Well, we landed in Dubai and were expecting to quickly hop on our plane to New Delhi, but quickly found out our flight was cancelled and we would be on the red-eye flying into India. So we got about 9 hours to check out Dubai! The city is pretty much Vegas without the gambling and alcohol. Huge buildings and shopping everywhere!! Here are some pictures from the day:
The ski-hill inside the Mall of the Emirates. No big deal!!
The GIANT aquarium at the Dubai Mall
Tallest building in the world.
Way oh way oh way oooo aaaah ooo…
Walk Like an Egyptian!
We have now been in Egypt for 4 days and there is so much to cover! Our first thoughts on Cairo was “that city needs a makeover”. It’s Dirty! Ok, I have to be fair, we didnt’ see the whole city by any stretch. It has over 18 million people so I’m sure there are many great parts. But what we did see astounded us. We were staying right downtown and it seemed every where we looked was filthy, Loads of half finished empty brick buildings everywhere, and the Nile… don’t get me started.
We spent our first full day walking around, dodging traffic, and then visited the Egyptian Museum. The collection of artifacts they have here is astounding! We visited the museum with our group leader who was able to give us a pretty good overview of ancient egypt and a good idea of what we will be seeing over the next 10 days.
On day two we set out to see the Pyramids of Giza. Incredible. How the Egyptians built these 4500 years ago is unimaginable. The inside is covered in red granite brought in from Luxor! Now anyone who had granite countertops can understand just how heavy this stuff is. Could you imagine moving giant blocks of it! The whole thing was really overwhelming and gave us our first sweet taste of what Egypt has in store!
That night Chris had his first ride on an overnight train to Aswan. It was a nice train and we even had our own private cabin!Aswan is in Southern Egypt and has much more of a African feel to it. It was great to wake up on the train and see the (much cleaner) Nile, surrounded by palm trees!
Later in the day we went to a Nubian Village for a camel ride and dinner. Dinner was good. The camel ride was… less good. I was given a camel that was not happy to be ridden. Before I was even told to get on, my camel was yelling and screaming and carrying on like an angry ewok. I got on regardless and even after the first few minutes of the ride, I knew I was in for quite an experience. While the other camels walked and ran as instructed to do so, my camel, Whisky, really just did whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. the other camels seemed to go straight and follow each other, Whiskey turned around, decided which direction he would go regardless of the way the handler pulled him. Lucky me seemed to have the only bad camel that even two handlers couldn’t control. Near the end of the ride (which was about an hour) Whiskey decided to stop. No pulling, or kicking, or whipping could get this camel to move. Finally, both boys came behind the camel and proceeded to whip it simultaneously. Well that got him going! The rope (reins) pulled out from the boys hands and I was off! Have I mentioned how tall camels are? Well after a few seconds of running, good old Whiskey decided to abruptly turn around. This is the moment I made my dismount over the top of the saddle, reaching for the camels neck, and tucking and diving onto the Sahara desert! Although it was a long way down, I was lucky enough to be dropped in some pretty nice sand which really cushioned the blow! At that point one of the boys cam running over to me. “Mame Sorry! Sorry Mame! Sorry Mame! You ok? sorry Mame!”. I slowly brush the sand off and stood up. “Again” the boy asked? I looked over to the other boy who at this point had caught the camel and was trying to get him to sit. “No thanks, I’ll walk”.
As I rounded the final corner and saw the rest of my group in the distance getting off their camels, Chris started walking towards me. I was laughing and crying by the time he reached me. It was the funniest experience that has happened to me so far in Egypt, and also the most painful. Bruise pictures to follow! I think that’s the last camel ride I will be going on. Sadly we have a donkey ride coming up in 2 days. Thankfully they are lower to the ground.
This morning we woke up at 3AM so we could catch our ride to Abu Simbel. To get there you have to get into the military convoy that leaves each morning before sunrise. They claim that this convoy is so that there are other vehicles to support yours if you break down in the desert. Okay. That’s probably part of the reason. However, as we drove through military checkpoint after military checkpoint, we started to get the impression that there could be other reasons. Not to mention that the morning started with people checking the underside of our vehicle for explosives! We talked to our tour leader at lunch to ask him about it, and he said that Egypt is very cautious to take every precaution possible to protect their tourists because they are such great importance to the economy.
Abu Simbel is absolutely amazing, and probably more impressive than the pyramids. We were lucky enough to get there before all of the other tour busses so got a great look without the crowds. The two tombs each have may rooms and statures inside, and are covered in hieroglyphics. It was another surreal experience seeing them in person.
