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Day 1. Depart Europe via Frankfurt, Lufthansa flights are cheapest, then
overnight flight to Seoul.

Day 2. Land around noon at Incheon Airport. Take the Airport limousine
bus into downtown Seoul, about 90 mins. After checking in to your chosen
accommodation, Yeogwans are good value simple accommodation go for a walk
to help ward off the inevitable jetlag.

Day 3. To get a first impression of Seoul you can take a city tourist
bus that goes around the city, stopping atthe major sights and areas.
A day pass costs 5000 Won ( US$ 6 ). In the afternoon go to Namsen Park
and ascend the Seoul tower for a birds-eye view of the city and to help
get your bearings.

If you are not too tired in the evening go to Itaewan district, for the
nightclubs, bars and markets.

Day 4.Today you could start the day with a pleasure boat ride up the
Hangang river that bisects Seoul, then spend the afternoon exploring the
Gyeongbokgung Palace. The Palace is made up of dozens of buildings and
museums. If the weather is unkind Seoul has many museums including a Rail
Museum, a Folk Museum and even a Currency museum, hope to see the Euro
in there soon!

Day 5. A day to escape the city, especially if it’s a Tuesday when a
lot of the museums and public buildings are closed. Take an organised
trip 60 Km north to Panmunjon on the DMZ, Demilitarised Zone. This is
an area where the cold war continues. UN soldiers guard this border between
the two Korea’s. You cannot go to this area except in an organised group,
and you have to sign a disclaimer in case you get shot! The tour takes
in the Freedom bridge and third Tunnel. You visit camp Boniface and are
on the borderline between the two countries. An exciting and different
side trip.

Day 6. Time to leave Seoul. Take a bus from the Seoul Express Bus station
and head south for four hours to Gyeongju in the Southeast. Gyeongju is
an historic city containing the best-preserved relics from the Silla dynasty.
This afternoon visit the Stone Silla Cheomseongdae observatory, one of
the world’s oldest and Anapji pond in town or take a taxi and visit the
standing stone buddhas, or the Abalone shaped watercourse south of town.

Day 7. Today take the 40 minute bus ride to Bulguksa temple that lies
east of Gyeongju at the foot of Mount Tohamsen. It is one of South Korea’s
premier tourist attractions, so get there early to avoid the heat and
the crowds. It is listed as a world heritage sight and is Korea’s oldest
Buddhist temple, the complex is made up of over 60 buildings. Contained
within are numerous treasures from the Silla era.

Day 8. Another short trip today, as we take the bus to Gimhe airport
in Busan ( Aka Pusan). The flight to Chejudo Island will take only 50
minutes ( US$ 50). You can alternatively take a ferry from Busan to Cheju
that takes 11 hours overnight, often through rough seas. The difference
in cost amounts to only a few dollars so the flight is preferable. Mid
afternoon arrival in Jeju. Take a walk to the Mysteriously shaped Dragon
Head rock on the edge of town, or go to the Moksukwon road and see the
optical illusion of cars rolling uphill.

Day 9. Take the bus to the Manjang cave area on the east of the island
and explore the world’s longest volcanic lava tubes. Take the bus to Songsun
Peak, so called Sun rise peak. If you want to be there as the sun rises,
then you need to spend the previous evening in the nearby village. Walk
along the beach and if you are lucky you may come across the “Sea
women”. These ladies dive for pearls without the use of air tanks
and are able to hold their breath for two minutes.

Day 10 Early bus to Sankumburi crater, famed for it’s diverse flora.
Then head south to Sogwipo city, the islands second city, and a venue
for this years football World cup. To the west of the city take in Yakcheonsa
Temple, which is made completely of wood, then stroll the 400m to the
Jusanjolli rock formations.

Day 11 Depending on time and tides take the ferry to Mokpo on the mainland,
this trip takes 5 hours. It may be preferable to fly. You may have to
spend the night at Mokpo if the ferry is late.

Day 12 Train or bus to Jeonju, a popular town with temples and pagodas
in parks to the east of the city, including the so-called Two Horse head
Mountain, that has a picturesque Temple at the foot of the mountain.

Day 13. Train or bus back north to Seoul. Arrive early afternoon. Last
chance for souvenir shopping and wandering.

Day 14. Morning at leisure before transferring to Incheon airport for
the flight back to Europe. With the nine hour time difference, you land
the same day, but your body may not agree!

