, he has written Outcasts of the Islands about the sea gypsies of SE Asia published b by HarperCollins.
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. For more information, you can contact the Globetrotter Info.line on +44 (0) 20 8674 6229, or visit the website: www.globetrotters.co.uk
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
As soon as we get information on the annual barbecue we will let you know what happened! 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.
Tom from North Carolina wrote in to tell us about his time in Tibet: we (a small group of 8) had the usual difficulty with our visa delaying our entry to Tibet from Katmandu by a day even though this was planned and paid for in advance. We had to pay a second time and our original visa fee was eventually returned. Chinese officialdom also confiscated my Swiss army knife before I was allowed to board the airplane to Lahasa.
We toured the country in a small bus with Tibetan driver and Chinese guide both very pleasant. In addition to Lhasa, the capital, we also visited Shigatse and Gyantse, the next two largest cities, really small towns. This meant long rides (10 hours one day) travelling on dirt roads with no guard-rails but great scenery – neat farms, spectacular lakes, snow-capped mountains with steep drops and yaks.
We ate delicious food outside at a “one table” roadside place at very low prices. All the Tibetan people were very gracious and pleasant. At one lunch stop (two tables) while our food was being prepared we observed the ladies of the town in a Tug-of-war contest being cheered on by their men. The four ladies in our group were invited to participate.
Other than the scenery, the highlight of the visit was the Potala Palace in Lahasa where we spent an entire day climbing all types of steps and ladders to the thirteen levels of that seat of the Dalai Lamas. That is why Tom now has a bionic left knee.
The winner of last month’s East & Southern Africa
Quiz was Thomas Simoneit who lives in Muenchen
Germany. Well done – your book is in the post (subject to delays
we are currently experiencing.)
We have Charlie Loram’s Trailblazer Guide Book on Trekking in Laddakh, which he has kindly donated as a prize for the winner of this month’s quiz. And what is more, Charlie has set this month’s quiz: