Our Least Favourite Hotels

Okay, we did a list of favourite hotels so I guess it’s time to do a list of the hotels we liked the least on our around the world honeymoon. During our nine month honeymoon we stayed at over 70 different properties ranging from rough campsites to five star properties.  This list of our least favourite hotels is in no particular order:

Hotel Tulsi, Pokhara, Nepal
Two words: Bed Bugs

Royale Residency Hotel, Agra, India
There was nothing royal about this place. Our room on the 6^th floor was adjacent to a large construction or demolition sight, we couldn’t tell if they were building up or tearing down. It’s too hot to work during the day so most of the construction occurs at night so it’s very loud. The dust from the project carries through the hotels ventilation system, eventually causing something close to an asthma attack. One night, never again.

Park Hyatt Paris, Paris, France
The only five star hotel on this list and quite possibly the most expensive hotel of our entire trip. I’m a Hyatt fan with this being one of six Hyatts we stayed at during our trip. At the time we stayed the average room went for around $900 US a night. We found the staff very unfriendly and everything severely overpriced for the poor service you were receiving. This was our honeymoon, with only two nights in Paris we were so looking forward to this hotel, not once did we receive any help for anything. My wife accidently left a sweater in our hotel room. After we left we called the hotel and the sweater had mysteriously vanished. Sad to say but probably my least favourite hotel of our whole trip.

Sipahi Hotel, Istanbul, Turkey
Our sink in the thing that resembled a bathroom was literally falling off and unusable. The shower worked a little but the heater didn’t. Not a good place to stay in the cold.

El Tonsy Hotel, Cairo, Egypt
Okay, this place scared the crap out of me. The hotel itself occupied floors 16 – 18 of an otherwise empty building. The elevator was terrifying, often only opening its doors when you were halfway between floors, forcing you to crawl out and hope the thing didn’t start again. Worst of all, you could see outside when you looked up in the elevator. Yes, there was no roof. I was so glad it didn’t rain during our stay. Other bad things about this place was the constant smell of cat piss, terrible and overpriced food and a constant feeling that you were being watched.

Courtyard Marriott Miami Airport West, Miami, USA
We booked this hotel specifically because of the late night free airport shuttle. The hotel had us waiting over an hour on arrival at the airport. We called numerous times and were always given the runaround with terrible customer service.

Cedar Creek Resort, Gold Coast, Australia
Two more words: Bed Bugs

Hope you’ve enjoyed this post. Feel free to post any feedback.

Cheers for Now -

Pamela and Dave

Ready or Not. Here it comes….life that is.

Is that normal life I see in the distance? Ahhhhhhh….it just might be. Although to call our lives normal to any extent is probably a bit misleading. I'm not even sure what a normal life is these days.

We haven’t posted anything in a while so I wanted to give our followers a quick update.

Eight months and twenty-eight days later I bring the unfortunate news that our Honeymoon has come to an end. Over these last 8+ months we’ve traveled 108,000 kilometers (67,500 miles) through 20 countries, stayed in over 75 different hotels and resorts and taken 18,000 photos of the most amazing people and places in the world. We had such a great time and feel so blessed to have undergone such an amazing experience. Our lives will never be the same again.

On Friday, the 27^th of April, we moved into our new apartment here in the Gold Coast.  We were super stoked to land a high-rise flat with ocean views that we can call our home. I think it’s ironic that we just finished a huge trip staying at 75+ hotels, only to find ourselves living in a hotel. You’d think we’d be sick of it by now, but I guess not.

Thanks so much to everyone who followed us around the world for the last 8+ months. We’ve been super lucky to have such great family and friends who’ve supported us the whole time. In the near future we’ll be coming out with some additional articles of our favourite places, how we actually planned and executed this mammoth honeymoon and how we spent and where we saved money along the way.

What’s Next?

The bags won't stay unpacked for long. Travel is in our relationship DNA. We met traveling, married on a holiday and have spent the better part of our first year of marriage on the road. We’re by no means done traveling and have already booked our flights to North America next February and are seriously considering a trip back to the Maldives in October. In the near term we’ll be taking some weekend trips from the Gold Coast to places like the Sunshine Coast, North Stradbroke Island, Byron Bay and many more.

We’re both now looking for jobs with some good prospects on the horizon. Our blog will continue as we have a lot of writing to catch up on. We will eventually focus our efforts on posting articles based on our new area here on the Gold Coast of Australia. There’s so much to see and do in the Gold Coast and surrounding areas that we’ll have plenty to write about. Hopefully it will encourage our friends and family to visit more often.

Stay tuned for what will hopefully be some regular articles.

Cheers for Now –

Pamela and Dave

Completely Spoiled in Sharm El Sheikh

This about sums it up.

Half a world away and just over three months ago we were travelling through Egypt ending up in the resort town of Sharm El Sheikh at the very bottom of the Sinai Peninsula.  Sitting here in Australia it feels like that part of our round-the-world trip could have been a lifetime ago. Looking back on that part of the trip puts a huge smile on my face and our five nights in the Red Sea resort town of Sharm El Sheikh really stands out from the crowd. We had just spent an exhausting 10 days touring Cairo and Alexandria then travelling up and down the Nile via train, boat, donkey car and any other means of crappy transportation available. We were definitely in need of some rest and relaxation and were very excited to get to Sharm for a much needed break.

