TravelStream™ news feed for member vkwiig on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/vkwiig en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Sat, 20 Jan 2007 18:16:51 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vkwiig/turkey_2006/1156883880/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vkwiig/turkey_2006/1156883880/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vkwiig/turkey_2006/1156883880/tpod.html Sat, 20 Jan 2007 18:16:51 -0500 Following the falafel trail around Turkey in search of the perfect Turkish Delight!

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Instanbul, Turkey

Will write some news when we get there!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vkwiig/egypt_2007/1168366140/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vkwiig/egypt_2007/1168366140/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vkwiig/egypt_2007/1168366140/tpod.html Sat, 20 Jan 2007 17:56:16 -0500 Walk like an Egyptian!

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Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt

Sharm El Sheikh:1. Sunshine but very windy2. Pay to go to the beach.  Cheap and flash accomodation.  3. Quite the package holiday town4. Apple flavour Sheesha pipes5. Sailing hoby cats - the boys got a lesson before I went out for a ride6. World class diving - the boys had 2 fab days out there7. Snorkling on the coral reefs - Trace and I opted for the snorkle option.  Wonderful tropical fish and coral.8. Kofta, lamb, prawns, calamari, fish, rice, fries, salad garnish - not quite as exotic as I was hoping for but wicked fresh cheap seafood.  The Babaghanoug (Tahini and eggplant dip) was fab!9. Taxi touts10. Someone stole my jandles!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vkwiig/egypt_2007/1168800120/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vkwiig/egypt_2007/1168800120/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vkwiig/egypt_2007/1168800120/tpod.html Sat, 20 Jan 2007 17:48:52 -0500 Walk like an Egyptian!

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Cairo, Egypt

I was expecting total madness from Cairo.  Expecting a bit like Delhi on a crazy day......nothing like it!  We only had a 5 min haggle with the mad taxi drivers at the airport before we found one who would take us for our agreed price.  He did then proceed to pick up a 'mate' at the gate for a free ride (which we had already agreed to pay him for and when questioned him his good English surprisingly got worse??...- arrhhh) in then offer us smokes before lighting up in the taxi and weaving in and out like a mad man.  Why bother with road lane marking when it is clearly free for all as long as you have the loudest horn!We made it safely and smoked out to the Paris Hostel in the middle of Cairo.  Not quite as flash as our previous accomodation but what can one expect when you pay 5 pounds per night.  For that we got some uncomfy beds, cold water showers, loads of mosquitos and no breakfast......maybe I am just getting fussy in my older age?!Time to venture out......  Our main aim was to find some lunch then onto the Museum of Egyptian Antiques.  I had great expectations for food in Egypt.  Maybe expecting some really good Egyptian foods.  Lunch was a bit of grilled chicken in a white bread roll with a miniscule piece of lettuce and some mayo!!!  Totally false advertising as it had some flash Egyptian name and I was expecting the most amazing Egyptian kebab type thing. Nevermind, next meal...The Egyptian museum was great.  I am not the biggest museum goer but was happy there for about 4 hours!  We did hire a guide which made it really worth while.  The top pick was seeing the famous bits from the tomb of the boy-king Tutankamun.  This kid was only 9 when he was given the throne in 1361BC!  His tomb was uncovered in 1922 by a couple of clever English blokes.  They found loads of  wonderful gems including the kings mummy (not in the museum but still in the tomb) which was protected by 8 layers (all in the museum) the most impressive being his famous gold mask which I had seen in pics before. We finally met up with Grant and Tracy after their long bus ride from Sharm, in time to check out the mummied animals section.  Weird!!!  Mummified alligators, sheep, cats, monkeys, birds, goats and load of others.  Basically they used to mummify the animals as an offer to the mummy kings to protect them or just to mummy their pets?!  Day two started with what we have been waiting for......the Giza Pyramids!!!  I had in mind that they would be out in the desert but it seamed like no time at all weaving in and out of traffic and donkey lead carts that our taxi driver and we had barly mastered the lingo of 'la la shukran' = 'no no thank you' (this was to become our most valuable saying ...apart from thank you!) when he said 'there the pyramids'.  Just accross from the KFC and Pizza Hut to be precise!  First stop was the Sphinx (minus its beard as that is now in the British Museum - seen that already!)  Sphinx was pretty cool and under a bit of restoration work which was had it looking good.  Behind it in the background, the massive Pyramids of Cheops and Chephren made in about 2589BC!!!  We did the big loop checking it all out, got hassled by too many camel drivers and their stinky, spitting, glamed up camels and told off by security for walking on the pyramid when apparently we were not meant to - oops!  Just insane to think that people could build such massive  structures before technology and machines!  Trace and I just could not help pulling out the Egyptian walk, Dan surprised some Japanese folk and grant our holiday photographer got amongst it!.  After all the excitment of the morning it was time we hit the markets in Islamic Cairo at  Khan El Khalili bizaar.  Quite a different scene to the more modern downtown Talaat Harb where we were based.  This was more what I was expecting.  The market scene with the locals all shouting and haggling for their spices, purfume, muslim clothing, jeweles, undies and socks.   What a lively scene!  This bizaar is  more suited to the local but there is some good tourist bargins to be found.  I managed to purchase a fine magnet to add to my collection and a pair of silver earrings for only 3 pounds!!!  That night we treated ourselves to a night out on the floating restaurant Scarabee.  A 3 course meal with Egyptian entertainment which funnily enough included the band playing Tom Jones!  The 4 of us had a fab meal.  Trace and I got to practice our Belly Dancing with the professional and Dan had his go at whirling instructed by the funky whirling dirvish himself.   A great nighe even though I am confused to what exactly is Egyptian food?!All in all, Cairo is good and well worth a couple of days.  Will be glad to get back to the beach!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vkwiig/uk_and_europe/1156451160/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vkwiig/uk_and_europe/1156451160/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vkwiig/uk_and_europe/1156451160/tpod.html Mon, 21 Aug 2006 16:27:04 -0400 The other side of the world.

