FINAL THOUGHTS ON THE WHOLE TWO MONTH OVERSEAS ADVENTURE

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Final thoughts on the whole two month overseas adventure:

As Valerie wrote at the beginning of this blog, this trip was very atypical for us. We of course, could not take Rosie, and instead we planned to visit many countries that we have never been to before relying on others to convey us from place to place.

We had never sailed on a typical cruise ship with a casino, nightly entertainment, planned activities, miniature golf course, rock climbing, etc. Plus, we had never been on a long guided bus tour as usually when going overseas, we rent a car and drive ourselves, or plan our trip using planes, trains, etc., and going where we want, when we want. So not only were the countries with their different cultures, sights, and planned experiences new, but the mode of getting from one place to another on someone else's time schedule was entirely new to us. We had much to learn about these two very different travel "cultures." Some things we adjusted well to and others not so well.

Although we really enjoyed someone else cooking and cleaning up after us for a month, we weren't excited about just cruising and seeing nothing but water. Several tours we paid for at different ports, we were really disappointed in, solely because there was not enough time given to us to see what we wished to see. We had to get back to the ship by a certain time or it would sail without us.

The other related problem was that there were days that had strenuous tours offered back-to-back and we couldn't handle that pace---we needed a day to recover after doing so much walking or because of the extreme heat. So we didn't see some places, like a tour to Petra in Jordan that Valerie really would have liked to have gone on, but didn't because the next day was a 12-hour tour to Luxor and the Valley of the Kings, which couldn’t be missed.

Would we go on another cruise? Yes, but only if it were going to destinations we wanted to see/explore/visit as we learned that cruising in and of itself, is not the vacation for us.

Of the 7 new (to us) countries we visited on the cruise, only India around Mumbai, would we want to go back to and see more of. We would return to Turkey, however, which we visited on a 13 day bus tour without question. Bus touring we enjoyed more than the cruise for a number of reasons. Even if there wasn't a particular sight to see and explore that day, you saw so much of the country just out the bus window as you traveled along---trees, flowers, homes, mountains, modes of transportation, farms, businesses, towns, etc.

The other thing that we found was that you got to know the people you were traveling with as you interacted and ate meals with them all, every day. We made some new friends from Australia and England. Whether we had a typical tour guide or not, Aykut made our trip significantly more enjoyable. He seemed to be sincere in showing his "dear guests," his country that he obviously loved, along with its history, and customs. He was definitely personable, professional, and knowledgeable. (Although, I wish he knew more about birds so he could ID them for me—however, he did look up the English name for some trees I didn't know).

The down side again, is that you are managed by your tour guide and the tour schedule and so, you can't spend as much time as you would like seeing one place or another. Again, a down day here and there would have been better for us. We think in the future that we need to consider the pace of the tour and look for ones that cater to older (slower) travelers.

So the grand tally for this "around-the-world in 60 days" adventure was to add another continent (Africa) and a sub-continent (India) to our list, plus to set foot in 12 countries (8 we had never been in before) and to visit 8World Heritage Sites.

P.S. Somehow we managed to time everything right for this trip. The State Department has since issued warnings to Americans to stay away from visiting the Great Pyramids due to increased incidents of angry confrontations with the vendors there. Then to learn soon after we had finished our tour, while we were still in Istanbul, that 3 tourists had been killed ballooning right where we just had watched them do so, was a sad note. Although we did not go up in the hot air balloons, having to be in a tour group when such an tragedy happened would really spoil the trip!! (understatement here) And lastly, if the last thought wasn't enough, Turkey exploded less than a week after we left and I am not sure how concerned we would have been to even leave our hotel with all the protesting and unrest taking place there now.

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