Bangkok

After being in the Middle East for a month, Bangkok was amazingly different. Everything seemed a lot more like home than it had in Cairo. All of the taxis were newish Toyota Camrys and all had working meters instead of Cairo's taxis that are all cars from the 80's at best and all seem to have broken meters - at least if you're a Western.

When I arrived in Bangkok, I didn't know where I was going to stay. This proved to be a small annoyance as I was trying to get through customs and the custom's guard wanted to know where I was staying. I didn't know - so I used the name of a hostel I had seen in Dahab. This made the situation slightly worse because he knew there wasn't a hostel by that name in Bangkok (I figured - how could he know, Bangkok is a big city - evidently not big enough), but unable to fully express his frustration with me in English; he let me pass. Now I had to get my bags and actually review the Lonely Planet to find a place to stay. I didn't decide on a place to stay, but read that a lot of the cheap places where on one road so I'd head there. On the bus to Khoa San Road, I met two Alaskan massage therapist that were coming to Thailand for a month to learn Thai massage. (I would run into them again in two weeks to find that they decided not to take the massage classes and were just going to enjoy themselves.) They were the backpacker type so I asked where they were staying. They replied "Khoa San Road." So I was like - "Can I follow you?" I had no idea what stop I was supposed to get off at and traveling solo - it was always nice to make new friends. When we got off the bus, I went to the cheapest place I could find - they went a little more Hollywood.

For $4.50, I had a single room all to myself. With single rooms that cheap, there were hardly any dorm rooms available because people would just chose singles. This is a delima for the independent traveler in South East Asia. However, if you try, you can still meet people. You still have buses and backpacker bars.

Anyway, I put my stuff down and headed out to get some real Thai food. I had Pad Thai at a little internet cafe/restaurant around the corner. Here I met one of the characters that make traveling interesting. His name was Muhammad and he was a Ghanaian citizen that was working in China, but had run into some visa issues and was now in Thailand - trying to get back to Ghana. Instantly we had stuff to talk about because, as you may or may not know, my father is from Ghana and I had gone there back in 2004.

My next mission was to find a repair shop for my camera that had been damaged in Egypt. Muhammad insisted on helping me in my cause. We walked around together for maybe five hours talking to a number of people selling or repairing cameras. The basic take away was that cameras were a little more expensive in Thailand than buying them online in America and that getting my camera repaired was not going to be easy. Through this whole time, Muhammad was very socially aggressive - not in a bad way though. He would ask to hold babies and treat people as if he had known them forever, myself included. I think the constant reinforcement in elementary school of our "bubbles" that people can't violate makes this behavior seem very strange to me, but no one really seemed to mind.

The one thing that did bother me about Muhammad is that he would attack the Buddhist religion and its practitioners saying "They believe in nothing." Muhammad appeared to be firm in his beliefs of Islam, which I can respect, but I really am of the belief that all religions should be respected.

At the end of the day, I found out that Muhammad had no more money and no place to stay. He asked to take a shower at my hostel - which I was fine with - it was a shared bathroom so he wouldn't even have to go in my room. Though at this point, my defenses were on high alert. That proved to be unnecessary, he didn't ask for any money only soap for the shower. At this point, the jet lag was setting in, I told him I would take a nap and meet up with him later that night. I never did see him again. The next day I was off to Koh Tao.

Blogging suspended until I go somewhere less communist

I will unfortunately be suspending my blog posts until I leave china.
China blocks access to blogger.

Rest of Egypt

So I went to Siwa, Cario, Aswan, and Luxor after Dahab. Here is a quick summary:

Siwa:

This is a city built by an oasis in the western part of Egypt just a little bit away from Libya. I spent my time in Siwa hanging out with Jen, whom I met in Jordan.

Siwa is a very cool city. It has more donkey carts than cars. When we got there, we wanted to stay in a hotel that was 4km outside of the city, but it was really expensive to get there because the guy in the donkey cart didn't want to ride back by himself in the dark. As such, we stayed at a cheap spot in the city.


