Cairo and Athens

We went to Cairo on the night train from Aswan. Cairo was a nice break from Luxor, Dahab and Aswan because the citizens didn't all make their money off tourists in Cairo. The hostel we stayed at had lots of cats (see the pictures on my last blog). The guy at the desk said that there were 20 cats . The cats kind of lived throughout the big 6 story building the hostel was on. The cats left the building to scavenge for food in down town Cairo. When I said on the building, I mean it. The hostel was on the 7^th story -the roof-.

The guy at the desk said that there were six kittens but since the rain a few days before they could only find 3. The three kittens were soo cute and really fun to play with. The male kitten was a little rascal, he meowed a lot and was the braver of the three. He liked tugging at my scarf and at times would start biting my feet. The little brown coloured female was not as brave, but was more outgoing than the other female most of the time. She was the smallest or lest fluffy anyways. The other girl wasn't bothered by us and mostly just did her own thing. She was really cute when you held her cupped in your hands up side down and she would just lie there for a few second looking at you and then she would start to squirm. It was really fun watching the kitties and even in just three days I saw changes in their behaviour.

1. the fluffy girl had trouble getting on to her feet from her back the first day, later that day she could do it.
2. all three kitties were licking themselves a lot more the last day compared to the first.
3. they were more sure of their footing and were a bit more rowdy.

Bye bye kitties, hello dogs... Athens!

Athens was a huge culture shock! It took me two days to get used to it. It was so modern compared to Egypt and even more so compared to India.

There was hardly any place in down town Athens where you could not see 5 or more dogs. It was funny because every other tourist was so amazed and kept pointing and saying to there friends “look at all the dogs!” and “ oh look there's another one!” Us, after being in India where there are stray dogs everywhere and Egypt had a few too, were almost unfazed

Till next time Mhari

Abu Simbel

After a lot of talking, we decided that we should go to Abu Simbel on the local bus, stay there one night and go back the next afternoon, rather than taking the convoy. The convoy leaves at 3 in the morning and if we took it we would arrive at the temple with 5 hundred other tourists.

We took a taxi to the bus station in the morning and successfully bought our tickets. The 4 hour bus ride there was uneventful but we had lovely views out the window of the desert and the Nile valley.

The village of Abu Simbel was nice and well... very small. We checked in at the cheapest hotel in town which was A) Full of cockroaches B) Full of mosquitoes and C) Not that cheap; quite expensive in fact.

In the morning at 6 am we went to the Abu Simbel Temples. They were HUGE and the insides were slightly spooky. There were two temples the big one -the Great Temple of Ramses II- which is on all the posters and most of the post cards and a little temple -Nefertari- which is just as nice but a little smaller. We hung around the temples till the convoy came at 8am. It was fascinating to watch the space around the temples fill up. It was like being in an empty sheep pen and then all the sheep were being herded inside around you. We left the temples at about 8:30 and went back to our hotel. The bus ride back was just as nice as the ride there except dad and I lost our hats. Humff! I had just bought my in Luxor, it was pretty and blue.

Tourist Convoy arriving at Abu Simbel

Kitties in Cairo

The Kitten lying in the sun is a girl the dark kitty playing is also a girl and the light kitty playing is a boy. 

Aswan Faluka

We finally escaped Luxor for Aswan which seemed better at first, but the Faluka Captains were unstoppable. Falukas are smallish sail boats with very big sails. They can fit ten easily and the bigger boats can squeeze twenty on board.

We finally booked a Faluka ride, 50le for 2 hours. Only minutes later a Faluka Captain asked if we wanted a Faluka ride. When we said no, he did the usual ' Why not?! I have very good boat. Beautiful sunset. Please! Good price, good price!'. We told we already booked a Faluka ride, and he asked us the name of our captain. We told him it was none of his business. He kept pestering us and we finally told him that his name was Abdula. Then we escaped and had a McDonald's ice cream. When we left the McDonald's he was at it again. He told us to 'forget Abdula!'  

