Hi everyone .......

We’ve been back for a little while now, but you’d think we’ve been nowhere. Life’s still just the same in other words …… Don’t take long, does it????

Before its all faded though, thought I’d best tap out a few lines to tell you about the trip and our general peregrinations in Egypt.


Loved this piccy! It's one of the touro' police sat on his camel up on a hill (didn't spot a blue-light on the hump though)













First port of call was Luxor, about halfway down the Nile (halfway to Lake Nasser, that is). That’s where the plane dumped us at any rate. While the Nile does continue further into North Africa in one form or another, Lake Nasser marks the bottom border of Egypt. So anyway, what I’m saying is that we pretty much did the length if not the breadth of the country ….

We didn’t stay too long in Luxor initially. Just long enough to catch our breath and have a quick nose-around (yeah, it was smelly in places). Enough time though, for Kim to realise this wasn’t going to be all palm trees, and cocktails around the pool! My own first impressions last year were of teeming madness, dirt and in some cases squalor. Kim didn’t say much at the time. The weather was generally mild and sunny, but was definitely cool in the evenings, especially feeling it when a bit of a breeze came up.

Talking of breezes, that was the reason we didn’t hang about in Hurghada after we’d bus’ed it there a couple of days later. A Shimal (sand-storm, but probably dodgy spelling?) accompanied the desert leg of the journey after turning away from the Nile at Qena. It stayed with us till we hit the coast. We only stopped the one night in Hurghada and had a seemingly expensive meal in a local resto’. There was a little Arab’y looking guy (well that’s a surprise! An Arab in Egypt!!??) stood down by the main road wearing an anorak with the hood up against the chilling wind. He looked a bit like a gnome and I reckon Kim felt sorry for him, so told him we’d be back later for some food. Only having been in the country a couple of days were’nt fully up to speed with prices, but afterwards Kim reckoned the soup was made from a packet, and Matt’s pizza was originally an unidentified frozen object. I’d be surprised if it was a frozen pizza as there wasn’t evidence of anything like that in the shops (not many freezers around for starters). But, well you never know? It was sure wasn’t top-nosh. That repas cost us over a tenner (English) which was pricey for there. Oh, by the way ….. After a couple of days in Egypt you learn to differentiate between dosh by referring to it as English or Egyptian as both our countries use pounds. When the locals say it though, it sounds like Bounds. Hey meester ….. “I weel teck yoo theeere in my texi for den bounds”. After which he’ll try to make out he meant Eengleesh bounds!!! Anyway, more on the scams later …..

So, with a stiff breeze and white-horses showing on the Red Sea, decided not to worry about going out on a snorkelling trip. After doing it last year, I knew it can get decidedly cool after a few hours. With heaps of other things to do during our hol’s, we put that on the back-foot and found a bus next day into Cairo. Being closer than Luxor it only left us 7 hours on a bus (only?). It wasn’t too bad a trip, but wasn’t much to see apart from desert and … sea! Anyway it was getting dark after a few hours and there aren’ to many street-lights out of the towns. We had a pee-stop in one lay-by which had a snack bar displaying the same name of the bus service we were on. Telling us the Upper Egypt Bus Co. had put it there …. Trouble was, there was nowhere for a pee. After a spell living in France was well- trained with such things, so showed Matt the ropes too. Walking boldly away from the main throng, down with the zip-fly and Aaaaaaaah! That’s a relief. Luckily Kim wasn’t breaking her neck, or so she said!! There was a toilet on the bus, but the smells emanating from it weren’t too welcoming, and sure didn’t hint at a pleasant experience for anyone bold enough to try using it.


