Travel

Baby elephant playing

webmaster — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 12:49:31 -0600

Group of elephants and growing up baby elephant playing in the mud .

Getting in and out

Zaune47 — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 04:33:01 -0500

Down are few means of transportation regarding how to reach Thrissur:

By air: Kochi International Airport is 58 km away from the city Kozhikode (Calicut) Airport is 80 km away from city. Direct flights there from the Middle East, Singapore, Maldives, Europe and Sri Lanka. Alternatively reach Chennai (Madras), Bangalore, Mumbai (Bombay), New Delhi, or other Indian cities and then by train.

By train: Thrissur city is well connected and serviced by rail to all major cities in India like Kozhikode, Mangalore, Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram, Bangalore, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and New Delhi. Most of the express trains stop at Thrissur railway station. This station is very near to KSRTC bus stand.

By bus: You can also reach here by bus from cities like Mangalore, Kochi, Bangalore, Thiruvananam, Chennai, Mumbai and Coimbatore.

By road: Thrissur is well connected to other cities Kochi, Kozhikode, Chennai, Bangalore, Coimbatore, Madurai and Pollachi by road. Get around. Local bus service system is cheap.

Autorickshaw - Auto rickshaws are the main form of local transport provided you don't have your own means of transportation. Autorickshaws running in the city limits are to use fare meters, while the ones from the adjacent areas need not use them. How ever it is a rule that such autorickshaws without metres should not pick up passengers within city limits. There is a pre-paid auto rickshaw counter at Thrissur Railway Station.

Taxi - Local taxis are also available at cheap rates. Please note that there are no local Taxis (Yellow cabs or the one's having yellow roof and black body). The taxis known as 'Tourist taxis' are meant for long travel or one day trips.

Car - There are many Car rental companies offering cars with drivers or self drive.

Bike - Bikes are available for rental in Thrissur. This is available for a week or more than that.

Walk - Many places of attractions are near by other so you could walk between them. Thrissur town is a not a very big place so that people can walk around.

Avian blues - Solitary Hunter

jimmy elias — Mon, 05 May 2008 09:49:06 -0500

A lone crane standing in the reservoir of Idukki dam. The introduction of exotic fish varieties and over exploitation of the fish wealth using dynamites in the reservoir have caused depletion of endemic varieties of fish which are its staple food.

Bollywood fans boost tourism in Britain

jimmy elias — Thu, 01 May 2008 21:58:06 -0500

Keen to visit the popular film shooting locations in the country, cinema lovers from India and other countries are flocking to Britain, boosting its tourism by 2 billion pounds. The euphoric interest shown by Indian tourist in visiting the places where several Bollywood films were shot, have prompted the Britain's tourism authorities to come up with a 'Bollywood map' depicting the popular shooting locations.

Though, separate figures for Indian films-related tourism are not available, but its thousands of tourists visiting UK every year have made a contribution of whopping 1.8 billion pounds, says a report 'Stately Attraction - How Film and television programmes Promote Tourism in the UK'.

The report was commissioned by the UK Film Council.

Films like "Harry Potter" series, "The Da Vinci Code", "Gosford Park" and "Pride & Prejudice" and television programmes including "Balamory and Monarch of the Glen" have been identified as a major booster for tourism in the country.

"Effect of film tourism was long lasting. British films and television programmes play a powerful role in showcasing the UK to the rest of the world and increased tourism," said John Woodward, chief executive, UK Film Council.

"Bend it like Beckham," a film by Indian-origin director Gurinder Chaddha, raised the profile of Britain in India, south Asia and the Far East. It suddenly placed the west London town of Southall on the international tourist map.

It was the first commercial Western film to be shown in North Korea and in China and changed the perception of Britain. The film also prompted a surge of interest in women's football including the founding of the first women's football league in India, the report says.

Infants will have to pay fare for traveling in plane

jimmy elias — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 09:02:10 -0500

Even a one-day-old baby will have to pay ticket charges if the infant is traveling in a plane. Infants under the age of two years have to pay ten per cent of the applicable fare, Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel said in the Lok Sabha today.

Children between two and 12 years of age will have to pay 75 per cent of the applicable fare on international routes and 50 per cent of the charges on domestic routes, he said.

The National Aviation Company Ltd (NACIL) follows the recommendations of International Air Transport Association (IATA) regarding fares for infants, he said.

