Lots in Luxor

Last night we went to the Luxor temple which is gorgeously lit up at night. It's quite large and very pretty. There's an obelix that's the twin to the one on the Place de la Concorde in Paris. There's also a very pretty row of Sphinxes. All quite impressive.

Today we had a 5am wake-up call in order to see the sights before it got too hot. It still got hot. I'd hate to be visiting during the height of Summer. The Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens were both impressive. We also saw some "minor" temples along the way.

Night train to Cairo tonight...oh yeah he says sarcastically. At least we have some time to chill at the moment. We stayed in Le Meridien last night. Very swanky. We've stayed in a couple of 5 star hotels on this tour. It's amazing that they could include such good hotels in a cheapish tour. But, then, a lot of things are quite cheap here. We've even ordered room service as it was so cheap. Whoops, I've just mentioned food again (sorry, Steve!).

Floating on Feluccas

We arrived in Luxor this afternoon and have a few hours of free time. After leaving Cairo by overnight train we arrived in Aswan. Aswan is so very different from Cairo. The town is quite small and is right beside the Nile. In fact, there is only a narrow strip of fertile land along the side of the Nile this far South. Our hotel was on an island in the middle of the Nile. A very nice hotel too...especially the pool.

We saw some of the sights in the area including the Philae temple. This temple was partially submerged by the production of the lower dam in Aswan. The temple has now been relocated to another higher island very close by.

We've also flown to Abu Simbel to see the amazing statutes and chambers there. These were also relocated. This time because of the production of the high dam which created Lake Nasser.

We've had two days cruising on Felucca sailboats on the Nile.

Still some great sites to see tonight and tomorrow before we get back to Cairo.

Chaotic Cairo

Cairo is quite a mad place. HUGE...18 million people or thereabouts. BUSY...streets full of taxis tooting their horns. BUT FUN...

We arrived late and slept in the next day. We went for a wander but didn't stray far from the hotel. In the evening we went to a "light and sound" show at the Pyramids. It was very good. A spectacular show with some great technical effects.

The next day we did a day trip to Alexandria. That's on the mediterranean. Quite built up and a bit of a summer get-away for Egyptians and some Europeans. An interesting day although 3 hours drive each way.

We're off to a dinner cruise on the Nile tonight. Doesn't that sound amazing! I hope it is!

Turkish Delights

The best way to summarise our Turkish trip is probably to mention those things we enjoyed the most.


Gallipoli.
Gallipoli is now a bit of a pilgrimage for Aussies and Kiwis. Mel had been previously for ANZAC day. The difference was quite amazing as there were very few people about. It was nice to visit the various monuments and to try and visualise what happened there. Lest we forget and all that.


Ephesus was stunning. Lots of ruins for a start then you walk over the brink of a hillock to see a marble path leading down to the two-storey marble facade of the old library. Quite stunning. Part of the thrill is imagining how the place must have looked when it was still in use thousands of years ago.

Pamukkale as I mentioned previously was very impressive too. When we arrived we looked at the Necropolis (city of the dead literally but just the cemetary in actual fact). This was interesting but it wasn't until we drove around the corner that we could appreciate that size of the city (of Hieropolis) that was once there. There were ruins practically as far as the eye could see, including a great old bath house and a huge theatre. I wasn't expecting any of this as the main attraction is the terraces that have been formed by calcium deposits from the water. People used to be able to walk over these terraces and also go for a dip if they wished. This is now banned. A good thing as they are very fragile. As it is they are suffering from a lack of water. They now have to redirect the waterflow over various portions at different times to keep it from falling apart. New Zealand had something similar with the Pink and White Terraces that were destroyed in the eruption of Mount Tarawera in 1886.

They have outdoor thermal baths here as well. These looked very nice but it looked a bit decadent given the fragile nature of the terraces outside the complex. Still, I don't know if bathing in the water was having a negative effect on this or not. Anyway, we didn't have time to go for a swim so at least we didn't have to worry about contributing to the problem ourselves.

