Low-cost Indian airline SpiceJet said it would launch cut-rate domestic flights in May 2005 to lure travellers from popular train services.

“The fares will be slightly higher than AC (air conditioned) train fares,” chief executive Mark Winders said. “We believe there is a tremendous opportunity in the low cost model in India. The air market is dramatically under served here.”

SpiceJet said its most expensive fares were 55-60 percent cheaper than regular full economy fares of competitors such as Jet Airways, India’s largest domestic airline. SpiceJet will also offer more than 9,000 seats for as low as 99 rupees (USD$2.30) each for the first 99 days of operations.

Rock bottom fares by SpiceJet and rival Air Deccan are helping to fuel the supply of low cost carriers and stimulating demand.

Tens of thousands of Snickers and Mars chocolate bars have been withdrawn from sale in Australia’s New South Wales after the manufacturer was sent a letter threatening to poison a member of the public. The letter warned that up to seven Snickers and Mars bars in the metropolitan Sydney area had been contaminated. Police believed the products were randomly chosen and may have been tampered with.

You may have heard about Schappelle Corby, the Australian surfer who has been arrested and sentenced to 20 years in prison for smuggling in 4.5 kgs of cannabis in her boogie board case into Bali. Some people say that the drugs were put inside her case by luggage handlers in Australia – and if true, this is not the first time Australian baggage handlers have come under suspicion for this kind of thing. It makes you wonder about how just safe your luggage is from tampering. Many airports offer plastic shrinkwrap around suitcases and yet the US advises that luggage should be left unlocked so that customs can make routine inspections. What to do – what do you think?

According to a recent survey conducted by condiments giant Ajinomoto, it seems that traditional eating habits are changing fast in Japanese homes. The report says that only about 20 percent of married women in major city areas lay out eating utensils correctly in accordance with traditional Japanese etiquette standards.

The survey showed that modern families are showing little regard for traditional Japanese table manners, often placing bowls in the wrong spots or lining chopsticks incorrectly. The survey discovered that the role of soup, once an essential accompaniment of almost every Japanese meal, is declining as people consume beverages like tea with their meals instead of waiting until they had finished as had been the custom in the past.

Families served rice with nearly every evening meal. Proper etiquette requires the rice bowl be placed on the left and the soup bowl on the right, but the correct method was used by only 20 percent of the 235 married women from 20 to 64 living in and around Tokyo and Osaka.

According to correct tradition in Japan, chopsticks are supposed to be arranged horizontally in front of the eater with the fatter of the two ends where the sticks are held on the right. However, 21 percent of the respondents lined chopsticks with the fat end either left or right, another 7 percent placed them on a stand or holder, 6 percent placed them on dishes and 2 percent lined them vertically.

And finally, around 70 percent of women served beverages at the beginning of meals instead of waiting until after the meal as tradition demands.

Pretoria was named after Andries Pretorius, a Boer settler and a folk hero of Afrikaners who later set up the apartheid racial discrimination system. The city council approved the switch to Tshwane in March as part of moves to make place names more African, but opposition campaigners say they feel marginalised. Hundreds of predominantly white South Africans have staged a demonstration against plans to change the capital’s name from Pretoria to Tshwane which means “we are the same”. and was the name of pre-colonial local chief.

Reunion Kingston London Sunday 11th Sept 2005 for any member of Globetrotters

who travelled overland to India or on the rail tours organised by Butterfields. Please e-mail butterfieldashley@yahoo.co.uk

Spotted by Webmaster Paul, here’s a satellite photo from Google of Spaghetti Junction.

Spaghetti Junction

The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office advise against all travel to Aceh except for those involved in post-tsunami humanitarian and reconstruction work under the auspices of a recognised aid organisation that has a security plan approved by the Indonesian authorities to ensure the safety and security of its personnel. Parts of Aceh remain affected by a long running internal conflict with the possibility of armed clashes. An aid worker was shot and injured while travelling at night in West Aceh on 23 June. Relief agencies should check the local security advice of the UN Office for Crisis and Humanitarian Affairs in Banda Aceh.

We advise against travel to some parts of Maluku, especially Ambon, and some parts of Central Sulawesi, which are experiencing civilian unrest. At least 22 people were killed in a bomb attack in Central Sulawesi on Saturday 28 May.

There remains a high threat from terrorism in Indonesia. We continue to receive reports that terrorists in Indonesia are planning further attacks on Westerners and Western interests. Attacks could occur at any time, anywhere in Indonesia and are likely to be directed against locations and buildings frequented by foreigners.

The Indonesian Police are on a state of high alert in Jakarta, and have deployed additional personnel around the city, including additional security arrangements for embassies.

Terrorists have shown in previous attacks, like the attack on the Australian Embassy, the Marriott Hotel, Jakarta and the Bali bombings, that they have the means and the motivation to carry out successful attacks.