So, now we’re in Cairo …. We get off at the bus-station and are immediately approached by a taxi driver. Having prepared a list of possible hotels, picked one and asked him to take us there (How much? Foorty bounds!! ‘Nope, I’ll give you thirty …. Last price’ says I … Oookay!!!). While en-route, he persuades us it’s only a Paynsion (hostel) and of course too down-market for the likes of us. And ... of course he knows somewhere much better. Yeah, yeah Ok then …. We’ll have a look at it. Turns out it’s a …. Hostel too. But with Kim a bit frazzled from the journey, we ‘go for It’ and take a room for 80 LE per night (with brekkie) That’s a little under £8 to keep you up with the real prices to us. There was a shared bathroom, but it was generally clean and a bonus we didn’t consider at that time, is that it was top floor and above a lot of the pollution!! When we were half an hour outside of Cairo and after passing an oil-refinery, I suddenly started coughing. By the time I’d hit the city it was a proper hack with a sore throat, tickly-nose ….. The lot!

Bugger it … I’d got a wog! Was it just coincidence that I’d caught a bug when going into one of the most polluted cities in the world? Hmmmm … I don’t really believe in coincidences. Do you?



Anyhow, Nuff on me feeling snotty and miserable.

Cairo …. City of a million and one stories and legends. Crossroads for trade and travel for millennia. And as featured in a Madness (that's apt) album. It was plain bloody dirty!!! Everywhere you could see dirt and grime and it was teeming with people. Especially that time of year, as it was ‘Eid’; the Muslim festival and along with the Christian Christmas celebrations, the city was heaving. We spent the couple of days leading up to New Years in and around Cairo, but being Muslim and their holiday time of Ead, struggled to get a beer. There was a (in)famous bar imaginatively called the Stella Bar just around the corner from where we were staying. But it was closed for the duration of our visit. Never mind thinks I, as I ordered a beer in a nearby restaurant. “I em soo sorry, but we are noot serving alcohool dooring thee festivool.” Doh!!!! The food was okay though. And a sight cheaper than the dodgy place back in Hurghada.

Take a look at the group on the left. These were other people staying in our hostel we'd got to know. Guy sat on the left wearing a scarf reminded me a lot of Will Smith. Lived in the U.S. and only returned to Egypt to be with his elderly Mum. He explained that he could live his own life later on .... Very intelligent, very dynamic and not at all like other locals we met (didn't try to sell us anything, for starters!). While staying at this place there was a birthday party for the owner's daughters, both born on the same day, but one year apart. We each had a bottle of pepsi and a slice of astoundingly sickly cake. But it was really quite nice to be included, and affirmed to us that the Egyptians are generally a gregarious bunch.


Gotta tell you about our first evening out on walkabout in Cairo’s downtown area …

We’d already gathered that anyone who approaches and talks to you, wants something! So, we’re stood on a corner looking at the Lonely Planet’s Cairo street-guide when this guy walked past, looked at us, hesitated, stopped! He then came back to talk to us, introducing himself as (Ahmed, Abdul, Mohammed …Shit! Can’t remember really), and he goes on to tell us that; ‘that most people who talk to us here in Egypt will want something … They’ll want to take us to their uncle’s shop, sell us something, ask for baksheesh. In fact just about anything you can think of … but he made a point of telling us that he was different ….. he assured us, he was only helping us out. He was a teacher and was only interested in helping us, by pointing us in the right direction … Right into his mate’s oil and papyrus shop!!! Doh! Got us again!? Still, while Kim was being head-massaged using some of Egypt’s cheapest and best (so he assured us) aromatic oils, by this guy that was determined to tell us his life-story, I took the opportunity to walk around the locale and get my bearings. In the end though I had to rescue her from the over-enthusiastic papyrus and oil vendor by telling him we’d not eaten all day … and the little boy needs to get some sleep (cheap-skate, liar … I know … But whatever works!!).



The Pyramids! Our first real antiquities visit, saw us off to the Giza plateau. The taxi driver ‘knew a man’ (don’t they all?) who could help us out. After turning off the main road I enquired why we were taking the back-streets when I’d determined the pyramids were just down the road. ‘Ah, government …’ came the explanation (????). We found out a few minutes later we’d been led into another set-up …. His mate the camel driver could do us a good deal. 320 L.E (about £30’ish) for: “2 camels, unlimited time, guide, what a fantastic deal opportunity, very good price, very cheap”. So we did our usual ploy of walking away to check out other places. Upon which he quickly came down to twenty quid (Sterling).





