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	<title>Online Reporter &#187; Tents</title>
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	<description>Travel, Hotels &#38; Food</description>
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		<item>
		<title>PID, INS, RoE and TP: deciphering ‘Arm-ese’ in Afghanistan</title>
		<link>http://www.onlinereporter.org/general/pid-ins-roe-and-tp-deciphering-%e2%80%98arm-ese%e2%80%99-in-afghanistan/</link>
		<comments>http://www.onlinereporter.org/general/pid-ins-roe-and-tp-deciphering-%e2%80%98arm-ese%e2%80%99-in-afghanistan/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 12 Jul 2010 09:24:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>earthtravel</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Food]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[France]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Spain]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tents]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[afghan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[afghanistan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[british]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cameraman]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[four-gentlemen]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.onlinereporter.org/general/pid-ins-roe-and-tp-deciphering-%e2%80%98arm-ese%e2%80%99-in-afghanistan/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ Nick Paton Walsh is embedded with the US army in Afghanistan. There comes a point, somewhere between not being disgusted by a portaloo&#8217;s contents and thinking that there might be water and nutrients in a Gatorade, when you run the danger of starting to speak Arm-ese. I&#8217;ve been embedded for 10 days now &#8211; only four of them actually at an outpost, by some freakish trick of logistical madness &#8211; but have on a couple of occasions begun to talk utter crap. Tracking? See? The American Army outdoes most of its counterparts in both toys and verbeage. The British military are too imbued with the remnants of the class system to really need a universal dialect &#8211; the soldiers speak English, the officers Posh. The Russian military is endearingly frank: a spokesman once warned a colleague not to go to the toilet alone as &#8211; and I quote his decision to put one PR faux pas out to try and perhaps prevent a worse one &#8211; &#8220;some of the guys here have not seen a woman for a while and might do something&#8221;. The Americans do hyperjargon. Let&#8217;s break new readers in gently with one example. &#8220;There&#8217;re four gentlemen sitting in vicinity of FMH5 &#8211; that&#8217;s 400m to north. A motorcycle moved to north on route langley. Those four gentlemen then headed off in a direction west. Our squad designated marksman will go up there. He&#8217;s got an M14 rifle with a Leopold scope, he&#8217;s got deep visibility on that and we&#8217;re going to see what he can see&#8221;. In short: some men were sitting outside until a motorcyclist went up to them. Now they&#8217;ve left, we&#8217;re sending a sniper up to have a look. (By the way, FMH5 is not its real name. The sergeant and author of the above asked we remove it in case it gave something away to the enemy). What they really wanted was PID on the INS (Positive IDentification of INSurgents). A brief lexicon: Pax are people. &#8220;Tracking&#8221; means &#8220;yes&#8221;, or OK. So does Roger (favourite joke: &#8220;Roger&#8221;. Reply: &#8220;No, my name&#8217;s Nick&#8221;. Bring on the clowns). If asked whether you have &#8220;eyes on&#8221; something, it may sound like a rich housewife leering at their tennis coach. But it actually means you can see something. Eyes on? Tracking? Roger. [Between this sentence and the last, I have learned another. TP. I took an abortive trip to a portaloo. There was no TP.] We had a KLE today. That&#8217;s a Key Leader Engagement. Not a 16th century wedding between Spain and France, or a Sarkozy genuflection towards Ms Bruni. It means going to meet the people who live in the village next door. We met them. They were nice. They wanted pens and a medical clinic. I was guilty of speaking this once. I said to our cameraman that the American&#8217;s &#8220;RoEs&#8221; meant they had to get the Afghan soldiers to do a lot of the fighting for them. He looked at me bemused &#8211; a touch hypocritical for someone who eats MREs (Meal Ready to Eat &#8211; an army food ration) on holiday for fun. Rules of Engagement, I meant. But it was clear. I had done as the Romans. Maybe this is what an empire does to its language when everybody&#8217;s speaking the original version.  <a href="http://www.onlinereporter.org/general/pid-ins-roe-and-tp-deciphering-%e2%80%98arm-ese%e2%80%99-in-afghanistan/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a>]]></description>
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		<title>Afghan embed: surrounded by Taliban territory</title>
		<link>http://www.onlinereporter.org/general/afghan-embed-surrounded-by-taliban-territory/</link>
