SOUTH AFRICA: Connectivity Between KwaZulu-Natal And Zambia Improves

Trade relations between KwaZulu-Natal and Zambia, the province's most significant trading partner in Africa, are set for an injection of growth as a result of the establishment of a direct air link between Durban and the Zambian capital, Lusaka.

Speaking at a function in Lusaka to mark the official launch of new direct air route, Mr Michael Mabuyakhulu, MEC for Economic Development and Tourism, said: "We recognise that in spite of the previous absence of direct flights between Lusaka and Durban, Zambia is, in fact, KwaZulu-Natal's largest trading partner in Africa. Exports from our Province to Zambia in 2012 were valued at R2,47 billion and represented a pleasing 14,8% of KwaZulu-Natal's total exports into Africa."

In addition, some 30% of all South African imports from the African continent were sourced in Zambia last year.

"We have a well-established trade platform between us, but with a regular and frequent direct air link in place, the potential to increase and enhance relations and trade activities are infinite," he added.

The reciprocal, give-and-take potential of tourist travel to the business mix, would provide an additional 'heady blend' of economic activity, which would benefit both Zambia and KwaZulu-Natal.

The four-times-a-week SA Express air route, using a 50-seater CRJ 200 jet aircraft, between Durban and Lusaka became commercially operational in July last year and has enjoyed steady support, but is not yet running at full capacity. Dube TradePort Corporation and SA Express signed an agreement in 2012 resulting in the airline using King Shaka International Airport as its launch-pad into countries comprising the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

The move was designed to unlock key markets for the benefit of KwaZulu-Natal in targeted countries during the next two to three years, through the vigorous promotion of business and leisure travel, as well as trade and investment activities.

Mr Mabuyakhulu said the official launch function had provided the opportunity for role-players and decision-makers to come together, 'enabling still greater engagement with one another from an investment, business and leisure perspective.'

He led an appeal to business and tourism decision-makers in both KwaZulu-Natal and Zambia to 'give serious consideration as to how best to utilise SA Express flights between Lusaka and Durban to their own and their business advantage.'

"There exists a very real opportunity for us, jointly, to realise the true potential of our respective markets, creating new investment, business and tourism channels, platforms and alliances between us," he added.

In an attempt to further cement business relations between KwaZulu-Natal and Zambia, the celebratory launch function was also used to sign a Memorandum of Understanding between the Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Lusaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Mr Mabuyakhulu said: "The intention is to facilitate increased trade and business activity between members of these respective bodies, as well as other stakeholders. Co-operation between the two Chambers will also foster mutual understanding and awareness of available business opportunities in Lusaka and Durban."

The agreement was also set to pave the way for skills transfer and knowledge-sharing initiatives, while creating a platform for delegation exchanges and the identification of potential joint projects.

Mr Mabuyakhulu described the new direct air route as having 'huge potential' and one destined for significant growth, adding: "We are confident that the business community will find this an ever more attractive proposition, while leisure travellers will come to realise just how close and alluring the waters of the Indian Ocean really are."

Commenting on ongoing air connectivity initiatives, Ms Saxen van Coller, Dube TradePort Corporation's Chief Executive Officer, said: " We are working to significantly increase direct regional and international air services to and from Durban in an effort to transform this region into South Africa’s primary alternative gateway. We have developed a five-year strategy designed to identify and attract a growing number of carriers to utilise Durban’s King Shaka International Airport. An important player in this endeavour is, of course, SA Express with its commitment to linking Durban directly with a host of SADC countries, a move which creates endless new possibilities for our and Zambia's business and tourism communities."

Indications are that significant demand for international travel to and from Greater Durban exists, impacting on a large number of destinations world-wide. Statistics demonstrate that this market has grown by more than 70% in the past five years, although only 20% of passengers are able to fly internationally to and from King Shaka International Airport directly. The vast majority must still utilise domestic flights to or from Johannesburg's OR Tambo International Airport so as to connect to or from international destinations.

“The launch of the Lusaka route increases connectivity with Dube TradePort, assisting in the generation of economic efficiencies for business. Dube TradePort is the core of this airport-based business location, an area we are developing as a sustainable operating environment and one which provides for superior business growth and economic development,” said Ms van Coller.

The introduction of direct air routes to land-locked countries in the SADC region provide for the growth of new tourism markets and the provincial authority, Tourism KwaZulu-Natal, is intensifying its promotional activities in these areas.

Tourism KwaZulu-Natal Chief Executive Officer, Mr Ndabo Khoza, said of the Lusaka route: "Based on global travel trends, some 80% of inbound travellers emanate from regions within a four-hour flying radius and we have accordingly identified a need to actively address access to and by markets in the important SADC countries around South Africa.

We recognise that KwaZulu-Natal has a unique offering for the benefit of such markets… our golden beaches, warm Indian Ocean waters and year-round warmth. We are intent on robustly promoting our province in such markets, selling the beach experience, creating a platform for the benefit of new African tourists to Durban and KwaZulu-Natal."

Mr Phillip Sithole, Chief Executive Officer of Durban Tourism, added: “Durban’s key offerings like Ushaka Marine World, Moses Mabhida Stadium, The Beach Experience and the world class shopping malls are unique selling points to capture the Africa Market. We need to just start working with inbound Tour Operators to aggressively market “packaged tours" and increase our destination marketing initiatives.”

Mr Zamo Gwala, Chief Executive Officer of Trade & Investment KwaZulu-Natal, stressed: "Our province has a high export bias and an elevated industrial concentration. We make every effort to create and sustain an investment environment to the ultimate advantage of the local economy, investors and traders. With the implementation of the Durban-Lusaka air route, our organisation will work to harness the unquestionable benefits of synergistic linkages through the promotion of strategic partnerships, in line with the tactical business objectives of KwaZulu-Natal's Provincial Growth and Development Strategy."

Mr Andrew Layman, the Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry's Chief Executive Officer, said of the SA Express Durban-Lusaka air link: “We consider a direct route from Durban to Lusaka to be of tremendous value to those local businesses which are already trading in Zambia, or wish to do so in the future. We commend Dube TradePort and SA Express for providing new African links to Durban business people.”

Akash Singh, the President of the Durban Chamber, said: “We are very excited to see how Government is working hard to create an enabling environment for business. It is now time that business seize the opportunity and work even harder at increasing the current R2 billion cross border trade. Access to market is the single biggest inhibitor to business and in this case Government has made this possible.”

The Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Lusaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry during this visit. By the signing of this Memorandum, organised business both in Durban and Lusaka signify their intention to jointly pursue increased trade and business activity between their members and/or stakeholders to derive mutual economic benefit for their respective countries.

Mr Mabuyakhulu said: "In KwaZulu-Natal we have a leading and highly competitive destination; a destination of choice now for stakeholders in Zambia's business and tourist sectors. Direct flights introduced by SA Express provide the springboard necessary for taking existing and prospective new business dealings between KwaZulu-Natal and Zambia to an altogether new level.

This is an exciting prospect and one which brings with it the opportunity for hugely intensified trade relations and a brand new platform for quick and affordable tourist travel."

SOUTH AFRICA: Stranded South Africa Express Passengers Regret

It was 42 hours of chaos for most SA Express (SAX) passengers, left shocked and confused after the airline was grounded over this past weekend.

Most are angry about the airline’s apparent "lies and failure to communicate", with some saying they had to use Traveller24's updates to inform SAX staff about what was happening with their own airline and flights.

Thousands of SA Express passengers in South Africa and other Southern African countries were suddenly left stranded when South Africa’s aviation regulator, the SA Civil Aviation Authority (SACAA) grounded SAX over what it called “serious safety hazards” on Saturday.

But reports indicate SA Express was well aware of its problems due to non-compliance with safety issues, after failing two safety audits in April and then being given an SACAA deadline extension of Friday 29 April to fix all its issues.

However, the airline decided not to tell passengers that flights might be suspended.

SA Express CEO Inati Ntshinga claimed that the airline didn’t understand SACAA’s audit findings, telling passengers in a statement that he had “met with SACAA to obtain clarity on their audit related concerns and procedural issues that we needed to adhere to”.

In April, SA Express executives appeared before parliament’s select committee on public accounts to answer questions about the airline’s poor performance. According to a Sunday Times report, SA Express owes SAA’s technical division "more than R10 million in aircraft service charges", with some industry insiders alleging that the airline "did not have enough money" to carry out the required SACAA approved maintenance and stoking calls for the airline to be privatised.

Yet, on Saturday SA Express kept checking in passengers, knowing full well no flights would be departing, as departure boards flashed an “indefinite delay” notification. Passengers are questioning why they were not given more information at the time so that they could make alternative arrangements.

SA Express’ lack of timeous communication to stranded passengers on social media however became yet another classic corporate case-study of “how not to”, raising even more questions about SA Express’ lack of a proper standby plan in case of grounding.

On social media SA Express told passengers “we cannot apologise enough to smooth over the effect of all of this”.

‘We had to quote a tweet from Traveller24’

While SA Express barely responded, made no toll free telephone number available, and told people to go to its ticket counters, angry and confused passengers who missed funerals, weddings and connecting flights, vented and even took photos of empty and deserted SA Express ticket counters.

“None of the ground staff knew what was going on,” said Jacqueline Kinnear on Facebook. “We had to quote a tweet from Traveller24 to inform them”.

“We sat at the airport from 08:30 to 18:00. The communication was absolutely appalling. No-one answered any of the call centre lines that were dished out on social media.”

“Our daughter Sarah was issued with 3 different boarding passes throughout the day. She missed her connecting flights from CT to Dubai to South Korea. We could handle a delay. That happens from time to time. But being lied to and having to say goodbye 3 times was pure emotional hell for us”.

“Your service and customer care at Cape Town sucked. No-one knew what was going on and the communication was extremely poor,” said David Muller. “Why not be honest and upfront about these things? There were passengers travelling to East London that missed weddings and a lady recovering from an operation even missed her own father’s funeral!”

‘Phone numbers that only ring’

“When you refer passengers to your Facebook page and Twitter surely you should be communicating more than just the normal ‘covering your own backside’ information,” said Harry Welby-Cooke.

At 18:00 after sitting at the airport since 12:30, Belinda Vorster Welby-Cooke said her mom, 67 who has a cracked rib was only offered a pastry and warm water or juice. “On top of that SA Airlink made her pay for the extra 3kg that she was over. This because Airlink and SA Express has different baggage rules!”

Ielhaam Stephanus had live animals on its way to Bloemfontein on an SA Express flight. Living 80km from the airport, she dropped the animals at 06:00 on Saturday morning, only to be called at 10:00 and told she must collect them again.

“9 hours 14 minutes stuck in East London,” said Thandos Mtolo. “We’ve been told of a chartered flight that’s been arranged. Up to now, no further communication”.

“Phone numbers that only ring,” said Jolene Raison. “Brilliant way to just ignore the problem. How many people are stranded because of this? That’s how many people you aren’t going to see on your flights again. Had you bothered to assist those people, instead of listing phone numbers that don’t get answered, and posting weak apologies on Facebook, you could have salvaged the situation.”

USA: Solar Plane Arrives In Arizona

A solar-powered airplane landed in suburban Phoenix Monday night after a daylong flight from California — the latest leg in its around the world journey using only energy from the sun.

The Swiss-made Solar Impulse 2 arrived in the suburb of Goodyear, just to the southwest of Phoenix, shortly before 9 p.m. PDT.

Pilot Andre Borschberg called the 16-hour trip "a beautiful flight," after stepping from the cockpit.

"It was a special flight; not a long flight," he added.

The aircraft took off from Mountain View in northern California shortly after 5 a.m.

It began its globe-circling journey last year, and flew from Hawaii to the Silicon Valley last week.

After Phoenix, the plane will make two more stops in the United States before crossing the Atlantic Ocean to Europe or northern Africa, according to the website documenting the journey.

For several minutes after arriving, Borschberg remained aboard as powerful winds buffeted the aircraft, forcing the ground crew to hold down it down with straps.

"Sometimes it is more difficult to handle the airplane on the ground than in flight," he told reporters later.

Video from cameras aboard the aircraft as well as on the ground at the Goodyear airport showed the Solar Impulse as it flew through the night sky enroute to its safe touch down southwest of Phoenix.

Hours earlier, shortly after takeoff, Borschberg used his phone to snap photos of the sun coming up along the horizon. Then he prepared for media interviews and made breakfast plans.

"I'm heating up water for coffee," Borschberg told his ground crew. "A nice Nescafe."

His co-pilot, Bertrand Piccard, also of Switzerland, made the three-day trip from Hawaii to the heart of Silicon Valley, where he landed last week.

The Solar Impulse 2's wings, which stretch wider than those of a Boeing 747, are equipped with 17,000 solar cells that power propellers and charge batteries. The plane runs on stored energy at night.

The two legs to cross the Pacific were the riskiest part of the plane's travels because of the lack of emergency landing sites.

"We have demonstrated it is feasible to fly many days, many nights, that the technology works" said Borschberg, 63, who piloted the plane during a five-day trip from Japan to Hawaii and who kept himself alert by doing yoga poses and meditation.

The crew was forced to stay in Oahu for nine months after the plane's battery system sustained heat damage on its trip from Japan.

The single-seat aircraft began its voyage in March 2015 from Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates and made stops in Oman, Myanmar, China and Japan.

The layovers will give the pilots a chance to swap places and engage with local communities along the way so they can explain the project, which is estimated to cost more than $100 million and began in 2002 to highlight the importance of renewable energy and the spirit of innovation.

SOUTH AFRICA: Cliff-hanging Oranjekom Gorge Cottage Opens In Augrabies Falls National Park

Oranjekom Gorge Cottage

A new, gravity-defying cottage has been opened in the Augrabies Falls National Park, offering guests spectacular views over the iconic Oranjekom Gorge.

The Oranjekom Gorge Cottage is the result of popular tourist demand to have secluded accommodation facilities with a breathtaking view in the park, SANParks says.

This facility is absolutely unique as it is located beneath the viewpoint of the spectacular Oranjekom Gorge, offering unrivaled vistas of the Orange River flowing 240m below. Visitors can look forward to a luxurious one bedroom apartment with a fully-equipped self-catering kitchen and separate ablution facilities.

The cottage is priced at a base rate of R1 500, and can accommodate only two people - making it the perfect romantic getaway.

The unit also caters for guests with mobility impairment.

The ideal is to convert Augrabies Falls National Park into something more than just the Falls. "There is so much more to see and do at the Park other than a mere visit to the falls," park managers say.

The establishment of this new unit, which is 10km from the main rest camp, is one step in that direction.

In April this year, the Park announced a new catch-and-release fishing opportunity for visitors to the park. This activity also forms part of the move to market the park as more than just a destination to view the falls.

The Department of Economic Development and Tourism (DEDAT) provided R300 000 towards the construction of this establishment, via the DEDAT/SANParks partnership agreement. It was concluded during the 2013/2014 financial year, and was launched on 14 April this year.

If you are heading to Augrabies National Park in the next three months, you best stock up on petrol.

Augrabies NP sent out an alert saying they are working with Total South Africa to initiate a process to upgrade Filling Stations in the Park. "A contractor has been appointed to start with the work on the Filling Station at Twee Rivieren, staring 3 May 2016," the park says.

The upgrade will include the replacement of the underground fuel tanks, driveway, water drainage system and fuel pumps, and will be executed over a period of three months with construction work to take place daily between 08:00 and 16:30 from Mondays to Saturdays.

During this process the fuel station will only sell diesel fuel from a temporary above ground supply tank that will be situated in the camp reception area.

It is not possible to store and sell unleaded petrol from a similar tank system, hence the park's request for visitors to fill up their vehicles on route to the park at Askham, situated ±74km’s from the park on the R360.

Diesel and Unleaded fuel will be available at the other two main camps, Mata Mata and Nossob.

SOUTH AFRICA: 33 Lions Roar Into South Africa

It was the last time the 33 lions rescued by British charity Animal Defenders International (ADI) would be caged. But this time, the cages brought them to freedom - they are now finally in the 'Motherland', South Africa.

The roaring of lions echoed through OR Tambo international airport on Saturday when they arrived. ADI President Jan Creamer said, "The lions appeared healthy, but a little distressed by the long journey".

The lions' gruelling flight journey from South America was delayed in Brazil, and their arrival postponed with more than six hours. But despite the hold-ups, the lions arrived at their new home, Emoya Big Cat Sanctuary in Limpopo, just after midnight on Worker's Day, 1 May 2016.

"Spirit of Freedom Flight touched down in Johannesburg around 18:00 on Saturday, 30 April", where after the lions were trucked to the 5 000 hectare Big Cat Sanctuary and released.

The lions were originally expected to land at OR Tambo International Airport at 13:30 on Saturday.

The lions have come a long way from their life as abused, broken, circus cats to find freedom in SA.

Their previous caged lives would now hopefully be a distant memory as they live out their days in Emoya Big Cat Sanctuary.

Creamer said "These lions have endured hell on earth and now they are heading home to paradise. This is the environment for which these animals were intended. It is the perfect ending to ADI’s Spirit of Freedom mission which has eliminated circus suffering in another country.”

The Emoya Big Cat Sanctuary was opened by Savannah Heuser in 2012 when she was just 16 years old. The sanctuary has a no breeding policy and is not open to the public.

THAILAND: River Of Kings

Long tail boat on the Chao Phraya

When Somerset Maugham staggered from the Bangkok train station one steaming day in 1923, he knew exactly where to head: the Chao Phraya — the River of Kings — whose fresh breezes and open skies were even then a relief from the intensity of the Thai capital. Feeling the onset of malaria, Maugham checked into the Oriental Hotel, where verandas overlooked the busy waterfront. As his temperature climbed to 105 degrees, the writer, soaked in sweat and addled by hallucinations, overheard the Oriental’s owner telling his doctor that it would be bad for business if the author should die on the premises.

Maugham’s verdict on Bangkok would make a brutal TripAdvisor review today. In his travel memoir “The Gentleman in the Parlor,” he reviled the city’s “dense traffic,” its “ceaseless din,” its “insipid” cuisine and “sordid” houses. The Thais, he declared petulantly, are “not a comely race.”

But once he recovered, Maugham experienced a rush of euphoria at the waterside setting. He watched the parade of barges, sampans and tramp steamers pass by with “a thrill of emotion,” and conceded that the wats, the gilded and glittering temple complexes rising along the river, made him “laugh out loud with delight to think that anything so fantastic could exist on this sombre earth.”

I had a taste of Maugham’s extreme reactions as I sat in Bangkok’s nefarious traffic trying to get to the river on the first morning of a recent trip, although I was addled by nothing more dangerous than jet lag from the epic 21-hour flight from New York.

Laden with literary reference, the Oriental — now the Mandarin Oriental, although nobody calls it that — is still the obvious introduction to the Chao Phraya, which has in recent years returned to its status as an escape from the city’s urban chaos. The colonial-era edifice where Maugham stayed is now called the Author’s Wing. Although overshadowed by a 1970s addition, its exterior looks much as it did when it opened in 1887 and astonished the city with its luxurious imported carpets, Parisian wallpaper and electrified chandeliers. And the setting has not lost its soothing effect.

I pulled up a chair feet away from the “liver-coloured water swirling by,” as another famous guest, Noël Coward, put it. A parade of ferries, barges and steamboats still battles the surging currents, while islands of vegetation float past, washed downriver from the jungles of the northern provinces. It was a step back into a leisurely past, worlds away from the explosive neon energy of the central city.

It’s no secret that, despite recent political disorder, Bangkok has emerged as the unofficial capital of Southeast Asia. Everyone from Swedish aid workers to Vietnamese I.T. specialists prefers to live there and commute around the region to less dynamic cities.

The most alluring consequence for travelers has been the revival of the Chao Phraya, which was once the heart and soul of Bangkok. It was by its shores that the sumptuous royal district was built in the 18th century and, although Thailand is one of the few Asian countries never to be colonized, where European powers erected their legations and warehouses in the 19th.

It was along the river that Bangkok’s first road was built (an elephant track that became known as the New Road) and where a raucous Chinatown sprang up. The river was then so alluring that Bangkok was affectionately called “the Venice of the East,” a serene warren of canals, floating markets and stilt houses.

But after World War II, the focus of Bangkok moved north and east. The river districts fell into decay, their waters polluted. Travelers mostly stayed away and visited the waterfront as part of a day trip to the famous wats. It is only over the last two or three years that the river has been rediscovered by bohemian Thais and intrepid expats, creating a mix of decay and contemporary chic that evokes an Eastern New Orleans.

“The Chao Phraya is a lifeline of history, culture and spirituality,” said David Robinson, director of Bangkok River Partners, founded in 2013 to help coordinate the revival. “It’s changing but keeping its traditions. There are roast duck and congee shops there that are 100 years old.” The novelist Lawrence Osborne, who moved here from New York three years ago, agreed: “The modern city was thrown up over the last 40 years in gimcrack style. It looks like it might collapse any moment. You don’t feel that at all by the river — there’s a real sense of continuity.”

The parallels to New York’s adventures in urban renewal are not lost on Thai preservationists. Last year, Bangkok River Partners invited Joshua David, the co-founder of the High Line, to speak at a conference. He became fascinated by the Chao Phraya. “The river allows you to experience Bangkok in a completely different way,” said Mr. David, now president of the World Monument Fund. “An amazing variety of watercraft is still used by local communities and will take you to places you would never imagine existed.”

To me, the river also made Bangkok seem manageable. Over years of travel in Asia, I had somehow failed to venture outside its airport, in part because I was daunted by the prospect of navigating a megalopolis of over 8.5 million people that can seem like an alternate set from “Blade Runner.” But the idea of exploring by water made Bangkok more human-scale. I decided to spend my time entirely on the river to reimagine its golden age.

My inspiration would be less the jaundiced Maugham than Jozef Konrad Korzeniowski, a Polish sailor soon to be renowned as the author Joseph Conrad, who found himself in 1888 frequenting the Oriental Hotel saloon for a little over two weeks, chatting with the barflies, as was his wont, “of wrecks, of short rations, and of heroism.”

Conrad had taken over command of an Australian ship, the Otago, but was stuck in Bangkok waiting for his crew to recover from tropical illnesses — an experience that is reworked in his novel “Lord Jim” and the shorter works “The Shadow-Line,” “Falk” and “The Secret Sharer.” Although he had his life savings of 32 pounds stolen by his Chinese steward (who thoughtfully brushed and folded his clothes before disappearing), Conrad still felt fondly toward Bangkok, and never forgot its “gorgeous and dilapidated” temples, or the city’s “vertical sunlight, tremendous, overpowering, almost palpable, which seemed to enter one’s breast with the breath of one’s nostrils and soak into one’s limbs through every pore of one’s skin.”

As Conrad would surely agree, if the river traffic was hypnotic to watch, it was more satisfying to join. The variety of watercraft churning between the bobbing jetties was bewildering, ranging from high-speed long tail boats to private vessels and public ferries. I found the ferries definitely the most exotic, if not always the most comfortable. In peak hours, crowds squeezed into the sweltering below-decks like sardines, with yellow-robed monks and dapper businessmen alike jostling for elbow room while harangued by boat workers with megaphones, who bellowed “Go down! Go down! Go down!”

There are no continuous walkways along the river, so I made surgical strikes from the piers on foot, ducking in and out of laneways to the lapping waves. All along the right bank stood poetic ruins. The splendid 1887 offices of the East Asiatic Company sat vacant and awaiting rescue, while the stately Old Customs House had become a fire station sprouting greenery from gaping cracks. Catholic cathedrals and European embassies staggered on in crumbling glory, while the iron pins used to moor steamers that Conrad may have used quietly rusted.

One crooked lane led to the river temple where albino elephants were cremated, another to the sacred slab upon which Thai royals could be executed. (It was forbidden for royal blood to be spilled, so a bag was placed over the victim’s head and he was cudgeled to death — a considerate gesture.)

And yet, around every corner, ventures of startling modernity were sprouting: boutique hotels, restaurants and bars, often housed in small antique buildings, alongside a pioneering art gallery called Speedy Grandma or a bespoke furniture store like P. Tendercool. A new “Creative District” is even being marked out by the city on both sides of the river to promote local talent.

Its marquee site is the Jam Factory, a renovated warehouse complex set around a grassy courtyard with a high-end restaurant called the Never Ending Summer, all designed to appeal to natives first, tourists second. “Our real ambition is to get Bangkokians back to the river,” said Mr. Robinson of River Partners. “Travelers will follow. People want authenticity.”

To get a sense of the potential for the grandiose historic structures, I headed a few minutes away to Sathorn Road on the back of a motorbike-taxi. A century ago, this was the Fifth Avenue of Bangkok, lined with the palatial mansions of Thai sea merchants. Today, a lonely vestige from 1896, the House on Sathorn, is dwarfed on three sides by glassy skyscrapers. Originally the residence of a rice baron, it survived the demolition blitz that has ravaged Bangkok since the 1960s because it housed the Russian Embassy. The landmark reopened last year after a multimillion-dollar renovation as a glamorous restaurant and event space and has become a symbol of a new spirit of preservation.

“It has been an epic journey,” said Christine McGinnis, then the director of the Bangkok office of the United States design company AvroKO, which has overseen the project since 2008. “If this house was a child, it would be speaking and in school by now.” Construction problems included dealing with the ghost of the first owner’s mistress, who regularly spooked workers by overturning paintings she didn’t like during the night. (“It’s Thailand; there is always a story,” Ms. McGinnis said, laughing.)

Working with the city’s Fine Arts Department, the designers had to maintain the building’s historic integrity while making it commercially viable. Its Corinthian columns have elephant motifs carved into their wooden pediments; the color scheme is drawn from the Royal Thai costume, but the tapestries and artworks are all by contemporary local artists.

Afterward, we strolled back to the nearby pier to catch ferries in different directions. “Everyone is getting back to the river,” Ms. McGinnis said. “Everyone is getting inspired.”

“There is definitely a new interest in preserving Thai history,” said Dan Fraser, a Canadian expat who qualifies as a walking atlas to forgotten Bangkok, as we plunged by foot along the dark waterfront of the Talat Noi (“small market”) neighborhood. Here, the streets were built only broad enough to allow two rickshaws to pass, while shoulder-width alleys snake to the docks. “Wealthy Thais are coming back from trips to Europe, looking around and asking, ‘What have we done? Why are there so many 7-Elevens,’ ” Mr. Fraser said. “For the first time, people are openly admitting that unchecked development has all but destroyed Bangkok.”

Even a year ago, the conventional wisdom was that the river is thriving by day but dead after dark. All that has changed — if you know where to look. At least that was what I had been assured by Mr. Fraser, who has one of the most colorful résumés in the Thai expat world. He first arrived 15 years ago to tutor the children of the royal family in English and tennis, and he later achieved minor celebrity status as the star of Thai-language TV shows exploring local culture and food “through the eyes of a foreigner.”

The riverfront at night is his ideal stamping ground. “This used to be the real core of the city,” he said, as we zigzagged from the old Portuguese district toward Chinatown. “But since the 1960s, people have wanted to get away from here. So development has bypassed this area altogether, which is perfect for me. It’s maintained its Old World charm.”

In Talat Noi, the alleys were dark and deserted, but concealed secret worlds. Behind one screen door lay a bar with a broad wooden porch opening directly onto the river and decorated with mismatched retro furniture as if for a backyard barbecue. On the edge of Chinatown, a carved portal marked Teens of Thailand turned out to be the entrance to a bar by that name, with a dozen rickety seats and erotic photographs hanging on distressed concrete walls.

“Bangkok had no gin bar!” said Niks Anuman-Rajadhon, the bar’s co-owner, who sported a black T-shirt and a pompadour Elvis would have envied, as he concocted a batch of martinis with fresh pomegranates. “Every city has to have one, so I thought, let’s do it! We got about 30 gins together — including Bangkok’s own Iron Balls — and started experimenting.”

Before long, the night began to feel like the premise for “The Hangover Part IV.” I had not the slightest idea where we were — “even if we’d used a ball of twine, I doubt we could retrace our steps,” Mr. Fraser said happily — when we heard the haunting strains of traditional Thai music coming from what seemed to be a dilapidated merchant’s mansion.

