Almost the End

Our last days away from home were spent at the Red Sea. We hired a car to take us from Sharm el Sheikh to the smaller town of Dahab famous for its reef and diving.  The driver picked us up just as the sun was setting, drove us to the edge of town, and shut off the engine at a police check point.  " The convoy leaves in 40 minutes," he said.  It was felt that a police escort through the desert to Dahab 100 km away would be prudent.  Apparently they went every hour on the hour.  So we waited with another van load of tourists, but when 7:00 came, they sent us down that dark road alone.  Why we waited we don't know but were very glad to arrive in Dahab.

This town is much more our style, with more hotels than resorts.  Like Sharm it has been hit hard economically, but it seems worse here somehow.  They had big plans for development and project after project has been abandoned midway.  The main street is torn up, possibly for the installation of brick paving.  Work has been frozen everywhere.  The tourist market street is filled with hopeful merchants that say whatever they need to, to make a sale, many of them having no one enter their store for days.  We so hope that things change for these people and the tourists return soon.  Too many families are suffering.

We went especially to snorkel in their Blue Hole, a sink hole on a beach there and a world renowned dive site.  However the day we went was so windy we didn't feel it would be enjoyable or safe to go out, so we missed the coral and fish of the Blue Hole.

But the wind was perfect for windsurfing and Rob spent 3 days taking lessons in a sheltered bay and we were able to use the best beach there for free.  People who are not guests of the resort typically pay to use this beach. Egyptians must pay to use the best beach in the area. Sigh.

On the Dahab waterfront

We decided to head back to Sharm el Sheikh for the last couple of days before flying home as the water there seemed slightly warmer and we knew we could snorkel just offshore.

But now we head home.  Back to ways that are familiar.  Hopefully we take with us a better understanding of cares that we never know, awareness of our own over consumption, and  a realization of our false sense of superiority.

Air Egypt flight attendants couldn't get enough of Bella.  The bus outside had to wait for us while they had selfies taken with her.

The Sea

Bella's Birthday Flip Flops

We flew from Luxor to Sharm elshiekh on the Red Sea.  This city is their resort vacation hotspot largely occupied by sun seeking Russians.  There is a world conference currently happening there with high hopes of selling Egypt back to the world as a safe destination for your holidays.  Security is tight as they want nothing to go wrong.  We celebrated Bella's birthday there, but only stayed 2 nights.  It was our first experience with an  "all inclusive".  It wasn't a 5 star.

However, the coral reef they have here is a 5 star.  We were able to snorkel out from our overcrowded bit of beach to see a healthy reef with many fish species.

Sharing the beach with Muslim women who cover everything and Russian women who cover nothing

The River

Everywhere we go, in Canada or elsewhere, whenever we see a river we know John's going to say "I wonder what it would be like to go up that stream in a boat...".   So there was never any doubt that we would take a trip down the Nile.  We flew to Aswan and cruised to Luxor stopping for ancient sites and watching life along the Nile unfold.

An afternoon on a felucca

The Desert

We hired a car and took a trip into the desert to stay at Baharia Oasis, one of only 6 or 7 oases in the Sahara.  When I was younger, I may have remarked that some Canadian prairie and northern towns were in the middle of nowhere.  I was wrong.  We drove for  4 hours to reach the lush, beyond greenness of the oasis that appears suddenly in staggering contrast to  the sand.  We stopped briefly at the only, uh, restaurant on the way.  We didn't linger after buying the last bag of chips in the Sahara and declining the use of a toilet beyond foulness.

I may call this a  "middle of nowhere town", but like any other it's a place where Bedouin people growup, get married, have kids and maybe have lots of drama and adventures, just like the rest of the world.  Like the rest of Egypt they were frozen in time about 50 years ago but are sooo much more isolated than the rest of the country.  The oasis has about  35,000 people in several communities growing mangoes, dates, and olives with the spring water.  The have also dug deeper into the aquifer and have constantly running pipes and ditches of  extremely hot water.  They pool the constantly flushed water in concrete containers where people go to soap up and bathe.  I should say where men go to bathe.  Only tourist women use the hot spring water--the local Muslim women never getting the chance to feel the spring water in their own community.  People were kind, curious and seemed glad we had come.

