U. S. Soldiers Home Mac: during a century of travel (well 78 years!) both in and out of service I have travelled to over 150 countries (I count both North and South Dakota as countries) and for some reason have jotted signs and happenings that I thought funny at the time (and now wonder why). So here is the perfect opportunity to share some of my anecdotes.

I stayed in Hotel Blue in Delhi (avoid it.) Actually OK but basic and the police were constantly checking the place as so many of the clients were young people travelling the world for years and didn’t have any work (except temporary jobs). There was a young German travelling around the world on a motorcycle. He was born after Hitler was dead. He told me he was in Egypt and when an elderly Egyptian heard he was from Germany said to him. “Hitler is a good man. How old is he now? This broke up the young German. Some people never get the word. Indian police came up to the hotel looking for illegal immigrants and the young German disappeared.

While waiting for a room in New Delhi at the Hotel Ashok Yatri News $10 US a day (it seemed to be a budget hotel ran by the government and I liked it) I went into the public toilet in the lobby and took all my luggage into the stall with me. When I went to leave stall I had trouble getting the door open as my luggage was in the way. As I struggled out, I saw an Indian at the washbasin watching my antics. I told him. “I spent the night in there – couldn’t get a room. Without batting an eye he said “You did not have to do that”

Puri, India. Stayed at Z Hotel. That is the entire name of hotel or as the British say zed for Z I think. Z hotel is on Chakraateertha Road. A short name for hotel. Long name for road. It is on the beach next to the ocean. The hotel was a palace of a very minor Maharaja of a very minor state in West Bengal. I was offered a complimentary drink as I signed in. All this for 480 rupees ($4.80 U.S. a night.) You can walk to fishing villages with palm huts a short way from hotel. When I went to see the fishermen bring in the fish at 4PM, a little boy ran ahead of me to point out the faeces on the beach (the fishermen use the beach as a toilet). He would point and say Toilet. He was constantly saying Toilet, toilet, toilet so I would not step into the faeces.

At the Konark Temple in India where they have erotic carvings of men and women doing things in almost impossible gymnastic positions a little boy appointed himself as my guide. This ten year old guide solemnly informed me. “There are sixty four approaches.”

Madras, India. Diana had read that the bicycle rickshaw drivers in front of train station would often take you to a hotel where they got a commission instead of the hotel you requested. She told me to give the address of a landmark near the hotel you wished. Tell him you want to go to Star Theater (which was near Broadlawn Hotel I wanted) I said Star Theater please and he replied. “Oh the Broadlawn Hotel!” I moved from there to Himalayan Hotel that Dianna kept calling the Everest.

The Fairlawn Hotel in Calcutta is a hoot. It is run by an Albanian lady (I think) who had been married to a British Major, since died. She was more British than the British and she ran the hotel like they did in the days of the Raj. She had all the men servants wear colourful turbans although they were not Sikhs (I at first thought when they said someone was Sikh I thought they were saying they were sick.) When she was out of sight they would pull them off. She would walk around with a little poodle in her arms saying “And how are you my dear?’ Americans loved this but some Indians from America revisiting India told me that their daughter hated this.

I stayed in several hotels in New Delhi including YMCA and YWCA International Hotel (took both men and women) food very good there. In an Indian brochure I read “When our hearts are empty we collect things” (give me your things and sin no more.) It is true that we sometimes become slaves to our possessions. Give them away and travel!

Next month, Mac discusses animals. If you would like to contact Mac, he can be e-mailed on: macsan400@yahoo.com

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The following is an extract from Henry from Hawaii’s website which has lots of interesting links and provides much background to this memorable trip to Molokai. To find out more info, take a look at:

The research vessel Atlantis is a state-of-the-art oceanographic ship, delivered in 1997, which launches the well-known deep diving submersible Alvin. I was invited to join the 14 Nov voyage departing Puntarenas, Costa Rica for an area in the rift zone northeast of the Galapagos Islands. This deep-sea odyssey, configured to retrieve borehole information from both the rift area northeast of the Galapagos and the deep trench area west of central Costa Rica, was essentially to help more precisely determine the subduction mechanisms of plate tectonics. Incidentally, the daily location of the R/V Atlantis (AGOR-25) can be viewed online along with its recent track.

I flew from Chicago, via Mexico City, arriving very early in the morning and stayed at the Posada Aeropuerto near the airport for a relatively few hours until I started exploring the Poas volcanic area and later in the day driving to the capital, San Jose, for an overnight stay. The next day was spent visiting the city sights such as the National Museum and the evening was given to travelling some sixty miles west to Puntarenas. As usual, the wet season afternoon showers were heavy but nothing large enough to impede any plans. Incidentally, the wet or green season as they like to call it there, ends just about mid-November and the rest of the time the weather was excellent.

