I had a great Christmas Day in Cambodia. I got up early and had a nice big breakfast in preparation for my ride to Bokor Hill.

It was quite a long ride taking about 90 minutes with about an hour of weird the amount of development happening in a national park. There is a load of Chinese money being spent and they have built a massive hotel and casino and by the looks of it hundreds of people will be able to stay there. Apparently the end result will wipe out most of the top of the hill where they are building.

We finally got to our main destination which is an abandoned hotel, it as been derelict since the 60's, but now looks like they are trying to restore it a little. It is still pretty cool to walk through. We then went to the abandoned church which is nearby.

After that we drove off to the "secret waterfall" which is not really a secret and isn't that big. It is cool because the water disappears into the rockes and then comes out as a waterfall further down. I think it would be more impressive in the wet season when there was more water flowing.

I then did the big drive back to the guest house for Xmas lunch which was a big BBQ of fish and chicken and loads of salad. We then just did the normal Xmas activities, sat around drank beer and played cards.

Today I am off the see the "secret lake" which is also not a secret and then check out some of the peppers farms around here. That is table pepper which apparently Cambodia is famous for and is exported all over the world and used in some of the best restaurants in the world. Who knew there was so many different peppers.

The final decision for tomorrow is to go back to Phnom Penh a day early to do the markets and the S21 prison museum.

The bus trip from HCMC to Phnom Penh was a very long trip, we leave at midnight which is so we are basically at the front of the queue at the border for the 6am opening. We are arrived at around 3am and just slept on the bus until the border opened. Getting through was pretty straight forward and we were quickly on our way again.

We had a river crossing we need to make on a barge (a bridge is being built at the moment), when we got off the other side we got stuck and had to stuff around for about 30 minutes before we could get moving again. We finally made to Phnom Penh about 3pm that day. I found a really nice hostel there that had only opened a few weeks earlier, very social place with a pooll out the front.

I met two Kiwis on the bus who came with me to the hostel. They were going out to the shooting range, so I went along to watched. The were going all out with a bazooka and M60 machine gun. The guy taking us out asked if they wanted to blow up LPG takes which they jumped out. We stopped off and they bought one each and then we were on our way out to the mountains where you have to go to shoot the bigger stuff.

The noise was unbelievable and after they spent an hour shooting stuff and spending $1000 we headed back to town.

A group of us then went out for some "happy" pizza which apparently very popular all over Cambodia, but it was a lot happier than anyone expected and it was a real adventure getting home. Luckily one of the people has not had one and that helped all of us get home.

The next day we went out to the Killing Fields which is a pretty depressing place to walk around, I still need to go to the S21 Jail which is now a museum. This is where people were held before being taking out to the killing fields. Apparently is has even more impact than the fields. I will be going there when I go back through to get to Siem Reap.

My last day in Phnom Penh and I just went down to check out the palace and walk around the city center. I packed early and had a quiet night as I had to get up at 6am to be picked up for the bus to Kampot. The bus company picked me up and then went to pick up some other poeple, but he seemed to get it wrong what hotel he had to go to and after about 30 minutes of extra driving we finally got to the bus station and the guy there just point to a bus two blocks down the road and said Kampot. So we jumped back in the van and chased after it. Luckily being peak hour we had caught within 5 blocks.

After an hour of driving people started to smell smoke and burning, so we pulled over to be informed by one of the english speaking Cambodians on the bus that it could not go any further and they were sending another bus. 90 minutes later the bus finally turned up and we were on out way again.

I finally got here around 3pm with a four hour bus trip being seven hours. It was well worth the trip though as the place I am staying is great, it is about a 15 minute walk into town, but it is right on the river and am writing this in the bar/restaurant with a nice cool breeze looking over the river.

