September 2006

Beautiful treeless islands, cool clean air and sunny days marked our 2-week “Windmills and Waterford” cruise, around the British Isles, Aug. 23-Sept. 6, ’05, on Holland America Line’s ms Prinsendam.

I took a cruise on the Maasdam across the North Atlantic from Rotterdam to Boston, Aug. 2-20, ’06. I’m generally not a great fan of cruising on large ships, but this cruise made stops in the Faroe Islands, which I hadn’t seen before, and at places in Iceland and Greenland that I hadn’t been to on previous visits.

In the chilly dawn of the Kalahari Desert, two dozen meerkats turn the dark fur of their bellies to the sun, warming up for the day’s hunt for food.

Tell ITN about the funniest thing that ever happened to you while traveling in a foreign country. There are no restrictions on length. (ITN prints no info on destinations in the U.S., Canada, Mexico or the Caribbean.) The ITN staff will choose each month’s winner, who will receive a free one-year subscription to ITN. Entries not chosen cannot be acknowledged.
This month’s winner is NINA ARRABIT of Santa Rosa, CA:

While traveling in Beijing, China, in November ’05, my husband and I stayed at the Great Wall Sheraton. We happened upon a buffet that was the most amazing and delectable display of seafood we have ever encountered. It is put on every Tuesday and Friday night from 6 to 10:30 in the hotel’s Silk Road Trattoria.

There were 25 large, hot chafing dishes filled with seafood done every way imaginable: in sauces, grilled, fried, filleted, baked, barbecued, sautéed, broiled, blackened, steamed or stuffed.

I would like to respond, if I may, to the letter from the reader who was told by a cruise line that Guayaquil was not the chosen port of entry in Ecuador because “Quito is a much safer city” (July ’06, pg. 38).

My husband grew up in Quito. It is the best-known Ecuadorian city and certainly is lovely, but, indeed, many people — including me — find the altitude difficult. So I take (most recently in April ’06) many of our charter groups to the Galápagos Islands via Guayaquil, for the following reasons.

Dean Ab-Hugh asked about carrying personal data in a flash/jump/thumb (take your pick; I use thumb) drive for reading in a foreign computer (July ’06, pg. 88). Good idea, but don’t rely on it.

This is in response to the question about carrying copies of important documents and other key information on a flash memory drive (July ’06, pg. 88).

In response to Dean Ab-Hugh’s query in his letter titled “Paperwork on Flash Drive. Good Idea?” (July ’06, pg. 88), yes, my wife and I have traveled with flash drives containing scans of our passports and files containing our itineraries, important phone numbers, etc. It’s a great way to have everything at hand in something easily concealable and unlikely to be stolen.

For a measure of security, however, I would recommend securing your files in some way. There are many possibilities.

My wife and I toured the island of Hokkaido on a 7-day Japan Rail Pass in November ’04.