This report of the last London meeting on the 1st December is written by Padmassana.

John Hornbuckle’s wonderful slides took us around Chile. He showed us the wildlife and landscape of the country. Though John began with a slide of an owl, this was a topical Harry Potter joke, he went on to show us photos of birds that can only be found in the Andes and animals like the Vicuna. He went on to tell us about Arica, which until recently was the driest place on earth, Lauca National Park in northern Chile. We saw photos of snow-capped mountains and volcano’s. John’s slides then showed us the salt area of Salar de Uyuni and down to the far south via the hot springs of El Tatio.

After the break, Denise Heywood showed us Vietnam, without too many references to the war. She explained that over 60% of the population were born after 1975 and showed us photo’s of the children, who are Vietnams future. Denise showed us colonial French architecture, such as the Opera House, which is a copy of the one in Paris and towns like Hoi An and Na Trang. She also showed us the Cu chi tunnels left over from the war, which are difficult for westerners to enter. These tunnels led into underground schools, hospitals that the Vietnamese operated in during the war, there are hundreds of miles of tunnels going as far as the Cambodian border.

Coming on 5^th January: Four Mini-Talk Presentations and New Year Party – a programme of four twenty minute talks, offering a format that aims to offer the opportunity for different, specialist and off beat subjects and first time speakers.

After the meeting we will be having our annual New Year Party, please bring a contribution of food and non-alcoholic drink

London meetings are held at The Church of Scotland, Crown Court, behind the Fortune Theatre in Covent Gardenat 2.30pm the first Saturday of each month. For more information, you can contact the Globetrotters Info line on +44 (0) 20 8674 6229, or visit the website: www.globetrotters.co.uk

Meeting news from our branches around the world.

The next meeting will be on January 18th at the the Woodsworth Co-op : Ann Dohler will talk about her recent trip to Peru, the Galapagos and the Amazon.

For further 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.

Toronto GT 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.

Hello Globies! Hope you all had a good Thanksgiving. Due to holiday parties, travel and cheer, we will not be holding a December Globies meeting. We WILL resume on 5^th January with a treat! Matt Link, an Associate Editor from Arthur Frommer’s Budget Travel will be our guest speaker.

Matt will be giving a slide show and discussing the sites and culture of Ghana (the most popular country for American tourists in West Africa), with notes on spending time with the Muslims who live and work there, as well as important sites i.e., visiting a mud mosque and much more. He plans to make us feel a part of the Ghanaian culture and will be bringing some special props to help with our immersion! Matt has been travelling since the age of twelve, when he boarded his family’s boat for five years and sailed around the Pacific including the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Micronesia, the Solomon Islands, and New Zealand, where he attended high school. He hasn’t stopped since, having visited dozens of countries in Eurasia and living for a number of years in both Hong Kong and Hawaii, where he ran kayak tours and published the guidebook Rainbow Handbook Hawaii. He now lives in New York where he works with Arthur Frommer as Associate Editor of the magazine Budget Travel. Keep an eye out of this Sunday’s (12/16) travel section of the LA Times and Miami Herald and a few other regional papers – Matt’s account of his trip to Ghana will appear in Frommer’s column! On January 4th, he’s a guest on The Early Today show (and they mean early – 4:30-5:30 AM!) on NBC.

I hope you all have a safe and happy holiday. See you all soon!

New York meetings are held at The Wings Theater, 154 Christopher Street(btw Greenwich Stand Washington St), to the right of Crunch Fitness, in the Archive on the first Saturday of each month at 4 pm.

In general travel and accommodation are expensive whilst food can vary hugely in price from noodle bars both cheaper and considerably more nutritious than MacDonald’s to city restaurant where the prices would flex anyone’s credit to the limit. Most other activities are pretty reasonably priced.

Firstly, Japan is a country where the infrastructure works, if the timetable says a train or bus will arrive at a given time, it will. Transport is effective though expensive, buses and trains are clean, safe and regular though mountainous terrain in many areas can still make journeys lengthy. The language may be intimidating but most younger people can speak some English and it is not difficult to learn a few important signs (numbers, entrance, exit, toilet, place names etc.) or indeed the syllabary alphabets (hirogana and katakana) which are widely used on signs for place names (so are romaji in Tokyo and some major towns)

Tokyo: Like most large towns, expensive, cosmopolitan, polluted and overcrowded Tokyo still retains a number of small temples and a few other small historical buildings wedged between the skyscrapers. It is worth visiting a few for the paintings and statuary, interesting architecture and some insight into Japanese culture and rituals. I particularly like the traditional Japanese and Chinese gardens, which are cheap to visit and charming and beautiful to see, the imperial palace and gardens around it are also a must see.