If you would like to contact Kevin, please e-mail him on: Kbrackley@yahoo.com

Atom Crater, a former work colleague of the Beetle has recently returned
from a work trip to Bangladesh. This month and next, we include some of
his observations.

Weather report: When we arrived it was very cool, below 20 during the
day and nippy in the evening. I made the great mistake of going out one
evening without a sweater and felt really cold. But it’s now warming up
– winter’s over. It’s still comfortable (mid 20s) but a brisk walk
during the day does make you sweat. But the evenings are now sweater-less.
The dry season will last until May.

Rickshaws: You simply can’t begin to describe Dhaka without mentioning
the rickshaws, which are everywhere, absolutely everywhere. I heard the
other day that there are 800,000 in this city of 10-13 million. They occupy
a large proportion of the city’s road space, moving like a swarm of brightly
decorated yellow and red insects. They irritate motor vehicle drivers
like hell, but are a very efficient, low cost, environmentally acceptable
(except for the choking passengers! see air pollution below) mode of transport
in a city that is absolutely flat. They manoeuvre with remarkable skill,
squeezing into impossible spaces, and operate their own informal tidal
flow system, riding when they choose against the traffic in order to avoid
congestion. As well as passengers, you see them transporting vegetables,
sacks of rice, bags of cement, building materials, timber, bamboo, filing
cabinets, furniture, And they’re not confined to cities and towns, but
are also the dominant form of transport in the rural areas.

Auto-rickshaws: And then there are the auto-rickshaws, which zip around
emitting a fierce crackling sound and pungent grey exhaust. The World
Bank has just published a report that blames them (along with buses and
trucks) as the principal source of the appalling air pollution.

Wheel brushes: The Flying Pigeon bicycles (made in China) have a cunning
feature: two small brushes are attached to the mudguard stays, front and
back, which clean the dust off the rim of the wheels as they turn, thus
keeping them sparkling clean. Is this a local adaptation or does it come
from China? Would it catch on UK?

Hooters: Another traffic impression (traffic – and t-jams in particular
– are a major fact of life here): drivers hoot continuously, their fingers
twitching in quasi-Pavlovian response to the fact that there’s something
in front of them, or approaching from the side, or coming too close behind,
or ….what the hell, let’s hoot anyway! As with many things, it’s
so reminiscent of Indonesia, where we had to teach Yayat, our driver,
to stop this habit before it drove us crazy.

More about Dhaka in April’s e-newsletter. If you would like to contact
Atom Crater, please e-mail the Beetle and she will pass on any e-mails:
Beetle@globetrotters.co.uk

Imagine swapping your normal holiday for a surprise trip that could take
you anywhere in the world doing almost anything.

Holiday Swaps offers you the chance to make this year’s holiday
an unforgettable experience.

Are you a UK based group of friends or a family planning an adventurous
holiday this year? Holiday Swaps are especially looking for you if you
are planning a safari, trekking or conservation holiday.

If you have a good sense of humour, enjoy a challenge and would be prepared
to give up your planned holiday for something completely different, then
we’d like to hear from you.

Email: holiday.swaps@bbc.co.uk

Tel: (+44) 0117 974 7840 (24 hrs)

Address: Holiday Swaps, PO Box 791, Bristol, BS99 1DD, United Kingdom.

Easter would not be Easter without a quick diving trip. Last year the
Beetle went to the Red Sea on a live aboard, and this year, the Beetle
was at a loss to work out where to go. A Muslim country seemed like a
good idea because there would be fewer tourists going home to celebrate
Easter, but it had to be somewhere with good diving.

Oman came to mind as being an unusual destination with hopefully some
good diving opportunities. The Beetle contacted Trailfinders in the City,
in London, to enquire about availability, cost and timings of flights
to Oman. It seemed that there was quite a bit of availability, and the
price was not too bad, considering it was Easter. The next step was to
find a dive operation and a hotel.

A quick trawl on the net found a promising looking dive school that also
had accommodation, so the Beetle went back to Trailfinders to say that
she’d already be told of an Alitalia flight and read out the day and time.
The puzzled operative said, no, there are no Alitalia flights going to
Oman and quite honestly, it is all looking very busy, I can’t see the
flight you are referring to and I’m not sure we can get you there now.

The Beetle has been using Trailfinders for over 10 years and thought
this a little odd. Hang on a minute, just let me check something, the
operative said. He came back triumphant. Yes, we’ve got you going on a
flight to Amman, in Jordan! If the Beetle had booked the first time on
enquiring, she would have ended up in Amman and not Oman – a very
sobering thought!