		<comments>http://www.onlinereporter.org/general/afghan-embed-surrounded-by-taliban-territory/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 06 Jul 2010 19:00:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>MSN UK Travel</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tents]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Travel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[afghan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[afghanistan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[area]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fire]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[insurgency]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[taliban]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[ It&#8217;s taken six days to travel no more than 50 kilometres, but after one helicopter ride (20 mins, after a 72 hour wait), two truck journeys (30 and 20 minutes each) and three Powerpoint presentations (&#8220;Are you still listening? Do you understand that we have a plan?&#8221;), we are finally somewhere. COP Lakhokhel used to be eight Canadians and a few Afghan soldiers, under heavy fire. Now it&#8217;s a lot of Americans (I can&#8217;t say how many exactly as part of the rules we sign up to, so I&#8217;ll say &#8220;10,000 elite soldiers&#8221;, to boost our safety), and some more Afghan soldiers. All around is Taliban territory. The heart of the heartland, in fact. Just 1,500 metres away is Sangsar, the place where Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, so it goes, hung warlords from a tank barrel, marking the birth of the Taliban movement. Asia Correspondent Nick Paton Walsh (front) blogs from his tent while embedded with US troops in Afghanistan. They see locals and probably insurgents, moving around on motorcycles, driving past in groups of white vans, moving something around somewhere. There have been no attacks on this tiny new base for about nine days. Some US soldiers think that means their show of force means the Taliban, the insurgency, or whoever the men out there are (angry farmers, Helmand mercenaries, or madrassa fundamentalists), have seen American force and decided not to challenge it. Others worry they&#8217;re just regrouping. For now, the 101st Airborne don&#8217;t go out much, and don&#8217;t go near Sangsar. For now, it seems, they are waiting, getting themselves up and ready. It&#8217;s also who they&#8217;re waiting for that&#8217;s a problem here in Kandahar. The Afghan National Army group they want to partner with here, to train up to run the area when they get to depart under that ever-shifting timeline, is still not here. Without them, their counterinsurgency mission here is hamstrung, and the troops, surging away into this pocket of territory that is as hostile as it is small and arid, have to concentrate on how many aircon units, shower units and tents they have on their larger Howz-e-Madad base. Where we are the oppressive heat keeps many inside the tents, occupied on PlayStations or laptops in the cool. They don&#8217;t want to start to engage the local population without Afghan faces, even though these Afghans are being shipped in from around Afghanistan to fight here in Pashtun-land. Unsurprisingly, there aren&#8217;t many Afghan army recruitment offices in Taliban country. Our cameraman Stuart Webb is fond of a Monty Python joke, in which a soldier explains, &#8220;the enemy are here, here, here, and here&#8221; pointing to a map showing them surrounded. It might be the case in Lakhokhel, or LKK as they (despite all the talk of familiarising with local terrain and terms) prefer to call it. Or the Taliban could have decided to sit back and let the Americans come out of their bases before taking them on. This evening, as dusk fell, we were in a tower, having the local geography (basically a list of places where there are roadside bombs) explained to us. A huge thud shook the sky. Out towards the huge highway that rips through this area, a mushroom cloud rose up. Insurgents had aimed a large rocket at a convoy passing on the road. An hour after dark, the Afghan army fire a shot at something. Anything and also nothing it turns out. Wherever the insurgency is, it&#8217;s not far away. Cameraman Stuart Webb embedded with US troops in Afghanistan.  <a href="http://www.onlinereporter.org/general/afghan-embed-surrounded-by-taliban-territory/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a>]]></description>
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		<title>SoulPad camping equipment: Good Buy Guide</title>
		<link>http://www.onlinereporter.org/travel/soulpad-camping-equipment-good-buy-guide/</link>
		<comments>http://www.onlinereporter.org/travel/soulpad-camping-equipment-good-buy-guide/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 21 Jun 2010 12:47:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Tents]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Travel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[camping equipment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[online-retailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[soulpad]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Maggie O'Sullivan profiles SoulPad, an online retailer of tents and camping accessories. <a href="http://www.onlinereporter.org/travel/soulpad-camping-equipment-good-buy-guide/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a>]]></description>
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		<title>Queen’s speech: sunshine, heckling and a hostage</title>
		<link>http://www.onlinereporter.org/general/queen%e2%80%99s-speech-sunshine-heckling-and-a-hostage/</link>
