Koh Chang, Thailand – Nirvana in Bang Bao

Koh Chang, Thailand – Nirvana in Bang Bao

We ventured back to Thailand for our last week in South East Asia – spending 8 nights on Koh Chang Island, at the Nirvana Resort near the small fishing village of Bang Bao.

A monkey on our balcony

The island is Thailand’s second largest island after Phuket, however it’s not near as developed. Koh Chang is over 70% virgin rainforest, and protected as a tropical marine national park, so it’s a nice place to get away from the hustle and bustle and just enjoy the natural beauty of the island.

The view just behind Nirvana Resort

While there aren’t huge stretches of white sandy beaches surrounding the island, they do exist, but they have to be found by boat for the best spots. This way you can explore the secret little areas of the island mostly inaccessible by road or foot.

We stayed at Nirvana resort near Bang Bao on the south of the island, which was a little hard to get to, but it’s worth the trek. It’s made up of about 10 bungalows strung along the waters edge at the front, and met by thick jungle at the back. Literally thick jungle. Many mornings, we were awoken by five to seven monkeys scrambling across our roof, and swinging off the gutter onto our balcony. They were quite funny to watch, and are very game too. On our last morning they must have been able to smell the bananas in our room, as the doors were mirrored so they couldn’t actually see into the room at all, but this particular monkey we called Mo (due to his hair sticking up on his head), tried to break into our room, standing on our door handle trying to twist it with his feet, while trying to pry it open at the top with his hands. Quite clever little fella. He still never got any bananas though! It’s obvious many people do feed them, that’s why they are so game and curious in the first place. We were told not to encourage them though, as they can be very dangerous if they want to be, and often have rabies too!

A monkey trying to break into our room

The rooms themselves  are very cute, and styled to blend in with nature. All the furniture’s made of natural rustic wood, timber floors, sandstone bricks in the bathroom etc. it’s a very romantic set up. 

Our rustic room at Nirvana Resort

The only thing missing is mosquito nets to protect you from the MANY mosquitoes that loom the entire resort night and day. We were both covered in at least 20+ bites from our weeks stay, so that part of the experience will definitely not be missed. The hotel provides great value for money, compared to other three star resorts on the island too, we managed to get a great pre-season rate of $32 USD per night including breakfast!

The Lagoon Pool

The resort has 2 lovely pools, one overlooking the ocean, and the other up in the jungle behind the resort. Unfortunately the mozzies were a little to hectic to use the jungle pool, and there was construction going on around the other one. With the mostly rainy weather though, we didn’t need to use the pools much anyway.

There’s a lot of adventure to be had on this island, unfortunately the wet monsoon season stopped us from experiencing to many of these activities, so we just relaxed and walked around the small parts of the island near Bang Bao. We did manage to get a nice snorkeling trip in for one of the sunnier days. The snorkeling itself wasn’t the best, as the clarity wasn’t so good after all the rain we just had, but to explore the smaller islands and beaches was nice.

Dave exploring on an island stop of our snorkeling trip

After a few days tucked up in our romantic bungalow watching movies in bed from the resorts DVD library, keeping dry form the monsoonal rains outside, we decided to venture out despite the rain. Rain jackets on, we set out on a little jungle walk, a boardwalk along the side of the mountain/islands edge, that pops out on the other side of the headland. There’s a nice little spot you can watch the sunsets and things from there, but at that time it was better suited to playing games and pretending to fly leaning against the sheets of rain and gusts of wind. Not so romantic at this time of the day! 

Dave enjoying a break from the rain

The storm finally clearing

We took the forest route back, right over the top of the headland to get back to the resort. The dirt in the area on top of the headland was made of thick clay like mud, so I (PW) dug some up, added some water and worked it in my hands to turn it into workable pottery clay. Back at the bungalow I made a candle holder out of it. Not a bad effort for digging in the mud. I gave it to the very appreciative lady on the reception desk when we checked out.