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Dublin, Ireland

We are off this Thursday!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vkwiig/uk_and_europe/1156189680/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vkwiig/uk_and_europe/1156189680/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vkwiig/uk_and_europe/1156189680/tpod.html Mon, 21 Aug 2006 16:22:47 -0400 The other side of the world.

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London, United Kingdom

The perks of Dans teaching job is that we have been lucky enough to get out and about from London. The deal...Dan has to act as 'Tour Leader' and I am his lovely assistant. He gets paid to go and I just tag along. We have been lucky enough to have 2 hot sunny days in Brighton, 1 day in Cambridge punting along the Avon, 1 day exploring Warwick Castle and visiting the home of Shakespare and last weekend we saw Stonehenge then onto Bath to see the Roman Baths and eat fudge. Hope you enjoy the pics : )
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vkwiig/uk_and_europe/1143221520/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vkwiig/uk_and_europe/1143221520/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vkwiig/uk_and_europe/1143221520/tpod.html Mon, 21 Aug 2006 15:47:47 -0400 The other side of the world.

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Serre Chevalier, France

Jez and Zoe kindly put us up in the chalet they have been running for the ski season. The chalet experience was fab! Jez and Zoe prepared breakfast and dinner for the 22 folk staying for the week plus all the cleaning, daily running duties also. Zoe also wipped up home baking each day for us when we finished up on the snow! What a treat to come back to!We had five days for snowboarding (or in my case- learning to snowboard!) This year was far more successful for me and after 3 mornings of lessons and dans help I could snake it down the learners slope! Dan had a great time up the top of the mountain snowboarding with Jezza and another couple of English guys staying at the Chalet. We were lucky enough to get a couple of dumpings of snow during the week which meant for me my first taste of 'powder'!. According to Dan, powder is a snowboarders dream and for me its definatly a lot softer to wipe out on! Our nights were not too roudy! We enjoyed the odd cold beer at the pub on the mountain and few wines over dinner. We did a pub quiz one night, Zoe and I went on girls wine and cheese night while the guys went to the pub and went out to a little French restaurant on their night off for a delicious real French beef fondue!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vkwiig/uk_and_europe/1150096020/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vkwiig/uk_and_europe/1150096020/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vkwiig/uk_and_europe/1150096020/tpod.html Mon, 21 Aug 2006 15:42:48 -0400 The other side of the world.

