Egypt and the middle east
Whilst I wait for yet more pictures to upload on facebook on these slow computers it's about time I post here again.
This section has been quite stellar by comparison to India. I hardly met fellow travellers in India and the Indians I did meet were pretty much arseholes. Conversely I've found the hospitality of Egypt and the middle east so far to be very charming, friendly and pretty genuinely helpful for the most part.
I'm getting a great mixture of cultural activities such as the valley of the Kings where I saw tutankhamen's mummy as well as the likes of Philae temple, Abu Simbel and Karnak temple to name a few. The other part of that mix is the physical activities like scuba diving, quad biking and hiking in general, however the best moments are when you do something physical for the sake of seeing something cultural. To date going up Mt Sinai in the middle of the night to get to the top to see the greatest sunrise I've ever seen was something I never could've imagined doing 12 months ago. The only regret is that I didn't take the 3000 steps up the mountain as oppose to the 7km path on the other side which has too many tourists on it. Nonetheless I went back down the 3000 steps which are more like boulders (I followed where the guides were going instead of the tourists) than steps and my feet felt it once on the bottom.
Equally exhausting if not much smaller a climb was getting to the top of Petra to see the monastery. I timed my climb so there weren't too many tourists in my way so I could push myself and even raced a japanese guy to get to the peak.
The weird thing is that day by day it seems I'm ticking off the things in one of those '100 things to do before you die' list. It got me thinking that maybe I'm seeing too many things in too short a time. That was until I met this sth korean girl the other day who says she's doing 40 countries in 1 year and 1 month. I thought me doing 18 countries in 10 months was huge.
I'll finish off by reciting her relentless itinerary: China, HK, Australia, NZ, Chile, Easter Island, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Guatemala, Paraguay, Uraguay, Brazil, Cuba, Honduras, Mexico, USA, Canada, England, Sth Africa, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Morrocco, Portugal, France, Germany, Austria, Sudan, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Greece, Italy. That's about all I can remember. That's 38 anyways I think that's enough haha.
She listed most of the countries I want to do on my next trip. I think though it's a lot more worthwhile to do things a lot slower so you can actually take things in.
This section has been quite stellar by comparison to India. I hardly met fellow travellers in India and the Indians I did meet were pretty much arseholes. Conversely I've found the hospitality of Egypt and the middle east so far to be very charming, friendly and pretty genuinely helpful for the most part.
I'm getting a great mixture of cultural activities such as the valley of the Kings where I saw tutankhamen's mummy as well as the likes of Philae temple, Abu Simbel and Karnak temple to name a few. The other part of that mix is the physical activities like scuba diving, quad biking and hiking in general, however the best moments are when you do something physical for the sake of seeing something cultural. To date going up Mt Sinai in the middle of the night to get to the top to see the greatest sunrise I've ever seen was something I never could've imagined doing 12 months ago. The only regret is that I didn't take the 3000 steps up the mountain as oppose to the 7km path on the other side which has too many tourists on it. Nonetheless I went back down the 3000 steps which are more like boulders (I followed where the guides were going instead of the tourists) than steps and my feet felt it once on the bottom.
Equally exhausting if not much smaller a climb was getting to the top of Petra to see the monastery. I timed my climb so there weren't too many tourists in my way so I could push myself and even raced a japanese guy to get to the peak.
The weird thing is that day by day it seems I'm ticking off the things in one of those '100 things to do before you die' list. It got me thinking that maybe I'm seeing too many things in too short a time. That was until I met this sth korean girl the other day who says she's doing 40 countries in 1 year and 1 month. I thought me doing 18 countries in 10 months was huge.
I'll finish off by reciting her relentless itinerary: China, HK, Australia, NZ, Chile, Easter Island, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Guatemala, Paraguay, Uraguay, Brazil, Cuba, Honduras, Mexico, USA, Canada, England, Sth Africa, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Morrocco, Portugal, France, Germany, Austria, Sudan, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Greece, Italy. That's about all I can remember. That's 38 anyways I think that's enough haha.
She listed most of the countries I want to do on my next trip. I think though it's a lot more worthwhile to do things a lot slower so you can actually take things in.