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I arrived at Hanover airport with a 1-hour delay. The way to the railway station from terminal 1 is quite far but trains leave every 15 minutes for the 20-minute ride. There was no staff at the platform, and only foreigners trying to use the ticket vending machine. Nobody managed to pay by DM banknotes, I do not know why. I had coins to change a 10 DM note and these people could get their ticket to the Main station, paying DM 6.20 and getting change back. I did not have to buy a ticket as the expo ticket included this price already.

If you come only for the day, use the baggage depository in Hall 13 at the West Entrance where you enter coming by new train from Hanover Airport. 5 DM.
Expo itself is huge affair on two different levels separated by a huge staircase that seemed unending. (They have an elevator for wheel chairs and otherwise tired people!) There are 2 cableways from the ends to the centre, quite enjoyable if it were not for the many steps at the centre to reach the platform. No lifts, no escalators despite the 5 DM charge one way (return from each end to centre to end is DM 20). If you are at the middle station, it is well worth going to one end and then walk back visiting the pavilions of your choice. The view over the whole site is quite impressive though.

Food and drink are expensive, as is expected in such places. A French Baguette with cheese and a slice of bacon is 10 DM, a Coke or Mineral water DM 5, a ¼ Chicken with potatoes and green beans is DM 22. A meal at the top French restaurant comes to DM 90 without wines, in the Norwegian from DM 80. I have eaten well and was superbly advised at the restaurant in the brand new SAS Radisson Hotel accessible from inside Expo. However, rooms there are super costly: 500 DM and up. A convenient and reasonable priced hotel is the Best Western Park Hotel Kronsberg, 5 minutes walk from the Radisson SAS Main Entrance where you can also enter and even re-enter with your ticket. Most Stores are doing extremely poor business due to very slow attendance. The Commissioner General’s has recently announced another DM 50 million advertising blitz to improve the poor record.

Overall, everybody seems to be on a strict budget. That is apparent in the construction of the pavilions and the missing people comforts such as elevators. Many of the audiovisual presentations have not been made for Expo but have been recycled with some improvements from other fairs and expositions.

Pavilions and sights not to be missed.

As you come out of hall 13 West, check if the Bhutan temple has a waiting line. It is worth to wait 10 minutes or so. The walk along to Hall 9 or take the free shuttle bus to Hall 10.

Hall 9 West:
1. Planet of Visions-The 21st Century (take enough time! The best at Expo!)

East Pavilions
2. Bertelsmann Planet m (for media) 3 part show, all enjoyable, ¾ h.
3. France (OK show and they have also a good bistro and fine restaurant)
4. Holland (excellent view from the top, otherwise also interesting)
5. Finland (wonderful sceneries, birch forest, nice girls)
6. Swiss (nothing much but very innovative like the Tree of Lights in Osaka in 1970. They serve the best espresso at Expo for 3.50, Cappuccino for 4 DM.

The numbers are not in order of greatness but in the flow. At 1, 2 and 5, there is often a 1 hour waiting time (NL ½ hour), so try to see it around 6:30/7 PM during week days or at the very start in the morning. They open at 9 AM and the pavilions at 9:30 so there is enough time to be among the first to enter. Day entrance is DM 65, evening from 7 is DM 15 but they let you in at 6:30 already.

If you have enough time, also see Mexico, Japan, Nepal, Germany, Ireland and China and take a trip on the Giant Wheel for an excellent look from the top. Do not waste your time for Australia, Korea, Holy See, and the Flambée at the Expo Lake across from Australia for the 10:45 PM show. Better have a good night’s sleep. For fanatics and bungee jumpers: try the Sky Jump in front of the Japan Pavilion! The DSD Cycle Bowl is also right next to it. Those interested in Mobility, Future of Work, Science, Energy, Health, Nutrition, Basic Needs, Environment and mankind, go see the exhibits in Halls 4, 5, 6 and 7 on the West side.

During my visit, the Swiss Minister of Justice and Police, Mrs.Ruth Metzler, was also there as VIP of the Swiss Pavillion. I had the priviledge of accompanying her with her entourage during the visits without any waiting. After lunch at the Swiss Pavillion, we had a ride on the tallest Giant Wheel, preceded by a glass of Sekt offered by the Swiss owners.

