Arrival in Dahab, Egypt (April 3)

So we finally finished our time in India and looking back, what a time it was. Our India visa ran out on Apr 3 and so we searched around for what flights we could get out of Delhi that day and came up with the idea of flying to Sharm-el-Sheikh on the Sinai peninsula of Egypt (with a stopover in Amman Jordan). We just didn't feel up to dealing with the craziness of Cairo (immediately after India) and thought the Sinai with its location on the Red Sea might be just the ticket (pardon the pun).


The exit from Sharm-el-Sheikh's airport to get a taxi to the bus station should have been a simple, normal process and relatively uneventful - NOPE! We had various taxi drivers move us in and out of 3 or 4 different taxis, load our bags, agree on price only to apparently cause a commotion resulting in other taxi drivers yelling and arguing in Arabic only to start over again. It was insane! We just wanted to go to the bus station and grab a bus to Dahab...simple, NOPE! They of course wnated to drive us all the way to Dahab - about 1 hour by car.

To make a long story short, we took a taxi to Dahab (north of Sharm). Because a drive that should take 1 hour only took 40 minutes, Lori was thankful that the highway is divided, four lane, newly paved...it felt a little more like flying than driving! So we arrived safely in the small town of Dahab which is like a mini paradise on the Red Sea (The Gulf of Aqaba to be exact). What a contrast from India and a great place to recuperate. Modern bathroom, balcony overlooking the sea, gorgeous clear water,


....no dirt or trash or cows or cowsh**, no zillions of honking horns...its a world away from India yet only 8 hrs by plane. We can feel the stress slowly ebbing from our bones. Looking back on all the experiences in India you wouldn't want to trade them for the world, and yet how much more of that you could have continued to take and still appreciate well you're not so sure - its different for everyone. We heard that you either love or hate India - we found you loved and hated it depending on where you were and what you were experiencing.

Dahab can't be much more than 10 or 20 thousand people with lots of small hotels/resorts along the waterfront, and a nice pedestrian area. It's really well done and very relaxing. The locals you talk to are mostly people who have fled Cairo and want to live this kind of life here.




Since arriving we have done a day of snorkelling and have now also completed the first day of the PADI scuba diving course (yeah, Lori did decide to join in). The clarity of the water is out of this world and the coral is very dense and varied. Nothing spectacular in the way of fish....yet but we hope for more. The water is cold tho...21 and so full 7mm wet suit is a necessity. We're just too early in the year. Diving is done simply by walking in from the shore...pretty darn easy.

This is the desert so it's kind of strange walking from a shoreline that is arid with no greenery as far as the eye can see and then stepping into this brilliantly coloured world full of life just below the water's surface.

There are many other things to do here besides in the water...such as heading inland to Mt Sinai which is only an hour or so away as well as exploring desert-like canyons on day-hikes or overnight camel safari rides led by local Bedouin people. So perhaps we will be here for awhile. It is great to have the time and a place in which to say that. We don't have any photos yet to show you the thousand meter or so high hills - jagged, brown and desert-like, making such a contrast with the deep blue sea, the best we have right now is the one below with a new resort in Dahab being constructed in the foreground.

Delhi (April 1-3)

Well, we arrived in Delhi mid-day and stored our bags at the train station so we could hoof it to the nearby Jama Masjid - India's largest mosque.... we ended up taking a cycle rickshaw - primarily due to intensity of the heat and sun.


Once we finished our tour, a 60 year old cycle rickshaw driver lead us to a small place where we could enjoy an authentic Indian meal for lunch. It was excellent! We had amazing thalis - we think it was the best naan we've ever had - so much so that John went for a third piece!

We decided to avail of the elderly rickshaw's services - he was so friendly and helpful afterall. Well, he brought us through the streets of old Delhi pointing out the various bazaars (they are numerous - wedding, food, silver, etc.), then to a Jain temple, silver store - we then decided that we should make our way back to the train station to retrieve our bags and check into our pre-booked hotel. Here are a few photos of the back streets of "old" Delhi.



