TravelStream™ news feed for member hodge on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/hodge en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Wed, 16 Jan 2008 14:05:36 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hodge/middle_east_07/1199630100/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hodge/middle_east_07/1199630100/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hodge/middle_east_07/1199630100/tpod.html Wed, 16 Jan 2008 14:05:36 -0500 Back to the Middle East..Holy Land journey through Israel, Palestine, Egypt and Athens

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Athens, Greece

Almost 10 days on and just completely my travel blog...its been that busy at work!!So the final day in Hodge and Costello's adventure and a weird flight at 3.45am in the morning and the dodgy Egyptians from Olympic airlines trying to charge Aimee twice for her ticket at the airport and useless security checks.A treat was needed mandm's and almost stale bread in an upper crust roll...oh my god what were we doing.The flight was surprisingly OK and i sleep most of the way, complete result and as we landed we briskly walked straight through EU imagration...haha...egyptians who's getting hassled now??? Bad checked in and sunrise on the metro and a quick sleep again.An hour later and we were in central Athens ready for our day walking around, actually nothing was open..so we had a quick coffee and waited for opening time at Agora, part of ancient Greece and temple central!! It was free to get in..result..apparently a Greek holiday, in fact everything else was free for the rest of the day..even more of a result. So we wandered around Agora, checking out some crazy old cool Greek s**t.Here in the park/ruins are amazing views up to the Acropolis, so we wondered around and found a view point between two on top of an old rock, well it had some sort of historical significance, but I can't remember.Onto the main thing I had come here to see The Parthenon and The Acropolis.I knew it was a land mark but didn't realized how much i dominated the Athens skyline, only shame is that its a bit of a building site, the Greeks are completely renovating the site using tradition methods. Also we saw the area were the Brits had stolen the Mable's....concrete replaces, I must be time we gave these back to the Greeks!! So because were the temples is the views around the city are brilliant and actually Athens was a lot more hilly than I thought I would be....Onto an Amphitheater and Temple of Olympian Zeus.....final temple of the holiday hurrah!!The next treat was one to remember, we ended the morning watching the changing of the royal guards at the palace. Now you thought we had funny royal guards with the big old bear hats...the Greek dudes were white tights, clogs and pom poms on the end of the clogs and actually they walk like a Russian guards.All very bizarre and entertaining, maybe it was a scary ploy against there formal enemies!! Who knows!! But good fun and drink time and yes we found a starbucks...another results and a hot chocolate later I could easily of slept...doh flight wasn't for another 9 hours.So how did we fill the time in??? Shopping and eating of course...I managed to bag a fake Argentina footy shirt, glasses and we found some badges for our backpacks!!!We had a pretty damn good lunch in Athens, which again surprisingly has some brilliant pedestrian areas and cafes...i thought it would be a lot more grubby, but the place is pretty damn good.We tried to fill the afternoon with cinema but everything was shut, so we returned and waited at the airport early.Apparently in the morning there had been an Earthquake...probably to tied to feel it!!!So a little late back to England, we had to wait for 30mins for someone at Easyjet to open the terminal gates, thanks for that, but even more thanks the gatwick ground crew for letting us wait for almost two hours for ours bags. Good job Aimee didn't have to be back here at 6am the following day, or I had to get a train to Lincoln.Shattering end to an amazing holiday with one of the WAGS!!!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hodge/middle_east_07/1199540460/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hodge/middle_east_07/1199540460/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hodge/middle_east_07/1199540460/tpod.html Sat, 05 Jan 2008 09:18:03 -0500 Back to the Middle East..Holy Land journey through Israel, Palestine, Egypt and Athens

