Amsterdam, Netherlands

Days: 68-69
Miles Traveled: 31,320
Countries Visited: 14

NOTE TO MY READERS: I will try to keep this post PG-rated as I have up to this point, but this particular city might be a difficult one to accomplish that goal! I'm not going to cross into "X-rated" territory or anything (although I easily could - come on, let's face it, it's Amsterdam I'm talking about here) but it may cross over into the "R-rated" area of the scale. No photos of anything offensive (I'll save those for a less public audience!), just the descriptions may offend some people. If you're offended by this post...too bad! If you're on the opposite end of the spectrum and are disappointed by this post because I didn't cross over into the "X-Rated" territory then you're a bad person...and you should call me when I get back so I can tell you all about it! HA! Also, because this is a public site, I obviously won't incriminate myself...not that I did anything bad! Who me?

So here we go...


Amsterdam is awesome! I love this place. As we (I met a couple of guys on the train from Frankfurt that I'll write about in a minute) walk out of the train station, we're bombarded by hundreds, if not thousands of backpackers coming and going. Most look like college students but the ages range from late teens (probably a high school graduation gift?) to people in their twenty's and thirty's to people in their 60's and beyond! One common theme: everyone looks lost! As were we. But that's part of what makes this whole trip so much fun.

Let me take a step back. The train from Frankfurt went through Cologne (spelled Köln) and a couple of great guys hopped on the train next to me for the rest of the way into Amsterdam - Bruce and Guy. Bruce from Simi Valley, CA and Guy from Sioux City, Iowa. I spent most of my time in Amsterdam with Bruce and Guy so I thought I should introduce them up front (sorry guys - I thought we had taken a picture of us all together but I do not have it). Anyway, we hopped off the train together, dodged our way through the backpacker crowd (of which I am one!) and went looking for our respective hotels agreeing to meet up a little later after we got checked in.


I stayed at the Swissötel which has a great location right in the middle of it all and walking distance to everything. The rooms were tiny and the bathrooms were even smaller. In fact, when I first sat down on the toilet I banged my knees into the sink cabinet so I had to turn my legs to the side while I "took care of my business"...that's a small room! (sorry for the bad visual - but I got my point across!)

First stop was the Anne Frank House. It's been about 25 years since I've read the Diary of Anne Frank (I think I read it in the 5th or 6th grade?) but it's a story that you never forget.


(Horrible picture I know - but there's really not much to take a picture of.) The house has been completely emptied out of all of it's furniture (at the request of Otto Frank (Anne's father), but it's still a very interesting museum to tour with bits and pieces of the story throughout the house.

On a lighter note, we also toured the Van Gogh museum and the Rijksmuseum - both very good museums and well worth it even though I've been to way too many museums in the last few months. Pictures are not allowed in either museum so you'll just have to take my word for it that they're both good museums.


We also toured the Heineken Brewery. Actually, it's no longer the actual brewery but was their main brewery for many years before they turned it into a museum of sorts. Now they call it the Heineken Experience. It's well worth it. Not just because I love beer, but it really is an interesting tour with high-tech "rides" through the brewing process (hard to describe so I'll just leave it at that), how the brewery started and how they grew to be one of the largest beer exporters in the world.


Although not my first choice of beers when I go to the cooler at the liquor store, I am a fan of Heineken and I like the taste. One interesting thing I learned about Heineken (and this is very true for most successful companies like this), it was, and still is, all about the marketing! They have a good product so I don't want to take away from that, but their monumental success is from their excellent branding and marketing. They don't try to hide it either during the "Heineken Experience" - it's front and center and repeated throughout their tour. Oh, and of course you get a couple of beers at the end of the tour which makes any tour a good tour!






And what's a trip to Amsterdam without walking around the red light district? First of all, I was completely shocked by two things (well, let me reword that: there are two specific things that shocked me the most - I cannot count on two hands the number of times I was actually shocked!)

One, the size of the red light district. Prior to coming here I envisioned a small back alley, away from the city-center and "hidden" from the public so to speak. Not so! It is right smack dab in the middle of the city, out in the open, and about 7-8 city blocks long by 4-5 city blocks wide. There are stores, cafés, bars, restaurants and of course the famous (or infamous) "windows" all built around the sex and prostitution industry. There's even a prominent church...completely surrounded by buildings with the the "red light windows." And Amsterdam isn't hiding it either - the tourist maps outline the red light district like it's an "attraction". Okay, I must admit the red light district is one of the reasons I put Amsterdam on my list of cities to see - but I wasn't expecting it to be highlighted on tourist maps!

Two, I expected to see weirdos, freaks, and dirty creeps lurking about in the red light district. Nope, not so! People from every walk of life, families with baby carriages, kids from 5 to 18 with their parents, adults of every age, and probably just as many tourist women as there are men - okay, maybe not a 50/50 ratio but there are still regular women everywhere. (I struggled over the term "regular" in that sentence - not sure what else to call a non-working woman to differentiate from the prostitutes, but hopefully you get my meaning).

I had no idea the red light district was so...open. I guess if it's legal, why wouldn't it be out in the open? In the US we have liquor stores everywhere, we sell alcohol in our grocery stores right next to the cheese, butter and milk, but if you're from a society where alcohol is strictly forbidden are you shocked to see it so prominently displayed and out in the open? We don't give it a second thought. Are you shocked to see a liquor ad on TV or in the newspaper? Obviously we're not - in fact they're usually the best ads on Super Bowl Sunday! As a society, do we hide our drinking from our kids? No - in fact many of us have probably had a drink or two in front of our kids, or someone else's, in the last week alone. So in a society where prostitution is legal, why would they hide it? It would be like the US hiding the sale and use of liquor even though it's legal.