What follows is a whingy interjection added while at work: Cripes! It don’t take long ….. does it? Here I am only five days since returning to the UK and am lumbered back at work. Yesterday being a Friday, is supposed to be a short day. No such luck for me as the usual routine seems to be …. When the weekend looms, all the managers rush around offloading things that need to be done before Monday. With me having to get it bleeding-well organised! And in the case of this morning, actually do the biz’ out on one of the machines, in order to progress one of the jobs in question.

Anyway … Nuff on that whinging. Back to Egypt (before the memory fades).

Where was I??

Oh yeah! At the pyramids … At the time 20 quid seemed a bit of a rip-off, judging by the costs of some things locally. But upon reflection, think it was pretty good value. We had around 3 hours out on the camels, and the camel-guy was a pretty good guide. His English was well up to scratch, and as a bonus a good sense of humour. He even took the classic picture of Matt with his finger on top of Cheops pyramid which came out quite well. Ten minutes after our guide had baksheeshed his way in through the back-gate, we realised we were well away from the teeming masses pouring in and out of their air-conditioned coaches. So was worth the 20 quid just for that reason alone. It was one hell of a view as we traversed the plateau and ended up looking out across at the well photographed three pyramid line-up of *Khufu, Cheops (and the other one I can’t remember the name of). I found it good fun trying to stay on the camel as it trotted along. With Matt up with me, when the camel stood up and sat down, it was usually all I could manage keeping from him from falling off. He seemed obsessed with his nether regions too, by constantly complaining about his nuts while bouncing along. Nearly lost him once too. He’d not quite settled after getting back on following a mooch about, before the camel stood up. I caught hold of Matt’s leg before his head went careening to the deck (luckily it was head first, so I wasn’t too worried as it wouldn’t have done too much damage).
* As corrected by Arny (Hail Arny) The names of the pyramids are, the pyramid of the Pharaoh Cheops (Khufu), the other two are the pyramid of his Son - Chephren (Khafre) and the pyramid of his Grandson - Mycerinus (Menkaure)





While up here on the plateau we could look across at the city of Cairo. It was then that we realised why I’d been coughing for Britain. There was what looked like a huge cloud in the distance. But it was sat directly over a power station (or factory) of some kind. The cloud was settling mushroom-like onto the general fuggy haze that constituted Cairo’s atmosphere.
That’s no cloud, I thought … Aaaaaargh! Cough choke!!!!















Anyway, apart from that bit of negativity slipping in at the end ….. The conclusion on Giza pyramids is: Top tour!!!! See em and die! Cairo …. Forget it!!!

We’d heard the trains to Aswan were getting full, and as it was the next intended stopover made it a priority to get some tickets. Heading off to the station along Mayhem Boulevard (not its real name, but it was busy) we met up with an older guy who introduced himself as coming from Brazil. Real interesting chap he was too. Trained as a doctor (of what, I didn’t find out ... yes I did! Kim just corrected me as him being an eye-surgeon) and was living in India after splitting up with long-time wife. He was interested in meditation and had evidently picked up on the spiritual side of India. He’d been off travelling for what he jokingly promised himself to be 3 years, 3 months and 3 days. And was nearing the end of his sojourn. But more on Boliver (his name) later perhaps. Back to trying to rustle up a train ticket to Aswan.

And what a larf that was! First of all the ‘Sleeper’ was not only mega-expensive, but booked up well in advance. If we were to wait around on that train, it would have left little time for the remainder of the trip. As we didn’t want to spend too much time in Cairo’s smog and squalor, decided to look at the alternatives. We found there was an ordinary overnight train where we could book 1st class seats. So off we trot to find the ticket office. The bored looking, corpulent woman in the booth was being harangued by a mob of what at first appeared to be locals waving money and all talking at once trying to get tickets. This was gonna be hard I thought. As it turned out ... When me Kim, Matt and Boliver started adding our own jostling to try getting near to the front, a nice young (Hmmmmm nice young man, young man!!) tourist policeman decided to help out and give the ticket lady a hard time on our behalf. I did note that with other locals trying to push to the front of the queue, Matt’d picked up what was ‘appenin, and so positioned himself on top of one of the railings which were (supposedly) there to encourage people to form an orderly queue (next to the impossible in Egypt it seemed). Matt had his foot firmly planted on top of the opposite rail so nobody could get past. And it actually worked too. No one was bold enough to push him aside, so it was pretty effective at keeping some of the baying crowds back.

