Dorje had an interesting driving technique which involved keeping the car off the ground for as much time as possible. 'Terrible!' Tashi called out whenever we were airborne, grinning from ear to ear and bracing himself for the inevitable impact whenever the Landcruiser would hit the tarmac again. It was hardly surprising that our car had practically no suspension. Dorje had an advantage which would have made his taxi comrades in the city I had just flown from green with envy: visibility. In the pure air of Tibet, the view is not hindered by smog or pollution. Mountains which are tens of miles away appear crisp against the horizon. Apart from a few army trucks, the roads are free of traffic and the only limiting factor on Dorje's driving was how hard he could keep his foot pressed down on the accelerator pedal weighed up against the likelihood that at any moment one of the rattles could lead to the total disintegration of the vehicle. Just visible through the vibrating windows were rectangular coracles setting out across the river. Tashi saw me trying to look at them. 'Yak-skin boats,' he shouted over the roar of the Landcruiser engine. It seems that every part of the yak has a use. To make watertight boats, the skins are stretched over a wooden frame., sewn together with wool made from yak hair aad the joins are then sealed with yak butter.

[i]

2 Read the first part about two men, Oorje and Tashi, then make notes on these points.

• means of travel • driver's aim • how Tashi felt about the journey • difficult aspects of the journey • good aspects of the journey • scenery • what could be seen on the river

1 You are going to read an extract from a book called Running a Hotel on the Roof of the World. What kind of place do you think it will be about?

Reading

~ UNIT21

4 Listen again. Are these statements true or false? Correct the false ones.

I Cairns has the fifth busiest airport in the southern hemisphere.

2 Great Adventures is the name of a travel company. 3 Green Island is 100 years old. 4 It takes 45 minutes to fly to Green Island from

Cairns. 5 A pontoon is a kind of underwater capsule. 6 You are only allowed to go to the pontoon once.

5 Work with a partner and list all the things that the destination described offers. Which three things appeal to you most?

3 ~~D Listen to a talk about one of the seven natural wonders. How do the photos relate to what you heard?

2 Imagine the seven 'natural wonders' of the world. Suggest what you think might be on the list and why they deserve to be there.

1 Work with a partner. How could the phrases in the box describe the scenes in the photos on this page?

internationally recognised spectacular the ultimate adventure diverse marine life perfect for guided tours luxury once- in-a - lifetime experience

listening

Natural wonders

Looking back on it now, it seems like a dream - my year off after university travelling the world. The best bit (O) ~~ (bel definitely Indonesia .. Intuition ( 1) (tell) me, even before I left, that Indonesia was where something special was about to happen. A friend of mine (2) (cvcle) through China with paintbrushes and a sketch pad and we

(3) (arrange) to meet in Bali. We ( 4) (stay) on the beach for a day and then decided that what we really needed was more of a cross-Indonesia adventure. So we (5) . (set) off for the island of Lombok. And it was there that I saw him. He ( 6) (sitl with his back to me under the shade of a palm tree, (7) (look} out to sea. He turned and smiled, which at once left me incapable of even (8) (think) of moving on to another island. And that is how I stayed for six months in the some place!

2 Work with a partner. Complete this blog about a student's gap year with an appropriate form of the verbs in brackets. Sometimes, more than one answer is possible.

l Look again at part 1 of Running a Hotel on the Roof of the World on page 130 and underline the different tenses and grammatical structures. Compare with a partner. How many did you find?

In the exam, you are expected to produce a range ofstructures when writing and speaking. This not only means a range of tenses but also the use of the passive form, modal verbs and complex sentences with more than one clause.

@Exam spot

Range of grammatical structures

~ UNIT21

3 Which idioms from exercise 1 would you be most likely and unlikely to find in a tourist brochure? Why?

1 I prefer to spend my holidays , far away from any other tourists.

2 It's getting late and we've got a long drive home. It's really time we .

3 We stayed in a lovely village nestling in the valley.

4 Take care on the drive across the mountains. There's a notorious just as you leave the main road to start the climb up to the pass.

5 There was in our hotel room but the view we had was superb, so we didn't mind too much.

a attractive in a slightly artificial way b crowded place selling souvenirs,

entertainment, etc. at high prices c make a place important or famous d place where you feel very comfortable e very small f a bit of road that has seen a lot of accidents g distance if you go in a straight line h leave a place, begin a journey i very dose to j where not many people go

2 Complete the sentences with idioms from exercise 1.

1 Match idioms 1-10, which can be used to describe places, with explanations a-j.

1 a black spot 2 a tourist trap 3 home from home 4 no room to swing a cat 5 picture postcard 6 a stone's throw from 7 as the crow flies 8 hit the road 9 off the beaten track

10 put a place on the map

Vocabulary