Dubai

The flight over here was awful. The people sitting next to me had about 7 elbows each and to make things worse they slept the entire flight while I struggled to get any sleep at all.

Things took a turn for the better when I decided to buy a case of duty free beer at the airport and thus doubled the number of items in Ben's Fridge.
While Ben was at work on the first day I went into the old area of Dubai called Bur Dubai. I went to the Dubai museum which was quite interesting and learnt about the history of Dubai. Which, as far as I can see, can be summed up in three words: pearl fishing, oil and tourism. Pearls were the main export until the discovery of oil in 1960s and that's when Dubai became really rich. Nowadays there are a lot of tourists (which is lukcy cause there is a damn lot of hotels for them to stay in) and that's where Dubai seems to make a lot of money. I also went to another museum which is in what used to be a house of one of the Sheiks of Dubai. This had a really good photo exhibition of photos taken of Dubai throughout the last 50 years or so. The aerial shots showing how much development has taken place over time were interesting.
In the afternoon I walked back to Ben's place along the shores of Dubai creek (although I think it's big enough to be called a river) and had a squiz at some of the fancy architecture that Dubai's well know for.

That night Ben and I went out to a pub called 'The Dubliners' for a few drinks, we got talking to the manager for a little while and I was telling him that I'd been staying in Ireland and he gave us some free pints of Guinness which was good!

The next day Ben had a half day at work and after he finished we went into another part of the old town to have a look at the spice souk (markets) and the gold souk. They were ok but I think I saw enough souks in Morocco and Egypt so that they've lost their appeal for me at the moment. That night we went out with some of Benji's workmates to 'The Irish Village' (I don't know why he kept taking me to Irish pubs), we ended up at a place called 'Rockbottom' which, despite it's name, wasn't too bad.

We got home at 5:00 in the morning and had to get up at 8:30 to go into the desert to do some dune bashing. This is basically just four wheel driving in the desert. It's pretty fun and a couple of times it felt like the car was going to tip over. We also tried sand boarding but it's a fair bit harder than snow boarding and there aren't any chairlifts in the desert so you have to walk up the dunes after you board down them. We also went on little 4 wheel motorbikes. They were great fun, just hooning around the sand dunes hoping that you don't run into anyone else as you go over the top of them. At the end of the morning we saw a couple of ostriches and falcons and posed for some pictures with them.
That was Ben's one day off a week and we were supposed to go out with some of his mates but once we got back from the mornings activites I cooked us some bacon for brekky and then we fell asleep on the lounge for most of the afternoon. We did go out for a few drinks at a bar in one of the more expensive hotels in Dubai. It was really nice but I didn't want to get too used to it cause after this week of crashing on Ben's couch it's back to not so glamorous youth hostels for me.

The next evening we went to Ski Dubai - an indoor ski resort. It was great fun! A very strange experience to be skiing inside, especially when there's a desert outside. There were two runs and one had a jump on it so we spent most of our time trying to go over the jump. I'm leaving tomorrow and I've got a bit of spare time so I thought I'd put a few photos up for you to have a look at. Dubai is an interesting place and it's been great to visit Ben over here. Now it's off to Germany...

Photos

Photos from Morocco and Egypt are up. Click on the 'my photos' link on the right hand side.

Also, I fly out on the 21st so I've only got a few more days in Oz.

Egypt

I don't know what my favourite part of Egypt is. There are plenty of contenders.

• Walking around the Giza pyramids and the Sphinx
• Exploring the many tombs and temples
  
• Spending three relaxing days sailing down the Nile on a felucca
• Visiting a traditional Nubian (original inhabitants of Egypt) village
• Seeing the exhibits in the Egyptian museum, particularly all of King Tutankhamun's gold

I know what it isn't

• The two overnight train trips we had to go on
• The fact that we couldn't have a shower for three days on the felucca
• That some stupid b#%&h from Queensland dropped and broke my two month old camera (Was it not enough that they won State of Origin - why did she need to do this to me??)

I flew into Cairo from Morocco and landed at 6:30 in the morning. I had no idea what I was going to do that day but ended up being talked into going on a 'tour' by some guy who was hanging out in the hostel. I assumed that there would be a few other people on the 'tour' but it was just him and me in his taxi. Every now and then he even stopped to pick up other passengers (locals) and drop them off where ever they were going.

It started out a bit dodgy but ended up being a good day. He showed me the Giza pyramids which are great. They are right next to the city, I'd assumed they'd be out in the desert but we were driving down a main road, turned a corner and there was a great big pyramid staring back at me! I had the choice of taking a camel or a horse around and, after riding a camel in Morocco, I opted for the more comfortable and less stinky horse - it was the best decision I made all day.

I spent two hours of sitting on a horse in the bright sunshine and despite the fact that I had no suncream (I'd left it at the hostel) and no hat (ditto and I refused to pay $5 for a tea towel and a piece of string to tie it round my head) I didn't get sunburnt at all, which leads me to think that there is a much thicker ozone layer over Egypt than there is over Australia.

The pyramids are huge, the biggest is 140 metres high, and they are pretty spectacular to see up close. I was kind of expecting to see them in perfect condition but they are a bit worn (fair enough considering they're 4500 years old) but even still they're amazing and you really appreciate the skill of the ancient Egyptians in building them.