		<comments>http://www.onlinereporter.org/general/queen%e2%80%99s-speech-sunshine-heckling-and-a-hostage/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 25 May 2010 09:22:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Features - MSN Travel UK</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Europe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tents]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[chief]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[europe]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[queen]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[queen's speech]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[some-megaphone]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sunshine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[tented-village]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[the-campaigners]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[veteran]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[ Did the coalition just get bigger? Labour Chief Whip Nick Brown and Government Chief Whip Patrick McLoughlin enjoy the sunshine as we wait for the state opening. There&#8217;s some megaphone heckling from the campaigners&#8217; tented village on Parliament Square but it&#8217;s not from Brian Haw, the veteran anti-war protestor who was arrested this morning after a sniffer dog inspection of some tents. Mark Francois is the whip held hostage at the Palace while the Queen is in Parliament. He&#8217;d hoped to be Europe Minister but the Lib Dems may have vetoed that. Strange consolation prize.  <a href="http://www.onlinereporter.org/general/queen%e2%80%99s-speech-sunshine-heckling-and-a-hostage/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a>]]></description>
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		<title>Astonishing ambition of Nato hopes for the Afghan army</title>
		<link>http://www.onlinereporter.org/general/astonishing-ambition-of-nato-hopes-for-the-afghan-army/</link>
		<comments>http://www.onlinereporter.org/general/astonishing-ambition-of-nato-hopes-for-the-afghan-army/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:45:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Features - MSN Travel UK</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tents]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[UK]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[afghan]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.onlinereporter.org/general/astonishing-ambition-of-nato-hopes-for-the-afghan-army/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ It isn&#8217;t the heat or the cold at night. It isn&#8217;t the incessant fleas biting you as you try to sleep in a compound. It isn&#8217;t the pumping adrenaline and fear when the round from insurgents come cracking in. What really strikes you is something altogether larger &#8211; the sheer, astonishing ambition of what Nato is attempting here. Take its great hope for getting out of Afghanistan, the Afghan National Army. For starters they were late turning up for the critical pre-dawn helicopter-drop deep into territory scarcely visited at all by Nato forces. And once arrived they were close to a shambles from the word go. Diffident about wading into irrigation ditches for fear of getting their feet wet. Their commander demanding one of their men piggy-back his precious body over the warm muddy water. Or at least that was when he was not demanding to be filmed for TV incessantly for three days. Pinned down in an irrigation ditch buy incoming and accurate AK47 fire, the Coldstream Guards screamed at the ANA that they were not covering one side of the ditch, the side the rounds were coming in from. The response of their commander? To engage in a five minute shouting match with his men during which time absolutely nobody moved to cover the defenceless east side of our trench. It got worse. Upon reaching a safe compound the Coldstream commander on the ground, Major Toby Till, rounded on his Afghan counterpart. The issue &#8211; some of the incoming fire on the Coldstream Guards had been the Afghan Army firing on the wrong positions. Or, just as likely, simply blasting away more or less indiscriminately. Even in the final moment of this three day patrol the Afghans and British managed another set-to. At issue this time &#8211; a chicken. Yes, a chicken. The Afghan Army likes to eat fresh. They&#8217;d procured a chicken at the final compound before the Chinooks were due to come in. They saw nothing amiss about bringing a flapping chicken into a night-time fast evacuation involving three Chinook helicopters in a place where it was highly likely they could be under fire. Major Toby Till and those around him did, however, see a problem. Privately, in their tents, I heard Coldstream Guards routinely refer to their Afghan counterparts in some pretty uncomplimentary language. So it is that although the brass and the politicians around the world have to praise the great strides which the Afghan Army has made, and to some degree that is true, the reality on the ground is that there is a long, long way to go.  <a href="http://www.onlinereporter.org/general/astonishing-ambition-of-nato-hopes-for-the-afghan-army/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a>]]></description>
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		<title>Animal magic in Tanzania</title>
		<link>http://www.onlinereporter.org/travel/animal-magic-in-tanzania/</link>
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		<pubDate>Sat, 13 Feb 2010 23:05:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>earthtravel</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Diving]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[ Waterside retreats with game on tap SELOUS SAFARI CAMP, SELOUS NATIONAL PARK Perched on the banks of Lake Nzerakera, in Africa's largest game reserve (55,000 sq km, or twice the size of Belgium), this ultra-luxurious camp ( selous.com ) is divided into two sectors, each with its own swimming pool, bar and alfresco dining area overlooking the lake, which attracts all manner of wildlife, from vervet monkeys to large pods of hippo and crocodiles (don't miss the boat safari for a closer look). The 12 tented cabanas – with oil lamps, antique wooden chests and open-air showers overlooking the bush – sit on timber platforms with sunset-facing verandas, many with lake views. Go on a dawn game walk to learn