[adventure holidays] have you considered africa

Modern ladders enable you to disembark from your aircraft.

Tired, jaded, prone to that old ennui? You need a holiday, my friend.

That’s why Nigerian spammer Susan Morgan and Ukrainian mail order bride specialist Boris Goodenough have combined with Higham Surprise Vacations to offer you the trip of your life. Whether fighting off muggers in Kinshasa or succumbing to yellow fever in Tanzania, we offer you a holiday you’ll never forget, a final journey to exotic lands, unspoilt by tourism.

Here is a sampler:

Cape Verde

The Republic of Cape Verde consists of several rugged volcanic islands off the West Coast of Africa. The climate is warm and dry. Evidence of immunization against yellow fever is required and medical facilities in Cape Verde are extremely limited. Some petty theft is common.

The next step up in excitement:

Guinea-Bissau

All official Americans have departed the country. Portuguese is the official language; French is also widely spoken. Visitors arriving without visas via land or air have been turned back.

Medicines often are not available; malaria and other tropical diseases are common. Petty thievery and pickpocketing are increasingly common, particularly at the airport, in markets and at public gatherings and thieves have sometimes pose as officials and steal bags and other personal items.

Fund transfers between banks are frequently difficult and time-consuming to accomplish. Taking pesos out of the country is prohibited. Travelers may have difficulty finding public phones and receiving international calls. Telephone services are expensive.

However, if living on the edge is your thing, try:

The Democratic Republic of the Congo

Dramatic deterioration of the physical infrastructure of the country, insecurity and an increase in looting and murder in Kinshasa’s streets, occasional official hostility to U.S. citizens and nationals of European countries; periodic shortages of basic needs such as gasoline; chronic shortages of medicine and supplies for some basic medical care; hyperinflation and corruption.

In some urban areas, malnutrition and starvation are acute.

Medicine is in short supply. Most intercity roads are difficult or impassable in the rainy season. Government permission is required for travel outside Kinshasa. Armed groups operate in parts of the DRC outside government control and provide pillaging, vehicle thefts, carjackings, extrajudicial settling of differences and ethnic tensions. Travelers in these areas run the risk of attack or detention.

Book today with us. Leave travellers cheques or credit card details with the washroom attendant, Victoria station between the hours of 8 p.m. and midnight and we’ll mail you your tickets, transfers, insurance and accommodation stubs.

Be sure to have left an adequate will with loved ones before

[burma] and the forgotten monks

Any one remember them? Have you thought where they might be at the moment - the monks who protested?

[wordless wednesday] captions please

They're chefs, by the way.

[austerity] and the right balance

In a long forgotten post, I might have mentioned a boarding house master who lived what looked like an austere existence and I can remember thinking at the time that it was a miserable existence.

It wasn’t though; he wasn’t miserable. Let me describe it.

He was in a small room of maybe eight feet by ten, with one cell like window which was so placed that it caught the morning sun. On the wooden slatted floor was one good quality rug and in one corner near the window, a comfortable chair.

In the diagonally opposite corner was his writing table. Underneath that table was one shallow drawer and in that drawer were his securities which he one day showed me, for some reason. They came to a substantial amount.

Outside the room, under the stairs, was a cupboard and in this cupboard was his fold-up bed and a railing with his few clothes hanging from it.

His meals were taken in the school dining room.

He was a creature of habit and did his boarding house duties, went for his walks, retired to do his correspondence then went to bed.

Every second weekend he went to an Ibis hotel in a nearby village and explored the markets there, to what purpose, I have no idea, as there was nothing to show for it in his room.

Yes, you say but where were his pleasures, where was the nooky? Well, I can’t comment on that. In these austere days of mine, it’s not hard to admire him for having an existence he was obviously happy in.

Some people have four televisions, the same number of computers, all manner of clothing and bits and bobs in the hall cupboard and dotted all over the place. Are they used? Are they necessary? Then why were they bought?

In the kitchen here is no fridge and I’m not sure I want one now. The powdered milk has turned out fine, there are all manner of grains and fresh vegetables, in small quantities, to cook up. The meat and rolls can be bought daily.

When they’re finished, I bicycle up to get more. I’m either going to have to buy this ten speed bike or pay my friend rental soon. I was going to get a car but now I’m not so sure. A moped was going for a reasonable price the other day and that at least gets you into a nearby town, which the bike doesn’t.

Back in the kitchen, there are two small ‘hanging’ cupboards and under bench space for other things. I was looking at the white, four of everything crockery and thinking I really wouldn’t want any more than that – it would just clutter up the place.

What has possibly been passing through some of your minds is that that may be all well and good but what if there was a family? Well yes, that alters the whole thing.

What has possibly been passing through some of your minds is that this is a selfish, misanthropic existence. Guilty, I’m afraid. An austere existence like this would drive you out of your tree after a while but there are some good principles in it though:

1. Have, as I think Oscar Wilde said, only that in your house which is either beautiful or useful plus a Macintosh laptop. I’d add that it should have been useful within the past month.

2. Marshall your total resources and income, thrash out, over a coffee, how it is to be apportioned, percentage wise, stick to it and never borrow against your assets, except in a maximum three month period.

3. Tailor your lifestyle round your means, not your aspirations. As your means improve, so does your lifestyle gradually expand.

[just for interest] is it getting warm

[mystic quiz] know your stonehenge

Supply the number in each case:

1. ___ upright stones or sarsens.

2. Each sarsen is over ___ feet tall and weighs ___ tons.

3. There are ___ lintels weighing ___ tons each.

4. The ___-year cycle of eclipses can be found by decoding Stonehenge.

5. Giraldus Cambrensis was a historian of the ___th century, who wrote a book titled The History and Topography of Ireland and ascribed the engineering of Stonehenge to Merlin.

Answers

30, 10, 26, 30, 6, 56, 12

Further reading at World-Mysteries.com