The Globetrotters eNewsletter
eNewsletter Archive

Meeting news from our branches around the world.

After our usual gap of one month, London Globetrotters meetings are
back at 2.30pm on Saturday 6^th September.

John Gimilette will talk about Paraguay - The Island surrounded
by Land. Award-winning writer, John, takes us round a country that has
emerged from centuries of isolation. As one of the most beguiling and
eccentric places there is, we visit a vast lost ocean, the battlefields
of the bloodiest war man has known, picked Victorian warships, cannibals,
a highland ball and plenty more. John's book “At the Tomb of
the inflatable Pig.”

Richard Snailham, Globetrotters Vice President will give a talk:
On Reed Boats down rivers in Bolivia and Paraguay. Following a hunch that
cocaine and nicotine might have reached the Old World from the New in
very early times, John Blashford-Snell had three reed boats built on Lake
Titicaca and tested them out on the Desaquadero river and subsequently
reaching Buenos Aires and Belem in similar craft.

London meetings are held at The Church of Scotland, Crown Court,
behind the Fortune Theatre in Covent Garden at 2.30pm the first Saturday
of each month. There is no London meeting in August, but we will be back
in September. For more information, you can contact the Globetrotters
Info line on +44 (0) 20 8674 6229, or visit the website: "http://www.globetrotters.co.uk">www.globetrotters.co.uk

For details of forthcoming meetings email "mailto:newyork@globetrotters.co.uk">newyork@globetrotters.co.uk
or register for email updates, "http://www.globetrotters.co.uk/meetings/Ny-Update.html">click
here at our website.

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

For information on Ontario meetings, please contact Svatka Hermanek:
"mailto:shermanek@schulich.yorku.ca">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.

Globetrotters meeting on Saturday 13th September at 2pm

The Texas Branch of the Globetrotters Club will meet Saturday Sept 13^th,
2003, 2pm at the New Braunfels Public Library 700 E. Common Street, New
Braunfels, Texas 830-620-5482

The September meeting will Feature a speaker from “Friendship
Force International” for more information, see their website: "http://www.friendship-force.org/index.htm">http://www.friendship-force.org/index.htm

If you like independent, adventuresome, fun, daring, exciting, “off
the beaten path” travel, this club is for you. Our meeting begins
at 2 P.M. Come early so you won't be late! Enjoy handouts, travel
talk time, and door prizes!

Dates of future meetings: October 11^th, November 8^th
– Mark your calendars.

For more information about the Texas Branch or help Christina, please
contact her by "mailto:texas@globetrotters.co.uk">texas@globetrotters.co.uk
or register for email updates at our website ( "http://www.globetrotters.co.uk/meetings/tx-update.html">click
here) or call Christina at 830-620-5482

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 7,500 people subscribe to
the Globetrotters 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 "mailto:Beetle@globetrotters.co.uk">Beetle@globetrotters.co.uk

I went on my two month long trip of Indochina. I skulked a bit in Qatar
eyeing up the tablecloth-clad gentlemen and in turn being the recipient
of their roving eye. Thought maybe not. From Bangkok Railway Station there
was a direct train. This leaves every night at 8:00pm or 8:20pm. You can
book a sleeper berth complete with curtains to the Friendship Bridge at
the Laotian border. Crossing the border is easy – the usual stuff
– $20 and a British Passport and you are there. Vientiane is the
next stop. One needs to speak a little French to admire Alleys, les baguettes,
Les Arch de Triomphe. I walked everywhere – the whole place is less
than three square miles.

If you happen to skip the French breakfast, the French colonial attitude
and the temperature, go to Luang Prabang. It’s a beautiful place
– until they get funding to finish the long runway.

If you happen to be female, make sure you are wearing the right underwear:
the Buddhist monks on the top of the hill happen to be very observant

Then there was a little problem. Up the Mekong down the Mekong. Make
sure you are fit rather than panting your lungs away along the waterfalls
like I did.

After having had such a lovely time, it all went a bit sour: three days
after flying back from Cambodia, I spent 40 minutes on the internet in
Ko Chang (Eastern Thailand) Internet café. A local man asked me
if I wanted to buy drugs. I politely refused. What happened next? The
guy kicked me in the face and broke my nose, leaving me in a lot of pain,
and bleeding all over the place. A Kiwi traveller called the police who
arrived pretty quickly. After 4 hours of investigations and searching
my possessions, they decided to find the offender. The court case took
on the spot. By 2 a.m. the police and the translator were around and so
was my attacker; very professional, except me bleeding all over trying
to fix my broken nose. I identified my attacker and then I was taken to
hospital where the costs of fixing up my poor nose were paid for. I flew
back home to avoid the rest of the nonsense.

If you'd like to contact Busby, please e-mail her on: href="mailto:me@krystyna.com">me@krystyna.com

Having allowed myself the luxury of a two-week break in Durban visiting
a long lost friend I turned my thoughts towards the adventure that lay
ahead. I have always wanted to visit Mozambique and I saw this as my opportunity
to experience, or even just catch a glimpse of, the culture and lifestyles
of the Mozambican people as I travelled from South Africa in search of
Mikindani.