Kyoto and Nara, easily reachable from Tokyo, preserve a lot more in the way of historic buildings, a reconstructed old castle and a herd of tame, fat and diabetic deer at Nara are good places to visit.

Onsen: blessed or cursed with a great deal of geothermal energy there are a large number of hot springs in Japan, these can definitely be worth a visit, whilst I didn’t notice any health benefit I had the rather beautiful experience of lying outside in a hot bath able to look up at the moon and the stars between the clouds during a gentle snowfall. Getting out was a little on the cool side however.

Kyushu: less developed than Honshu thus preserving more tradition and a few pieces of undeveloped countryside. Also warmer if that interests you and with much volcanic activity, some stunning crater lakes with brightly coloured poisonous looking water and a number of opportunities to breath some pretty poisonous air near the volcanoes. Pity the concession holders at these places, I can stand breathing sulphuric acid for an hour or so but how they manage it all the time I don’t now. Down at the Southern tip of the island, at Sakurajima ash from the volcano can be taken home in a small phial if you wish to relive the experience of grit with everything. The other thing which is omnipresent here is daikon, these giant white radishes are apparently very important to the locals’ diet being a major source of vitamin C, and accordingly they make a remarkable range of products from them, from simple shredded radish (OK), to Daikon Schochu (a sort of whisky) and daikon jam, both of which are best avoided.

One of the most beautiful sights I remember from Japan is Takachiho gorge. A slot canyon deep enough that the sun can rarely or never is seen from the bottom. You can walk down to the river that flows through it, hire a rowing boat and paddle up to the head of the gorge where a waterfall enters. The water is crystal clear and the sides of the canyon are stunningly vertical hexagonal columns of black basalt.

The Beetle says if you are thinking of travelling to Japan, you should investigate buying a rail pass in your own country that gives you a considerable discount. They are only available outside Japan.

To get in touch with the Travelling Stoat, Then e-mail them to: the Beetle

If the first six meetings of the Texas Branch of the Globetrotters Club are an indication of the future, it is going to be bright, rosy, fun, informative, exciting, and a great success! Since the first meeting in July of 2001, the Texas branch has had 38 different people attend and Christina, the Texas Chair has received countless E-mails! Thank you, all you Globetrotter e-newsletter readers – if you live in the area, why not drop Christina a line and come to the January meeting!

A message from Christina, the Texas chair.

For me, the Texas Branch of the Globetrotters is a monthly support group to help me with my travel addiction. I’m glad to meet others who like to talk about travel and share their stories.

The agenda for the December meeting was to share travel stories from 2001 and state travel plans for New Years Resolutions 2002. We politely shared our stories, and had no time to state our resolutions. It was a great meeting.

The agenda for the first meeting of 2002 (Saturday, January 12) will be to share our travel plans for 2002. I’m working on mine – a cruise, a train trip, a new continent, a retreat, and a national park – see – this is why I need a support group.

How about you? What are your travel resolutions for the new year? Come prepared to share.

The next meeting will be Saturday, January 12, New Braunfels Library, 3 p.m. Mark your calendar. Everyone is invited!

The meeting will start promptly at 3 p.m. and end at 5 p.m. Bring a favorite travel magazine or brochure to contribute to the door prize. Plan to arrive by 2:30 for extra networking time.

Following the Jan 12 meeting we will adjourn to the Hoity Toit for more talk and tales.

Christina’s advice is to come early so you won’t be late! Anybody who wants to help Christina or enquire about meetings, please contact her on: texas@globetrotters.co.uk

Early November. I need WARMTH and SUN. Flights to Malaga are cheap, temperature check on the web – 22-23°C, comfortable for walking. SO I decided on Andalusia. No, I don’t speak Spanish but I am happy to travel alone and try and chat to people as I go along.

On arrival at Malaga it was T-shirt weather. It was great to feel the sun on my face, quietly sipping coffee and chilling out. Just the job: I decided to head to Granada the next day, and, being typically British, wondered about the weather: would it be too cold, Granada nestling under the mountains. What a lovely city! No problem with the weather or so I thought!! After a lovely day, as the evening closed I could physically feel the temperature dropping by degrees.

Later that night, I shivered under 5 layers of blankets and dare not move off the small patch I had managed to warm as the sheets were like ice. Next day I set off early to visit the Alhambra. It was cold but that meant that it wasn’t busy, giving me plenty of opportunity to absorb the beautiful architecture and the ornate decoration. On my return I begged for a heater for my room `but heaters aren’t supplied until the 15^th of November (shades of Faulty Tower’s – the Beetle!) – oh yes they are!

