Category: Sidebar

Buses are a great way to get around London and ideal for
sightseeing too. There are over 17,000 bus stops all across London so you are
never far from a bus route.

Fares cost 70p for bus rides in outer London and £1
for journeys in central London (zone 1.) Children under 16 years old can make
any bus journey in London for a flat fare of 40p (14 and 15 year olds require a
Child Photocard).

Most bus drivers and conductors are very friendly and will
help you if you are not sure that you are travelling in the right direction.
Just ask, and if not, they will stop at the next stop for you to get off, cross
the road and catch another in the right direction. We all do it!

If you are planning on doing quite a bit of travel around
London in one day, it makes sense to buy a One Day Travelcard. This has the
added advantage that it can be used on the London Underground and trains within
a certain area. There are several zones you can buy cards to cover: Zone 1
covering central London and Zones 2, 3 and 4 covering outer London. Then there
is 5 and 6 that covers Heathrow airport. You can buy these travel cards from
tube stations and some newsagents. To stop a bus, just put out your hand and
the bus will stop, unless it is already full. To get off at a Request stop ring
the bell once and in good time to let the driver know.

Night buses run all through the night from midnight on
certain routes on a reduced timetable and are prefixed with the letter N. At
£1 or £1.50, they are a lot cheaper than a taxi!

Most of London's buses are red, but some come in other
colours for example, there is a gold painted bus to commemorate the
Queen’s Golden Jubilee; all will display the London Bus Service sign.

Wednesday 4th December, 6:30 pm: CUBANA 36 Southwick Street,
Paddington, London, W12 1JQ

£10 or (£8 for members) includes cocktail, tapas
and entry to prize draw.

A different format from the African event, more mingling and
no central presentation. There are 100 tickets avalible, for more information
visit www.ifworldwide.com or contact
is events@itchyfeet-uk.com or
07900 975 413

Many of the London hop-on-hop-off buses throw in a free
river cruise – often to Greenwich,with the ticket. And even if you are
not doing that, a visit to Greenwich can make a good day out.

The Beetle’s favourite way of getting there is to go
on the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) to Island Gardens and to walk through the
foot tunnel to Greenwich. There are some fab views, particularly in Winter,
looking south, across the river.

Once in Greenwich, there’s quite a bit to do: visit
the Royal Observatory, the Cutty Sark and the National Maritime Museum – and
it’s free!

The museum building itself is quite interesting: it used to
be an asylum building (i.e. what was referred to as a mad house) and then it
was a hospital school.

What’s there to see? In the museum, you will find a
collection of all things relating to the history of Britain at sea. But this
has been updated to include the dangers of sea pollution and ecology, as well
as Nelson’s seafaring antics.

The collection dates back to 1823 when a National Gallery of
Naval Art was established, featuring some 300 portraits, paintings and
artefacts.

The National Maritime Museum opens daily 10:00-17:00
Sun-Mon. Closed 24-26 Dec 2002. Train: Greenwich Train Station. Enquiries: 020
8858 4422 Entrance: FREE.

Love them or hate them, the one thing McDonalds has, all
over the world, is clean bathrooms! As a part of a cost cutting exercise, and
increasing competition from the likes of Wendys and Burger King, McDonald's
is to stop operating in three as yet unnamed countries, in the Middle East and
Latin America. It also plans to close 175 restaurants shedding 600 staff to
beef up profits.

Ever wondered how far it is from Paris, France to Paris,
Texas? Well, as the crow flies, it is 4847 miles (7800 km) or 4212 nautical
miles.

Expedia.com’s lowest return fare flying from Paris,
France to Dallas, the closest international airport to Paris Texas on 30th
November costs $626.86, which is equivalent to around 13c a mile.

And in case Paris, Texas catches your eye: Paris received
recognition in 1998 for being named “Best Small Town in Texas” by
Kevin Heubusch in his book “The New Rating Guide to Life in America's
Small Cities.”

Paris, Texas is located approximately 100 miles northeast of
Dallas, in the Heart of Red River Valley. It was founded in 1839 and became the
Lamar County seat in 1844. It later became incorporated in 1845 and today plays
a major role in Texas economy within Northeast Texas. Aside from the numerous
parks to stroll around, Paris, Texas has the “Second Largest Eiffel Tower
in the Second Largest Paris.”

Terrorism fears have prompted the Japanese Government to
issue a travel warning for Japanese subjects about Australia. Government to
Government discussions are now underway in Japan and efforts to sell the image
of a safe Australia to the Japanese public are also being stepped up due to a
multi-billion dollar tourism industry at risk.

Britain and the United States are warning of the risk of an
attack on the world's biggest camel fair in the deserts of western India
and urged their citizens to stay away. The fair, which runs in mid November,
draws thousands of foreign and Indian tourists to the lakeside town of Pushkar
in the desert state of Rajasthan.

The British High Commission said on Wednesday that although
it had received no specific threat against its citizens, it regarded the
carnival as “a potential target of terrorist activity”.
“Information has been received which suggests that there is a risk of
terrorist activity at the Pushkar Camel Fair,” the U.S. embassy in New
Delhi said in a statement. “While we have no indication of a specific
threat to American citizens, we advise that they should avoid this
event.”

Win a Moon Handbook on the San Juan Islands. See www.moon.com for info on Moon guidebooks.

The winner of last month's Moon guide is Mary
Attick.

If you were thinking of visiting Spain’s beautiful
north western coast, your walks along the beach may be spoilt and it may be an
idea not to order locally caught fish. A 35m gash in the side of a Greek owned
oil tanker, the Prestige, has caused a major oil spill, about 1,500 tonnes of
oil so far.

The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) warns that if all
77,000 tones of the Prestige's cargo were to leak, the spill would be twice
the size of the catastrophic Exxon Valdez spill off Alaska.

Floating barriers and pumping systems have been in place to
try to contain the spill, but nonetheless, thick patches of oil have been
washing up along a 40-kilometre stretch of coastline.

There are several reasons why travellers do not visit
Colombia, but perhaps they come down to the same thing: the cocaine industry
and the people who control it. Even the Colombian government acknowledge that
80% of the world's supply of the drug comes from Colombia, and 70% of this
was now grown in the Amazon region.

Colombia is without doubt a very beautiful country with
mountains, forests, beaches, colonial towns and cities, but it is just not
safe. Everyone, from people who live in the towns and cities to the
countryside, including tourists are at risk. It is one of the few countries in
the world that the Beetle would not visit herself. The Beetle’s former
Spanish teacher, a London based Colombian was herself viciously mugged within
minutes of arriving in her hometown of Medellín.

The new Colombian government have just announced a policy
called Trees for Drugs, under which poor farmers would be paid to protect the
forest instead of growing coca and are appealing for international funding from
the international community to help fund a scheme to pay poor farmers to
protect trees instead of cutting them down to grow drug crops.

Cocaine-users across the world are helping to destroy the
Amazon rainforest, Colombian Environment Minister Cecilia Rodriguez has warned.
Dr Rodriguez said the message to the world's drug users was clear: “I
should call the attention of all consumers of cocaine that they're are
harming dramatically the tropical rainforest of the world, because this is what
the world needs for its oxygen.”