We had a power outage last night, so we spent half the night sitting around candles at the bar and it was really peacful. The internet has not been working since I got here, so I am about to head into town to find some free wifi. I am here for three more nights, today I am just checking out the town. For Xmas moring I am going out of ride to the Bokor National Park, I am breaking my rule about never driving a motor bike in these coutries because it is the only way I can get out there. It is pretty quiet out here so it should be safe especially since most of what I am doing will be off road.

I have a day after here that I still haven't decided what I am going to do, I was going to go further down the coast to sihanoukville, but can't decide if I am going there or not.

So it has been a busy couple of days and between all the activities and trying to find time to get electronic equipment charged I have not been on the computer much.

My last to days in Vietnam (going back at the end of the trip) was spent in a tour of the Mekong Delta. We started of a bus trip down to towards the south. In the tour I did the day before I had seen all these rest spots on the side of the road. It looked they sold drinks, had tables and chairs. The best bit was they also had loads of hammocks setup to use. So on this trip we finally got to stop at one. Basically if you buy a drink you can use a hammock as long as you want, the locals will use it as a stayover of the night on long trips.

After a bit of relaxing in the hammock we continued on to our first stop which was a little restaurant by the side of a small arm of the Mekong back waters. There we got to try some of the local friuts and got to listen to traditional music. We then head to the water and got in small row boats to another place about 15 minutes down the river.

Here we saw how coconut candy was made, got to taste their honey tea - the honey supposedly can cure anything by the look of the list they showed us. We then got to hold this huge snake, the first time I had ever done so - it was pretty cool. From here we all got of one big boat and went down the Mekong Proper to Turtle Island, one of the four main islands in the Mekong. Here we had some lunch before moving on.

Then we went on to see a large Buddist temple which have some of the biggest statues I have ever seen. From here we split into two groups, those who were spending the night in town and those at a home stay. At the home stay we help the family prepare dinner and then sat down for dinner and a few drinks before heading to be early as the power goes off at 9:30.

The next morning we got up and had breakfast before getting on a boat to meet up with the other part of the tour. We ended up do a boat transfer over the the other group in the middle of the Mekong and once all together we went down to check out the Floating Markets. Though mainly for normal large volume trading there was also small boats cruising around offering food and drinks.

After this we wend to a restaurant that sell "exotic" food where i got to try snake and rat. The snake was a bit chewy, but the rat was quite nice, it had a very similar texture to chicken but tasted a bit more meaty. That was pretty much the end of the tour, we stopped in town for lunch but I was still quite full from my rat and then we had the 5 hour bus trip back to HCMC where I waited for my night bus to Cambodia.

The internet is a bit erratic here, so it might take a while before I get any photos up on the site.

So far I have done all my touristy stuff by myself, but have had some really cool room mate. Hopefully I will be as lucky for the rest of my tirp.

Yesterday was a long day on the bus for what felt like not much achieved. Outside of stopping for lunch there were two places we went too over a 10 hour bus trip.

First stip was the town of Tay nigh where the head temple of a religion call Cao Dai religion, which is a mix of three religions all worshipping in the on temple. It was interesting, but I would hardly say it was worth the time spent to see it.

The second stop was the Cu Chi Tunnels which are only a couple of hours out of HCMC. There is a lot of propaganda around this visit as well and you have to sit through a movie to see the tunnels. Luckily we were able to watch this while of the bus and did not have to sit in the hot huts to watch. It was an interesting tour and only a short bit of it is spent underground which is quite lucky, as even though the short bit we go through has been enlarged it was still quite hard to get through having to crouch in a awkward position.

So I am off to the Mekong Delta for two days, I am leaving most of my stuff here and just taking a small bag, so there will be no technology until Thursday night.

So a new trip has begun, I left Melbourne at lunch time on Monday and go into HCMC at about 10:00pm (with the 4 hour time difference, that is about 2am Melbourne time). I was a bit concerned about the transfer to my second flight as I did not know how long it would take to get through Singapore customs to get to my checkin counter. As it turns out it was quite quick and I was at the counter within 45 minutes of landing and could have made the earlier flight, unfortunately there were no seats left so had to hang out at the airport for an extra 2 hours.