The government has no plans to review air fare policy of infants and children as "airlines are free to determine their fare structure as per their commercial judgment and government, as a matter of policy, does not interfere with it," he said

Kailash Mansoravar yatra from June 1st

jimmy elias — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 02:30:02 -0500

The annual Kailash Mansarovar yatra, which involves circumambulation of Mount Kailash and Manasarovar Lake in Tibet, will commence on June one. The yatra will be completed in 26 days, of which 13 days would be spent in Tibet, the epicenter of recent anti-China demonstrations.

The pilgrimage is considered extremely "arduous" and involves trekking at altitudes up to 19,500 feet, under inhospitable conditions.

"The yatra will commence on June one with around 16 batches of pilgrims and the last batch would be back in the capital by September 24", said an ITBP official whose force escorts the pilgrims ever year.

Each pilgrim batch would roughly comprise 40-45 devotees.

"The exact number of devotees in a batch is finalised just few days before the start of the yatra from Delhi. Some may not turn up at the last moment", officials told reporters.

Personnel of the mountain-trained ITBP would assist the yatra by providing telecommunication services through satellite phones; high altitude medical check-up and an overall security cover to the devotees of the yatra, a senior ITBP official at the Force Headquarters here, said.

"Apart from these duties, we also will be carrying out evacuation operations in case of emergencies", he added.

The she factor in Bhutan's tourism sector

jimmy elias — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 07:30:45 -0500

Bhutan is opening up slowly to the modern world in a fine balance with its traditions and its women are contributing in their own way to make the country one of the most sought-after travel destinations.

Kesang Chedon, a mother of three boys, drives a taxi. It is not that she is the family's sole bread earner. Her husband works in a government factory.

Two of Kesang's sons study in India. And the third is planning to join their brothers this year.

"The tourist season (usually November-April) is really hectic. Most of the foreigners need vehicles due to Bhutan's terrain," she says.

"It's mostly out to work in the mornings and back in the night. The earnings depend on the route taken." In a patriarchal society that is predominantly Buddhist, Kesang's feat is all the more adorable because she does not let her passion of driving affect her family life.

"I always make it a point to give as much time to my family," she says, adding he misses her two sons.

For Tshering of Tashi Delek Handicraft in Norzin Lam Street here, the tourist season brings in profit.

In her shop, one can find articles ranging from prayer wheels and flags to incense sticks and antic swords.

"The tourist season normally bring us good returns. Foreigners love ethnic items," she says.

According to Tshering, Indians are normally charged less.

Titanic ticket sold for 33,000 pounds

jimmy elias — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 07:28:38 -0500

Ninety-six years after Titanic sank, a third-class passenger ticket of the doomed ship which sank on its maiden voyage, today sell for 33,000 pounds at an auction in south west England. The ticket was part of a collection of Lillian Asplund, one of the few survivors of the ship, who as a five-year-old, was on-board Titanic along with her parents and four brothers.

The ticket was sold by auction house of Henry Aldridge and Son in Devizes, Wiltshire. Also in the collection, a pocket watch that stopped at the exact moment the Titanic sank sold for 31,000 pounds. It was bought by a Swedish collector, the auctioneers said.

The organisers of the auction were taken by surprise by the kind of interest it generated.

"There were bidders from China, America, Sweden, Ireland and the UK calling in. The room itself was so packed we had to fetch more chairs," Andrew Aldridge, who runs the family auction business said.

The Asplund collection was sold for more than 100,000 pounds, he said.

Asplund, who died on May 6, 2006 at the age of 99, kept the ticket in a shoe-box at her home in the United States and left the collection to her second cousin who sold them.

She was five-years-old when she boarded the ship along with her family to emigrate from Sweden to the US.

While Asplund along with her mother and one of her brothers survived when they were thrown into a lifeboat, her father and three other brothers drowned.

More than 1,500 people died when the Titanic hit an iceberg on its way from Southampton, southern England to New York and sank on April 15,1912.

American Airlines canceled more than 900 flights

jimmy elias — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 04:24:10 -0500

American Airlines canceled more than 900 flights Thursday to fix faulty wiring in hundreds of jets, marking the third straight day of mass groundings as company executives offered profuse apologies and travel vouchers to calm angry customers.

American, the nation's largest carrier, has now scrubbed more than 2,400 flights since Tuesday, when federal regulators warned that nearly half its planes could violate a safety regulation designed to prevent fires.