I know alcohol is not exactly analogous to prostitution and I don't want to make it sound like I'm starting a campaign to legalize prostitution in the US - but it is about perspective. From my perspective (and I would guess from most of my readers' perspective) - it is shocking!


A little about the "windows" themselves: I'm not exactly sure what it was that I expected to see - but I can say with certainty that it was not at all what I expected! (Side note: I'll keep putting the word windows in quotes because if you could hear my inner-monologue as I'm writing this you'd hear me saying the word with a little extra zeal than the rest of the sentence!) I read that there are over 250 "windows" in the red light district.


These "windows" are basically all along the first floor of the buildings like store fronts - several lined up one after another and on both sides of the streets, or in some cases the alleys. They usually consist of a normal window from about waste high to the ceiling, next to a full height glass door that goes into a room. In most cases, the room is right there - in plain view - with a bed. In other cases the entrance is just big enough for one or two people to stand and then a corridor that goes back to a room or to stairs going up. The "window" and the door are usually lined with red fluorescent bulbs - hence the name red light district. Standing in the door is a girl smiling and flirting with every guy (and girl) that walks by the door. Some passerbys will stop and talk for a few minutes and then move on, while others will talk awhile and then go in. She'll then close the door and the blinds and...nope, can't go there and keep the post readable by my younger audience!



One thing I will say, is that I was very surprised by the quality of the women in the windows. Again, I'm not sure what I expected, but many of these women could easily appear in the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated! I'm not exaggerating!


Enough about the red light district - mainly because I cannot say much more without breaching my agreement to keep this blog within the possibility of being PG-13 rated.




So, what else is there to talk about? Marijuana! Ha! Another questionable topic for a PG-13 rated post - but like prostitution it's legal in Amsterdam. And it's almost as prominent as the red light district...but not quite. I'm not exactly sure what is allowed and not allowed when it comes to the sale and consumption, but it too was everywhere. Mostly in and around the red light district, but definitely not limited to just that area. Since the use of red lights have already been taken - the marijuana shops are all lit up with green lights! People smoking in the streets, smoking at café-side tables, pretty much everywhere you look...and smell! Again, it's legal so why hide it?







In a futile attempt to bring this post back around to PG-rated, there were a couple other things that I found interesting about Amsterdam. One - I didn't know there were canals running throughout the main city-center. I have yet to visit Venice, but this is kind of what I expected to find in Venice - except there are also streets along side the canals here in Amsterdam. These canals give the city that little extra uniqueness - and I really like it.

Two - as I was walking back to my hotel one night I heard a singer and a guitar player right around the corner from the entrance to my hotel. So I decided to check it out before heading up to my room. In the main square in front of the Royal Palace of Amsterdam two guys were just starting to set up and test their equipment. There were 4 or 5 other people standing around waiting to see what they were going to play so I decided to stick around and see if these guys were any good. When I say "equipment," what I really mean is an amplifier no bigger than a toaster and a mic stand. One guy with a guitar and one guy behind the mic. I don't recall what their first song was, but it was really good. The guy could really sing and the other could play a mean guitar. Both were about 18-20 years old. After their first song there were now about 20 people standing around. Thirty minutes later there were easily 200 people! I stayed until they packed up their stuff and left which was about 2 hours after they started. By the time they finished, I would guess there were between 300-400 people surrounding these guys - some sitting on the ground, some standing, many dancing. It was really cool. I've seen a lot of street performers on this trip - some decent, some not so much - but these guys were fantastic! They had about 50 of their homemade CD's sitting out in front of them along with a sign that said "self-service €10 each." They sold them all and easily could have sold another 50. I bought one myself - these guys were that good! Below, I've posted a video of a portion of one of their first few songs but after watching it later it doesn't do it justice. Anyway, keep your eyes out for James O'Reilly from Dublin. If he can get the attention of a record producer he'll go a long way in the music industry.

(sorry for the poor camera work but this was taken at like 2am and I had some very LEGAL substances running through my body)

Next stop is Paris! I'm excited to see Paris and looking forward to hopefully catching a glimpse of Le Tour de France!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Damrak 96 1012 LP Amsterdam Netherlands

Frankfurt, Germany

Days: 64-67
Miles Traveled: 31,092
Countries Visited: 13

I'm sooo far behind on posting to this blog that cities are starting to blur together - that's when I realized I better get back on it again!

As I said in my previous post, Frankfurt is really just a starting point for Europe due to Lufthansa's HQ here. Even so, there were some interesting things to see in Frankfurt.




I knew I'd be heading out by train - after I mapped out Europe and figured where I'd be going next - so I found a hotel (Le Meridien) right next to Frankfurt's main train station. It was a very nice hotel and fairly close to the center of the city so an easy walk to all the sites in Frankfurt.

Frankfurt is a very modern city but probably not on many peoples' lists for places to see before they die. It wasn't on mine either. It is home to the European Central Bank and the German Stock Exchange and I'm sure many Frankfurtians (I just made that up) think of their city as the financial capital of Europe, but in terms of a tourist spot with lots of attractions and historic sites it is definitely lacking.

Of the interesting things to see, there is Römerberg - the old downtown and central square.


It is interesting to note that the buildings in this picture were built in the 14th and 15th centuries and still used today as the Town Hall of Frankfurt (although they were heavily damaged in the bombings of World War II and rebuilt). Also in the square is an old 12th century cathedral - the Dom, or Saint Bartholomeus' Cathedral.


Also of interest there was a huge parade going on while I was walking around downtown. It happened to be Christopher Street Day...WOW what a showcase! Not sure why the name Christopher Street Day - but essentially it's their Gay Pride day.











