Tag Archives: egypt
The Egyptian Election ~ A Traveller’s Perspective
When I first returned to Dubai from Egypt I was exhausted. It was a postponed honeymoon trip, but in true “Team KLAB” style, we spent the whole time adventuring and traversing the country on local trains, in homestays and traipsing about monuments. It was our kind of holiday. At the time, when anyone asked me, […]
What’s on my Bucket List?
At the end of 2007, I ended a toxic and stagnant relationship. I was young and unsure I if I could cope on my own. I had never spent long enough learning to be me; to be strong, independent and to find my own way in the world. I found strength in the support of […]
How not to go hot air ballooning
I dragged my heavy legs down the staircase. It was the second day of the elevator not functioning and I didn’t have any hopes for it being repaired during our stay. What made it most evident was the way that the doorman would run along and switch the stairway lights on each time we went […]
The sunlight in Abu Simbel
I feel like I know very little about Egyptian history, and that is even after I’ve spent three weeks traipsing about the country with a well-educated history-buff guide in tow. If there is one thing I do know though, it’s that Ramses II was a guy that hung around for a seriously long time. The […]
Monday Moment: A Little Yellow Book
When I find myself in a new country with a little extra time on my hands, I find nothing more pleasant than rifling my way through a bookshop for local stories written in English. Now, I’m not just talking about having Shanataram on the shelf at home, but collections of stories from people and […]
Monday Moment: A Post-Holiday Decision
We were sitting at a coffee shop somewhere in the backstreets of Cairo on our last night before leaving Egypt. We had feasted on felafel and shawerma in a popular local restaurant and wanted to make the most of our last remaining hours. Andrew had his apple sheesha, as did Maged, and I sipped a […]
Armed convoys and crimson gypsies
We had only a minute minibus and were dwarfed by the large tourist buses filled with Japanese travelers and Nile cruisers in from Europe. There were just five of us in our vehicle, including our driver, and upwards of fifty in the others. We were a small and seemingly insignificant part of the armed convoy […]
A day trip to Petra means…
I sat on the cracked vinyl chair biting my nails voraciously and staring down at the linoleum tiles across the floor. It took me a while to work out that it was linoleum, as I was perplexed by the haphazard nature of the tiling and the overlapped segments. I considered it ironic that in a […]
Who’s afraid of the Red Sea?
I was very aware that I had a short time frame to make the most of our access to the Red Sea from our super secret-squirrel beach camp. Why secret-squirrel? Because I don’t want to share with the world a wonderfully zen place to relax and rejuvenate that I anticipate making my way back to […]
The Nile Sunrise
They say the coldest part of the day is in the hour before sunrise. The sun has been away from the Earth for the longest time, withholding its warmth, life and energy from the people and the land lies bare and cold. A heavy dew coated the bow of the felucca as I clambered out […]
The Road to Dahab
Maged read parts of the newspaper to us while we were sipping tea in a desert coffee shop on the West Bank in Luxor. Andrew poked fun at the layout of the paper and the floating heads amidst the text, but Maged shook his head in true concern at further protests that had broken out […]
The Unfinished Obelisk of Aswan
After a long, shaky night aboard the sleeper from Cairo, we arrived in Aswan. We had a well apportioned cabin, and it was luxurious to have a space of our own to tuck away in, unlike the sleepers of Thailand. However, the night was a tough one for slumber. Something rickety in the wall by […]
