The Globetrotters eNewsletter
eNewsletter Archive

The UK's longest-running holiday operator Thomas Cook is
offering family tours of Amsterdam's red-light district. The
package costs £12, though half-price for children. Thomas Cook
claims the tour, which is free to under threes, offers a
'fascinating insight into the oldest profession in the
world'. A press release on the two-hour tour says it leaves
at 8pm and 'will take visitors deep into the famous red-light
district, accompanied by a reliable and trustworthy guide'.
The brochure says: 'Begin with a drink at a prostitute
information centre where a former prostitute will explain the
system and answer any questions you may have. Then head for the
Wallen (the red-light district) and see for yourself.'

If you happen to be near Lubeck in Germany, there is a huge ice
and snow sculpture festival opening 9th December. Forty ice
sculptors will create sculptures for the “Kingdom of
Animals” under supervision of Dave Willé. Artists from the
United States, Canada Great Britain Belgium, Russia and the
Netherlands carve icy animals within the coming weeks. The
sculptors use a variety of methods to carve out their figures;
some use chain saws, some draw a draft on ice cubes. Beginning on
top of the cubes, artists always carve down to the bottom using
an array of ladders and scaffolds. All in all, some 350,000 kilos
of ice and 150,000 kilos of snow will be processed for the Ice
and Snow Sculpture Festival.

Europe From a Backpack travel book series are now accepting
submissions for Italy From a Backpack and Spain From a Backpack.
They are looking for first-person must-tell stories. If you have
a story to tell, visit target="_blank"
onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">www.EuropeBackpack.com
for details.

Length: Stories average 800-2,000 words. While we will accept
stories up to 3,000 words, shorter stories have a better chance
of being accepted.

How to Submit: Send your story by MS Word attachment to href="mailto:submit@EuropeBackpack.com" target="_blank"
onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">submit@EuropeBackpack.com
with the following information (make sure to include all
information in the Word Document):

• name
• story title
• story location
• address
• phone
• primary e-mail
• secondary e-mail
• College or University you graduated from
• Include a fun and brief bio after them story

Deadlines: The following are the deadline dates for submitting
stories for Italy From a Backpack and Spain From a Backpack.

• Round 1: January 31, 2006
• Round 2: March 28, 2006

You may have heard of the Paris - Dakar car rally, well,
here's a slightly different take on the idea of driving a car
across deserts and getting lost, but for those with less cash.
The aim is to drive the route from Plymouth in the south west of
the UK to Banjul in The Gambia (on a limited budget) with the
principle aim of helping some charitable causes in Senegal and
The Gambia. The rules include competing in a car that costs less
than £100, not spending any more than £15 on getting the car
ready and having no assistance whatsoever, once under way. If
this sounds like your cup of tea, take a look at: href="http://www.plymouth-dakar.co.uk/" target="_blank"
onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">http://www.plymouth-dakar.co
.uk/

Thai Airways, Thailand's national carrier, has announced that
it will fly non stop from Bangkok to Los Angeles as of Dec. 1.
The flight used to stop in Osaka, Japan en route but now, using
an Airbus A340-500, the flight will be non stop.

About a dozen people have been killed by salt-water crocodiles in
Australia in the past 20 years. Now divers in northern Australia
are calling for development of crocodile warning devices
following two recent crocodile attacks. The numbers of crocodiles
have increased rapidly in recent years, due to a ban on hunting
passed in the 1970s. The deaths have also reopened debate as to
whether limited limited hunting should resume. The salt-water
crocodile (Crocodylus porosus) is the largest living reptile in
terms of mass. There is a large population in Australia, with the
majority being in the Northern Territory.

Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic has collected $10m in
deposits from people wanting a quick journey beyond Earth's
atmosphere. More than 34,000 would-be astronauts have registered
for rides aboard a commercial version of the experimental Ansari
X Prize winner SpaceShipOne. If you are wondering about how much
this may cost - BBC reports say that between four to five minutes
of weightlessness will set you back around $200,000 (£113,242).
Test flights are on schedule to begin in 2007, with commercial
operations to begin a year later.

The spaceships will be about the size of a Gulfstream Five
business jet and like SpaceShipOne, will be attached to a larger
airplane before its rocket engines ignite to travel beyond the
atmosphere. The joyrides are being designed so that passengers
should be able to witness views of Earth-in-the-round. The
seating compartments on SpaceShipTwo are being designed so that
passengers can float around weightless while still connected to
their seats.

Transparency International recently published its new index on
the world's most countries. At the top of the list, i.e. the
least corrupt country is Iceland, followed by Finland and New
Zealand in joint second place, Denmark in fourth place and
Singapore in fifth place. In sixth to tenth position are Sweden,
Switzerland, Norway, Australia, and Austria respectively.

Lying at the bottom of the league in joint 158th position is
Bangladesh and Chad, in joint 155th place are Haiti, Myanmar and
Turkmenistan, in joint 152nd position are Cote d'Ivoire,
Equatorial Guinea and Nigeria. Angola comes in at no 151 and
there are seven countries at joint 144 th position: the DRC,
Kenya, Pakistan, Paraguay, Somalia, Sudan and Tajikistan.

China has announced the completion of the first railway line from
Golmud in China's north-western province of Qinghai to Lhasa,
in Tibet. The line is expected to start taking passengers in
2006. This is one of the world's highest train routes, at
5,072m (16,640ft) above sea level. Trains travelling on the line
will have to have carriages that are sealed like aircraft to
protect passengers from altitude sickness. The workers who built
the line had to breathe bottled oxygen in order to deal with the
high altitudes.

Philip recently contacted us to say that he is an English
producer currently putting together a film about British citizens
who are or have been imprisoned abroad. Perhaps, you remember
someone who planned something, or in a moment of madness decided
to do something, that ended up with a prison term?

They type of story I'm looking for is one about people -
'normal people' faced with a life-changing opportunity
and who were possibly convinced it was going to work out? Was it
all going to plan when suddenly it went wrong - ending in the
shock of going to prison? If you think you've even heard of a
story - possibly where somebody remains in jail abroad, I'd
be extremely grateful to hear from you. I can be contacted on: href="mailto:philip@rawtelevision.co.uk">philip@rawtelevision.co.uk