After handing over the dosh and getting our tickets with lots of squiggly Arabic on them, the three of us put our hands into our pockets and gave the nice young man some baksheesh. He then translated what the tickets said, so we at least had some idea which train number, seat and car number we were allocated. Be-ticketed, we were then free to explore Cairo once more ……

Having mentioned the pyramids, the only other real bit of touristy nosing about was a visit to the museum and a wander around Old Cairo. I’ve gotta say, the museum is an exhibit in itself. Without checking guess the building goes back to Victorian times or earlier. And it has all the evidence to show little has changed since. All the exhibits were covered in dust and grime and the only part with any hint of contemporary display were the Tutankhamun (spelling?) relics. Just about everything else was labelled in what appeared to be old style cursive handwriting scratched with a quill. Bloody fascinating place though … full of stuff taken from tombs and temples all over the country. It’s got an atmosphere all of it’s own (nothing to do with the smell coming from the locals who ran the place). Kim’s got her own Museum Anecdote, where a guy tried to take her video camera and she’d rightly surmised he was after baksheesh. Evidently a threat from her to go to the tourist police saw him backing off pretty smartish. Cheeky B***ard!!!

After having a good look around for an hour and half or so, we decided to move on …. Upon which when leaving, did a vague headcount on people inside, on their way in, as well as us on their way out. Using the old clockwork-mouse in my cranium to multiply visitor numbers by entrance fee, I concluded that there was a heap of money simply not being reinvested into the place …… Hmmmm, m’thinks a very short sighted approach to encouraging further visits from peripatetic groups or individuals who find themselves in the city. I have heard though, that there are plans to build a modern museum elsewhere sometime in the future. So maybe all’s not lost, from the standpoint of making the Ancient Egyptian relics accessible to those that are interested. Okay ….. off me’ soap-box.

Let’s get the heck out of Cairo … So here we are on the overnight red-eye to Aswan. Sharing a carriage with a couple of Canadians and an Egyptian tour-guide. The journey was uneventful and as expected from 13/14 hours, pretty tiring. I did manage to get-off properly, around 6.am. And about five minutes later was nudged awake by another ticket-inspector. ‘Are you ‘avin a bleedin larf??? I added in my best Egyptian. It’s already been looked at by three other people over the past 9 bloody hours!!!



Aswan. It wasn’t too bad looking upon arrival. Walking from the station found a wide boulevard with heaps of people milling around. The holiday was in full swing and loads of locals out enjoying themselves by arguing, throwing litter around. That sort of thing. I personally felt quite left out, as only 20 or 30 people wanted to talk to us. Ah, Hoo … texi? Yew waant nice hotel? Etc …. Consulting the Lonely Planet, we’d decided (well I had actually) to walk South following the general direction of back streets and look at each reasonable sounding hotel in turn. One of the first was The Cleopatra. Now as I understand it, she was always was High Maintenance (so Marc Antony found out). 60 US dollars! Are you joking? We wanted to rent a room ... not make a take-over bit for ownership! Eventually we found a nice place with back-room and balcony that went around the side. Views down the Nile were great too. And, at 85 ‘Egyptian’ firmly in our price range. Budget!!! Cleopatra was just gonna have to continue relying on Marc for support I'm afraid!

