October 2008

Every year on the Friday after Guy Fawkes Day, the city of Bridgwater, Somerset, England, hosts a nighttime carnival with brightly lit floats and a “squibbing display” down the main street. Squibs are fireworks that are mounted on poles and held aloft by volunteers lining the road.

The event will be held in 2008 on Nov. 7 (and in 2009 on Nov. 6) starting at 7 p.m., with the fireworks at 10. Contact the Bridgewater Carnival Committee (phone +44 0 1278 421 795, www.bridgwatercarnival.co.uk).

As of July 26, 2008, under guidelines set by the European Union’s Equality & Human Rights Commission, or EHRC (in England, phone 0845 604 6610, www.equalityhumanrights.com), mobility-impaired or otherwise disabled passengers who are citizens of EU countries and travel by air to, from or within the EU have greater rights to access and assistance.

Priority Pass (800/352-2834, www.prioritypass.com), an independent airport lounge access program, provides frequent travelers with access to over 500 airport lounges in more than 275 cities worldwide, regardless of the traveler’s class of travel, the airline flown or existing membership in another frequent-flyer program.

Several membership levels are available, ranging from $99 per year (plus a $27-per-visit fee) to $399 per year (affording unlimited, free access).

Beginning in June 2009, any traveler entering the U.S. by land or sea from Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean or Bermuda will be required to show a document proving both citizenship and identity. A U.S. passport will suffice, but many travelers living in border communities who frequently cross the land borders are signing up for “passport cards.”

Issued by the State Department after application and verification, the credit-card-sized card has a photo and ID information printed on it and encoded in a chip.

Leipzig, Germany, will honor the 200th anniversary of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy’s birth with a series of musical celebrations around the city in 2009.

Performances will include the Emerson String Quartet, Thomas Hampson and the Basel Chamber Orchestra with Paul McCreesh. Several composers, including Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, will present newly composed pieces.

Two underwater archaeological parks have been set up in the bay off of Angra do Heroísmo, Terceira Island, Azores.

At Naufrágio do Vapor Lidador, scuba divers can tour the wreck of the Lidador, a steamship from the 1800s. The passengers survived, but the ship was pushed against the shore and sank into 30 feet of water. Divers can read underwater plaques and follow a line around the Lidador.

The other night I found my way home, a little tipsy after an evening in the Belgian town of Bruges. I’d been at my favorite bar in town, the ’t Brugs Beertje, where not only did I get schooled in the many varieties of local beer, I learned a few things about modern-day Belgian life.

The Koe Taung Tengh pagoda in Mrauk U, Myanmar, has 90,000 images of Buddha in it. It is a very large pagoda — 250 feet in length, 230 feet in width and 50 feet high. A number of local kids were playing hide and seek with us as we toured the temple. It was funny to see them treat this treasure as a playground. — NILI OLAY, New York, NY

As ITN went to press, the State Department had travel warnings on 28 destinations: Georgia, Algeria, Kenya, Yemen, Colombia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Timor-Leste, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, Chad, Sri Lanka, Iraq, Eritrea, Côte d’Ivoire, Lebanon, Somalia, Nepal, Haiti, Burundi, Syria, Central African Republic, Israel/West Bank/Gaza, Sudan, Philippines, Afghanistan, Iran, Nigeria and Pakistan. 

For details, call the State Department at 202/647-5225 or visit http://travel.state.gov/travel/warnings.html.

In August of this year, as the monsoon season was reaching its peak, the number of reported cases of dengue fever in major tourist areas of Cambodia was half that of last year but still above the average.

High-risk areas for the mosquito-spread disease included Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, site of Angkor Wat.