After spending a day and a half checking out what Frankfurt has to offer, I needed to figure out where I was going next. This was a critical decision for my next 60+ days because I wanted to hit all the major cities in Europe without criss-crossing all over the continent. So, I needed to decide if I'm going clockwise or counterclockwise around Europe. After studying a giant map that I laid out on my bed for an hour or so, making a list of "must see" cities and "like to see" cities, checking train schedules and hotel costs in most of the major cities, and making sure I hit all the important sites, I decided to go counterclockwise and head northwest to Amsterdam, then continue around the continent by going through France, Spain, Portugal, back into France and Monaco and then into Italy (without further planning beyond that other than to hit Greece, Croatia, Switzerland, Austria and back into Germany before my time was up.)

To be clear, when I say "I'm planning my route" - it's really just deciding which direction to go - I have yet to make any hotel reservations, no train reservations and I have no idea if I'm hitting any big events in any of these cities or countries. It's kinda nice knowing I've got 60 days to just go wherever the wind takes me - but it's also a little stressful not knowing any details. Imagine planing a trip to LA, for example, and not deciding how you're going to get there, where you're going to stay, or what you're going to do when you get there until the day before you leave! I would never dream of it...yet here I am in Europe doing exactly that for the next 60 days in 11 countries, 15+ cities and to top it all off, everyone speaks a different language! What if I end up in a city without any hotel rooms available? What if the trains are all full and I cannot get into or out of a city? The list of things that can go wrong seems endless! In the end, however, I decided I'd rather just go with the flow rather than plan too far ahead. So I walked across the street from my hotel and picked up a train reservation for the next morning to Amsterdam (with the Eurail Pass some trains require reservations, others you can just hop on/off whenever and wherever you like - this route required a reservation).

This is as good as place as any to talk about The Eurail Pass. It's an excellent ticket to buy if you're planning on coming into Europe for any extended period of time. I purchased the Global First Class Pass for 2 months of unlimited, unrestricted, travel to anywhere on the continent - I think it covers 20 something countries. They have cheaper options with fewer days of travel, 2nd class, only specific countries, etc. but because I have no idea where I'm going and what days I'll be traveling I decided that the above pass was best for me.

As an example, I looked up the cost for a First Class ticket from Frankfurt to Amsterdam and it was €180.20 ($238 US) but for the reservation with my Eurail Pass it was only €5.50 ($7.30 US). Considering I paid about $1,500 US for the pass and I plan on taking about 20 train trips between now and the end of my 60 days - I'd say that the pass is a pretty good deal!

By the way, it wasn't until I was standing on the train platform waiting for my train to Amsterdam that I realized that I hadn't booked a hotel in Amsterdam yet. Those of you who know me know that I love my iPhone - here is just one more reason.


In all of about 10 minutes, I brought up Kayak (an iPhone app that searches hotel booking sites like Expedia, Orbitz, Hotels.com, Booking.com, etc.) which finds the best and the cheapest hotels in any given location. It's interesting because it can bring up a hotel that is priced at $150 on Expedia, $200 on Orbitz and $250 on hotels.com. Not sure why the big discrepancies but I'd certainly rather pay $150 then $250 any day - for the exact same room in the exact same hotel! Expedia isn't always the cheapest either. Using the Kayak app, I narrowed the result list of 300+ hotels to 4 stars and above, zeroed in on the Amsterdam city-center and within a few blocks of the city-center, the app narrows it down to 10 hotels with rooms available for tonight, and bingo I found a place to sleep tonight (the Swissôtel). Click on the Expedia "Book Online" button (which happened to be best price for this hotel) and because I already have an account set up with Expedia I clicked on the "book now" button and done! 10 seconds later I get an email with my confirmation number and an address of the hotel. Technology is unbelievable - and I cannot wait to see what comes next!

While I'm on the topic of "how much I love my iPhone" - I'll add that there's an app for the European train network as well: iRail.


It allows you to search every city, every train, every stop, every timetable, in every country in a split second. It finds the best route, the fastest route, the stops between cities (and exact times for each stop), figures out train transfers, whether or not you need a reservation for the train, if there's a restaurant car on the train, maps of the routes, maps of the cities, and on and on. The only thing it lacks (not it's fault), is you cannot buy your ticket or make a reservation with it. For that, you still have to go to a ticket window or a an ATM-like ticket machine at the train station...but I'm sure it's just a matter of time before that is available as well. I also found the app useful when I would run into a ticket agent that didn't speak English - I would just hand him/her my iPhone with the train route information already on the screen and they would very easily be able to figure out which reservation/ticket to give me.

Okay, enough of the iPhone advertisement (although I could go on forever about how great this thing is).

On to Amsterdam!

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Location:Wiesenhüttenstraße 28 60329 Frankfurt Germany

Istanbul, Turkey

Days: 60-63
Miles Traveled: 29,907
Countries Visited: 13



If you read my previous post on Cairo, you know that I can't wait to go back...ha! I was a little afraid that Turkey would be similar, but it turned out to be quite the opposite. I loved Istanbul! It's absolutely beautiful with fantastic architecture everywhere, wonderfully friendly people and great food. I could easily spend a couple of weeks in Turkey (4-5 days in Istanbul and the balance of the time touring the rest of Turkey - I've heard it's just as beautiful).


I stayed at the Legacy Ottoman Hotel which was absolutely perfect. It's located in Sirkeci which is a couple of blocks from Sultanahmet (Old City). If you were to put a pin in a map that represents all that is Istanbul - you'd put it in Sultanahmet. As I was researching hotels, the Legacy Ottoman was about 50% less than those located directly in Sultanahmet and yet still a 5-Star hotel. I got lucky in that when I checked in, my room wasn't ready so I used my irresistible charm (stop laughing!) and they gave me the top floor corner suite with two balconies and a huge room (above "L" in the picture). If you go to Istanbul, I'd highly recommend this hotel.

