Egypt!

A very quick update, but I made it to Egypt!  I met up with Eric and Cheryl very late on Saturday night with no problems.  We then spent 3 days in Cairo which was great.  Cairo is actually not quite as crazy and I had been lead to believe, but it was lots of fun.  And its a very busy city, people everywhere at all time of the day and night.  We started off at the Egyptian Museum, which has so much information that there is no way to see it all.  We hired a guide so we wouldn't miss the important bits.  We spent two days exploring the old Islamic part of the city which is full of mosques and markets and great Turkish coffee, maybe the best coffee I've even had.  We also spent a day at the Pyramids at Giza, which are of course amazing!  We managed to get there early enough to beat most of the crowds and the hottest part of the day.  Its soooo hot here.  I thought Bangkok was the hottest I'd even been but this is so much more.  And its so dry too, which is good i guess, but we have to rest during the middle of the day in order not to get exhausted.  But over all is really good.  We are in Aswan now and doing a Nile cruise for two days started tomorrow and I'll post more after that!

Africa Pics

Baby Lions!

Baobab trees are cool.

Lots of Buffalo.

Zebra!

Rhinos are a bit scary up close.

Giraffe!

Empty beach in Mozambique.

Fun Swazi dancers.

Hippos hanging out.

African sunset.

Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe side.

Eric went Bungee jumping! 111 meters!

I saw London, I saw France

I spent the last week walking all over England and France, at least it feels that way haha. Its been a lot of fun though. After my parents arrived in London we stayed at Pieter's house for the weekend with his parents and sister. We hiked a bit and swam a bit, the usual fun. I also went into London with Pieter to meet up with Anne which was great! After that my parents and I went to South East Sussex and camped. It was crazy hot at the campsite so we ended up heading over to the beach almost everyday we were there. We hiked along the South Downs Way, which is a great hike along huge chalk cliffs over the sea, hung out on the beach and also hiked to an old Priory which was cool. One night we went to a pub quiz in a tiny town, haha and didn't do very well but had a great time. It was right before July 4th so they conveniently had an American round, and that round had a question about New Mexico! It was crazy. The next day we went back to Leigh-on-sea and stayed the weekend with the Cordwell's again.

On Sunday I flew with my parents to Montpellier, France which is in the South of France. Its a cute little town full of winding tiny roads and old Cathedrals. The Tour de France had one of its races here yesterday which was pretty awesome. It started and ended in town, which i guess is unusual, it normally ends in a different town. It was a team time trial and Lance Armstrong's team won and since he is the only person I knew anything about that was pretty exciting. It was also just a great atmosphere, tons of people all excited about the races, the sponsors giving out free stuff, everyone lining up to watch the race, it was fun fun. We saw the first teams start, each team starts 7 min apart, and then walked the mile or so down to where they end (after they ride in a huge loop outside of town). It was a long day with lots of standing in the sun, but actually a lot more exciting then I thought it would be. Today we drove up to Nimes, about an hour away and spent the day there. They have one of the oldest preserved Roman amphitheater there which was really cool to see. It had an extremely comprehensive audio guide tour so I learned quite a lot about gladiators and the kinds of events the Romans held there. We also wandered around some markets and saw some other cool Roman ruins. And ate great bread, cheese, fruit, and chocolate croissants which I've been doing everyday for lunch, haha. Tomorrow we might go see the beach or more cathedrals or another Roman town or all three if we can fit it in before we have to head back to London the day after that. I then have 5 days after my parents leave to hang out around London and since we haven't really done that yet I think I'll spend them doing London museums and stuff like that. If anyone has know of any great London spots I should hit up let me know!

Off to London

Well I have left Africa and arrived in London, got in late last night. Last I wrote Eric and I were about to go to Botswana to meet up with his friend Sean. We were in the capital Gaborone for three days and it was a lot of fun. It rained a lot of the time there, so we didn't do that much out doors, but I liked the town a lot. Sean is there studying for the summer so we got to hang out with him and some of his classmates, we went out one night which was a lot of fun. We also checked out some of the local museums and went to a village that wasn't to far away. After Gaborone we drove back to Joberg, returned the rental car and hopped onto our flight to Victoria Falls town in Zimbabwe! I wasn't sure what Zimbabwe was going to be like since they have had a lot of trouble there lately, but in Vic Falls town it seems very safe. They really only take US dollars there now which is a pain, but other then that, and it being pretty empty, it was a nice town. The falls were amazing! I couldn't believe how much water was coming down every second, it was crazyness. And just standing somewhat near them was like being in a rain storm! So much water. We also crossed the border to Zambia and saw the falls from that side, where the views are maybe not quite as good but you can get much closers which is fun. We also rafted the Zambezi, the first time i'd ever been rafting, so much fun. The water was very high still so only the haft day trip was open, but I thought it was great. And Eric went bungee jumping! That was crazy, but he seemed to enjoy it.