Shouldering open the door, we found an establishment called Tep Bar, whose interior was lined with century-old worn teak and crowded with arty Thais; the ambience lay somewhere between a speakeasy and an opium den. The bar’s co-owner, Kong Lertkangwarnklai, was so excited that a pair of farang (foreign) explorers had arrived by accident that he insisted we sample an array of ya dong, ancient whiskey infused, he said, with 20 exotic herbs.

A half-dozen shot glasses materialized on a sumptuous golden tray adorned with mango pieces and pickled grapes. “Technically, ya dong is medicine,” Mr. Kong said, pushing the potent spirits forward. As I knocked the first glass back, I had a sudden vision of myself waking up in an alley with my memory of the night erased, perhaps with a tattoo across my forehead and a monkey on my shoulder.

Dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt and sporting the suggestion of a goatee, Mr. Kong seemed an unlikely cultural revolutionary. But he said that he had given up a successful career in advertising for this attempt to keep Thai history alive — which starts with the bar’s name, a nod toward the Thai title for the city, Krungthep, roughly, “City of Angels.”

“Everyone in Bangkok is trying to be someone else,” he said. “But what about our roots? Why are we throwing everything away?” At first, the retro impulse behind the bar, which Mr. Kong opened last year, felt like a quixotic gamble, he recalled. “Nobody believed in us. They thought the location, the concept, everything would fail! They didn’t think Thai people would come to such a place.” The bar was packed with a crowd that seemed spellbound by the music (enhanced, no doubt, by the ya dong).

It was about 3 a.m. when I wandered back to a lonely pier, staring out at the inky waters reflecting the lights of passing barges. A decade from now, Mr. Robinson, of the Bangkok River Partners, predicted, the Chao Phraya would be transformed but still be recognizable. “Our vision is of a cleaner river, with more walkable areas, enriched with creative industries and renovated warehouses and clusters of art galleries you can visit without sitting all day in a taxi,” he said. “But at the same time, all the old roast duck shops and congee stores will still be there. They’ll just be 10 years older.”

JAPAN: Visit Osaka And Enjoy The Food

I sat in the passenger seat of a station wagon with my friend Brian, an American who is living and raising a family in Osaka — his cute toddler was snoozing in the back — as he explained local rivalries. We were driving down Midosuji Boulevard, the main thoroughfare in central Osaka. Conflicts between the Kansai region, where Osaka sits, and the Kanto region, which Tokyo calls home, can get intense, he said. People stand on opposite sides of the escalator in the two cities, make fun of how the other speaks, and instant ramen companies flavor their udon broths differently depending on the region, putting a small “E” or “W” on the packaging to denote “East” (Kanto/Tokyo) or “West” (Kansai/Osaka) Brian grew up in Texas: “You know how Texas sort of thinks it’s its own country and plays by its own rules?” he asked. “That’s Osaka.”

One thing both Tokyo and Osaka have in common: They’re both famously expensive cities. I had already spent time in Tokyo on a modest budget (more on that next week) and decided to see if Osaka and its individualism would prove as accessible.

Particularly when it came to food. Osaka has a fantastic high-end dining scene, from places that serve pricey Kobe beef (Kobe is just 40-minutes away by car) to the menu at Fujiya 1935, a Spanish restaurant with three Michelin stars and a spot on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. Where it really shines, though, is in its casual comfort food and street food — inexpensive bites that got me excited to explore the city. I’d also heard Osaka was the ideal place to try pufferfish — the sea creature with lethally poisonous organs.

But before potentially deadly fish, there were lodgings to arrange. Even that had toxic potential: I managed to inadvertently book a room at a “short-stay” hotel — which is a nice way of saying a “love hotel.”

The concept of a love hotel is as old as time itself, obviously, but the actual name “love hotel” originated, according to some, in the 1960s with an old Osakan concrete building called Hotel Love. The modern Japanese love hotel caters to those seeking discretion in their affairs, payable typically in hours-long increments. It also allows for tourists and regular guests too, however, something I didn’t realize when I booked the $89-per-night room on Hotels.com.

I should have been tipped off when I walked into the completely empty lobby. A woman eventually peeked out from behind a sliding panel on the near wall and greeted me. The check-in process at an overseas hotel usually takes at least five or 10 minutes; photocopies of passports are made, credit card deposits are taken. This took about 10 seconds: The woman wordlessly showed me a piece of paper with a bunch of names on it. I noticed my name, and pointed to it. She gave me a room key and slid the panel shut. That was it. I didn’t even have to show ID.

The room, though, was decent enough. The bathroom had a slight mildew smell, but the room was the most spacious I had during the 10 days I spent in Japan. The queen bed was also the largest. There was a large control panel on the headboard that allowed me to control the air-conditioning, stereo and every light in the room, all without getting out of the bed. And there was a karaoke machine. And a very large bathtub. Did I mention the name of the hotel? It’s called Public Jam.

It was all just bizarre enough to encourage me to get out and about. Fortunately, I was close to Dotonbori, the main night life and restaurant area in Osaka. Focused around an east-west canal in Namba district in the center of town, Dotonbori is a tightly woven lattice of streets filled with various restaurants, bars, shops and gigantic signage. With space at a premium, vendors had to compete for eyeballs, which led to the creation of the Glico man, for instance, or the giant mechanical crab atop Kani Doraku, a seafood restaurant chain.

I walked along the canal one evening, dodging tourist and locals alike, past hosts and hostesses of different nightclubs trying to entice clients through their doors. I knew I wanted to try kushikatsu, skewers of deep-fried meat and veggies accompanied by a sweet, tangy sauce, and takoyaki, battered balls that are typically filled with small pieces of octopus and covered in various toppings. I knew I had run into my first destination when I almost tripped over a giant, extremely ornery-looking fiberglass man holding what looked like two corn dogs on sticks. I was at Daruma, a chain famous for its kushikatsu.

The place was packed, but I took advantage of being a solo traveler, wedging myself in between two people at the counter and placing my order: 1,400 yen (about $13) for a nine-piece combo of assorted meats and vegetables covered in a panko-based batter — panko is a crunchy, light breadcrumb — and deep fried. A chopsticks holder and a large communal container of dipping sauce lay on the counter before me. On the sauce container was a warning: Please only dip once! (Brian had warned me earlier: “They’ll get really mad if you double-dip.”)

My food arrived quickly, and I scarfed down my servings of beef, asparagus, shrimp, rice cake and fish sausage (among other things), pulled hot out of the fryer just seconds earlier, still dripping with fat. Did I always know what kind of skewer I was eating? No, and it didn’t particularly matter. The primary texture was a fine, airy crunch, and the main flavor was the thick, communal sauce that tasted of Worcestershire.

Osakans love their sauces — especially their brown sauces. Takoyaki sauce is not unlike the kushikatsu sauce, but it struck me as being slightly lighter and maybe a little fruitier. I ate a lot of takoyaki during my stay in Osaka, but my favorite was probably from Takoyaki Ebisu, outside of the Dotonbori area near the Nippombashi train station. I paid 450 yen for 12 pieces. (Within Dotonbori, expect to pay a premium — I bought takoyaki there that cost 500 yen for eight pieces). The golf ball-sized spheres were fresh and scalding hot. The wheat-based batter was goopy and filling, and the dozen balls came topped with shaved bonito flakes, pickled ginger and the sweet, sticky brown sauce.

It’s worth noting that these dishes are available all over the city. Shinsekai, in particular, is known for being the birthplace of kushikatsu. Shinsekai, in the southern part of Osaka, is a neighborhood known for being slightly seedy; I found it perfectly pleasant and safe, though it does gives the impression of a part of town that time and economic progress forgot. An enormous, aging 100-meter-high structure modeled after the Eiffel Tower called Tsutenkaku serves as the focal point of the area. Some modest shops and restaurants line the streets — foot traffic, usually so heavy in major Japanese cities’ shopping areas, is light in Shinsekai. I passed a woman running a carnival-style air rifle game in a shopping arcade: The prizes for winning were Pringles and Ritz crackers.

I couldn’t leave Shinsekai without trying kushikatsu, so I went to Kushikatsu Zanzan where, according to Brian, they served scorpion skewers. Sadly, they were sold out. I had a five-skewer vegetable sampler, though, and paid around 650 yen. The best cheap eat I found, though, was a tiny shop near Tennoji Park where I picked up two beautiful pieces of onigiri (rice balls wrapped in nori) with pickled ginger and a bowl of soup for only 100 yen.

I may have missed the scorpion, but I still had pufferfish ahead of me. Zuboraya is a chain known for serving the poisonous fugu, as it’s called in Japanese. Now why wouldn’t you want to eat this little guy? Because the tetrodotoxin found within can be highly poisonous, as these five men found out last year when they asked to eat the pufferfish liver (Tip: Don’t ever, ever do that).

Many consume the fish without incident, however, when it’s properly prepared. I ordered a pufferfish sashimi lunch at Zuboraya, said some mental prayers and ate the thin, pallid slices off of the plate in front of me.

What did it taste like? Not a whole lot. The dainty slices had a correspondingly light flavor, and the texture was slightly chewy. After the initial piece, I started dipping them in the accompanying shoyu to give them some — any — kind of flavor. And, to my relief, I didn’t become ill or die afterward. But for 950 yen, I suppose it was worth the very slight thrill of knowing I was living on the edge of the culinary knife.

