More than two years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, 10,000 artefacts looted from the National Museum of Iraq are still missing and archaeological sites across Iraq have been plundered. The National Museum of Iraq is closed to the public and inside just about everything portable has been stolen, all except a dozen ancient statues which are just too vast to move. Unfortunately, sue to the on-going violence in Iraq, no-one has the time or manpower to look for either the stolen museum pieces or to protect the sites scattered around Iraq.

Need to convert currency?

Take a look at The Globetrotters Currency Converter – get the exchange rates for 164 currencies The Globetrotters Currency Cheat Sheet – create and print a currency converter table for your next trip.

Need to convert currency?

Take a look at The Globetrotters Currency Converter – get the exchange rates for 164 currencies The Globetrotters Currency Cheat Sheet – create and print a currency converter table for your next trip.

Thai Airways, Thailand's national carrier, has announced that it will fly non stop from Bangkok to Los Angeles as of Dec. 1. The flight used to stop in Osaka, Japan en route but now, using an Airbus A340-500, the flight will be non stop.

Hong Kong International Airport is named Best Airport worldwide in 2005 passenger survey. For the 5th consecutive year, passengers have rated Hong Kong International Airport as the world's Best Airport. Singapore Changi Airport takes the Silver Award, rated 2nd in the world.

You may have heard of the Paris – Dakar car rally, well, here's a slightly different take on the idea of driving a car across deserts and getting lost, but for those with less cash. The aim is to drive the route from Plymouth in the south west of the UK to Banjul in The Gambia (on a limited budget) with the principle aim of helping some charitable causes in Senegal and The Gambia. The rules include competing in a car that costs less than £100, not spending any more than £15 on getting the car ready and having no assistance whatsoever, once under way. If this sounds like your cup of tea, take a look at: http://www.plymouth-dakar.co .uk/

A 9-year-old boy, wanting to help Hurricane Katrina victims, swam from Alcatraz to San Francisco, raising $30,000 in donations in the process.

Fourth-grader Johnny Wilson made the mile-and-a-half swim in the choppy, 53-degree water of San Francisco Bay in under two hours.

Wilson called the swim tiring, but said he kept telling himself, “I'm almost there, I'm almost there.” The 9-year-old boy said the beginning was the hardest because that's when he was the coldest. His classmates on the shore, cheered: “Go, Johnny! Go, Johnny!”

Alcatraz prison closed in 1963 and is now a tourist attraction and not a single inmate ever successfully escaped.

Europe From a Backpack travel book series are now accepting submissions for Italy From a Backpack and Spain From a Backpack. They are looking for first-person must-tell stories. If you have a story to tell, visit www.EuropeBackpack.com for details.

Length: Stories average 800-2,000 words. While we will accept stories up to 3,000 words, shorter stories have a better chance of being accepted.

How to Submit: Send your story by MS Word attachment to submit@EuropeBackpack.com with the following information (make sure to include all information in the Word Document):

• name
• story title
• story location
• address
• phone
• primary e-mail
• secondary e-mail
• College or University you graduated from
• Include a fun and brief bio after them story

Deadlines: The following are the deadline dates for submitting stories for Italy From a Backpack and Spain From a Backpack.

• Round 1: January 31, 2006
• Round 2: March 28, 2006

The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office advise against all travel to central, southern and Western Mindanao, and the Sulu archipelago including Basilan, Tawi-Tawi and Jolo, where military and police operations against terrorist and rebel groups are continuing and where kidnappings and bombings have taken place.

There is a threat of kidnapping throughout the Philippines. We believe that terrorists and criminal elements are continuing with plans to kidnap foreign tourists from islands and coastal areas in the southern Philippines – ie Mindanao and the Sulu archipelago. Kidnappings from other parts of the Philippines cannot be discounted. Boats travelling to and from offshore islands and dive sites are possible targets.

There is a high threat from terrorism throughout the Philippines. On 28 August 2005, an explosion on board a passenger ferry in Basilan, Mindanao killed 2 people and injured at least 30. On 10 August, two bombs exploded in Zamboanga City, western Mindanao when at least 25 people were injured. In February 2005, bombs in Manila and Mindanao killed at least nine people and injured over 130 others. We believe that terrorist groups have the capacity to mount attacks at any time and anywhere in the Philippines

You should also be alert to the risk of street crime.