about tracking, venture on a drive into the reserve, home to 60,000 elephants and the world's largest population of wild dogs, or simply order a G&#038;T from the bar and lap up that view. • Rainbow Tours (020 7226 1004; rainbowtours.co.uk ) offers five nights from £2,625, including flights, transfers, all meals, park fees and activities FUNDU LAGOON, PEMBA ISLAND Located on the south-west coast of Pemba – Zanzibar's "forgotten half" – and accessible only by boat, Fundu Lagoon ( fundulagoon.com ) is Africa at its most eco-chic. Scattered around the jungle (look out for vervet monkeys swinging through the palms) are 18 thatched tented rooms and suites, some with private plunge pools, "chill-out" areas and steps onto the beach. There is also an infinity pool, a spa and the jetty bar – a cool place to watch the jaw-dropping sunsets. A short boat ride away lie coral islands, reefs and wrecks, offering some of the best diving in the world – the resort runs daily dives and Padi courses. • Rainbow Tours (as above) has seven nights from £1,970, including flights, all meals, transfers and activities NDUTU SAFARI LODGE, NGORONGORO CONSERVATION AREA This rustic lodge is set among acacia woodland overlooking Lake Ndutu in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, which borders the Serengeti. From the open-sided thatched bar and restaurant to the private veranda of your stone cottage (there are 34 in all), the views of the lake are unbeatable, especially between January and March, when the wildebeest swim through on migration. The lodge ( ndutu.com ) offers game drives, birdwatching (more than 400 species have been recorded there) and guided walks. • Tribes (01728 685971; tribes.co.uk ) offers three nights at Ndutu and one night at Kirurumu Tented Lodge near Lake Manyara National Park from £2,095, including flights, park fees, all meals, game viewing and transfers MNEMBA ISLAND LODGE, ZANZIBAR Situated in a casuarina pine forest on a private island off the north-eastern tip of Zanzibar, this chic lodge ( mnemba-island.com ) has 10 beachside bandas . Hand-woven from palm leaves, each has handcrafted wood furniture, a veranda with sea views and its own private stretch of beach. This is barefoot luxury at its best (and most expensive), where days are spent eating, swimming and sunbathing. For the more active, there are daily dives, plus snorkelling, kayaking, fly fishing and windsurfing. • Expert Africa (020 8232 9777; expertafrica.com ) has three nights' full-board at Mnemba and two nights B&#038;B at the Serena Inn in historic Stone Town from £3,251, including flights, transfers and water sports GOMBE FOREST LODGE, GOMBE NATIONAL PARK This intimate lodge is made up of seven twin-bed tents, set on wooden platforms along the shore of Lake Tanganyika – the world's longest (670km) freshwater lake – in the smallest of Tanzania's national parks. As well as fishing and snorkelling in the lake, against a stunning backdrop of the Congo mountains, and visits to the nearby waterfalls of Kakombe and Mkenke, the lodge ( mbalimbali.com ) arranges chimpanzee trekking in the nearby riverine forests, one of the best chimp-viewing areas in Africa. • Kuoni (01306 747002; kuoni.co.uk ) has a four-night package, taking in the lodge and the Hilltop hotel in Kigoma, from £2,499, including flights, sightseeing, trekking, fees and transfers Tanzania Africa Wildlife holidays Hotels Adventure travel Nicola Iseard guardian.co.uk  <a href="http://www.onlinereporter.org/travel/animal-magic-in-tanzania/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a>]]></description>
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		<title>Moving house? No, we&#8217;re just off to Italy to visit the folks</title>
		<link>http://www.onlinereporter.org/travel/moving-house-no-were-just-off-to-italy-to-visit-the-folks/</link>
		<comments>http://www.onlinereporter.org/travel/moving-house-no-were-just-off-to-italy-to-visit-the-folks/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:07:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Features - MSN Travel UK</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Europe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[France]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Italy]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[ A motor home is a great way to see Europe from the slow lane Last spring, a cheerful ex-paratrooper named Bernie spent half a day showing me how to tow a small caravan around a field, as preparation for a weekend spent towing an absolutely enormous one around the Midlands. A few months later, Bernie came back into my life, delivering the vehicle that was to take me and my family to the middle of Italy and back, and accommodate us en route. An approaching dieselly rumble hinted at Bernie's arrival; a sudden blotting out of the sun confirmed it. The Roller Team Atessa: it sounded like a Mediterranean street-hockey club, and could certainly have done service as their clubhouse. A vast white-flanked barge of a motor home, it loomed over the cars parked along our tiny road, and even stood up pretty well to the houses. With a bit of Bernie-baiting work behind the wheel, I could have stepped straight from its roof into my bedroom window. But there would be no Bernie to bait. He was due back at Caravan Club HQ and had a train to catch. "Just watch out for the height and the overhang at the back," he called out, tossing me the keys and walking off to the station. I'd hoped for a refresher course; in fact a fresher course, since I'd never been responsible for a vehicle even half this size. The overhang at the back was as long as a small car. Instead, the five of us, and half the street, went out to contemplate its alien enormity, like