- Getting ready to hit the road!
- Some thoughts on Hong Kong…
- A day in Danang and Hue, Vietnam
- Saigon River and Saigon, Vietnam
- Siem Reap and Temples, Cambodia
- The Floating Village — Kompong Phluk, Cambodia
- Phnom Penh and the road to Sihanoukville, Cambodia
- Bangkok, Thailand
- Day 2 in Bangkok — Ayutthaya, Thailand
- Singapore
- Langkawi Island, Malaysia
- Phuket, Thailand — or sort of…
- New Delhi, India
- Agra and the Taj Mahal
- The road to — and Jaipur, India
- India — a few closing thoughts.
- Dubai, United Arab Emirates
- Oman (The Sultanate of)
- Luxor, Karnak, and the Valley of the Kings, Egypt
- Petra, Jordan
- Sharm el Sheik and St. Catherine’s Monastery, Egypt
- Cairo and Giza, Egypt
- Egypt — Some final thoughts…
- Zooming around Israel
- Bodrum, Kusadasi, and Ephesus, Turkey
- Corfu, Greece
- Dubrovnik and Zadar, Croatia
- Venice, Italy — the last hurrah!
In contrast to the trip to Luxor, our time in Cairo was pretty depressing. First, you have to realize that Cairo is the largest city in Africa and the Middle East at 20 million people. From the overview, you learned that poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, and hopelessness are rampant here – and it was pretty apparent. Many people live in the streets amidst the garbage that is strewn about because it is too expensive to pay for trash service. There are aggressive (and I mean “in your face” aggressive) vendors and panhandlers everywhere and getting around (whether by car/bus or on foot) is very difficult and time consuming. Oh, and did I mention pollution? Cairo is the third most polluted city on the planet (behind Mexico City and Beijing).
After our 3+ hour bus ride from our third Egyptian port stop (Sahkna), we initially went to the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities. First of all, the museum is located on Tahrir Square. You might remember that name from the revolution back in January 2011 when over 2 million protestors occupied the square and clashed with police. While not nearly as big, people still continue to protest in the square. Ultimately, the “revolution” led to the resignation of Mubarek and the burning of his party’s headquarters, but the void has effectively still not been filled. Anyway, we were fairly cautious in the area. The museum itself would be seen as quite strange by people who are used to U.S. and European museums. There are literally tons of artifacts that are leaning against walls and often not labeled. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of security and there is not climate control (luckily it was a cool day). The highlight of the museum was the King Tut exhibit that had all the interior “furnishings” from his tomb at the Valley of the Kings. It was truly amazing!
From the museum, we crossed the Nile River to Giza where the pyramids are located. It is stunning to see that the city has encroached on the pyramids to the point that it is only a couple of blocks from them. The pyramids themselves were awesome – a true marvel of engineering. They came through an interesting evolutionary path from a step pyramid to a bent pyramid and finally with Kheops’ pyramid (one of the seven wonders of the ancient world), coming in at 450 feet. The other two pyramids on site (Kheops’ son and grandson) were progressively smaller but very impressive. Finally the Sphinx was built at a later date to guard the middle tomb. It was actually covered by sand for thousands of years. It actually was defaced (literally) by the Turks in the Middle Ages. Unfortunately, we had very little time to visit the pyramids and, what little time we did have, was constantly interrupted by the aggressive vendors (Deb suffered a particularly bad experience).
While it was great to see such historically important sights, we were quite happy to leave Cairo.
I am a traveler and sometimes clay sculptor, following a long career working in consulting. My work allowed me to travel the world extensively and I was hooked. Today, I travel with my wife/best friend to explore new places, meet new people, and learn new things.
