Egypt - Cairo

crazy cairo taxi guy...

fraternising with other drivers...

this guy was into paula. she wasn't into him.

overdevelopment on the Nile

The Mosque of Ahmad ibn Tulun

Central court

we had to wear these to enter

surrounding suburbs....

in the minaret

inside a museum which used to be the residence of an old British military figure. this was the men's lounging area. the women used to watch, concealed, from the windows opposite.

men's area from above

he had an extensive antiquities collection which he donated to the city on his death

cairo night scene

sheesha at the famous Fishawis, a coffee shop in the Khan Al-Khalili Souq (market) central Cairo.

no booze served, just marvelous non alcoholic 'cocktails'

another famous mosque near the souq. this was our view over dinner. these were giant umbrellas which protected those below when opened.

this band was brilliant - they mixed african and arabic seamlessly with some very complex time-signatures. mind-boggling!

the Cairo Metro (Giza station). i was told to stop taking pics by the police soon after this (security paranoid).

the first hint of a pyramid from the street. they are actually nestled in next to a busy Cairo suburb but have been sealed off by a wall and are surrounded by desert.

the Sphinx in context

we hired horses and rode around the site. this was our guide. paulas horse didn't like her and so she kept needing help from him to control it (me in the distance).

hahaha!- we had to 'Baksheesh' (tip) the policeman who instigated and took these shots. Everything in Egypt revolves around tipping and everyone seems to have their own unique way of getting them.

the sun lights up the largest of the pyramids, the Danta Pyramid. Rising 230 feet. it was actually raining while we were on horseback! there is an odd-looking temporary museum at the foot of this pyramid concerned with the 'solar barges', whose purpose were to carry the pharoahs to the afterlife.

classic baksheesh hassle! the tourist in arab 'headdress' tries here to hand the staff back to the camel driver who has a vested interest in letting him keep hold of it...

they are making a break for it! note the hand-gesture wanting baksheesh. these guys went ballistic in the moments after many tour buses arrived. They sell everything from postcards to simple photo-ops with a camel rider in traditional garb. it was a baksheesh FRENZY !!

this guy is easy prey

the glorius Sphinx!

Aswan

the surreal lobby of our timeshare. 5 stars from 1989 (but could have been 1962)

4-5 star weirdness on a very nice part of the Nile. the building on the hill is actually the mauseleum of a well-known Sheihk who died in the 1950's

Agatha Christie set 'Death on the Nile' in this old hotel - The Cataract

an understated mosque wall in Aswan. (that is not eddie murphy)

more Nile... we went on a Felucca cruise. Noice!

Ahhhhh...

'Bokara fil Mish Mish' - 'It's never gonna happen'. This phrase was taught to us by this man and we got a lot of use out of it trying to avoid the felucca drivers and other touts.

The crazy goats eating cardboard on Elephantine Island. This island contained the original city of Aswan (over 5000 years ago) as it was easily protected from invaders. It is now home to the Nubians (kind of Egyptian Africans) who were made virtual refugees when their land was flooded after the building of the Aswan high dam in the 1960's. I actually ate local goat for dinner on this day and must say that all i thought about was the cardboard (it wasn't a nice meal)

Ahmed - a Nubian - was a lovely guy who showed us around the village. Paula was really into him (!)

wall mural on Elephantine Island - aircraft featured on a lot of Islamic murals.

that night... sunset over Aswan - (prior to goat feast)

fortifications on Elephantine Island. Note the Heiroglyphics carved into the rock.

Paula and Jasmina - This hotel where we stayed had minigolf. It also had a mini-zoo with monkeys and gazelles!

utterly miserable! at the wharf to get off Isis island. the hotel took up the entire island. Aswan town was downstream

Tourist police at the Tombs of the Nobles, Aswan. These guys were everywhere and were utterly dodgy!

Embankment at the Tombs of the Nobles leading down to the Nile. Our island hotel is just off the left bank at the top of this pic. There were ancient ramps to the river still leading from the tombs themselves.

Heiroglyphs in one of the tombs - great condition.

How tragic.

Bloody Tourists!

Its was actually a comfy ride and the Camels are adorable animals with a great temperament.

Luxor - The Valley of the Kings

The temple at Karnak, just outside Luxor

A heiroglyph on one of the above pylons

Hmmmm very interesting.

The Karnak site...

amazingly some of the original pigment survives in places hidden from the light and sun.

The Valley of the Kings

primitive heiroglyphs from one of the earliest known tombs to be painted

likle a comic strip it all tells a story. these were taken covertly without a flash. some were taken after 'lacing palms' with fresh baksheesh!

the tombs were very hot and in some the walls were protected from tourist breath by perspex. They are all deep undergraound. unfortunately it was so hot down there that i think they have a crisis on their hands preserving these beyond another 100 years unless steps are taken now.

a very well preserved painting from the tomb of Seti II

this shows a God (with the falcon head) holding the hand of the pharoah (middle) and leading him to the afterlife.

