After all the temples, tombs and pyramids we needed another time out and headed for the Sinai and the Red Sea. It’s not really around the corner and we spend 18 hours in an overnight bus. Wasn’t that back as I donned on my eye mask, put in the ear plugs and blew up my inflatable travel pillow. Travelling in style... Dahab has the dubious fame of being Sinai’s backpacker friendliest town and a great place to relax and spend more time than intended. Who are we to argue against this and we stayed longer than intended. That had [View Full Entry]

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Leaving Aswan can be done in style on a 5 star Nile cruiser or the good old way on a Felucca. Feluccas have ploughed the Nile since ancient times and there is a good reason for this. Which one I don’t know but I guess it must have something to do with the high oil price and the fact that Feluccas have sails. Well guess what, we chose the Felucca. We were quite lucky and had only two other Japanese guys on the boat. This gave us plenty of space to lounge around. A Felucca isn't the biggest boat around and [View Full Entry]

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I need money, lots of it, billions and pretty quick. I intend to build a second Abu Simbel but more of that later. The trek down to Aswan was done in style in a sleeper train. After arriving in Aswan we wanted to go straight down to Abu Simbel and went to the train station as we knew there would be a 11 am bus. There was a bus, we inquired if this is the 11am bus and we loaded our luggage into it and sat down to drink a tea. And we waited, and waited and.... Finally I had enough [View Full Entry]

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The Egyptian museum deserves the title of the museum with the worlds best collection presented in the worst possible way. The items in the museum are stunning and extraordinary but somehow someone forgot to stop and all rooms are overflowing with exhibits. There are often four Sarcophagus stacked on top of each other and at one stage you have 30 of them in view. There really is too much of a good thing. You also better have paid lots of attention in history class as the labels on the exhibits must have been the work of an underpaid art history student [View Full Entry]

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Alexandria on the Mediterranean coast was once considered one of the greatest cities in the world. Today it receives remarks as "greatest historical city, but with the least to show for it" (Lonely Planet) or "It looks like a pockmarked Cannes" (Michael Palin). That's not untrue but doesn't do it justice. We had a great time there. The city has a great museum which explain the history of Alexandria from when it was founded in 332 BC by Alexander the great (remember the guy who went to the Siwa oasis) over the days when it was nearly forgott [View Full Entry]

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After all the hustle and bustle of Cairo and a serious overdose of culture we needed rest and relaxation (yes again). What better place to go than the desert. Not being Laurence of Arabia and having no inclination of spending the night on sand we opted for the version of the desert with water, palms and donkeys. An oasis like in the fairly tales would be a nice option. The closest to that must be the Siwa Oasis in the western desert. It is a fairly large oasis with some 23.000 inhabitants (yep I also thought an oasis is small) which [View Full Entry]

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CairoCairo, another city of superlatives. Allegedly worst polluted city in the world and Africa's most populous city (depending on how you count and who you ask). It also happens to be a great city with lots to see and do, with friendly people and next to no crime. Really nice to be able to walk around in the middle of the night in virtually any part of the city without fearing to get mugged. This is especially helped by the masses of people which do late night shopping. The streets are come to life after 8pm and finding lots of people [View Full Entry]

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Lalibela is certainly the most famous and the most visited place in Ethiopia. There were at least 30 tourists in the town… It deserves to be that famous as it contains 11 absolutely amazing rock hewn churches within 10 minutes from each other. The churches were built on the order of King Lalibela which as the legend has it visited Jerusalem and on his return wanted to build a Jerusalem in Ethiopia. There is even a River Jordan ... carved out of solid rock! Allegedly all churches were built in the early 13th century within 23 years by [View Full Entry]

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The town of Mekele was never really on our "to see" list but it seemed to be a convenient place to do some more R&R. The last few weeks have been a bit hectic for a variety of reasons so we deserved a couple of days off. When I say couple of days off I mean just staying in one place not doing nothing ;) We visited the rock hewn churches of Tigray just to get another dose of spirituality an fitness. For reasons known only to the builders and believers most of the churches were built on top of mountains [View Full Entry]

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I traveled many days in buses but the drive from the Simien Mountains to Aksum was one of the scariest in my life. The road was carved by the Italians into the steep mountain side and any mistake of the bus driver would result in a long drop and certain death. Once I unclenched my hands and the white knuckles were pink again I could enjoy the scenery which is equally spectacular. Luckily for us the bus driver was good and we enjoyed the scenery and our health. Aksum was Ethiopia’s second capital and marks one of the biggest achi [View Full Entry]

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