Up early again and had breakfast with Matt, Kat and Derek who appear to be the other early risers before we head off to Dahab. Our departure was delayed somewhat as there were quite a few sore heads after the farewell drinks last night. The bus ride was one of most uncomfortable for the trip as we were in quite a small bus on perhaps the bumpiest road in Egypt with the craziest Egyptian behind the wheel. If we thought that driving in Cairo was bad it was nothing compared with letting them loose on the highway. We were doing at [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Cairo from Aswan at about 10 am this morning - the train ride this time wasn't too bad everyone is pretty much over the breakfast boxes!. No improvement with the toilets with Michelle managing to hold again for 12 hours!!!!! After checking into the King hotel and a nice cold shower we headed out with Kat, Matt, Christina, Trey and De (Danae) to see the Citadel and Khan Al-khalili Bazaar. The taxi rides there and back were life defining moments for all of us with many close calls. We did, however, see one of the funniest things ever [View Full Entry]

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Our night on the felucca was lovely and waking up to the early morning sound of the Nile before sunrise was very peaceful. There was not enough wind to sail back to Aswan so we had to take a motor boat. We spent the next couple of hours in the Air-conditioned MacDonalds which all have free Wi-Fi over here uploading some more pictures to the blog. The rest of the afternoon was spent playing Uno with Matt, Kat and Derek in our room waiting for our 12 hour train trip back to Cairo to start. [View Full Entry]

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Up at the crack of dawn today at 3.00 am for the drive down to Abu Simbel in the little bus that could. We had another armed escort however this time there were heaps of buses heading out. We started in the middle of the convey but were soon passed by almost everyone. Another breakfast box broke the drive and we arrived at the new resting place of Ramses II and his favorite wife Nefertari. Our guide here was good but after while we were longing to have Adel back. The temple structure of Ramses II was absolutely incredible and it [View Full Entry]

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Early start today for our adventure into The Valley of the Kings. After a nice non-breakfast box breakfast at the hotel we caught a boat across the Nile to the west bank where we waited a while as some our group had gone on a sunrise balloon ride. Once all the group were together we were sized up for our donkeys which would be our transport into The Valley of the King. The donkey ride is definitely in our top 5 favorite things we have done in Egypt! It was a morning filled with so much laughter and entertainment with people [View Full Entry]

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The overnight train to Luxor was an adventure in itself. We were so glad that we were on a tour as otherwise there is no way that we would have got on our train as the station has no signs and the announcements are made through a 100 year old speaker in Arabic. The carriages were not too bad the seats were actually quite comfortable. About half way through tour 9 hour - Egyptian time - trip that actually took about 11 hours real rime we started to get reports back from other members of our tour about the state of [View Full Entry]

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We rose early this morning as we were both very excited about seeing the pyramids!!!!!!!! After a nice breakfast with Derek (another Australian on our tour) we all bussed it out to the pyramids. It was very exciting when we all caught a glimpse of “Cheops” (the great pyramid) through the buildings as we travelled through Giza. It was at this time that our tour guide asked who would like to venture inside the pyramids. Michelle started to have a premature claustrophobic attack but after Graham’s reassurance she decided that she was going to attempt the second pyramid &ldquo [View Full Entry]

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We arrive early at Emad’s shop still a bit apprehensive about our back door tour. Our driver Abdul arrived and we headed out to Saqqara - Egypt’s oldest pyramid. On our way out we drove through some of the really old and poor sections of Cairo and it was a bit of an eye opener to see just how poor a lot of Egypt is. We are not sure how people drive here in Cairo as the traffic is absolutely crazy. The whole country seems to rely on some hidden rules and it seems that a bit of money in the [View Full Entry]

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Left for Cairo this morning. Dubai airport was a bit of a shambles and we only just made it to our gate in time for boarding as it took us about 2.5 hours to check in and clear passport control. Emirates planes are excellent and we managed to score exit rows which was even better. The landing in Cairo was a bit bumpy as there was lots of turbulence near to the ground. Cairo airport made me very grateful that we had booked transfers to the hotel through our tour company. About 15 minutes we had already broken the first rule [View Full Entry]

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Arrived in Dubai early this morning - was a very long 8 and a half hour flight with a vomiting child sitting behind us (it is amazing how much vomit can come out of one child). The Dubai airport was a little stressful for us not knowing where to go to get visas as Hong Kong airport told us to pick them up at the Dubai airport upon arrival. After mentioning to some airport security man that we were Australian we didn't need to get a visa and caught a taxi to our hotel which was literally in the desert in [View Full Entry]

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