The view from my room was also "picture perfect":


The first day that I arrive in most of the previous cities (I usually arrive late in the afternoon) I would spend an hour or two walking around to get my bearings, pick up a couple of things at the grocery store and scope out a couple of potential spots for breakfast or coffee the next morning. The same held true for my arrival into Istanbul (I arrived at 5:30pm), however at 11pm I found myself still walking around...it was that intriguing. People were everywhere (mostly tourists), shops were still open, street musicians still playing, and with the sun setting around 9pm it was easy to just keep walking!


The next morning I checked out Ayasofya (Hagia Sophia) which is a former orthodox patriarchal basilica (a fancy phrase for a very important cathedral - I had to look it up) back when the city was still Constantinople in 360AD, then briefly it was a


cathedral of the Latin empire in the 1200's, a Muslim mosque in the 1400's until the 1900's and then a museum in the 1930's to today. It's awesome to walk in a building that has so much history behind hit - with mosaics of Christ and the Virgin Mary next to images of the muslim faith. I'm not a religious expert - but I don't think these two religions got along all that well over the last 1700 years - and you can see that inside as they continue to restore the damage that was done over the previous millennium.







Not more than a "driver, wedge" away is the Blue Mosque (Sultan Ahmed Mosque). Also a beautiful piece of architecture with blue roof tiles and therefore the nickname: Blue Mosque. This was built in the 1600's and is still used today for worship but also open to visitors. Apparently Pope Benedict visited this mosque in 2006, removed his shoes - as is customary in the muslim faith - and gave a silent prayer. This was only the second time in history a pope had visited a Muslim place of worship.




Just a few blocks away is Topkapi - the huge Turkish Palace that was the residence of the Ottoman Sultans for 400+ years. It's estimated to be about 700,000 square meters which to us Americans is about 7.5 million square feet! I wonder what that would rent for? The harem inside the palace housed 400+ people, mostly the sultan's concubines and the eunuch guards - I guess that's one way to keep the guards from messing with your concubines...make them all eunuchs!

Under the palace, I toured the Basilica Cistern which is where they stored the water for the Palace and Ayasofya.


It's interesting being under ground in a cavern that was originally built in the 3rd century - I'm hoping they've made a few structural improvements since then!




Also only a few blocks away is the Grand Bazaar which is absolutely enormous. It's about 60 streets that criss cross in a huge labyrinth of shops - 2,000 shops in all. Each one is no more than a 100-200 square feet selling everything from Turkish rugs, to jewelry, to pottery and clothing. It opened in 1461...so about 30 years BEFORE America was discovered. For my real estate readers: can someone run a 600 year pro forma on a retail shopping center?!? What do you think...10 cap?



One thing that was a little annoying about the Grand Bazaar was all the touts trying to get you into their shops. I had three separate salesmen ask me where I was from and when I said Colorado they responded with something to the effect of "I've been to Denver before - great city." The first time it happened to me I was impressed and stopped to talk to the guy for a minute - until he tried to get me in his shop "just around this corner." Later, when the second guy said he'd been to Denver I realized it was a common trick they used. By the third guy I started to wonder if they have all memorized one major city in each state in the US, and probably every country in the world so that regardless of what you say when they ask where you're from, they can say "oh really, I've been to such-and-such city before." Not a bad trick! I also can't remember ever being complimented as much as I was in the bazaar. "Like your shoes", "nice shirt", "where did you get those sunglasses" - anything to get you to stop and talk to them.



I ended up buying a Turkish rug (not at the Grand Bazaar - I had heard their prices are heavily marked up, but just down the street from Ayasofya.) I really didn't intend on buying a rug but after going into several shops I started to like what I was seeing and could see one of them fitting perfectly in my house. When I started getting specific as to the type/style/color of the rug I was looking for I all of sudden had 10-12 guys helping me. I was only speaking with one salesperson - Yusef - but 10 other guys were bringing in rugs and rolling them out for me, one guy was bringing me tea, another was bringing me sugar cubes, while yet another brought me water. It was a really cool experience and even the haggling over the price at the end was a lot of fun. Twice I walked out of the store saying "that's my final offer." The first time I was stopped at the door with a counter offer of 20% less than before, but the second time I had walked half way down the street before Yusef appeared and lowered the price again. It's funny because the first time he quoted me a price he gave a speech about how his shop doesn't haggle - they give their best price the first time and it's a take it or leave it price. Obviously not true as we ended up haggling for almost a full hour but ultimately I got it for half of his original "take it or leave it" price. I'm not a Turkish rug expert either (as you may have determined I'm not an expert at much!), but I truly think I got a good price - at least compared to what I would have paid for a similar rug in the US. And now I have the memory of buying a rug in Turkey!



Another cool area of town - across the Galata Bridge but on the same side of the Bosphorus (in other words on the European side not the Asian side of Istanbul) - is a street named Istiklal Caddesi. It's a 2+/- mile long pedestrian mall with shops and cafés along both sides and a tram running down the middle. What I really liked about it was that each alley coming off the main street was also filled with shops and cafés and would wind around for blocks. If you make it to Istanbul I'm sure this street will be on your list of spots to see, but be sure to venture off the beaten path and check out the side alleys.

Overall, I loved Istanbul and look forward to coming back some day. Next stop is Frankfurt, Germany. Frankfurt was not really on my list of "must see" cities, but it's the major hub of Lufthansa which is part of this "Round the World" airline ticket. My main purpose for going into Frankfurt is to figure out the next 60 days of travel around mainland Europe before my next RTW flight into Dublin in September. I've already purchased my Eurail Global Pass - which gives me free (or deeply discounted) tickets on just about any train in Europe for the next 2 months. I've listed all the cities I want to go to, but I haven't figured out the best route to trek all the way around the continent and avoid criss-crossing back and forth. It's a little overwhelming, but I'm sure I'll manage!

