Not sure what to buy your loved ones next Christmas? Why not buy a Ryanair cartoon? This one, see: shows a picture of a man booking a budget flight. The booking agent is grinning frantically and says: the flight is only 99p but it will cost another £120 if you want to do it inside the plane. Yes, quite.

An interesting article in http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=68464 about a man in the US calling a help line to make a complaint to Ryanair’s head office in Dublin. Before calling he noticed that the charges were quite high – 1.75 euro from the Republic of Ireland or £1 from the UK to call. The message clearly stated that the number was for an Irish office. He called several times and each time spoke with someone with an Italian accent and at one point was told that he was calling Italy though other people he spoke to denied this. So he decided to ask what was the weather like in Dublin and not a single person could answer him, so he deduced that he was actually calling Italy. Eventually he managed to speak to a supervisor who also has an Italian accent and they admit that the office where all the calls were going was in Milan in Italy. The supervisor could not explain why the staff were pretending to be in Dublin while actually being in Italy. She would neither confirm nor deny that they had been instructed to lie when asked where they were. Anyone know why?

Oh dear, it seems that Ryanair is coming under scrutiny for poor working conditions. A new website has been set up in September 2004: http://www.ryan-be-fair.org/latestnews.htm to communicate with passengers and employees of Ryanair. From this, the website says, two key issues have arisen:

• Lack of respect and how staff are generally treated
• Salaries and working conditions being as bad as they are.

The International Union Federation said that the website has attracted over half a million hits and revealed what it described as a 'shocking catalogue of misery, low pay and oppression' among the airline's workers. Ryanair employees have used http://www.ryan-be-fair.org to talk about the climate of fear that surrounds them, of 12 hour days without breaks, and of how they even have to pay for the water they need to drink on flights. If you have any information you would like to share about Ryanair, contact the website – everything is strictly confidential, and the website assures that they will not pass your details on to anybody.

[Beetle: These links seem to be down at present, but you can read them via google’s cache here and here]

Another interesting article in the International Herald Tribune by a journalist who underwent the Ryanair experience.

Globetrotter Steve spotted this:

The new partnership between Ryanair and Terravision, the new low cost coach company, now ensures that Ryanair passengers will be able to travel between Rome Ciampino airport and Rome centre, Milan Bergamo airport and Milan centre, Pisa G. Galilei airport and Florence centre quickly and comfortably, but above all at a really low cost!

Look for the Terravision icon on http://www.ryanair.com to book and purchase tickets and avoid queues or alternatively go to one of the many Terravision booths located in 15 European airports. Watch out for new openings in other European city destinations on

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.

Globetrotter meetings have temporarily ceased until further notice due to a bereavement in Christina’s family. If you can help Christina resurrect the Texas meetings, as she would really appreciate some help, please contact Christina on texas@globetrotters.co.uk'

For more information about the Texas Branch: please contact texas@globetrotters.co.uk or register for email updates at our website (click here) or call Christina at 830-620-5482

If anybody would like to enquire about meetings or help Christina, please contact her on: texas@globetrotters.co.uk

A few days holiday to use and the hunt was on for a cheap flight to a not too far distant city that I had yet to explore. The Internet came up with a £50 flight to Copenhagen, so I hit the buttons on the PC and the next morning that nice little ticket came through the letterbox.

Despite being a cheapie, the Maersk flight departed Gatwick on time and actually landed early. After collecting my bag, it was quite a walk from the gate to the baggage area. I bought a train ticket to Copenhagen Central Station, 25 Kroner, yep the Danes still use proper money, not silly Euro Roubles! The efficient train takes around 15 minutes to the city.

Next to find my hotel, the first thing to say about accommodation in Copenhagen is it ain’t cheap. My hotel The Cabinn was located a 10 minute walk south of the station and cost around £50 night including a good quality buffet breakfast. The rooms were small, but excellently designed, though the beds are a bit narrow, I did role out one night!

Well off to explore, first stop obviously the Tourist office. They are extremely helpful, lots of information and maps. The walking tours which leave from the Tourist Information at 10 am each day in the summer are excellent. They cost 75 Kroner and take around 2 and a half hours. They are in English explaining the city via its most famous son Hans Christian Anderson. One tip is that you are better off doing the tour on a week day as you can get into courtyards and see parts of buildings not open at the weekend. You also learn gems such as why the knee of the statue of Hans Christian Anderson is so shiny, its because tour buses full of oriental visitors pull up, and they sit on his knee to have their photo taken!

