After my family got comfortably settled in Hotel Ramada in Bangkok, we started exploring the city. After endless hours of shopping, it was finally time to go back.

This was when the trouble started. We forgot there are two Ramada hotels in the opposite directions. Absolutely unaware of this, we started searching for the way back. Google maps suggested us the shortest route, which was just 20 minutes away by walk. 【小题1】

Bangkok felt different after sunset. Walking along the heavily-crowded roads with the dark-red sky felt beautiful. Lost in our talk, we didn’t realize that we passed onto the quieter part of the town.

【小题2】 It was closed for redecoration. Unluckily, nobody around us then spoke English. Worse still, we stepped in a local tuk-tuk (三轮车), which took us to an unknown area for an enormous pay. We had no clue where we were, our mobile phones nearly out of power.

【小题3】 He was a taxi driver. Recounting the day’s events proved to be a great conversation starter. We ended up talking through the way. He was so kind as to offer to drive us around for the rest of our stay. 【小题4】 For the next four days, from floating markets to the temples of Wat Pho, our trip wouldn’t have been so trouble-free without him.

Sometimes when things don’t go according to plan, I think about the stranger we met on the streets and how a tiny mistake on our part led to unexpected results. 【小题5】

Total Solar Eclipse: Cruise Australia

One of nature's most magnificent events — a total solar eclipse(日蚀) —— will take place on the western edge of Australia on April 20th and we have chosen the perfect way for you to enjoy this event: on a cruise (游轮) at sea.

What's included

Accompanied by Abigail Beall, a renowned astronomer, you will have the best possible view of the event as well as enjoying lectures and star-gazing on land and at sea. Abigail will be on hand throughout, giving lectures on the history and science of eclipses, the black hole at the center of the galaxy, along with providing many opportunities for guided star-gazing. Plus, there will be additional talks from the Astronomical Society of Australia. Click here for detailed arrangements of the tour.

Price

Add-on tours

Alongside the cruise, you can also explore some Australia's best scientific and natural spots with a series of tailored add-on tours covering astronomy on the east coast and visits to Uluru, Sydney, the Great Barrier Reef and much more. On the last day of the tour, we can send you back to the airport, or you can join one of our add-on tours. Click here for full details about add-on tours.

Japan’s biggest airline is betting that the future of travel isn’t traveling at all. For the last month, a married couple has been interacting with a robot—called an Avatar—that’s controlled by their daughter hundreds of miles away. Made by ANA Holdings Inc., it looks like a vacuum cleaner with an iPad attached. But the screen displays the daughter’s face as they chat, and its wheels let her move about the house as though she’s really there.

“Virtual travel” is nothing new, of course. Storytellers, travel writers and artists have been stimulating the senses of armchair tourists for centuries. It’s only in recent decades that frequent, safe travel has become available to the non- wealthy.

Yet even as the world’s middle classes climb out of the armchair and into economy-class seat, there are signs of a post-travel society emerging. Concerns about environmental sustainability cause loss to airlines which release much carbon. And the aging of abundant societies is both restricting physical travel and creating demand for alternative ways to experience the world. For the travel industry, virtual reality offers an attractive response to these trends.

Of course, new technologies encourage far-out claims. ANA doesn’t plan to start selling Avatars until next year. Profits, too, will probably be difficult to make: By one estimate, the global market for this kind of technology will be worth only about $300 million by 2023. By contrast, ANA’s traditional travel business brought in more than $19 billion last year.

But if the business value for virtual vacations is still weak, the market for technologies that bridge physical distances between families and coworkers seems likely to only expand. ANA’s robots may not replace its airplanes any time soon, but they’ll almost certainly be a part of travel’s high-tech future.