What we've learned in this week's travel
Tim Roxborogh’s family had a cat that was very bitey and didn’t like the cattery. As most pet owners will understand, one of the downsides of travel is having someone else look after (or neglect) your pet.
The Ganges is home to an endemic, but endangered, dolphin as well as a critically endangered shark — yes a Ganges shark. Varanasi is a must-visit destination. “A visit to this chaotic city is said to be one of the most intense experiences you can have in India,” writes Linda Meads.
Residents of the remote Tiwi Islands in Australia’s Northern Territory are assigned symbols — known as a “skin” — that designates who they can and cannot marry. As writer Phoebe Smith observes: “The rules also state that once you reach a certain age you can no longer speak to or look at your sibling of the opposite sex, to remove any temptation of a relationship.”
Earlier this year a music festival, Artefact, was held in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. “That thing killed my grandmother ... and now it’s a disco?” read one appalled response on a festival-goer’s Instagram account. With tourism numbers growing dramatically as the result of the HBO series Chernobyl, Thomas Bywater writes that “ticket booths are selling tours to the abandoned town like it was a radioactive theme park”.
Tipping is always a thing Kiwis get hung up about when travelling, especially in the US, where it seems obligatory. But guess what? If you buy a takeaway coffee in the US you’re not expected to tip. That’s a bonus for those of us travelling tight and light. Shandelle Battersby has more hot tips for travellers on a budget. Be careful what you wish for when you book a holiday at an adults- only resort. As one of our writers discovered, you can sometimes miss the sound of children when you end up being the youngest guests. “Watching all the guests tentatively lower themselves into the water had me momentarily wondering whether we were in Fiji or somehow ended up in Lourdes,” Gerald Sheehy observes.
Norwegian No Encore, the tth brand new ship from fro Norwegian Cruise Cr Lines, is — to use us the standard Auckland A ship measurement m — roughly ro the length of o one Sky Tower. As well w as an electric go g kart track, and a virtual v reality arcade, the t ship has 29 eateries e for its 4000 passengers. The Los Lobos high- end Mexican and Onda Italian were standouts, writes Thomas Bywater.