Nyhaven is what you see in all the postcards, a lovely area full of sailing boats and little waterside cafes.

Another tour worth doing is the 50 minute boat trip that leaves from Nyhaven (50 Kroner), you get a close up view of the new Opera house and you get to see the Little Mermaid statue from a different angle, you also get a riverside view of the new “Black Diamond”, this love it or hate it building is the National Library. The boat then heads into the canals of the Christianhavns area. Christiania as the area is known is home to an alternative community, which did have a reputation for drugs, but has cleaned up its act to some degree, though you can still walk down Pusher Street.

For a great view over the city it is hard to beat the climb up the tower of the Trinity Church (20 Kroner), some great views, but the protective fencing at the top does get in the way of photos.

If you want to explore further afield as I did you cant beat making the train trip to Helsingor up the coast to see Elsinor castle, famous in Shakespear’s Hamlet, it is expensive to enter, but the views around it are great. It was during a wander here that the lovely sunshine disappeared and a deluge of rain began, so I headed into Helsingor city and visited the town's museum, which is quite interesting, though there is little in English.

Another trip I made was west to Roskilde, this town is home to a spectacular cathedral, but of far more interest to me was the Viking Ship Museum (75 Kroner), there are Viking ships, well bits of them in the museum and out on the water are new ones built in the old way. You can walk around and see the ships being crafted, there are areas where children and the young at heart can try their hand at crafts from the Viking era.

Back in Copenhagen if you want to chill out after all that sightseeing The Rose Garden in Copenhagen’s second biggest park, Valby Parken is the place. There are quite a few themed gardens to wander round, number 3 has a maze and another has a Japanese theme.

Copenhagen is perfect for a long weekend and if any of you Globies are into Geocaching, there are around 20 to do in the cities environs.

The Beetle had told me Copenhagen was a bit boring when she had visited!

This is a picture of me in the Rose garden, Valby Park Copenhagen. Beetle: where are the roses, Kev?

Which countries are represented by these flags? For the answers, see at the end of the eNews.

1	2	3	4	5

As part of Trade Aid’s work in Tanzania, we aim to promote a sustainable tourism industry in Mikindani area. The following is the impressions of a trip to investigate the tourism and tourism opportunities in Palma, Northern Mozambique.

Palma is a small, fishing town set inside a large bay along the northern coast of Mozambique. It is home to some 10,000 people, most of whom are supported by industries linked to the sea. Like Mikindani, the place is quiet and peaceful and its people and culture are dominated by the influence of the Indian Ocean that surrounds it. In this way, what we expected was something more akin to Mikindani but the reality was quite different.

We arrived in Palma via two pick-up trucks and a boat across the Ruvuma to be greeted by the dusty, sandy sight all so familiar to us after our five months near Mtwara. However, what struck us was the complete absence of the historic buildings and NGO vehicles that dominate the landscape of Mikindani and Mtwara. The vehicle on which we arrived was virtually the only thing to pass through Palma during our stay while the old colonial buildings that dominate the visage of Mikindani were nowhere to be seen. Perhaps this was why Palma almost had a more earthy sense of untampered-with Swahili Coast. The charm of Mikindani lies in the huge mixture of different colonial, native and trade influences that have shaped its past and continues to shape its future. With Palma, it’s great appeal lies in the idea that it never was a settlement of great importance and so you feel, when walking around that this is the natural development of this part of the world.

There was no electricity or running water in the guest house, no Boma to retire to for a cold beer and certainly no hint of mobile phone signal and internet access but Palma itself was all the better for this. These things, along with the presence of brand names such as coca-cola and Pepsi are right for the formerly upwardly mobile Mikindani, a place now beginning to see a revival thanks to enterprises such as the Boma, the brand new ECO2 dive school and the newly revamped Ten Degrees South lodge. However, in a place such as Palma, where people are living on less than a dollar a day and where there has never been a glorious past to compare to that of Mikindani, these things would simply be out of place. We saw no other tourists during our time in Palma, which only served to enhance the feeling of being part of a totally different society. When following a regular tourist route, however sensitive a tour company or hotel may be, you never get to feel as cut off as this.

