Salaam from Dubai and now Egypt!

Salaam everyone!

We are now in Egypt, but first Dubai...

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

WOW! Anyone that likes architecture or shopping REALLY needs to visit Dubai! We were very happy for a few days of civilization after lounging on Zanzibar for 10 days. We know, we know, it's a rough life, but still, it was nice to be able to get whatever food we wanted, sleep in air conditioning, not be constantly killing potentially-malaria-carrying mosquitos, etc. We had a fantastic time in Zanzibar, but were happy to have some external input. In a world where we use the internet almost every day... having zero mental stimulation other than sitting on a beach, reading a book, and the occassional game of Uno or rummy became harder to fully enjoy than you might believe. We were in dire need of any kind of mental stimulation, and boy did Dubai provide it. Speaking of which, Dubai definitely has the swankiest airport we've ever been in. It's basically a huge shopping mall with airplanes flying in. And if you ever get a chance to fly Emirates airline, do it. You'll be spoiled for other airlines forever. Every seat had its own movie/video game/music console. Plenty of foot room. Decent food (for airline food)... the works.

We started out just driving around in taxis and looking at all the amazing architecture, which just boggles your mind really. Of particular note are the Burj Al-Arab, the Burj Dubai (tallest building in the world), and the Emirates Towers. Jeremy and Mikol went snowboarding at Ski Dubai, an indoor slope in the largest mall you've ever seen - Mall of the Emirates - which was hilarious. It was fun to take off our flip flops and t-shirt, put them in a locker, pull on snow pants and a jacket and go to the slopes for 2 hours! Not the most challenging slopes, but c'mon, it was snowboarding in 90 degree weather! In Dubai! In the desert! We just had to do it. =) We will try to post pictures of our African adventures from Israel next week, when we can finally get our pictures onto CD.

We also went to the famous Gold Souk (souk = market in Arabic) and ooooohed and ahhhhhed over all the ridiculously sparkly window displays! Just ridiculous amounts of money in jewelry. And great prices, believe it or not. If you're ever in the market for gold or diamonds, it would probably be worth your while to fly over and buy it here. We were joking with some of the jewelry shop people and got to having fun, so they let Natalie and I try on a half a million dollars of gold and diamond jewelry and take pictures. Natalie loved that! Dubai is amazing on several levels, and is still under major development. Many people have heard of their man made islands in the shape of the countries of Earth, and the huge palm tree. They are building two other palm trees, for a total of three. They must not believe in Global Warming over there. Whomever made the decision that someday there wouldn't be as much oil and that Dubai needed to get into tourism was a very smart person. It truly is a Disneyland for grown ups.

Egypt

We arrived in Cairo and were taken to the shabbiest, stinkiest 4 star hotel we've ever seen. The floor was wet, and we found a cigarette butt on the floor. We assume Egypt must use a ten-star scale if this was four stars. There must have been a mosque right across the street, because we got woken up to what sounded like the 5 AM prayer call being shouted into our window on a loudspeaker! And people are driving and honking in this city, all night. Some even sounded like they were playing a song on their car horns...ah, the joys of street-facing hotels in big cities. On the plus side, our window had a view of the pyramids.

We got up the next morning and went to the Giza Pyramids, the Sphinx and Saqqara. Natalie and Mikol even rode a camel around there (for a lot more than we were expecting to pay - our guide said 5 Egyptian pounds per person and it was actually 75 when it was time to pay, but we chalked it up as our first (and certainly not last) Egypt-style swindling). It was fun regardless! Mikol realized that the last time she was here was 17 years ago! Half her lifetime ago. A lot had changed.

The city of Cairo comes right up to the edge of the pyramids. Cairo has 35 million inhabitants of the 80 million people in Egypt, so it's basically insane there. Our first evening in Cairo, we went to smoke both apple and honey flavored tobacco at a cafe where usually women aren't allowed, but our guide said because we are tourists, they would let us anyway. We had falafel and foul (pronounced fool) and potatoes in pita bread (5 small sandwiches for 10 pounds - not even $2!) as a snack. It was yummy. Then we got taken to the train station for a sleeper train to Luxor. Mikol and Natalie shared one sleeper, and Jeremy shared the other with an Archeologist digging at a site in Aswan that dates to around 3800 BC. Before the Pyramids!

We arrived in Luxor at 6am and started our day of sightseeing on the West Bank of the Nile in the Valley of the Kings. Here they have tombs, instead of pyramids so they don't point the way to the robbers to the Kings' treasures for the afterlife. We saw the tombs of Ramses IV, VII and IX and then went to the Temple of Hatshepsut. Hatshepsut was the first Egyptian Queen to rule in her own right, for 21 years. She wore a beard for a long time while she earned the respect of the people. Unfortunately, her step-son was jealous of her rule and destroyed the faces of all likenesses of her in the temple, but it was still really cool. We also saw the Colossi of Memnon. In the evening, we were treated to a gentle ride on a Felluca on the Nile.

We also saw how papyrus paper and alabaster are made, and got to hear about a lot of Eqypt's history. Today we are staying in a lovely 5 star hotel in Luxor and tomorrow, we tour the East Bank of the Nile (Temple of Karnak, The Temple of Luxor, the Citadel of Saladin, and the Ben Ezra Temple) and then get on a sleeper train again to go back to Cairo. We'll try to write again about the Egypt adventures we haven't had yet when we next see internet. We're really looking forward to the Cairo Museum, where all of the cool stuff from inside the tombs that hasn't been sold to foreign museums is located.

Stay tuned!