The best eating experience I had, as frequently happens, came purely accidentally. At another lunch, I found myself smack dab in the middle of a place called Shin-Umeda Shokudogai. I saw a queue of people waiting outside a door with a small yellow sign that read “Kiji” in Hiragana characters (it means “green pheasant,” the national bird of Japan, according to my Internet research). I often found that a good foreign country mealtime strategy is: find a place with a long line of locals.

So I joined, having quite literally no idea what to expect. At 11:30 a.m. the door opened and a small group of us were whisked inside, up a narrow winding staircase, into a cramped restaurant with a few tables and a modest, open kitchen. There were some stools set up directly on the large, flat top grill that dominated the room. We sat as the chef slowly began working, ladling a chunky mixture onto the grill, like a thick pancake: okonomiyaki. The quintessential Osakan dish, it derives its name from “okonomi,” meaning “what you like.” In this case, you can take that to mean “anything and everything.” After ladling the battered mixture of flour, dashi, egg and cabbage onto the hot grill, the chef dressed the pancakes with pork belly, seafood, onions, shiso leaf and other assorted vegetables.

When your pancake is done, it isn’t served to you on a plate. The chef merely slides it over and you eat off the grill. The woman next to me was eating something else; I pointed and asked what it was, as it looked fantastic. “Modanyaki,” she said. It was a huge portion of yakisoba — fried wheat noodles mixed with bits of pork, cabbage and other vegetables — that had been whisked with an egg mixture and poured onto the grill, like a giant omelet. She saw me staring at her food, and I embarrassedly looked away. While her English was limited and my Japanese nonexistent, she apparently could read minds: She cut off a small portion of her dish and slid it over to me. I did the same with my okonomiyaki.

My dish (680 yen) was heavier, heartier, deeply filling. Her dish, though, I liked even better: crunchy cabbage and crispy fried noodles, joined together with the fluffy egg mixture. We ate mostly in silence, as did the rest of the patrons; my new friend and I didn’t speak, but it wasn’t necessary. We both felt how lucky we were to be there at that moment, enjoying the finest lunch the city had to offer.

CUBA: Carnival Heads To Cuba

The Adonia, a cruise ship from Carnival’s new Fathom line.

Carnival Corporation will begin offering a seven-day cruise to three Cuban cities starting May 1 after Cuban authorities lifted a longstanding restriction that barred people born in Cuba from traveling to the island by sea.

The prospect of Carnival operating a cruise that excluded Cuban-born passengers had drawn fierce protests from the Cuban community in the United States and from American officials, and prompted Carnival to say it would delay its trips until the problem was resolved.

However, Cuba announced in a statement on Friday that Cubans could now travel to and from the island by commercial vessel.

Carnival will be the first company to offer cruises or ferry service on an American vessel between the United States and Cuba in half a century.

The Adonia, of Carnival’s Fathom brand, which can host 704 travelers, will set sail from Miami and dock in the Bay of Havana for two nights. Then it will round the western tip of Cuba and spend one night at Cienfuegos, a French-influenced, former sugar-trading hub on the island’s southern coast. The ship will make a final stop at Santiago de Cuba, at the far eastern tip of the island, before returning to Miami.

Passengers on the ship have to travel under one of 12 categories of licensed travel to Cuba, which include so called people-to-people trips that involve a full-time schedule of engagement with Cuban people and culture. Arnold W. Donald, chief executive of Carnival Corporation, told reporters on a conference call on Friday that Fathom will offer talks, concerts and workshops to allow “deep immersion” in Cuba. The company would take care of visas and of retaining documentation required by the Treasury Department about how passengers spent their time.

The rules for Cubans are different: They are allowed under Treasury Department regulations to visit Cuba from the United States; Cuban authorities demand that they do so with their Cuban passport.

Mr. Donald said that there had been few inquiries so far from prospective Cuban passengers but that he expected to receive more now that Cuban authorities had said they could travel to the island by sea.

Royal Caribbean International and Norwegian Cruise Line, both based in Miami, have expressed interest in operating cruises to Cuba but need authorization from the Cuban government.

American travelers are also allowed to join cruises sailing to Cuba from non-American ports, so long as they are licensed to travel to the island and are not simply tourists.

The Cuban government’s decision to allow Cubans to travel to the island by sea may unblock months of delays in getting Cuban authorization for American ferry operators who wish to sail between Florida and Havana, said Robert Muse, an expert in Cuba-related law. Ferry service could significantly reduce the cost of reaching Cuba from the United States, which is currently only possible on expensive charter flights.

Several ferry companies, including Havana Ferry Partners of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and Baja Ferries, a Florida-based company that operates routes in Mexico, were granted licenses from the Treasury Department to operate routes from the United States to Cuba almost a year ago. But Mr. Muse, who handled Baja Ferries’ license application, said the company – and other prospective ferry operators - had yet to receive authorization from the Cuban government.

With the latest change in Cuban rules for travel by sea, he hoped negotiations “can move swiftly,” he said.

SOUTH AFRICA: Fly Blue Crane Alive On Travelport

Travelport has partnered with Fly Blue Crane to offer its merchandising solution, Travelport Rich Content and Branding.

The airline was launched in September 2015 and offers travel opportunities to various business and leisure destinations within the Southern African region, including Johannesburg, Cape Town, Bloemfontein and Kimberley.

The new multi-year global agreement with Travelport, gives the 68,000 Travelport-connected travel agency customers access to Fly Blue Crane’s content via Travelport’s Travel Commerce Platform.

Fly Blue Crane is now the latest carrier to go live on Travelport’s Rich Content and Branding solution which allows airlines to present their complete offerings to travel agents including graphical images and descriptions.

Approximately 160 airlines are now live with Travelport Rich Content and Branding. Building on this success, Travelport has recently also added the capability for airlines to make tailored or personalised offers to both individual travel agencies and/or Travel Management Company services.

KENYA: Nairobi Matatu With Animal Print Graffiti

Hottest matatu in Nairobi with animal print graffiti

The jaguar is the biggest cat in America.

It has a compact body, broad head, powerful jaws and its coat is normally yellow and tan.

A mathree registed to River Of God (ROG) Sacco has adopted this name to prove its strength on the road.

Popularly known as animal print due to its strikingly patterned body, Jaguar is popular with Buruburu and Civil Servants residents.

“Guys have fallen in love with the mathree. You know, the animal print is striking and unique,” explains Mike Otieno, a crew member.

The mathree’s interior graffiti is striking. “We have discovered that passengers are attracted by the animal print graffiti and the bold mural of a jaguar’s head at the front,” adds Mike.

The mathree has four woofers and 14 mid-range speakers to support a 42-inch LED screen at the front.

Gulf Of Guinea

The Gulf of Guinea is the northeasternmost part of the tropical Atlantic Ocean between Cape Lopez in Gabon, north and west to Cape Three Points in Western region Ghana. The intersection of the Equator and Prime Meridian (zero degrees latitude and longitude) is in the gulf.

Among the many rivers that drain into the Gulf of Guinea are the Niger and the Volta. The coastline on the gulf includes the Bight of Benin and the Bight of Bonny.

The Niger River in particular deposited organic sediments out to sea over millions of years which became crude oil. The Gulf of Guinea region, along with the Congo River delta and Angola further south, are expected to provide around a quarter of the United States' oil imports by 2015.This region is now regarded as one of the world's top oil and gas exploration hotspots.

The origin of the name Guinea is thought to be an area in the region, although the specifics are disputed. Bovill (1995) gives a thorough description:

The name Guinea is usually said to have been a corrupt form of the name Ghana, picked up by the Portuguese in the Maghrib. The present writer finds this unacceptable. The name Guinea has been in use both in the Maghrib and in Europe long before Prince Henry's time.

For example, on a map dated about 1320 by the Genoese cartographer Giovanni di Carignano, who got his information about Africa from a fellow-countryman in Sijilmas,ancient trading city in North Africa, we find Gunuia, and in the Catalan atlas of 1375 as Ginyia.

A passage in Leo Africanus points to Guinea having been a corrupt form of Jenne (2,000-year-old city in central Mali on Niger river), less famous than Ghana but nevertheless for many centuries famed in the Maghrib as a great market and a seat of learning.

The relevant passage reads: "The Kingdom of Ghinea . . . called by the merchants of our nation Gheneoa, by the natural inhabitants thereof Genni and by the Portugals and other people of Europe Ghinea."

But it seems more probable that Guinea derives from aguinaou, the Berber for Negro. Marrakech the city in southeastern Morocco has a gate, built in the twelfth century, called the Bab Aguinaou, the Gate of the Negro. The modern application of the name Guinea to the coast dates only from 1481. In that year the Portuguese built a fort, São Jorge da Mina (modern day Elmina), on the Gold Coast region, and their king, John II, was permitted by the Pope (Sixtus II or Innocent VIII) to style himself Lord of Guinea, a title that survived until the recent extinction of the monarchy.

The name "Guinea" was also applied to south coast of West Africa, north of the Gulf of Guinea, which became known as "Upper Guinea", and the west coast of Southern Africa, to the east, which became known as "Lower Guinea." The name "Guinea" is still attached to the names of three countries in Africa: Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, and Equatorial Guinea, as well as New Guinea in Melanesia.

Islands in the Gulf of Guinea
The Gulf of Guinea contains a number of islands, the largest of which are in a southwest-northeast chain, forming part of the Cameroon line of volcanoes.

Annobón
Annobón, also known as Pagalu or Pigalu, is an island that is part of Equatorial Guinea.

