Valley of the Kings

This morning we got up at 5am. By 6am we had eaten breakfast and caught a ferry across the Nile where we jumped on our donkeys. Well I jumped on and didn't quite make it but on the second attempt I was on. One of the shorter girls on the tour climbed onto a large rock so it wasn't so far to jump. :) We then rode for about 7kms which was fun and tiring. My donkey had no interest in listening to me no matter what i said to motivate him so hung around the back of the pack and would only speed up when one of the guys in charge would make the right noises. Then he'd spring to life and i'd be holding on and trying to keep balance. It got easier fortunately. After about an hour or so we made it to the Valley Of The Kings. I don't reckon the Pharoahs would have been riding into the Valley Of The Kings on a donkey but maybe more like a noble steed or maybe they would have been carried but it was pretty cool. We then checked out the Valley Of The Kings.
This is where a number of pharoahs had their tombs built after they realised that building bloody huge pyramids was like putting up a big sign that said "grave diggers - please dig here!". So far they've found roughly 60 tombs in the hills in the area. In fact it was 62 when our guide first started his talk and was about 68 by the end of the talk so perhaps they had found another 6 during the time we were there! We checked out 3 tombs and they were pretty impressive. Lots of colourful paintings on the walls depicting the passage of the dead through to their equivalent of heaven. By the end of the three tours we were all pretty stuffed. It was hot, there were tourists everywhere and the flies were outnumbering the tourists. The donkeys had left so we caught a bus and then a ferry back to our hotel. Since then I've had a nap and eaten lunch. This arvo is hot and there is a big celebration in Luxor tonight so people are everywhere. The girls have been warned to cover up if they go out after 5pm and travel in groups because they might have trouble (groping etc). Most the celebration revolves around prayers so it's kinda strange to think they should need to worry about their protection. No-one is too worried though because we've got a hotel with a pool!
Tomorrow we leave for Hurghada which is a resort town on the Red Sea. Not much to do apart from snorkel and relax. I think we are all needing it now.
Sounds like our travel agent has got it mostly sorted now although WE have to organise a hotel for one nights stay in Johannesburg because he's had trouble finding anything in the city centre. Of course, if he'd got it right in the first place this wouldn't be a problem. Oh well, we've started planning out what free holiday we can get out of Flight Centre for all of this.
Better go. This internet place is hot, smoky and I have to go swim in a nice pool now.

Felucca!!

Hi. Firstly, the travel agent doesn't know about this blog so he can't read the posts and know that we still curse his name. In fact, when we hear the Muslim call to prayer five times at day, Dave and I face Melbourne and curse our travel agent for a solid five mins. We curse the loudest at about 5.30am when the call to prayer is less welcome than the other calls due to being asleep.
Crispy, a bazaar is an outdoor market. I prescribe The Tea Party's "The Edges of Twilight" album to give you an education on such things. Harv, you too. Can't believe...

Right now I'm in Luxor. We've just spent the last 3 nights, 4 days sailing on the Nile on a Felucca which is a traditional Egyptian sailing boat. Great stuff. I'm a big fan of doing nothing and this provides just such an opportunity. We would maybe make a stop or two during the day for toilet breaks or to see the remains of an ancient temple then it's back on the felucca for hours more sailing. It's basically a very simple boat. One sail and a deck that has a canopy over it to keep the sun out. There were 7 of us on our boat plus the two sailors. You just read your book, listen to music, play card games and work on the tan (yes, it's starting to happen!). At night we pull over to shore and they cook us a simple but very tasty meal and then maybe after a bloody huge bonfire it's time for bed. Then repeat the next day. I could have just kept going I reckon. I was working on a plan to talk the sailors into letting me become one of their crew but I think that it would cost me a lot in sunscreen so I decided I'd get off the boat like everyone else and check into the hotel for a shower and brush of the teeth. We've been washing in the Nile since we boarded the boats and we're all feeling a little shabby. The worst bit is using the toilet. You take the shovel and your stash of toilet paper and find a nice bit of ground that is shielded from prying eyes. Then you squat. It's gross and wrong and even grosser and wronger when you are recovering from a stomach bug. The horror, the horror.
Adamanator, so far the harmonica is still mine. Vulture. Dave hasn't got me killed by an angry mob yet. But it could happen at any moment I suppose.
This arvo we go see the Temple of Karnak. Not sure who Karnak was. Some sort of god or ruler I guess. Probably played for Collingwood in the forward line back in the old days I guess. Oh, well done to Port. Good to see dirty Brisbane get a taste of their own medicine. We were eating breakfast yesterday getting quarter by quarter updates from one of the guys whose buddies were SMS'ing him the scores.
Tomorrow it's a 5am wake-up call for our donkey ride. Donkeys are everywhere here and I think that's because they are so cute with their big floppy ears. Naturally my donkey will be known as Eeyore and be very dumb.
It looks like our travel agent has been dealt with by a source in Melbourne so we expect our travel plans to be sorted out in the next day or two. The cursing however, will not stop. :)

How Bazaar!

