Since the New Year has on from its welcoming celebrations, many

travelling folk are spending the winter conceiving travels and tours for the forthcoming year. Such thoughts brighten up these grey months that stretch through to Easter and test our imagination. Can it be coincidence that travel shows thrive during this time? I’ve always found that there is considerable enjoyment to be had from visualising any possibility and anticipating what could happen along the way. If not planning, travellers can usually be found doing – indeed I’ve ‘lost’ friends to California, Canada and Australia in quick succession recently! Have you noticed that how our non travelling friends no longer caution against such exuberance? I’m sure we should spare them a thought or two, as they are subjected to our endless plans. To calm our intoxications perhaps we should all be given copies of Alain de Botton’s The Art of Travel to digest – he comes up with some bizarre and somewhat unsettling accounts of the ‘satisfactions and disappointments of travelling’.

In considering the ‘satisfactions’, where do I find myself on route to next and how has it got to this stage? Well, following on from a long weekend in Valletta a ferry should then take me across to Sicily, probably Siracusa or Catania, with a second taking me, a week or so later, on from Trapani to Goletta. Whether this will leave me time enough to wander fully along Tunisia’s Mediterranean coast towards Gabes and Jerab I’m not sure yet. However besides the improved climates I have high hopes for good snorkelling, spectacular views of Mount Etna in its current active state and a distinctive crossing into northern Africa, which as a region is still unknown to me. If anyone has additional experiences of this vague outline they’d like to share, feel free to get in touch. Through this planning stage the ‘I’ has become ‘we’ – as Steve and Colin, two friends from previous travels who will add their own practical and entertaining inputs to this tour, have joined me. Indeed their immediate ‘yeses’ to my proposals has provided extra organising drive, along with Steve disappearing to the French speaking Canadian ski slopes for three months! No doubt Steve’s improved French language skills will ease our way into Tunisia! As a result and somewhat unusually this scheme has advanced quicker than previous and the scratched out beer plan has already evolved through to map and ticket purchases.

Initially my observations were that I wanted to make my travels more demanding this year, more revealing and more elsewhere. Attending Globetrotters and the RGS had left me feeling that my some of my recent tours were pedestrian and unchallenging in their nature and destination. Further impetus came from reading of namesake Charles Montague Doughty’s early travels across the Mediterranean countries, whilst discussions with friends Charlie and Carrie updated me with what adventures could now be had in northern Africa. Michael Palin’s recent television trek helped to round off these thoughts, particular with his attitude of still wanting to learn from what he was experiencing – something I’d like to echo. Along with the pleasure of journeys, I would still like to understand more of how I like to travel.

Where could my ‘disappointments’ come from? My previous experiences of Africa have been sub-Saharan and very much centred around Anglo Portuguese influences on the continent, but I do wonder how we will respond to French legacies and whether we can appreciate if the Sahara is a major dividing line of the African continent and peoples. I’m not vain in the sense in thinking that my travels will offer anything other than interesting experiences to us three. I would like to gain a deeper insight into what this region is about and to return with a book full of tales but as yet I’m uncertain as to what I will find, particularly in Tunisia. Like many I am wary of guide books, packaged destinations and official opinion, and as a result I’m trying to stick to a single map, a few articles that I’ve found in the weekend supplements and first hand knowledge passed on. Previous attempts at such vague planning have left me lost in Santa Barbara’s unbelievably square grid system but revealed gems such as Connemara! As such Colin and Steve don’t yet know how seemingly ill prepared we may be – I hope they understand that I’m not trying to be careless, that I just want a little more from my time away…

Matt is happy to be contacted if you’d like some more information about planning your travels or about any of the places he talks about in his own travel planning. E-mail mattdoughty@tiscali.co.uk

Time Zone: CDT (GMT -5)

Airport Code: ORD

Customer service number: 800 832-6352

Distance from city: 18 miles (29km)

Terminal 1 is for United and United Express flights plus Lufthansa departures.

Terminal 2 airlines include Air Canada, America West, Continental, Northwest, United and US Airways.

