Belém is not on everyone’s wish list when visiting the Amazon region.  Most head straight for the jugular city of Manaus, 1400kms northwest on the junction of the Amazon and Rio Negro, but for those who do make the detour, the rewards can be surprising. The city’s beautiful buildings include the famous Opera House modeled on La Scala in Milan, the Basilica of Nazaré built after the style of St Peter’s in Rome, and the fresh fruit and produce market, Ver-O-Peso, with its decorative wrought-iron turret that was transported in sections from Britain and is now an icon of the city.

The course is run by the elephant camp at Anantara Resort and Spa in the Golden Triangle near Chiang Rai. It is home to 34 elephants and is set up like a traditional mahouts’ village that used to exist in the hills of Northern Thailand when most of Thailand’s elephants were employed in the logging industry. The Thai Government set up the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre (TECC) to ensure the well-being of elephants; the camp at Anantara is the northern extension of the TECC and offers guests a great chance to get to know these massive pachyderms

For a country the size of Switzerland and with a population of almost four million people, Costa Rica is surprisingly advanced and in some cases leads the world in many aspects of the eco-tourism industry.

For starters, it has the world monopoly on canopy tours with several facilities dotted throughout its 51,000 square kilometers. A full quarter of the country is under national parks or nature reserves.

 At Monteverde in Costa Rica’s eco-touristic heartland, Tricia Welsh takes an exhilarating ride on a zip-line high above the treetops hooting and hollering like a howler monkey whose habitat is the forest below.

Cruising around the palm-fringed motus or islands of Rangiroa atoll in the Tuamoto Archipelago of French Polynesia takes a lot of beating -- particularly with an idyllic climate, constant sunshine and peaceful vignettes of a slow-paced island life – all played out around an impossibly blue lagoon.

We are in the hands of Australian-based couple Robbie and Patrick Arrieula, who have been leading food and walking tours of the area for the past 12 years. Patrick is a wealth of knowledge and knows the region well since he grew up in the area. His parents live in Abos where his father is deputy mayor. He makes twice-yearly  forays back to home turf, to share his passion with like minded travellers.   

Images are courtesy of One Northeast

Although it is one of the oldest countries along the Mediterranean, Libya has a youthful vibrancy that oozes optimism and confidence. The locals enjoy an unhurried lifestyle, bask in an idyllic Mediterranean climate with sun-filled days nearly all year round, and boast the best-preserved Roman ruins in the whole Mediterranean region. And visitors are made to feel very welcome, and very safe.

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