Tomorrow we set out on the Nile traveling by felucca (sail boat) where we will spend the day and night on board. I’m hoping that I have better luck with the boat than the camel, as the Nile is definitely not a place I want to fall into!
Love you and miss you,
Ashlyn and Chris
Ok, where were we…
Groeme…
After the Balloon ride in Goreme, our Pension Manager offered to drive us to our next destination!! The bus ride to Antalya (on the coast) is about 8 hours, but he was going to a city just 40 kms before the town, and said driving a car there take only 5 hours! We could get a ride from him for free, arrive 3 hours sooner, and just take a short bus ride into the city. Sounds like a plan! He was planning on leaving at 10:00am just 30 minutes after the bus left. Great. We would be in Antalya by 4:00 at the latest, time to enjoy the sunset by the sea, have a great dinner, and enjoy the old city!
Well as it turns out, as nice as Bakir was, he’s not exactly prompt. We didn’t get on the road until about 12:00… The roads in Turkey are…interesting. Actually the roads are fine, it’s the drivers that are a bit nuts. The signs, speed limits, and lines on the roads are mearly a suggestion, but each driver decided how fast they will go, where in the lanes (or out) they will drive, and just when they want to pass. No passing lanes necessairy.
By 4:00 we all were getting hungry and we clearly weren’t close to our destination, so we stopped for lunch. It was actually an amazing lunch grilled lamb, fresh tomato and cucumber salad, homemade yogurt and grilled bread. Delish! AND…Bakir insisted on paying, Sweet, Thanks Bakir! We hit the road again and by 5:30 (1 1/2 hours after we thought we would be checking into our hotel) we arrived at the bus station in a city 79 kms from Antalya. The bus for Antalya left in 5 minutes which was GREAT! Bakir brought us in, set us up with the bus, and wouldn’t accept any money for gas or lunch. What an amazing guy! So the ride wasn’t perfect, but we were almost there…. Not so fast. Turns out this bus to Antalya was the milk run!!! On a positive note we really got to see how Turkish people live and shop and eat in 2 different cities, but it really wasn’t what we were looking for. At 8:00 (that’s 2.5 hours and 79kms for those that are keeping track) we arrived at the bus station in Antalya. At this point we aren’t exactly sure why we didn’t take a cab to the hotel, but we got on the city bus. Did we mention that we don’t speak Turkish? By 8:30 we had arrived at the old town; A maze of tiny streets within the old Roman walls. It was so amazing, but we were tired and really just wanted to find our hotel. Like a needle in a haystack, I tell ya! There are no street signs and 100’s of Pensions, restaurants and shops! 30 minutes later, 5-6 different directions given, we found our hotel. 9:00 PM. Awesome! Sadly we didn’t feel like exploring too much at that point.
This morning we woke up excited to take on the day. The Pension we stayed at was absolutly gorgeous. It had an amazing garden/courtyard right in the middle of it and we were served a fantastic breakfast in the middle of the courtyard. We fell in love immediately, and wished we were staying longer, but our time in Turkey is short so had to keep moving. We walked around the pretty town, got lost a few times and decided on renting a car to drive down the coast Here is a picture taken a couple blocks from our hotel:
They don’t seem to have any large rental companies here… seems that everywhere you rent a car, you pay to have some guy from the original location to take the bus to where you want to leave the car, meet him at the bus station and hand back over the car. Strange but true. So we found the least sketchy place (still super sketchy), and the guy who spoke the most english, and rented the car. He was really helpful and drove with us out of the walled town and then told us how to get out of the REALLY BUSY, CRAZY city (with no street signs. Well we missed our first turn off and decided to stop there, get gas, and more info…
As soon as the car was filled (it was full service) all these gas station attendants start yelling in turkish and pointing under the car. We had sprung a gas leak. Great! Did we mention we don’t speak Turkish?
Gas was pouring out from under the car onto the ground. All of a sudden our rental car was surrounded by Turkish people. Some Employees. Some citizens. An owner. Everyone. The one man that spoke a few words of english asked for our papers (rental agreement) and immediately called the rental office. They all pushed the car off to the side and moments later had brought out 2 chairs into the sunshine for Chris and I to sit at and wait for the guy from the car rental place to come meet us. How hospitable. Moments later we were given 2 cups of tea and a table! People really are very nice here. The rental guy eventually showed up, with a new car, and was very apologetic! So, with a new car, we hit the road. Here are some pictures of the Great Turkish Gas Adventure:
At the gas station after the excitement. These are the chairs they brought us. The guy on the right is the owner of the station. He brought us Turkish Tea and a table right after this picture was taken. He was Awesome!!