My first day at HCMC started early which was helped by the excitement of my new trip and the sudden time change. It turns out not only to a get two free beers a night for my $US8 but they also include breakfast - what a bargain this place it. I have not complaints about the place at all, they have a nice rooftop, air conditioning in the bedrooms and the beds are very comfortable.

So after breakfast I laid out my plan for my first big walk for the day, this started of worse then normal when after 10 minutes I walking in completely the wrong direction. After turning my map around I was flying.

I deliberately selected the non-direct path to get to where I was going so I could walk through some of the city parks. It was pretty cool with a lot of people practicing different form of martial arts and exercising. They exercise stations setup all over the park.

First stop was the War Remnants Museum to get my propaganda fix, though it was very interesting it was definitely one side. A lot of the photos could have been interpreted differently with a different caption under them. However there is no denying the impact agent orange and the other chemicals dumped on this county have had.

It was then off to Reunification Palace which was once the Presidential Palace, but is now open to the public and is a real time warp of a place as if feels like it has not been touched since it was built in the 60's. Then it was off to Notre Dame Cathedral which I must say I was not really expecting to see this kind of religious temple on this trip. It was then off to the Jade Temple which is more like was I was expecting when it came to religious buildings.

I decided to finish of the day with a walk through the botanical gardens which was not as nice as I had hoped. Turns out is the zoo/national gardens and I will not be putting it as the best zoo I have ever seen, but the gardens were nice. I have never seen so many unhappy and bored animals in my life. I swear the way way the big cats looked they were just waiting to die so they could be free.

After that depressing little trip I then walked back to my hostel along the riverfront and then dropped into a couple of tailors just to see costs and how long they need to make a suit.

Anyway, big day today - up early and breakfast is done.

The second day in Toronto was going to Niagara Falls. It was a day trip that left in the morning and got home about 6pm. We firstly went to the observation tower near the falls, it gives great panoramic views of the whole area and it was absolutely freezing out in the open. It had snowed the night before and there was ice all over the place.

We then walked down to the falls and got some great photos before heading down the river towards Lake Ontario. We stopped off at a town called Niagara on the Lake that used to be the capital of upper Canada. Then it was time for the big trip back to the city.

On our last day we utilised the Hop on Hop off bus to get around town. We actually started the day taking the subway down to CN Tower (as the bus did not start to 10am) to get great views of the city, then we jumped on the bus to go to the St Lawrence Markets for breakfast. We then walked back to the waterfront to get on the free boat tour.

After the tour we head to the Hockey Hall of Fame and then finally caught the bus over to Chinatown. The day would not have been complete if I did not do one more bit of shopping before going home, so I am now carrying four extra pairs of shoes. I suppose that will make it one for every pair of jeans I bought. I did well, I only bought three new things in Canada, but I have a decent carry on bag on the plane with me and there was no room left in a backpack that was pretty empty when I left.

So now I am at the Toronto Airport waiting for my flight to LA, I don't board for another two hours, but Lisa had an earlier flight than me. I then have a seven hour wait at LAX, I am going to see if Qantas will let me in the lounge, I doubt it but it is worth a try.

Got to Toronto around 1pm today, after arranging tickets to go to Niagara Falls we went and found some lunch. It is getting cold here so we quickly discovered the PATH, the underground tunnels that connect all the city buildings. You can go all over town without having to go outside, but it is a bit confusing to start off with.

We also bought ticket for the hop on hop off bus, so we took the last bus of the day and just took the full trip around the city without getting out. We will do the proper sight seeing on Wednesday, off to the falls tomorrow. Bought one more bit of clothing today, it is like I can't stop at the moment.

Been a very busy time here in New York, very long days every day.

On the evening of my first night I met some other travellers in the lobby and we decided to go check out a rooftop bar call 380 on 5th, it was on the 20th floor and had fantastic views of the Empire State building.