Just got back from visiting a bazaar in Aswan which is the 3rd largest city in Egypt. So many interesting smells with incense and other spices burning and various foods plus the smell of horse dung. Some of the horses pulling carts are sad sights. So many ribs on display.
I was walking through the bazaar with four of the girls on my tour and it was very entertaining because many of the stall holders would yell out "4 women for him, hello Casanova", "lucky man, 4 women!" or "One hundred camels for that one!". All i could do was nod my head and grin. The girls were getting most of the attention though. Marriage proposals, "hello Miss Australia" to some dirtier lines. very entertaining. One of the girls bought a nice small Egyptian patterned box. Bargained very well and walked away in disgust eventually because he wouldn't give it to her for the price she wanted. He then backed down and said that her price was fine. She then caught him trying to substitute the box for a cheaper one so he wasn't too happy about it all in the end.
I didn't think i'd be writing this often in the blog but we are having trouble with our travel agent. We were looking through all the details he had given us and found a few problems. He'd had to change something because a flight wasn't available and ended up pushing out our whole schedule for the final week or so after the two tours are complete. The final flight back to Melbourne leaves at 2.15pm yet we don't arrive in johannesburg until half an hour after the plane leaves. That's the worst of the mistakes. We've been trying to contact him and when we finally spoke and asked him to call us back in our hotel he said he'd call in 20mins yet never did. The guy is worse than useless and we curse his name at every opportunity. I'm not too concerned because we'll get it sorted somehow but if he doesn't get his act together and at least reply to our emails then we are vowing to bring him down and get damn good free flights out of flight centre for our trouble. So the email gets checked every now and then which is why i get to update the blog so often.
Finally, happy birthday to Luke (my brother), a cheap souvenir present is coming your way when i get back! :)

Cairo Trots

Yeah, still in Cairo and it's only a day after the last update. That's because I've got the afternoon free. We were supposed to be going to the Egyptian Museum today but a little thing called "really bad diarrhea" put a stop to that. It showed up last night and hit both Dave and I and at least one of the girls on the tour as well. Not sure what caused it but it's a goodie. The food here can get you at any time. Even KFC is dodgy because the wash the lettuce under the tap. This morning was spent sleeping between trips to the toilet and now I think both of us have nothing left to give so have ventured out to use the internet. We needed something to do and don't want to go too far. Fortunately there's a KFC across the road from the internet cafe. So we're on the gastrolyte solution right now and hopefully the bug will clear up pretty quick.

I forgot to mention yesterday that we saw a funny sight at the pyramids. One of the girls in our group was taking a photo of a dodgy guy on a camel. These guys hang around and try to get money from tourists by offering camel rides or posing for photos. He then came up to her and offered her his camel whip and took her camera so that he could take a photo. She really shouldn't have handed over the camera. Next thing we know he's on the camel and walking off with the camera. We started yelling at him and a policeman on a camel rocks up, dismounts and goes over to the guy with the camera and starts hitting him with a camel whip. He was mostly hitting the camel actually. The guy gave back the camera after that. The policeman was obviously getting a taste for it because he then chased after some local boys who were just hanging around and threatened to whip them too. Very funny stuff. Gotta love an angry tourist policeman with a camel whip!

In Cairo

I've now been in Cairo for 3 days. It's probably about 30 degrees without a cloud in sky. Where the clouds should be, there is dust and pollution. It's an interesting place because most of it looks dirty and the buildings look run-down but I reckon that gives the area character. I think the roads and driving are the biggest eye-openers. Traffic lights and lanes on the roads are generally described as being there for decoration. Crossing the road involves walking taking a chance, having some guts and walking between moving cars. Somehow people don't get hit. We found a bar on our first day in Cairo called Ali Babi Cafeteria (no "Open Sesame" necessary) that gave us a great view of one of the major intersections and it was very entertaining. So many near collisions. The guy in the bar tried to rip us off (everyone tries!) but a local made him give some money back. We considered the rest "a tip". Cheeky bastard. The locals all try to find ways to get our money. They know more Aussie sayings than we do and then try to get you to buy crap and they are very persistent.
Today we saw some pyramids in Giza and the sphinx. There's not much to say about them that you probably haven't heard before. Big! Old! Impressive! We went inside one of the pyramids that was pretty much empty and it was like a sauna. Very cramped too but good fun.
Yesterday we went to Cairo Zoo which cost about 7 cents in Aussie dollars (a can of Coke once inside cost ten times that - still it's cheap) it was a bit sad really. Some animals were in really small cages. Others were alright. One of the exhibits were budgies from Australia. I guess the people that took them to Cairo are "budgie smugglers". :)
That will do for now. We leave Cairo tomorrow for Aswan where we see more old stuff. Hehe. Maybe that's how I should do the next update. It could go: "Saw old stuff. Sweated lots."
I have to get out of this internet cafe before the tradition egyptian music drives me crazy. :)

Singapore airport toilets

Yeah, I haven't got very far but Singapore Airport has free internet and who can pass up such an offer? Not me. Singapore Airport is massive. My favourite thing about it is that the toilets have the usual urinals and normal toilets but they also have one "squat toilet" for those who prefer it. I really don't know who would. I just had to poke my head into the area just for curiositys sake then left with a big grin on my face.
Other than a quick toilet story I've not much more to add. I watched Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind on the plane and it's pretty good and strange. Also Dave got a smile from a very nice girl in a seat about a row back and across so that kept him entertained for the rest of the flight. :)
Next up is Cairo.

Getting ready to go

Hi, I'll be using this weblog to write occasional updates on what I've been up to while overseas in Egypt, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Not sure how often I'm going to be writing in here but maybe every few days seems likely. Oh, an afro-egyptian experience doesn't mean I'm going to have really large hair. Just thought I'd clear that one up before I get any questions. If you have anything interesting to say (ie. Rhyce Shaw has just won the Brownlow Medal!) then I think you can post comments on this site or you could just email me at damien.evans@gmail.com.