pabloq

My sleeper ticket only cost me 2.90. You get for what you pay for! 8 people crammed into a space that could barely hold 6, more vinyl than John Peel and a few dodgy bugs crawling around. It’s only 12 hours of my life, plus I am too drunk to stay awake and worry about things. After a pretty reasonable sleep, considering, I got to chat to my fellow carriage mates. A Russian and 2 Czech guys, all had typical eastern European haircuts (to match mine I guess) and liked their football, which is always a good icebreaker, almost as good as the small icepick I carry with me. After checking out the lush countryside I arrive at my stop. Then I needed a taxi across town to the bus station. My first tut-tut ride of ... read more

This has the makings of the worst, shortest and most useless Travelblog ever, but its one for Qatar and I see there are not too many of them plus its a really small red dot on my Travelblog map. My plane ride from Cairo was alright. I had a good selection of music to listen to on the plane and it gave my ipod a rest and it refreshed my mind of the music I forgot to add to it before I left. Food was plane(!) food and the red wine and G & T's went down niceley. Doha airport just seemed to be full of other people in transit waiting to go east or west, they were all getting in the way with them stupid cases with wheels on all needing to buy something in ... read more

The 5 hour bus trip to Luxor was alright. It looked like I was going to be sitting on the floor at first, as it was packed. But I paid the most money so I got a seat, how nice! Not much else to do on here so I stick my ipod on for the whole journey. The Luxor bus station had moved from its central location next to the Luxor temple. The taxi drivers must have complained that they were not making enough money out of tourists so they moved it in the middle of nowhere. I had to get a cab to get anywhere half decent. My taxi driver was also the brother of the owner of a budget hotel in Luxor (How convenient!) but I had made my mind up where I was ... read more

Getting out of Jordan required a 1 pound departure tax. Why can't they add that to the visa? After all everyone is going to leave eventually. The border posts between Jordan and Israel are a few meters apart. Territory is king here for access for the Red sea. Leaving Jordan it was a friendly "Thanks for your visit, hope to see you again" from the guard. And then the Israeli female guard said "Hello. Welcome to Israel. Enjoy your stay Mr. Couch" Almost right. Next was Israeli customs control, where another female officer took me aside and asked me all sorts of questions. My travels, family, job(!), destinations, money, education, reasons for coming and roll on deodorant were discussed. It could have been a speed dating evening, except she didn't tell me anything about her, a ... read more

The bus ride to Beirut was pretty straight forward, a problem at the Syrian departures for me because I didn't have a exit card. I wasn't given one when I left Turkey. I was fined 1 Syrian pound. There was a English/Syrian guy sitting behind me who said he got fined 75 Syrian pounds once for the same thing, lucky me! The road to Beirut was a long winding one, going downhill into Lebanon's capital city. They dropped me off at a random stop on the outskirts of the city. I was officially lost, I got a minibus to the Charles Helou bus station (pronounced Karlvel Hello, why?). The bus station was a right mess, no help from anyone and no way out except along the road I just come along on the minibus. I went ... read more