One of the two vice managers of the Swiss Exhibit in Hanover was Werner Sutter whom I got to know as the number 2 man of the Swiss Pavilion at EXPO 70 in Osaka, Japan. We have kept in touch all those 30 years.

On Tuesday, we thought we better do something for a change than lazing around our private lagoon and waiting for the time to have the next drink or meal. We took the LeMeridien’s shuttle boat to the main island of Bora Bora, a 10-minute trip from the outer reef. There, we rented an Atos car by Hyundai (alles dabei – Hyundai), stick shift, no a/c. but that was not needed with the open windows and the fresh cool breeze coming into the car from the sea often only 2 meters away. Once around the island is exactly 32 km, like in Nevis. All the rest is very unlike Nevis.

Photo courtesy of Isamu Kitafuji

First, there was not one pothole in the road (compared to the many on Nevisian roads). People were bicycling, scootering, all very slowly. Maximum speed is 60 km/h and even the Bosshards for once did not exceed it, not because we did not dare, but it was too beautiful to speed through it.

We also went to find a house that we spotted from the merchant harbor, and we did find the street, the only one that left from the Main Road (not Mane Road like in Nevis). It became something like a very narrow and steep road, but even in the end, better than the one leading to the House of Dick Mayo and David Davis in Morning Star in Nevis…

Up there, we found the well kept house of a local artist and his wife, selling beautiful wrap around cloth (Pareo) and not even expensive though generally prices on this island tend to be on the high side as all is related to the free spending tourist, especially those staying at the Pearl Beach, Bora Bora Lagoon or LeMeridien Resort.

We found a supermarket that was stocked with all a true gourmet might desire: foie gras, pat�s, wines, champagne, fine cheese, saucisson sec, etc. etc. We could not resist to buy of the latter two as the our LeMeridien Resort only offers Baby Bell for breakfast, no other cheese for their otherwise sumptuous dinner buffets! How strange for a French establishment. The watermelon and papaya are exquisite; the mango will be ripe in a month time. The trees are overloaded with the green fruit. The bananas are good also, the melon taste a little bland.

On the way home, we found a little seaside restaurant where Uschi had the Carbonara Noodles and I an Entrecote with fine Roquefort sauce that was great with the really excellent French Fries. I guess only the French (and some Swiss) know how to make French Fries properly, moist inside, crispy and golden on the outside. It needs a two time frying approach that is the secret.

I have just ordered a Mai Tai and another tropical concoction from the bar; it will be delivered on a golf cart and drunk on our little wooden terrace deck quite similar though smaller that the pool deck at our Nevis House. I will quickly dispatch this message before I get the drinks.”””

This is another message sent to some of my diving friends:

We arranged all hotels and activities in Tahiti and Bora Bora by ourselves, absolutely fabulous here at LeMeridien, less than 2 years old, with their own lagoons, islands, etc. We live in a little local-style house on the Beach, 5 steps to the water, great food like at your place though less personal with roughly 100 guests, thus mostly elaborate buffets, but great variety with something for everybody.

The diving is great, nearly as excellent as my favourite spot, Palau. There is no pollution. The only problem is that they do not have a big enough BC so I have to take the largest and close it with ropes… Also, I dive without suit at all, in the outer reef that can be quite dangerous for all the corals. Their stuff is all too small. I should have brought a 2 mm acryl suit; I do not need neoprene, as the temperature is 29 degrees. But something just to protect from inadvertent touches would be great.

I have been twice with the shop master as his other dive masters are young kids who may know their jobs but are far too inexperienced and ‘week’ to handle a big man like me should something go wrong. He keeps two hands on deck during the dives. My wife is back at the hotel snorkelling. She cannot stand the breathing apparatus and refuses to try again though my son has used all his patience to teach her in a pool.

The visibility is excellent, the fish are rich and colourful, and we saw mantas, lionfish, nurse sharks aplenty, a school of sleek barracudas, some turtles and plenty of reef fish. Two moray eels, one I spear fished for the locals who love to eat them…. I put some injured crayfish in front of his hole and as he came out to get it, I shot him from 3 meters, but missed to get him really attached to the arrow/line. So I got closer and used the trident. He came like a bullet straight at me, wrapping himself around the trident which he took as the enemy. The boat guys were extremely happy, as they will have a nice meal (11 lbs).

The last time we were there was in 1992, flying in from Tokyo, via Guam.

