Dubai & Egypt

Hello again,

Sending two blogs at once. Getting a bit behind. This will probably be the last one b/c I don’t imagine I’ll get around to doing one for Europe. They’re a lot of work and take a lot of time. In Dubai again at the moment. Just finished a 15 day tour of Egypt and arrived back here today. We leave for London tomorrow to begin our final two months in Europe! Can’t believe how fast time has flown! We’ll be home before you know it!

We spent three nights in Dubai. It was HOT HOT HOT!!! Record temperatures for May. I think we got to 46 degrees Celsius one day!! We found we were either too hot or too cold in this city. They BLAST the AC here!! It can't be healthy! We found a great deal online for a hotel that was equipped with a kitchen and was in a great location!

Amazing new Emirates terminal at airport

We booked onto a city bus tour that took us to all the main sights of the city. We saw the highlights including the almost complete Burg Dubai tower, the tallest tower in the world (800m). The interior is being designed by Giorgio Armani. We also saw the famous Burg Al Arab hotel (the one that looks like a sail). Of course, we didn’t go in. You can pay $200USD to check it out though. A little too steep for budget travelers. The cheapest room is $3000 USD/ night and it is the only 7 star hotel in the world!! There are contractors currently in the works of building an underwater hotel and an office/apartment building that has rotating floors! This city is money crazy! We also drove onto Palm Island. Of course, you couldn’t tell you were on Palm Island, but it was still cool. A helicopter ride is quite expensive, so we’ve been trying to catch it from the airplane!

Burg Dubai Tower

Burg Al Arab Hotel

Burg Al Arab looks like a sail and the Jumeirah Beach hotel looks like a wave- this is from the Palm Islands

Are we in Egypt? Nope, this is another mall in Dubai

Can you believe it? It's another mall!

We spent some time in a couple of the malls to just basically walk around with our mouths open in awe and our necks craned to check everything out. Emirates mall had the indoor ski hill and this massive indoor aquarium. The Dubai mall has every designer you can think of, plus a skating rink, and a crazy fountain show with music after 6pm.

Outside of indoor ski hill

Indoor ski hill

Big fish tank

Really cool fountain

Skating rink

What the? Canada Dry Cola? Has anyone seen this around before?

Jay's new girlfriend

Jayson bit the budget bullet and took in a game of golf while I sat by the pool and worked out at the gym (for free). He had a great game and wasn’t as rusty as he thought he’d be.

Jay's rental clubs...pretty nice!

18th tee off. He crushed it (or so he says)

That evening we went on a city river cruise. We got to see the older parts of Dubai. After the boat ride we went on a night bus tour. Dubai is something else when it is all lit up at night! Unfortunately our camera takes crappy night shots, so we didn’t get too many good ones.

Old Dubai

Crap shot of Atlantis hotel on Palm Islands

The next day we were off to Cairo! Crazy, crazy, crazy town! 17 million people call this city home and 6 million people commute to Cairo each day making the day time population 23 million!!! Cairo is the largest city in Africa. The traffic is an attraction in itself! Obama was in the house while we were in Egypt, but we weren't in Cairo for the event. Decided that hanging out with the US president in the Middle East wasn't a great idea...

Plane from Dubai to Cairo...lots and lots of sand

We started a 15 day organized tour from here. We were the only Canadians amongst the Aussies, Kiwis, and 1 Columbian and 1 Englishman. It was a good group and we had some great times with them. Our tour guide’s name was Mido and he was awesome! He’s an Egyptologist (it’s an actual job title) and was so passionate about all the history of Egypt. Mido really liked Jayson because he asked lots of questions.

On the first day we went to the Great Pyramids of course! It was a sight to see! A little surreal! Checked out the sphinx next and then to the Cairo Museum where we saw the King Tut exhibit and some mummies!!!

One of the three Great Pyramids

Walk like Egyptians...we just had to do it!

the Sphnix

We took a night train to Aswan and chilled out by the pool for the rest of the day. That night we took in a Nubian dinner and entertainment. The Nubian people live in the southern part of Egypt. Jay and another guy from the trip had to do an interesting dance in front of the group. Ask to see the video when we get home.

On the train to Aswan

Aswan market: the blue stuff is bleach, right next to your spices

Nubian dinner

Nubian dancer...the guy spun around for probably 15 minutes straight!!