The food at the resort restaurant Tantra was quite good, with great staff and service too. It was built on stilts over the waters edge, and all very open and airy, with 2 great big chandeliers on the roof to top off the already great ambience. 

Pamela at Tantra restaurant, Nirvana Resort

Dinner at Tantra is primarily Thai food, with a couple of western dishes to choose from if you wanted. The average price at Tantra is about 250 baht ($9 USD) per person. We had breakfast included every day, which allowed us to choose as we wanted from a nice selection of meals. The only downside was nothing was open at the resort for lunch. 7/11  two-minute noodle cups were our lunches most days, as in the pouring rain, it’s not to inviting to venture out and walk 10 minutes through the mud to get to the town.

Bang Bao town itself is quite small, and consists mostly of handicraft/souvenir and dive shops. The shops themselves are built on stilts off the edge of the main pier, which if you continue along, eventually  takes you out to the tourist snorkeling/dive boats, and the lighthouse which is no longer used, and then at the very end the fishing boats, which is what originally settled this town before tourists came along and provided another source of income for the locals. Majority of the dive and snorkeling day trip boats all leave from Bang Bao, so if you are staying in the more central part of the island, and planning on doing a dive course, it’s good to stay close to this town, rather than have to get taxi’s back and forth every day. Most day trips/tours however do include a crowded free return transfer from Lonely beach to Bang Bao via songthaew, but you may have to wait a while until they can fill up the truck with people to its maximum capacity before leaving. 

Eating

Our favourite place to eat in the town was the Buddha View restaurant. Great Thai food, with funky tables and seats cut out of the boards, so that you sit down with your legs dangling over the water below.  A top pick, and meals were priced around 150 baht ($6 USD) per person, for a main and a drink.

A restaurant at Cliff Cottage resort close by to Nirvana

There are many seafood restaurants along the pier as well, however neither of us being that into seafood, we didn’t really explore that option, as the menu’s seemed a little over priced compared to other restaurants in the area.

For a snack, there was a good crepe place – where for 30 baht ($1 USD) you can choose from a variety of toppings, anything from Banana and nutella (our recommendation), to powdered shrimp or pork.

For any basic toiletries or snacks, there is a 7/11 right in the centre of the town, and it’s the only real shop in Bang Bao that’s not a souvenir/gift shop or restaurant.

Getting To Koh Chang

From Bangkok, Thailand - it’s a five hour mini bus ride OR 1 hour  flight via Bangkok airways to Trat. The ferry port to Koh Chang island itself is 20 minutes out of Trat. From here you catch a car ferry for an hour to get to the very north port of the island. It’s another hour or so on the windy hilly roads from the port to Lonely Beach, the main backpacker area of the island, and a further 10 minutes to Klong Prao, the islands main town centre. To get to Bang Bao where we were staying its a further 20 minutes along the road again, along significantly worse dirt roads with many pot holes. Basically as far south on the island as you can go, before reaching a dead end. To reach the eastern coast of the island, you have to go back north and all the way around, as the road doesn’t connect all the way through to create a circuit, which can be somewhat frustrating. Generally the easiest way to do it, is book the same bus/minivan all the way through, and it will take you from your hotel, on the car ferry, and all the way through to either Bangkok airport, or the bus terminal down town.

We had a great relaxing and peaceful getaway on the island, however if ever coming back, we would make sure we were further into the season to avoid any late monsoonal rains.

All our photos from Koh Chang can be found here: https://picasaweb.google.com/117257906652666550268/KohChangThailand?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Cheers for Now -

Pamela and Dave

Temples, Palaces and Forts oh My

Sunset over the Orchha River

Between tiger searching our tour of India took us to several small cities and villages . As our trusty guide Yaddu says “India doesn’t live in the cities, it lives in the villages”.  Driving, or dodging as I’d call it, through the countryside you really get the sense of how locals live here in India, you also get the sense of how short life really is.  I say dodging because driving here is really just about pointing your vehicle in one direction and dodging whatever happens to be coming at you with your horn as your only defense. This could be anything from large trucks, people walking or pedaling, goats – lots of goats, cows – lots and lots of cows, camels, buffalo and even the occasional chicken. We were pretty used to the roads in Asia but even we shut our eyes a few times when sensing oncoming doom.