Well, he attempted to round up the time we used his services from 1.5 hours to 2 - when we decided to leave that as tip, he asked where his tip was!! Bye bye. During this whole time of walking around Old Delhi, John had this weird disoriented feeling that he was in another country...London England came to mind. Don't ask me why...it was already different from the India we'd been travelling through for the past couple of months...no cows or their waste products, the streets were relatively clean and free from trash...it just felt different.

Well, from there we took a taxi to our hotel which was in 'New" Delhi...started by the British in the early 1900s. This was different yet again...wide streets, leafy boulevards, cars suddenly vastly outnumbering all other vehicles on the road, car congestion etc. It was like we were now really in a different country...or could we say a country within a country. It was weird seeing so many cars again...for the first time in 2 months. Especially in the side streets as we approached the hotel, cars everywhere, parked cars...they are so ugly and take up so much room. It's hard to describe this feeling of seeing so many cars around when you've hardly seen any for 2 months.

Upon our checkin at the hotel - the disorientation...or re-orientation continuted... things most noticed in our room were: bright, white pillow cases, queen size bed, real bath tub with shower enclosure, hot water! We felt like we had emerged into a different world.

An added bonus was joining John's former work colleague, Mike (who was in town for business) for dinner on our first night. It was nice for John to see Mike again and catch up and for Lori to meet him. The added perks were dining in a great restaurant enjoying wine, beer, dessert as well as an exchange of souvenirs for pharmaceuticals delivered fresh from Canada and the latest copy of the Globe and Mail! Thank you again Mike!

One of the many services sold in Delhi is a car and driver guide. We thought we would use it to see the far away sights and be dropped off in the Connaught Place shopping area. We arranged for a 4 hour (40 km) driver/car through our hotel stating up-front what we wished to do. Off we went - first stop was the Qutb Minar - approximately 13 stories high built in the 1100s with many carvings - very impressive!


From there, we visited Humayon's Tomb (one of the Sultans who ruled Delhi in the 1500s) built before the Taj - very similar in design but not made entirely of the exquisite white marble.



When we next asked to be brought to the Lotus temple, our driver informed us it would be too far as we would exceed the 40km limit. We said okay then just bring us to the Connaught Place and we will make our own way back to the hotel from there.

So off we went in search of the fixed-price government craft emporium center where we understood you could garner a good understanding of quality and price of Indian textiles, jewellery, etc. When being asked by pedestrians and rickshaw drivers what we were looking for we discovered there are - not coincidentally - many stores with the same name - and a different person to steer you in that direction - even when stating the street address we wanted. We eventually purchased goods from the 3rd or 4th store (lost track) we were brought to however we are not convinced it was the store we were originally looking for. In the midst of this search was a young boy who kept following John and tugging at his pants begging for money and another guy wrapped his arm around John's leg while showing a nasty looking wound on his other arm. Connaught Place - needless to say, was difficult.

To top it all off, when we returned to our hotel, the manager tried to charge us for an 8 hour driver/car tour stating we used 56 kms instead of the 40 - even though we only used 3.5 hours. Neither of us were pleased or willing to accept it. We stood our ground, when logic didn't seem to be prevailing, John suggested the manager call the police. The manager called the owner and we all agreed that we would pay for the extra kms over 40, something that John suggested right at the beginning!. Lets just say, it took us time to recover as neither of us are acquainted to nor enjoy conversations of that sort but after a day of being ripped off, lied to, and taken advantage of you finally reach a limit and just aren't going to take it anymore!

For us, it was hard not to (and unfortunate to) come away from Delhi without the impression of it being a den of thieves! We have to try to remember people like the small restaurant owner who didn't mark-up the stamped priced on the water and apple juice we ordered despite his tiny profit margin or the stranger on the street who asked where we were from and welcomed us to India and went on his way without a sales pitch.

India is difficult and wonderful for soooo many reasons. Next morning - 2 a.m. wake-up for our early morning flight to Egypt!

Varanasi (Mar 30-31)

Well, we did move up the waiting list for the train to Varanasi to 1st position, but that just ain't good enough to get on the train, so with the help of a nice guy at a travel agency we were able to sort out the implications of all that during the hour or so before the train was supposed to have left. Turns out that about an hour before the train leaves, they 'post' the passenger list for the train. Luckily they have evolved to the point that this can be consulted via the internet...which is what we did. It turns out though (unknown to us), that when you are on the waiting list like that and don't make it in, that you must on your own initiative explicitly then cancel your ticket else you lose all your money (very strange if you ask me). And because we bought our ticket directly at the train station, the only way such a ticket can be cancelled is by going to the station. The travel agent explained this to us, in the nick of time and dispatched his father to the train station on his motorcycle to get our money back...well 75% of it, because Indian Railways keeps the other 25% because we 'cancelled' the ticket at such a late time. Not very nice if you ask me. The travel agent then managed to get us on the train for the next day and so off we went to kill another day in Agra...which meant mostly sitting around and reading (a.k.a. hiding from the touts).

So the next day, we made our overnight train arriving around noon in Varanasi, they say the holiest city in India, where the dead and dying go and are cremated along the banks of the river. Doing so here supposedly gets you out of the loop of death/reincarnation and sends you directly to Nirvana.


Varanasi is 1.3 million people with an old core city along the Ganges river with narrower, more maze-like and cow filled streets than any others we experienced so far in India (if it could be imagined that such a thing was possible!). Our guesthouse was right alongside the river with great views of the happenings along the river bank from a rooftop restaurant. Our guesthouse is the orangy-brown building in the photo below.



The thing to do here is to get a boat ride along the river bank to watch the going's on and so we duly took one in the evening and another again early the next morning. There you watch lots of people either washing clothes, washing themselves, playing (if you're a kid), or performing religious acts of washing if you're of that persuasion...in water that is not exactly something you or we would be comfortable going in.



There is one particular place along the river which is called the burning ghat and they truly are performing cremations here, 250 per day around the clock they say. We witnessed several bodies wrapped like mummies, laid on pyres of wood and burning (pictures prohibited).

The river bank is a series of 'ghat's which look like steps down to the water from a pedestrian way just above them. All of this is completely submerged during the summer monsoon periods, but presently they are well exposed with plenty of people spending time on and around them, including clusters of kids every 100m playing cricket so you have to keep your eye out for balls coming your way!



Maybe we were there at not the most significant time of the year or something, but all in all, I didn't pick up the sense that this was some super sacred place overwhelmed with pilgrims in deep religious fervour. There was some of that there, but also lots of people just going about living, lots of tourists, and plenty of locals harassing and/or conning us endlessly to buy anything and everything (boat rides, lotus flower candles, massages, silk shopping, etc, etc). For instance John was conned into a 10 Rs massage and before you know it , it turned into the whole enchilada for a mere 350 Rs). Below you see a photo of an act they put on each evening for the tourists ... some form of Hindu worship with lots of bells clanging and instruments of the Indian variety playing music. It seems a bit on the touristic side, but nevertheless was interesting to watch as there were also no shortage of Indian visitors/tourists clapping along.



The next day we wandered into the maze-like back alleys looking to buy some stamps and were 'picked up' and toured around, which included a visit to silk looms (interesting to see how that is done) in the Muslim quarter and the obligatory sit down in the show room, from where we emerged with an armful of silks. Here's to hoping us naive consumers ended up with something of genuine value for the money we spent!. Below you see a photo of one of these looms along with the usual curious children checking us out.



Wandering these backstreets you see just how much freight is still moved around town by human power here in India. The sight below is extremely common perhaps because in a lot of situations these pedal-powered vehicles are all that can fit throught the streets and spaces that are available!


Well, we didn't have much time here as our visas to India were running out so we were on another overnight train the next day to arrive in Delhi with a few days to spare before our departure. Ah Delhi....now that is a place where you have to be on your guard.