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Cairo, Egypt

Ok so the deal in Egypt has been....i get harashed for taxis, hotels and pretty much everything else, as the blokes won't speak to Aimee, however she gets leared at continously and we are talking men staring down at her clevage. I we ignore then...the standard comment is 'lucky man'. Cairo its a fantasic place, so many people we have met have either said its completely crazy, well yes it is a bit and some even hate it...well to those...I think your missing out!!!Just getting ready for a our marathon trip to Athens tomorrow after 3 fantastic days here..so heres what we have been up to.We arrived here fairly late after a plane flight up from Aswan, on which I was actually getting some good sleep until the turbulance kicked in, which was pretty bad. So we had a lazy first day and headed over the museum late afternoon. The museum is fantastic andozzing with caracter, in fact so much to see and we didn't want to be bored in a tour all day so we headed just to the things we wanted to see. So first stop the mummys!!! As we walked through to The Royal Mummy room we passed through numerous coffins, huge statues and other cool stuff....most eras are labelled and all the important items have English writting, which is perfect. So the Mummy Room and well worth the extra 100 egyptian to get in. Inside maybe 10 to 15 mummies, most impressively Ramses II in the middle, thats the dude who built most the cool temples around luxor. So there he was 3000 years old and sitting in front of us, pretty damn remarkable, imagine Henry 8th, Queen Victoria, or even Jesus....thats how old this fella is!!!Onto to the main part of the museum and Tutankarmun...the boy king. Such are the number of items here you can tell he was a popular king, probably due to the years before of bad rule and the fact that his tomb was not robbed. The main hall way contain the different layers of caskets in which he was burried and tables that carried riches placed alongside his mummy. Inside the main room is the impressive burial mask we had come to see, completely mindblowing staring into the eyes of the king, but even more impressive for me were the coffins he layed, 3 more blue and golden coffins!!! Also in the room, gold which held his mummy bandages together and lots of other treasures...alll amazing stuff and probably a good thing you can't ake pictures so no one is posing infront for a snap everyone is enjoying whats on show.Quick coffee we formed a plan of attack, a look at some more Ramses II collections and the animal mummies of crocodiles, cats, dogs, sheep, goats, snakes, monkey actually most living things they worshipped in some way in the country.A good day we finished with a trip to the cinema, but briefly before while waiting for the show we did thing you can only get away with in foreign countries....wandered straight into the Ramses Hilton on the river, lift straight to the top to the windows of the world restaurant and order some wine to admire the view over the skyline and Cairo Nile...awesome day but got better the day after....Next day and 6am start, which was an old too early for the opening of the pyramids, which I reminded costello about!!! So coffee over looking them in a nearby restaurant. We actually fallen on our feet and come to the quiter enterance, so we had the Sphinx all to ourselves on opening. This is one of the those places you always see on tv but can't imagine being there..... we were there!!! As walked up to the pyramids the view of the hoards of tourists was shocking, definetly the right entry for us. Our first mission was to try and get entry to the grand pyramid, with only 150 tickets a day we feared we had missed our chance...lucky man again we just managed to get entry and Aimee blagged the camera entry so some shots of us climbing the narrow entry up so stairs toa central chamber..pretty cool.So outside we had a chance to admire the sheer size of the pyramids, from far they don't look as impressive as up close, there are massive and when sitting on a large block you really have to think how did they put these together 4000 years ago...completely mind blowing.A walk around them we went into the boat museum of the oldest boat in the world, used to ferry a pharoah mummy along the nile before burial....after some more snaps we were down and crashed for a couple of hours before returning to the pyramids before dusk.Horse time..now i'm not the best of riders and considering I havne't actually riden that much going fall gallop across the desert was probably not the best idea I had ever had....although adrenalined up I survived phew!!! Aimee of course was alot better than me, but the experience was one never to be forgotten along with the bright red sunset and the view across towards the pyramids, perfect end to agreat day!!!So finally day in Egypt and we chilled by going to the Islamic Quarter for a bit of shopping and food, which was tourist price. We have actually got very good here and straight with the locals in cab fairs and food, when they start charging 5 times the price something should be I would rather not talk to them and we find someone else who is more reasonable. Day done just going to crash for a while before our midnight wake up and flight to Athens..bring it on!!!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hodge/middle_east_07/1199296860/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hodge/middle_east_07/1199296860/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hodge/middle_east_07/1199296860/tpod.html Wed, 02 Jan 2008 13:16:18 -0500 Back to the Middle East..Holy Land journey through Israel, Palestine, Egypt and Athens

