Keithambrose

This is Thailand!

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!

Thanks from me too, I am due there in November.

The dams on the Mekong are already destroying Tonle Sap lake. And ruining the livelihoods of up to 2 million people. The Government is not in the least concerned.

M f you, if we had been in Saudi, or UAE, it might have been different!

That's really bad. I've never heard of that. Could you sue them? Once on BA business class, Cancun to LHR, with my family, we were on the plane, and were asked if we would consider moving for some VIPs. I am a Gold member with BA. We politely refused, and that was the end of that.

Slightly different point. Has anyone checked in on line, been given seat reservation, and then told at the airport you have been bumped off?

Ii think these are all good points, but I think the 'average American' is still biased against a black, and a woman. Unsurprisingly, Musk has endorsed Trump, in a gesture of self interest.

The XLR received European certification on the 19th July. Very exciting. Launch customer was to be Aer Lingus, but they have a dispute with pilots, and I think it will now be Iberia. They have over 500 orders already.

It's very common. I travelled an awful lot on business. On one trip from NYC to Chicago, I went to check in at La Guardia. The AA staff were puzzled, as the flight was from JFK! The e ticket and confirmation both said JFK, but I had assumed that as it was a domestic flight, it was from LGA! Hence blindness when looking at the ticket! I now check obsessively. Luckily I also leave a lot of time.e when checking in, so made it to JFK. Felt an absolute fool. Years before, I was in SF, going to Santa Barbara. I rang up the hotel to check the reservation, and like the member above, had the wrong month! This was expensive, as they only had a suite! The other issue, I find, is booking hotels many months ahead, especially if you have a duplicate booking, as you can do with booking.com. Unless you are very careful, you can forget one of the bookings. That has happened to me!

Thanks. I saw a documentary which featured Amish immigrants, who had developed a huge cattle farm, cutting down hundreds of acres of forest. They are rapidly expanding. Didn't look good. The indigenous people were being forced out.