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Rome, Italy

Its coming!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vkwiig/asia_2005/1128914040/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vkwiig/asia_2005/1128914040/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vkwiig/asia_2005/1128914040/tpod.html Fri, 21 Apr 2006 16:33:21 -0400 Tour de Asia 2005

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MuiNe, Vietnam

That was 1 mission of a bus ride! Left at 6.30pm on the 7th and arrived in Mui Ne Beach at 12pm on the 8th with a 1.5 hour stop over in Nha Trang. I must have only slept about 3-4 hours in total. Mui Ne beach was rumoured to be a peaceful, beautiful long stretch of white sand beach. It was definatly peaceful but I was disapointed in the beach itself as it was very dirty with rubbish everywhere which dampened its beautiful claim. The water was calm, warm and great for swimming. As we only had approximatly 24hours here, there wasnt much time to much else than laze on the beach. We did get talked into waking up at 5am for a sunrise tour in a jeep. Mui Ne is well known in Vietnam for its massive sand dunes so our first stop was to the white sand dune for the sunrise. This white sand dune was pretty cool except for the pestering kids nagging us to buy a sled ride down the sand dunes for a crazy price. In Vietnam it is so difficult to get away from the people trying to sell you stuff or give them money. Everywhere you go and its starting to wear very thin! "Whats your name?", "Where are you from Miss?", "Where are you going?", "Do you want.....postcards/motobike/water/guesthouse/tigerbalm/clothes/shoes/cigerettes/books and it goes on and on! Very testing for the patience for sure!Next stop was the Red Canyons. These were cool also. An amazing red coloured sand naturally sculptured into large canyons. The jeep driver stopped and directed us off in the right direction up the path but about 2mins into our sightseeing walk a Vietnamese man who spoke no english joined us and took the lead and was pointing out bits to look at here and there. Once again, we knew he was after money but due to his lack of english (works in his favour) we could not explain that we did not want a guide and surely enough when we came to the end of the walk, he demanded US$4 each! We only paid $5 for the mornings trip so this price is just crazy. It was our turn to play stupid and when he said 4 dollers we said 4,000 dong and gave him the money and walked off back to the jeep. He wasnt all that happy but hey, he was lucky he got any!More to come.......
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vkwiig/asia_2005/1128681360/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vkwiig/asia_2005/1128681360/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vkwiig/asia_2005/1128681360/tpod.html Fri, 21 Apr 2006 16:24:09 -0400 Tour de Asia 2005

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HoiAn, Vietnam

Well, Happy Birthday to me! I am writing this from a rainy day in HoiAn. We have been in HoiAn now for 2 days and all I can say about this place is that it is a shopaholic paradise! Streets are lined with tailors and shoe shops all with staff standing in the door (or sifting the streets) beckening you into their shop to get some clothes or shoes made. I fell to their calling (you all know that i didnt need much of an arm twist to go shopping anyway!) and treated myself to 2 skirts and 1 pair of leather shoes all for the huge amount of US$20!!! Unfortunatly I do not have much more room in my pack and it is getting jolly heavy so I couldnt fit too much in. It is just crazy, you can walk into a shop, choose a garmet picture out of a magazine or draw a picture, get measured up, choose the fabric and go back 2hours later and it is all finished. All to exactly fit you. The shoe shopping was fun, picking the style and then the delima of choosing what colour leathers I wanted. I ended up with a white base shoe with pink, blue and red flowers on it. The first pair of shoes (apart from my ballet shoes) that have ever fitted perfectly my 1/2 sized different feet. After much talking we finally made it to Karaoke for 2 hours of singing our hearts out. Good times as always and Pies version of Princess Di's England Rose song was just spectacular! I did manage to get myself away from the shops too! There is a very nice beach only 5km away from the city centre. Yesterday was a mint day so we hired motorbikes and headed out to the beach for a swim. Dan and I also tried heading out to the My Son temples however we left it a little too late and misjudged the distance so got to about 28km from it and had to turn around as they closed up. A bit of a shame we missed it but definatly next time I come here (I have decided that I would love more time in Vietnam again in the future to see things we missed this time around and see more too!). We were going to try again for My Son this afternoon but the rain has set in so a lazyish arvo chilling out on internet and at a cafe. Worth a mention too is the hotel we are staying in. The Hai Au and it is by far the nicest hotel I think I have ever stayed in all for the grand price of $7 per room and it has a clean swimming pool too!P.S Mum and Dad - Do not worry, Dan is very sensible driving the motorbike - not at all like the crazy motorbike drivers I was telling you about in Hanoi!The birthday celebrations are going to have to be put on hold as we are taking an overnight bus leaving soonish down to the beach MueNe. 19-21hours sitting on the bus! I did squeeze in a glass of wine with my pizza for lunch.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vkwiig/asia_2005/1128043920/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vkwiig/asia_2005/1128043920/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vkwiig/asia_2005/1128043920/tpod.html Fri, 21 Apr 2006 16:03:15 -0400 Tour de Asia 2005