Penalties for illegal drug importation and use are severe and can include the death penalty.

Spanish travel group Marsans, which owns Aerolineas Argentinas, plans to create a new unit in Peru and begin flights there within five months.

An Aerolineas spokesman said they expected the debut of the new Peruvian company, called Aerolineas del Peru, to take no longer than five months because of the Peruvian government’s warm welcome.

As we previously reported, one of the key competitors in Peru, Chilean airline LAN, has become unpopular with the Peruvian government due to a scandal over an in-flight video depicting images of Lima considered offensive.

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!!

A completely new family of rodents, a kind of rat has been found in Laos. The animal has long whiskers, stubby legs and a tail covered in dense hair and was on sale in a hunters’ market. Dr Robert Timmins working with the Wildlife Conservation Society in Thailand saw that it was probably unknown to science and brought it to the attention of his colleagues. “It was for sale on a table next to some vegetables,” said Dr Timmins. “I knew immediately it was something I had never seen before.” “To find something so distinct in this day and age is just extraordinary. For all we know, this could be the last remaining mammal family left to be discovered,” Dr Timmins said.

86 mainly teenage migrants from Ecuador and Peru, have been found by Costa Rican officials adrift in their packed boat for three days. They sent a message in a bottle saying: ‘Please Help Us’. It is believed that the group were abandoned by people smugglers when the vessel got into trouble. The smugglers stripped the boat of radio and communication equipment when they left it. The bottle, and the SOS message it contained, was found by local fishermen who alerted officials. The group was hoping to reach Guatemala, from where they wanted to cross the border to Mexico, according to a spokesperson for Costa Rica’s public security ministry.

Two former America West pilots Christopher Hughes and Thomas Cloyd were removed from an Airbus A319 in Miami on July 1, 2002, and charged with operating a plane under the influence of alcohol.

They were in the cockpit as the aircraft was being towed to the runway for takeoff from Miami International Airport on a flight to Phoenix, Arizona. But after a security screener reported the pilots were red-eyed, flushed and reeking of alcohol, air traffic controllers ordered the plane back to the gate.

The jury were told that the pair had played pool at a bar until 5 a.m. before the 10:30 a.m. flight and consumed 350 ounces of beer between them, the equivalent of nearly 22 pint glasses (10 litres), after earlier sharing a bottle of wine with two flight attendants.

Pieces of a man’s body including the right leg, part of the spine and a hip, struck a garage roof of the home in South Floral Park, New York, before landing in the backyard are believed to have fallen from the wheel well of a South African Airways passenger plane bound for New York’s Kennedy Airport. A US customs inspector discovered the rest of the man’s body after Flight 203 landed in New York from Johannesburg. A South African Airways spokeswoman said it appeared to have been a stowaway attempt and that the plane had stopped in Dakar, Senegal, on its way to New York. During the flight, Smith said the pilot felt more “vibrating sensations and heard pounding, but nothing appeared wrong with the plane.”

A Chinese boy died after falling from the landing gear of a passenger jet on take-off in north China. The stowaway, believed to be aged around 10, fell from a China Eastern Airbus A320 at the airport in Dunhuang, a popular tourist spot for Buddhist grottoes in Gansu province, Xinhua news agency said without elaborating. The jet, en route from Dunhuang to the provincial capital of Lanzhou, landed safely.

Last November, a 14 year old homeless boy who stowed away in the landing gear of a plane survived a 700 km (430 miles) flight across southwest China. A friend riding with him fell from the plane and died.

John from London wrote in to share some information about getting to London Stansted airport. He says:

I share your frustrations about the cost and unreliability of the train service to Stansted, but do you know about the National Express bus service from Stratford BR/Underground station?

It costs £7 single and £12 for a return, (a saving of £2), it leaves every half an hour, even during the night and takes 45 minutes because it’s only a spit from Stratford to the M11.

For more information, see: NationalExpress.

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.

Have you ever wanted to present a travel programme? Do you see yourself as a budding Judith Chalmers or Michael Palin? Or, do you just have a passion for the Island of Ireland? If the answer to any of the above questions is yes, then this is the challenge for you.

We’re on the lookout for two friends to front Ireland’s first ever online ‘travelmentary’, filming daily reports on the trip of a lifetime for thousands of Internet users. A camera crew will follow the lucky winners as they are chauffeured around Ireland in their very own Tourism Ireland luxury ‘taxi’ and given the chance to win up to г10,000.

To enter, just send a one-minute video clip of you and a friend explaining why you should be chosen to enjoy the Taxi Challenge. For further details on the challenge and how to enter visit www.tourismireland.com/taxi

So, find a friend, get out your video cameras and send us a one-minute clip telling us why you should front the Taxi Challenge.

Remember all you have to do is visit www.tourismireland.com/taxi

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

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!!