Baggage Allowance

Perhaps not a target customer for RyanAir (although the hold baggage surcharge revenue would be handy) King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia is not one to travel light when away on business. For last week's state visit to Britain it needed not less than five jumbo's to transport the royal entourage; and he left all of his wives at home!

It's a different matter when he's travelling on holiday, however. He revealed to The Times that when he took a two month break in Marbella earlier this year, he managed to pack everything into just two jumbo's and succeeded in sticking to his tight holiday budget of $10million. This included the daily expense of $2,000 for fresh orchids. Now there's a new cost category for the authors of the Lonely Planet guides to consider...