seaside villagers staring up at a beached ocean liner. When did motor homes get so big? The domestic example of yore was a light goods vehicle with a small potting shed bolted on behind the cab, one part ambulance with a gas cooker, one part ice-cream van with a bed. Despite the Yank-tank Winnebagos you sometimes see around, my default mental image today is of a compact VW retromobile, parked on a Cornish quay, with Jamie Oliver inside rustling up something cheeky from the catch of the day. Less motorhome than motorhutch. Unless everyone wanted to clean their teeth at once, claustrophobic cabin-fever would not be taking hold in the Roller Team. In three weeks' time, I would not be handing the keys back to Bernie with my spine warped in a permanent hunch. At least, not until he noticed all the chunks of railway bridge and street furniture embedded in its extremities. Confronted with the Roller Team's pantechnicon proportions, one of the neighbours had enquired jokingly if we were moving house. In the hours ahead we more or less did. A wardrobe and a dozen cupboards, plus two coffin-sized outside lockers. After years of packing with an eye on the excess-baggage scales, the sheer volume of available storage rather went to our heads. Would we really need wellingtons in Umbria? A croquet set? The entire contents of the bathroom? In summers gone by, these would have been matters for lively eve-of-departure debate. This time, with a shrug and a whistle, it all went in. We even found space, just, for a very large chest containing 15 years of family photographs, for my wife to catalogue and mount in albums when the opportunity arose, which it never did. All the while, juvenile excitement reached levels I thought we'd left behind a fortnight earlier, when our youngest had completed primary education. Working through the many enormous manuals provided by the Roller Team's Italian manufacturer, my children breathlessly located and activated the gas cooker, the shower, the lavatory, the horn, the outside lighting, the horn, the fridge and the horn. They opened and closed the three skylights and the five long windows. They tackled the 12-piece cushion jigsaw required to convert the seating areas into two double beds, and yanked down an overhead lever to reveal the coveted third: a ladder-accessed berth above the cab. And with a terrible groan, they pulled out an empty shelf-slot that should have housed the main component of Entertainment Pack A. Watching telly on the move had featured prominently in their many imaginings of motor home life, and my suggested alternatives did not go down well. In fact, I learned that "not having to play Uno was the whole point of this holiday". We headed off the next morning, my son guiding me down our street at walking pace and with an expression of helpless foreboding, like a ground-crew technician doing his best with a 747 piloted by dogs. Rarely have I been so glad to live so close to a motorway. The brochures were full of Roller Teams parked on alpine pastures or by lonely waterfalls, but in reality this was a vehicle only truly at home on a really big road. The slow lane was smooth, wide and empty, and once the jangle of loose crockery, jars, tins and clothes hangers had been muffled with beach towels, I began to feel at ease. I adopted an upright, arms-out bus driver's stance and an air of silent purpose, accepted a Red Bull from the fridge and powered us steadily towards Dover. This all seemed so much more significant than the usual minicab to Gatwick. A family and its possessions, bundled up together and trundling off on a long journey to a better place – the missing link between Summer Holiday and The Grapes of Wrath . It's fair to say the anticipation was not universally shared. Securing my wife's presence on the big bench seat behind me had meant agreeing to an ambitious itinerary, one which minimised driving days – and camping stops – between destinations offering "a proper bed in a proper house", my parents' place in the Ligurian hills, and our friends' villa in Umbria. Fulfilling this schedule meant the first of many mammoth autoroute stints, stopping every three hours for diesel (every four after I discovered sixth gear, just past Rheims). It was dark by the time we brushed through the gates of the Caravan Club's site at Thonnance-les-Moulins, halfway down France. "They've got a restaurant," noted my wife. Apart from my whoops each time our average speed crept up by another 1mph, it was the first human noise the Roller Team had hosted for two hours. I thought it best not to suggest cooking. The receptionist looked dumbfounded when I said we were only staying for one night. In defiance of the wilderness-focused, camp-on-a-whim ethos promoted in the brochures, it seems the typical British motorhomer – a clear majority in every Caravan Club place we stayed at – finds a well-run site with decent facilities and parks up for a fortnight. That seemed to me like too much home and not enough motor, though I could understand the appeal of a pristine lakeside campsite like Thonnance-les-Moulins. In fact, the only downside was a family who came back from the restaurant at some ridiculous hour, maybe as late as 9.30pm, and then started listening to a Harry Potter CD really loudly, and only shut up when some bloke hammered on the door of their Roller Team Atessa and told them they'd woken up half the bloody Caravan Club. We arrived at my parents' house with 16.2 road hours and another quiet campsite under our belts, one laid out at the foot of a gigantic alp in the Bourg d'Oisans. I now had a firm handle on which aspects of the trip most appealed to me, and also on how little these appealed to everyone else: shaving in the huge wing mirrors, Italian motorway