I had two more days here by myself before Lisa arrived. The first day I caught a train downtown to near the Brooklyn Bridge and then walked down the water from to try and find a get a good picture. I continued to walk down to the Stanton Island Ferry, but by the time I got there the rain was starting to get quite heavy.

So the decision was made to make it a shopping afternoon, so I caught a train to midtown to check out Macys. After finding some good deals (I am now carrying a second bag to fit everything), I headed to a bar called “The Australian”, I heard from a guy in the hotel that they sold Coopers beer and I have missed my coopers.

I then went back to hotel to dump my latest shopping successes. I ran into the same guys from the night before (and a couple of others), so after a bit of dinner we headed back to “The Australian” so they all could be introduced to what I was spruiking as the best beer in Australia – Coopers.

The next morning the day was a lot nicer, so I attempted to finish my site seeing from the day before and caught a train straight to the Stanton Island ferry. This is a free ferry that goes very close to the Statue of Liberty. I figured if I actually went to the island I would be too close to take photos. It seems to be a very popular thing to do, with most people getting off and going straight to the return ferry. You also get really good views of the downtown buildings.

On my return I walked up through the financial district and down Wall st, struggling with the masses to get a good photo of the “bull”. I then went down to the World Trade Centre memorial, there is lots of security to get in which I can understand, but it was worth seeing. I still remember seeing it all happen live on TV all those years ago.

I then headed up to Century 21 (another big shopping centre) and am happy to say I did not spend that much money this time.

By his time the new hotel would have been ready for me, this is where I was staying with Lisa. So I head back and got settled in and waited for Lisa to arrive. She got in fairly late and after a long day of flying for her we went out and got some dinner and had an early night.

Saturday was a very big and long day. Even though we were right next to the Empire state building we never went up it. Instead we went up to the Rockefeller Plaza to do “Top of the Rock”, this has great views of the city and Central Park and the great advantage is that your city photos actually have the Empire State building in it. That is the one problem going up the Empire state build observation deck, you take photos of the city without the most iconic building in it because you are on top of it.

We then walked down to Grand Central Station before heading to Times Square to buy tickets to the Lion King. We then caught the subway down to Chinatown before doing a walk half way across the Brooklyn Bridge and then walked down to Century 21 so Lisa coud down some shopping. We had to go back to Times Square so I could go to a Lids shop to buy a baseball cap.

Last day in New York, so we caught a train up to Central Park and spent a few hours walking through there as well as checking out the zoo. It is such an impressive park and I could really have spent the day walking around.

We then headed to midtown to go to a shop Lisa wanted to go too, but before heading back to the hotel to pack and get ready for show. We figured you could not go to New York without going to see a Broadway show and the Lion King is one of the biggest at the moment. It was a very impressive show and I very happy we went.

We are now at JFK airport waiting for our flight to Toronto where we are staying for three nights. I will load up some photos soon, but I have about 800 photos of New York to work out which ones are good and which ones are rubbish.

Been a very busy three days and have not had much of a chance to do much on the blog.

After my very interesting night in Uvalde I moved onto Houston. Uvalde was very country, it main industry around the area is game hunter. They have massive farms out there with exotic animals that hunters coming all over to shoot things.

Houston was the craziest place I had to drive, I had a bit of time before I had to meet up with my frind Kevin, so I went to NASA Houston. This meant I had to go from one side of town to the other on the freeways, it really was the spagetthi roads you seen in the movies and was really hard work.

I caught up with Kevin and his friends Will at Will’s appartment, we then went out on the town going out for dinner and finding some cool pubs to drink.

The following day we drove to Nederland where Kevin lives, I had a nightmare scenario where my GPS would not start up, I knew which way I had to go, but after some searching I could not find the freeway, so I went back to Will’s and got directions and loaded up google maps on my phone as a reference. As it turns out about 10 minutes down the freeway the GPS kicked in and it was an easy drive.