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Location:Hamidiye Cd 61 Istanbul Turkey 34112

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Cairo, Egypt

Days: 57-59
Miles Traveled: 29,145
Countries Visited: 12


I had originally planned on spending 4 days in Cairo, but after the first day I called up the airline and switched my ticket to the next day out. Wow - what a nightmare!

Maybe it was just a series of bad experiences, but I have a feeling it wasn't just me - it was Egypt. It all started as I arrived at immigration control at the airport. They wouldn't let me through without a Visa - but all you have to do is go to a window a few yards away, give the guy behind the window $15 USD and he gives you a sticker for your passport that lets you get through immigration. The guy behind the Visa window didn't even look at my passport, didn't put the sticker in the passport, just took my $15 and handed me a sticker. What a crock of...! (I said I'd keep this blog PG rated!) Obviously there is no real reason for this than to simply get money from tourists. This may seem uneventful but it was my first experience in Egypt and it should have tipped me off to the rest of my stay here!

After getting my luggage I walked outside to find a cab - my hotel is on the exact opposite side of Cairo from the airport and it's 6pm so figuring out public transportation was not something I wanted to deal with right now. Not a taxi in sight and a line of about 50 people ahead of me. I waited for about 30 minutes and there were now 49 people ahead of me...one cab came in 30 minutes. So, I walked back into the airport to see if I could find other transportation.

Sure enough a guy walks up to me, says he works at the airport and asks if I need a cab - of course I'm very skeptical but I'll hear him out. I ask how much to my hotel and he says $50 USD - I laugh and walk away (although I'd gladly pay him $50 right now!) He comes after me and asks me how much I'm willing to pay. After a minute of haggling we settle on $35 which seems reasonable to me since my iPhone is telling me it's 45 minutes by car to my hotel. Later I find out it should have only cost about $15. Oh well, I'm happy I don't have to wait in line anymore.

The guy takes me outside and calls someone on his cell. Within a couple of minutes a brand new sedan pulls up with no markings on the car...it's just some guy's car. I'm a little nervous but the driver is dressed nicely and seems friendly enough, has a new car that's very clean inside, so let's give it a shot. I put my backpack in the trunk and get in the back seat. We drive off. Not more than 2 minutes later he pulls off to the side of the road - still within the airport grounds. I'm thinking - ahh crap, what have I gotten into? He looks back at me and in broken English tells me we're approaching the airport gates and he needs me to be in the front seat. At this point I have no idea why, but I'm afraid if I get out he'll take off with my luggage. I ask him why, to which he responds - "you need to be my friend." Huh? From what I can tell from what he's saying, he's not a licensed taxi driver and therefore needs to make it look like we're buddies and he's just picking me up at the airport.

After some hesitation, I get out and quickly hop into the front. He then tells me we'll be stopped at the airport gates by guards and I need to tell them we're friends. He gives me the name of his apartment building and tells me to give this name to the guards and to write it down on their clipboard if they ask. Okay, I'm more skeptical now than I was before, but what are my options at this point? We pull back onto the road and approach the gates. Two guards in full uniform and with guns approach my side of the car - not the driver's side! One of them asks me where I'm from and where I'm going. Uncertain if I should tell the truth and the driver gets in trouble, or should I play along and give the guy's apartment building name. I choose the latter in hopes that this guy knows what he's doing. The guards both look at me for what seems like an eternity and then hand me a clipboard, ask me to write down the apartment building name and sign it. I look at the clipboard and there isn't another line filled in with English - it's all in Arabic so I have no idea what I'm signing. I write down the building name and then scribble some illegible name that looks nothing like my name (thinking I can deny it later??)

The guards say something in Arabic to the driver and we pull away. What the heck? My heartbeat is going a million miles a minute and I'm dripping with sweat (it's hot outside!)

So, with that behind us I'm now just hoping he takes me to my hotel and not some random spot in the desert to drop me off and rob me. As it turns out, that might have been the better outcome! He pulls out onto the highway which is a 10 lane highway divided by a cement median and cement barriers on the outside - like you would find anywhere in the US. The only difference is this highway also seems to serve as the sidewalk, the way to push your street vendor carts from one spot to the next and taxis/busses stop in the right lane to let people off and pick people up! This is all going on while the rest of the traffic is going 60-70 mph. It's nuts! And to really make it fun, my driver is going 160km/hr (100 mph)! He's weaving in and out of traffic, coming within inches of hitting people, flashing his headlights, honking his horn, going from full gas to full brake and back again! After a few minutes I was so amazed by it, I considered taking out my camera to capture it on video but didn't want to encourage him! After about 20 minutes, I couldn't resist any longer and pulled it out:

You have to watch the video to truly appreciate it! If you listen closely you'll hear him ask me if it's okay if he lights up a cigarette - while he's going 100 mph and weaving through traffic...he's going to get out a cigarette and a lighter...yep! I also had to take a picture of his speedometer to show how fast we were going:


After 30 minutes (of what should have been a 45 minute drive) we pull up to my hotel and I'm just thankful I'm alive! I give him the money, grab my bag out of the trunk and feel like dropping to my knees and kissing the ground!

While getting through immigration and the taxi experience are not enough to make me "hate" Egypt, the next couple of days certainly are! Before I describe the next morning, here's a picture from my hotel window - about a half-mile from the Pyramids.


I stayed at the Le Meridien Pyramids - great location but the rooms were old and tired.