Bobowasi Island
Bobowasi Island is an island off the west coast of Africa in the Gulf of Guinea that is part of Western region Ghana.

Bioko
Bioko is an island off the west coast of Africa in the Gulf of Guinea that is part of Equatorial Guinea.

Corisco
Corisco is an island belonging to Equatorial Guinea.

The Elobeys
Elobey Grande and Elobey Chico are two small islands belonging to Equatorial Guinea.

São Tomé and Príncipe
São Tomé and Príncipe (officially the Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe) is a Portuguese-speaking island nation in the Gulf of Guinea that became independent from Portugal in 1975. It is located off the western equatorial coast of Africa and consists of two islands, São Tomé and Príncipe. They are located about 140 kilometres (87 mi) apart and about 250 and 225 kilometres (155 and 140 mi), respectively, off the northwestern coast of Gabon.

Both islands are part of an extinct volcanic mountain range. São Tomé, the sizeable southern island, is situated just north of the Equator.

KENYA: Miracle Baby Girl Found Alive In Huruma Collapsed House,Four Days After

There were celebrations at the Huruma collapsed building site Tuesday morning after rescuers rescued a baby girl alive from the rubbles four days after the incident happened.

The child aged about one and half years was found emaciated on the first floor of the building as the rescue team removed the rubbles and rushed her to hospital. The rescue happened Tuesday at about 4 am. Officials say the child is now being stabilised at the Kenyatta National Hospital and had run out of energy.

The death toll from the scene stands at 23 and so far 136 have been rescued. Rescuers say they intend to clear the rubbles Tuesday even as 117 are reported missing. Kenya Red Cross, which is among those in rescue mission tweeted: “Good news! A child aged about one and half years rescued alive at 0400 hours and referred to Kenyatta National Hospital.”

Nairobi police boss Japheth Koome said the teams at the scene were working hard to save more lives.

“It’s a miracle and good news to us with the rescue of the baby. The operation is ongoing,” he said. This came as police prepared to charge five people in court with manslaughter over the incident. The five include officials from National Construction Authority, City Hall’s inspectorate department, an engineer in charge of the area and the two brothers who own the house.

The house collapsed on Friday night trapping dozens of people. It has since emerged the house never had a plan nor was it approved by authorities. The hunt on more officials involved in the construction is ongoing.

USA: Death Valley And What Many Don't See

Marble Canyon provides a view of Death Valley National Park that is not seen by most visitors. Backpackers traverse the site as part of a 27-mile loop trail.

Death Valley National Park is known as the hottest, driest and lowest place in the country, a scorching desert that for half the year is fit only for European tourists with a perverse desire to experience hell on Earth.

Of course, the largest national park in the lower 48 offers much more than desert flats for those willing to look. To see one of the more unique locations, visitors must engage in a rare activity at Death Valley: backpacking.

A hiking buddy and I backpacked the Cottonwood Canyon-Marble Canyon loop during a four-day trip in early March. The 27-mile route can be done in three days, but we spent an extra day exploring side canyons.

The loop passes through groves of cottonwoods, over rolling terrain and through narrow canyons and lush oases. Most important, the route follows reliable spring streams. The area is one of the few in Death Valley with a consistent water source, streams fed by snow from the nearby 7,000-foot-tall Hunter Mountain. The ridges and washes were full of colorful wildflowers, such as the golden evening primrose, in the waning days of a “super bloom” that only happens about once every decade.

“It’s hands-down the most popular place to backpack at the park,” said Charlie Callaghan, wilderness coordinator at Death Valley, who attributes the popularity to the water sources and the looped route.

While it may be the most popular, the loop’s estimated backpack traffic is only 300 people a year, in a park that attracts about a million visitors annually. Other than a large group of college students backpacking on spring break, we encountered just a handful of people.

We got to the Cottonwood Canyon trailhead by traveling a dirt road about 10 miles from Stovepipe Wells, a tiny community on Highway 190. The road is passable only with a high-clearance vehicle.

The drive took us out of the wide-open terrain of the valley and into the red walls of Cottonwood Canyon. The hike gradually increased in elevation, which along with the high canyon walls blocking the sun reduced the heat to a nearly perfect mid-60s.

By sunset we reached an ideal campsite in a locale that looked nothing like how people imagine Death Valley. It had trees, grass and running water — an oasis.

While there is no marked trail on the loop, the route to the end of Cottonwood Canyon is easy to follow, along canyon walls and the springs that run much of the way. Still, the trip is not to be done without a map, especially for navigating the section between Cottonwood Canyon and Marble Canyon. We used a GPS file downloaded from the park’s website. The site has other useful information about backpacking the loop and other areas of Death Valley.

That section between the two canyons, in fact, is the trickiest part of the hike. The challenge starts at the ridge of Deadwood Canyon, about 4,000 feet up and with a multicolored vista stretching several miles to Death Valley. To get to the bottom, you have to descend about 600 feet across a steep slope of loose rock. Both of us have covered similar terrain in the Sierra, but were still relieved when we got to the bottom.

From there, it was only a short jaunt to another lush campsite, where we stayed for two nights. We took a day trip into the upper Marble Canyon, which required more scrambling to get around an 8-foot dry fall in Deadwood Canyon.

On the final day, we encountered the highlight of the trip, the narrows of Marble Canyon. The high and tight colorful canyon walls are like something you’d expect to see in southern Utah.

“Marble Canyon is the most spectacular narrows in the park,” said Callaghan.

As we reached Marble Canyon’s intersection with Cottonwood Canyon, we could see our car and the vast, flat expanse that is Death Valley. Having hiked beautiful canyons for several days, we both realized that the park is so much more than flat desert.

THAILAND; Chao Phraya River Or Rivers Of Babylon

Dusk along the Chao Phraya River, a view from the Mandarin Oriental, in Bangkok

When Somerset Maugham staggered from the Bangkok train station one steaming day in 1923, he knew exactly where to head: the Chao Phraya — the River of Kings — whose fresh breezes and open skies were even then a relief from the intensity of the Thai capital. Feeling the onset of malaria, Maugham checked into the Oriental Hotel, where verandas overlooked the busy waterfront. As his temperature climbed to 105 degrees, the writer, soaked in sweat and addled by hallucinations, overheard the Oriental’s owner telling his doctor that it would be bad for business if the author should die on the premises.

Maugham’s verdict on Bangkok would make a brutal TripAdvisor review today. In his travel memoir “The Gentleman in the Parlor,” he reviled the city’s “dense traffic,” its “ceaseless din,” its “insipid” cuisine and “sordid” houses. The Thais, he declared petulantly, are “not a comely race.”

But once he recovered, Maugham experienced a rush of euphoria at the waterside setting. He watched the parade of barges, sampans and tramp steamers pass by with “a thrill of emotion” and conceded that the wats, the gilded and glittering temple complexes rising along the river, made him “laugh out loud with delight to think that anything so fantastic could exist on this sombre earth.”

I had a taste of Maugham’s extreme reactions as I sat in Bangkok’s nefarious traffic trying to get to the river on the first morning of a recent trip, although I was addled by nothing more dangerous than jet lag from the epic 21-hour flight from New York.

Laden with literary reference, the Oriental — now the Mandarin Oriental, although nobody calls it that — is still the obvious introduction to the Chao Phraya, which has in recent years returned to its status as an escape from the city’s urban chaos. The colonial-era edifice where Maugham stayed is now called the Author’s Wing. Although overshadowed by a 1970s addition, its exterior looks much as it did when it opened in 1887 and astonished the city with its luxurious imported carpets, Parisian wallpaper and electrified chandeliers. And the setting has not lost its soothing effect.

I pulled up a chair feet away from the “liver-coloured water swirling by,” as another famous guest, Noel Coward, put it. A parade of ferries, barges and steamboats still battles the surging currents, while islands of vegetation float past, washed downriver from the jungles of the northern provinces. It was a step back into a leisurely past, worlds away from the explosive neon energy of the central city.

It’s no secret that, despite recent political disorder, Bangkok has emerged as the unofficial capital of Southeast Asia. Everyone from Swedish aid workers to Vietnamese IT specialists prefers to live there and commute around the region to less dynamic cities.

The most alluring consequence for travelers has been the revival of the Chao Phraya, which was once the heart and soul of Bangkok. It was by its shores that the sumptuous royal district was built in the 18th century and, although Thailand is one of the few Asian countries never to be colonized, where European powers erected their legations and warehouses in the 19th.

It was along the river that Bangkok’s first road was built (an elephant track that became known as the New Road) and where a raucous Chinatown sprang up. The river was then so alluring that Bangkok was affectionately called “the Venice of the East,” a serene warren of canals, floating markets and stilt houses.

But after World War II, the focus of Bangkok moved north and east. The river districts fell into decay, their waters polluted. Travelers mostly stayed away and visited the waterfront as part of a day trip to the famous wats. It is only over the past two or three years that the river has been rediscovered by bohemian Thais and intrepid expats, creating a mix of decay and contemporary chic that evokes an Eastern New Orleans.

“The Chao Phraya is a lifeline of history, culture and spirituality,” said David Robinson, director of Bangkok River Partners, founded in 2013 to help coordinate the revival. “It’s changing but keeping its traditions. There are roast duck and congee shops there that are 100 years old.” Novelist Lawrence Osborne, who moved here from New York three years ago, agreed: “The modern city was thrown up over the last 40 years in gimcrack style. It looks like it might collapse any moment. You don’t feel that at all by the river — there’s a real sense of continuity.”