Arrival in Mocimboa seemed dreamlike as lack of sleep, the temperature
rise as we headed north and the travel left me disorientated. I found
accommodation in a nearby guesthouse and decided to explore the town.
Mocimboa is a sleepy town with white sand lining the streets that lead
to the beach at the end of the town. Being accosted by Lucia Juma, the
local drunk, (the Beetle has also met this man too – not a nice
experience!) set the scene for the rest of the day when I’d
naively anticipated a peaceful evening. I played dominoes with the girls
in the local restaurant, chatted with the men at the local bar and then
a meal at the guesthouse where I chanced across Taiwanese Mr Wu and Abo
his Mozambican friend. Mr Wu (no English), myself (no Portuguese) and
Abo (a little of all languages) agreed that the local disco must be attended.

The electricity is cut at 10pm so the town is plunged into darkness
and the only noises I heard as I walked under the stars to the disco were
voices, laughter and crickets. The disco was my first taste of African
nightlife and was assuredly colourful, and I danced with my new friends
and many others until we left the activity to head for some sleep. My
chance stalking by an ‘unpleasant man’ meant that I was escorted
back across town by Mr Wu, local ladies and a number of others who clutched
my arms the entire walk and yelled at each other in Portuguese; they insisted
I stay in their guest house where they could take care of me, but a Muslim
guest house, where two men bring back two women in the middle of the night
I can assure is not a positive situation. I drifted to sleep and then
the cock crowed two hours later as I arose early, once again, for the
last part of my journey.

4am perched on the back of an open truck, wedged in between buckets,
bicycles, yams and small children as I saw the sunrise. The group of ten
of us bumped and rattled, spun and raced along sand filled tracks bound
northwards for the Tanzanian border. Mozambique is certainly a beautiful
country and it's hard to believe that only years earlier the lands
I was fleeting across were littered with landmines. It seems so unlikely
that fear and destruction could reign in such a place. It seemed appropriate
that an hour from the border our vehicle should break down. A half hour
stop as engines were tinkered with, bits of pipe bent and bashed, the
lid shut down and once more we flew north. Somehow I imagined my AA card
would be of little use in such parts. The Mozambican authorities inspected
our vehicle two miles from the border, where an official in khaki and
a sultry face indicated that an inspection of my luggage was in order.
I began unloading each item out of my 70 litre rucksack and felt violated
and indignant that anyone thought they had the right to rifle through
my wash bag. (Same thing happened to the Beetle.) He quickly lost
interest and although at first intimidated by his stature and official
stance, as he mounted his motor-ped I smiled as I observed his right foot
was protected by a steel top-capped boot and his left just a flip flop.

We continued by truck, wending our way down towards the Rovuma River.
How better to embark in Tanzania than being carried across the shallow
waters of the Rovuma to the sandy beach having crossed the mighty river
by dhow. The scene was reminiscent of a biblical scene as I was carried
like an injured hero returning from war. As I saw Jean and the Trade Aid
Land rover waiting close by I breathed a sigh of relief, as I knew I had
finally made it safely to Mikindani.

For more information on the work carried out by Trade Aid in Tanzania,
see their website www.mikindani.com

Padmassana went travelling around Kyushu in June/July time. Here is
the final of three extracts from his travel journal.

From Kagoshima I went on a day trip on a small bus to Chiran. The bus
took about an hour and a half and cost about £10 return. Chiran
is famous for Samurai houses and the Kamikaze museum - very interesting
but little information in English, most interesting part is the now de
classified documents relating to the USS Curtis which took a direct hit
from a kamikaze plane. Kagoshima has plenty of things to see including
a superb aquarium with giant crabs that live at 300m at the bottom of
the sea and a good jellyfish exhibition and good English signs.

From Kagoshima I travelled north to Kumamoto, which took about three
and a half hours. I stayed in a beautiful Ryokan with tatami room, even
if I did have to get a postman to show me where it was! Kumamoto is easy
to get round with trams and busses, though most of it is walkable. Went
to the super castle and a wonderful Japanese garden.

Kumamoto is a very nice city, it has some Suizenn-ji gardens, which
were built by a Shogun in the 16th century for him to have tea, as there
is a spring there perfect for making good tea. Around this he built fabulous
Japanese gardens complete with koi carp ponds. This is a very popular
destination with Japanese tourists who go there to have their pictures
taken with Mt Fuji in the background. Around the edge of the gardens are
little stalls, which sell the locally famous “fish on wheels”
and spinning tops, great souvenirs. Kumamoto-Jo or castle is largely new
and inside apart from a bit of armour there's not much to see, outside
is a little more interesting and again there are signs in English explaining
what you are seeing.

From Kumamoto, I went to Mt Aso. To get to Mt Aso, you have to take
a local train from Kumamoto, then a small bus up the side of the mountain
and then take a cable car to see the inside of the volcano crater. But
I was unable to do this, as it was active! A little while ago, the volcano
started spewing poisonous gas and lumps of rock, and as a woman was killed
so the authorities put a 1km exclusion zone round it. Went instead to
the museum, which is not bad, although there was not much signage in English
but it does have the feedback from 2 live video links from inside the
crater. Today’s pictures were pretty good – a shame that there
was no lava, although I suspect that the locals are relieved.

