Sally, from Malmsbury, Wiltshire in the UK packed her bags a few years ago to make a new home for herself in a small village near Estoril, Lisbon in Portugal. She works as an English as a Foreign Language teacher and here are some of her latest exploits. If you have ever thought or dreamt about becoming a TEFL teacher, then this may provide some inspiration.

I had an interesting job just after Christmas. I was asked to go to Lisbon to assess the level of English of six candidates for a job with a large insurance company. As it was 9.00 in the morning I decided to take the train. So I got up early, got the bus and then the train into Lisbon. It brought back vivid memories of all those months I commuted from Chippenham to Richmond just outside London, except that stood on a chilly platform at Estoril gazing at a blue sea certainly beat standing on a freezing platform at Chippenham and gazing at a car park with bored seagulls. The crowds negotiating train to metro were just like dear old Paddington but hey, trains coincide with the metro and I was at my appointment at 8.50 – not bad eh?

I really enjoyed the interviewing. They all sat round the table and I kicked off a conversation asking them what they all did – some were very good and articulate but there was the usual “I am better than all the rest” one who got on peoples' nerves. I then asked them to write a letter of application in English applying for the job and giving reasons why they thought they were suitable. This narrowed the field tremendously as although they could speak English well, their written work let them down. I managed to shortlist three with one clear contender and then was very pleased when the HR lady told me I had picked the three she had thought were right for the second stage. Result!

Teaching is still fun – I now have an Argentinean plastic surgeon who wants to move to England and has limited English. Joaquim is 33 and has been in Portugal for three years. His brother is a GP in Patagonia. He wants to have his own clinic eventually back in Argentina but the timing is not right at the moment. He is very keen for people to visit the country as the currency exchange is in our favour and not theirs at the moment. I took him on a practical lesson the other Saturday – a tour of Jumbo supermarket and Cascais fruit and vegetable market – he really enjoyed it.

I have also got a new class at a huge toy store. They are a hoot. They are all in the office and I do two hours with them usually on a Tuesday night. It's nice when you work on site as you get to see them in situ. They are very friendly with a wicked sense of humour and don't want books, just conversation and how to deal with English phone calls. One of my students has a great catchphrase when she doesn't understand – “whattee”. They are very interesting and ask intelligent questions regarding translations of phrases or as last week, the headings on a financial spreadsheet. When the Head of HR is not in the lesson, the questions tend to get more relaxed as in “Miss Sally, tell us some swear words in English”! Body parts are also of great amusement.

Jeronimos Monastery, Lisbon, photo by the Beetle

Jorge, my Siemens student, is constantly keeping me amused – if it's not the latest scandal in football, it's the problems at work and the entertaining saga of getting building permits and planning permission for his new house. He is a real pleasure to teach because he is such fun. In fact the whole office makes me very welcome and they all come over and chat and tell me whether they think he is improving or not. He went to Dresden two weeks ago that meant a couple of German/Portuguese/English lessons – I seem to be learning bits of German as well as Spanish these days.

Last week I gave him a crash course in football reporting – three English articles on Jose Mourinho and Chelsea – very amusing and of great interest to the other guys in the office that wanted to know what he was reading. I was very pleased when he told me that he had tried to read English articles on the plane to Dresden.

Tatiana, my tourism student, is having problems working on essays so we have been trying to break her block. We did a short one last week that was basically a précis of a Portuguese legend from Nazare. I'm hoping that the work we did will give her the confidence she needs. We started meeting in the coffee bar at Jumbo supermarket but the smoke was a pain on days when we couldn't sit outside, so then we moved to Cascais Library, where they have tables and chairs (and resident cat) outside but that got too cold. We then found a very nice pastelaria (Lua da Mel or Honeymoon) but recently she has had problems with babysitters, so we have the class in her flat with her baby daughter, Ayeesha who is very sweet and loves unloading my bag and pinching pencils.

Outdoor enthusiasts and holidaymakers planning trips to central and eastern Europe this year are being warned about a potentially life-threatening disease.

The 'Tick Alert' awareness campaign urges travellers to 16 named European countries, including many of the new popular destinations for outdoor tourism such as Croatia, Slovenia and Slovakia, to protect themselves against Tick Borne Encephalitis (TBE).

Increased tourism to rural and woodland areas of endemic countries in Europe is increasing the risk to visiting UK outdoor enthusiasts, the majority of whom remain unaware of the disease, how it is contracted or that they are members of a high-risk travel group.