coffee, buying a kilo of pasta in a hypermarket for 12p and cooking it for lunch in the car park. For the non-driving contingent, most of the predicted upsides – lounging about on the big double bed at the back, having a wee, snacking from the fridge – were banished by EU law, which required them to remain belted in their seats whenever the Roller Team was in motion. As confirmed by a glance in my rear-view mirror, EU law had broken down completely before we'd even hit the M25. As I suspected, Liguria – all huddled hilltop towns linked by tight and sinuous roads – was not motor home country. The only Roller Team-sized parking area in my parents' village, Baiardo, in the hills behind San Remo and near to Ceriana, was outside the lonely hilltop cemetery, which didn't go down too well with the locals: Panda-driving widows by day, unhelmeted young scooterists by night. I felt bad leaving it there, but a lot worse whenever we took it out. A day trip around the region's forested hairpins to the summit of Monte Ceppo left the exterior garnished with twigs and sick, and a shopping run led to a nasty scrape – metaphorical, Bernie, metaphorical – with a car-park height-restriction bar. After four days, I was rather glad to get the big feller back out on a real road. The 350-mile haul down to Umbria had always looked the most gruelling leg on paper, our Le Mans. In fact, it was more of a Paris-Dakar job. The heat built steadily as the day wore on and the autostrada swung south. At midday, the scene in my mirror was one of colonial torpor: a lot of reclining pink-faced people fanning themselves with books. By mid-afternoon, I was getting more of a cholera-ward vibe. "If we were livestock," my wife croaked, "you'd be prosecuted for this." Yet Umbria was a delight, as long as I avoided the tight-walled, low-arched medieval town centres. The remote, red-cheeked mountain freshness of Liguria was gone, but the gently rolling countryside seemed imbued with cultivated, populous prosperity. We made it to our friends' new villa near Todi, though things got hairy when I approached our hosts with a cough and a brimming 20-litre container of what the manual preferred to style "black water". We were their first guests, and you could see them thinking: will everyone want to empty buckets of crap in the garden? Five relaxing days later we set off back north at 5am. It was our most illegal journey yet: we let the children sleep on in their beds, including that big double above the cab. Somehow the occupants didn't wake up even when my dimensional awareness let me down, and I smacked the roof straight into a petrol-station awning. The days were long and hot, the autoroute tolls huge and many, but on the trip back the motor home finally began to make sense even to the family's most vocal sceptic. How wonderful to stop in Pisa for the tower, and a shower. To have tea and a wee in Puy. "Come on, this is all a bit like Little House on the Prairie ," I suggested to my wife on the last night. "A bit," she conceded, flicking the lights out to terminate a Uno death-match being fought out somewhere up the cab end. "But a lot more like Big Van in the Lay-by." ■ Tim Moore's motor home was provided by Auto-Trail VR Ltd (01472 571000; auto-trail.co.uk ). See bourgdoisans.com and laforgedesaintemarie.com for campsites. Family holidays Camping Europe France Italy guardian.co.uk  <a href="http://www.onlinereporter.org/travel/moving-house-no-were-just-off-to-italy-to-visit-the-folks/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a>]]></description>
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		<title>Mountains to climb behind Haiti’s mountains</title>
		<link>http://www.onlinereporter.org/general/mountains-to-climb-behind-haiti%e2%80%99s-mountains/</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 18 Jan 2010 06:12:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>MSN UK Travel</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[ Channel 4 News producer Hannah Storm , writes from Haiti: There&#8217;s an old Haitian proverb that says behind the mountains there are more mountains, but it&#8217;s not just geographically. It seems for every mountain Haitians metaphorically have to climb another rises up. And we&#8217;re about to see that proverb tested more than ever before. The steep partially denuded hillsides are one of the first things you notice when you cross the border into Haiti. We drive west towards the capital, past lakes and peaks that appear eerie in the morning mist. Then it is through pasture, where men herd cattle and women carry heavy containers on their heads, passing a quiet rural poverty. That soon changes. Within an hour we are seeing the first signs of the devastation caused by the earthquake. I remember from the last time I was in Haiti six years ago the uncomfortable disparity between the azure Caribbean and the piles of rubbish and sewage in the slums that skirt the water. Haiti is no stranger to grinding poverty, the searing heritage of a country blighted by the failure over decades of its political and economic institutions. But the site of the homes partly or wholly collapsed and the piles of rubble provide images that are almost too epic to grasp. We are forced to take a difficult diversion through a steep sided riverbed, as one road has been blocked by debris from the earthquake. Our 4 <a href="http://www.onlinereporter.org/general/mountains-to-climb-behind-haiti%e2%80%99s-mountains/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a>]]></description>
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		<title>Why the good life is simplicity itself</title>
		<link>http://www.onlinereporter.org/general/why-the-good-life-is-simplicity-itself/</link>