Terminal 3 airlines include Alaska, American and Delta.

Terminal 5 is the international terminal for most non-US airline departures and all international arrivals

Chicago O Hare is named after Lieutenant Edward O'Hare who was a military hero, and flew planes in the Navy during WW2. He was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1942.

The largest US troop and cargo carrying airplane, the Douglas C-54, was built at a factory on the site and the base, known then as Orchard Field, which was almost entirely then used by the military. When the war ended, Chicago’s city Municipal Airport, later to become Midway Chicago quickly established itself as the world's busiest civil aviation operation. A far-sighted City Council saw the potential for air travel and decided a second major facility would be needed so in 1946 they bought Orchard Field from the US government together with another 7,000 acres next door. Three years later $2.4 million was spent on acquiring more land and Orchard Field was re-named in honour of O'Hare.

The airport was already busy before it was officially opened to domestic commercial flights in 1955, but Midway was still the star attraction until 1962 when all scheduled operations were transferred from Midway to O'Hare. When the airport was officially dedicated the following year, President John F. Kennedy said, “it could be classed as one of the wonders of the modern world”. He was right in one sense because O'Hare preserved its title as 'World's Busiest' for over 30 years until it was overtaken by Atlanta in 1998.

Source: http://www.airwise.com/

Submitted by Frank from the US. Actual comments from US travel agents:

A woman called and asked, “Do airlines put your physical description on your bag so they know whose luggage belongs to who?” I said, “No, why do you ask?” She replied, “Well, when I checked in with the airline, they put a tag on my luggage that said FAT, and I'm overweight, is there any connection?” After putting her on hold for a minute while I looked into it” (I was actually laughing) I came back and explained the city code for Fresno is FAT, and that the airline was just putting a destination tag on her luggage.

I just got off the phone with a man who asked, “How do I know which plane to get in?” I asked him what exactly he meant, which he replied, “I was told my flight number is 823, but none of these darn planes have numbers on them.”

A woman called and said, “I need to fly to Pepsi-Cola on one of those computer planes.” I asked if she meant to fly to Pensacola on a commuter plane. She said, “Yeah, whatever.”

A businessman called and had a question about the documents he needed in order to fly to China. After a lengthy discussion about passports, I reminded him he needed a visa. “Oh no I don't, I've been to China many times and never had to have one of those.” I double-checked and sure enough, his stay required a visa. When I told him this he said, “Look, I've been to China four times and every time they have accepted my American Express.”

A woman called to make reservations; “I want to go from Chicago to Hippopotamus, New York.” The agent was at a loss for words. Finally, the agent said, “Are you sure that's the name of the town?” “Yes, what flights do you have?” replied the customer. After so me searching, the agent came back with, “I'm sorry, ma'am, I've looked up every airport code in the country and can't find a Hippopotamus anywhere.” The customer retorted, “Oh don't be silly, everyone knows where it is. Check your map!” The agent scoured a map of the state of New York and finally offered, “You don't mean Buffalo, do you?” “That's it! I knew it was a big animal!”

It has certainly been an interesting month here in Mikindani, and also in Dar es Salaam. One of Trade Aid’s new ideas for Mikindani is to start up a local group who can produce Batik T-shirts. But what is this I hear you ask. Batik T-shirt printing is the dying of a T-shirt with certain areas left undyed, this enables you to produce a variety of patterns.

It was at the beginning of December that the journey up to Dar began, at the oh so sociable hour of four o’clock in the morning. After a back breaking sixteen hours in one of the Trade Aid Landrovers, being bounced and battered along a Tanzanian “road” we finally arrived in Dar Es Salaam, oh what a relief. After a day to settle in, and make extensive use of the bar and air conditioning at the Seaman’s mission [where we were staying] it was down to work. My brief was to look into the process of Batik T-shirt production, and to see if it would be feasible in Mikindani.

The Batik T-shirt printing takes place in an indoor market/shopping centre where the products are also sold. There I met the head of the organisation that prints the T-shirts and the head of production, who oversees the entire process.

