So we have arrived at the bus station and it is pitch black due to the power failure which we were to become very aware happens on a regular basis in Kigali. We grab our bags and take the nearest taxi to us, praying all the while that he is not going to take us to a dark alley and kill us!! remember that we are a little shaken by our bus journey still!! Thankfully he was a nice man and took us to our hotel! However the story does not stop there... so we are taken to our room, which [View Full Entry]

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We last left you guys with us boarding the bus to Kigali, Rwanda. When we were originally planning our trip, this seemed like a great idea. The Lonely Planet had all the info, it was quite cheap (only about $20!!) and quite convenient. Much cheaper than flying! So we thought all was good. We got the first hint that things weren't all that rosy when we told Watoto where we were going next. "So where will you be heading next?" "Kigali" "Ah - wonderful. What time will your plane be leaving" "Uh well - we're actually catching a bus". Our friendly [View Full Entry]

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Africa was always going to be the working part of the trip! We were heading to Uganda, Kampala to visit Watoto Child Care Ministries and then Rwanda to visit our Compassion children and that was about all of our planning! We knew that we were in Africa from the first moment at the check in counter in Cairo. Kenya Airways had lost our reservation, despite the fact that we had seats allocated! So onto standby we go... pointing out that it is midnight! We were the first in a long line of standbyers - all of whom had the same story [View Full Entry]

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When you come to Egypt, there is a very standard tourist trail that you take. This goes from Cairo (the pyramids) to Luxor (Valley of the Kings, and Karnak temples), followed by Aswan (feluccas (little boats) on the nile), followed by Abu Simbel (very impressive large temples). Then there is also the Red Sea, where you can go scuba diving. And Mt Sinai. Apparently fantastic, but not as popular. One of the problems with a 4 month round the world trip is that you don't get time to do everything. So we had decided not to go to the Red Sea. [View Full Entry]

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well... we didn't have an auspicious start to our adventures in egypt... having finally succumbed to my first bout of food poisoning I spent a very miserable few hours in the middle of the night flying over libya vomiting into an aeroplane toilet bowl while dave extolled the many virtues of Egyptair cuisine! thankfully when we arrived in cairo we had our hostel picking us up so we went straight to bed and i continued to enjoy the constant companionship of a clean toilet! so cairo wasn't the best start but it was only the first day... Our second day in [View Full Entry]

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Well so far Tunisia had been fabulous!! After a lot of more developed countries (Mexico City, New York, London, Greece, Turkey) it was nice to get back to something a bit more exotic and different!! And cheap too!! It's nice when the Aussie dollar stretches a bit more... :) We were really enjoying Tunisia - the people were really friendly, even though they spoke French and we didn't understand. But from their demeanour we hope they were being friendly. Food has been an interesting experience. At the last few places listed above, we have had an opportunity to try the food [View Full Entry]

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Tunisia was one of the parts of our trip that was an afterthought which became an obsession! we wanted to go to somewhere in North Africa and started by thinking about Morocco but were advised that it probably was not the safest spot! obviously Algeria and Libya were out so Tunisia it was... so armed with this thought we went to the travel agent and asked for it to be included in our round the world ticket... here is where the problem begins... funnily enough one world does not fly Tunisia to Egypt! but by now it had become an obsession [View Full Entry]

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Istanbul at last. It had been a long hard journey getting here, and we were more than ready to find somewhere to sleep!! So far we had been organising our accommodation ahead of time, but for the first time, we decided that we were going to get there and figure it all out!! Had been recommended a few places by others, and so, armed with our knowledge, we clambered out of our buses, hefted our backpacks and set forth!! 9am, peak hour just settling, call to prayer blaring from minarets. Two lonely travellers far from home wander the streets of Istanbul [View Full Entry]

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After a few great days at Selcuk, it was time to move on the capital city, Istanbul. Getting from Selcuk to Istanbul involved an overnight bus journey. Now we've seen all kinds of buses on our trips, and have come to loath them. In fact, I loath all overland journeys. And now I can add sea journeys and air journeys as well. Which either means that we will never leave Australia again or I'll have to focus on arriving rather than the trip there :) But we had heard great things about the buses in Turkey. Comfortable, stewards who wait on [View Full Entry]

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I had been really looking forward to Turkey. Every traveller we had come across had waxed lyrical about how wonderful turkey was, how friendly everyone was, how the Turkish men would give you lots of camels in exchange for your wife.. sounded blissful really!! The flip side was the fact that the day before we entered Turkey, the Australian government upgraded the warnings - "avoid unnecessary travel into Turkey... terrorists targeting tourists... chance of terrorist attacks imminent" - so we were slightly apprehensive as well!! But we figured that there would always be these kind of problems, [View Full Entry]

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