Next day saw us up at 3.am. Yup! You read it right! We were off to Abu Simbel. Well, it’s gotta be done, ain’t it!! Apparently with the vehicles having to travel in convoy (for protection) need to gather by the police road-block at the far end of town by 4.am in readiness for the 3 hour drive to end of Lake Nasser. Drive? It was more like Whacky Races. With around 10 or 15 coaches and mini-buses hurtling through the desert at 90 miles an hour. No attempt at an orderly convoy … oh no! It was: Boot down, overtaking each other. And in some cases; shouting abuse to get out of the way. Thank goodness Kim had gone off to asleep with Matt. If she’d seen some of the early antics she may have wanted to get off there and then. There was however one compensation.

The sunrise. It came creeping over the horizon and for a few seconds was pretty magical. I could imagine if you’d spent a night out in the desert.

Y’know the sort of thing I’m sure … being kidnapped by a dark swarthy Bedouin wrapped in black with just his eyes showing, which are as deep and intense as the night-sky itself. You’ve been thrown into his luxurious tent with a chest of gold over in the corner (are there corners in Bedouin tents?), necklaces and gold spilling out onto the cashmere carpets. And you’ve only a string of gold coins to put around your waist and over the veil on your forehead. Tight, short velvet bra cum bodice, baggy see-through trousers and pointy shoes to wear … What? You’ve never had that happen to you?? So, anyway ….. there I was with Abdul Bin Maktoum Maktoumi Bin Faisil (also known as The Desert Hawk) King of the Wa’ Oussefi tribe watching the sun come up ….
(Sorry no piccy's this bit ... you'll have to use your imagination I'm afraid)


Three hours later we hit Abu Simbel. The coach park filled up and we trailed across to the small manmade hill, the other side of which was the ancient temple rescued from the waters of what became Lake Nasser. And worth the trip too (just). Could have been better without all the crowds, but nevertheless pretty good. The four colossi sure grabbed your attention. Particularly when you put your mind back to the time of the pharaohs and the fact that their technology was pretty limited by today’s standard. I was also impressed by the scale of the task to move it all and put it back together again with such precision. Oh, and the historical graffiti carved by various visitors dating back to the 1800’s. It’s sure to have been literally mind-blowing for the ordinary bod’ 3K years ago.

1 ½ hours later Whacky Races were off again. Next stop Aswan. (Wished I'd got some piccy's of that .... just imagine Dick Dastardly and Penelope Pitstop ... with Muttly sniggering away in the background)

We spent the rest of the Aswan-leg looking at more temples (Philae) and last day over to Elephantine Island to see another museum and the Nubian village. While there we met Hendy the village elder (as described in the travel-guide). No really!! It’s true. He’s mentioned in the Lonely Planet … and up he walks, introduces himself … and asks for baksheesh to act as guide. Yeah, go on then!! We got him down to 35 LE but to be honest didn’t show us too much I couldn’t get from the book. But was a pretty interesting guy who was clearly respected by the other villagers we met. The tour ended at his mate’s tea-shop. And that was all we had …. A cuppa and Sprite for Kim and Matt. The museum just up the road again was well out of date apart from an annexe that met western standards of relic-display. After over a week of looking at old-stuff it was getting a bit tiresome. So we headed off to look around the excavations of the archaeological site adjacent. This turned out to be a good shout, as we found some good views of the Nile and cataract looking towards the lower dam.

The other Aswan visit was to the island where Philae temple had been rebuilt (again to protect it from rising waters). This place was interesting as it had been used as a place of idol worship right up to 500’ish A.D. Then after pressed into service by Christians, who promptly defaced much of the carving (bloody vandals!!!). Some good stuff left by the roman’s too. We had fun haggling for a boat-ride to and from the island. In typical Egyptian style bought the tickets to visit the island, then realised we had to haggle for the cost of transfer over. As luck would have it there were some Egyptian tourists who we shared a boat with. The boat-men tried for all they were worth to get us to take a different boat. Never mind the fact that the boats could take 20 or 30 people. Because we were able to share it cost half what it would have done on our own. Our Egyptian shared boat hosts gave the ferry-man a hard time … about giving us touro’s a hard time. They told us there are too many boats and not enough tourists, so they were doing just about anything to get a fare at top-dollar. Being I guessed well educated and perhaps well travelled people they told how such things need regulating by the government. I thought …. Not likely, after seeing how things were in the rest of the country. But we’ll leave politics aside I think. Just too dull doncha y’know!