The most exciting thing I did here was go to sand dunes and spend two nights in the desert. The sand dunes where really amazing to see and riding around in the jeep over them was crazy. We also stopped by a cold natural oasis and swam. At the cold oasis, a wind picked up and blew sand into my camera and broke it. You'll notice between that point and Ben coming to Thailand, I don't have that many pictures because I didn't have a camera. As for the cold oasis, it was a really nice swim. The warm oasis we went to was kind of gross though. It had weird stuff growing in it, and felt like a lukewarm bath. There were also like 20 people in a 20 square foot pool of water, just gross.

That first night we stayed in a camp site just outside of the city with a bunch of locals and a few travelers. It was a lot of fun. Spent most of the night hanging out by the camp fire telling stories. We ended up sleeping outside by the fire despite the fact that we had beds in huts. Around 3am, it got really cold so I somewhat regretted that decision.

The second night, it was just Ahmad (our awesome guide), Jen and I in the middle of the desert. This was a lot cooler because we had no light around us except for our camp fire. The stars were amazing. During the night, a mouse attacked me after I went to sleep. I was terrified (for no reason at all) so I lit a candle and watched for a little bit. After accepting the mouse had run away, I went back to sleep. Ahmad thought I was ridiculous. It was a very cool experience being in the middle of the desert at night.

Cairo

Cairo is the busiest(traffic wise) and one of the dirtiest cities that I've ever been in. After a lot of reflection, I've determined that I really didn't like it. The museum is great and the Pyramids are cool - the Spinx is very cool - but outside of that I didn't like it. Tourist are always being harassed by people trying to sell stuff - more aggressively than other places. I think the bigger problem I had was that they were always trying to sell me crap. A couple people trying to sell me perfume were super aggressive and one called me a "very bad man" when I refused to buy anything after he had so "graciously" shown me his shop.

Quick story

So I "befriended" this guy that gave camel rides around the Pyramids. He gave me a free ride to a good view point and invited me back to his place for dinner. This was a really cool experience - and despite other people "befriending" me and later asking for money - I was not going to close myself off to this type of opportunity.

His house was poor. It didn't have a roof over all of it, and there were goats and chickens grazing on the second floor. There was also an amazing amount of flies. His parents and friends were very welcoming though, and dinner was good. I then talked to one of his friends who was complaining about how the government didn't do anything. Towards the end of the night, he suggested that I could give him my ipod and that would be okay. I thought it would not be, but I did end up giving about $20 USD to him as I left to cover dinner and whatnot. Still very cool experience.

Luxor and Aswan

So the only reason I went to Aswan was to go to Abu Simbel - an acient Egyptian temple close to Sudan. You can only go to the temple with a 4am and 11am convoy. Normally, the overnight train from Cairo gets you there at about 10am so it's perfect to catch the 11am convoy. But I was on the train that was traveling on the day that they switched to (or from - I never know) daylight savings time. I lost an hour on the train and missed the temple. I ended up going around Aswan a little and saw a lesser temple, but it was still a failed trip. At 3pm, I went back to the train station to go to Luxor.

Luxor has a number of great acient Egyptian temples and was a lot of fun to go around. I don't really have any good stories from there or any pictures because I had no camera, but it was a good time.


That was Egypt - next stop Thailand.

Pictures

Just so you all know. All of my pictures are here.

Dahab

Dahab is a small town on the Red Sea in Egypt. It has some of the best diving in Eygpt and is a fun place to hang out. For my first three days in Dahab, I accomplished very little. I did a lot of chilling in the sun, swimming in the sea, and enjoying the local Egyptian brew "Sakara." Despite this, I do have some cool stories - at least in my opinion.

Let's start at the beginning. I came to Dahab from the Taba border crossing between Israel and Egypt. Sitting at the bus station in Taba, I was attacked by flies. When I was in Eilat, about 3km from Taba, there were no flies at all. How did the Israelis keep the flies from crossing the border. It amazed me and the girl that I sat at the bus station with.

Once on the bus, I met a very friendly but somewhat odd Egyptian guy. His favorite line was "I love you too much." I feel like something was getting lost in translation. The ride to Dahab was long, but it was cool just riding through the desert.