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		<pubDate>Sat, 16 Jan 2010 23:06:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Features - MSN Travel UK</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[ If modern life has left you frazzled, a weekend break in Devon can teach you the pleasures of simple living There's a problem with holidays. However glorious the vistas, however thrilling the pursuits and however attentive the person allocated the task of dropping peeled grapes into your open mouth, there will always come a time when it is Monday morning again and you are returned to the humdrum realities of real life. The solution, of course, is to change that humdrum real life. So it was that I found myself on a holiday that promised to do just that. The mission of the Simple Living weekend is to teach "the survival skills for living outwardly simpler but inwardly richer lives". And in case that sounds a tad austere, the blurb insists there will also be plenty of "eating, drinking and pleasure-seeking". In short, this was a sort of crash course in the good life wrapped up in a bacchanalian feast somewhere on the north Devon coast. I was intrigued. Chatting with my fellow guests as we pitched our tents in a field behind an idyllic farmhouse, I discovered that while some professed to be seriously considering downshifting, others were merely toying with the idea of living more lightly, while one or two admitted they were here "because it sounded fun". My concern that I'd be surrounded by wannabe hippies for the weekend was unfounded – the most exotic creatures I uncovered were a hypnotherapist, a television presenter and a seriously jet-lagged Australian. Of the many holidays I've had during my life, this was the first to kick off with a talk in a village hall. Tom Hodgkinson, our host for the weekend, is the founder of the Idler magazine and the author of a slew of books that extol the virtues of loafing about, so it was a surprise to find ourselves on a whirlwind tour of a lecture that took in Epicurus, Samuel Johnson and Bertrand Russell before veering off towards Coleridge, Newton, Virgil and Henry VIII. We dipped into Daoism, swung by The Jungle Book and ended up with a meditation on "the unrelenting mattock" (more of which later). "Simple living," Tom was keen to reassure us, "is not about giving up luxury but about making life more luxurious, only in different ways." He was honest enough to confess that living simply is actually extremely complicated – after all, it's a lot easier to buy a jar of jam than to grow the fruit and make it yourself. It was perhaps just as well, then, that the weekend was packed with activities that would initiate us gently into the ways of simple pleasures. First, wild swimming expert Daniel Start infected us with his enthusiasm for plunging into rivers, streams, lakes, ponds, lagoons, waterfalls ("they all come free of charge"), then took us down some stunningly beautiful cliffs to a secret beach for a life-affirming encounter with the waves. The cove at Heddon's Mouth is so well hidden that it was invaded by the Germans during the second world war. A former U-boat captain admitted he had often hoved to just off-shore to allow his crew on the beach for a spot of R&#038;R. A bit cheeky, really. Our own dip in the sea was unusual if for a more prosaic reason: it was raining. I admit to being something of a fair weather swimmer so, as I stripped off behind a handily placed rock, I repeated, mantra-like, Daniel's advice: "Aim for a specific spot and by the time you've got there your body will feel OK." He's right, too. In no time I was bobbing around in the water and rejoicing in my victory over the vicissitudes of the English summer – after all, how much wetter could the rain make me? Others had really got into the spirit of the occasion and were clambering on to a rain-lashed rock just for the thrill of experimenting with different ways of re-entry into the sea. Feeling twice as alive as when we'd arrived at the beach, we strode through the woods to a nearby hostelry for a bit of multi-tasking: quaffing the local brew while attempting to discuss Thoreau and his two years spent in a hut by Walden pond. It's trickier than it sounds. Back at the farm, inspiration came from Tom and his wife Victoria themselves. They had given up their life in London to settle in this remote hamlet with their three children, two cats, one dog, one pony, a few chickens and some bees. Here was contentment, and they were keen to pass on their secrets, one of which was a determinedly hands-on approach to keeping body and soul together. Thus Tom took us to his vegetable patch to eat his peas fresh from the pod, learn how to plough with the ancient and unrelenting mattock – still an efficient digging tool – and generally revel in the joys of growing one's own food. Victoria unveiled the secrets of the apiarist and got us making bread – a hugely satisfying activity, particularly if you let yourself go a bit. Why settle for boring oblong when you can fashion your loaf into the shape of a rabbit or the face of Winston Churchill? The holiday's organiser, The School of Life, is an enterprise "offering good ideas for everyday living": a sort of philosophy shop where the deep thinking is served up with a side order of cheeky grin. One night we were treated to a "sing-along with a difference". Raucously thundering out Radiohead's "Creep" to the accompaniment of Tom's ukulele might not have taught us much about an alternative lifestyle but it certainly quashed the assumption that living the good life means becoming worthy but dull. I left on the final afternoon resolved, if not to escape to a smallholding in the wilds, at least to give my lifestyle a thorough overhaul. After all, as Tom declared in his Sunday morning talk – a witty yet heartfelt diatribe against society's obsession with work and lucre – "Whatever Benjamin Franklin might say, time is not money – it's a gift." Dixe Wills is the author of Tiny Campsites, published 24 April by Punk (£9.99) Essentials The School of Life's next Simple Living Holiday will be in July and will cost around £250pp (including all meals and camping) – tentophobes may book into a nearby B&#038;B; theschooloflife.com ; 020 7833 1010. First Great Western singles from London to Barnstaple from £12; firstgreatwestern.co.uk . Devon Food and drink Ethical holidays Short breaks Swimming holidays Dixe Wills guardian.co.uk  <a href="http://www.onlinereporter.org/general/why-the-good-life-is-simplicity-itself/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a>]]></description>