The moral of the story is: no matter how experienced you think your travel
agent is, they are not mind readers, always state the name of the country,
even if you think it is obvious, like Paris, Texas, or Paris France, others
may not know!

Says Peter from California who wrote in to tell us about how he and his
partner, Leslie, traded vans and reaped the benefits of cheap travel.
“And we”d love to do it again! We put a letter to the Editor
in a caravan-owner”s magazine in England, saying we wanted to trade
our California van for theirs.

Four weeks before our 2-month trip, a nice gent from Norwich called to
say he”d consider it. After we traded references and information
about our vans and how they were outfitted, he welcomed us. We spent a
heavenly holiday travelling Britain, and then he and his wife came to
use our van to visit the great parks of the American west!

We saved thousands of dollars/pounds. Van trades are better than house
trades, because transportation is included and you”re not locked
in at one location! Campgrounds are very inexpensive and have nice showers
and laundry facilities.

We will soon have a new advertisement appearing in the Caravan Club Magazine–we”d
love to visit France for 2 months! Insurance is not a problem, as each
borrower gets their own to cover liability and collision.

In fact, if any of you fellow Globetrotters out there has a VW or other
van (fancy factory-outfitted vans are not necessary–we can sleep in a
bare tradesman”s van just fine), we”d love to trade with you.

Give me a call or an email: Peter Reimuller, Box 4, Point Arena, California,
95468; phone 1-(707)-882-2001; reimuller@mcn.org. And pack your bag–you”re
going to be in some wonderful places!

Sorry–April not available as we are taking our van to Indian Country
to visit the red-rock mesas and desert wildflowers.”

This is not for the faint hearted: if you are a regular traveller on
the London Underground, here are some facts that you are going to wish
you hadn”t read.

During Autumn of 2000, a team of scientists at the Department of Forensics
at University College London removed a row of passenger seats from a Central
Line tube carriage for analysis into cleanliness. Despite London Underground”s
claim that the interior of their trains are cleaned on a regular basis,
the scientists made some alarming discoveries.

The analysis was broken down. This is what was found on the surface of
the seats: 4 types of hair sample (human, mouse, rat, dog) 7 types of
insect mostly fleas, mostly alive) vomit originating from at least 9 separate
people human urine originating from at least 4 separate people human excrement
rodent excrement human semen

When the seats were taken apart, they found: the remains of 6 mice the
remains of 2 large rats 1 previously unheard of fungus It is estimated
that by holding one of the armrests, you are transferring, to your body,
the natural oils and sweat from as many as 400 different people. It is
estimated that it is generally healthier to smoke five cigarettes a day
than to travel for one hour a day on the London Underground.

It is far more hygienic to wipe your hand on the inside of a recently
flushed toilet bowl before eating, than to wipe your hand on a London
Underground seat before eating. It is estimated that, within London, more
work sick-days are taken because of bugs picked up whilst travelling on
the London Underground than for any other reason (including alcohol).

In a Nairobi restaurant: CUSTOMERS WHO FIND OUR WAITRESSES RUDE OUGHT
TO SEE THE MANAGER.

On the grounds of a private school: NO TRESPASSING WITHOUT PERMISSION.

On an Athi River highway: TAKE NOTICE: WHEN THIS SIGN IS UNDER WATER,
THIS ROAD IS IMPASSABLE.

On a poster at Kencom: ARE YOU AN ADULT THAT CANNOT READ? IF SO,WE CAN
HELP.

Write in and tell us your funny sign! Drop a line to the Beetle!Beetle@globetrotters.co.uk

Changi, Singapore: large, efficient, clean (good duty free) and looks
great, what with the orchids and the waterfalls inside the airport

Aruba: clean, quiet and uncrowded

Denver: looks nice but crap shops

Landing strip at Kavak, Venezuela: a charming field – minimal environmental
impact!

Heathrow: good shops for last minute forgotten item purchasing, can fly
almost anywhere from it – downside it is horrible to get to and
from, especially for early morning flights

The Stoat’s worst airports include:

Dar es Salaam – dirty, not many shops, expensive, sells 6 month
old copies of the Economist

Local airport at Honiara: fly ridden, filthy and decidedly dodgy

Local airport at Vanuatu: same as Honiara

Write in and tell us your best airport nominations!Beetle@globetrotters.co.uk