The process begins when the parts of the T-shirt that are not to the dyed are covered in a special sort of wax. This can be applied through two methods, either using a brush or a wooden print. As far as Mikindani and the Boma is concerned it is my opinion that the print method would be the best, as it would produce work for the local carpenters.

Once the wax has been applied and dried the T-shirt is then dyed. A mixture of hot and cold water (17 litres) dye, caustic soda and sodium powder are then mixed together in a stone bath. The T-shirt is then repeatedly lifted in and out of this mixture until the dye has fully soaked into the material. After which it is then taken out of the water and hung to dry. The wax then has to be removed; this is done by placing the T-shirt into a vat of boiling water, where it is then stirred around until all of the wax has been removed. The T-shirt is then finished and can either be worn, or more colours can be applied by using the wax to cover the previous dyed areas and any areas that need to be left clear. This should certainly prove to be something that Trade Aid and the Boma can make good use of, and it should also benefit the local groups who can get involved.

For more information on the work carried out by Trade Aid in Tanzania, see their website www.mikindani.com

Anna and Magda wrote in asking for help with voluntary placements in Australia: we are two girls living in Germany, age 19, just finished our A-levels (Advanced school leaving certificate). Our reason for writing is, that we would like to do a voluntary practical year in Australia. WE would be very grateful if you could give us further help in this. Best regards Anna and Magda.

The Beetle responds: As you are both under 30, you are most likely eligible to apply for a working visa in Australia. So maybe if you contact the Australian embassy in your country, they can advise you about this. Roughly speaking, you are not allowed to do a “professional” job, so you are only allowed to do casual work such as potato, fruit picking or short term work. No one piece of work can be over 3 months either.

The Beetle suggests that you search on the internet using the words “voluntary work Australia”. This is a good site to start with: Volunteer Search in addition, the April 2002 Globetrotter e-newsletter 2002 had an article by conservationvolunteers email conservationvolunteers about conservation volunteer opportunities. There’s also always the WWOOF organisation, see: Wwoofing, which caters for people who want to work on organic farms. There’s also:

Working Holiday MakersAustralian Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs.

ATCV (Australian Trust for Conservation Volunteers) accepts Australian and foreign volunteers for a wide range of conservation projects throughout Australia.

Australian Jobs Guide by Nomads World features visa information, job packages, agencies and a harvest guide for fruit picking/harvest work.

Diving in Australia has an employment database.

Pelican Point Windsurfing in W. Australia has employment opportunities for instructors.

The Cape Tribulation Tropical Research Station accepts volunteers for conservation projects.

Travel Jobs Network, a service for Australian and New Zealand job seekers.

TNT Magazine has an excellent section on finding temporary work in Australia.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Beetle received an e-mail from the parent of a college student, studying in L.A. They wanted to know where their daughter and two friends could go on an inexpensive package for their spring break April 12-18, 2003. Hawaii maybe?

The Beetle agreed that Hawaii, (but not Oahu – which can be a little touristy and expensive, when the other islands have far more to offer) would be a great option. It is possible to buy reasonably priced fly drive holidays around the Hawaiian islands, where our reader’s daughter and friends could share a room at a very nice hotel at a good price. With only 6 days, I would recommend either the Big Island alone or alternatively split between Kauai and the Big Island. If a car and swish hotel is too expensive, then it is possible to find moderately priced accommodation on the Big Island, so this should cut the cost, but a car is definitely a must!

Today we will visit Durban which is a city situated on the east coast of South Africa. It has a sub tropical climate opposed to that of Cape Town, which is Mediterranean.

What has Durban to offer the tourist or visitor? Along the beach front are many hotels and blocks of holiday flats. This area is called the Golden Mile.

Hotels on the beachfront have magnificent views over Durban Bay and the Bluff to south. Along Durban's beaches jetties have been built out into the sea. They have the effect of turning the long golden beaches into small bays, which can be protected by lifeguards during the holiday seasons.