In Puntarenas, I stayed at the recommended Hotel Tioga with a good view of the beach looking south to the sea. It was a much welcomed stay and very quiet compared to the constant noise of San Jose. I even enjoyed all two stations on the local television scene and the big and inclusive breakfast. At first light from my balcony, I could see the m/v Atlantis riding at anchor almost due south of the hotel.

Puntarenas is both a fishing port and a resort centre on the west central coast of Costa Rica. It is situated on a four-mile-long spit that extends east-west from the narrow waist of Costa Rica. Its tourist activities consist primarily of water-related attractions; however, excursions to the cloud forest at Monteverde and to San Jose, for example, may be accomplished as day trips. This is not the case for the volcanic areas of Arenal Volcano, Poas Volcano and Irazu Volcano inasmuch as the distances to these areas generally are too great when starting from Puntarenas.

I caught a water taxi to the Atlantis and was introduced to the ship by its most hospitable captain, George Silva. The research vessel is a remarkable self-contained workshop of the deep with a most competent staff of high-calibre people. Later in the day the scientist in charge, Dr Keir Becker of the University of Miami, embarked with his group of sea-going scientists. It was a most impressive group.

The first two days at sea were involved in heading almost due south some 600 miles to the first dive site at 1*14’N/83*44’W. The next day was taken up with Alvin diving to 11,500ft to two boreholes to retrieve information pertaining to physical conditions within the wells. In addition, sampling was made of the water content for evidence of bacteria that have been residing in the deep areas beneath the floor of the ocean. NASA apparently is interested in these results as they will also be attempting to retrieve evidence of bacteria that might have resided on such remote areas as Mars.

The following two days were spent travelling north northwest to a second dive site at 9*39’N/86*11’W where Alvin was sent down 14,000ft or almost three miles to retrieve data from the deep trench that parallels the western coasts of both North and South America. On the outside of Alvin, we attached a bag of Styrofoam cups with various messages and logos only to see them shrink to inch-high thimble-sized curiosities due to the huge pressure exerted at those depths.

The last leg of the voyage covered approximately 100 miles as we headed east around the Nicoya Peninsula back to Puntarenas. Incidentally, during the cruise we saw dolphins. turtles and pilot whales. Overall, it was a most successful and enjoyable voyage.

The fifty-mile drive from Puntarenas to the San Jose international airport took two hours on the narrow two-lane Pan American Highway and, after another overnight at the Posada Aeropuerto, an early flight to Chicago completed this portion of the trip. The flight track brought us over Guatemala City and the view to the west at the string of coastal volcanoes, some of them smoking, was marvellous. Lake Atitlan was clearly visible in the early morning and I took an awful lot of pictures. Even smoking Popocatepetl (18,000ft) and snow-covered Ixtacihuatl near Mexico City presented calendar-quality photo opportunities.

The entire trip was rewarding and I would hope to accompany the Atlantis on some future research voyage.

If you would like any further information, please contact Henry by email: Nowicki@webtv.net

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Iris is a British lady of considerable character and pluck, on a 23 week overland expedition from Quito in Ecuador to Caracas in Venezuela. After this, she plans to do a 3-month voluntary placement in Ecuador, and then visit Central America for another overland trip between Panama City and Mexico City, ending up with perhaps another 2-month voluntary placement somewhere in South America again. This amazing journey will take Iris one year. Here is an extract from Iris’ journey notebook.

30^th November cont.: Cuenca

Onward, ever onward, to Cuenca. By the time it had reached 1845 and we had been on the road for 11 hours we were all becoming increasingly impatient to arrive. Darkness had descended, quite a lot of the time, after leaving our lunchtime site, it was raining heavily, and for hours we had had to make our own fun in the back of the truck, playing cards, some of the lads giving us a selection of the music they had brought on mini discs and mini disc players – most of it being quite presentable – Robbie Williams, Abba, Kylie, to name a few, although when a Turkish member of our group produced a CD of Turkish music, the reception was somewhat mixed, and when someone produced a couple of CDs of Australian folk songs, there were a lot of jeers, even from the Aussies amongst us, about songs like “Tie my Kangaroo down sport!” or “Waltzing Matilda” and others of that ilk.

One of our amusements, rather unkindly but not intended so, was our 68 yr old, Judith, my room-mate in Baños. Poor Judith, she had been very jet-lagged when she had arrived in Quito, but she had had four nights to recover, so everyone was very amused when she proceeded to fall asleep. She was sitting with one of our younger men (Matt is about 33, I would say, and he is a quiet man) and he had an inflated neck cushion and had dozed off leaning against the window (the seats are like public bus seats, there are no head rests and support ends at just below the shoulders) so poor Judith was lolling back with mouth wide open, catching flies.