I guess I always thought the Pyramids were out in middle of the desert but they're not. They're right up against the city of Giza (suburb of Cairo). What I also just learned is that there are 180+/- pyramids in Egypt. Who knew? Well I certainly didn't but the ones here in Giza (9 of them) are probably the most recognizable and one of the 9 is the Great Pyramid - the largest of them all.

So I wake up the next morning hoping to put the previous day behind me and enjoy Cairo. Since I'm only about a mile from the main entrance to the Pyramids I decide to walk it. I ask the concierge how to get there and he gives me directions but also strongly urges me to walk away from the pyramids a few hundred yards to cross the street. I heed his advice and go to the stoplight...yikes! No one seems to follow the stoplights, cars are going through red lights, motorcycles are driving on the sidewalks and the pedestrians just cross whenever they want. I wait for a few minutes to see if there's a break in the traffic but no luck. By the way, there isn't a crosswalk, no pedestrian signs, nothing. Finally I see a woman and two children walking towards me so I decide to cross with them...ha! How bad is it that I'm using a woman and children to help me cross the street...shouldn't it be the other way around? We walk right into traffic and cars just seem to go around us. Plenty of horns honking, but they don't hit us. I'm now thinking I should take a cab back to the hotel after I see the pyramids!



After crossing the street, I bring up a map on my iPhone and see that there's a side entrance that is much closer to where I'm currently walking. Perfect, I'll go that way. As I'm walking towards what appears to be the entrance, a kid in his late teens asks me if I want a camel ride around the Pyramids for 100 LE (Egyptian Pounds). Sounds fun, but no thanks. I walk a little farther and the same kid comes up behind me and starts telling me about the pyramids - when they were built, how many there are, the names of the larger ones, etc. I continue walking and respond with "oh really?" and "that's interesting, thanks." He seems to be a very nice kid, he's very polite and speaks decent enough English but I'm wondering what he wants from me.

He keeps following me up the hill towards the entrance (we're now about 100 yards from an open gated entrance for cars) when he points to the left of the entrance and says, go this way it's faster. I say "no thanks I'm fine". He chuckles and says "no really, this way is faster." At the same time a completely different guy (in his 50's) says "it's this way" and points the same direction as the kid was pointing. Again, I say no thanks and keep walking up the hill towards the two guards standing at the gate letting cars go through after talking to the drivers. There are no other tourists around so I'm starting to wonder if everyone is right. As I get closer, another guy says "the entrance is that way" and points the same direction as everyone else. Either everyone is in on this together or I'm actually going the wrong direction. Willing to look like a fool, I keep walking to the gate so that I can see for myself. As I approach, one more guy points the other way and says something in Arabic. I ignore him and keep walking until I reach the guards. Both of the guards point the other direction and say something to me in Arabic.

Okay - I must be going the wrong way. I turn around and there's the kid smiling saying "I told you!" I walk towards where everyone was pointing and the kid follows me. We go through a walled in area and we're standing with a bunch of camels. The kid says something in Arabic and a bunch of people come over to me - one of them with a camel. I immediately say "no camel" and ask where the gate is. The kid responds with "how about 75 LE?" I say no again and just start walking towards the mysterious entrance everyone was pointing at - but there is no entrance that I can see. The guy in his 50's from before comes up behind me and says "50 LE for a camel ride?" I say no...AGAIN...and keep walking. He tells me I can't go that way unless I'm on a camel. He then offers 20 LE for a camel ride...I say NO loudly and keep walking. I'm now surrounded by 8-9 guys and a bunch of camels. I look at the map again and decide I was walking the right way before and I want to try the guards again. When I turn around the guys around me won't move out of the way. So I basically have to juke back and forth to navigate between the guys and camels to get back to the street. Everyone is saying stuff in Arabic and the first kid is still trying to get me to ride a camel but now it's only 10 LE!

I finally maneuver my way through the camels and walk up to the guards but this time I just walk right past them. One of them says "no camel?" I say no and keep walking. He smiles, shrugs his shoulders and then goes back to whatever he was doing.

The guards are in on it too?!? Not cool! Later I found out from a website that they get you on a camel, take you way out past the pyramids and then have you get off to take pictures. If you want to get back to the pyramids you have to pay their price for the camel ride back which this time will be 100+ LE.

I walk up the hill to the top and now I can see the pedestrian entrance and the tickets sign. I read the board and see that 60 LE gets me in to the park and then there's another ticket that allows me to go inside the Great Pyramid which sounds interesting so I ask the guy at the ticket counter for both tickets. He says the Great Pyramid is closed for repair and I can't go inside so he gives me the general admittance ticket for 60 LE. Bummer, but what can I do. I leave the ticket window and a guy comes up to me and asks to see my ticket. He's not wearing any "official" looking clothes and doesn't have a badge so I ask "why?" He says he works here and needs to take my ticket. I'm standing 10 feet from the entrance with turnstiles with another guard taking tickets so I say "I'll give it him" and point to the guard wearing a uniform. The guy says again "I am an official and I work here - give me your ticket!" I look at the guard who has been watching us and is only standing 10 feet away and I ask him who I give my ticket to. He points to the turnstile. The guy that supposedly "works here" just turns and walks away. What the heck?

I go in through the entrance and hand my ticket to the uniformed guard who just smiles at me like I passed some kind of test.

I walked around the park for about a half hour before coming to the Great Pyramid. There are a bunch of people going in - huh? The guy at the gate told me it was closed. I walk up the stairs to the entrance and try to walk through but there are two guards that stop me and ask for my ticket. I try telling them that the guy at the entrance said it was closed but it was obvious the guards didn't understand me and one of them says 100 LE. Again I try explaining but he just says 100 LE and holds out his hand. Are you kidding me?? It's a racket!