After a quick three days in Zimbabwe we flew back to Joberg so eric could get his flight back home. The Zimbabwe airport gave us hand written plane tickets, haha, i'd never seen that before. Back in Joberg we did a tour of the Cradle of Humankind, which is a cave were they have found lot of old human remains and stuff like that. It was a good tour but way over priced for what it was so we were a bit grumpy after that. Oh well. Afer Eric left i took the bus to Durban which is on the east coast. I still had 5 days before my flight and it seemed like the most interesting city that I could get to in one day. I really liked it, but i was there during a huge rugby game so it was packed! Like every room full everywhere I called, so i was luck to find a dorm eventually. It was a fun few days hanging out on the beach, and I went to this water park with a girl I met at the hostel. The only bad thing was that once I got to London I realized that someone had stolen all of my credit card numbers. I think it was from the hostel which I locked up my money belt in their safe while I was at the beach. I still have the card but all of them have been used in Durban in the last few days so I had to cancel them. A bit of a pain, but luckily nothing else was taken and I can get them replaced. So now I'm in London at Pieter's family's house and my parents arrive tomorrow!

Old Pictures

I know these are quite old, but I never got a chance to put them up while in Africa.
My sister arrived in Thailand. This is in Ayutthya.

Squeezed on a motorbike with Erica!


Then we met up with Pieter in Hua Hin.

At the beach in Hua Hin!

The view from our beach hut on the island of Koh Tao.

Anjali and Pieter, Koh Tao.

Me, Koh Tao.

All over Africa

Well I've been a lot of places since I last updated from Nelspruit. We went to Mozambique for a few days which was great. Driving was a bit crazy, in the cities there were people everywhere on the streets, but outside of there cities it was really empty. We went to Xai-Xai beach which was really beautiful, but a bit cold for swimming. The beach was completely empty tho which was fun. I guess it gets crowded during the holidays, but it was fun to basically have a whole beach to ourselves. After that we went to the capital Maputo, stopping at another beach on the way down that was equally empty. Maputo was cool, we had some good Indian food and went to an art museum. The food so far in Africa has been alright, but not great for vegetarian options. Lots of french fries and cheese sandwiches so it was nice to find some good Indian. The art museum had some crazy art in it, but unfortunately the power went out in the middle so we couldn't see all of it. Oh well, we left and that gave us time to check out a huge market which is always fun.

Next we crossed the border into Swaziland, which is a tiny country. We basically drove across the whole place in about two hours. Its a cool place tho, very rural and desert like. We went to a cultural village and saw how the Swazi people used to live and also saw some really fun traditional dancing. The dancing was possibly made better by there being about 100 Swazi highschoolers there who got really into the dancing. It was quite entertaining. On our way out of the country back to the South African coast we ran into tons to road construction, but eventually we made it to the coast at St Lucia. There we did some more animal park driving stuff and saw rhinos, hippos and lots of different types of deer. We also went to another beautiful beach full of awesome shells that I ran around collecting. Then we took an afternoon boat tour and saw so many hippos, it was great. The boat tho broke down at the end of the tour and another boat had to come rescue us, haha, but it all worked out.

Then we slowly made our way back to Joberg to pick up a bag that had been left at the hostel in Maputo. A nice guy was coming this way anyways and brought it with him, that way we didn't have to go all the way back. On the way we stopped in Ladysmith (the place the band Ladysmith Black Mumbasa is from) and Kestell. Kestell is on the edge of the Drakensberg mountains and we were going to do some hiking but it rained and snowed all day so that didn't work out too well and we could stay any longer to wait out the storm. We picked up the bag today and tomorrow we head to Gaborone, in Botswana for a few days to hang out with a friend of Eric's which should be fun. Some of my later plans have changed a little bit, I'm heading to London on June 24th now. My parents are going to meet me there and we plan to go to France for a few days as well as traveling some in the Uk, which should be nice. My trip is almost half way over, its crazy how fast time goes, but the last five months have been great!

Angkor Wat

Angkor Wat pictures.




Angkor Wat just after Sunrise


Bayon, one of the other temples.

Look at the awesome faces up close.

Yay elephant statues!


Tree roots taking over the temples.