That's more than one in three flights canceled over the last three days.

Daniel Garton, an executive vice president of American, said cancellations could extend into Friday.

A return to normal operations depends on how quickly mechanics can inspect and fix the wire bundles. Airline spokesman Tim Wagner said late Wednesday afternoon that 60 planes had been cleared to fly, 119 were being worked on, and 121 planes had not yet been inspected.

The fallout could be seen at airport ticket counters, where frustrated customers bickered with American employees, and on the stock market, where shares of American's parent company tumbled more than 11 percent Wednesday.

American estimates that more than 100 passengers would have been on each of those canceled flights. That means a quarter-million people have been inconvenienced this week.

Airline executives said they thought they had fixed the wiring two weeks ago, when they canceled more than 400 flights to inspect and in some cases fix the shielding around the wires in their MD-80 aircraft.

But this week, Federal Aviation Administration inspectors, who have been conducting stepped-up surveys of airline compliance with safety rules called airworthiness directives, said 15 of 19 American jets they examined flunked. That left the airline no choice but to ground all 300 of its MD-80s, the most common jet in American's 655-plane fleet.

"We have obviously failed to complete the airworthiness directive to the precise standards that the FAA requires, and I take full responsibility for that," Gerard Arpey, American's chairman and chief executive, said at an industry event in California.

Back at American's headquarters in Fort Worth, Garton apologized for the snafu and vowed the airline would fix the problem this time.

"We simply cannot put our customers through this again," he said.

Garton added that for American, "this certainly couldn't have come at a worse time." The airline faces record fuel prices and fear of a recession, and analysts forecast that its parent, AMR Corp., lost more than $300 million in the first three months of the year.

American declined to say how much it would spend on $500 travel vouchers and hotel rooms for stranded travelers and overtime for mechanics, or how much revenue it would lose by putting some displaced customers on other airlines. But Garton said it would be "significant."

Perhaps worried about that cost, investors on Wednesday sent AMR shares down $1.15 to $9.17.

American's problem — and Alaska Airlines' cancellation of 14 flights Wednesday to inspect its nine MD-80s — stems from an FAA order in 2006 covering the bundling of wires in the backup power system for the fuel pump of the MD-80. The FAA says improperly bundled wires could rub, leading to an electrical short or even fire.

American officials said the safety of their planes was never jeopardized, and the FAA said no serious incidents have been blamed on poorly bundled wires.

Some passengers took a jaundiced view toward American's promise to fix the problems.

Kathy Neer of Santa Fe, N.M., was caught up in both waves of cancellations to and from a vacation in Paris. She and her husband were stranded in Dallas on Tuesday on the final leg of their journey home. American gave the Neers a voucher for a hotel room and seats on another flight home Wednesday.

"They say our flight is leaving at 3:55 p.m., but do you think we trust them?" Neer said. "After being burned twice, we're a little skeptical."

India risks sanctions for not taking back illegal migrants

jimmy elias — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 03:33:57 -0500

A legislation targeting India and seven other countries which allegedly refuse to take back illegal immigrants convicted of crimes in the United States has been introduced in the House of Representatives. The Bill requires reports being sent to Congress every 90 days on the countries which inhibit repatriation that will automatically trigger denial of foreign aid as well as suspension of visa issuances to them.

The Bill, a companion to the Accountability in Immigrant Repatriation (AIR) Act of 2008 introduced last month in the US Senate, was introduced by Congressmen Charlie Dent and Michael Castle.

"Shockingly, criminal aliens (illegal migrants) who have served time in the US prisons are routinely released onto our streets after their home countries refuse to take them back," Castle said at a press conference.

"This represents a serious loop-hole in our immigration system and I believe our legislation, combined with efforts to expand border enforcement and target fraudulent identification documents, can improve security and the spending of taxpayer dollars," he added.

As of February 11, 2008, eight countries India, Laos, Iran, Eritrea, Vietnam, Jamaica, China, and Ethiopia have refused to repatriate a total of over 139,000 illegal migrants, the Congressmen said. More than 18,000 of them were convicted criminals but were released.

The AIR Act would suspend all pending visa petitions from those countries until they agree to repatriate. The legislation would also direct the State Department to withhold funds under the Foreign Assistance Act to countries that persist in this refusal.