I'll get to the actual beauty of the pyramids in a second, but I need to continue on my "nightmare" story first.

After leaving the inside of the Great Pyramid, I was standing up about 5 levels on the pyramid (the farthest up they'll let you climb) when I noticed an Asian guy and his wife arguing with a local Egyptian guy down on the ground. It looked like the Egyptian guy had just taken a picture of the couple but was refusing to return their camera. I watched for a few seconds and sure enough the Egyptian guy was asking for 5 LE for taking the couple's picture - with their own camera! Two guards were standing about 20 feet away and were watching this all unfold. The Asian guy started to get really loud and obviously very angry...he wanted his camera back! They argued but I don't think either one of them spoke much English so it was just yelling in each of their native languages with the other not understanding a word. Finally the Asian woman pulled out some money as if to say, "fine - let's just pay him and get out of here." I felt like I was watching two little kids trading something because neither wanted to let go of their item until they had the other one in hand. I'm not exactly sure how the Egyptian did it, but with what seemed like a magician's slight of hand, he had managed to take the Asian guy's watch off his wrist but slipped up when trying to put it in his pocket and it dropped to the ground. Needless to say this infuriated the Asian couple and they both began screaming for the guards. The guards nonchalantly walked up and shooed the Egyptian guy away. I watched from above for a few more minutes as the Asian couple was obviously trying to convince the guards to do something about what just happened but they weren't going to do anything and were pretending they didn't see anything.

So when I finally got back to my hotel is when I decided to change my flight. I had enough of Egypt and the Pyramids were really all I wanted to see anyway.

Thinking that I was putting Egypt behind me was a good thought, but I still had to get to the airport and on the plane. The next morning I got a car from the hotel's concierge (no taxi for me!) and I made it to the airport uneventfully. However, getting through airport security will prove to be anything but uneventful.

I go through the first round of security without any problems and then go to the passport/immigration area. When I get up to the counter, the guy behind the counter seems to take forever when people all around me are going through easily. After a few minutes two guards show up and start talking to the guy behind the counter in Arabic. They say something then look at me, then look at my passport, then start talking in Arabic again. I can see the planes on the tarmac from here and I'm thinking - just put me on any of those planes and get me out of here!

A guy in a suit walks up and starts talking to everyone in Arabic and then finally says to me in English "we have a problem with your passport". Apparently they have no record of me (or more accurately my passport) ever coming into Egypt so they need to verify that the admittance stamp in my passport is not counterfeit. What?? When I arrived all they did is took my $15 and handed me a sticker - now they're saying it may be counterfeit? If that's all it takes to get a sticker why would anyone go to the effort of counterfeiting it?

A few minutes later, the guy in the suit and the two guards escort me off to the side so that they can ask me a few questions. Okay, if I hated Egypt before this - I'm really hating it now! The suit asks me questions like "when did I arrive?" "what airline?" "what flight number?" "do I still have my ticket stub" "where did I stay?" "what did I do while I was here?" "can anyone verify any of this?" etc. After about 20 questions, he started asking me the same questions again - I presume to see if I give the same answers as before. He then leaves me with the guards and disappears behind one of the other immigration counters. After about 15 minutes of me sweating it out and thinking about all the horror stories of people getting trapped in foreign countries, he finally reappeared. In all of about 4 seconds he handed me my passport and said "you can go" then he and the guards walked away. No apologies, no explanation, nothing - just "you can go". I wasn't complaining - just get me to my plane!

Not so fast. Are you tired of hearing about this nightmare? Well it's not quite over yet! For international flights they have one additional security checkpoint at each gate even after going through the main security. I've seen this at other international airports so it's nothing new to me. I put my small day backpack on the conveyor belt (my large backpack had been checked in) and I walk through the metal detector - which does not go off (important to note). The guy watching the monitor says something to the other guard and they ask me if this is my backpack. What the HELL??? Let me out of here!! I say yes. They ask if I have a computer in there. I say I have my iPad and I ask if they want me to take it out. Up to this point I have not had to take my iPad out at any other airports because apparently it's thin enough that the x-ray machine can see through it. Regardless, I do as requested and take my iPad out. They send the backpack through again and ask if I have a watch in the bag. Yes, I say. I usually take my watch off while I'm waiting in line and put it in my backpack along with my wallet, my phone, any coins, etc. rather than putting it all in those little buckets where everyone can see it. I pull my watch out of my backpack and the guard takes it from me and starts inspecting it. It's a Rolex so after all the apparent corruption I've witnessed so far in Egypt, I'm thinking the guard is going to take it! Instead he hands it back to me and motions for me to step to the side behind a partition. He grabs a metal detector wand and motions for me to put my arms out. Wait a minute - I already went through the metal detector and it did not go off! Why the heck are you "wanding me"?? I don't say a word, just do as I'm told. After running the wand over my entire body and not a single beep coming from it, he sets it down and starts feeling my front pockets. I keep my cash and a stick of chapstick in my front pocket but there's nothing metal in there. He feels it and motions for me to take it out. I pull out the cash and the chapstick and say "it's just chapstick" and put both the money and the stick back in my pocket. He immediately grabs my pocket again and motions for me to take it out. I take out the chapstick and start to take the cover off to show him it's just chapstick when he grabs my pocket again and squeezes the cash. When I pull it out he looks at me and gives the "give me some" motion with his hand. I can not believe what is going on here...but then again after everything else that's happened I shouldn't be surprised. I shake my head and say "no." He motions again but this time with a very stern look on his face. I say very loudly, since I know other people are just on the other side of the partition, "Can I see your SUPERVISOR please?" His face immediately turns to a smile as if to "just kidding!" and he motions for me to leave. I grab my backpack and hightail it out of there!