TBE is a potentially life-threatening viral disease that can lead to meningitis and in serious cases can result in paralysis and death. It is transmitted via the bite of an infected tick, found typically in rural and forest areas up to a height of 3,000ft and occurs mainly during the late spring and summer months. The disease can also be transmitted by the ingestion of unpasteurised milk.

There has been a dramatic rise in the incidence of tick-borne diseases in central and eastern Europe over the last 10 years. TBE is now endemic in countries spreading from Sweden, across the Baltics and down to Croatia.

The fact that a number of endemic countries conduct intensive inoculation programmes for their resident populations should be heeded by all UK visitors.

“There is a low awareness of TBE, even among people experienced in outdoor activities abroad,” said Tick Alert's Lynda Bramham. “The aim of this campaign is to encourage anyone travelling to TBE endemic regions, and at risk of the disease through their outdoor leisure activity, to take effective precautions.”

Official figures show the number of UK tourists to the former Yugoslavia rose by 40 per cent last summer to 114,000 compared with the previous 12 months. Similarly, visitors to central and eastern Europe reached 558,000, an increase of 38 per cent.

Adventure travel, hiking and mountain biking in Europe are all increasing in popularity as people discover these new destinations.

A 2004 report by Mintel highlighted the growth of agritourism and countryside holidays in places such as Croatia and Estonia, and the Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA) lists Slovenia and Bulgaria among its hot tips for holidays in 2005.

Professor Sarah Randolph, head of the Oxford Tick Research Group at the University of Oxford said: “In some countries of mainland Europe the most serious vector-borne disease is caused by a virus transmitted by ticks, tick-borne encephalitis (TBE), which may kill one in every hundred people infected.”

There are a number of bite prevention measures that can be taken to reduce the risk of infection: these include using an insect repellent, wearing protective clothing to cover all areas of exposed skin, regularly inspecting your body for tick bites and carefully removing any that are found. However, the Foreign Office advises that travellers to TBE endemic regions seek inoculation advice form their local surgery of clinic – well before travelling.

Immunisation against TBE is available as a paid-for travel vaccine from specialist travel health clinics operated by MASTA, the UK's leading provider, and at GP surgeries and healthcare centres. For further information and advice for travellers visit www.masta.org/tickalert

We are sorry to say that Mac is not very well, but he is still e-mailing strong and recently sent the Beetle a collection of travel reminiscences and in particular discusses some travel writers. Former Globetrotter President, Arthur Frommer (Europe On $5 A Day) gave an interesting interview to travel writer Michael Shapiro for Michael's book, A Sense of Place Great Travel Writers Talk About their Craft, Lives and Inspiration.

In this he writes: “As a G.I. stationed in Germany in the mid 1950s, Frommer had travelled on a shoestring whenever he had a couple of days off. Early on, he realized an essential truth pertaining to intrepid travellers. The less you spend, the more you enjoy. After travelling widely throughout Europe and self-publishing a slender guide for G.I.s, Frommer wrote his seminal Europe on $5 a day”.

Arthur Frommer was my hero and his books were my bible for years. One of his funny stories: “Our first edition of Mexico on 5 Dollars A Day was written by John Wilcock who hates Mexican food. He spends pages telling you where you can find a decent tuna fish salad sandwich in Mexico City. I think I wrote to tell them that place he recommended was now a parking lot! He doesn't like Mexican food, yet he is the author of one of classic guidebooks to Mexico. When you read the restaurant chapter you could tell that he is virtually holding his nose. I never changed that – what he wrote went into print. In my opinion, a copy editor's function is grammar, punctuation, consistent abbreviations and the like- it's not style. A copy editor has no right to impose his or his style upon the author.”

Close to home here he tells of “A young woman named Beth Bryant called us many years ago she lived in Washington, D.C. and said she wanted to write guidebooks. I said write the restaurant section of a hypothetical guidebook to Washington, D.C. in which you rate the government cafeterias. And she wrote this absolutely delightful comparison of the Justice Department cafeteria with the Commerce Department all of which are open to public visits. We immediately knew that we had a star on our hands. She was sent to Ireland where she wrote the first edition of our Ireland guidebook which is a travel classic. It's one of the best ones we have ever done.”

I am reading and enjoying A Fortune Teller Told Me by Tiziano Terzani. Here are some sentences I have copied down. Page 58: it was the Burmese kings hankering after one of the King of Siams' seven white elephants, very rare and therefore magical that sparked a war which lasted three hundred years – the upshot being that Auydhya (Siam's then capital) was destroyed and the Siamese had to build a new capital, present day Bangkok.