Cappadocia was the other major site that we really liked. The area was previously very volcanic and layers of ash and volcanic rock covered the area. The soft rock and ash has eroded leaving the most unusual rock formations. There are "fairy chimneys" where rocks are balanced on top of other pointed rocks. There are strange shapes formed by rocks, such as camels and birds and really whatever you care to imagine. It's a bit like staring at clouds in the sky. The more you look the more you see. Many of these rocks have been carved out to form houses and even churches. The locals claim that there are as many as 3000 churches in the various rocks. Our guide thinks that the total is much closer to 1000. And these churches are often barely holes in rocks with some frescos on the walls. Still, very impressive.

Back in Istanbul we are enjoying the festival atmosphere of Ramadan. The area behind the two most famous mosques (Aya Sofia and the Blue Mosque) and the hippodrome fill with people in the evenings when the locals are finally permitted to eat. During Ramadan, moslems are forbidden from eating during daylight (although many seem to ignore this in Istanbul). There are many stalls operating. A lot of these are food stalls so you can get a cheap and tasty meal there whilst people watching.

We're off to Cairo tonight. It's a late flight (departing at 11:15pm) so we're hoping to avoid delays. Our tour doesn't start for a couple of days so I think we'll have a late start tomorrow. At least, the tour arranges for us to be picked up from the airport so we won't have to try and figure very much out when, no doubt, we will be quite tired.

Although, we are really enjoying the travelling we are really looking forward to getting to Dahab. We get over a week in the one hotel! That will really feel like a holiday!

Turkey Tour

Our ten day tour was quite a whirlwind. Unfortunately, the distances we were trying to cover meant long days in the bus to arrive late in the hotel. Still, we saw some amazing stuff. Our tour guide, Cengiz, was excellent. He's Turkish but speaks very good English - only occassionally was his accent a problem.

Have a look at the "Turkey Unplugged" itinerary on www.onthegotours.com.

I didn't realise how many significant ruins Turkey has. I probably should have known but I hadn't really thought about it. Most impressive of these for me where Ephesus and Pamukkale. Pamukkale all has white mineral pool terraces that must be similar to the old Pink and White terraces of NZ that are now sadly no more.

Got to go...

London and Turkey

We had a couple of nice days in London before heading off to Turkey.

We had some fun on arrival in Istanbul as my pack didn`t turn up initially. We managed to locate it after queuing to see the Lost and Found people for some tıme. The weather in Istanbul was terrible. Plenty of rain. Luckily for us that was the last of it we`ve seen so far.

The tour of Turkey was really good. We`re now in Istanbul relaxing after a very busy 9 days. We`re off to Egypt on Wednesday for our next big adventure. Hopefully, I can give you an update on the Turkey tour before we get on the next tour and probably won`t have a chance to email again.

Volksfest in Stuttgart

We arrived in Karlsruhe at about 4pm. Yoshimi and Fridi came and met us. It was great to see them. I've been lucky enough to catch up with Yoshimi five times now while I've been in the UK. That's less than once a year but that's not too bad considering how it's likely to be a while before we see them again. We're very glad to be able to spend time with them.

At the moment there is a "Volksfest" on in Stuttgart. That's about an hour away from Karlsruhe. On Sunday we went out there. There's a large market plus lots of fairground rides and, of course, the tents full of drinkers. We had a great day. Luckily they also have alcohol free beer so Fridi could enjoy some beer too. There is great food too...I know I'm always mentioning the food but what's a tour of Europe like if you don't enjoy the wonderful foods! They had roast chicken and pork. Both were done to perfection.

