A Bold Claim But Vienna Is Up To The Challenge!! From Munich to Vienna (or Wien) takes about four hours on the train and travels through some more of that beautiful countryside. I find it hard to describe why it's so beautiful as I have seen so many amazing things on this trip so far including landmarks and scenery, but for some reason the vistas from the train windows here are extra tranquil and serene as they roll by. Vienna is a gem!! With history coming out it's ears from the era of the Kings that ruled most of Central Europe, [View Full Entry]

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And Some Fresh Air Too Arriving in Frankfurt, you can see how this is one of the main hubs for Europe. The airport is huge!!! I can’t help but keep thinking that Perth has a lot of work to do to make it’s airport world class because after seeing the likes of Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Heathrow and now Frankfurt there’s a definite distinction between what real international airports are and our excuse for one. Straight on to a train and down to the South of Germany, I was headed to Stuttgart to visit a friend I had met back in [View Full Entry]

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With A Royal Route To Get There Leaving Petra, we had a couple of stops before we got to Jordan’s capital, Amman. First on the agenda… the ruins of one of the Crusader’s Castles at Shobak. Built around the 11th Century, it was taken back by the Arabs later and embellished in a more Arabic style before an earthquake in the early 1900’s made it uninhabitable. During the time of the crusades, the area was split up in to principalities with each of the castles presided over by a noble or prince to safe guard the route between Europe, Damascus a [View Full Entry]

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To The Valley Of The Crescent Moon So today’s the day!!! Excited before even leaving the hotel, spirits were dampened by the ever present greed of consumerism that is so common in developing countries. What do I mean… getting off the bus, the first thing you see as you head to the ticket office are the usual touristy stalls trying to sell you everything from “authentic” souvenirs to the clothes and books. What really is disappointing is that the first stall you see is called The Last Crusade Souvenir Shop. It seems everyone will jump on a bandwagon j [View Full Entry]

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Stopping At Mars On The Way Leaving Aqaba and the Red Sea behind, we turned back into the desert for an off planet experience. Wadi Rum is almost like visiting Mars, so much so that nearly all the movies that need to depict Mars uses it for their set. Movies like Mission To Mars and Red Planet have been filmed on site, not to mention Transformers 2 and the countless Lawrence Of Arabia films and documentaries. T.E. Lawrence (AKA Lawrence of Arabia) lived in the area with the Bedouins as an archaeologist before the Arabic Revolt when he took [View Full Entry]

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Sinai And Across The Gulf First thing in the morning I joined up with the other Gecko's tour group and we piled into the bus and left Cairo for the last time. Apart from the history and the wondrous sights, Cairo will leave the impression that it's a city on the verge of getting out of the third world, if only it could pull the population along with it. A massive metropolis with dirty streets and hagglers in all the markets, but also a thriving business district for fashion and electronics as well as all the resources it needs to be [View Full Entry]

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A Unique Combination... Today was the official wrap up day for our tour group as I was the only one going on to Jordan and the girls were all splitting up, with some going to Hurghada on the Red Sea for some snorkling and diving and the rest heading back to Cairo to either head home or carry on their travels to other corners of the globe. So what better way to start our last day off than with a donkey ride!! Up and about before the sun could punish both us and the donkeys too much, we caught a water [View Full Entry]

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What A Way To Pass The Time!! Boarding our Felucca at midday, we settled in for a relaxing three day sail down the Nile covering about 120 kilometres. The felucca's are owned by Omar, the Nubian Chief and run by the Nubian villagers. Omar decides which families need the support from our tourist dollars the most and organises them to lend a hand but the captain of each felucca remains the same. A simple vessel with a single mast and sail, small cabin and hand-held rudder, the hold beneath the deck is covered in boards and then mattresses are laid on [View Full Entry]

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Confusing?? I’ll Explain… Egyptian History 101 Egypt’s Pharaonic history dates over 3500 years and is split into three kingdoms, Old, Middle , and New Kingdoms. During this time and even until today, Egypt itself is separated into five regions. Upper Egypt where the Nile river flows from, Lower Egypt including Cairo, Alexandria and the Nile Delta, The Western Desert from the Nile River West, The Eastern Desert from the Nile River East (obviously) of which both are populated by the Bedouin Nomads, and Sinai [View Full Entry]

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Well… If I Thought I Saw Ancient Before Then This Is Something Else Arriving in Cairo just before midnight, the first thing you notice is the size of the place. As the largest single city in the world and containing the population of Australia, the lights stretch as far as the eye can see… even from the air!!! Touching down, the second thing you notice is that security and customs are not something that seems to be taken too seriously. Buying a visa from the money exchange next to customs, handing in the medical advice that wasn’t even checked, and out [View Full Entry]

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