Travel Facts

• One in three adults aged 15-49 are infected with HIV/AIDS in Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Swaziland.
• If you thought Antarctica was inhospitable, think again – its land area is only 98% ice. Reassuringly, the other 2% is categorised as 'barren rock'.
• The Mall in Washington, D.C. is 1.4 times larger than Vatican City.
• Moldova has one of the lowest rates of movie-going of any nation, and the highest rate of death by powered lawnmower. Coincidence? Surely not.
• In 2002, every 1000 Swedes made a bus.
• Looking for geniuses? Head straight to Iceland. There are more than 3.5 Nobel Prize Winners for every million Icelanders.
• People might eat oats when they're hungry, but people from Hungary don't eat oats.
• Japan's water has a very high dissolved oxygen concentration – but not enough to prevent drowning in the bath.
• The four largest nations are Russia, China, USA, and Canada.

Source:

If you happen to be near Lubeck in Germany, there is a huge ice and snow sculpture festival opening 9th December. Forty ice sculptors will create sculptures for the “Kingdom of Animals” under supervision of Dave Willé. Artists from the United States, Canada Great Britain Belgium, Russia and the Netherlands carve icy animals within the coming weeks. The sculptors use a variety of methods to carve out their figures; some use chain saws, some draw a draft on ice cubes. Beginning on top of the cubes, artists always carve down to the bottom using an array of ladders and scaffolds. All in all, some 350,000 kilos of ice and 150,000 kilos of snow will be processed for the Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival.

A member of Globetrotters Club? Interested in a £1,000 travel award?

Know someone who is? We have £1,000 to award each year for five years for the best submitted independent travel plan. Interested?

Then see our legacy page on our Website, where you can apply with your plans for a totally independent travel trip and we'll take a look at it. Get those plans in!!

According to Forbes magazine, for the second year in a row, Seattle takes the top spot in our study. Why? The city does poorly on all counts, but was at the bottom when it comes to job growth, and the cost of living is very high. “It's true the housing prices here have just gone through the stratosphere,” says Charles Knutson, spokesman for the Seattle Chamber of Commerce. The city got hit hard by the tech bubble, and took a big employment dive. “We're coming out of that, but if you're looking at a line chart, there's a huge gap between income and housing costs.” Still, Seattle may become easier to afford should big local employers such as Microsoft, Boeing and Starbucks stay healthy.

The UK's longest-running holiday operator Thomas Cook is offering family tours of Amsterdam's red-light district. The package costs £12, though half-price for children. Thomas Cook claims the tour, which is free to under threes, offers a 'fascinating insight into the oldest profession in the world'. A press release on the two-hour tour says it leaves at 8pm and 'will take visitors deep into the famous red-light district, accompanied by a reliable and trustworthy guide'. The brochure says: 'Begin with a drink at a prostitute information centre where a former prostitute will explain the system and answer any questions you may have. Then head for the Wallen (the red-light district) and see for yourself.'

The Chief Executive Tony Davis of Singapore based low-cost airline Tiger Airways said that they want to be the Ryanair of Asia. Tiger Airways flies from Singapore to Macau, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines, competing with Malaysia's AirAsia and a partnership of Valueair Ltd and Qantas Airways associate Jetstar Asia. Tiger is 49 per cent owned by Singapore Airlines.

Alligators have clashed with non native pythons before in Everglades National Park. A 13 ft long python tried to swallow a 6 ft alligator whole and then exploded. Scientists have documented four similar encounters in the last three years. The encroachment of Burmese pythons into the Everglades could threaten an $8 billion restoration project and endanger smaller species, said Frank Mazzotti, a University of Florida wildlife professor. The gators have had to share their territory with a python population that has swelled over the past 20 years after owners dropped off pythons they no longer wanted in the Everglades. The Asian snakes have thrived in the wet, hot climate. “Encounters like that are almost never seen in the wild – and we here are, it's happened for the fourth time,” Mazzotti said. In the other cases, the alligator won or the battle was an apparent draw.

Terminal 5, whose sole tenant is British Airways is due to open on Sunday, 30 March 2008. The £4.2bn project is intended to bring some … to your transit. Never mind the passenger experience; your baggage will have a first-class journey. Amazingly, Terminal 5 is said to be Europe's biggest construction project.

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

Spotted by Webmaster Paul, here's a satellite photo from Google of York Minster:

A report from Malaysia's Star newspaper gives examples of how soaring fuel costs are impacting on air fares in certain instances. They gave two examples: a return ticket to Colombo, Sri Lanka from Kuala Lumpur costs RM400 but the fuel surcharge is RM450. Another bargain – a two-night return package to Bangkok from KL on Thai Airways costs RM399 but the fuel surcharge, airport tax and insurance will cost an additional RM323. With the rising demand for oil and hurricanes hitting the United States, world oil prices are not expected to come down in the near future. One Malaysian travel agent commented: “It looks like the days of cheap air travel are over as the high fuel prices are here to stay.” Another agent said: “Some of the fuel surcharges are so expensive that they make a mockery of their special cheap short flights from KLIA to regional destinations like Jakarta and Bangkok.”