Salaam (hello) from Egypt everyone! An amazing week and a half in and we've finallly had a chance to do our first blog post.
We left Melbourne Wednesday 12th at midnight and arrived in Cairo at 11pm Thursday 13th. Total flying time was about 30 hours and Cairo is 9 hours behind Australian time. We hit the ground running at Cairo airport as we were immediately flocked by 'taxi drivers' hassling us and trying to take our bags, competing for our 'friendship'. We eventually agreed on a price with one and he took us down to a dark dirt carpark where we got into a van and hoped for the best! We made it to our hotel safe and sound although very jet lagged. That night James sat up and studied for his uni exam which was at 9am the next morning.
James studying on the plane for his exam
The next day after James' exam we wandered around the many streets of Cairo and noticed a few things out of the Australian norm:
- There are guards on every street with automatic guns pointing in any direction. They sleep with their head on the end of the barrell, play fight and hit each other with them and leave their guns unattended, resting on chairs.
- There are cats EVERYWHERE!!! Mostly all ferrell, just roaming the streets and they fight during the night waking you up.
- To cross the street we were given advice to 'close your eyes and open your heart' and that pretty much sums it up - the traffic is like nothing we've seen before, road rules are very loose and the city is so overpopulated that the roads just can't hold the number of cars/donkeys/horses/bikes/wagons/scrap heaps.
- The prayers of the Kharan are sung/proclaimed over loudspeakers throughout the country 5 times a day, starting at 5am and finishing at about 6pm. People pause during these times and pray and then continue with their daily routines.
- We've learnt to dread the word 'baksheesh', which sits somewhere between the word tip and bribe in English. A small child will grab your arm to help you up one step when you clearly learnt to do steps a long time ago and then demand baksheesh and look horrified when you say la la la (no no no).
- It's much easier and fun to say the word 'no' (la) than it is to say 'yes' (iowa)
- Anyone can be a taxi driver as long as they have a vehicle and will demand to transport you
- There is a constant chime of car horns.
- RUBBISH EVERYWHERE! Not a bin to be seen on the streets.
- It is very dusty.
So we've seen the pyramids and sphynx, been to the market in Cairo, visited the Egyptian museum where we saw Tutankhamun's treasures, taken the overnight train to Luxor down south, been to the Valley of the Kings riding on donkeys, seen a number of temples and historic sites and been amused by images of the God of Fertility. 
Khan el Kalili market in Cairo
Friends we made at the Pyramids
The pyramids and sphynx were unbelievable! We climbed inside one which was a very narrow passage, about 4 foot high, right into the centre where the tomb lay. Claire became claustrophobic and thought she'd have to turn back but made it in and out.
Overnight train to Luxor
Overnight train to Luxor
Karnac Temple
Stuart's trusty steed. We rode these donkeys 7.5km's to the Valley of the Kings. Ass is still sore...
From Luxor we travelled down further south to Aswan where James and Stuart indulged themselves with the local cuisine... pigeon, meat, bones and all! We also 'shmoked da sheesha' (water pipe) that night for the first time and it is quite addictive! We tried the apple flavour. The next day we boarded our overnight felucca around lunch time and sailed down the Nile for the afternoon to a Nubian village. We were the only ones in our group willing to swim in the Nile (boring group). It was a beautiful swim. Later we had a local dinner with the Nubian people which was amazing and then slept on our felucca boat overnight.
Felucca sail boat
And then it all slopped downhill from here.... literally! The next morning James and Claire were feeling a little off and for the next two and a half days we had gastro. We didn't eat and missed out on a few sight seeing activities for need to be close to a toilet. The worst part of this was the 13.5 hour overnight train ride from Aswan to Cairo. What you could loosely call the facilities (a hole straight onto the tracks) had remnants from every one of the thousand people who had used them prior to us. Luckily we only needed to use them every 15 minutes of that journey... that's when we made it.
All aboard the gastro train!
And now we are now in Dahab, east coast of Egypt. From our hotel restuarant we look across the Red Sea at Jordon and Saudi Arabia. Last night we had seafood by the water and then drinks on the rooftop restaurant whilst watching sea snakes frolic in the shallows. Yes, we do have three beds crammed into a room the size of a shoe box, but the location is incredible. We will be spending the entire week here before heading to Ireland, hopefully we'll do a small update at the end of the week. Plans for this week include snorkelling in one of the 7 underwater wonders of the world, eating lots of seafood, shmoking da sheesha and climbing Saint Catherine to watch the sunrise.
