On our trip to Southeast Asia in January ’05, we will be visiting Thailand, Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia and Hong Kong. While we are independent travelers, we purchased package deals for Thailand, Cambodia and Hong Kong with Pleasant Holidays (e-mail generalreservations@pleasant.net or visit www.pleasantholidays.com).

The package for Burma is being provided by Golden Rock Tours & Travel (grtt@goldenrock.com.mm or www.visitmyanmar.com).

Both Burma and Cambodia require visas to...

In March ’04 I purchased a new Motorola V-400 “World Class” phone and opened a new Cingular line to use it. (My existing Cingular phone would not work with the new GSM services.) The new phone was purchased for use on a trip to Sweden planned for early April.

I received assurances from the sales personnel and from a Cingular person that the phone was ready to use in Sweden and that nothing more need be done to use it. It was explained to me that there would be a (reasonable) roaming...

For a recent trip to France and Italy, arranged on short notice, I decided to book all hotels ahead of time. I had considerable benefit from using a site called Venere.com.

The site is not a “bargain” or auction site. The hotel presents the offer at a given price, take it or leave it. Nor is it a guide, like Michelin. The site does not rate the hotels but simply presents the hotel’s estimation of itself, together with user comments, some of them quite savage. In most cases, I was able...