For information on Ontario meetings, please contact Svatka Hermanek: shermanek@schulich.yorku.ca or Bruce Weber: tel. 416-203-0911 or Paul Webb: tel. 416-694-8259.

Meetings are held on the third Friday of January, March, May, September and November. Usually at the Woodsworth Co-op, Penthouse, 133, Wilton Street in downtown Toronto at 8.00 p.m.

Due to bereavement in Christina's family, we regret to say that Texas meetings have stopped pending further notice. If you have time to spare and would like to take over Texas meetings, please contact the Beetle on: beetle@globetrotters.co.uk

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.

If you enjoy writing, enjoy travelling, why not write for the free monthly Globetrotters e-newsletter! The Beetle would love to hear from you: your travel stories, anecdotes, jokes, questions, hints and tips, or your hometown or somewhere of special interest to you. Over 10,000 people currently subscribe to the Globetrotter e-news.

To see your story in cyber print, e-mail the Beetle with your travel experiences, hints and tips or questions up to 750 words, together with a couple of sentences about yourself and a contact e-mail address to Beetle@globetrotters.co.uk

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.

After four years back in London, the Beetle is scuttling to pastures new. She will continue to be involved with the Globetrotter e-newsletter, so please keep your stories, anecdotes and comments coming!

“Why, Sir, you find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.” – Samuel Johnson

I've lived longer in London than any other place. I love London; if based in the UK, it's the only place I'd chose to live, but…you knew there was a 'but' coming…..like any large city, it has its downsides. On the plus side, I like London for its cosmopolitan mix of people and all that they bring with them. So, for example, one of my favourite restaurants is the Ethiopian restaurant, Merkato on Cally Rd.

I like London's tolerance for dress and eccentricity – if you want to have a pink Mohican, well fine, no-one is going to stop and stare, if you want to have 1000 piercings or walk down the road holding hands with the same sex – nobody minds, or is it more a question that nobody cares? One day whilst walking in the City, I almost bumped into a very tall man with 3 day stubble, blue eye shadow, pink lipstick, wearing a Laura Ashley print dress and Doc Martin boots, and he had amazingly hairy legs! I like the tolerance of however you want to present yourself goes, it's not frowned up to stand out. I like it that we have a live and let live attitude, so no matter what your personal, sexual or religious preferences are, that's fine in London.

I guess I like the diversity of people and backgrounds London offers and all the activities available. If you want to learn tango, go to origami classes, learn car maintenance or Japanese or dress making, there's always a class for you. The night life is good too, ranging from the sort of full on clubs you'd see in any big city to individual hang outs, great wine bars, coffee shops – there's something for everyone – at a price.

Most British people take our heritage completely for granted. I have to confess, I lived 3 minutes walk from St Paul's cathedral, but I've never been in it – I objected to the outrageous entry fee. I could have attended a service, but I didn't. I went to the Tower of London as a child, but not since. One job I had involved working in a John Nash designed building and walking past the Royal National Opera House and St Martins in the Fields on my way to work. I admit, I used to look up and think how lucky I was, but I have only been to the opera twice, though I use the café in the crypt at St Martins in the Field on the odd occasion, but both are very expensive. I like the theatre very much, and there are ways of obtaining reasonably priced tickets, but if you want to go and see a movie in the West End, it'll set you back around £10. The cinemas at the Barbican are my favourite, because you can choose where to sit, it's not quite so expensive and people are generally better behaved – and this is the key to my leaving London.

In London, there is a two tier system of activities and places to go. There are the places that tourists go, like Oxford St, Covent Garden and all of the shops, bars and restaurants around there that no self-respecting Londoner would admit to going to. They are usually too expensive, too loud, too busy and of embarrassing quality; you really have to know where to go, and if you are new to London, this takes time to build up. For me, and I am not a native Londoner, part of the fun in London is discovering new haunts and hang outs. Building this knowledge can be frustrating too. It took me years to find a decent plumber, electrician and painter, and still not found a good builder.

I find London expensive, and I live here, so I imagine that visitors must feel the same. I also think it often offers very poor value for money, ranging from the tourist trap restaurants to historic site entrance fees. Having lived and worked in the US, Germany, Switzerland, Cayman to name but a few places, I don't think we have a very good service culture here in the UK, in shops restaurants and other services. The costs of renting, and even buying a place in Central London are often prohibitive. Bus fares are outrageous – £1.20 a journey and usually take twice the time of a crowded tube in London's traffic. A tube journey costs a minimum now of £2.20 – just avoid rush hour if you can, tube travel is becoming unbearable. Weekly passes are better value, but still expensive. Londoners regularly complain about London transport, but I think we are lucky in having a good network of buses, tubes and trains, even if they are often unpleasantly crowded, smelly, dirty, expensive, slow and late – you try using public transport outside London, in rural areas in the UK, it is almost non existent. Mind you, when I compare the attitude of New York City subway kiosk attendants to the London Underground counter attendants, London wins, hands down for not being as rude and as unhelpful as their NYC counterparts. I won't even bother to discuss driving in London, with congestion zone charges, cameras, lack pf parking, astronomical parking charges and over zealous ticket toting traffic wardens.

Whilst I like the live and let live attitude in London about people's dress and preferences, there are chinks in this when it comes to public behaviour. In the past month, I have witnessed three incidents of bus rage – seriously! The first was a man who was too late to get on a bus on Upper St in Islington. The bus driver refused to let him on the bus as he'd pulled away from the bus stop, so the man walked in front of the bus, arms stretched out wide and refused to let the bus move on. After 10 minutes of this and a torrent of the foulest abuse imaginable, and the bus driver calmly radio-ing “we have a problem”, the man decided to try and punch in the driver's window, repeatedly spat at it and then tried to kick in the bus' folding doors. The passengers and I was one, sat frozen and mute in horror. Another bus incident involved a woman who was either mad or badly in need of help and announced that she was going to kill the vandals responsible for chopping down some tress near where she lived. She took to accusing the entire downstairs of the crowded bus and in particular a gaggle of chip eating school girls at the back of the bus who refused to open the window to let in some fresh air to dilute the stink of chips they were eating. The mad woman and the girls then proceeded to engage in a battle of the foulest language and threats until the mad woman got off. The third incident just makes for more depressing retelling. And yet, I have seen Asian youths give up their seat for older people, but no-one offer their seat on a sweltering and crowded tube for a very pregnant woman. I offered, she refused, like she expected this kind of behaviour. But there are good Samaritans: a couple of months back, I saw a lady trip on the bottom stair of a moving escalator at Euston and a huge number of people stopped to help pick her up, dust her down and collect her bags for her. We are not entirely a capital of monsters, but I do wonder sometimes. When I recounted these tales to my friends, they shrug and say, well, this is London.

I could be boring and go on about the weather, the politics, the dumbing down of our tv, (ironically, the only tv programmes I watch are from the US – CSI, Law & Order, Futurama and the odd film), the British press – we have some of the most obnoxious and intrusive tabloids in the world. We've just had a general election, though you wouldn't know it. Our political apathy is maybe based on the pathetic characters available for election. What's that Dr Johnson said?