Durban is well known for its sharks. All the beaches are protected by shark nets that have been installed about 300 metres off shore on the outside of the breaker line. It is very interesting to watch the Natal Sharks Board out in the bay each morning tending the nets and removing any fish that have become entangled during the night. If they are still alive they are released otherwise they are taken to the shark boards offices to the north of Durban where they are dissected for research purposes.

The “ Golden mile” is always a hive of activity with the many restaurants, pubs and bars to be visited. At night many people come down to the beaches to relax and enjoy the atmosphere or just to party.

Durban is also famous for it Rikshas. A Riksha for those who don't know is and African man who wears a very fancy head dress made of beads and cows horns and bits and pieces of cheap jewellery and feathers and other odds and ends. The Riksha also has a cart with two large wheels and a seat where two adults or three kids can fit into. For a small fee you will be taken for a ride along the beachfront with this man wearing his head dress pulling the cart. The ride can get quite exciting when the riksha picks up a bit of speed and leaps into the air balancing his weight and yours like a seesaw. When he does this without warning the passengers are thrown backwards and think they are going to fall out the back of his cart. Not to worry! There is a small jockey wheel at the back that stops the cart falling over and you falling out.

There are many other things to do in Durban other than just swimming and tanning. Although most of the action takes place along the beachfront there are other areas where there is much to do. The two main roads in Durban are Smith Street and West Street. Both of them are one way only with West Street going towards the beach and Smith away from the beach.

The main shopping areas of Durban are found along these streets.

There are also many sports facilities with the main arenas being Kingsmead for cricket and the Shark Tank for rugby.

Most people will have heard of the Comrades marathon. This marathon is run between Durban and Pietermaritzburg each year, one year up and the other year down. It is a gruelling race that is normally run in hot weather and it attracts 1000's of people. The race is 89 kilometres long and follows the old road between Pietermaritzburg and Durban. The next Comrades Marathon will be held on the 16th of June 2003 and will be the down run i.e. Pietermaritzburg to Durban.

The scenery between Pietermaritzburg and Durban is beautiful. The old road wends its way through the valley of a thousand hills. As far as one can see there are just hills. Vegetation is lush and if the province has received rain very green. In Pinetown a small town between PM Burg and Durbs there is a beautiful waterfall. Its called the Howick falls and although not very big is quite spectacular.

Durban also grows various varieties of tropical fruit. Fruit such as Paw Paws, mangoes, avocado pears and of course bananas. Their avos are to die for. On the occasions that I have visited Durban I have always made an effort to get a grass wash basket full of green avos to take home.

If you drive out into the country areas surrounding Durban you will come across many farms growing sugar cane. This is one of the main products grown in the area. Durban is known as the sugar capital of South Africa and you can see many large silos where sugar is stored. A tour of the refineries is very interesting as they show you the entire process from where the cane is pulped to where the white sugar is finally packaged to be shipped.

Durban is one of South Africa’s premier holiday destinations. Visit in July and watch the Durban July horse race.

Geoff Fairman writes an ezine called Turtle Essays that concentrates on Cape Town and its surrounds. To subscribe send a blank email to TurtleEssays-subscribe@turtlesa.com

or read the ezines online at http://www.turtlesa.com

Globetrotters should be extra careful when booking flights with travel agents in the UK. High street budget travel agents, Trailfinders are, like most other companies, happy to sell you a ticket for any destination in the world and try to get you to cough up for their in-house insurance at the same time. They of course earn commission on this.

This Globetrotter booked a ticket through Trailfinders to Bali. I booked it well before the Bali incident and am due to fly to Bali at Easter. I was offered insurance, which I declined as I have my own. At a recent London travel show I enquired about the two different Trailfinder policies on offer, one annual and one single trip.

When I rang to ask to book the Trailfinder insurance a couple of weeks later, I was told that Trailfinders would not insure trips to Bali or any part of Indonesia. Whilst I totally understand the reasoning behind this, Trailfinders should not be offering insurance over the phone and at Travel shows and then reneging when people try to book it.