After settling in at Kevin’s house his parents took us out for dinner for some Cajun food – Gumbo is very nice. Kevin and I went out after dinner in Beaumont, the bigger city near his home. We went to one of his locals and then headed to the John Wayne bar to catch up with some of his friends. I ended up doing a bit of line dancing and the two step.

After a bit of sleep in we went to the wetlands to see if we could spot an alligator, we saw a couple in the water, but had no luck finding one on the bank to get any good photos. We then went back into Beumont to see the worlds third largest fire hydrant, I can only assume that once upon a time it was the largest.

On Monday I drove to New Orleans, from Vegas to New Orleanns I covered 2500 miles, so it was quite a journey. I went for a walk aroun town during the day and then went out in Bourbon Street with some guys I met in the Hostel.

I caught a flight to New York today, getting to my Hotel around 4pm. I think I am just have a quiet night today and go for a good walk around tomorrow. I used the subway to get into town, so I have arleady had a feel of New York.

It is Wednesday night here and Lisa will arrive on Friday night, so that will be a bit of fun. It is a lot colder here than every where else I have been in the US and am wearing a jacket for the first time since being in the US.

It is funny how hard it is to sleep sometimes - I had everything going for me last night, 9.6 mile hike, the restaurant closes and 9pm and no TV in my room - yet I was still awake at 11pm. Never the less I still made it up early and packed up all my gear ready to check out by 11am. I had a quick coffee and juice, then headed out on a 3.8 mile hike so I could get back and shower before checkout.

I did the window trail today, this is to the "V" you may have seen in a lot of my photos. Where I am staying is called the basin, but it actually 1500ft above the surrounding area, it is the middle of a big mountain range. The window is a gap in this range where all the water collected in the basin falls to the ground. It is dry most of the year, but it was a must do walk to do before I leave. Still no bears or lions.

After finishing the walk I checked out and had an early lunch before hitting the road. I took one of the smaller highways to Uvalde, needing to go through border control three times, since I am was so close to the Mexican border at Big Bend and for most of my drive today it is understandable. I never actually left the US, but they are still looking for illegals.

It was quite a nice drive, going through Amistad National Recreational reserve.

I got to Uvalde about 6pm and have settled into what seems like a nice hotel. I really feel like I am Texas now, the hotels moto is "we welcome hunters". It is Halloween tonight, the hotel has a bar but I don't how crazy it will get as it seem pretty quiet so far.

Of to Houston tomorrow, first stop is NASA and then meeting up with my friend Kevin for a night out.

A big day on foot today - had a bit of a sleep in mainly due to the two hour time zone change over the last two days. I could not get to sleep before midnight and ended up waking at 8:00am despite my best efforts to be at brekky by 7:00am.

So after a quick meal I went to the park information office and got some information on the longer hikes that I could do in a day. I decided on a 9.6 mile hike that ascends about 1500ft, it started in one valley on a trail called the Laguna Meadow Trail which went about 3.3 miles, I then took a 1.8 mile trail the took to great views of the Green Creek Valley (destroyed by fire in 1989 and recovering nicely) before heading onto the Pinnacles trial which lead me down into another valley before crossing into another valley to get back to lodge.

It took about four and half hours to do, I was going to do another 3.8 mile hike, but the rain started getting heavier towards the end of the first hike and never really let up again. It drizzled on and off for most of the first hike, but it was not too bad, but it was more consistent at the end. It was probably all for the best as I realised it was the 31st October in Australia and it was the last day I could do my e-Tax.

Tomorrow the plan is to the 3.8 mile hike in the morning before I have to check out. I will only do this hike if it not raining as part of this walk is the views you get into some other valleys.

I will then start my two day trek to past Houston, I have decide to take one of the smaller highways rather than the bigs ones to enjoy the view more.

So not as big a drive today making it to the Big Bend National Park with plenty of time to go for a short walk and watch the sunset, though with another time zone change I lost another hour.

It was quite a good drive with the country side change quite a lot through the drive, there was some very strange art work on the way (I assume that's what it was) with a small Prada shop in the middle of no where.