The view of the mountains from the station next day was very picturesque, all covered in snow! I headed away from the mountains – Seville had to be warmer – but passing a digital display confirmed my worst fears, one o’clock in the afternoon and only 10°. I found a spot out of the bitter wind and actually got warm but you can’t see a city sitting down unless you are cooped up in a vehicle – not my scene. I like to walk, explore and discover the unexpected. Things got worse: the skin on my feet started to crack up and the next day not only did I have sore, bleeding feet but also a sore throat. I persevered.

After a day of sun but little warmth I decided to head south to Jerez the next day. I spent ages looking for the tourist office that I located after tramping through most of the streets and seeking directions from half of the residents. Please note that it is not where the Lonely Planet or the road signs say. They have moved it away from the centre and kept it a secret from the locals! All I wanted was bus routes! After visiting stables and watching the magnificent Andalucian horses being put through their paces I could walk no further so found a bench in the sun and escaped into fantasy with Harry Potter, supplied by a very thoughtful friend.

That night my nose turned into a tap and I shook from head to feet as my cold took it course. It was no good I wanted to go home so next day I headed, defeated, back to Malaga to try and get an earlier flight. There was nothing till the following morning so I got a room near the station ready for a 6am start. Hi Ho. This trip had definitely been jinxed. That evening they decided to knock down the corridor around my room. I do not speak Spanish but I think they got the idea of what I was saying!!! How could my timing be so bad, hitting the week when all Europe was hit by abnormal and extreme weather conditions. Needless to say, on arriving back at Gatwick it was a pleasant sunny autumn day, warm for the time of year……. Harry Potter was great fun…..

Poor sun-starved Gill, who wants the second HP now – my little Beetle heart goes out to her! If you would like to contact Gill, to commiserate, she can be reached on:gill.ward@virgin.net

In May 2001 I spent 2 weeks travelling in Bulgaria. This is a very ancient and honourable culture that disappeared from the history books for longer than my own country has been in existence. There are wonderful ruins, great churches and interesting people.

My trip began in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria and a major city. I was able to stay with a Servas host that gave me a totally different perspective of the city. Sofia offered two highlights for me: the first was an evening at the opera. Tickets were 15 BGL (about $7 USD). The opera was Don Carlos with glorious singing and acting and a set too large for the stage. The second highlight was a day excursion to Rila Monastery. This is an ancient monastery, with monks still living there. I chose an English language day trip from Sophia with an English speaking guide and lunch. It cost ($65 USD) and I’m certain it could be done less expensive than that. But I chose to go with convenience. Behind Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, which was under restoration while I was there, women come to sell their handwork. The quality was good and the prices were very reasonable. You can negotiate.

Bulgarians use the Cyrillic alphabet that was difficult for me. I carried the alphabet with me, but even then I had difficulty. Languages are not my forte, normally I was able to find English speakers and to make my needs and wants known. I found that many Bulgarians spoke both French and German so those languages would help.

From Sofia, I preceded to Plovdiv. Throughout the country I used local busses. They were inexpensive, had good equipment, and were normally on time. Bulgarian drivers are very aggressive. There is also a railroad system, but it was just easier to use the busses.

Plovdiv is another ancient city that has a Roman amphitheatre, which was fascinating to see. There my Servas host family took me to Bachkovo Monastery. It has not been restored like Rila and is darker and more mysterious. I liked it a lot. While I was there the Spring International Trade Fair was going on. I attended one morning. It was fascinating to see the various vendors from all over Europe and what they were offering.

From Plovdiv I continued to Veliko Turnovo – a medieval city in the mountains. I highly recommend this. It has a beautiful setting with interesting craft shops. While I was there the folk festival was going on near my hotel. I couldn’t understand a word of the songs, but the dancing was interesting, the costumes colourful and the people a joy to watch.

Then it was on to the Black Sea. This was probably my favourite part of the trip. I began in Varna – which has one of the most beautiful Cathedral churches, I have ever seen. Then I spent a night in Nessebar – a coast city and ended in Burgas, a large port. From there I took the bus to Istanbul, Turkey for another week.

One last note – wherever I went in the country I was able to find computer cafes. For the most part, the prices were good and the equipment was fast. I sent e-mails on a regular basis.

Thank you Sandra – this is so inspiring! You have given the Beetle an idea for a European holiday! If you would like to contact her, she can be reached on: smingua32@msn.com