I was very pleased to see the article by Yvonne Horn, “A 23-Day Exploration of Ethiopia,” in the August ’07 issue. The picture on page 10 is mislabeled, however. The photo of the priest with the vellum bible was taken at the Monastery of Nakuta La’ab in Lalibela, not at the large, modern, concrete Church of St. Mary of Zion in Axum.

I believe this detail is quite important, as the two churches and their sacred artifacts are very different indeed, and it would be nice to draw more...

My husband, George, and I went on a 16-day Smithsonian Journeys tour, “Treasures of Angkor Wat and Vietnam,” March 19-April 3, 2007.

The cost was $1,899 each, excluding airfare. Air travel from Thailand to Cambodia; Cambodia to Vietnam; within Vietnam, and from Vietnam to Hong Kong was billed separately and totaled $850 per person. Entry and departure taxes were not included and were collected during the tour. We arranged our own international air.

We booked through Smithsonian...

Regarding travel insurance, all travel is a risk, but so is staying home, catching up on that “to do” list.

I generally have not purchased travel insurance but did so for a trip to Austria in May ’05 with Untours (Media, PA). My reasons were simple: on a prior trip to Switzerland, my wife overextended her knee and couldn’t walk for several days. Also, I had a friend who bicycled off a trail in Switzerland and slid 500 feet down a grassy slope into a tree; the rented bike was destroyed...