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Abu Simbel, Egypt

Ok last temples today. thats what I've been promising Costello and I guess theres only so much more heiroglyphics I can take or self indulgance from Ramses II...plus those bloody convoys!!So Lego land today, well sort of. To sites both moved because to the completion of the High Aswan dam in 1960. Abu Simbel and Philae temples.So new record on early starts at 3am...joy of joys and a mini bus...even greater joy. I did manage to get a swiggin of sleep before arriving at Abu Simbel about 6.30am..ouch, its so far south its almost in Sudan!!!The temple was easlier one of my favourites, only slightly spoiled by the number of tourists, again why oh why the convoys...this could be such a memorable experience if there were less people. Oh well we cracked on and looked around the two temples at this site, the larger the most famous, with four statues of Ramses II looking down the Nile to anyone that emtered the land of the Pharoahs..lost for years to be rediscovered and later moved up the valley, no easy job.Inside the temples are pretty spot on, I was expecting something a litttle less flash..but pretty damn cool...we took time to read about the moving of the site and then battled to find space to take some snaps. We have a top picture of one French dude and his mulicolour shorts........very funny.So 3 hours in back North to the high dam...yarn very boring and not worth the 80p enterence fee, similar to the un fnished obelisk...again yawn.Philae on the other hand was pretty good and our last dose of Pharoah tomb, this one stunning moved from one island, now under the surface of Lake Nasser. A smaller tomb, but beautiful location even if we did have to bargain our way over to the island.So here I am now, over joyed that I have the prospect of returning to Blighty and temperatures on Thursday not much over 2 degrees, why or why....as lass Cairo tonight and we are just killing time before over flight from Aswan to Cairo...bring on the Pyramids!!!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hodge/middle_east_07/1199211120/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hodge/middle_east_07/1199211120/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hodge/middle_east_07/1199211120/tpod.html Tue, 01 Jan 2008 13:32:50 -0500 Back to the Middle East..Holy Land journey through Israel, Palestine, Egypt and Athens

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Aswan, Egypt

Another convoy and a complete waste of time...this time they didn't even both with the second part of the journey or the check points, waste of time, money and as soon as i'm back the first thing i'm doing is emailing all guide books, tourist board in Egypt and the bus company that left us stranded in Hungarda...rubbish Egypt!So two temples of the way down South to Aswan. Edfu and Kom Ombo.Edfu was a complete tourist trap, so had a quick wonder around. The site is pretty huge and famous for the Falcon god Horus. The temple has large bird statues on enterance, we qued with the hoards to get a picture...if there were no convoys this would be an issue! A shame because we would of probably enjoyed it more with less hassle. Actually this was mentioned as one of Dan Crushanks around the world in 80 treasures, i've got no idea why as Karnak is far more impressive!So a quick walk around, arguement with taxi driver/tourist guards to allow us to go outside the site we found some falafal in a sort of bap, yum yum. Onto Kom Ombo, hoem of the crocodile god and mummified crocs...how funny. No crocs here now, in fact no convoy..the police had seemed to jack off for the day. Temple was so so, but we were through with temples at this point..so on to Aswan.The cab driver had no idea were he was staying, so we had to direct him..the map was a little confusing and he didn't really help, driving off and stopping locals with no idea. So we jumped out, with back packs and map...finding Keylany hotel within 5mins. Result.So New Years Eve, what to do?? and yes what to do? We had some grub and went to a hotel recommended to have a night club, it was shut of all days. Locals just walked the street...shouting happy new year to us, all very good but after a while we got fed up of it, as it was only a ploy to get us into to tacky tourists shops.No club, we walked to other hotels and even tried our luck at The Old Cataract Hotel, famous for Agatha Cristies 'Death of the Nile'...of course 5 Star only darling so no entry here..off to a bottl shop and seeing New Year in with some beers on the roof, no particular party, but still pretty cool, looking over the Nile and locals beeping there horns.Second day here and basking in 28 degree heat it was time to top up the tan, actually its almost perfect sunbathing weather. Not too hot or humid, and the sun is only at its peak for a couple of hours, so enough to get a slight tan without full on sunburn.Around 4pm we haeded off on a Faluca, traditional Egyptian boat to sail around the islands here, including Elephantine with traditional Nubian houses and Kitchener with English Colonial gardens. A really good end to a relaxing day and brillant sunset pictures. In fact most sunsets and special here, with golden yellow before deep red skys.Tomorrow, the rock temple of Abu Simbel on the Sundanese border.... 
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hodge/middle_east_07/1199037180/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hodge/middle_east_07/1199037180/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hodge/middle_east_07/1199037180/tpod.html Tue, 01 Jan 2008 13:11:16 -0500 Back to the Middle East..Holy Land journey through Israel, Palestine, Egypt and Athens