Page 54. The tie. Originally a Mogul invention for dragging prisoners tied to the pommels of their saddles. Note from the Beetle: some people believe that tie originates from Croatia. IN the 17th century, a huge number of soldiers and knights went to Paris to give their support to King Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu. Some Croatian mercenaries went too, wearing traditional costumes whose traditional included colourful scarves tied around their necks. This attracted the attention of the fashion-conscious French who adopted it as part of the uniform for French officers. The description “a la croate” evolved into “la cravate”. British exiled King Charles II took the fashion with him from France and soon the tie or cravat spread across Europe to America.

On Bangkok, page 33. Spirit temples and small shrines. The phii (spirit) of the plot of land where the old Erawan Hotel (in Bangkok) was built was so happy with the way it has been treated that it took to performing miracles and today its temple is still one of the most frequented and most popular in Bangkok. One of its specialties is to aid the conception of male offspring and thousands of sterile women have come to it with all sorts of offerings; some dance around it semi-nude at night. (Mac: I wish they would be more specific. At what time??)

Laos, page 27. During the war, every time the Pathet Lao crossed a river the last man had to turn back and call to a non existent comrade. The spirit of the river habitually carries off the last of the line i.e. the last man in the patrol, and in that way the guerrillas hoped to deceive it.

Tibet, page 2l. The Chinese to facilitate tourist access have decided to modernise the lighting of the Potala (used to be Dalai Lama palace-temple) and have installed neon lights. This is no accident as neon kills everything even the Gods. And as they die, the Tibetan identity gradually dies with them. This Italian writer travelled for a year in 1993 without using a plane as a fortune teller had told him not to travel by plane in 1993. He is the Far Eastern correspondent of the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel. Since 1994 he has made New Delhi his base.

Interesting times! Happy trails, Mac. Mac can be contacted on: macsan400@yahoo.com

Ryanair has banned its staff from charging their mobile (cell) phones at work, saying it is an inappropriate use of office time. A UK newspaper reported that staff were “furious” about the rule. However, a Ryanair spokeswoman said no-one had “batted an eyelid” since the rule was introduced about two months ago. She said the decision to ban the charging of phones was more related to work ethic than cost-cutting – though “obviously there is a small saving”. “It's not good for people to be charging up their phones in work time,” the spokeswoman said.

The gentle sound of Guitars drifting across the tropical air whether it be in the market square in the borough of Laranjeiras or by the beach in Ipanema, introduced me to the sound called “Chorinho” – The crying or weeping of guitars. The music started about the turn of the 20th century and like jazz is free flowing and improvised. The lead instrument is called a “Cavaquinho”, a small guitar and the music is always instrumental in form, but many times has a flute or Sax amongst the various guitars. The undulating but easy listening rhythm is controlled by the guitars and usually one tambourine. “Chorinho” fell out of fashion for a time but seems to be making a come back, especially on Saturday mornings around the town, where the musicians gather quite a crowd.

A place not to be missed if you are in Rio is, “Centro de Cultura do Carioca”. A club or bar in the City of Rio, near the club land of the district of Lapa, that appeals to people of all types and ages and has very good Samba, Choarinho, Popular Brazilian Music and always has a first class group and singers. 15 R$ (four pounds Sterling) entrance fee and tins of beer for about 60p each. Caipirinha, a large one costs one pound fifty.

Book a table and arrive about 9pm or you will have to stand all the night long. A place, that all seem to be letting their hair down and having a great time as Brazilians seem to do well and I know that I certainly was.

The only tourists, if you could call them that, were an American Surfing Photographer, who had lived here for four years, an Argentinean, who had fallen in love, both with Rio and a girl during Canaval. As the club empted about 3.30 am my friends and I went to sit by the sea in a district called Leme. A bar called “Sindicato do Chopp” (Union of the Draft Beers) I knew it well from a past magazine shoot and there we relaxed and downed a last drink before that magic hour when the sun rose and my lovely cool Princess, turned into Sleeping Beauty and I turned back into a frog.

One Saturday back in April 2004, I decided somewhat hastily to go to Donsol, Sorsogon, at the southern tip of Luzon in the Philippines, to check out the whale sharks (Rhincodon typus), also known in Bicolano as Butanding. It is a three-hour drive south from Naga to Donsol by way of Daraga, Albay, giving me a chance to check out Mayon volcano. The perfect cone appears to have been damaged by recent eruptions as viewed from the Camalig/Guinobatan side. Sorsogon is one of the six provinces in Southern Luzon in the Philippines which belong to what is referred to as the Bicol Region.

