I got my bags packed on a roll. I'm heading out there and I'm ready to go.

Looking real good in my passport photo.

The Amateur Traveler episode 165. Today the Amateur Traveler goes to the rugged

coast of Maine and Acadia National Park, the first spot that the sunlight

hits the United States on any given day.

I know that I should be heading home, but maybe not, maybe not

till the day.

Welcome to the amateur traveler. I'm your host Chris Christensen. Before we start

the interview that we have for today I do have two news stories for you. The first

one struck me as really odd. I would interpret it as an

April Fool story if it weren't the fact that it appears to be true. Apparently in

Bangladesh since 2003 they've been building a replica of the Taj Mahal, a full-size

replica being built there because not everyone could make it from Bangladesh over the border into India to see the real Taj mall.

The other interesting story is you probably heard of the cruise ships that have run into some problems in the Gulf of Aden with Somalia pirates.

Some cruise ships can't avoid going through there, specifically cruise ships for instance that

are repositioning or on an on the world cruise and so some

cruise lines are actually taking extra precautions to protect their passengers by

evacuating the passengers during that portion of the journey.

One German cruise line is taking the passengers off the ship in Yemen

and then flying them to the next port of call.

So as the cruise ship goes through the Gulf of Aidan, if they did run into problems

with Somalia pirates, they wouldn't have to worry about the passengers.

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