It was a fabulous time then, and it was equally enjoyable and peaceful in 1999 in the warm and turquoise waters of Bora Bora.

Written at LeMeridien Tahiti, on November 18, 1999.

We flew in from Nevis via St. Maarten to Miami and then by midnight clipper to Buenos Aires, staying a couple of days visiting with friends and shopping.

One morning, we took a direct Aerolinas Argentinas flight to Ushuaia. We stayed at the luxurious Hotel Las Hayas, a bit outside the town and at some altitude above the southernmost city of the world and situated in a nice forested area.

From Ushuaia, we boarded a comfortable catamaran to explore the Beagle channel to Mackinlay Island, where the Magellan penguins nest and we saw sea lions, king cormorants, penguins and many other birds.
We also visited the Museo Fin de Mundo and you must at one time eat the famous crab and mussel dish (centolla spoken sentoscha). We also took trips to the Beaver damaged regions, the Garibaldi Pass from where we steeply descended to the lake where there are three types of trout. Lago Yehuin. Lunch at Hosteria Petrel, excellent fish.

We liked Ushuaia quite a bit and were quite certain we would one day return, namely at the time we would take a cruise to the Antarctica.

That southernmost part of Argentina is called Terra del Fuego (Fireland). The name has nothing to do with volcanic fires. The local Indios were constantly lighting fires near the shores where they lived for warmth because they did not have cloth and were walking virtually naked all the time. Magellan and his sailors believed the fires were from volcanic eruptions. This area is so vast yet still natural and uninhabited and it really seems like the end of the world. Terra del Fuego is an island really as the Magellan straits separates it from the continent proper. The Chilean Port of Punta Arenas, however, still lies on the South American continent itself.

From Ushuaia, we took a flight back to Rio Gallegos on the continent proper. From there, a 4 hours trip in a minivan over flat and straight land took us to El Calafate as the air service to the glacier area had been stopped. There, we took an old prearranged Peugeot 505 taxi to the Hotel Los Notros (this is the name of a bush with red blossoms). The driver quite deliberately killed a number of hares that ran across the carretera in the darkening night, and I saw what I believed was a sailboat on the opposite shore of Lago Argentino. This beautiful lake is a bit bigger than Lake Geneva. When some time later I spotted another sailboat, I turned to the driver asking him where the heck that boat was sailing to as there had been no dwellings visible for hours. Which sailboat?, the driver asked, those shapes are icebergs!!!

The next day, we were driven to Puerta Bandera where we boarded a new and well appointed Catamaran. It took us through the Boca del Diablo to the Uppsala Glacier. We stopped at the Onelli (Spanish for O’Neill) Bay, and we have been walking through Patagonian rain forest, from where we could see the glaciers Onelli, Bolados and Agassiz who all flow together there. Then we continued to the Spegazzini glacier, wonderful and enormous walls of sheer ice. And the flora there: like on Swiss Alps but this is on 300 meters altitude. The area is full of parrots and other tropical fauna and flora. The area is full of parrots and other tropical fauna and flora. A memory that will stay forever (though perhaps one day we might go back?).

One day, we took the hotel bus to the nearby Perito Moreno glacier whose noise we heard all through the nights: forever-falling huge ice masses. We were alone for 2 hours, and then took a small boat that brought us to within 50 meters of the towering walls. That glacier is roughly 3 miles wide, and the height of the ice is 100 meters. Some years ago, there were several thousand visitors waiting for the stowed waters to burst the ice dam, it must have been a wonderful sight if you could wait the many weeks for it to happen.

A Belgian man who is a world traveler and had just been 3 weeks on the Chilean side of the Cordillera (El Teine) commented that the sights there were so much more gigantic and interesting than on the Argentine side. We made a promise to go there, and it will finally come true in March of 2009!

Patagonia is so huge; I believe it is bigger than France. You can spend a lot of time and still feel having been absolutely nowhere. The area of the Lago Argentina in the Patagonian Cordilleras is just one small part of that huge expanse of territory, but for someone who knows the immense vastness of the U.S. West, it may seem less so.

I might write some more at a later date about our 2 week stint in the hilly area outside Cordoba, the second biggest city of Argentina, 1000 km northwest of Buenos Aires. I had a problem with my stomach and had to take it easy for a while. It was a very nice place to take a rest before returning north.