Kindly, our policeman, Paul, who was sitting sideways on behind Judith decided she had to be given a cushion and so a sleeping bag, rolled up in its sack was produced and placed strategically behind Judith’s head, which seemed successful, but as the sleeping bag roll was in a large empty cavity between Judith’s front-facing seat and Paul’s side-facing seat, every movement of the bus sent it sliding away from Judith, or Judith sliding away from it. Another sleeping bag roll was produced but then Judith would gradually slip between the two rolls! Then it was decided to wedge the sleeping rolls in place with a water bottle and this did the trick but then Judith found Matt’s shoulder and snuggled up to him! This just went on and on throughout the day. Both Matt and Judith would wake up at intervals but gradually both (Judith more than Matt) would drop off into slumberland once more and the whole pantomime would be played out again, very much to everyone’s amusement!) We reckoned Judith slept for at least seven of the 13 hours we were on the road!

Eventually, after many small disappointments as one large town vanished into the darkness to our rear which had been mistakenly identified by us as our destination, we arrived in Cuenca and got to our hotel. But we had all to share 3 or 4-bedded rooms, although that is par for the course when so many have to be accommodated in large city hotels. I shared with three other ladies – Alison, Eren (our Turkish lady) and Judith, and after we had all got settled we went off across the road to an Italian restaurant for a meal (as our last meal had been some 8 hours previously on the side of the road), however, at 2130 we were not too keen to eat anything too much and Judith and Eren just had soup and a roll, and Alison and I had pasta.

Today, the rain has vanished and it is quite sunny in Cuenca. We had a light breakfast (rolls and jam and scrambled egg) and then I decided to go my separate way. Judith and Alison and Eren wanted to go to an archaeological museum out of town, but I wanted to wander around on my own. Unfortunately Eren is ill today, being sick and feeling poorly so in the end we left her in the hotel room bedded down. I don’t know what she had eaten and neither did she, that had made her sick, but it is not diarrhoea, just sickness, so hopefully, she will be recovered by tomorrow for our next 366 km journey to Punta Sal where we will be camping on the beach for 3 days.

I think this first week is being used to break us in gently to the rigours ahead of us – the jungle trip and the Inca Trail – so some long journeys have to be faced and some hotels are used so that we are not faced with too much hard work putting up tents every time we arrive at a destination, and camping to show us what we are in for when there are no hotels to stay in. So think of me on 1 Dec 02 having to face putting up a tent after a 12 hour journey!

Today in Cuenca I have just walked round the city centre, looking at the local shops and populace. I got to a little square and realised there was an art museum there so went in to have a look round. The young security guard, who watches over everyone coming in, got me to sign the book and put my passport number and name in the book and then was determined to practice his rather limited English on me. Anyway, to cut a long story short he ended up giving me a guided tour and I asked him if I could take his photo, but although he agreed he was determined the photo was going to have me in it as well, so I obliged him, when he produced a young friend to do the honours! After the guided tour I told him that I was returning to Ecuador next year for maybe two stints of 3 months and 2 months and asked him for his address so that I could not only send him the photo but also perhaps visit him when I return. He is a university student working as a guard at the museum during the day and has another evening job as well to bring in the money while he is studying. He is at Rio Bamba university and hopes to travel round the world when he has finished his studying. He is about 18, I would say, and demanded that we kiss each other on the cheek before parting to show our new-found friendship and the hope of it continuing in the future, so I obliged and insisted we do it the French way of kissing on both cheeks! Then as I left, he ran after me “I don’t know your name! What is your name?” And I said: “Francisco, you have it in your book, remember, I signed in?!” And he was so relieved!

If you’d like to contact Iris, whether to wish her luck with her trip or to ask questions about her itinerary and places visited, I am sure she would like to hear from you. She can be contacted on: irisej2002@yahoo.co.uk

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Thank you to all those who wrote in to our debate.

Bernard from the US wrote in to say, “A quick stop in a place shouldn’t necessarily qualify as “having been to a place”. According to such thinking, I have travelled to Canada, though I was only there one day on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. Also, I travelled to Amsterdam, though I was only there for a weekend; doing a last quick bit of European sightseeing before heading back to the states. I believe the essential point of travel, is to gain some degree of familiarity with a geographic area & experience with the local culture; ideally in order to come away with a greater understanding & appreciation of the place where you have been. A person just stepping foot on foreign soil for a day or two, just isn’t going to cut it. However, I understand there are others who may disagree. In reality, anything less that this is just basic sightseeing”.

Richard, also from the US, wrote in to say: “I have had this problem a number of times. I don’t count an airport stopover as a visit. If you never leave the airport building (or step more than a few feet from the riverbank as the person in Feb e-news did in Laos), you shouldn’t count it. I believe that to be fair, one needs to experience some of the country, even if it’s only a one-hour guided tour or a bus ride into the nearest city. Involvement with a local resident also would help validate the visit, even if it’s only buying a snack from a street vendor (outside of

the airport/dock area). Sixty-seven “real” visits and counting!”

What do you think? Write in and let the Beetle know.

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