Last leg of the trip, was a train back to where we’d started. Luxor. Hey, that was a larf too. I’d thought it was going to be a four hour train ride. Three hours later we pulled into a station I thought was Edfu, but we’d arrived. It was Luxor. Our shoes were off and we’d been lounging around with food and drinks, books, MP3’s out. In fact, stuff everywhere. Matt was oblivious to the world, ears plugged into his Nintendo ….. Quick! Mad scrabble everyone… as the train's gonna be leaving to go on to Cairo in a couple of minutes. We made it off okay of course, but it sure caught us on the hop. After getting off and walking out of the station, turned and was amazed. The dirty dingy old Luxor train station from last year had been transformed. It was now marble-faced luxury in comparison. Don’t be alarmed though, cos as soon as you walked out onto the street it was back to the good old dirty, dusty old Egypt we’d become accustomed to seeing. I did have a pleasant surprise as the guy I’d met last year who showed me how to get to the Sherief was there touting for another hotel. Good bloke to chat to Seleh … Didn’t give us a hard time cos we’d already booked the Sherief again. Just nice to avachat, and nice to be remembered a year on ….

And, arguably the best bit of the trip was the last few days here in and around Luxor. No more travelling! Karnak, Valley of the Kings and of the other West bank sites to look forward to.
Kids on the West Bank (as taken by Kim). Cute bunch of kids till they asked for baksheesh. 'Ishmee ya little B*gg**'s'










As I found last year, both Karnak and Valley of the Kings were really good. We did the mountain walk, from Deir el Madina (the workmen’s village) along the ridge to Hepshetsut a temple dedicated to one of the Queen’s. Again, on another day we walked from Hepshetsut temple to the Valley of the Kings. Branching off the mountain path across into the valley. For anyone fit enough this has to be one of the best ways of getting to these sites, as the hike there gives them so much more sense of place. Dier el Madina is interesting because the people who lived here serviced the Valley of the Kings. Digging the tombs, decoration them etc. And somewhat scarily in order to maintain the secret were not allowed to go anywhere else ….. Then, Hepshetsut, looks every inch an temple of the ancients. Very: ‘Raiders of the lost Ark’. As you walk down from the mountain you get to see more and more until the whole vista of the valley opens out so you get to see all of the temples impressive façade nestling into the side of the mountain.

While Kim and Matt wandered in for a nose-about, I took the opportunity to sit and have a cuppa (thereby saving on entrance fee) as well as having a chat and bit of a larf with the local souvenir vendors. Normally they’re a pain in the arse, but as I was on my own and quickly convinced them they were wasting their time trying to flog me anything, found it good fun to take the piss out ‘em.

The converse trip to the Valley of the Kings starting out from Hepshetsut was another good day out. Not quite as warm, but used this trip to take a few picture of Elk on Walkabout for Matt’s school project.

Oh yeah, forgot to say: He’d brought a cuddly Elk with him to photograph in various places around Egypt. Upon Elk’s return he’d be going off with other members of Matt’s class to try becoming a well-travelled cuddly Elk, a-la various Gnome’s who’d got the travel bug in times past. NB. If you’ve not heard of this before, let me know and will fill you in on it.

Donkey anecdote! (Nearly forgot it)

When first arriving in Luxor (I think it was first day actually) we took a Calash tour of the back-streets of Luxor. At one point we were held up by a donkey cart loaded to the gunnels. I'm mean really loaded up. It couldn't bloody well move, so I jumped out of the Calash (it couldn't go anywhere, anyway) to try and help push it out of the rut (that was all of half inch deep) it was stuck in. Once I'd started a couple of other locals joined me, and we eventually got it to move. Once moving, the little donkey was able to keep it going, somehow. Tough little B*****d!!
Wished we'd got a piccy of it, but was too busy giving it yoh-heave-ho. I've got the disinct impression that ... if you've got a donkey-cart and a big pile of stuff to move. There's no such thing as SWL (safe working load) for donkeys in Egypt . You just pile it up till the bugger can't move. Then take off a little bit, till it can!