Egypt

When we were done with Dahab we took a 20 hour night bus to Luxor. This time it wasn't a sleeper bus and we stayed on the same bus the whole time (not like in India). The bus journey was relatively uneventful but they did make us get up at midnight at the African border. This was entertaining because they spent a longtime searching through all the Egyptians bags so we had our bags all ready and they just came along with a detecter of some sort and kept walking by ours. But they spent a very long time pouring over our passports.

Luxor was very fun but you couldn't go for a nice walk because the calesh drivers woudn't leave you alone and you know they thought that meant you still wanted to go for a ride, but for a cheaper price. I DON'T WANT A CALESH. I WANT TO WALK!!! Valley of the Kings was amazing. I don't think I realised it then because it took a little time for my dad and brother to covince me that they didn't just repaint the hieroglyphics (I think I have been in India too long).  

Delhi to Dahab (India to Egypt via Jordan)

We went to Delhi after two nights in Amritsar and frequent walks around the golden Temple. We flew from Delhi to Amman with one quick stop in Kuwait. When we arrived in Amman we were so tired we took a taxi to our hotel and then we went to bed. - the plane left Delhi at 5:00 am and we arrived at 11:30 am after eight hours on flights or at the Kuwait Airport.

Jordan was nice: Amman had good baklava; Aqaba had good snorkeling; Wadi Rum was pretty and Petra... Well, Petra was amazing! It had really nice hikes and really cute kitties!

We are now in Egypt, in Dahab (the kitties here are cute, but not as clean as in Petra.) Dahab is supposed to be a backpacker hang out but it's more of a scuba diver's place, where they are starting to build some resorts. Nooooo!

The hotel we stayed at had a restaurant where there was mother cat and her kitten who practically lived there. The kitten was growing up, sometimes she would not leave her mother's side and sometimes she would be far away but still within meowing distance.  We ate at 1 restaurant where we had 7 cats under our table fighting for the prime spot to catch any food that dropped.

Petra

I like the cats here.

good pic of cat bad of me.

lap cat

Two!!!

oh yes you're cute!

I like Jordan.

Varanasi to Amritsar

After Varanasi we went to Rishikesh via Hardirwar. Rishekesh was nice but we were all a bit under the weather so it could have been nicer.

Next we went to Amritsar

When we arrived in Amritsar we put our bags in left luggage and when to the golden temple. It was very nice but sooo bright and my sun glasses were in my bag. Oops!

We spoke to a guy at the tourist info and he said we could stay in the dorm or at one of the hotels the golden temple provides for families. We tried to get a room at the dorm but the four of us were expected to share three beds with two other people. We tried the hotel next but they all pointed us back to the dorm no matter what we said.

We found a proper hotel which was offering us a room for 700 rs that wasn't bad. Our bags were still in left luggage and the tourist info guy was right beside it so we spoke to him. He pulled some strings and we ended up staying at the N.R.I. ( non resident Indians) hotel which was slightly better than the one for 700rs and it was only 300rs a night.

Inside the small vehicle free area around the Golden temple there was a coke refreshment kiosk and they were selling one 300ml bottle of pop for 5 rupees or 12.5 cents. They also had a Nestle kiosk which had a glass of powdered ice tea for 10 rupees and masala chai (spicy indian tea) for 5 rupees each, not so spicy indian tea was 3 rupees, not so spicy tea bag tea for 4 rupees and coffee was 6 rupees. These drink stalls were in two places, one of which was right by our hotel the other one was in front of the dorms. These drinks were super cheap and it was sometimes hard to get to the front because everybody, even us was drinking it like water. (We had a lot of pop in Amritsar and I had a LOT of ice tea.)

Bundi to Varanasi

We stayed a few nights in Bundi, which was great, though our supper across the street the first night was awful. The restaurant at the guest house on the other hand was really good. Their lemon pancake was one of the best in India though they didn't drain the grease off the finger chips( french fry/chips/frites).

The fort and palace were nice if you could handle monkeys.

We found a roof top restaurant that had Wi-fi and had good enough food.