That afternoon I also went and saw the step pyramid which is nearby.

The next day I walked to the Egyptian Musem. This has a massive collection of artifacts but 99% don't have any description of what they are so I was kind of wandering around guessing as to what I was looking at. The highlights here were the room with all of the gold that was found in Tutankhamun's tomb and the royal mummies room. This room is separate to the rest of the museum because they have to control the temperature in it. There are about 15 mummies on display. Some of them are still fully wrapped in bandages and some are partially uncovered. When you could see their skin it was really brown and looked like leather that had been left out in the sun for too long. On some of them you could see their fingernails, patches of hair and their teeth. One, he had died young, had a perfect smile which was a bit wierd to see! Unfortunately you aren't allowed to take camera inside the museum so I couldn't take any photos of the mummies.

The next day the tour that I was going on started. I met the rest of the group at our hotel and the very first two people I saw were Trev and Jac, whom I met on my bus trip around Europe, so that was a great surprise. It was good to see them again and listen to what they'd been up to since we last saw each other.

From Cairo we caught an overnight train down to Aswan. That evening we went to a 'sound and light' show at Philae Temple. The temple is located on an island in the middle of the Nile so we had to hitch a ride on a boat over to the island. Once we were there we slowly walked through the temple as the big 'lights' highlighted certain areas and the 'sounds' explained some of the history of the temple and also some general history of Egypt. It was pretty difficult to follow what was being said about the history because I was too involved at looking at the various statues and carvings on the walls. This was the first (of many) big temples that I saw and it wasn't the best but when I saw the detail in the carvings for the first time I was amazed. I don't know how long it took to do them but it must have been ages.

The next morning we got up really early, really really early: 3:15 am to join a convoy driving to Abu Simbel. Luckily I got some more sleep in the mini van. We arrived at Abu Simbel at about 7:30 am. The reason for it being so early is so that the tourists can go and have a look at the two tombs before it gets too hot during the daytime. The two tombs at Abu Simbel are for Ramses 2 and his 19th (and favourite) wife, Nefertari. In total his 54 wives had 112 sons and 96 daughters!

The tombs at Abu Simbel are said to be some of the most impressive in Egypt. They are good but what impressed me more is that they're not in their original location. In the 1960s the Nile river was dammed and the new water level was going to cover the island which the tombs were on. So, in a race against time, they had to dig up the tombs, cut into pieces which were small enough to be transported and then move them all to higher ground and reassemble the pieces to make the tombs all over again. They did a really good job and I couldn't even find the marks where they cut the statues and columns inside.

That afternoon we went to a Nubian village. We went into someones house and had hibiscus tea (which tasted ok). We had a bit of a look around the village then went to dinner in a restaurant down the river and afterwards we saw some Nubian dancing.

The next three days were spent sailing down the Nile in a felucca. Felucca's are pretty simple traditional boats that have been used on the Nile for centuries, maybe milleniums. After a hectic few days this was a welcome break and it was great to be able to just sit back and relax.

This is how I typically spent my time: sitting, lying down, chatting, playing cards, swimming and occasionally having a go at steering the boat. Whenever anyone needed the toilet we'd just pull over and they'd have to go and find some bushes to go behind. At night we'd pull over and the crew put up a little shelter around the edge of the boat to keep out mosquitoes (which didn't work). Some nights we also had camp fires and the crew would play drums and sing and try to make us dance around it.

One time when we were going for a swim a group of kids from a nearby village came over to have a look at us and I ended up playing soccer with them for a while which was great fun, though I don't think I'll be getting a call up to the socceroos anytime soon...

We caught the felucca from Aswan up to Luxor. At Luxor we went to the Valley of the Kings. The valley is located in the middle of nowhere. It was purposely chosen by the Pharoahs who are buried there after they realised that pyramids were really just a big advertisement for grave robbers saying "Look. There's a bucket load of gold in here". So far there have been 63 tombs discovered but we were told that there are probably a lot more waiting to be found. We went into three of the tombs. They are really impressive. Because they are more sheltered than the temples the carvings and paintings inside are in much better condition. You're not allowed to take photos so I can't show but the colours of the paintings are really diverse especailly when you consider that all the colours (reds, blues, greens, yellows, black, brown etc) are derived from different types of rocks.

This was pretty much the end of the trip, we had to catch another overnight train back to Cairo which sucked! That night I went to the sound and light show at the pyramids which was good. The next morning I flew out of Cairo to London (with a stopover in Vienna), spent one night in London and then flew to Sydney via Singapore. By the time I got home I'd pretty much spent three days straight in planes so I was really looking forward to getting home and being able to relax.

Well actually...

That last one was a wee bit of a lie...

I did make it back for Matty's birthday (Happy Birthday Matt) and I'll be in Australia for 2 weeks before heading back to Ireland.

*Places hand over heart* I hearby solemly swear to update my photos and blog in the next few days...

See ya, Pete

Happy Birthday

Hello,

well I am in Egypt and, unfortunately, I won't be able to make it to my littlest brothers 21st birthday which is on tomorrow (i think) with the time difference between here and back home.

So Matty - Happy Birthday, have a great night and I will have a beer for you over here!!