EGYPT

Cairo, Alexandria, Luxor, Sinai Peninsula

Yes i have a tonne more photos from Egypt, but the more i thought about it i realised that most people who read my blog will also have read rosies blog, and she has already downloaded all of the photos i want to show, so if you're wanting to see more photos and havnt already, check out rosies blog.

Well as i started on my final leg home, i felt very lucky to have been born in New Zealand, i cant imagine having to live my life in Cairo, it is a great city and pita and tasi have a great lifestyle, but i dont think they would choose to live there permanently...there are so many reasons for this, over crowding, egyptian/arab mentality/having to bargain and haggle for every taxi ride and every purchase....i loved Cairo and after my time there it started to feel very familiar, and now that im home i really miss it, but there is still no better place to come home to than New Zealand...having said that i am suffering some post holiday depression.

Damascus, Homs, Hamas, Palmyra, Amman, Dahab.

We were so excited to arrive in the ancient city of damascus, where pita and rose are standing in the photo above is the 'straight road' where paul the apostle preached.

The thing that i immediatedly notice about syria was that i was treated sooo much better here that i was in Egypt...ie no harrasment and gentlemanly behaviour, ie i was served first in syria when lining up ie to exchange money etc...whereas in Egypt i would only get served after all the Egyptians, and often there were alot of them....So i have a good impression of Syria

Although i was dressed modestly, by western standards i guess, i was still required to robe up for my visit to the mosque in Damascus.

The great crusader castle 'crac de cheveilliers' in Syria, this castle was amazing we stayed here for hours exploring stairwells and dungeons, and walking down pitch black hallways, we loved it the castle alone was well worth the trip to syria....so glad we rented a car to get around all of these places.

The view here is looking out over lebannon, syria and lebannon are not that friendly with each other so we decided against going there....the same with Israel, plus we didnt want the stigma of an Israeli stamp in our passports...but maybe next time.

The view from our hotel overlooking the castle

Old Roman ruins in Damascus, we loved damascus, it was alot cleaner than Cairo, but then it only has 3million people compared to 20million in Cairo...still like i said earlier, i love Cairon

Petra. It was a relief to arrive in Petra after we cut our visit short in Amman, it was Ramadan and nothing was open, the streets were eirily quiet and our hotel was way below average, but expensive. Petra on the other hand, our hotel was amazing with beautiful views a pool and turkish bath....plus petra the ancient city itself was amazing.

We wondered around petra for a couple of hours...on our trip we just couldnt get out of the habit of sleeping in and not leaving the house or hotel until after 10 am sometimes not till after lunch, which is the very hotest hour of the day...so we were always suffering from heat exhaustion and dehydration, but this day we actually left the hotel around 9am...and petra was awesome

So here we are in Palmyra, there are so many ancient Roman ruins all over the place that unfortunately by the time we arrived in Palmyra with our little red peaugot rental, we were a little underawed by palmyra...and it was very hot, but at least we can say weve been there right?

Hamas the city of the giant waterwheels, for some reason i loved these water wheels, again built by the romans, the waterwheels pour water into an aquaduct which still operates today, which i thought was pretty cool

Snorkelling in the Red Sea was amazing the water was incredibly warm and there were schools of colourful fish all over, we went to a place called the blue hole, famed for diving but we were happy and suitable awed with our trusty snorkels

Our amazing hotel looking out to saudi arabia on the sinai peninsula.


LONDON

The first thing i noticed about london was that the air was so fresh and smelt so clean, and there was actually green grass and trees...We stayed at angelinas and lucky for us she was between jobs and able to show as around...she has a car so we drove to stonehenge, salisbury and oxford, then spent the rest of our time hanging out in london...England is beautiful, and everything was so familiar, for a start people speak english...it was the perfect windown to my holiday...the food was also great....the food in the middle east was disgusting.