After the Bali bomb many companies in the travel trade took the step of contacting clients with existing reservations to Bali offering them money back or a change of destination. Trailfinders did not do this and now as time for final payment looms, the horrible truth of the situation is becoming apparent to UK travellers.

U. S. Soldiers Home Mac: during a century of travel (well 78 years!) both in and out of service I have travelled to over 150 countries (I count both North and South Dakota as countries) and for some reason have jotted signs and happenings that I thought funny at the time (and now wonder why). So here is the perfect opportunity to share some of my anecdotes.

Beijing, China. The Imperial Palace in the Forbidden City in Beijing has 9,000 rooms. We agree that if we got lost and separated from each other we would meet in the Hall of Heavenly Purity (if they would let us in) At the time I was there the military did no wear rank on their uniforms (don’t know if this still applies or not) You could kind of get an idea of who outranked who by the number of pockets they had on their blouse of uniform. Someone with four pockets would have their baggage carried by someone with one pocket or no pockets.

In the hotels the orchestras (In the Peace Hotel in Shanghai I think they had some of the members or orchestra from the 30s) would play songs they thought we would like. Oh Susannah from a couple of decades ago seems to be making a comeback as well as Turkey in the Straw and Auld Lang Sang. At the end of each number the players would put down their instruments and applaud us in the audience. We could hardly wait for the Tuba player to unwind from his Tuba to applaud us. Everyone in our tour group caught colds (from the dust) except those that had taken Vitamin C for a couple of weeks before arriving in China. Mr Wu our guide referred to the Royal Bank of Canada (George from Canada wanted to get some money) as the Loyal Bank of Canada. One of the military said that when he was in China years before he took a piece of the wall and had a name plate put on it and sent it to movie actress Carole Lombard as he had read that she collected rocks. She threw it back. No she wrote and thanked him.

Our Chinese guide in Wuxi kind of had a high opinion of himself (unusual for Chinese) and though he was hip in Western ways. He liked to show off and showed us how he was proficient in Tai Chi (shadow boxing). Blonde vivacious Liza asked him to dance with her. He said No that he could not dance with a client but that he would arm-wrestle her Ha. He told long involved stories about the Kingdom of Wu and Dragons and such. George whispered: I wonder what he would say if we told him we didn’t want to hear any more dragon stories? If I were going to China today I would probably take my own plastic chopsticks. In Japan they have disposable chopsticks but in China they have plastic ones that you hope they wash after several others have used them. If going to China start a walking program at home. Walk around the block then next day further as in China even on escorted tours you are going to be doing more walking than you possibly do at home. Build up you let muscles before leaving home. I put as many Chinese stamps on letters sent home as possible for stamp collectors back home as their stamps are so colourful and unusual. While there their coffee was not very good so taking instant coffee along helped. The hotels had thermos bottle of hot water for tea in your room, which they replenished every morning and this was handy to make coffee with.

Kneehow (phonetic) in Chinese means hello. In China Carol who was from England and had a beautiful voice would sing slightly risqué Cockney songs and George would sing “My old lady and the lady next door went down the river on a barnyard door singing Ki Yi Yippie Yi ” and nonsensical songs. Miss Cha who was trying to learn English (she had taught herself) wanted to learn some of these songs so she could sing them to her next tour group. As some were risqué Carol said. “My dear I don’t think you really need to learn these songs” Les would give his excellent imitation of Peter Sellers imitating an Indian and his accent was hilariously correct. We should have been a USO troop. We laughed all the way across China. If you are in high altitude eating onions will help combat altitude sickness.

Next month, Mac discusses his travels through India. If you would like to contact Mac, he can be e-mailed on: macsan400@yahoo.com

Part One:

We had listened with excitement to our friend’s description of his travels in the tribal regions of Kinnaur and Spiti, in the North Indian State of Himachal Pradesh. Bordering Tibet, these areas had only recently been opened to foreigners.