The greatest Gas Station in the history of Gas Stations.
Leaving the City
We have to say, although we’ve had a few rough days, we LOVE this place. People couldn’t be nicer (EASILY the nicest people we have ever met), the scenery is to die for and so is the food.
Along our drive today we stopped at Olympos and visited some roman ruins as we walked to the beach. Not too shabby!
We are now in the town of Kas (Kash). We arrived right after sunset so are very interested to see what it looks like in the day! By night it’s amazing and we have a hotel room that looks right over the mediterranean, at a fraction of the cost of other hotels along the way. Loving life right now.
Oh also, and most importantly, we didn’t have to wear our jackets and scarfs today. We wore sandals!
Love you all!
Ashlyn and Chris
We’re writing this from inside a cave in Turkey. Yup, caves have the internet.
After a couple of bumpy flights from London to Istanbul and then to Nevsehir, we arrived at the tiny airport in Nevsehir. They get one flight a day, and ours was it. When you land on the runway, they just turn the plane around on the runway and taxi back down the same runway to get to the shed that they call the terminal. It was definitey a bit different than where our journey started today at London Heathrow.
We’re staying in the town of Goreme which is about 60 kms from the airport where we landed. Thankfully they have a couple of different options to get to the town that we’re staying in…a free shuttle, or the taxi for 50 Lira (about $35 CAD). Obviously we would take the free shuttle after collecting our bags. After watching every single passenger on our plane collect their bags and make their way to the shuttle, we heard the guy yell out ‘No more bags!’. What?!? No more bags???
After a moment of panic we ran outside of the shed…err…terminal and saw that our bags were on a tractor being driven somewhere else. More panic, and then we were told that we need to clear customs because Nevsehir was our first point of entry in Turkey. Fine. So we walked into the other room in the shed (which was dark and full of turkish customs agents) and we found our bags and had to open them up in front of agent. No problem, he went throught he bags and cleared us to go. So we turned around and made our way out of the shed just in time to watch our free shuttle drive away. Sweet. So now we are two white people with Canadian flags on our backpacks at the airport where one flight a day comes in and 3 cabbies are just waiting to take our money. Okay, 50 Lira isn’t so bad for the drive into town. Sure, that would be fine if the price for the cab was still 50 Lira. Remember economics classes? We were now in great demand (the next bus was tomorrow), limited supply (now 2 cabs), and zero competition for the cabbies. So our cabs were now 110 Lira. Eek. To put it in perspective, our room is about 40 a night. So after some intense negotiation and a lot of hand signals, we settled on 60 Lira for the ride into town. We’re glad we made it, it’s better than sleeping in the shed until tomorrow afternoon!
Once we got here we loved it. A truely unique place that is vibrant and has a wide mix of travelers. We’re looking forward to getting out and exploring the town more over the next few days, but here are a couple quick pictures from today:
One of the caves in Goreme
This is actually our room.
Checking into our room. This door is actual size.
Us at dinner. Not a great picture, but enjoying our first Turkish meal.
Cave Blogging
It’s been 3 days and 2 nights since we set off from Calgary, and it hasn’t been without adventure, good surprises and a whole lot of anxiety! That being said, we write this blog entry from the seahorse motel right on the ocean in Lincoln City, Oregon, where we can hear the waves crash on the beach, and really reflect on how grateful we are to be partaking in such an amazing experience!!
We spent Saturday night relaxing at the Beatty’s Cabin just outside of Radium. We thought it would be good to shave a couple of hours off the drive to Vancouver, and we were ready to get out-of-town, so it worked out well. Thanks Mom and Dad!
This is us crossing the BC border…
Sunday we drove out to Agassiz, BC (between Hope and Chilliwack) and met up with Chris’s Aunt Maureen and Uncle Earl. They gave us a great tour of their beautiful log cabin and a short hike around their awesome piece of land, complete with Salmon running up the creek and waterfalls on the property! It was a really nice visit and we look forward to returning one day! After dinner with Maureen and Earl we continued our drive to Surrey. there we found a hotel as close as possible to the Indian Consulate so we could be sure to be the first ones in line the following morning for their 8:00am opening. Who would have known that when we pulled up at 7:30 today there would already be a line 20 people long!
Although I was turned away at first and told to come back at 3:30 for passport pickup, I was able to convince the security guard we were given permission by some man named Alok to pick them up early…it worked! By 9:00am we had our passports in hand and had already made it through US customs.
us with the ellusive passports complete with Indian visas…
The rest of the day was mostly spent on the road, passing unbelievably beautiful scenery. :Lush forests, autumn colours, the Ports of Seattle and Tacoma, and the ending up in Portland. We had originally planned to stay in Portland, but unfortunately when we arrived, so did the rain. After driving around downtown, and by the river, we decided Portland in the rain was not on our list of things to do, so continued on to the Coast. We’ll have to return one day.
The scenery we saw after leaving Portland was probably some of our favorite so far on the trip. vineyards, orchards, tree farms, pumpkin patches! I loved it all! And finally… the ocean.
Here is our first night outside Canada…
Looking forward to whatever tomorrow brings!
Ashlyn and Chris
Ok, so… the short version of the story is, we still have no passports!
Although we were told it takes 5-7 days to receive our Indian Visas, we are currently on day 11, empty-handed. After checking the Indian Consulate passport tracking site religiously for the past week, and daily calls to the (umm, unhelpful) help line, finally the status of my passport changed! It was being shipped to Calgary today! Although Chris’s passport status hadn’t changed, we decided to go down to the Calgary office for the Indian Consulate today and see what we could do.
Turns out, my passport wasn’t in Calgary after all. Same story for Chris. And as you can imagine, they couldn’t do anything …. BUT (thanks to a few good prayers sent out to our travel angels by my mom)…. The Vice president of Visa Services and some head guy from the Canadian consulate happened to be in town on a tour of the facility or something. He over heard my begging and pleading, and well not taking “they might be in by next Wednesday” for an answer! (Wednesday!! are you kidding me?!?!) So, this guy gets on the phone and tracks my passport down in Surry and thinks Chris’ s might be en route to Surrey this afternoon. Together we come up with a plan of driving to Vancouver on Sunday in order to pick up our passports on Monday morning at 8:00 am from the Surrey office! We waited all night but finally at 8:00pm this evening finally got confirmation that both passports (complete with Indian Visas) are waiting for us in BC! YAY!
So although we are off to a late start, and are adding a Canadian leg to our road trip, we think we will be pulling into the U.S. before lunch on Monday! Now lets hope none of the instructions got crossed and our passports don’t get shipped to Calgary as we are driving to Surrey!
We have decided to leave tomorrow and drive to Chris’s parents cabin in Radium to shave 2 hours off the drive to Vancouver on Sunday. We are excited to get going on this trip and have said all of our good-bye’s (some of them twice!) so figure we may as well hit the road! I have never left for a trip without checking to make sure I have my passport 10 times! This seems so strange to set out on a trip around the world with no passports!
This will be our last post from Calgary!!! Thanks for everyone’s thoughts and prayers!
We will miss you all!
Ashlyn and Chris
I can’t believe we only have 4 days left in Calgary! Chris and I spent the weekend packing and visiting with great friends and family so although we’re getting really excited to leave, it’s also tough to say our good-byes.
This week we ran into a bit of a snag while trying to obtain our visa’s for India. This has not been an easy process and our applications have now been rejected twice!! They are very particular on these applications! I feel like it is impossible to guess the right answer! I have heard while travelling to India you need to have lots of patience, as nothing gets done quickly or they way you might want it done. I suppose they really try to break you in to their culture right from the get go with the visa application process!
It states at the top of the form “do not leave any blank spaces. Place N/A on any blank lines”. Ok, seems pretty easy. Wrong! It’s a bit of a guessing game as to how they want you to answer the questions.
Q.5. What is your Nationality … ‘CANADIAN’.
Correct.
What is your past Nationality….. ‘N/A’?
Nope!!!! The answer was ‘CANADIAN’?!?! huh?
Then another question we got wrong is
Where did you obtain your last Indian Visa….. ‘N/A’???
Nope! The answer is ‘NONE’. what???
It’s all very confusing, but we feel after two attempts we may have got it right this time!!! They were shipped back to the consulate Saturday evening.
So at this point we have no Indian Visas, and worse, our passports are somewhere in between here and Vancouver! Although we are scheduled to leave Friday morning, I guess we’ll wait to see when we get our passports back? Departure date is currently TBD!
Back to packing!
chris and ashlyn's blog 