"Can you hear me now??"

We were the only guests at a very basic and seemingly cleaner hotel than we had in Cairo--all that was missing was a top sheet.  (And wifi, Rob would add.  We were told that the wire for the internet had been accidentally cut and that someone would be fixing it that day.  Rob clung to that belief for 2 days, poor, sweet boy.) We used whatever we had in our suitcases as a barrier from the scratchy blanket we'd been given and fought off the mosquitoes as best we could.  During a chat with the owner we were assured that after each room was vacated, the blankets were hung out in the sun for a week so that bedbugs wouldn't be a problem.

We spent a day with a guide going a further couple of hours out into the desert in a jeep to really have a look around.  It was unbelievable....

The Black Desert

The Chrystal Desert

Lunch Stop

The Amazing White Desert

A Bedouin Dinner cooked over a fire under a full moon to end this great day

Giza, Egypt

And now for a real adventure.  We made it to Egypt.  Cairo is a big, busy, dirty city and suffering terribly from the loss of tourism their revolution of 2011 caused.  We checked into our hotel which looked, let's just say, much different on the internet.  There is a level of dirt tolerance here that we have seen only in New Delhi.  Just when we  think we're growing immune to it, we see something else that surprises us.  However, people are openly welcoming us on the street, happy to have some travellers returning.

The Pyramids of Giza are the sight we have most been looking forward to on this trip and we've finally seen them!  The day was perfect, not too hot and the only spoilers were the insistent venders--"Do you want to buy a model of the pyramids?" Which do you like--a horse, a camel, or a carriage to see the pyramids?  It's much too far to walk."  (The price outside the gate started at about $C70 and dropped steadily to $C7.50 as we climbed toward the pyramids accompanied by an endless number of salesmen eager to beat the last price.)  But it was a great day and we felt so fortunate to spend it seeing this special place with 2/3 of our kids.

That's our Deaf guide/camel  guy who adopted us

A tomb inside a pyramid

Istanbul, Turkey

The "Blue Mosque"

"There's a mosque." "Hey, there's another one.". " And there's another one right across from it!"

Mosques are the Starbuck's of Istanbul.  These incredibly beautiful buildings dot the skyline here  and each one is an architectural feat.  We are struggling to understand the religion behind the buildings where women are segregated and covered as if their hair is somehow offensive.

I may be extra grumpy about such things as I, along with the rest of my party, are just recovering from a nasty stomach flu.  Our 5 day stopover in Turkey has been dramatically shortened as we all slowly recovered in our pension.  But today we ventured out and saw some amazing mosques, the hippodrome, had some Turkish  delight, ducked the aggressive salesmen of the Grand Bazaar, and of course looked at some area rugs with "no obligation".

Haghia Sophia Mosque from our Hotel

Inside Haghia Sophia

The Grand Bazaar

Baklava!

Little Nutty Nests

Where are you from?  Please let me show you my rugs.  Would you like some tea-- it's traditional....

Bang Saen Beach, Thailand

Our last days in Thailand were spent shopping in Bangkok--not just me, John and Rob can't resist the prices either.  We had 4 more days before flying to Istanbul and decided to head to a nearby beach on the mainland to kick back.  A bus and a small truck taxi brought us to Bang Saen Beach where there are very few international tourists, mostly people from Bangkok here for a day's outing, which means there is little English spoken making it a bit of an 
adventure.

Fun Fact about Bang Saen Beach ( and maybe all Thai beaches for all we know):  Parking consists of a row of angle parked vehicles (with an unusual amount of king cabs for Asia) and  2 rows of parallel parked vehicles behind.  Need to leave before the outside guy?  No problem because everyone leaves their vehicle in neutral so that  the heftiest guys in your party can maneuver the the blocking vehicles to  let you out and back to the city.

The umbrella covered restaurants stretch right to the water's edge...

...the umbrellas make a covered beach forest.  It's a very popular place with the Bangkok crowd.