The following May we set off from Goa, where we spend our winters, and headed for Shimla, the former summer capital of the British Raj. It was our second visit to this bit of old England located on top of and spilling over both sides of a steep ridge in the foothills of the Himalayas. Even a scaled down copy of London’s Gaiety Theatre sits on the Mall, the town’s high street from where on a clear day you can see high peaks while strolling past and poking into quaint old shops, including Maria Brother’s Antiquarian Bookshop, where you never know what treasures you’ll find.

We inquired about Kinnaur and Spiti at the tourist office, housed in a Tudor-style building on the Mall. They tried to be helpful but there wasn’t much official information to be had about the region. That was ten years ago. The bureaucratic hassles involved in obtaining permission to enter this region at that time were so formidable that few travellers managed it, and of those who did, most received permission to stay for only a week and others were even required to take a police escort with them. Surprisingly, the officer in charge of a small district headquarters granted us a two-month unrestricted permit from simply because we had struck a friendly note with him. Such is the way things happen in India. In the past few years entry restrictions have been relaxed and we have been back many times.

The district of Kinnaur is largely Hindu, but being far from the centres of mainstream Hinduism, it has retained an archaic character: oracles go into trances and the gods of the villages speak through them. There are no Brahmins here to act as priests; Buddhist lamas conduct the major household rituals for the Hindus, those concerned with birth, marriage and death, a practice unheard of elsewhere in Hindu India. Spiti though, is Lamaistic Buddhist as is Tibet, but the religion is more archaic here, retaining ancient ways, magical practices and archaic rituals that long ago disappeared from Tibet.

Over the years, we’ve spent many months exploring Kinnaur and Spiti, living in small villages, walking the trails between remote villages and into the high, uninhabited mountains and attending festivals at gompas (monasteries)—colourful events when the lamas don gorgeous silken brocade robes, masks and headdresses and perform graceful dances to the sounds of kettle drums and unbelievably long, curved brass horns. Once we pitched our tent on top of a flat-roofed mud house and watched the lamas practice their graceful steps and leaps for a week before the festival began. The dances are dramatizations of stories from Tibetan Buddhist myths, all very well known to the lively and appreciative audience of villagers, decked out in their finest and most exotic apparel; they come from near and far to watch these shows. We sat among them and enjoyed being among these gentle and colourful, full-of-life people.

At a festival at Ki Gompa, which is built around the small, rubbly cone of an extinct volcano, when the dances were over, the audience got up and moved to the hillside behind the monastery. There they formed long, snaking lines and prostrated themselves to make a living carpet for the lamas to walk on. Talk about devotion! The people consider their lamas to be literally living gods.

Ki village is high above the Spiti Valley, north of Kaza, Spiti’s main town. The bazaar has the timeless feel of an ancient entrepôt. It is a meeting place of people from all over the Himalayas and the Indian plains who come here to trade donkeys, yaks, rugs, turquoise and coral, seed pearls and peas… (and Spiti is renowned for its fine riding horses able to navigate the narrowest of mountain trails, and also for its wily horse traders).

The town is dotted with small squares built around gleaming white, highly embellished chortens or stupas, the reliquary mounds found everywhere in the Buddhist Himalayas, and shaded by ancient gnarled poplars. And surrounding the town are stark, boldly hued mountains. In this high-altitude, desert-like region all cultivation must be carried on by extensive and ingenious irrigation schemes, complex networks of channels that bring water to the fields from glaciers in the mountains high above. The emerald fields of barley and peas are like jewels set into this rugged, rocky landscape. Massive mud-brick houses and monasteries washed gleaming white with distinctive black and ochre trim stand out against the green of the fields and the deep blue of the sky.

More in our next letter about Spiti’s distinctive style of architecture—it’s amazing what you can do with mud! And, what happened when it rained in this place where it never rains!

Martin and Carol Noval have been living in India for more than twenty years and organize and lead several special cultural tours and treks a year for small groups. They’ll be leading road trips and treks in Spiti next summer (2003). If you would like to get in touch, email them at tripsintoindia@usa.net and check their website www.tripsintoindia.com