TRAVEL

Home & Away with Robert Walshe

Home and Away Extra

Qatar Airways has part-nered with Mobiqa, a mo-bile content optimisation company, to launch a mo-bile version of the Qatar Airways website.

The new mobile website enables travellers to easily access the most popular services of qatarairways.com through their internet-enabled mobile device. Users can also sign up to re-ceive the latest fl ight offers from Qatar Airways as well as receive their boarding pass directly to the mobile phone.

Robert Walshe is a free-lance contributor / broad-caster and is guest travel writer for River Media newspaper titles across the island of Ireland

LivingRECENT numbers indicating up to 200,000 people are to emigrate from Ireland within the next 5 years if unemployment is not addressed are an indication of the continued trend of departures from Ireland of young graduates and unemployed persons are leaving to seek work in Australia and Canada. With the number of unemployed graduates and young people continuing to rise resulting in large volumes of people leaving the country for peo-ple, Backpackertravelinsurance.ie which is part of Blue Insurances Ltd, the country’s leading supplier of travel insurance, is reminding people to remember to consider their insurance options when con-sidering leaving the country to work or travel overseas.

Weekend HotspotKerala is on the south-western

coast of India touching the tip of the peninsula and occupies the re-gion known as the Malabar Coast. It is surrounded by the south Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Karna-taka. Kerala is like a narrow strip of land lying between the Arabian Sea to the west and the hill ranges called Western Ghats. This geogra-phy defi nes Kerala’s main identity as a green, rain-rich state filled with inland water bodies. The rain-laden southwest monsoon comes across the Arabian Sea to hit Kerala around 1st June, and expends much of its waters here. More than 40 riv-ers fl ow down the Western Ghats to meet the Arabian Sea forming, with the backwash of the sea, a com-plex of canals and lakes called the Kerala Backwaters. This combined package of beaches, backwaters and greenery is what the tourism department promotes as ‘Gods Own Country and it most certainly is! Azure waters and pleasant cli-mate make Kovalam a great spot for swimming and sun-bathing. The bay area offers some safe zones for swimming, kayaking, surfi ng and skiing. Surf boards and body boards can be hired on the beach. You can also hire a boat from the local fi shermen for angling. The coast at many places is lined with beautiful patches of coral reefs which you can explore by snorkelling. At the waterfront, you can shop for local

handicrafts and jewellery. The cap-ital, Thiruvananthapuram (Trivan-drum), almost as far south as you can go and a gateway to the nearby palm-fringed beaches of Kovalam provides visitors with varied op-portunities to sample Kerala’s rich cultural and artistic life. Vessels, from cruisers to wooden longboats, ply the backwaters in day-long voyages, well worth taking for the chance of a close-up view of village life in India’s most densely popu-lated state. Furthermore, it’s al-ways easy to escape the heat of the lowlands by taking off to the hills. Roads through a landscape dotted with churches and temples pass spice, tea, coffee and rubber plantations, and natural forest, en route to wildlife reserves such as Peppara or Periyar all roamed by herds of mud-caked elephants. Ker-ala is short on the historic monu-ments prevalent elsewhere in India, mainly because wood is the building material of choice. Moreover, what ancient temples there are remain in use, and more often than not are closed to non-Hindus. The Leela Ko-valam Beach, with 182 guest rooms and suites, is India�s only cliff-top beach resort and offers a pano-ramic view of the Kovalam shore-line. With infi nity pools that merge into the horizon, the resort offers guests a range of impeccable dining and entertainment options, along with Divya, an authentic wellness centre which features Ayurveda, an age old Indian science of life in contemporary settings which offers ancient remedies to today’s needs. The spa programmes aim to help guests de-stress, detox or refresh, and run from one to a lengthy 28 days By There is a dedicated Ay-urvedic doctor at the Divya health spa who will take your pulse, ask you a few questions and ascertain what kind of dietary tips will help get your system in balance. Then choose from a range of treatments, including Shirodhara, which in-volves being patted all over with a sponge bag containing essential herbs and spices, then lying on a bench as a slow, steady stream of warm oil is poured over your tem-ple. For something more dramatic, Chavutti Thirumal involves a thera-pist balancing on a rope and using

his feet to work those pro -testing muscles. “The Ter -race” serving Asian, Continental, Indian, and local Kerala cuisine. is an all-day dining international restaurant at the Leela Kovalam with panoramic views of the Ara-bian Sea and coastline. Located on the private beach, “Tides” is a rustic beach side restaurant that has an attached bar with live entertainment. Discerning travel-lers should opt for The Club at The Leela – a hotel within a hotel – where the exclusive rooms are contemporary in design, feature state-of the-art LCD fl at screen tel-evisions and boast large balconies overlooking the Arabian Sea. The entire wing is located on the cliff top and has its own team of butlers offering a round-the-clock service, a private café, a spa, executive lounge, sun deck and a stunning infi nity swimming pool.The Leela group of luxury hotels has proper-ties in Mumbai, Bangalore, Goa, Ko-valam, Gurgaon and Udaipur, with new properties set to launch in Chennai, New Delhi, Hyderabad and Pune. For information, including special monsoon and honeymoon deals, see www.theleela.com