We went on one ride. A short but very fast rollercoaster. Quite a few of us were tempted to go on a kind of ghost train ride. It was called "Psycho" and advertised itself as having live actors. Certainly, just in front of the ride they had this guy dressed up in a white coat like a doctor holding what looked like a brain. He had blood over his clothes and was holding tongs which he kept clicking while walking backwards and forwards staring at people. Very freaky. The person controlling who was let into the ride was brilliant too. She (I think it was a "she") would just stare at the next people in the queue in a really disturbing manner.. Sometimes suddenly rushing towards someone in the queue. Very funny as some people couldn't deal with it. One girl had to go and stand behind her boyfriend because it got to her so much. It's a shame we didn't go and see whether the rest of the ride was as good. Nevermind...can't do everything.

Montreaux - Lake Geneva

After leaving Interlaken we headed to Montreaux. It's a nice town on the shores of Lake Geneva. One of Mel's mum's favourite places in Europe. It certainly is pretty. We particularly enjoyed going to the Chateau de Chillion. From the outside it doesn't look that spectacular but once you enter the walls it's great. It's probably the most well preserved and oldest buildings I've seen in Europe. It contains great 15th century banquet rooms, bedrooms, chapels and the like. A must-see if you are ever in the area.

Originally, we'd planned to go to Karlsruhe on this day as it was a Friday and this meant we could spend the entire weekend with Yoshimi and Fridi. The plan was then to come down to Switzerland again later. With Swiss trains being so expensive we rearranged plans. Luckily, Sally, who I used to work with at Amerada, now lives near Lausanne with her husband Chris. I'd previously discussed the possibilities of catching up with them but it didn't sound like it would work with her brother potentially being there that week and Sally in the middle of studying. In fact, it worked out very well.

We made our way to Renens (one station on from Lausanne) station and Sally came and picked us up. We had dinner with them before Sally had to drop Chris at the station (he was popping back to England for a short time). We had a very pleasant evening drinking some very nice wine. The next morning Sally helped us get train tickets (actually she did all the work!) to Karlsruhe. Thanks Sally!

Interlaken

Interlaken - literally "between the lakes" - is another place I first saw whilst on my Contiki tour. We were on a bus and first saw the town from high above. It's in such as beautiful location that I always fancied coming back to have a look around. On Contiki we just drove past it.

There are two train stations in Interlaken Ost and West. You can walk between the two in less than half an hour. We arrived at Ost and stayed close to there. We decided that we wanted to go up one of the mountains. The weather was overcast and the ski channel showed that the tallest mountain in the area (Jungfrau) was covered in clouds. Shilthorn however was below the cloud base so still had great views. The top of Shilthorn is close to 10000 feet high (2971 meters). To get there we caught a nice old train to Lauterbrunnen (literally, Valley of Waterfalls). From there it was a bus trip to the bottom of the cable cars. We were a bit stunned by the price to go up the cable cars but decided to do it anyway.

It took four cable car runs to reach the top. The views were amazing. Each new cable car giving different views. Shilthorn was used in the filming of James Bonds' "On Her Majesty's Secret Service". After looking around we took the topmost cable car down to the next level where there was a nice outdoor area to have our picnic lunch. The sun had burnt off a lot of the clouds
by this time and it was really warm and the view had improved too.

Then we made our way to the bottom again. From there we wanted to an area where the waterfalls have carved out great holes in the mountains. This was quite incredible as you got quite close to the waterfalls. There was plenty of spray and noise. Some of the shapes formed by the water astonishing. There was a chute called the corkscrew that you got to view from above and the side. The water was twisting through this at incredible pace.

From there we made our way back to Interlaken. A great day!

There are no kangaroos in Austria

From Venice we headed to Salzburg to stay in a very large youth hostel that lived up to it's name. The place was over run with school children. We were given a room right at the back of the hostel and couldn't hear any noise at all so that was very good. The hostel was very well run and had excellent breakfasts.

Mel suggested that we do the "Sound of Music" tour. Slightly corny but "why not?". It was actually quite good. The church used in the movie for the wedding (not the real life church) is situated in the town of Mondsee. Thus, the tour was by bus. Significant buildings from the movie were pointed out and we got to drive through the beautiful countryside.