Now to go almost completely off topic- I would like to inform every one who is not French that you say wifi wrong we pronounce it Why-fy when we should be pronouncing it like the French who say wee-fee.

When we were done in Bundi, we had a horrible train ride to Agra. The train was packed and we had wait list tickets so we couldn't just say “I have reserved seats, get out of my spot”. Because we didn't.

In Agra, we stayed at the first hotel we looked at and it was nice enough. The Taj was lovely. Sam even went to see it twice because children under 15 were free. Which saved us 1500 rs. Divide that by 70 or 75 for pounds, 40 or 42 for dollars and 60 or 65 for euros to calculate the cost in your currency. That savings was the cost of three nights in our hotel in Agra. The hawkers in Agra were not as bad a people made them out to be or maybe I'm just toughening up.

The night train to Varanasi was a good one,and, for the first time we didn't have wait list tickets!

We arrived in Varanasi and eventually found a hotel room by Ganga -the Ganges-. The room wasn't great but it was only 450rs about 10-12 dollars. We were warned that the hawkers in Varanasi were worse than in Agra. I guess the cycle rickshaw driver were annoying; there were beggars everywhere; you couldn't go near the ghats without being asked if you want a boat ride; and almost every second shop or person selling something told you that you wanted to buy it. But it wasn't that bad, was it?

Fatephur Sikri near Agra

More from Fatephur Sikri

My new shoes

Sam's yummy thali

Sam and Dad in Turbans

Sleeping Monkey Guard Dog

Muesli that reminded me of breakfast at Matlock

Our bad driver and a forgotten blog

We normally have good rickshaw drivers. A few have gone a bit fast and or have been a bit aggressive but most are good. Today, we had the worst driver yet. First he bumped a parked rickshaw that he could have avoided. Then we came to some cows blocking the road. Instead of honking and inching forward, he inched forward silently. The cows started to fight. We passed one but the other one (with smaller horns) was too focused on fighting to move. Our rickshaw driver ran over his hoof which made the cow fall down. After we passed, the cow quickly limped away from the other cow. I guess our driver is not a Hindu; as cows are holy for the Hindus.

(An older blog entry that I forgot about: We had an interesting train ride from Jaisalmer to Jodhpur as we tried to explain ice hockey to three Indian men. We ended up using a notebook to draw them pictures. The train ride would have been good if I hadn't decided to go sit on the top bunk. The light was right above my eyes for six hours and I got a really bad headache. After a good nights sleep I felt better again.)

Jaipur-Pushkar

The next day in Jaipur was good. We walked around in the tourist area and Sam and I had to buy full price tickets for some outdoor giant sun dial park because we didn't have student cards. - I don't even have a student card. Anyway, it's illegal for us Canadian kids to not to be in school but the ticket seller said we needed our student cards.

I bought some more shoes. I now have two pairs of Rajasthani shoes. They are both camel leather shoes/slippers/flats. One plain and one fancy. The plain pair are pointy and the other pair are rounded. They were both around 6 canadian dollars 250 rs and 300rs.

We all had supper at the Tali house again but there were more people and not as many staff so they didn't try to force us to eat the food as much.

The next morning, we got on a bus to Ajmer. There we went to the lake and the park around the lake where Sam bought something like a giant popadom only greasier and stale and disgusting. A boy came up to us asking for money, Sam gave him the giant popadom. He took it but he wasn't impressed. We went back to the bus station where we had lunch then got on a bus to Pushkar.

Pushkar had lots of tourist shops and reasonable accommodations. We bought more shoes! Now Mom and I have two pairs each. Dad doesn't have any. Sam has one pair and his foot was used to size a pair for his grandpa in Canada. We ate at one restaurant and had a really good meal. We watched the kids make it till the dad came in, then he helped. The pizza was made by a ten year old boy and was great. It was funny to watch them start before their dad came because they were squabbling about who got what job and I don't really know what else because the were talking Hindi.

The next day we left Pushkar and went to Bundi via Ajmer again. We ate at the same restaurant at the bus station.