Despite valid ESTAs, my wife and I were detained at the US border

Backward Virgin soldiers

Checking in at Melbourne Airport for our flight home to Sydney with Virgin Australia on a Sunday morning recently was not a great experience with the airline really needing to lift its game. Check-in and bag drop are all self-service, with no other options, and in this busy and crowded area there was only one poor Virgin staff member to be called on for assistance by passengers when things regularly went wrong. Delays were the result, with luggage tags frequently needing to be re-issued, people with accessibility issues having to be attended to and the screens at the bag drop kiosks refusing to work over and over again.
Kerrie Wehbe, Blacktown NSW

Letter of the week: Paine thriller

I loved Julie Miller’s “Larger than life” article on Chilean Patagonia (Traveller, April 26) and entirely agree about the natural majesty of Torres del Paine. But please don’t forget El Chalten, my favourite village in Argentinian Patagonia. The 3405 metres high Mount Fitz Roy – named after Robert Fitzroy, captain of HMS Beagle with Charles Darwin as a passenger – towers over El Chalten in the Los Glaciares National Park. There are numerous opportunities for hiking, with the village considered the national capital of trekking in Argentina.
Eileen Kennedy, West Pymble, NSW

ATM to bank on

Regarding your story on Central America (Traveller, April 12), the nation of Belize is well known for its barrier reef, but inland there are other water activities. The Actun Tunichil Muknal cave (ATM) near San Ignacio is a Mayan religious site and famous for the discovery of the “Crystal Maiden” (the skeleton of a 17-year-old male who may have been subject to a sacrifice). A visit involves walking through creeks and jungle, a jump into a pond and then into the darkness for a damp crawl around rocks and through cave chambers to view the artefacts that are displayed as they were over thousands of years.
Michael Copping, Oatley, NSW

History lesson

I welcome your recent story in praise of Central America. However, it is not correct that the Spaniards who arrived in the 16th century destroyed the region’s great Mayan cities. They did not see them because the Maya had abandoned those cities centuries earlier and most lay hidden in the forest until the late 18th century. Perhaps of more concern is the suggestion that the Maya themselves were destroyed and no longer exist, when they are everywhere in Central America today, speaking their languages, wearing their beautiful woven garments, staying faithful to their culture, and numbering around seven million. Let’s not wipe people out with the stroke of a pen or a keyboard.
Annie Lanyon, Manifold Heights, Vic

Springs attached

Speaking of double beds (Traveller, April 12), while travelling solo in Italy my almost empty hotel in Sansepolcro insisted on giving me a room on the third floor (no lift) just so they could give me a single bed. No letto matrimoniale (double bed) for a single female. As a woman in my 70s, maybe I wasn’t as invisible as I thought.
Judith Rostron, Killarney Heights, NSW

Tip of the week: J’aime la France

My love for France goes back decades, but for the last 10 years it evolved into an annual visit. There is always plenty of planning and research involved as each trip has a theme. The most emotion-filled trip was to Mont Saint Michel, with the trip via Normandy aboard trains and buses and reminders along the way of the region’s war history. My two days at Mont Saint Michel left an unforgettable imprint. Its museums, chapel, prison cell and even watching omelettes being made to the rhythm of music were all mind-blowing.
Iwona Liberte, Malvern, Vic

Unguarded moment

Beware the Uber scam in Cape Town, South Africa. At the cruise terminal there, as we headed to meet our Uber driver, we were intercepted by a driver professing to be the car we ordered. Alas, our guard was down, and he assured us the app was not working. Therefore, he needed card payment at the end of the trip. Needless to say the card was hit, the app being down was a scam. My advice is to check the rego, do not offer a credit card and stay vigilant.
Jan Naughton, Wahroonga, NSW

Time of my life

In 1971 as a young, 24-year-old single woman I travelled around Europe for three months alone (Traveller, April 13). I didn’t have an iPhone or a credit card. I had a Eurail pass (which was first class travel then), traveller’s cheques (remember them?) and a youth hostel card. I stayed at youth hostels and ate there most of the time. Not only that, but I never felt unsafe except in Italy which I left pretty quickly. I met lots of other young people at the hostels and often explored a city with them and then moved on. Contact with home (Australia) was poste restante or an expensive public phone (which had to be booked). Some banks also had a postage service. It was the time of my life. Come on young people. Get a life.
Elaine Hoyle, Avalon Beach, NSW

Duke of hazards

The answer to question 14 in the “Traveller Quiz” on April 13 was, of course, the now extinct thylacine. There is a pelt of one in Hobart’s Tasmanian Museum, but we’ve seen another. My wife and I were astounded to see one in its glass case in the wonderful Natural History Museum in Vienna, Austria. It is a full taxidermy example and was shot by Archduke Franz Ferdinand on his visit to Tasmania in 1893, along with many other hapless creatures. Australia welcomed him with a full 21-gun salute on arrival. He was, of course, shot and killed in Sarajevo in an incident historians say started World War I. The thylacine’s revenge perhaps?
Lance Dover, Pretty Beach, NSW

Computer says pay

Booking online with Qantas? Double check your dates. My booking error for mid-June has cost me more than $600 to change. With reserved seating now decoupled from my ticket, I lost that fee too. Complaints process? A vicious circle; the complaints form recommends calling customer service who then email a link back to the complaints form.
Henri Bemelmans, Highton, Vic

Grandest tour

We’re just home from a trip to the US where we visited the Grand Canyon for the first time. It was spectacular. We stayed in Flagstaff and drove via Desert View Drive, entering Grand Canyon National Park early with a seven-day pass costing $US35 ($55). We also highly recommend visiting the gorgeous desert town of Sedona, Arizona, known for its vibrant arts community, two hours south of the Grand Canyon and an hour from Flagstaff.
Kimerley Brown, Bowral, NSW

Editor’s note: Our writer, David Whitley, agrees about Sedona, with his recent piece declaring it “America’s most beautiful city”.

Up the river

I just completed a trip to Vietnam and Cambodia with 100 Australian passengers travelling down the Mekong River for seven days and with everyone experiencing a visa problem. Before travelling there, the Cambodian visa process took many weeks, with some visas not recognising email addresses. At the Cambodian border entering Vietnam, officials boarded the ship, removing two passengers with their luggage who were told to fly back to Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, as the dates on their visa had the wrong month. After numerous phone calls and stress the two women were allowed to re-board. Visa application processes need to be easier in countries wanting tourists – they need to make Australians welcome.
Karen Childs, Carlingford, NSW

The Letter of the Week writer wins three Hardie Grant travel books. See hardiegrant.com

The Tip of the Week writer wins a set of three Lonely Planet travel books. See shop.lonelyplanet.com