Keithambrose

I knew a young Chinese boy who was studying law in Bangkok. He was taught in English, and said standard was good.

As I just said, I have booked, but will keep Meridien as well, in case Dusit doesn't make it!

Have now booked Dusit for November, corner room. Will be interesting to see!

Something wrong with that, what about George McGovern, Hubert Humphrey?

Yes, the JR System is impressive. However I found it more confusing, not so much English. Worth noting that the hi speed Shinanksen have their own section at Tokyo Station. When I was first in Japan, if I didn't know farw,etc, I was advised just to walk through the open barrier next to the official. I was told that as a foreigner, gaijin, I would not be stopped!

Interestingly, a long time ago, I took a taxi from hotel to client. As has been mentioned before, most of Tokyo has no street names. The doorman looks up the address in an enormous map book, dealing with Chome, block no, building no, etc. Off we went. We arrive, taxi driver shows me the building. Drives off. Its the wrong building, he was lost. I had no cluster of helpful Japanese, in deed no English spoken. Luckily I found a pay pho e, and rang client. They then directed me!

They have to speak English, at least front of house staff.

Or never released at all!

I did get charged! You are more efficient than me. You do what I should do. Half the problem is that it's so easy to book, on your phone, and unless you are very efficient, I'm not, you move on, and forget!

And that map is only part of the system, as most lines carry on, out of the city into the countryside. Now everything is also in English, and there are huge maps on the stations, giving details of all the nearby buildings. A huge advance on when I first went 40 years ago. It pays to master the Subway, it doesn't take long, there are 2 different companies, and then travel around Tokyo is remarkably easy. The gay area is around the station Shinjuku -San-chome. San is 3.

Cambodia was described by my taxi driver, as 'part of China'. He said they control everything, including the government.

Yes, I am hoping to do London to Sydney, non stop, when that starts.

Good point about time changes. I also put relevant time in heading. I get annoyed with the time in the calendar changing with the time zones. If I was better at IT, I'm sure I could fix it, but..... Going back to hotels, another issue I have is that I often book many months in advance, using the hotel website. Then I forget, and book again, through, say, Booking.com. this can prove embarrassing at check in, when they ask whether I need 2 rooms!

If they do, I shudder to think how the infrastructure will cope. One thing that interests me, where will they get decent staff to man all these new hotels?

I think Port au Prince, Haiti, should feature. A baseball bat would not suffice. You would need an AK47, at the very least!