My first night in Dahab, I met a little Bedouin girl that taught me how to play Backgammon and a Bedouin game that involved rolling the die, but no real strategy. She beat me at both because she cheated. (I'm not sore, I'm just saying) She gave me a little ankle bracelet for playing with her though. (Mom you're getting a present) Then we made a bet on the next game. If I lost, I had to buy another bracelet, if I won I got it for free. Needless to say I had to pull out my wallet, but I got a scarab(luck symbol) bracelet that I've worn everyday since so it's not so bad.

I also met a fair number of interesting people while diving and learned that all dive instructors smoke ciggs. One of the most interesting from my point of view was this mining engineer from Australia. He had mined silver, gold, nickel, etc. He had just been in South Africa to buy an engagement ring for his girlfriend. He had interesting stories about mining, but also on the diamond industry. He basically said that the crack down on "blood" diamonds was a lie, and that they enter the market easily and unnoticed.

Finally, on the last day I went scuba diving. This was an amazing experience for me. The whole being able to breath underwater thing was kind of shocking. The reef was also amazing. I thought it was kind of going to be like when you go camping expecting to see a ton of animals because that's what you see on National Geographic, but when you go you're lucky to see a couple deer. This was completely like National Geographic though, there were so many fish of different colors and sizes. Great time. Stayed in a great resort "Red Sea Relax Resort" for only $12 a day. Dahab was a great start to Egypt.

Bethlehem

For those that don't know, Bethlehem is the city that was the birthplace to Jesus. It's just south of Jerusalem in the West Bank. I remember telling a girl that was staying in the hostel with me in Tel Aviv that I was going to Bethlehem, and she was like "By yourself, I heard it isn't safe." After going, that seems like a ridiculous statement. I took the West Bank bus to Bethlehem and got off a little over a kilometer (yep-I've been out the US for a while) from the Church of the Nativity. I didn't really have any idea where I was going, typical for me, so I asked around and everyone was helpful and nice. Any fear of the average Palestinian, at least in my experiences, appears to be completely unjustified. It is true that every once in a while someone does something bad, but middle school kids in the US shoot up a school every once in awhile too. I'm not going to be scared to go to a middle school anytime soon. But I digress once again.

So I get to the church. I have to duck down to get in the front door. The church is very beautiful. It's got some really good paintings on the walls - though my pictures of them do not do them justice. There's also a little place where you walk down to where Jesus was actually born. The first time I walked down I was unaware of what I was looking at. I was just wondering around the church. Then I got to talking to one of the priest and he told me how a little star marked where Jesus was born. I think to myself, "I've got to get a picture of it." Mainly for you guys. So I go back down to where it is, and there are two tour groups of like 30 people lined up to get their picture taken next to this little star. I stand to the side and wait. While I'm waiting, another tour group gets in line, and I resolve to the fact that I'm going to have to join the tour group line. I end up waiting in like like 30ish minutes, but finally get my picture and got to touch the place where Jesus was born.

Masada and the Dead Sea

As I'm sure you all read in my last post. My first attempt at going to Masada and the Dead Sea ended with me being very sick. I thought I was out some money, but the guy at the Jaffa Gate Hostel was able to get the tour company to take me two days later without charging me any money at all.


So first we went to Masada. This is a fortress in Israel where a bunch of Jews killed themselves rather than be taken prisoner in a battle with the Romans. The site is very cool and has some interesting structures. What I didn't like about it, was how it was presented in the video before hand. Before you went up to the fortress, you watch this 15 minute or so video explaining the historical significance of the fortress. It was somewhat informative, but also felt very nationalistic which I didn't like. But I digress.

What I found most amazing about this fortress is that it was on top of a plateau in the middle of a desert. How did they possibly live here? Well, they had these giant rooms built that collected water whenever it rained to allow them to survive. (And no, I didn't take my headphones out for the picture...) Other than that, it was similar to many other Roman period ruins, but still cool.


Next, we went off to the Dead Sea. This was really cool. The first thing you see when you get near it is this grey mud that looks so gross, and it becomes obvious that nothing lives in the water. It really took me a minute to get past the grey mud, but before long I had covered my upper body in it and began floating in the sea. You really do float effortlessly. I could have taken a nap if the current didn't keep pushing me into people.