Luxor

Just got in, visited the really impressive Luxor Museum (how do papyrus, wood and linen last 4000 years in a tomb?), the somewhat creepy Museum of Mummification and the pictured Luxor temple right in the middle of the smallish downtown, with a McDonalds in the background. Cruise leaves tomorrow - no internet for 5 days

Dinner with Seif and Mona

Chris Schroeder introduced us to some wonderful people on Cairo - we had a lovely dinner with them and got a much better insight from both them and Tarek and Jaline into modern Egypt beyond the touts and taxi guys

Faux security

I mentioned earlier the high apparent security at our hotel, and other hotels and most tourist sites. It is all a bit symbolic - people regularly walk through the metal detector, beep and keep walking, the guys wandering around the car with the mirrors on sticks aren't even looking at the mirror etc. Hmmm

Pyramids etc

Pyramids were awesome. These things date from 2600 BC - the ROMANS used to go there to marvel at the achievements of long dead civilizations!!!

Also saw the Citadel (see pic of Mosque of Mohammed Ali, founder of modern Egypt and an Albanian!) and some of the Mosques in Islamic Cairo, and some of the churchs in Coptic Cairo. Cairo is Mosquerama - in any direction you look its only a couple of blocks to the next one.

Trying to sort out travel for the rest of Egypt got stymied because its Friday so a lot of places are not open.

Had dinner with Tarek and his wife - they took us to a wonderful Egyptian restaurant. It was good to see him since its been almost 6 years since we graduated from the GSB

Cairo

We just landed in Egypt. Flew here from Delhi via Frankfurt - not the most direct route, but only Lufthansa of the Star Alliance flies here so we didn't have much choice of routing on our round the world ticket. Running the gauntlet of taxi touts at the airport here was an ordeal - even more so than elsewhere. Getting into the hotel was pretty high security - first the taxi was checked for bombs by a guy with a mirror and a torch, then we had our bags go through an X ray and we passed through an airport style metal detector. Not sure if this makes me feel safer or less safe

We'll try to figure out an itinerary for our time here tomorrow in between a visit to Islamic and Coptic Cairo.

Taj Mahal

The Taj lives up to its rep. See obligatory cheesy tourist photo taken by the obliging gardener why was very rarely stable.

Chitorgarh

The leaning tower of Chitorgarh. The dynasty who ruled here did so for over 800 years. The fort was taken three times in that period, each time because they got starved out so the men all rode out to die and the women all threw themselves on a pyre and burned to death. Honor was everything to the Rajphut warrior clans that lived in Rajastan. After the third time the relevant dynasty moved to Udaipur which was both easier to defend and also had more food options within the city.

Jodhpur

Also called the Blue City, inexplicably. Gave its name to the pants when the Maharaj of Jodhpur went to England and set a fashion trend with his polo pants

Jaisalmer

Did a little camel jaunt in the desert outside Jaisalmer. Good looking animals - maybe not!

Jaipur

Snack vendor at the Courtyard of the City Palace in Jaipur. Jaipur is known as the Pink City which I imagine might be a bit emasculating for the men there. ;-)

the POW train

Just got back from a week on the "palace on wheels", a sort of cruise on rails through Rajahstan. Palace might be a bit of an overstatement as the rolling stock is limited in size and showing its 25 or so years, but the service was excellent and it was all very comfortable. It was a bit of a splurge for us (actually a lot of a splurge) but we justified it because the train travels at night, so we got to see a lot more of Rajahstan than we otherwise would have. Sleeping on a rocking train takes a bit of getting used to though (Ambien helps a lot).

Got the full blast of palaces, forts, cenataphs and monuments in Jaipur, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Udaipur, Chittagar and of course finished up in Agra to see the Taj Mahal. Took a little camel ride (now that is an unattractive animal) and an unsuccesful tiger game drive and a more successful birdwatching rickshaw ride as well.

Judging from the palaces we saw, it was good to be the king, or the Maharaja as the case may be. Juding from the rest of what we saw, it really sucks to be poor in India. A couple of enterprising guys set up a shoe shining business and then proceeded to follow the POW train around for about 4-5 days by taking local overnight trains- by day 2 or 3 people figure out that it was the same guys and started giving them business - I think they cleaned up!

Of course, because it was an organized tour, we got a full load of commission generating shopportunities lined up with our sightseeing as well! The tour guides on the whole were excellent and really helped us appreciate the history and architecture of the places and palaces that we saw though. Met some super nice people on the train as well.

Delhi

Well we made it into Delhi but for a while there it didn't look good. It was looking like we cut the 7 hour drive back from Banghavgarh to Khujaraho a bit too fine when we got a flat tire on the way back. The car we were traveling in didn't have seatbelts but we were assured that "the road is very bad so you won't need them as you won't be traveling very fast". Its only about 230kms - 140 miles, but the road varies from good 2 lane blacktop to single lane blacktop with wide shoulders (you play chicken with each oncoming car) to really bad dirt road. One section is very odd - its bad and bumpy dirt road but its wide enough to take an 8 lane superhighway. After the flat, discovering that the spanner in the car didn't fit the tire, breaking the spanner of the good samaritan that stopped to help us, it wasn't looking all that good. But the next spanner worked and with some very speedy driving, and a delayed India Airlines flight, we made it OK.