I arrived in Donsol at the Butanding Interaction Center in Woodland Resort at around 9:15 am, and was on a boat with a crew of four by 9:30 am. Why four? Well, it turns out that I needed a motor operator, a pilot, a spotter and a guide, otherwise known as a BIO (Butanding Interaction Officer). This was a very good and conscientious crew.

Within thirty minutes, we had ten sightings of the Butanding, and a total of 17 sightings in one hour. I was not sure if these sightings were all different individuals but they did look different to me. Some were big and long (males), others shorter and wider (females). Some were juveniles. Some had damaged tails or fins (a.k.a. the BIO called one individual Putol) and others had scars (scar face, etc.) It also helped that March to May is the best time to watch these gentle giants and that the moon was full, which supposedly encourages greater activity among them. I was not prepared to snorkel, and so did not see the sharks at even closer range, short of touching them. The Center was run by an NGO in cooperation with the local government, and was doing well in helping the local fisherfolk earn income from eco-tourism. By the time my boat sailed out into the bay, thirty other trips had already been initiated on that day to interact with the Butanding. Apparently, if I went out to the bay when the center opened at 7:30 am, I would have seen the Butanding surfacing even more. But the sightings I experienced at 9:30-10:00 am were close enough.

The NGO turned out to be the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). It appears that whale sharks have long swarmed Donsol waters to feed on the bay's abundant plankton. The sharks had coexisted peacefully with locals, when in 1997, word got out that the rare shark and the world's largest fish migrated to Donsol every summer. This spurred Donsol officials to organize a whale shark interaction program for tourists and to declare Donsol as a whale shark sanctuary. WWF, under a matching grant from US Agency for International Development, began providing support in 2004 to ensure that Donsol's growing tourism contributes to both marine conservation and local livelihoods. Hunting of this vulnerable population of whale sharks is now banned to deal with constant threats from hunters attracted by the lucratively priced shark fins and meat.

Donsol municipality is also promoting a river cruise and firefly tour as part of its diversification program of ecotourism activities. The Regional Director of Tourism for Bicol proudly reports that, in the past five years, Donsol has moved from being one of the poorest to one of the richest municipalities in the Bicol region.

In November, 2004, Time Asia Magazine's 2004 Best of Asia Report selected whale shark watching in Donsol as best animal encounter.

A good weblink on the whale sharks of Donsol is www.camperspoint.com

Gil Dy-Liacco traces his roots to Naga City in the Philippines, and works with USAID/Philippines as Mission Economist and Deputy Chief for Program Resources Management.

Globetrotter Jon Hornbuckle wrote in to add his experience of whale sharks: the only time I saw a whale-shark was off San Blas, west Mexico in Feb. We took a small boat off-shore to look for birds and were surprised to see the relatively small whale-shark right by the boat, quite common at this time according to the boatman.

I was planning to join my daughter in Nepal at Easter, and go trekking in the Annapurna region. Diana Penny at Bufo Ventures was going to book a guide and a porter for us. I booked my own flight to Kathmandu in mid January, then a couple of days later the King took over Nepal and cut off all communications. Cancelling my ticket would have cost a lot, so if Nepal turned out to be a completely no-go area, the contingency plan was to meet in Delhi instead, and go to Rajasthan. But I've wanted to go to the Himalayas for half a century – so we decided to wait and see. The FCO were, and still are, advising extreme caution and their reports makes quite alarming reading.

It took some weeks to get first-hand information from Highland Sherpa, the trekking agency Diana's husband runs. By early March, Kathmandu was quiet, but strictly under the control of the King and the military police. In the west of the country the Maoists were causing some problems and there was some localised fighting in the Pokhara region. For tourists, the only inconvenience was some random roadblocks and demands for money.

We were advised to switch our plans from Annapurna to Everest, and that's what we did. Luckily we were able to book flights to Lukla – everyone else had the same idea, so flights were scarce. There are no Maoists in that area and the Nepalese are very anxious to keep their trekking and tourism expanding as everybody relies on it for an income.

So for eight glorious days we trekked up towards Everest, getting as high as Dingboche before descending by a different route. The local people were charming and hospitable and most of the time you are never far from food, drink and shelter. We met people who had been to Annapurna and had been accosted by Maoists and parted with their 1000 rupees on demand – and even had their photos taken with them! You get a receipt for your 'payment', so if you are held up by another gang, you can show your receipt and will usually be let off. It amounts to less than £10, but you wouldn't want to do it every day or you would have to double your budget! (On our first night, our bill for a double room, plus lunch, evening meal and breakfast for two came to 1300 rupees – a little over £10). One solo trekker we met said she had spent £57 on her nine-day trek, but she admitted she didn't have many showers, as they cost over £1!

The only other restriction in places where there is a military presence is a curfew at sundown. Above Lukla, we only saw a few soldiers – near the ticket office for the Sagarmatha National Park on the outskirts of Namche Bazaar. Their camp is just above the village and it has a very interesting visitor centre you can go into – that's in addition to Sherpa Museum and the History Museum of the Himalayas, under reconstruction in Namche, both close by the camp. In Lukla itself I was challenged politely by a soldier as I returned to my lodge near the airport after watching the sunset at a neighbouring Lodge. In Kathmandu there are still shops and restaurants open in the tourist Thamel district long after dark, so your walk back to outlying hotels may be in darkened streets, but represents no problem.

There are also well-advertised strikes throughout the country from time to time, so if you are relying on public transport these might delay you. Trekkers were flying back to Kathmandu from Lukla, rather than risk the 5-day walk to Jiri only to find the bus back to town (an 11-hour) journey, wasn't running!

So if you have the time to walk the extra miles, or can afford the air fare to Lukla, don't miss out on seeing Everest. The main trails are easy to follow, though not often signposted. There are plenty of lodges and teashops to stop at. On the longer ascents you are usually warned that you are passing 'the last stopping place'. Stopping is essential, as gaining height slowly is the best way to ward off altitude sickness. So you stop to admire the magnificent views, rather than keep looking around and stumbling. You stop to let yaks pass you, standing safely against the mountain, not the outer edge of the path! You stop to let porters carrying enormous loads overtake you. You stop to chat to fellow trekkers – its amazing how often you meet up with the same people. It's a fantastic trip, so DON'T LET THE PRESS PUT YOU OFF. The monsoon season starts at the end of May – so hurry!

After Rome was destroyed by the Visigoths in 410, Emperor Constantine the Great chose a small fishing village on the Bosphorus to become the new imperial capital. This small fishing village was inaugurated as Constantinople, what we now know as Istanbul. The Roman empire based in Constantinople is usually referred to as the Byzantine Empire.

There are many artefacts relating to the Byzantine Empire in Istanbul, but the Beetle's favourite is the Byzantine cisterns. If you've seen the James Bond movie, From Russia with Love, maybe you remember the scene where the redoubtable Mr Bond is rowing in a small boat through a forest of marble columns – this was filmed in Yerebatan Saray Sarniçi.

This cistern is thought to have been built in 532 AD, using marble columns recycled from Greek ruins in and around the Bosphorus. The water was routed from reservoirs around the Black Sea and transported via the Aqueduct of Valens. It was used as a backup for periods of drought or siege for the Great Palace. Historians believe that the cisterns were left largely untouched by the Ottomans, who preferred running, not stagnant, water, and the stored water ended up being used to water the Topkapi Gardens. The cistern was later left to collect silt and mud until it was cleaned by the Istanbul Municipality and opened to the public in 1987.

It is just one of many cisterns underneath modern day Istanbul, and the largest at 70 x 140 metres, (or 2.4 acres), and can hold 80,000 cubic metres – over 21 million US gallons). It is very grand and there are twelve rows of 28 columns each making an impressive total of 336 marble columns and you walk between the columns on a large boardwalk. At the far end of the walkway are two large Medusa heads in the north-western corner, one inverted and the other on its side; according to mythology, placing her this way caused her to turn herself into stone. Another theory is that turning her upside down neutralises her powers. There are some huge fish too in the water whose function is to aerate the water (and feed on tourists' handouts). There are signs giving details of classical concerts that take place in the cisterns. The Basilica Cistern was restored in 1980 for visitors.

There's also a café with wobbly metal tables and chairs and orange lighting adding to the subterranean feeling.

Yerebatan is in Sultanahmet Square, at the north-eastern end of the Hippodrome, just off Divan Yolu, and across the street from Ayasofya (Hagia Sophia). Opening hours: Daily 0900-1700. Admission: $3.50.

As a result of last month's feature on the world's smallest countries, David wrote in to say:

Ahh, but what about the Sovereign Military Hospitable Order of St. John of Jerusalem, Rhodes, and Malta, which has diplomatic ties with 87 countries, its own license plates, postage stamps passports, and currency, and runs dozens of hospitals and clinics worldwide. Its sovereign territory is a second floor office suite in the Palazzo Malta at 68 via de Candiotti in Rome, and an applicant for UN membership.

Slightly larger, but not as big as Vatican City, we of course have Sealand, which you probably know–six miles off the English coast, a WWII antiaircraft tower “liberated” in 1967 by Major and Mrs. Roy Bates.

What do you think? Let the Beetle know!

Meeting news from our branches around the world.