Nubian participants

Early, early, early the next morning we were up at 2:45am to board a bus to Abu Simbel at 3:40. The reason we left so early is because our bus had to join a convoy of other buses that are led to the site by armed guards. A while back there was a terrorist attack along this road, so now they take every precaution. No complaints from me! Abu Simbel is the location of the temples King Ramses II built to honour himself and his favourite wife (I think he had around 70 wives). It was well worth the journey and the early morning!!

Out in front of Ramses' II temple

That afternoon we departed on our felucca journey for 2 nights on the Nile River. It was awesome! We basically spent the days lazing around, swimming, eating, reading books…pretty easy. On the first night we visited a local’s home. We had a few shishas (flavoured tobacco) and a few people got henna tattoos. The kids there were really cute!

Felucca time!

Locals float by

Grub time! Made by our Nubian felucca crew!

This little girl loved stealing cameras!!

On the second night we had a massive bonfire and sang Nubian and western songs all night long! A little liquid courage was in everyone that night. Another highlight of the night was the toilet our boat crew built us: they dug a hole and put a seat with a hole in it over top. Of course a few of the boys (including Jayson) didn’t think the hole was wide or deep enough, so proceeded to take it apart and fill it in. Finally the British guy walked over to the boys and said, “Guys, these people built the pyramids. I’m pretty sure they can handle a toilet!” That stopped them in their tracks and they re-dug the hole the way it was before!!

Nubian songs

Bonfire games

We arrived in Luxor, the capital of Egypt back in the day. It has a ton of temples right in the city! We checked out Luxor Temple in the evening. It was cool to see how the shadows make the temple look so different. The next day we went to Valley of the Kings. It’s the resting place of the majority of Egyptian kings. This is where King Tut was found. They have found about 65 tombs and believe they have 67 more to find! Couldn’t take photos inside the tombs though! Sorry! We also went to a temple that was built by the only female ruler of Egypt. She pretended to be a man though. I can't remember her name, but it sounds like Hot Chicken Soup.

Granite oblisque at Luxor Temple

Model view of Valley of the Kings

Gang at Valley of Kings: trying to stay out of the heat!

Mel & Vicky keep it real at Hot Chicken Soup's temple aka Al Deir Al-Bahara Temple

We find a local for this pic!

We headed back to Cairo and checked out the crazy market. The people there will do anything to get you to come into their shop and you have to be prepared to bargain hard! Luckily we were well practiced after Southeast Asia! We had another girl from the tour walk around with Jay and I and men kept calling out how lucky he was to have two wives. One man offered Jayson 50 million camels for me (the tour group record I might add) and the pick-up lines these guys throw out are hilarious. “Excuse me Miss you dropped something! It was my heart” Lame, but funny!

Belly dancing suits at Cairo market

Jay arm wrestles a local

Shisha time! Don't worry, it's just flavoured tobacco filtered through water!

Apple flavour!

We took a long journey to a resort town on the Red Sea called Dahab and spent the next 6 nights there. On the first night Jayson and I joined another tour group and climbed Mt. Sinai (the one where Moses received the commandments). On the way up we saw a camel fall off the side of a cliff!! It was kind of scary! We arrived at the top around 3:30am and slept on the roof of a monastery. We were up before 6am to catch the amazing sunrise and trek down the mountain. We saw St. Catherine’s Monastery and a few of the famous Moses spots: the water well where he moved the rock for the Jewish women to have a drink and the burning bush where he heard God speak to him.

Slept ontop of a monastery

Early morning views

The church built on top of the mountain for Moses

Camels!

The famous well

We went back to the hotel and slept all day! We were knackered (an Aussie term)! The next day was our first day of diving. We had been building for this! The Red Sea has some of the best dive sites in the world. The visibility was amazing, at least 30m! We saw a massive ray (2m wide) and lots of coral and fish. There were only 4 of us certified divers on the trip so we were a small group.

The Dive Gang

Dahab was full of relaxation, eating, and avoiding the heat. We had lots of fun with our tour group during this time! Yesterday we took an 8 hour bus ride back to Cairo and got on a plane to come back to Dubai today. I think I said this already at the beginning. Well I should end it then!

He's an animal!

Mojito time!

Hope all is well wherever you live!
Mel & Jay