Weekly Best Buy

Part of the enjoyment of being pampered is having someone to share it with so, whether you fancy a break with your other half or your favourite pals, why not take a trip to the award-winning Spa Salveo at Knockranny House Hotel, West-

port. The Girly Pampering package includes two hours of indulgence with a relaxing back, neck and shoulder massage, a Rejuvenat-ing Ageless Facial and an Essential Body Wrap.

The breaks also include compli-mentary access to the spa’s vital-ity pool and thermal suites, either one or two nights’ B&B and dinner on one evening in the award win-ning restaurant La Fougére. For more information visit www.khh.ie. Packages from only €175pps for one night or €235pps for two nights throughout September and October2010.

Enjoy a Sunday night in Cork this September at Cork city’s oldest hotel, the Imperial Hotel, situated on the South Mall just a couple of minutes’ walk from the Patrick Street shopping areas. Guests stay-ing at the hotel can enjoy B&B and an evening meal with wine in the hotel’s Pembroke Restaurant on any Sunday in September from just €75 per person sharing! www.fl yn-nhotels.com

Pet’s Corner...with Kathleen Murray: Animal Behavioural Therapist

with Kathleen Murray

Feeling the pinch?I have heard from so many people lately that are really starting to feel the pinch, money wise.

They are decent people that are fi nding that they are stretched to their limits, and more, as children are going back to school and bills are mounting up. As the weather gets colder the heating bills will be taking over and the survival of the family and their home will be the ultimate pri-ority.

Animal welfare is important to these people and they want to play their part but they are fi nding that help is not there for them. Cats are being

dumped on them and kittens are mounting up.

They didn’t ask for this to happen but they are stressed by the fact that they cannot afford to neuter these cats as they are already stretched to their limits fi nancially.

They don’t have cats of their own because they can’t afford one but other cats are now in their gardens, starving and trying to survive themselves. This is hard to look at if you are a genuine animal lover. These cats are becoming wild or depending on someone to feed them.

They are not neutered and many have kittens, adding

to the numbers. The original owners of the cats either don’t care that this problem has now been landed on someone else or else they were unable to pay for the neutering them-selves and things got out of hand.

Whatever the reason, and wherever they are now, these cats are a problem to them-selves and to the people around them. This is a no-win situation for either side. This has been going on for a very long time and for a long time neutering vouchers were available to help with this problem.

Some people have learned

that animals cost money to feed and look after so they don’t get one if they can’t af-ford to do it properly...... but many have either not learned this or they don’t seem to care and responsible people are still paying the price for this emotionally and finan-cially after all this time. This is wrong. I would love to hear suggestions as to how people think that this massive prob-lem can be resolved.

People and cats are locked in this cycle of doom and it needs to be broken for every-one’s sake. Winter is coming and people are not in a posi-tion to stretch resources like

they were before so cats will suffer and die cruel deaths. I can’t understand why this is still happening in 2010. It ap-pears that some people are still living in the dark ages and they need to come into the light.

If you can’t afford to neuter you cat then please don’t get one. If you know someone with a ton of cats that are not

neutered then please tell them about the trouble that this is causing for their neighbours, other people, wildlife in gen-eral, and most of all the cats themselves.

A kitten is cute... 25 grown hungry cats is not. General education has not worked, neutering vouchers has not worked. Who are we not get-ting through to and why?

handicrafts and jewellery. The cap-ital, Thiruvananthapuram (Trivan-drum), almost as far south as you can go and a gateway to the nearby palm-fringed beaches of Kovalam provides visitors with varied op-portunities to sample Kerala’s rich cultural and artistic life. Vessels, from cruisers to wooden longboats, ply the backwaters in day-long voyages, well worth taking for the chance of a close-up view of village life in India’s most densely popu-lated state. Furthermore, it’s al-ways easy to escape the heat of the lowlands by taking off to the hills. Roads through a landscape dotted

■ Kovalam Beach at Leela Kempinski

LivingLiving

■ Leela Kempinski Kovalam ExteriorKovalam Beach at Leela Kempinski

entertainment. Discerning travel-lers should opt for The Club at The Leela – a hotel within a hotel – where the exclusive rooms are

■ Leela Kempinski Interior

LivingLivingLivingLivingLivingLivingLiving