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Luxor, Egypt

So onwards an hour sleep and pick up to go ballooning..yes the travelling vibe has returned and exactly the sort of thing I got up while I was away last year.I boat ride across the Nile to the west bank and a quick minibus ride onto the desert savana our Balloon and captain Bob to take us in to the air. The balloon was English built and the largest of its kind with room for 30 people..so pretty damn big.We jumped in...and given precise instructions from captain Bob...pretty big caracter, but of course commanding for our safety. He was in and pushed away at four leavers that shot bright red and white flames into the middle of the balloon, heating the air...and we were off...going up quicker than I imagined, but so soothly. Now i'm not the best with heights so it took me a good ten minutes to get into the flow of the whole experience, but them I started to absolutely love it. We sailed above the buildings and could clearly see the irregation system coming from the Nile. The Nile hazy under the early morning sun and behind us the mountains containing the Valley of the Kings..what a site..what an experience and the highlight of my trip.So on ward captain Bob. He explain that the military restrict the height and the fact that we are not aloud to take pictures in the balloon, of both were disregarded. Bob had to gain extra height so we didn't go towards the Nile and catch higher cooler wind to take us back into the valley, so higher we went. Most impressively on landing we skimmed across a field only 5 meters above for a good 400 meters before gently lifting up over a mud bank and perfectly landing on the road. So top experience over, a boat and bus back to the hotel, food and back into bed for a kip.Mid afternoon we were up and after a keep text to Stefan, one of our swedish friends we meet at Karnak temple in the North of Luxor.This by far was my favourite of the temples we had seen and at least double the size if not triple of what we had seen in the previous couple of days. large columns, oblisks and pharoahs..another of Ramses II creations. Actually one of the seens from Bond film 'Spy who loved me' so we ran around the pillars ,messing around and taken classic Bond pictures...of course no Jaws chasing us, only the Costello witha camera!!!The original plan was to watch the light show, but all the tourists in Egypt were here and we expected it to be more cheesier that Feta, so we decided to go for lunch with our Swedish mates and then get ready for our trip south the following day...top day!!!!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hodge/middle_east_07/1198948800/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hodge/middle_east_07/1198948800/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hodge/middle_east_07/1198948800/tpod.html Tue, 01 Jan 2008 12:52:28 -0500 Back to the Middle East..Holy Land journey through Israel, Palestine, Egypt and Athens

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Abydos, Egypt

After the long day before another ealry start..around 7am and off North to the temples of Abydos and Dendara, two of the most complete temples in the country.So off we went convoy again...now rant coming up...What are the point of these convoys???We all meet at one point in Luxor and a police guard drives us North. Aparently after terrorist attacks in 1997 they were set up, so who do they benefit.1) Tourists..I dont think so firstly if anything we are more of a terrorist target now, a long trail of cars that stop in streets with cars either side..any which could contain something to blow us up. Also due to restricted time periods we can't enjoy are time at the temples, plus all arrive at the same time amking them packed. So definitely not us...finally they also take so long to drive along the roads and waiting for the police to get ready after each site and a death trap racing along the roads, over taking each other.2)Locals...hell no. It increases segregation between tourists and locals, us looking outwards from the car, them looking inwards..theres no interaction. Few can enter the sites to benefit from selling goods. No tourists stay in local towns,as they are all ferried to and from Luxor..so local hotels or restaurants can not benefit..so not locals3) The government...they are the only people I can see that benefits and shame on them. We are charged more as a tourist to travel in these convoys and don't have the freedom to travel within the country. In fact I found it easy to travel in countries such Nicaragua and countries with troubles such as Sri Lanka, with current terrorist problems...also Palestine was easy...get it sorted Egypt your letting yourself down.So only to temples. Both again huge impressive, but with these they have ceilings thus preserving most of colour heiroglyphics and giving more of an ambience. Abydos have three rooms with large pillars and writing of the Falcon god, pretty top photos. Although our favouite was Dendara, party temples a kind of early manumission...also containing our Bez...no not Costello but the god of fun. The best thing about this temples was our first experience of split level floors and cripts. So chambers lead up the side of the building to the roof top and views across the desert, a steps into tiny rooms...lots of fun and actually one Egypt suprises that you can climb over most of these 4000 year old temples.So a really good day that only got better, with a twist and a suprise.We tried again to find a night out..Tut Hotel called and the so called night club, oh dear a couple of Northerners singing kareoke, very Pheonix Nights!!! But we got invloved, I got up and sand some Wham and before long we had meet three great Swedsih blokes, actually a couple fo hours later we were swimming in there roof top pool.And oh yes an a retreat at 5am for an hours sleep were we up again for a balloon ride but thats another day and another blog.....
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hodge/middle_east_07/1198774080/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hodge/middle_east_07/1198774080/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hodge/middle_east_07/1198774080/tpod.html Mon, 31 Dec 2007 12:20:00 -0500 Back to the Middle East..Holy Land journey through Israel, Palestine, Egypt and Athens