The Valley of the Kings site. very barren and unremarkable to say the least. you can see the entrances to some of the tombs below.

Directly behind the above photo, the fertile Nile Valley and Luxor town beyond. In the foreground, excavations (excavations are ongoing across the Luxor area and across the entire country to varying degrees). There was extensive archaelogical work going on right outside our hotel.

Deir el-Bahri - the site of the infamous 1997 tourist massacre. 62 were killed here by radicals posing as security guards.

we came from The Valley of the Kings, over the mountain behind the temple.

inside the temple court

Dahab

what a different vibe - great food by the Red Sea!

Bedoin tents and restaurants galore (with noone eating in them!)

The diving here was supurb

this kitty was nuts (it wouldn't shut up) and befriended us for the duration of our stay in the Ali Baba hotel.

sunset shisha

Dahab was definitely geared to the tourist (the backpacker variety) there were numerous bars and many restaurants - so very empty because of a triple suicide bombing on the boardwalk in 2005 and the fact that it was low season anyway.

a very 'camp' pic taken of me in bed in our hotel room. cheers.

Dahab is on the Sinai peninsula in the Gulf of Aqaba which leads up to Jordan. Paula wanted to climb mount Sinai. On the way up the mountain you can see the Burning bush which spoke to Moses (above). Apparently this bush is a descendant of the original bush. It is surrounded by the monastery of St Catherine (below).

Paula at the top of Mt Sinai. Apparently in peak periods you get all sorts coming up this mountain: obsessive christian Americans singing carols, people playing their own weird religious music on stereos etc.

A cryptic message found all over the large ferry taking us up the Gulf of Aqaba from the Sinai and into...

Jordan

The Mosque that woke us on our first morning in Aqaba, Jordan. We saw it the night before but didn't register what it meant at the crack of dawn the next morning.

Wadi Rum

First stop was Wadi Rum. A desert environment like no other...

we rode around for a day with our Bedouin guide Mzeid in his jeep and then retired to camp when it got dark. By this time we had hooked up with some Canadians. FUN!

Mzeid

There were rock carvings all over this desert. some were in Aramaic, some were primitive hunting scenes and people.

our camp: the goat hair Bedouin tent

the view from the camp

Wadi Musa (Petra)

our first coffee in Petra (Wadi Musa town)

when this came, it really was a surprise and was revealed exactly like this!

The Treasury building. Inside all the following buildings were really tiny rooms, which made the exteriors ridiculously indulgent!

these and many others were simply tombs with amazing facades

more facades...

the site itself was huge. you could hike for days discovering things. Little wonder there was still stuff to be excavated across the Middle East.

we climbed to the top of this hill where there is a sacrificial alter and drainage systems for the blood - we presume animals.

an amazing sunset awaited us standing on the alter.

the alter. we had to descend in the dark which was a bit hairy. Paula picked a fight with a local Bedouin who almost chewed my face off!

facades in sunlight on the following day...

at one stage all these would have looked like the Treasury building. The wind has been fierce over the last 1800-2000 years so that's how they look now. The Treasury building was apparently coated with something at the time of its building which protected it.

The Brooke Hospital for animals is all over the world and welcomes visitors. Paula and I visited after seeing the mistreatment of many working animals in Egypt and Jordan. Often the owners are simply ignorant as to the needs of the animals - we were told that some owners didn't believe they felt pain. Many are in the tourist trade. The site of this hospital in Petra overiooks the entrance to the site and serves as a constant reminder to the horse and camel drivers that the treatment of their animals is being 'watched' .

the view from a street in Wadi Musa town. The Petra site is high in the mountains and was COLD. snow was seen on the way there.

At this stage my digital camera broke, so the pic quality from here-on gets dodgy!

After leaving Petra with terrible colds we decided to take a tour to a place near Wadi Rum called Wadi Araba where we met a young Jordanian named Matas staying at an eco-lodge there. He had some free time and so after hiring a car for a few days and driving around the Dead Sea area, we hooked up with Matas who took us all over the country in his 4WD. One of the bizarre places we went was the Eastern Desert of jordan and a place called Azraq, a town constantly pounded by oil tankers driving through from Iraq.

The desert here resembled a gravel driveway with large volcanic rocks tightly packed on the ground. an extraordinary environment. these photos were taken on Matas' phone...

The desert was absolutely freezing but in summer these rocks heat to unbelievable temperatures. Can you imagine?!