Barreling through villages and towns you can see life moves at a slower pace. People don’t seem as pushy, fields are still plowed with Oxen, food is cooked over open fires and kids may have to walk a long way to school. We did see kids and adults going to the toilet on the side of the road but always just shook off those images. There’s not many signs of urban development accept for the occasional mobile phone tower and maybe that’s a good thing. I found I enjoyed myself much better in the smaller towns/villages of India as compared to the larger cities of Delhi or Jaipur.

Traffic jams in the Indian state of Rajasthan are very interesting. In Los Angeles you might catch someone picking their nose, here you can see all sorts of interesting things. In this case we were waiting for a train and talking to camels.

Khajuraho – The Temples of Kama Sutra
A “quick” seven hour, 176 kilometer drive from Bandhavgarh brought us to Khajuraho which was our first stop on the temple tour.  Khajuraho is famous for its temples depicting figures of Kama Sutra. There are many temples in the Western, Eastern and Southern groups of temples but we only toured the Eastern group of temples which was a short five minute walk from the Hotel Surya where we stayed. Although these fabulously preserved temples are famous for Kama Sutra, really only 2.5% of the figures depicted are in sexual poses. The other 97.5% of the carvings are traditional Hindu and very beautiful to look upon. That being said, we found most people came for the naughty carvings and the temples without naughty carvings seemed to be pretty empty. All the temples here, not just the naughty temples, have an interesting history and very nice carvings.

Temples in Khajuraho

Kids close your eyes. 2.5% of the carvings on these temples are erotic in nature. Check out the link at the bottom to see additional carvings.

Orchha – A Hidden Gem
From Khajuraho we took a quick and bumpy five hour, 143 kilometer drive to the small town of Orchha. Orchha, which literally translates into “hidden”, is home to many different temples and palaces that flourished during the 17^th century. Like many people, prior to this trip we hadn’t heard of Orchha, hence it’s hidden name.

The beautiful river Betwa runs alongside Orchha and is a really great place to watch the sunset. We got several good pics just after we arrived. While taking some pics we met some Indian tourists who wanted to get their picture taken with Pamela.  That night, Yaddu, our fearless guide, took us to the Ramraja Temple where we watched a Hindu prayer service. It seemed as though many of the temple-goers were more interested with us and what we were doing than what was going on in the temple. Ramraja Temple is unique in that it was originally built as a palace for the queen so it doesn’t resemble a temple at all from the outside.

Pamela, Dave, Carole, Linda, Steph, Liz and Yaddu. Our tiger searching team.

The next morning we awoke and Yaddu treated us to a really good explanation of the basics of the Hindu religion. To say that Hinduism is complex, at least for me, is an understatement. I’m not sure how anyone can remember everything and I’m still unsure if there are 3.3 million or 33 million different gods. In either case it was a great introduction to the Hindu gods of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva.

After the talk we ventured out for a tour of the Raja Mahal and Jehangir Mahal palaces, both built in the 17^th century and both very well preserved. The Jehangir Mahal palace, the grander of the two, was built over a 22 year period for the Mughal King Jehangir. King Jehangir visited the palace and stayed for one night before leaving for Lahore. Twenty-two years of work for a one night stay! I’ve heard of a one night stay leading to 22 years of work but not the other way around.

Pamela in the Jehangir Mahal palace in Orchha.

The Raja Mahal palace was built by King Madhukar Shah and contains some very nice paintings in the bedrooms of the King and his concubines. The king had six concubines living in the palace, each with their own room. The kings room contained passageways to each one of his concubines rooms. The passageways were constructed to prevent other palace goers from seeing which room the King was visiting. It’s said that he had six concubines, one for every day of the week except Sunday, which was his day of rest.