They did put the soundtrack on whilst we were in the bus and a few people sung along. Quite a laugh really.

Salzburg is quite pretty and the Austrian scenery is great. We would have liked to have seen more of Austria but time was running out.

Catch up from Karlsruhe

We are in Karlsruhe staying with Fridi and Yoshimi. This feels like a holiday from our holiday as we don't have much planned. We have two days in London before flying out to Turkey but that time will be quite busy. We have a long list of things to do! So, finally I might have some time to tell you what we've been doing for the last couple of weeks!

Pisa:
We encountered our first rain since we left the UK. That's over six weeks of pretty much perfect weather. Very nice. It was an absolute downpour in Pisa though. And, it started just after we got off the train. Because of the weather we caught a taxi to the Field of Miracles (as the area where the leaning tower is situated is called). Not that we wanted to see the place in the pouring rain but our hotel was in a square just off there. The hotel was extremely basic but had a great location. Once we'd dried off we went looking for dinner. The restaurant nearest the hotel seemed the safest idea. The rain had stopped but it could have easily rained again. We had fantastic food and then went for a walk around the area. It was wonderfully empty of people. The next morning wasn't too bad first thing but it certainly got busy. It's possible to climb the leaning tower at the moment but we decided that 15 Euros each was kind of extreme. From Pisa it was off to...

Venice:
When I did my Contiki tour of Europe we had stayed in a campsite on the mainland but with access to Venice by boat. That worked really well and the campsite has cabins. Since Italy had proven to be quite expensive for accommodation this seemed like a good idea. And it was! The only real problem was the bus from the nearest railway station only runs hourly and even then was very late. Still we got there. The campsite is amazing. Very well run with friendly staff. They have a pizzeria which does cooked breakfasts (hard to find those in Europe sometimes!) They also have a nice restaurant. Because we'd booked online we also got a substantial discount on the boat to Venice (5 Euros each return rather than 9). The cabins were clean and had heating and linen. Well worth checking out at 13 Euro a night each. www.camping-fusina.com.

So, in the morning we got the ferry across to Venice. The weather was marvellous. On the way across we saw this cruise liner that we keep encountering. We last saw it in Bari and before that in Dubrovnik. It's absolutely huge. I'll have to find out some details on it. There's a big "C" on the funnel and a water slide on the back of it. We must be picking the right destinations if that ship is going to them too! Maybe we should have hitched a lift!

Mel found the best hot chocolate she's ever had in a back street of Venice! Always a bonus!

When we reached St. Marks square the place was awash with water. I think that they'd had a downpour before we arrived on the train the day before and it still hadn't drained. Some parts were dry but in other parts you had no choice but to take off shoes and socks to get past the ankle deep water. Quite a funny sight. I hope the pictures come out. The square is very pretty as are the surrounding buildings. I just wish people didn't feed the pigeons! There are stalls selling pigeon food - madness. Some of the tourists were getting photos of pigeons in their hair and feeding from their hands. Yuck!

We had a good walk around Venice. Did all the usual things and then near the Rialto bridge we enquired about Gondola boat rides. They are incredibly expensive but it's one of those things unique experiences. We weren't going to be back for some time and we at least were holidaying on pounds rather than NZ or Aus dollars. So, we just decided to enjoy it. The gondola took us under the Rialto bridge and then down some of the narrower canals. We went past the home of Marco Polo (again! having seen his place in Croatia!). It was all very beautiful and peaceful down the narrow canals. Then it was back to the grand canal again which is much busier. We really enjoyed ourselves. Just as well really.

We also went to the Doge's palace which is quite spectacular. A bonus was that you also got to walk across the Bridge of Sighs. Luckily we got to walk back again. For those that don't know it's supposedly known as the Bridge of Sighs as that's what prisoners would do as they got there last glimpse of Venice before being locked up or executed.

We stayed in Venice for dinner and caught the second to last boat back to the camp ground. A very successful day in Venice. Mel's favourite Italian city!