So that's it for the nightmare - I thought I'd end this post with a few pictures of the pyramids themselves. They truly are amazing - the fact that they are 4,500 years old is amazing in itself let alone the sheer size of them. Just think about it, today we are actually closer to the birth of Christ (2010 AD) then the builders of the pyramids were (2,500 BC).


Needless to say, Egypt and I don't get along. I don't want to discourage anyone from coming to Egypt - it's possible this was just a series of misfortunate events that all just happened to me - but I'm guessing I'm not the only one! If you come prepared, be skeptical of everything and trust no one, I think you'll be just fine. I can say with certainty I will never go to Egypt again, but that's because I can now mark the pyramids off my list! It was all worth it because the pyramids are that amazing, but take caution!


(it's hard to tell here, but each of these "rocks" is about 6 feet tall)




Next stop is Istanbul, Turkey.

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Location:El Remaya,,Egypt

Dubai, UAE

Days: 53-56
Miles Traveled: 27,646
Countries Visited: 11

For those of you following this blog regularly, sorry for the delay since my last post. It's harder to keep up than it looks! Now you're going to get a bunch of posts all at once...lucky you!


From Phuket I flew back to Bangkok with a short layover before heading into Dubai. I've been to Dubai before (November 2006 with a bunch of commercial real estate guys) for 7 days and then I spent an extra 4 days checking out more of the touristy spots. In 2006, Dubai's economy was booming! Buildings were under construction everywhere (literally everywhere!), the airport and streets were bustling with people and there was a sense of excitement in the air. In the last 4 years, a lot has changed: the economy has tanked, the government is riddled with debt - so much so that Dubai had to be bailed out by it's "big-brother" emirate - Abu Dhabi, and the tourism to this region had come to a screeching halt.


Knowing all this, I expected to find a completely different Dubai than four years ago. I did find it, but was also very surprised. The hundreds of buildings that were under construction the last time I was here are now all completed - including the world's tallest building (The Burj Khalifa, formerly known as the Burj Dubai). However, there are still hundreds of buildings under construction. You may say that "he's exaggerating" but I'm not! For the first 2 nights, I stayed at the Shangri-La across the street from the Burj Khalifa and from my room I counted 24 buildings over 20 stories tall that were currently under construction. I didn't bother counting the buildings under 20 stories. Cranes litter the horizon in every direction...and this is just the area known as Deira. There are two other districts in Dubai that had just as many, if not more, buildings under construction. You could tell some of the buildings had halted construction mid-stream, but most were still actively being worked on. I understand it's difficult (and costly) to stop a project mid-stream, but there were plenty of recently completed buildings that are "see-through" (meaning they are still vacant) so how they could possibly continue to fund construction is beyond me. Hotels, office buildings, apartments, shopping malls, every where you look there is still heavy construction going on.


Anyway, when I was here last time the Burj Khalifa was about 80 stories tall, now it's finished at 206 stories (only 160 are habitable). It's really quite amazing to see. When I was in Taipei a couple of months ago, I went to the top of Taipei 101 (the tallest building prior to the Burj) and was amazed at the views from the 91st floor observation deck but they were nothing compared to the views from the 124th floor observation deck at the Khalifa.





(my hotel is the second tall brown building from the left - it's 57 stories tall which is taller than every building in Denver!)
By the way, the shopping mall attached to the Burj Khalifa is 12.1 million square feet! By comparison the Mall of America was 2.5 million SF and then it was expanded to 8 million SF. Dubai Mall is still 50% larger! I walked around it for about an hour and probably still only covered half of it. Here are a few pictures:









Note the indoor ice skating rink - every minute or so a picture of Sheik Mohammed (the ruler of Dubai) would pop-up on the giant screen. Don't you think it would be a little weird if Obama's face randomly popped up on a giant screen in a mall in the US!





I only stayed at the Shangri-La for two nights because I wanted to check out the Atlantis Palm - the resort that sits at the "top" of the Palm Island just off the coast of Dubai. I've stayed at the Atlantis Paradise Island in the Bahamas so I thought it would be interesting to see how much alike they are. The story is that a large investment group out of Dubai wanted to bring the Atlantis brand to Dubai so they approached the original developer/owner of the Atlantis in the Bahamas. He said "no" and wanted to keep the Atlantis in the Bahamas a "unique property". The Dubai investment group then paid $700 million to gain control of the Bahamas property in order to build an Atlantis in Dubai. I guess if you really want something bad enough - there's always a way!

The Atlantis was running at $400/night so I didn't want to pay to stay there all 4 nights. As I'm sure you have all heard or seen on TV, the Palm Island is a man-made island in the shape of a giant palm tree. It was the first of 3 Palm shaped islands in Dubai (the other two are still under construction) and then there's also "The World" which are small man-made islands that when viewed from the sky form the shape of all the continents. Here's an aerial of the Palm - the purple pin is the Atlantis:




One of the days I took a helicopter tour of Dubai - pretty cool, but not nearly as exhilarating as the one in Queenstown! Here are a few pictures from the ride:





(this is the Burj Al Arab - I stayed here 3 nights in 2006, very posh!)






I also went on a desert safari - well, tearing around the dunes in a Toyota Land Cruiser is what they call a desert safari:



And of course, all visits to Dubai have to include indoor snow skiing at "Ski Dubai" - the snow is actually pretty good...considering it was a 114° on the digital sign right outside the place.



I considered golfing but it was 110°+ everyday. I'm all for warm weather, but that's unbearable!

Dubai has changed dramatically since my last visit, but really it's just the same overbuilt (and still building) playground in the middle of the desert!

Next stop - Cairo, Egypt.

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Location:Dubai,United Arab Emirates