Karauli – Maharaja and Maharani for the Night
Our tiger crew stopped in the small town of Karauli for the night in between Agra and Ranthambore. Our hotel used to be used as a residence for the local Maharaja, similar to a governor or mayor, of the area. The main villa, constructed in 1938, was full of old photos from times past. Many photos included the local royal family on hunting expeditions where they would kill tigers, leopards and deer. The main dining room contained two stuffed leopard heads and the main entry room contained a stuffed tiger, probably one that the royals had hunted and killed.

Relaxing in our Royal Suite in Karauli

Now we're talking. Any hotel with hunting weapons on the wall is okay by me.

The front of our hotel in Karauli

Pamela and I were shown to our room and were surprised to find a huge suite, complete with a large porch, fancy chandelier and two separate smaller bedrooms. We were told by the porters that we were sleeping in the Maharaja’s old room. This was a treat for us after some of the rugged rooms we’d been in over the last week. That night we dined al fresco in a fancy courtyard surrounded by colorful lights. The whole stay had us feeling very royal indeed. We were a bit disappointed the next morning when we had to pack-up and leave. Our one night of Maharaja and Maharani was over. We did have one bad experience while at the palace. Pamela was eating a bowl of corn flakes and found a piece of rat poop in the corn flakes, mind you this was her second bowl of corn flakes. She felt a bit sick to her stomach of the thought of eating rat poop but she was okay in the end.

All our photos from our visit through rural India can be found here: https://picasaweb.google.com/117257906652666550268/KhujarhoOrchhaKarauli?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Cheers for Now -

Pamela and Dave

Our Middle East Adventure - Gift Wrapped

Sunrise over the Red Sea in Egypt

We just concluded an amazing seven weeks in the Middle East. There were some ups and downs to the seven weeks but thankfully there were a lot more ups then downs. We've written a few articles already but have quite a bit more to write about in the near future. We wanted to quickly summarize our experiences and let you know what's next for us.

Checking out the travertines in Pamukkale, Turkey

Turkey
We didn't know what to expect with Turkey, prior to arriving we hadn't done much research on places to go/things to do so we really didn't know what to expect. Everything about Turkey turned out to be great. Pamukkale was Pamela's favourite and I was mesmerized with Cappadocia as soon as we got there. Next time we'll make sure we visit Turkey in warmer months as the coastal towns and sea were stunning but just a bit too cold in November.

Having a great time in Jordan

Jordan
Jordan is great. Our time at the Dead Sea was so much fun especially our Spa Day. We visited the ancient Roman city of Jerash (article coming soon), famous biblical sites including Jesus' Baptism site, Mt. Nebo and Madaba/Moab  (articles also coming soon), Petra and Wadi Rum. Wadi Rum is a place that will live in our hearts forever and someplace we wouldn't hesitate to go back. For anyone wanting to travel to the Middle East but are a bit nervous I'd recommend going to Jordan first. We found travel easy, locals welcoming and many really good tourist sites.

Looking out the airplane window at the reefs of Ras Mohamed near Sharm El Sheikh

Egypt
Egypt for me is a contradiction. Some places we absolutely loved, some places we didn't really like at all. Likes include the Pyramids, Abu Simbel, Dahab, Sharm El Sheikh, Egyptian Museum and the Valley of the Kings. I really-really loved our resort in Sharm El Sheikh on the Sinai Peninsula. I found myself very sad when we had to leave, which was a first for the whole trip. 

Dislikes include Alexandria, central Luxor, Cairo, the overnight trains (hated those) and Mt. Sinai. I personally found areas of Luxor and parts of Aswan to be feral places filled with people who's only purpose in life was to sexually harass women or annoy the crap out of us with stupid comments. No place else in the other 15 countries we've visited so far on this trip was as bad as Egypt when it came to harassing women. Yes, in many countries people stare, we're used to that, and every once in a while you'll hear a comment, but the amount of crap that went on in the Nile area of Egypt was unbelievable. 