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Hanoi, Vietnam

To our surprise we survived the Lao Airlines flight to Hanoi! A much better flight than I was expecting however a very shaky descend and landing. The weather man reported that there was a large tropical storm heading directly towards Hanoi the day after we arrived so we spent the following 2 days after we arrived wading through terrential rain. Not a whole lot of fun but to be fair we have been very lucky with the weather the whole time so far. Hanoi and Vietnam on first impressions from the minibus window was that it is a much bigger and more wealthy country than Lao and Cambodia. The architecture is mostly tall skinny concrete buildings painted brightly, french colonial style. People galore and as for the bikes, it looked like every person who owned a bike was out on it right that moment, all honking their horns. The sound of Hanoi! Short honks, long honks, high piched honks, deep honks, the double honk, the mutiple honk, the rhymical honk - it is all a orchestra of honking. I have never seen so much of a shambles on the roads! Like Cambodia and Lao, motorbikes domimate the roads with 1-5 people per bike. Similar to the other countries or maybe worse, there appears to be few or no road rules (honking your horn is essential at all times especially to tourist walking across roads!)and crossing the road during peak hours is really like a life threatening task - exciting and gets the adrenaline pumping too. Dan finally caught up with us the same day we arrived. So awesome to finally have him here too after nearly 1 month away without him!Due to the rain we were a bit trapped in the city for a couple of days and just took to putting on the rain ponchos and looking around the Old Quarters.One of the best things about Hanoi is the Bia Hoi or fresh beer, straight from a keg and only 10 cents per beer mug! We spent quite a few nights sitting on the Bia Hoi corner which is an intersection with Bia Hoi shops on each corner. You sit on little plastic bucket seats on the footpath and watch the bikes and people passing by. For only 10 cents a beer - its the cheapest and more interesting of entertainment in Hanoi!The 2nd night there we went and saw the highly recommended Water Puppet show which is famous in the north of Vietnam. Originally these puppet shows were preformed by the rice farmers working in the flooded rice fields and started up about 1000 years ago. Now the show is in a theartre and the stage a murky green water with a backdrop of a temple. The pupeteers are behind the backdrop wadding in knee high water working the puppets which are suspended on long poles. The puppets are made of water resistant fig tree timber, painted brightly and can weigh up to 15kg. It was a great show and I liked it so much I went back for the 4pm showing a couple of days later. We are staying at a nice hostel called the Little Hanoi Hostel in the Old Quarters. The staff are so friendly and helpful.Once the rain eased we needed a trip out of the city. We did a day trip out to the Perfume Pagoda which is a number of buddhist shrines built into the limestone cliffs. It was an ok trip except for the ladies carrying waters and cokes up the mountain who kept asking if you wanted a coke every 20m! To reach the mountain, we had to be rowed up the river in a small long tail boat by a women!
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