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Valley of the Kings, Egypt

Guess who we saw today???? Only Tony Blair, walking straight past us at the  Deir al-Bahri temple of the West Bank of Luxor.So what else did we get up to today appart from PM spotting, well aparently Scarcozi and the Portugese Pm are in town as well. We actually got of are arses and did something....we started the day about 7am and hired a car to drive us around all the west bank sites for the day. Pretty good idea as we were origanlly going to ride on motor bikes and I think we would of got bored of that after a why.So of we went Templing and Tombing. First stop getting some cash as Costello forgot hers and a shop owner had to lend us some cash...opps. Next to the shop conviently locatted was our first site Colossi of Memmon, two huge giant pharoahs sitting on chairs. Aparently there were many before, but taken by Romans, Greeks etc..now only two but pretty good early photo oppotunity.Onto Medinat Habu, now we thought there wouldn't be as many big temples as this and more tourists. The place was fantasic and Egypt ws starting to far out way my expectactions, hieroglyphics plastered over vertually everything avaliable and mind blowing massive columns erected 4000 years ago. So Habu another treat and not many tourists, where are they???Onto Valley of the Queens and two tombs, Amunherkhepshef and Khaemwaset..more of a mixture of queens and princes. Actually the best was closed Nefetari, however the two were saw again out weighed expectations...small dusty tombs with amazing bright colours still again from around 2000bc..wow..wow..wow. Proper tomb raiding, low ceilings and amazing vibe..what must of the tomb diggers seen in the 1800s...Onto Ramesseum, again what more can I say, big, impressive and no tourists. This place was built by building guru pharoah Rames II which buit most of the big temples...of himself of course. Theres an even big statue of him here but in pieces on the ground sadly...but the temple is fab.Hungrey now so the driver took us for a quick break before moving on to Deir al-Bahri...now here was tourist hell..looks like all had decended here at once..i've got no idea why it wasn't even the best. However bizarrely while taking pictures of a random statue aimee said look over there...sure enough Tony Blair walking straight past us...check out the video on facebook.Final big site for the day was the actual Valley of the Kings. We had read the Tutankhamun tomb was pretty rubbish, so sacked that off and our ticket gave us enterance to 3 tombs...we picked Tuthmosis III, Rameses III, Ramses IV. The first was a steep climb up the valley, up some steeps in a crack in the mountains, down one flight of stairs into the tomb and down further into other parts. These tombs had less colourful pictures then the queens, but far larger and some included the mummy coffins lick the next two. The final being one of the best, large tomb and coffin, cool hieros and stars on the ceiling as a passage to the afterlife...get in...pretty good day. We stopped of a smaller temple on the way back Seti I, nothing really compared to the sites of the day.That night...well friday night we tried to find Egyptian night life..only a pub maybe more luck tomorrow???
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hodge/middle_east_07/1198692420/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hodge/middle_east_07/1198692420/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hodge/middle_east_07/1198692420/tpod.html Mon, 31 Dec 2007 12:19:15 -0500 Back to the Middle East..Holy Land journey through Israel, Palestine, Egypt and Athens