The parallels to New York’s adventures in urban renewal are not lost on Thai preservationists. Last year, Bangkok River Partners invited Joshua David, the co-founder of the High Line, to speak at a conference. He became fascinated by the Chao Phraya. “The river allows you to experience Bangkok in a completely different way,” said David, now president of the World Monument Fund. “An amazing variety of watercraft is still used by local communities and will take you to places you would never imagine existed.”

To me, the river also made Bangkok seem manageable. Over years of travel in Asia, I had somehow failed to venture outside its airport, in part because I was daunted by the prospect of navigating a megalopolis of more than 8.5 million people that can seem like an alternate set from “Blade Runner.” But the idea of exploring by water made Bangkok more human-scale. I decided to spend my time entirely on the river to re-imagine its golden age.

My inspiration would be less the jaundiced Maugham than Jozef Konrad Korzeniowski, a Polish sailor soon to be renowned as the author Joseph Conrad, who found himself in 1888 frequenting the Oriental Hotel saloon for a little more than two weeks, chatting with the barflies, as was his wont, “of wrecks, of short rations, and of heroism.”

Conrad had taken over command of an Australian ship, the Otago, but was stuck in Bangkok waiting for his crew to recover from tropical illnesses — an experience that is reworked in his novel “Lord Jim” and the shorter works “The Shadow-Line,” “Falk” and “The Secret Sharer.” Although he had his life savings of 32 pounds stolen by his Chinese steward (who thoughtfully brushed and folded his clothes before disappearing), Conrad still felt fondly toward Bangkok. He never forgot its “gorgeous and dilapidated” temples or the city’s “vertical sunlight, tremendous, overpowering, almost palpable, which seemed to enter one’s breast with the breath of one’s nostrils and soak into one’s limbs through every pore of one’s skin.”

As Conrad would surely agree, if the river traffic was hypnotic to watch, it was more satisfying to join. The variety of watercraft churning between the bobbing jetties was bewildering, ranging from high-speed long tail boats to private vessels and public ferries. I found the ferries definitely the most exotic, if not always the most comfortable. In peak hours, crowds squeezed into the sweltering below-decks like sardines, with yellow-robed monks and dapper businessmen alike jostling for elbow room while harangued by boat workers with megaphones, who bellowed “Go down! Go down! Go down!”

(END OPTIONAL TRIM.)

There are no continuous walkways along the river, so I made surgical strikes from the piers on foot, ducking in and out of laneways to `the lapping waves. All along the right bank stood poetic ruins. The splendid 1887 offices of the East Asiatic Co. sat vacant and awaiting rescue, while the stately Old Customs House had become a fire station sprouting greenery from gaping cracks. Catholic cathedrals and European embassies staggered on in crumbling glory, while the iron pins used to moor steamers that Conrad may have used quietly rusted.

One crooked lane led to the river temple where albino elephants were cremated, another to the sacred slab upon which Thai royals could be executed. (It was forbidden for royal blood to be spilled, so a bag was placed over the victim’s head and he was cudgeled to death — a considerate gesture.)

And yet, around every corner, ventures of startling modernity were sprouting: boutique hotels, restaurants and bars, often housed in small antique buildings, alongside a pioneering art gallery called Speedy Grandma or a bespoke furniture store like P. Tendercool. A new “Creative District” is even being marked out by the city on both sides of the river to promote local talent.

Its marquee site is the Jam Factory, a renovated warehouse complex set around a grassy courtyard with a high-end restaurant called the Never Ending Summer,designed to appeal to natives first, tourists second. “Our real ambition is to get Bangkokians back to the river,” said Robinson of River Partners. “Travelers will follow. People want authenticity.”

To get a sense of the potential for the grandiose historic structures, I headed a few minutes away to Sathorn Road on the back of a motorbike-taxi. A century ago, this was the Fifth Avenue of Bangkok, lined with the palatial mansions of Thai sea merchants. Today, a lonely vestige from 1896, the House on Sathorn, is dwarfed on three sides by glassy skyscrapers. Originally the residence of a rice baron, it survived the demolition blitz that has ravaged Bangkok since the 1960s because it housed the Russian Embassy. The landmark reopened last year after a multimillion-dollar renovation as a glamorous restaurant and event space and has become a symbol of a new spirit of preservation.

“It has been an epic journey,” said Christine McGinnis, then the director of the Bangkok office of the U.S. design company AvroKO, which has overseen the project since 2008. “If this house was a child, it would be speaking and in school by now.” Construction problems included dealing with the ghost of the first owner’s mistress, who regularly spooked workers by overturning paintings she didn’t like during the night. (“It’s Thailand; there is always a story,” McGinnis said, laughing.)

Working with the city’s Fine Arts Department, the designers had to maintain the building’s historic integrity while making it commercially viable. Its Corinthian columns have elephant motifs carved into their wooden pediments; the color scheme is drawn from the Royal Thai costume, but the tapestries and artworks are all by contemporary local artists.

Afterward, we strolled back to the nearby pier to catch ferries in different directions. “Everyone is getting back to the river,” McGinnis said. “Everyone is getting inspired.”

“There is definitely a new interest in preserving Thai history,” said Dan Fraser, a Canadian expat who qualifies as a walking atlas to forgotten Bangkok, as we plunged by foot along the dark waterfront of the Talat Noi (“small market”) neighborhood. Here, the streets were built only broad enough to allow two rickshaws to pass, while shoulder-width alleys snake to the docks. “Wealthy Thais are coming back from trips to Europe, looking around and asking, ‘What have we done? Why are there so many 7-Elevens,’” Fraser said. “For the first time, people are openly admitting that unchecked development has all but destroyed Bangkok.”

Even a year ago, the conventional wisdom was that the river is thriving by day but dead after dark. All that has changed — if you know where to look. At least that was what I had been assured by Fraser, who has one of the most colorful résumés in the Thai expat world. He arrived 15 years ago to tutor the children of the royal family in English and tennis, and he later achieved minor celebrity status as the star of Thai-language TV shows exploring local culture and food “through the eyes of a foreigner.”

The riverfront at night is his ideal stamping ground. “This used to be the real core of the city,” he said, as we zigzagged from the old Portuguese district toward Chinatown. “But since the 1960s, people have wanted to get away from here. So development has bypassed this area altogether, which is perfect for me. It’s maintained its Old World charm.”

In Talat Noi, the alleys were dark and deserted but concealed secret worlds. Behind one screen door lay a bar with a broad wooden porch opening directly onto the river and decorated with mismatched retro furniture as if for a backyard barbecue. On the edge of Chinatown, a carved portal marked Teens of Thailand turned out to be the entrance to a bar by that name, with a dozen rickety seats and erotic photographs hanging on distressed concrete walls.

“Bangkok had no gin bar!” said Niks Anuman-Rajadhon, the bar’s co-owner, who sported a black T-shirt and a pompadour Elvis would have envied, as he concocted a batch of martinis with fresh pomegranates. “Every city has to have one, so I thought, let’s do it! We got about 30 gins together — including Bangkok’s own Iron Balls — and started experimenting.”

Before long, the night began to feel like the premise for “The Hangover Part IV.” I had not the slightest idea where we were — “even if we’d used a ball of twine, I doubt we could retrace our steps,” Fraser said happily — when we heard the haunting strains of traditional Thai music coming from what seemed to be a dilapidated merchant’s mansion.

Shouldering open the door, we found an establishment called Tep Bar, whose interior was lined with century-old worn teak and crowded with arty Thais; the ambience lay somewhere between a speak-easy and an opium den. The bar’s co-owner, Kong Lertkangwarnklai, was so excited that a pair of farang (foreign) explorers had arrived by accident that he insisted we sample an array of ya dong, ancient whiskey infused, he said, with 20 exotic herbs.

A half-dozen shot glasses materialized on a sumptuous golden tray adorned with mango pieces and pickled grapes. “Technically, ya dong is medicine,” Kong said, pushing the potent spirits forward. As I knocked the first glass back, I had a sudden vision of myself waking up in an alley with my memory of the night erased, perhaps with a tattoo across my forehead and a monkey on my shoulder.

Dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt and sporting the suggestion of a goatee, Kong seemed an unlikely cultural revolutionary. But he said that he had given up a successful career in advertising for this attempt to keep Thai history alive — which starts with the bar’s name, a nod toward the Thai title for the city, Krungthep, roughly, “City of Angels.”

“Everyone in Bangkok is trying to be someone else,” he said. “But what about our roots? Why are we throwing everything away?” At first, the retro impulse behind the bar, which Kong opened last year, felt like a quixotic gamble, he recalled. “Nobody believed in us. They thought the location, the concept, everything would fail! They didn’t think Thai people would come to such a place.” The bar was packed with a crowd that seemed spellbound by the music (enhanced, no doubt, by the ya dong).

It was about 3 a.m. when I wandered back to a lonely pier, staring out at the inky waters reflecting the lights of passing barges. A decade from now, Robinson, of the Bangkok River Partners, predicted, the Chao Phraya would be transformed but still be recognizable. “Our vision is of a cleaner river, with more walkable areas, enriched with creative industries and renovated warehouses and clusters of art galleries you can visit without sitting all day in a taxi,” he said. “But at the same time, all the old roast duck shops and congee stores will still be there. They’ll just be 10 years older.”

Even Somerset Maugham would have to approve.

KENYA: Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta Burns Stockpile Of Ivory

More than 100 tonnes of ivory was stacked up in pyres in Nairobi National Park where it is expected to burn for several days.

More than 100 tonnes of ivory was stacked up in pyres in Nairobi National Park where it is expected to burn for several days.