As part of our time there we went to see a local group of women rehearsing traditional Mozambique song (see picture, left). We were merely walking by when we were invited to sit in on the group during practice. Listening to the women and drums as the sun set and the tide came in really will be a lasting memory of my time spent in East Africa. Later that day we caught a dhow (traditional African/Arabic sail boat) from Palma all the way back to Mikindani. This again will stay with me for the rest of my life as one of the most authentic experiences of the lives people lead in this part of the world. These sorts of experiences, however overused the cliché may be, really are priceless. Money cannot buy memories and certainly looking at the people of Palma or Mikindani, plays no part in happiness or generosity. This sort of journey, away from the beaten track and reach of the guidebooks is highly recommended and, although not to everyone’s taste, will provide lasting memories to anyone willing to embark on them.

A few months ago, we invited Globetrotter e-newsletter readers to send us their views on visiting Burma. One of the responses we included in February 2004 was from a retired British diplomat, Derek Tonkins. Since this time, Burma Campaign have been in touch and provided an alternative view on visiting Burma.

While there is much that is misleading and inaccurate in Derek Tonkin's article 'Burma Revisited', no-one can argue with the statement that “we should primarily be guided by the wishes and advice of the Burmese people”. However, the wishes of the Burmese people for or against tourism cannot be gauged from a dubious survey of anecdotal reports. In fact, with around 75% of Burma's people making their living from agriculture, most people in Burma have never met a tourist.

The fact is that the call for a tourism boycott comes from Burma's elected leaders. The National League for Democracy (NLD), who won a landslide victory in Burma's 1990 election, remains the only party mandated to represent the Burmese people and it is a party that continues to draw the support and respect of people inside and outside the country. Burma's Government in exile, the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB), supports the boycott and it is a position that has the backing of exile Burmese democracy groups around the world.

Derek Tonkin's criticism of Aung San Suu Kyi for not having “had time to discuss it [tourism policy] properly” in May 2002, when she had only just been released from house arrest, may leave him wondering what NLD policy really is. However, a look at their official statements will show that in 2003 the NLD confirmed that “the present situation has not reached the extent that tourists should be encouraged to visit Myanmar (Burma).”

Burma's military regime has identified tourism as a vital source of income and it is working hard to develop the industry. According to the Ministry of Tourism, its top two objectives in developing tourism are to generate foreign exchange earnings and attract foreign investment. Compared to its neighbours, Burma's tourism industry may be small but it is still earning a cash strapped regime millions of dollars every year. It seems odd that while Derek Tonkin is arguing for more tourists to visit Burma, he also admits that an increase in tourist numbers would help prop up the regime. Such a rise in tourist numbers would also result in an increase in investment to support that tourism. But investment in Burma does not benefit the vast majority of ordinary Burmese people. The regime spends nearly half the government budget on the military but less than 44p per person per year on health and education combined.

The article also fails to mention that in Burma many human rights abuses are directly connected to the regime's drive to develop the country for tourists. Throughout Burma men, women and children have been forced to labour on roads, railways and tourism projects; more than one million people have been forced out of their homes in order to 'beautify' cities, suppress dissent, and make way for tourism developments, such as hotels, airports and golf courses. And these abuses are not confined to history. In February 2004, for example, Burmese soldiers rounded up ethnic Salons, or 'sea gypsies' who normally live on boats in the Mergui Archipelago, forced them to live on land and to take part in a 'Salon Festival' aimed at foreign tourists.

A further claim that “travel and tourism advance the cause of democracy” is totally unsubstantiated. Tourists in Burma rarely witness the internal repression so prevalent in the country, indeed much of Burma remains strictly off-limits to tourists. One tour operator to Burma recently remarked “I regularly travel throughout Myanmar and have never seen any of the abuses that appear in the Western press”.

The typical tourist on holiday in Burma is there to visit a beautiful country, look at the historic monuments and temples and enjoy an exotic holiday destination. But even for those tourists wishing to see Burma's problems for themselves, there is very little opportunity to discover the realities of life in Burma. Burmese people are not free to discuss politics with foreigners and can face punishment or imprisonment if the strict regulations for dealing with foreigners are not adhered to. For example, in September 2004 two Japanese tourists were arrested for not obtaining a visa within the country to visit a ruby-mine town in Shan State. Their two Burmese companions were charged with laws relating to hotel and tourism acts and their two Burmese hosts were charged with failure to report the presence of strangers to the authorities.

The people of Burma need our support and solidarity. We can provide that support very simply by listening to Burma's democrats and choosing not to holiday in Burma.

The Burma Campaign UK is part of a global movement for democracy in Burma and is the only national organisation in the UK dedicated to campaigning for human rights and democracy in Burma. For more information on Burma Campaign’s activities, see: www.burmacampaign.org.uk