There are two reasons to visit Egypt. One of course is to see the ancient wonders. Two, is to bask in the sun and dive in the Red Sea. The Red Sea coast is lined with resorts, ranging from Las Vegas style tourist conclaves like Sharm El Sheik, to more rustic backpacker hang outs like Dahab. Nuweiba - our home for today, is in-between. Today was a day of pampering as we would stay in the Nuweiba Hilton Coral resort - the Hilton with the highest number of return visitors in the world. Why? I'd say its because of the price. [View Full Entry]

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Today, the plan was simple. See the Egyptian Museum, see Islamic Cairo, and eat lots of food. And do this all at an extremely slow pace as our bus out of Cairo that night was at 10pm. So of course, we woke up late, sauntered rather than walked and got lost a few times just to fill in the time. First up on the plate was to pick up some compulsory souvenirs and gifts for friends. One nice tourist item they have here is Egyptian perfume, which actually does smell pretty nice. Alas, my first experience with the perfume was not [View Full Entry]

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Today was reserved for the West bank sights of Luxor - the Valley of the Kings and related sights. This is where the likes of Ramses and Tutankhamen are buried - far away from the rest of the populace so as to avoid the greedy hands of grave robbers. Strangely though, there aren't any pyramids here - pyramids must have been so 'last millienium' by the time these guys wanted to be buried (the real reason I believe is that too many pyramids were being robbed, so they decided to make finding the Pharoah's tombs harder by keeping everything firmly underground). [View Full Entry]

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Day 1 in Egypt had been slightly traumatic, so we started Day 2 in high spirits knowing that the probability of 2 days in a row of trauma was considerably low. An early morning flight from Cairo got us to Luxor at 7am. Today, was to be a day of luxury. We had managed to score a bungalow at the Sheraton for the incredible price of $60! After rolling around on the incredibly clean sheets, flicking through 100 TV channels, dissecting the room service menu, and essentially reveling at the welcome change from the previous nights' hostel accommodation, we finally grudgingly [View Full Entry]

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Only the stupid or the adventurous would choose to visit a desert country with a 4 month old in tow. I prefer the latter moniker, though I leave it up to you dear reader to decide. Our plan was to see the sights of Egypt and Jordan, and end with a tiny stint in Moscow on the way home. We landed at Cairo at midnight, after a rather pleasant trip on Aeroflot (Russian airlines - side note: to all those who complain about Aeroflot - what the heck are you complaining about? Aeroflot treated us very well. True the air hostesses [View Full Entry]

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Today was our official company outing - a kind of morale event that was meant to promote bonding and team spirit. And what better way to encourage people to huddle together in comradarie than at 5600m on a cold freezing mountain - Jade Dragon Mountain. Jade Dragong Mountain is one of those iconic mountains of China, a plateau of snow rising above flat plains - reminiscent of Kilimanjaro. In true chinese tourist over-preparation fashion, the entry fee included a bottle of oxygen, just in case you felt light headed. We all crowded into a bus, which trundled us up the side [View Full Entry]

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Lijiang - main stop for tourists travelling in Yunnan, and meeting point of the Musuo and Naxi minorities. Its for minority culture viewing and tasting that people venture out to this small town in the mountainous areas of southern china. The minorities in this area have some particularly interesting cultural traits, but none so interesting as the Naxi - the last surviving matriachal society in the world today - or so I was told anyway. What does it mean to be a matriachal society. It means the women wear the pants, the men cook the meals, the women run the town [View Full Entry]

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Yunnan province - abode of Mountain people, and one of those 'must see' areas in china. So I've been told anyway. I was in Yunnan as part of our annual company retreat - a 4 day fiasco that is mostly holiday, with a sprinkling of company meeting. Our destination was Lijiang, with a 4 hour stop over in Kunming each way. We landed in Kunming mid morning to be greeted by a gloomy rainy day. So instead of walking the streets, we headed for the relatively sheltered safety of Green Lake park. Parks in China are interesting more so for anthropological [View Full Entry]

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Brussels, capital of Tin Tin, and unfortunately also the name of one of God's most putrid vegetable creations. This was my last day in Belgium, and enroute to the airport, I had about 6 hours to spare in the capital. Here's my problem with European cities - typically the list of attractions include church, town square, palace, church, town square, palace, museum, church and church. Relatively BORING!! But Brussels had one extra up its sleeve. The museum of comics!! Belgium is the home of Tin Tin - that beloved bald comic book sleuth with the little tuft of hair that I'm [View Full Entry]

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Given that the Netherlands border was just a mere 30 mins drive from Antwerp, me and a few friends decided to hire a car and drive up for the day to explore this tiny country in a day. We had grand ambitions of racing through Rotterdam, stopping over at the famed water dykes, then trolloping across the flat country side spotting windmills, before ending up at Amsterdam to see the wandering drug addicts. Alas, that was not to be, thanks to the wonderful service of Rent-a-car, a rental company recommended to us by the 4-star establishment we had been staying in. [View Full Entry]

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