This is Sayeed. Shifty looking character ...
Or What?











The last few days, we got to know our neighbourhood of Luxor more intimately and met some interesting if sometimes fairly dodgy people. One guy Sayeed tried for all he was worth to tap us of for a couple of hundred quid for an op. on his potty-eye. Giving us the two kids and wife and poor salary line …. No doubt true, but we’d have been mad to hand over or promise dosh out of hand. My compromise was to buy him a couple of beers, then give him a few pence for a postage stamp and asked him to write to me, along with a promise to write back. Reckon I’ll ever hear from him again?

I think Kim’s downbeat moment was seeing a goat being skinned in the streets when wandering around Old Cairo. I’d have stopped to take piccy’s if I was on my Jack. But Kim was head-down and hot-footing for the hills as it was clearly upsetting for her. Can’t understand it m’self. Just cos’ there was blood trickling out into the streets, with a young lad (similar age to Matt) helping his Dad by tugging on the skin for all his worth!

Well, it’s getting time for ‘a wrap’ here, as I’m all tapped-out. I will say though it was one interesting trip, and was really surprised by both Matt and Kim who handled things pretty well (as well as can be expected).

Before I hit the last key, have just got to put this anecdote in to give you a larf!!!

So …. There we were one morning promenading along the side of the Nile watching Fellucca’s. The sun was shining and we were enjoying the warmth as well as the light banter between us … as well as minding our own bloody business …. When this guy in an orange boiler-suit came up to us. Actually, that’s not strictly true, cos’ what really occurred was; we were walking past a spot where I was propositioned by this dirty Arab with a ‘Come back to my room’ a year back. Aaaaand guess what?? Yup, there he is again … same guy!! Same bloke, same place. Well, I couldn’t resist it could I? … and quickly getting Kim and Matt’s attention, pointed him out saying ‘Crikey, it’s Rent-boy from last year!’ He looks at me and says ‘I know you’ (he may not have, as they all say that ….. ‘I rrrremember yooo from befooore’ is one of the favourite ploys). But after a few seconds a spark of recognition told me he really did! (help!) And off he goes again ‘I like yooo … yooo … are yooo on yooor own?’. Then while shaking my hand in greeting tries for all his worth to crush it. ‘I gooo to theee Gyeeem to wooork owt. I am veeery strooong’ Keeping him walking, I asked why he was there, and he tells me that he’s a Gardeener. ‘I deeg the gardeens’. Now, I’ve gotta tell you that even if I was that way inclined, could never imagine going with someone who had bright orange teeth (the one’s that were left) and a potty-eye which constantly stared off at … something else. All the time we were moving further along the path and there he is grinning at me saying ‘I like yooooooo ….. I like yooooo ……………. I like yoooooo’. Kim’s off to one side of us doing a double-take, not quite knowing what to make of it all.
Matt ever the joker, picked up on all this and ribbed me for the rest of the day. I like yooooo … I like yoooooo. He even asked later if we could go back to see Len’s boyfriend and then proceeded to ask me if I knew what Gay meant?? A 9 year old mind? Can you believe that???

I never did get to write any more about the interesting Brazilian chappied Boliver I mentioned earlier, but stuff it!!! Maybe Kim can do a bit sometime …. Me? I’ve gotten over the head-cold before the hol's were done, so had some time snot and cough-free at the end. But as far as this Blog goes ... I've just about had enough ….. so it’s done!!! Consider it Published.

Hope you enjoyed our Christmas break (not so sure if Kim did though). And watch out for the next one. As a few of you know I’ve got plans to head Ozwards on a mo’bike later this year and of course will try to stay in touch and keep you up to date with the adventure as it happens (internet access in the middle of Iran, Pakistan and other far flung places allowing).

Ta Ta for now Lenzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz