BenWhyte
East of Ontario Joined: July 28th 2009
Logged in: December 11th 2010
Logged in: December 11th 2010
By the end of it all I will have travelled east from Ontario to Ontario...or maybe thats just the beginning.
Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoy!
Travel Blog Posts
Checking em out
Welcome to Cairo, where are you from?!? The City Cairo - It took me a while to tune into the ryhtem of Cairo, and at first, it was somewhat daunting...but after figuring out the inner workings of the city, I'd recommend a visit to the Egypt's capital to anybody looking for something a little different. I'm not talking about the 5 star resorts along the coast, I am talking about real, downtown, dirty Cairo. Let me try to paint a picture for you. A sprawling metropolis divided by the wide Nile river, which is at the economic heart of the city. The Nile is lined with tall buildings such as four season hotels and a Mobil Exon office building. The Nile itself is filled with traditional feluccas (sail ships) power boats, lit up wooden tour boats, ... read more
Me and the Monks
I'd like to start this Blog entry off by thanking one Mr. Ryan Lee. A co-worker of mine at Aecon suggested many months back to try out a Vipassana course. At the time, I didn't really know what it was, other then it had something to do with meditation and buddhism. I found a 10 day course running from Dec 2 to 13 in India, which fit my travel schedule perfectly so I registered my name....not sure whether or not I would actually do it. Well, I did actually take the course and am happy I did. If you generally don't believe in religion, or spirituality, give this blog a chance. I, by no means am religious, or a spiritual person, but I found Vipassana to be suprisingly scientific base....with a few leaps of faith. Another ... read more
Crop Duster
Mount Everest (8855 m Above Sea Level) aka - The Top of the World **Point of Clarification: I believe my family was telling some people back home that I was climbing Everest. Although that would be cooler, I did not actually summit the worlds tallest mountain (that would require lots of training, and over $65000). I did however spend 16 days trekking through the Himilaya, summitted some slightly smaller moutnains, and stood at Everest Base Camp. *ALSO, check out the photos section of this entry for all of the photos i posted I now have an appreciation for how difficult it would be to summit the worlds highest mountain (and how crazy you would have to be to even attempt it). Although writing this blog may not be as difficult as conquering everest...just getting started to ... read more
Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
(Rome - a life time isn't enough) I am going to have to be quick with this one, or I'll miss my flight. I've learnt to take advantage of opportunities as they arise, and free wireless at an airport cafe is one of those opportunities. So Rome. First impressions: Sunny, warm weather and palm tree's - nice. People wern't overly friendly, although understandble because I think there are more tourists in this city then there are residents. The Mafia is defiantly still around and clearly doing well driving around in fancy cars, italian suits and sunglasses. I can't remember exact figure, but they make up 10 about 10% of Italy's GDP. Distribution of cocain is probably their largest source of income. Their most recent business endeavour is illegal waste diposal, burning garbage that is toxic and ... read more
Inspired
Three weeks of exploring cities by day, and drinking/partying all night can really star to wear on you. Luckily, my most recent stop was to Innsbruck, Austria - a beautiful city of 100,000 people located in a valley, surrounded by the peaks of the Alps. I arrived on Saturday night at 11:00. So, even though my main reason for being in Innbruck was to get away from the city, see some nature and recharge my batteries, I decided it would be a waste to not check out the night life of a new place on the best night of the week. I stayed at a hostel that was once housing for Olympic athletes in the 1964 and 1972 winter games that were held here. I paid 20 euro's per night (32 CAD) which is the most ... read more
Prague By Night
Headed to the Alps I'm writing from a train headed from Vienna to Innsbruck in Austria and will post this when I have an internet connection next. Innsbruck was the location of the 1964 and 1976 Winter Olympics and is located right in the heart of the Alps. After about three weeks of exploring and partying in some of Europes largest and most beautiful cities, I felt that a cleansing trip to the alps was in order. I'm hoping to do some hiking while I am there depending on the weather. Since I last wrote I have spent another day in Berlin, and the rest of the time in Prague. I walked around Berlin to some of the main sites that I had lost many pictures from. It was after dark so they have a differnt ... read more
Berlin Dome
I've posted a few more pictures that I took on my last night in Berlin... And now they are actually there. These pictures I took the night after realizing that all of my Berlin/Copenhagen photos were lost..... read more
St James' Gate
Well I have been touring around Europe for a couple of weeks now. I feel like I've experienced and learnt more in a couple weeks then I have in the past year. For the last couple of weeks I have done nothing but tour around cities and museums by day, and drink with people all night. Yah I just don't sleep anymore. My good friend Hoss says 'Teach your body who's boss' haha. At this rate I'll never reach 5500m ASL when Dylan, Nick and I hit up Everest. Ah well, you only live once. **DISCLAIMER I am typing this up in Notepad, which doesn't spell check. I type fast, and make a lot of errors, and due to years of relying on spell check I have terrible spelling ...so don't expect this most academic of ... read more
Desk at Work
So This is what it feels like to write a blog... I have to admit, I have a new found respect for people that write entertaining blogs. I've never been the type to keep a journal, or write down and share my thoughts or feelings, so this should be interesting. Anyway, world tour starts in 5 days - next time I write one of these hopefully I will have something entertaining to write. Over and out. ... read more
