Holiday Plans

I don’t think I know anyone who doesn’t like to travel. Maybe it’s because I don’t know that many people. But most people I know seem to be talking about going for their next holiday. I too am one of them. The difference between me and some of the people I know is that when I travel I want to see places. When they travel, their objective is to shop till they drop, or when their credit card is maxed.

For those who fall under the shopper-traveller group, this posting is not for you.

For those who like to see new places, read on.

I found on the amazing www a few places that will disappear very soon. I hope I get to see some of them before they disappear. Or before I disappear, whichever comes first.

The Great Barrier Reef

According to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Great Barrier Reef, and the nearly $5 billion tourist industry built around it, could be “extinct” by 2050. This is due to climate change and pollution. A process called bleaching happens when the acidity of the ocean increases due to the absorption of carbon dioxide, which kills off the micro-organisms that make up the reef.

The Great Wall of China

Built around 2000 years ago to keep out the marauding hordes, the Great Wall of China is a dazzling man-made achievement. At its peak, the Great Wall reached 4,500 miles from South Korea to the Gobi desert. However, the World Monuments Fund has put the Great Wall on a list of the 100 most endangered structures and the Beijing Daily Newspaper reported that, "Around a third of the 2000-year-old structure is merely rubble and the same amount again has completely disappeared". Sandstorms are to blame for a more than 37-mile stretch of the wall being destroyed, although a great deal of the wall has been destroyed thanks to generations of farmers using the wall to build and repair their homes and farms.

Venice

I have been to Venice once but sadly it was raining and my few hours there was not as exciting as I hoped it to be. One of the loveliest cities on earth, Venice has sunk by around 7cm a century for the past thousand years, but a report suggests that process has sped up and in the last 100 years, Venice has sunk by 24cm. Climatologists believe that Venice could be uninhabitable by 2100. The Italian government is committed to spending millions of schemes to help prop the city up and save it from the waves, however no scheme so far seems to have the answers.

The Dead Sea

It's the world's most salty body of water, famous for its healing properties and the fact that no matter how hard you try, you simply can't sink in its buoyant waves! However, the Dead Sea is under threat of draining dry. In 2006, according to the now ex-Jordanian Minister for Water and Agriculture, Hazem Nasser, "There is a declination in the level of the sea at about one metre every year." Jordan are lobbying for more water to be pumped into the Dead Sea from the Red Sea. The authorities say that unless nearly two billion cubic metres of water per year is pumped into the Dead Sea, it will disappear in 50 years time.