Pamela in front of the 7 star Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi

United Arab Emirates - Abu Dhabi
We concluded the Middle East portion of our trip with four days in the beautiful city of Abu Dhabi. We visited some amazing shops, a seven star hotel complete with a gold dispensing vending machine and took part in a super fun desert safari including dune bashing and camel riding (article coming soon).

North America is up Next
We're now in a very warm Los Angeles spending the holidays with family and friends. It's great catching-up with everyone while enjoying home cooked meals and familiar restaurants. Following New Year's we're off to Banff, Canada for snowboarding then to the Caribbean for a seven night cruise followed by a short stay in Miami then five nights on the island of St. John, one of my favourite places. After St. John we're going to head back to the West Coast for some more snowboarding in Mammoth, Tahoe and Park City. Following our fill of snow we'll be off to South America for our sixth and final continent of the trip.

Thank you to everyone who'e following us around the world and checking out our website. We're getting some great feedback and truly hope you're enjoying the posts and pictures.

Cheers for Now -

Pamela and Dave

Petra

Our first sighting of the Treasury at Petra

Petra was the capital and center of commerce of the Nabataean region in its time with a population varying from 35,000 – 50, 000 people.  So you can just imagine it’s size! The word Petra comes from the Greek word for stone and stone is what you’ll find here, many many buildings carved right into the walls of valleys or mountainsides.

In front of a very empty Treasury at Petra

The city was built in a valley surrounded by rocky mountains, with the main entrance a 2 kilometer long gorge (or Siq in Arabic) that runs down to the city. It was built strategically in this location for security to protect the people and the riches of the city. It’s said Petra was at it’s most glorious and prosperous period between 23BC and 40AD. Shortly after 40AD the commercial trade route which made Petra rich was changed by the Romans when they invaded Jordan. Following the economic slide of Petra and the Nabataeans, Rome was able to successfully invade and conquer around the year 106 AD.

Our group in front of the Treasury

Okay, enough about boring history, time to talk about our visit. Petra is an amazing place, this Wonder of the World is such a vast and spread out ancient city that it’s impossible to do it justice with just a one day visit, but as most people do, we tried.  The park opens pretty early, we rolled in around 8am and found a very empty park. A twenty minute walk had us through the Siq (Valley) and were at the most famous landmark of Petra, the Treasury.  Thankfully we had the place to ourselves and were able to take quite a few pictures, some with camels, before moving on with the rest of our tour.

It was love at first sight, Zasou the Camel and Pamela

Leaving the Treasury we walked down the Street of Facades, past the Royal Tombs and onto the Grand Temple, Winged Lion Temple and finally to the museum where we stopped for a short break. There are several places to eat inside Petra but we would recommend bringing in your own food and drinks as the price of everything inside Petra is very high.

Hanging out in the rocks

Break time over we headed towards the rear of the park and up the 800 stairs to the “Monastery” or Ad-Deir as it’s known locally.  On the way up you’ll pass many people trying to sell you donkey rides and souvenirs. To us it looked the donkeys were horribly mistreated, we even saw one donkey get “jump-kicked” by it’s handler, so we didn’t even think about contributing our money towards their services.  On the way up the hill we walked past two small children sitting on the side of a cliff, the boy was holding a very large knife and wanted his picture taken with it. The girl, who did not want her picture taken, was throwing rocks at any tourist that came by with an aimed camera. It was a pretty interesting sight to see.

Two small children on a cliff, boy holding big knife but wanted his picture taken. Girl didn't want her picture taken. Tourists take a photo, girl throws rock at them, boy hits girl with knife.