Next, I took the train from Kumamoto to Nagasaki, a nice city, it’s
quite industrial, and obviously new. Went to the temples and went to the
A-Bomb museum, the No. 1 tourist attraction, full of Japanese school children
but also has a scenic river that has stone bridges that used to lead up
to a stone temple but this is not there any more. There is another temple
with a roof shaped like a tortoise, which is a really nice place to visit.
Inside this, it has a Foucault’s pendulum that shows the earth’s
rotation – one of only three in the world, the other 2 being in
Paris and Leningrad. Nagasaki's “temple row” is quite interesting,
many of the temples have started to produce little leaflets in English
as the west’s interest in the east and Buddhism has grown in the
last few years.

I went up the Nagasaki cable car to get a view over the city yesterday
before getting the train back to Hakata/Fukuoka. The train took about
2 hours and was included in my two 5 day passes. The city has two names
if you didn’t realise: the airport is called Fukuoka, but the train
station is called Hakata. Was going to go up the Fukuoka tower but despite
being 80 degrees it was very hot and sticky with low cloud, so did what
the Beetle would have done and went shopping! Bought myself a little Japanese
garden that you build yourself, saw one in a Ryokan and have been looking
ever since, would you believe I found one in the basement shopping area
of Hakata station at 7.30pm on my last night. And then ready to come home
back to the UK.

A note on Japanese train passes: Japanese train passes are only available
to foreigners and must be bought outside Japan. Once you start a pass
you have to travel from that day onwards. Passes come in 5, 10, 14 and
21 days. This works out much cheaper than buying train passes as you go.
Some ferries and buses are included in the passes.

If you would like to contact Padmassana to ask him about his time in
Japan, he can be e-mailed on: "mailto:padmassana@globetrotters.co.uk">padmassana@globetrotters.co.uk

This is the third of three descriptions of the 24 sites of “outstanding
universal value”, that have been designated world heritage sites
by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO).

These are as follows:

• Franciscan Missions in the Sierra Gorda of Querétaro, Mexico:
  Built during the last phase of the conversion to Christianity of the
  interior of Mexico in the mid-18th Century. The richly decorated church
  façades are of special interest as they represent an example
  of the joint creative efforts of the missionaries and the Indios.
• Wooden Churches of Southern Little Poland, Poland: The churches
  represent outstanding examples of the different aspects of medieval
  church-building traditions in Roman Catholic culture.
• Citadel, Ancient City and Fortress Buildings of Derbent, Russian
  Federation: Part of the northern limits of the Sassanian Persian
  Empire, which extended east and west of the Caspian Sea. The town of
  Derbent has retained part of its medieval fabric.
• Mapungubwe Cultural Landscape, South Africa: An open, expansive
  savannah landscape situated on the northern border of South Africa joining
  Zimbabwe and Botswana. Mapungubwe developed into the largest kingdom
  in the sub-continent before it was abandoned in the 14th Century. The
  almost untouched remains of the palace sites, a settlement area and
  two earlier capital sites survive.
• Ubeda-Baeza: Urban duality, cultural unity, Spain: The urban
  morphology of the two small cities of Ubeda and Baeza in southern Spain
  dates back to the Moorish 9th Century and to the Reconquista in the
  13th Century. In the 16th Century, the cities were renovated along the
  lines of the emerging Renaissance.
• Gebel Barkal and the Sites of the Napatan Region, Sudan: Includes
  several archaeological sites, over more than 60 km (37 miles) in the
  Nile Valley, of the Napatan (900 to 270 BC) and Meroitic (270 BC to
  350 AD) cultures, of the second kingdom of Kush. Tombs, with and without
  pyramids, temples, living complexes and palaces are also found on the
  site.
• Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, United Kingdom: The historic landscape
  garden illustrates the art of gardens from the 18th to the 20th Centuries.
  The gardens house botanic collections (conserved plants, living plants
  and documents) that have been considerably enriched through the centuries.
• Matobo Hills, Zimbabwe: Distinctive rock land forms associated
  with human occupation from the early Stone Age to early historical times,
  and intermittently since. They also feature an outstanding collection
  of rock paintings.
• Central Amazon Conservation Complex, Brazil: Comprises the
  largest protected area in the Amazon Basin and one of the planet's
  richest regions in terms of biodiversity.
• Imperial Tombs of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, China: These
  tombs were inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2000. The property
  inscribed this year as an extension consists of two distinct burial
  sites of the Ming Dynasty emperors. Xiaoling, the first emperor of that
  dynasty is buried there, as are 13 others.
• Archaeological Site of Panama Viejo and the Historic District
  of Panama, Panama: Panama Viejo covers the location and ruins of
  the first European settlement on the American mainland and pre-Hispanic
  remains. It features impressive ruins. Moreover, older remains, dating
  to up to 1,000 years before the arrival of the Europeans, were excavated
  on this site.

Source: BBC News