Wierd Travel Stories

Did you hear about the plane that had to be diverted because a passenger stole the beer?

Or, the two Air India pilots who got into a brawl mid-flight?

How about the guy who was stealing women's underwear out of their baggage?

Click here for AOL's list of 14 strange travel stories.

Some are just bizarre, like the airport experimenting with taking naked pictures of passengers, or the fake airline used to cover up a prostitution ring.

But, my favorite, and I'm not really sure it even counts as a travel story, the small Gaza zoo where they dyed two donkeys to look like zebras.

In a quote to Reuters, the son of the owner says "The first time we used paint but it didn't look good."

Halal-to do about something...

A posting on the slightly more serious side (for verysmalltalk, anyway)... this very interesting post by Robyn Eckhardt at EatingAsia, a wonderful and award-winning travel and food blog that Robyn and her husband Dave Hagerman author together. In this posting, Robyn observes how in some countries, like Thailand and Indonesia, halal and non-halal food stalls coexist side by side in the marketplace, but in Malaysia, the non-halal stalls are generally hidden away. There is a very interesting discussion about religion, politics, and national identity which follows her posting. Check it out!

image: http://www.iconceptbiz.com

Looking for a place to stay?

So, you've stayed in a treehouse, a cave, and a hotel made of ice.  Feeling jaded?  What's next?  How about a hotel made of salt? The Uyuni Salt Flats of Bolivia now has a hotel, made of locally available salt, to house the tourists who are just now beginning to discover the natural beauty of the region.

It's not the only building in the world made of salt.  For example, there is a salt building in Grand Saline, TX.  But, it isn't a hotel.

Next: an underwater hotel in Fiji, coming in 2010.