At the top of the 800 steps, which are well worth the climb, we found what we were looking for....Ad-Deir, an amazing carving of gargantuan proportions carved into the hillside. In our case we found it empty so we had plenty of time for photos and climbing opportunities. Photos done we had our lunch and did some additional trekking around the place before it was time to head back. While walking down the steps from Ad-Deir we had a funny incident with a Bedouin donkey driver. While walking by he saw Pamela and started this converstation:

Bedouin (Smiling): You are a very lucky man
Bedouin: Amazing Woman
Bedouin: How many camels my friend?
Me: A lot
Bedouin: One Million
Me: More
Bedouin: Wow

If you’re visiting Petra in the fall or winter you should be prepared for some very cold morning and evening temperatures. Much of the park is in the shadows and we found it very cold. We dressed in layers  that we peeled off and slapped back on again throughout the day. The early afternoon was the nicest weather, especially in the sun.

That's as close as I was getting to the edge. #scaredofheights

Staying warm and enjoying the view of the Monastery

Admission price to Petra is steep, 50 Jordanian Dinar ($71 USD) for a one day pass. It’s only 55 and 60 Jordanian Dinar for a two and three day pass respectively so it’s well worth the money to spend a few days at Petra to get the best value for your time and money, exploring it in sections at a time I think would be the best way to take in as many of the spectacular sights it has to offer, and learn about the history and traditions of the people that built and occupied Petra.

In front of Ad Deir, aka the Monastery

Climbing up on the Monastery

We hope you enjoyed our post and photos from Petra. The remainder of the photos from our trip can be found here: https://picasaweb.google.com/117257906652666550268/Petra?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Cheers for Now –

Pamela and Dave

Abu Simbel – The Glory of Ramses II

Ramses II was Pharaoh of Egypt for a remarkably long 67 years during the 13 Century BC. He was one of the longest ruling Pharaohs ever and during his reign accomplished many great things, including what’s said to be the first large military battle between the Egyptians and Hitites called the Battle of Kadesh. During his reign it is said that Egypt prospered with growing power, wealth and status which made most people in Upper and Lower Egypt very happy.

Me and Mom in front of Abu Simbel

To commemorate the Battle of Kadesh and to intimidate his Nubian neighbors, Ramses II had the temples of Abu Simbel carved out of the side of a rock during a 20 year period beginning in 1264 BC. The first temple, dedicated to himself and god Amun, is a magnificent masterpiece with four extra-large (20+ meter high) statues of himself on the outside and a grand interior on the inside complete with another statue of himself along with three other Egyptian gods. The second temple, dedicated to his wife Nefertari, is not quite the size of the first, but still impressive with six large statues decorating the outside.

Mom and Pamela in front of glyphs at Abu Simbel

Pamela and Mom in front of the Temple of Nefertari

We don’t think a trip to Egypt is complete without seeing these grand temples, some say the masterpieces of Egypt. That being said it does take a bit of work getting to the temples. They can be reached overland from the Southern Nile city of Aswan or via air from Cairo. We did the overland route from an Aswan hotel. Unfortunately due to the temples close proximity to Sudan overland access for tourists is restricted to secure convoys that leave very early in the morning. Armed police in the first and last bus. Sometimes in the middle bus. The convoys first started after an attack on tourists many years ago. Since then there have been no reported incidents but the convoys continue as a revenue source for the police.

Here’s the timeline of our visit to Abu Simbel:
3:15am: Alarm goes off (Ugh, too darn early)
3:45am: Depart hotel with a breakfast box of bread, cheese and hard boiled egg. Yumm!
4:00am: Convoy of buses and minivans meet on the side of a road near police station. Sit around for a while watching the guides, drivers and police smoke cigarette after cigarette.
4:30am: Once someone deems enough buses have arrived it’s time to depart.
4:30am to 7:30am: Approximately 300 kilometer drive South through the desert. The sun came up around 6:30am.
7:45am: Arrive at Abu Simbel with everyone else. All tourists go in the same direction towards the main temple.
8:00am to 8:30am: Guide lecture on Abu Simbel
8:30am to 9:45am: Free time to explore the temples and take photos.
9:45am: Back to the bus going through the gauntlet of touts and shops Some of the touts at the exit to Abu Simbel are horribly rude and unnecessarily pushy. One even said some very disrespectful things to Pamela.
10:00am: Once everyone is back the convoy departs. It could take a few minutes to round everyone up, it could be several hundred people.
10:00am to 1:00pm: Same drive back through the desert. You do pass through the Tropic of Cancer on your way up and down but I didn’t see a sign for it. There were quite a few burned out old cars, trucks and buildings. No bathroom breaks either….so don’t drink too much.