Ben, Matas and Paula. There are rumours that Matas is going to come to Sydney so you all might get to meet him 'Inshala'. But be careful as he used to be a Sheikh and won't take any of our crap (i tried already).

February 9th at Amman airport. We say goodbye to Paula. I had another wickedly bent night to spend with Matas and his mates in Amman before leaving the following day for...

Syria - Aleppo

Basilica of St Simeon

That boulder in the middle is all that remains of St Simeon's pillar home. He used to live on top of a series of pillars of upto 18 metres until his death in 459 AD. Pilgrims to this ruined Basilica, built after his death to honour him, have gradually chipped away at the pillar for souvenirs. It was located about 1.5 hours from Aleppo.

Hama

In the middle of Syria is a town called Hama where i unexpectedly hooked up with some local boys who, in two nights, showed me a Syrian 'disco' and a Syrian 'bar' (i couldn't tell the difference between the two). Pictured is the cab driver (who they seemed to know as he spent the whole night with us) at left, and Amja (right) who turned out to be a policeman. This was taken on the way to the disco on night one.

The only photo I was able to take in the 'disco' - no photos allowed - but it sums up the vibe. The only women around were those payed by the place to be there. I ended up having to pay 500 pounds ($12) to the one in white for a dance on the stage while the Arab singer (to her right) sang us a song. The strange part about it, was her waving the banknote above her head to show the whole place what i payed her. These girls basically just hung around the tables which were hemorrhaging the most cash. We had to drive about 40km out of Hama to get to these places as they were only available in Christian areas.

Me, Emad and Bilal in Emad's place. I did meet his 4 year old son. Emad is 24.

This is Amja the 20 year old policeman. I promised him I would return with Nina. This might be a bit difficult!

Me and Bilal. He spoke a little english and was my translator.

Night 2 in the 'bar'. we had to pay the establishment to be allowed to take a few photos. The food was put down automatically on our arrival once the entry had been settled. We visited 3 places before we settled on this one. We drunk Arak both nights; it is a strong Aniseed drink at around 52% alcohol which they mix with water. It tastes like Ouzo.

hehehe. What fun!

Palmyra

Palmyra was in the ancient times an important city of central Syria, located in an oasis 215 km northeast of Damascus. It flourished between 50BC and about 200AD . In 272 Emperor Aurelian of Rome sacked the city in response to rebellious Queen Zenobia's antics in conquering Roman territory and trade. After this Palmyra was forced by the empire to become a military base for the Roman legions...

Dawn pic after overnight rain...

There is much still to be excavated in this ruin. Pieces like this lie partially buried everywhere. The whole site is UNESCO world heritage.

Funerary towers in the background.

The limestone pillars are literally disintegrating. it rained when i was there which can't have helped things...

The Palmyrans put their dead in funarary towers like this one. They slotted the bodies in draw-like compartments one on top of the other. These drawers were then sealed with a large limestone plate on which is a bust of the dead person. On the entrances to some of these tombs there were 'advertisements' carved in the stone in Aramaic offering leases on the tomb spaces.

The Temple of Baal - Palmyra

click here for a high-res image of the vastness of the site.

Kids and wall mural of The Kaaba in Mecca, which is the holiest place in Islam. The direction Muslims face during prayer, is the direction from their location on Earth towards the Kaaba. This was taken in the new Palmyra township next to the ruins.

More Palmyran kids

A very soviet style umm... signage. Left: the dead martyred brother. Right: the dead president Hafez Al-Assad (who died in 2000)

This exhibit in the Palmyra Museum was entitled "Early Palmyran residents' ;)

Damascus

The thing to do in Damascus was hang out in the amazing Souq in the old town. This place is so old it is unbelievable. This part of the Souq is wrapped around a broken piece of roman temple!

Damascus - Old Town ...

Shrines like this were found all over the Christian part of the Old Town.

A street leading from the Souq

In the Souq...

Note Islamic Barbie cloaked in black on the kids school bags here.

Damascus New Town...

A mosque near my hotel

A graphic seen regularly across Syria: President Bashar Al-Assad with Shia Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah

The Golan Heights - Quneitra

Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the war of 1967. In 1973 after the Yom Kippur war, a fragile truce was metered out which saw Israel give back a thin slither of the area which is now administered by Syria under UN supervision. The town of Quneitra (which was the administrative capital of the area pop. approx 8000) was demolished by Israel and everything which could be unscrewed was sold to Israeli contractors ...

Golan Hospital has become a symbol of Syrian discontent. The sign reads: Golan Hospital. Destroyed by Israel and used as a living target!

The gutted Christian church

An old fast food place (probably Shawarma)

very eerie vibe to say the least. Overlooking the entire area is a mountain-top Israeli military installation.

My supervision, Maxim, at the last checkpoint into the town.

Dubai airport - cya!