The view of marine park Ras Mohamed from the airplane.

 A very scenic morning flight from Cairo had us to the Sharm airport by 10:30am. After a long argument with a  taxi driver we were off to the Hyatt Regency Sharm El Sheikh where we were to spend the next five nights. We used our Hyatt points to book a room in the Regency Club section of this property, it only cost us 50,000 points for the five nights and was well worth it. This was the fourth or fifth Hyatt we’d stayed at on our Honeymoon and were sure looking forward to the hospitality and service that comes along with Hyatt, especially with the Regency Club.

Home away from home for us :-)

Checking in we were given an overview of the services at the hotel which included many restaurants, pools, beaches, gym, spa, waterslide, nightly entertainment, house coral reef and so much more. We were stoked and off to our room for a quick change before hitting the beach. Quickly admiring the amazing views from our room we were off to the Regency Club private beach area where we were met by Beach Butler Gomma, who saw to our every need while on the beach. Seriously, this guy had our ideal beach chairs set up and coffees ready for us after day one.  Pamela was under the weather so Gomma made her a special herbal tea every day. This was the type of great service, and this just one example, of what we experienced while at the 471 room resort.

Admiring the sunset from our room.

Prior to the beach or pool every morning started the same way, with a trip to the included breakfast buffet. Of all the breakfast buffets we’ve had on the trip, and we’ve had many, this was one of the best. An egg chef masterfully cooked up whatever kind of eggs you wanted while you added to your plate any number of breakfast items including freshly dripped honey from a honeycomb. After downing the eggs we’d head over to the pancake and waffle chef for freshly cooked Belgian waffles topped with chocolate, strawberries, coconut, nuts and anything else we can throw on there. Fresh strawberry and orange juice would wash it all down before rolling out of the buffet. Thinking about it all now makes my mouth water.

Pamela thoroughly enjoying the breakfast buffet.

The Red Sea is renown for it’s amazing diving and snorkeling and boy did it not disappoint. The Gardens Bay Reef was literally a stones throw away from the beach at our resort. Swimming out in about one minute, I was quickly blown away by the variety of hard and soft coral formations and colors that seemed to jump out of the water. It had to be one of the best examples of shallow reef I’ve seen in a long time and it was right on our doorstep!! I only wish our underwater camera worked as we would have some great shots of the colorful coral and fish.

One of the beaches at the Hyatt. You can see the wall of the reef just off the shore.

Our original goal was to spend the days at the resort and visit the town of Sharm El Sheikh at night for dinners and nightlife. In the end we never even left the resort. Prior to dinner we’d head over to the Regency Club lounge for appetizers and drinks, each night was a different theme including a sushi night and fondue night. We loved it!! The resort was decked out for dinner choices including a beautiful Thai restaurant called Sala Thai serving up some of the best Massaman Curry we had our on trip. Chatting with the head chef we also tried several other amazing dishes during the couple nights we dined here. The Souk, another dinner option, is an open air restaurant that allowed you to choose from many different types of cuisines including seafood, Mediterranean, local cuisine, Asian and a dessert shop. While dining you can watch a different entertainer each night, we saw a good belly dancer and a great troop of acrobats.

With the Chef at Sala Thai Restaurant

Enjoying dinner

When not snorkeling or stuffing our faces we lounged by the pools, there’s at least four of them, worked out at the gym or relaxed in the spa, sauna and steam rooms. The latter being the favorite of Pamela as we all know she loves a good soak, sweat and steam to get her through these tough days. The waterslide and grotto in the main pool area was a nice touch along with the poolside libraries when you were done with a book. Some of our best times were just lounging on our patio watching the sunrise over the Red Sea and distant Saudi Arabia.

Acrobats at The Souk

The belly dancer at The Souk

Departure day came all too fast along with our 6:30am flight back to Cairo then onto Abu Dhabi. We picked up our packed breakfast boxes and jumped in our resort provided transfer back to the airport. I’d have to say that getting a transfer from the resort is so much easier than dealing with the local taxi drivers. The taxi drivers try and charge a ridiculous amount of money for a short ride, save yourself an argument and let the resort take care of your transfer for you, it’s worth it.

Sunrise view from our room

Our time in Sharm El Sheikh, really the resort, stands out amongst the crowd as we approach the eight month mark of our Honeymoon. We’ve stayed at over 70 properties around the world and this experience was right up there with the top. The exceptional personalized service has you feeling like you’re at a luxury boutique hotel rather than a large 471 room property with hundreds and hundreds of guests. This has to be the best use of hotel or airplane points/miles I’ve ever used. For only 50,000 Hyatt points we were treated to five nights of pampering luxury that we won’t soon forget. A huge thanks to the staff at the  Hyatt Regency Sharm El Sheikh for making this part of our Honeymoon so special.

More pics from our time at the Hyatt Sharm El Sheikh can be found here: https://picasaweb.google.com/117257906652666550268/SharmElSheikhEgypt?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Cheers for Now –

Pamela and Dave

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

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