The ivory represents nearly the entire stock confiscated by Kenya, amounting to the tusks of about 6,700 elephants.

Some disagree with Kenya’s approach, saying it can encourage poaching.

Before igniting the first pyre, Mr Kenyatta said: “The height of the pile of ivory before us marks the strength of our resolve.

“No-one, and I repeat no-one, has any business in trading in ivory, for this trade means death of our elephants and death of our natural heritage.”

The burning comes after African leaders meeting in Kenya urged an end to illegal trade in ivory.

Experts have warned Africa’s elephants could be extinct within decades.

But some conservationists have expressed opposition to the ivory burn in Kenya, the biggest in history.

They say destroying so much of a rare commodity could increase its value and encourage more poaching rather than less.

Botswana, which is home to about half of Africa’s elephants, is opposed to the burn and its president did not attend the event in Nairobi.

Demand for ivory comes largely from Asia, with the main trafficking route being through the Kenyan port of Mombasa.

The ivory is getting through because people are prepared to pay for it. Stopping the men with arrows and the corrupt officials is just one part of the solution – the other is destroying the hunger for ivory.

The love of ivory goes back millennia. Its pure, translucent beauty and the ease with which a tusk can be carved into intricate sculptures have given it a lasting value throughout the ages.

Tackling demand and destroying the market are both important but there are also ways of making elephants more valuable alive than dead.

In the parks and game reserves of Africa, close encounters with the most remarkable animals on the planet lie in wait – you just need time, patience and a good eye.

UAE: Etihad Airways Announces Net Profit Of US$ 103 Million For 2015

Etihad Airways, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates, today announced its strongest annual financial results to date, with a net profit of US$ 103 million on total revenues of US$ 9.02 billion.

The performance, which marked the airline’s fifth consecutive year of net profitability, also saw earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) of US$ 259 million, and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, amortisation and rentals (EBITDAR) of US$ 1.4 billion, representing 16 per cent of total revenues.

James Hogan, Etihad Airways President and Chief Executive Officer, said:

“Our mandate is to build a sustainably profitable airline. A fifth year of net profits, with our best annual financial performance to date, shows that we are delivering against that goal.

“Our profitability clearly demonstrates the success of our business strategy, based on organic growth boosted by our partnerships.

“As well as operating profitability, we are building enterprise value across the airline and its many additional business streams.”

Etihad Airways’ financial statements are audited by Deloitte and are in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).

Strong operational performance saw improved load factor, as passenger volumes outpaced capacity increases

Etihad Airways carried a total of 17.6 million passengers in 2015, an increase of 18.9 per cent year-on-year. The growth in passenger volume continued to exceed Etihad Airways’ capacity increase and outperformed regional market growth, which has seen a decline in load factors since mid-2014.*[1] Revenue Passenger Kilometres (RPKs), which measure passenger journeys, increased 21.3 per cent to 83.2 billion, while Available Seat Kilometres (ASKs), which represent capacity, grew by 21.0 per cent to 104.8 billion.

In total, the airline operated 97,400 flights covering 467 million kilometres. The average network-wide seat load factor was 79.4 per cent for 2015, compared with 79.2 per cent in 2014.

Six new destinations were added to Etihad Airways’ global network – Kolkata, Madrid, Hong Kong, Entebbe, Edinburgh and Dar es Salaam – and capacity increased on 16 existing routes with bigger aircraft, more frequency and improved seat occupancy.

Etihad Airways’ fleet increased by 11 aircraft to a total of 121 at year end. With an average age of 5.8 years, Etihad Airways’ fleet is one of the youngest and most environmentally friendly in the industry. The additions included four A380-800 and four Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft, while further leased capacity was also added. The A380 was rolled out on the Sydney and New York routes, and inducted on a second daily flight to London Heathrow, while the 787 began commercial operations between Abu Dhabi and Zurich, Brisbane, Washington DC and Singapore.

Partnership strategy delivered five million passengers and $1.4 billion in direct revenues, as well as significant cost synergies

Etihad Airways’ partnership strategy, based on almost 50 codeshare agreements and its strategic minority investments in selected airlines, remained a key driver of its growth in 2015.

A new codeshare agreement was introduced in 2015 with Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), while Etihad Airways’ existing codeshares with Air Serbia, American Airlines, flynas, Jet Airways, Korean Air, NIKI and S7 Airlines were significantly expanded. As a result, Etihad Airways now offers a combined passenger and cargo network of nearly 600 destinations through its 197 interline and 49 codeshare partnerships.

Etihad Regional was the latest addition to Etihad Airways’ equity partner network, which also includes airberlin, Air Seychelles, Jet Airways, Air Serbia, Alitalia and Virgin Australia. Etihad Airways’ stake in the latter increased to 25.1 per cent in 2015. Combined, the equity partners comprise the seventh largest global grouping of airlines, together flying more than 100 million guests worldwide.

The strategy has contributed to a large increase in sales across Etihad Airways’ global network, delivering revenues of US$ 1.4 billion – an increase of 22.1 per cent on 2014 figures – and more than five million passengers onto Etihad Airways’ flights. In addition, the airline and its equity partners have been able to identify and develop significant business synergies and cost savings.

Mr Hogan said the airline’s return on its equity investments into the seven airlines was many times more than the money it had spent.

“For an investment smaller than the cost of three new aircraft, we have been able to build our global network, attract five million new customers and $1.4 billion of revenues, and share massive cost synergies. That’s smart business.

“This is a two-pronged approach. From a strategic level, we are looking for the equity partners to bring network connectivity, generate additional revenues and create economies of scale. All our partners are delivering on this level.

“Each partner then has a P&L goal, which is the responsibility of its own management and Boards of Directors. Many of these, such as Air Serbia, Air Seychelles, Jet Airways and Virgin Australia, are now delivering on this level too.

“Even with an investment such as airberlin, where it has taken longer than expected for the airline to reach sustainable profitability, we are seeing incredibly strong returns directly into our business, far in excess of our original expectations. We have already received more than US$ 500 million in direct revenues to Etihad Airways and airberlin today delivers more than US$ 150 million a year in direct revenues, as well as wide-ranging cost synergies which have already reached more than US$ 100 million. In addition, the airberlin relationship is delivering a contribution of more than US$ 630 million a year to the Abu Dhabi economy. This is why we remain committed to the restructuring of that business as it moves forward.”

Global financial community continued to recognise success of Etihad Airways’ strategy

During the year, Etihad Airways was instrumental in securing a US$ 700 million financing transaction to fund expansion for the airline, its subsidiary Etihad Airport Services and five of its seven airline equity partners within Etihad Airways Partners (EAP).

Mr Hogan added: “This ground-breaking transaction was the first of its kind in the airline industry, and its success highlights the high level of confidence and support from institutional investors for our unique business strategy. It was a vote of confidence not just in Etihad Airways but in our partners too.”

In 2015, Etihad Airways was assigned the rating of ‘A’ with a Stable Outlook, by Fitch Ratings. Fitch Ratings, one of the world’s largest credit ratings agencies, issued the Long-term Issuer Default Rating (IDR) following a detailed independent analysis of Etihad Airways’ business, its commercial performance and its equity alliance strategy.

Growth continued across group’s business streams, including cargo, MRO, catering and ground handling, and frequent flier programme

In 2015, Etihad Airways’ strategy of diversifying from a single airline entity into a travel and aviation group delivered strong results. All major business streams, including cargo, MRO, catering and ground handling, and frequent flier programme, as well as the core airline, experienced growth.

Etihad Airways’ cargo division continued to perform well in 2015. Cargo freight and mail volumes rose four per cent to 591,000 tonnes, making it one of the world’s most successful air freight operations.

Accounting for 88 per cent of air cargo imports, exports and transfers at Abu Dhabi International Airport last year, Etihad Cargo enhanced its global reach by offering bellyhold capacity on the six new passenger routes, bringing to 96 the total number of passenger destinations on which freight was flown. Etihad Cargo also expanded its freighter services to several new markets including Dakar, Nouakchott and Douala in Africa, taking the number of freighter-only destinations operated to 20.

A further measure of Etihad Airways’ growth was the increased membership of its Etihad Guest loyalty programme. Membership numbers increased from 2.9 million to 3.75 million, representing an average of 70,000 new members each month during 2015.

Airline continued to be a driving force in the nation’s Emiratisation programme

By the end of 2015, Etihad Airways employed 26,566 people worldwide from more than 144 nationalities, representing a 9.7 per cent increase on the previous year. Emiratis remain the single largest nationality grouping in the airline. In 2015, the airline welcomed more than 1,200 UAE nationals to its global workforce, bringing the total number of Emirati employees to more than 3,000 – 29 per cent of core staff at the national airline.

Since its inception in 2003, Etihad Airways has been a driving force in the nation’s Emiratisation programme, investing in the development of the national workforce and promoting the role of Emiratis in the aviation sector and empowering them for leadership.

Airline recognised by industry awards throughout the year

Etihad Airways was named ‘2016 Airline of the Year’ by Air Transport World, in recognition of its outstanding growth model and commercial focus as it continued to define the landscape of modern air travel. For the seventh year running, Etihad Airways was declared the World’s Leading Airline at the World Travel Awards.

Etihad Airways Partners’ (EAP) US$ 700 million landmark finance transaction was recognised as Innovative Deal of the Year by Airfinance Journal; as Emerging Europe Middle East and Africa Bond of the Year by the market intelligence organisation International Financing Review (IFR); and as Debt Financing Deal of the Year Middle East by Global Transport Finance.