#1, A young person approaches you saying, “Do you speak English?”, while holding out a large index card.  As you focus on the writing on the card (which is a jumble of gibberish), you are in fact blocking your field of vision to your purse and pockets.  Don’t accept the card – keep your hands and field of vision clear!

#2, While walking down the sidewalk someone will reach down to pick up a piece of gold jewelry saying loudly, “Oh am I lucky!!”, while holding up the gold for all to see.  When you come closer to look at the lucky find, they find an excuse why they cannot use the piece (Oh darn my ears aren’t pierced, or Oh no this ring is too big for me) at which point they will offer the gold piece to you.  If you take it, they will ask for some money in return – because after all you are getting the gold for free and it’s worth a lot of money.  Of course the jewelry is actually a fake piece of junk.  (We encountered this trick twice in 3 days!)

Our advise is to keep your valuables protected inside your clothing and always be suspicious if someone who enters your zone of  ‘personal’ space – assume they are going to try to rob you.

Each year over 60 million Americans travel to foreign countries for business and leisure.  Until now it has been a cumbersome process to gather information on the least expensive and most reliable ways to maintain communications while traveling.  We’ve all read horror stories of vacationers returning home only to find an enormous bill from their cell phone carrier because they ‘misunderstood’ the terms of their calling plan.  The FCC is hoping to help US travelers avoid this very situation.

This first week of summer has been deemed “Wireless World Travel Week” at the FCC.  Each day of the week the FCC will post helpful articles to their website:
Tuesday: Getting Ready for Your International Trip
Wednesday: Calling Options from Overseas
Thursday: VoIP – Calling Over the Internet
Friday: Back at Home – Checking Your Invoices

We say BRAVO to the FCC for simplifying the communication challenges for travelers.  Linda and I just went through this exercise before we flew off the Paris last week, and appreciate what a land-mine of choices are out there.  We’ll be digesting the FCC’s recommendations all week and will bring you the highlights.  In the meantime, be sure to bookmark their site so it will be a click away for the next time you’ll be traveling out of the country.

Authorized Tiger Tours have failed to protect the population of tigers while attempting to bring tourists ever closer to their natural habitat.  Safari lodges have been built in Eco sensitive areas and some block the tiger’s traditional migratory routes.  Ever growing numbers of tours have resulted in tigers being herded by elephants to parade in front of a traffic jams of jeeps piled high with photo snapping tourists.  Worst of all, poachers have continually raided and killed tigers, which today almost guarantees the eventual extinction of tigers in India.

It is hoped that by taking the drastic measure of banning tiger sightseeing tours, the majestic Indian tiger will be able to repopulate their habitat undisturbed and rebuild their population.  What remains unknown, is whether the poachers will be able proliferate once attention is taken away from the tiger’s territory.  Many worry about what will become of the dozens of tour companies and their employees who live near the tiger reserves.  Will the tigers be left in peace to flourish, or without the spotlight of tourism will poachers thin the population to tragic levels?  This is indeed a very tentative and dangerous time for India’s tiger population.  Here’s hoping India can stabilize the population and prevent the eventuality when the only tigers that can be seen are in a zoo!

Try making a video yourself – I predict you’re going to love this photo tool!

The current hope is that the ash will dissipate enough for air travel to resume in another day or two.