Delhi hasn't been as crazy as we'd been expecting after hearing some stories from other travelers. We were prepared for a travelers nightmare, with rampant theft, beggars, congestion, filth etc. But it hasn't seemed any worse than other places we've traveled.

Pic of walls of red fort attached

eenie meanie minie mo

Catch a tiger by the toe. We saw three the first morning on our game drive at Banghavgarh National park! Then one on the evening drive, and three more the next morning (see pic). Also saw wild dogs (which are apparently very rare and not just wild dogs), jackals, spotted and chittal deer and, wierdly, vultures mating (other pic). Judging from the amount of wing flapping and cawing going on, it was a good time.

Death and Sex

Moving fast - a day in Varanasi and a day in Khujaraho. The Ganges river flows through Varanasi and is a sacred place for Hindus, many people come here to bathe in its purifying waters (see pic), or to die, or be cremated here. Fascinating boat trip in the evening and the morning. Can't take pics of the cremations of course, but we watched a few bodies getting burned on piles of wood before the ashes are poured into the river.

Khujaraho is known for the erotic sculptures on the temples. The British guy who rediscovered them described them as "warmer than there was an absolute necessity for" - you get the full range from Playboy through Hustler to Farmgirlsgonewild.com. See pic for one of the tamer examples.

Delhi is freezing

Got into Delhi on the 10th. its about 38 degrees F/3C. Not what I imagined India was going to be like! Glad we kept the cold weather clothes we bought in Sapa

Coastal Sri Lanka

Spent a couple of days at the beach in Tangalle, then overnighted at Galle on the way back to Colombo, where we are tonight. We're flying to Delhi tomorrow. The Galle Fort is pretty interesting - several hundred years old and dating from the Dutch period. Our walk around the ramparts was interrupted by a bit of rain, and as we sheltered under the eaves of an old building a rat that had the same idea decided to jump out of the roof, run down my backpack and leg, and then off somewhere else. Lovely. Our hotel in Galle was our favourite in Sri Lanka, and maybe of the whole trip so far - the 5 room Fort Printers. Its new and designed with a very boutiquey - asian influenced modern theme. Today we went shopping and replaced some of the clothes that have become more the worse for wear through our travels. A lot of factories here produce for Gap, Banana, Abercrombie etc, and it seems that not all of their output makes it out of the front door of the factory as most shops (including pretty reputable ones) seem to have factory overruns at amazingly cheap prices

No leopards...

unfortunately. Possibly due in part to our driver being under the misapprehension that he was competing in the Lisbon to Dakar. Oh well. Here is a photo of a sloth bar falling out of a tree though. It was up in a tree that was much too small to bear its weight, so the tree was swaying all over the place. Eventually the bear tries to climb down head first but its back feet lose purchase and it falls on its ass, sumersaulting forward and hitting the ground just as this photo was taken. Pretty funny to see!

Sore legs and sloth bears

Well I got up at 2am a couple of nights ago to climb Adams Peak. Its one of the most important pilgrimage sights in Sri Lanka, with the rock footprint on the top variously attributed to Buddha, Adam leaving Eden and others depending on your point of view. Started up the hill (its actually 5200+ , and lit at night, due to the volume of pilgrims) around 2:45am and reached the summit about 5:30am. Cold wait for dawn but the view from the top was amazing - really worth if (see picture). I hung around until about 7:15 then came back down, showered, and drove back to meet Ranee at Nuwareliya about three hours drive away (she opted to sit this one out!).

I've been paying for that hike for the last few days - still stiff and sore and suffering up and down stairs. We're at Yala National park right now. Did a safari drive last night and again this morning - about to head out for this evenings drive. Seen a few sloth bears and elephant, deer, water buffalo, peacocks, crocodiles, mongoose and lots of smaller creatures - are hoping to see a leapord if we're lucky. Tomorrow we're heading somewhere to lie on the beach for a couple of days - these early starts are getting to us!

Sri Lanka

Got to Sri Lanka just after midnight on the 28th. Its been much more of a hassle organizing travel plans here vs Vietnam and Cambodia, compounded by the fact that the Lonely Planet is woefully out of date for Sri Lanka. But we organized a driver for the next two weeks and took off later that day for the "Cultural Triangle" that holds most of the ancient capitals of Sri Lanka, dating up to 2300 years ago. Visited AnaradhapurafirstcapitalofSriLanka (it always seems to be pronounced as one word), Polonawaru and Sigiria (my favourite) over the last few days. After here and Ankhor, starting to feel a bit templed out...

In Kandy for new years and then off to the Hill Country where hopefully it will be a bit cooler, and less chance of snakes crawling up the drain pipes (we eventually figured out why there were rocks weighing down the drain lids in the bathroom!)