Guys with guns waiting for the convoy to start.

Vans on the convoy

If we were to go back to Abu Simbel we would probably fly from Cairo straight to Abu Simbel then take the convoy back to Aswan. This would then get around taking the overnight train from Cairo to Aswan and avoid the early morning convoy. In either case we were super-glad to have seen the temples of Abu Simbel and consider it one of the highlights of our trip down the Nile.

Pamela in front of the temples of Abu Simbel

Mom and I in front of the Temple of Nefertari

All our pics from Abu Simbel can be found here: https://picasaweb.google.com/117257906652666550268/AbuSimbel?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Cheers for Now -

Pamela and Dave

The Giza Pyramids and the Sphinx

The Pyramids at Giza are amazing and a lifelong dream for many, including this traveller. No amount of writing I will ever do can possibly justify their grandeur so I’ll just lay down some interesting facts, some tips for visiting and let the photos speak for themselves.

The largest of the three pyramids is the Pyramid of Khofu:

It’s Old - Constructed approximately 4500 years ago between 2580 and 2560 BC
It’s Big – At 146.5 meters it was the tallest man made structure in the world for 3800 years. That’s nearly 40 stories high. The Lincoln Cathedral surpassed it in height in the year 1300 AD, darn English.
It’s a Wonder – The oldest and only intact Wonder of the Ancient World. We’ve seen some others and most of them look like unkempt backyards. This one is amazing.
It’s Explorable – You can go into the pyramid for an extra fee and you climb a little way up for your picture. Our guide recommended against going inside so we didn’t go in. In retrospect we probably should have while we were there.
It’s Mysterious – There are several theories about how the pyramids were constructed but nobody knows for sure. Looking at them up close you can see the size of the individual blocks and realize what an achievement it was to construct this massive monument to the afterlife.

Standing on the Great Pyramid of Khofu

Pamela and Mom at the base of Khofu

Many camels around the great pyramids.

Walk like an Egyptian

Jump like an Egyptian

Enjoying the view of the pyramids

The Great Sphinx

It’s Old – Construction was believed to take place between 2558 and 2532 BC making it nearly as old as the Pyramid of Khofu.
It’s Big – The largest monolith statue in the world, lying in at 73 meters long and 20 meters high.
It’s Mysterious – Nobody seems to be very certain when, who, why and how the Sphinx was created. Some say it was built to protect the sacred temples surrounding it.

Giving the Sphinx a smooch

Take a load off

There are two other great pyramids, the Pyramid of Khafre and the Pyramid of Menkaure both of which can be seen from the viewpoint overlooking all of the pyramids and temples at Giza. You definitely don’t want to miss going to the viewpoint, just follow the road away from the largest pyramid to the smallest. You’ll see plenty of camels, horses and traditionally clad Egyptians wanting you to take a photo or go for a ride.

We did get the chance to climb into Queen Hetepheres’ tomb and take some photos. Although there were signs not to take photos the workers/volunteers at the tombs almost insisted they take your picture, for a tip of course.

Inside Queen Hetepheres pyramid alongside Khofu, standing in the Osiris position
 where her mummified body once laid

Our entire visit lasted about three hours but to be honest it was a little rushed. We could have easily spent another hour or two at the site armed with just our guidebook for information. To do the place justice I would plan on a five hour visit which should give you ample time to explore everything you want to explore.

All our photos from the Pyramids and Sphinx can be found here: https://picasaweb.google.com/117257906652666550268/ThePyramidsAtGiza?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Cheers for Now –

Pamela and Dave