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Hurghada, Egypt

It was suppose to be an easy day..boxing day. Sunbathingm a ride over to Sharm, catch the ferry to Hurghada and a bus onto Luxor.It didn't really turn out like that and ended up a complete mission.....The ferry was great with the most amazing sunset over the Re Sea and of course the standard film on a journey 'Gladiator' which I had seen numerous times before on bus journeys, normally in Spanish though!!!A short taxi ride from the port to the bus terminal and waiting 2 hours for the 10.30pm bus to Luxor. There we started chatting to an Ozzie couple and took in turns to find out the bus going in the right direction. All wasn't up when Paul, the ozzie bloke answer about a bus, which looked right and got conflicting stories from people. The driver saying Cairo, the bus department saying Luxor. After much debate we got the completely useless tourist police involved. Aparently the bus company were refusing to let any tourists on and maybe for th next couple of days...joy!!A massive arguement kicked off as we stood in front of the bus, been bus company, bus ticket man and tourst police..actually locals started shouting at each other as well. I'd never seen anything quite like this before on my travels people refusing tourists to go on buses.Anyway the bus left without us and we were warned similar may occur on the next, therefore we were left with little option then to shared a local car. This seemed a good idea and split the cost 3 ways. By then another Swede and American had joined us.3 hours to Luxor...yeah right!!! We ended up waiting at checked points lying through our teeth to convince them we needed to catch a flight from Luxor...some guys looking in the teens trying throw there authority (what they had) to hold us up as long as possible.Eventually 5.30am we arrive in Luxor to the amazing site of the temple lite up and night, cockerals baliring away and giving the drivers directions from the lonely planet map...but we made it and started laughing at the whole rediculous situation!!!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hodge/middle_east_07/1198779960/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hodge/middle_east_07/1198779960/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hodge/middle_east_07/1198779960/tpod.html Sat, 29 Dec 2007 13:42:03 -0500 Back to the Middle East..Holy Land journey through Israel, Palestine, Egypt and Athens

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Luxor, Egypt

Midday awake to the sound of horns, shouting and call to pray in the bustling city.We meet the hotel owner, who of course had many freinds that could help us with trips for the next couple of days...So we booked up a trip to Valley of the Kings the following day, a trip North up the Nile and Ballooning. Therefore we decided to take the day easy and visit only Luxor Temple.This temple only 10minutes walk was by far not a disappointment and a taste of what was to come..the temple with huge entry gate and a role of Sphixes that before went 3kms from Luxor to Karnak, less than half now remain, blew me away!!! Theres a huge obelix on entry, the other in Paris now and lines of huge Pharoah structures. This is one of many of the huge temples created by Rameses II throughout the Nile Valley. The size of the columns are mind blowing considering they put these up 2000BC and since the temple as been added to be others including Romans with painted pictures in the back of the temple. The pictures don't do justice to the scale and this must of been some building, of course now all the roof has gone, but still fantastic.Therefore a small taste and started to get me really excited about things to come, we went back still nakered, with a little bit of food and then crashed.West Bank and Valley of the Kings tomorrow!!!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hodge/middle_east_07/1198533540/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hodge/middle_east_07/1198533540/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hodge/middle_east_07/1198533540/tpod.html Wed, 26 Dec 2007 05:46:32 -0500 Back to the Middle East..Holy Land journey through Israel, Palestine, Egypt and Athens

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Eilat, Israel

I knew i didn't have the right border and when the bloke at reception said I could one of his friends to go back to the border I had no other choice. Good thing was one of his mates could sort me out...for of course a fee. So the plan was to spend 2 hours go to the border, wait 30mins at the Hilton hotel, get a visa and return. If I left at 7am I could be back for lunch time and then climb mouint Sinai.It dodn't quite work out like that!!!I got to the border...Hilton dont sort visas. So I had to cross the numerous border checks into Israel geta taxi to the Egyptians consulate, taxi back and back to Dahab. The only good thing about it was border was pretty empty, so was quicker than before crossing.Seemed a little too stupid that I could get a visa at the point of exit from the country wheither airport or ferry terminal..argh well sorted now.Only issue for me, I had the migraine from hell. I normally don't suffer from bad headaches and It slowly grew through out the day...by the time I got back and necked some iboporfen, 6 in all to get rid of the pain I was battered.Oh welll these thing happen to idependent travelling and plus point is I can now go and see some cooool shit in Luxor etc!!!!
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