Nuwaiba Village Nuweiba

... in Midnight's Children and The Life of Pi, which won in 1981 and 2003 respectively. Birds is not quite as good as Pi, but given that the latter is probably the best book I've read since at least college, that's not exactly stinging criticism. And it's heaps more readable than anything by Rushdie.

Corty, one of the several Americans I met in Istanbul and with whom I went for Korean on my final night there, gave me the book just before she ...

... reasons, so I was going alone with Sarah, a private tour of the Pipeline divesite, sweet! After gearing up we headed out to the dive site, conveniently located on the other side of my resort. Only later did I realize that everyone else was snorkeling nearby and I could see the site from my hotel room door, not bad.

Since the dive was a shore dive we had to gear up on the sand and walk into the water. Instead of the funny looking ...

... clear the bill......what a scary experience, bit more than we thought but since we were clearing out our systems with juices we just had enough money to cover it.....few. After some group shots it was time to board the bus for the final time and then say good bye to Ghandi and the ferry terminal. He was one of the greatest tour leaders and was heaps of fun, Ghandi I salute you.

Anyway time to sign off and next time it will be a new country.........Jordan!

... gear, our cot in our tent, our tzevet (11-person group), and our maflakah (33-person group; battalion). During this time of receiving orders like a dog, we also learned how to stand, salute the officers, and of course, do push-ups. We also learned when we could wear a hat, when not, and things of that nature, although we're actually still learning how that goes as evidenced by the constant punishments we receive. While there were a few youth groups doing this course ...

... at the top of his voice at people trying to get on, it was all rather amusing but at the same time I felt sorry for the people who were trying to get on and had obviasley brought there ticket but couldnt because there was no room, they must of overbooked I guess. I didnt sleep all that well for some reason although the bus was fine I just couldnt get to sleep for a while so I ended up reading Jason Robinsons autobiography coutsey of ...

... have been like leaving with the masses.

Then we sat around for ages in arrivals hall in Aqaba port, waiting for our passports and stamps. Got out of there about 9pm and I was one of the first to get their passports back. A very long day of waiting and sitting around. Really tired as well. Didn't get much sleep last night and I'm probably still tired from climbing Mt Sinai. But I'm in country number 2 - Jordan and looking forward to a very rushed 7 day tour of the place.

... It was as if the borders of Israel were the walls of a pinball machine, and I was a moldy, hard-boiled egg being pinballed around them. Maybe I should still try to go to Iran? After all, "doubt is one of the five Hindrances to the clear understanding of Truth and to ... progress" - the Buddha. And I'd been telling people I was going to go to Iran for months now. I reshifted my focus back to Iran, wintry plateau or no wintry plateau. I felt excited and ...

... without them.  By the time we hiked out of the canyon, it was dark, Venus had risen over the mountains, and the sky was SO beautiful.  We'll never forget the beauty of that place ! We got back to Israel pretty late, so Sunday we just took it easy in Eilat. It was another beautiful day, sunny and warm.  We went to the aquarium here, which is actually built underground and into the natural coral reefs here (lots of people come to the ...

... I was ready to get out of there pretty quickly.  Already had my African continent souvenirs taken care of :-).  Wondering why this wasn't my day...reasons:1.  Well...we had traveled on an overnight seater train arriving in Cairo at 6am 2.  I was not thrilled to be staying at the Capsis Hotel again instead of the Victoria as they are actually not of similar standards as Intrepid says they are; even though this time it turned out to be much better ...

... br>· Time to go ii
Fast forward 24 hours to this morning in Nuweiba, where the signs were also there for all to see. This time the air-con died at 4:30am, bringing the mozzies out to feast on us. The sweaty clamminess may have woken us up, but it was the mozzies buzzing around our heads that kept us from falling back asleep (the annoying buzzing sound was well amplified thanks to the 4:30am silence). Applying oily DEET repellent ...