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		<title>Preparing to enter Haiti from Dominican Republic</title>
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		<pubDate>Sat, 16 Jan 2010 18:59:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Features - MSN Travel UK</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[ The Dominican Republic and Haiti might share the same island, but historically that&#8217;s where the similarities end, writes Channel 4 News producer Hannah Storm. The people of these two countries have different colonial forefathers, the French and Spanish, so speak different languages and while the streets of the Dominican Republic pulsate to the Latin rhythms of merengue and salsa, the culture of Haiti is a compelling mix of West African Creole, complete with Voodoo, and French colonial heritage. Haiti was the first place in the New World where Christopher Columbus attempted to construct a permanent settlement and in years gone by it was a tourist destination but today that privilege is reserved solely for those who live to the east. The Dominican Republic is a verdant land with a booming tourist industry. Crossing the border is like a entering a different world. There&#8217;s a visible line where the Dominican green ends and the brown-grey deforested landscape of Haiti begins. But for now we are in Santo Domingo the capital of the Dominican Republic, the first city actually built by the Europeans in the New World. And we are loading up with supplies to take to Haiti in the aftermath of Tuesday&#8217;s natural disaster . I ask Domingo our taxi driver if he felt the earthquake . &#8220;I felt a little shudder,&#8221; he explains, adding, &#8220;What happened in Haiti is a disaster. We haven&#8217;t been that alike in the past but now there&#8217;s a real solidarity between us and them. &#8220;The wards of the hospitals here are filling up with people. They are seeking refuge here. We want to help.&#8221; On the outside wall of a large commercial centre, a banner has been unfurled announcing a three-day fundraising drive for Haitians. Clearly we are not the first to come for supplies. The pharmacy is running low on anti-diarrhoea medicine. It has no more water purification tablets and we buy all of their stock of face masks and not those of the skin purifying kind. We have been warned that the smell of dead bodies is one we want to try and limit as much as possible. After buying various other bits and pieces, we go to the baby department. &#8220;You can never have too many wet wipes,&#8221; my colleague Graham says. As the mother of a small child, and knowing we&#8217;re going into a hot, dusty dirty place where clean running water is unlikely, I agree entirely. The hardware and camping departments supply us with a rope, penknives, tarpaulin, fuel cans, torches, batteries and a fold-up shovel. There are two teams from Channel 4 News ahead of us in Port-au-Prince and we are getting supplies for them too. Even still we left the UK in such a rush that we both need to pick up some warm weather clothes. Neither of the other teams was able to buy a map. It&#8217;s not as easy as it sounds. I finally lay my hands on what feels like the only map of the island in the country. I&#8217;m thankful to have grabbed my eight-year-old travel guide and taken it to the island. It&#8217;s already proved itself invaluable in many ways. In fact I had a Norwegian TV crew try and buy it from me as we arrived yesterday. We attract strange glances as we pile bottle after bottle of water into our trolley and then at the checkout a knowing word from the man behind us, &#8220;are you going to Haiti? It&#8217;s too terrible what has happened. Be so very careful.&#8221; Shopping list in hand we find another pharmacy for what is left to buy. The lady asks me to take some medicine she wants to donate. I apologise, feeling bad that I can&#8217;t help, but reassuring her we&#8217;ll leave what we don&#8217;t use behind. Like so many of the Dominican people we&#8217;ve met in the past 24 hours, she is visibly shocked by what has happened to her fellow islanders. She wishes us luck. Loaded up, we head for the airport to collect Jon Snow and a fellow producer Helene. They are bringing tents and sleeping bags and army-style rations. Then it&#8217;s a trip to the petrol station to fill those fuel containers, as Haiti has apparently all but run out of petrol. As we weave in and out of the traffic in Santo Domingo, less than a day before we expect to arrive in Port-au-Prince, past petrol stations, supermarkets and to a functioning airport, it&#8217;s a stark reminder of the disparities that can be present on such a small island.  <a href="http://www.onlinereporter.org/general/preparing-to-enter-haiti-from-dominican-republic/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a>]]></description>
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