On the beach in Dahab

We had four blissful days in Dahab, where we slept, swam, relaxed on sunbeds at the waterfront restaurants – as long as you buy something you can use the sunbeds and swim there – ate lots of yummy Egyptian food, found some good Indian food, and recharged our batteries after our travels to Jordan.  …

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The incredible rock hewn city of Petra

Petra is an ancient city, hewn out of stone in a valley in Jordan. The entrance was about a 20 minute walk from our hotel – we bought 2 day tickets but only actually needed 1 day tickets.  After buying tickets, we walked downhill to the beginning of the Siq, a narrow entrance through walls…

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A journey to Jordan

When we realised we could fit in a side trip to Jordan to see the ancient rock city of Petra, we were really excited.  We decided to do it independently – we later learned that this probably didn’t actually save us any money as you can do it as a trip from Dahab, but it…

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The ancient sites of Luxor

We arrived in Luxor after visiting Kom Ombo and Edfu, and headed out to visit Luxor Temple that afternoon. This temple is right on the banks of the Nile, and is interesting as it has been used as an Egyptian temple, an early Christian church and a mosque (they built it on top without realising…

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Sailing down the Nile on a felucca

After arriving back from Abu Simbel, we transferred onto our felucca.  A felucca is a small, traditional sailboat, where by day you can laze about the deck and by night you sleep on the same deck. We were really keen to cruise on the Nile – but we were not at all keen to go on…

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Amazing Aswan and Abu Simbel

We decided to travel by train to get to Aswan, where we would start a 5 day tour.  We don’t normally travel by tours, but we had a short time frame and wanted to make the most of our time.  We booked with Eye of Horus tours as they were the cheapest option and gave…

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How to deal with touts and hassles in Egypt

We had been pre-warned that we would experience some hassles from touts in Egypt (we appreciated Mike and Ashley’s honest account here). We developed some different ways to deal with people in Egypt (note, I am not talking about people we asked for help, hostel staff etc but people that approached us unsolicited to offer…

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The Pyramids

We were excited about seeing the pyramids and decided to go there by ourselves, which was really easy.  We jumped on the metro, getting off at the Giza station.  From here we took a mini van (the one where the driver was calling out “Haram”) and were dropped off at the back entrance to the…

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Cairo

We arrived at 9pm at night at Cairo and were really grateful for the free pickup offered by our hostel.  We hadn’t realised how crazy the traffic was going to be…it took us over an hour to make it to our hostel.  We parked on a crazy street with traffic piled up and honking, street…

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Experiencing a traditional Moroccan Hammam

I had heard of hammams (traditional bathing houses) while we were in Turkey but didn’t get around to trying one.  While we were in Essasouira, I decided to do something that scared me and took myself off for a hammam.  Why was that scary? Well, I didn’t want to go to a tourist hammam or…

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