Ever wondered who were the most corrupt countries in the world?

The Corruption Perception Index (CPI) lists those countries which are perceived by suppliers as requiring the most bribes of businesses. The countries that currently do worst on this score are Russia, China, Taiwan and South Korea, with Sweden and Australia faring the best.

At the end of May, beginning of June, the UK was in party mode to celebrate 50 years of the Queen on the throne. Two public holidays added to the weekend lead to four days of celebrations. Street parties were held across the UK and thousands went to Buckingham Palace in the evenings for massive rock and classical concerts.

The English Tourist Council predicted that around one third of Britons took part in a Golden Jubilee event of some kind over the long bank holiday weekend. Also to celebrate the event there was almost 2,000 beacons lit across the UK and many more in all of the Commonwealth countries. The fact that the jubilee coincided with the start of the World Cup gave an extra boost to the festivities and resulted in far fewer (about 1.5 million people) people going abroad to take advantage of the 4 day holiday.

Not a lot of people know that John Lennon and Yoko Ono were married in Gibraltar, or that Prince Charles started his honeymoon there with Princess Diana. Gibraltar is, at the moment, a 3 square mile piece of independent territory in southern Spain overlooking Morocco with some 30,000 inhabitants.

The original settlers came from around the Mediterranean: from Malta and Italy. Both Spanish and English is spoken in Gibraltar and most of the population are, unlike Britain, Catholics. Back in the 18^th century, Spain ceded Gibraltar to Britain. Spain now wants Gibraltar back! In 1969, the people of Gibraltar included a proviso in its constitution that Gibraltar will only be returned to Spain if is population vote for this in a national referendum.

The Gibraltarians feel very passionate about not becoming part of Spain and Spain has been practicing all manner of restrictive practices towards Gibraltar, including causing a 3 hour wait to make a 100m drive across the border, even bribing ferry companies to move a few miles across into Spain to provide services to Tunis.

One has to consider the irony of this latest Anglo-Spanish diplomatic scuffle; true, Gibraltar with its geographical position almost at the mouth of the Med is well strategically placed, but equally, let's not forget that Spain maintains two separate territories in Morocco, which, strangely, Morocco wants back.

If you have a travellers tale that your aching to tell. Then why not visit the “Travel Sized Bites” section of the Website and share it with the world. Travel Sized Bites

Tina is a segment producer for a TV show called “Radical Sabbaticals” which airs on the Fine Living Network in the United States. The show features passionate, inspirational stories about successful, professional people who have walked away from their careers to pursue a dream…i.e. the CEO of a multi-million dollar company who left to become a wine maker. They could also be on an open-ended sabbatical We are also looking for people who have also given up their career to move to Europe to pursue their dreams. If you could refer any people or stories to us, it would be greatly appreciated. Your response would be greatly appreciated. Tina can be reached at (818) 755-4800 ext. 207 or click here to email Tina.

With thanks to sleepinginairports.net

Last month we had the winner, Changi airport in Singapore, which the Beetle can wholeheartedly agree with – it is a lovely airport! According to the website Sleeping in Airports, the runners up to the best airport to sleep in are as follows:

Runners Up (in alphabetical order):

• Amsterdam, Netherlands
• Auckland, New Zealand
• Hong Kong
• Melbourne, Australia
• Munich, Germany
• Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
• Portland, Oregon
• Toronto (Terminal 3), Ontario
• Vancouver, British Columbia

Write in and tell us your best airport nominations! Beetle@globetrotters.co.uk

When the Beetle was a very small Beetle one of the first books about travel she read was by Thor Heyerdahl, the world-renowned explorer and archaeologist. He must have fired the imaginations of millions with his exploits, trying to recreate the journeys of people from past times.

He was born in 1914, in Larvik, Norway and from his earliest days, he was an enthusiastic nature lover, and became a voracious explorer. His first expedition was to Polynesia in 1937-1938 when he was studying the origins of the island's life, that he became convinced that human settlers had come with the ocean currents from the west just as the flora and fauna had done. In 1947 he decided to build a replica of the aboriginal balsa raft (named the “Kon-Tiki”) to test his theories. In 1947, Heyerdahl and five companions left Callio, Peru and crossed 8000 km (4300 miles) in 101 days to reach Polynesia (Raroia atoll, Tuamotu Archipelago). Thor Heyerdahl managed to demonstrate that the ancient Peruvians could have reached Polynesia in this way.

Following the success of the Kon-Tiki Expedition, in 1952, Heyerdahl organized and led the Norwegian Archaeological Expedition to the Galapagos Islands, where it was demonstrated that once again, the people of South America had the means to travel much further than archaeologists had previously believed. In 1949, he continued his research on ancient navigation and turned his attention to the ancient reed-boats made of papyrus. These boats were deemed insufficient to cross the Atlantic as the reeds were believed to become water-logged after less than two weeks on open water.

Heyerdahl believed that contemporary science underestimated the ancient vessels and undertook to prove this by experiment. In 1969, he bought 12 tons of papyrus and worked with experts to construct an ancient-style vessel. The result was a 15 m boat which was launched at the old Phoenician port of Safi, Morocco. In the spirit of cooperation, Heyerdahl embarked under the UN flag with a crew of seven men from seven countries. The papyrus craft, Ra, sailed 5000 km (2700 nautical miles) in 56 days until storms and deficiencies in the construction caused the team to abandon their target only one week short of Barbados.

Thor Heyerdahl died in June of this year, aged 88.