The drove in was amazing and am staying in a place called the Basin, this is starting point of all the walks and I have a very busy day planned with a 10 mile walk. It is a combination of three walks, so if it gets too much a can cut it down by basically turning off.

Had a big day on the road today, it will be the biggest of any of the days driving. In total I did 563 miles which is a bit of 900kms. Not the most ideal way to spend the day, but it needed to be done so I could do the whole drive into the Big Bend National Park and hopefully get a walk in before dinner.

I had a terrible nights sleep last night, had these crazy dreams about people breaking into my and take my stuff. You think it was scary, but once I mention that the person attacking me was pretending to be a big cat and when I fought back I could not hurt them because they had a cardboard box on their head. The dream all worked out in the end, they got caught and deported back to England - don't ask me, it was just a crazy dream.

So I left Kingman around 9:30 after getting a good American breakfast into me, but I really can't handle how they do their bacon. Took about four to get to Eloy where there is an indoor skydiving center, though I did stop quite a few times to take photos. Since it had been a while since I had jumped and never been in a wind tunnel I thought it best to just go through the beginner training than just jump in there and see what happened.

I did 2 x 2 minute sessions which was a lot of fun, but all up took an hour out of my day. So I hit the road again and got to Las Cruces in New Mexico around 8:30. But now I have crossed into central mountain time and it was actually 9:30. Got a very hotel room tonight and best of all they have a laundry, so I have done all my washing before bed - though I was very upset to find I have lost a sock.

After a couple of days of letting hair down in Vegas with the other guys from the conference (Tyler came down from LA as well) we parted ways with everyone heading home. So the road trip part of my holiday has finally started, though I did not get too far today.

I stopped off at the Hoover Dam which is only about an , since I was there I did a tour of the place. The photos don't do the size any justice. I then kept heading south and then turned off to go see the Grand Canyon. Once I had to turn of the highway the drive got pretty slow, they doing the road up and the 30 miles was on rough dirt roads.

I went to the Skywalk, which is counter levered walk way that hangs over the side of the canyon and has a glass floor. It is pretty freaky, unfortunately they want let you take a camera out with you (they have their own photographers and want you to pay for their photo's).

By the time I left the sun had set and had to drive about another 90 minutes to get to Kingman, the town I decided to stay in for night. I am staying in a old highway hotel right on Route 66, it is nice and cheap, but really just picked it for the big sign they have out the front.

The conference is finally over and it is time to get the blog up and running. So here is a breakdown of what I have been up to in the last week.

I left Melbourne last Thursday morning, flying to Sydney to get a connecting flight to LA. Work sent me Premium Economy, so it was a very comfortable flight. The only downside was that I had seen most of the movies showing on the flight. So a few drinks and I was ready for a sleep anyway.

Landing in LA I was all ready for the long wait through US Immigration, but when I got to the line there was only two people ahead of me and I was out within 10 minutes. Got a shuttle bus to the Hostel just off Hollywood Boulevard. So due to the time difference it was still Thursday morning.

Did not get up to much for the rest of the day, just walked down the Boulevard to the Chinese Theatre and checked out the area. It is a pretty run down area and no way as nice as I expected. For the rest of the day I just hung out at the hostel recovering from the flight. I had dinner and drinks at the hostel.

After a good sleep I took the hostel walking tour to Beverly Hills. A few of the places we went past was Elvis's LA home, where Michael Jackson died and the Playboy Mansion.

Tyler a guy I worked with at Hydro now lives in LA, so he came to stay at the hostel for a couple of nights (he lives a bit out of the city for us to stay there. After a few drinks catching up we went back to the hostel for a BBQ dinner. We then went to see a UK house band call Disclosure. We then went y to the Roxbury Night club.

On Saturday went to Universal studios to do all the rides and a backstage tour. After the big night we weren't feeling too flash after some of the 3D rides, but we made it through and it was quite cool doing the backstage tour. That night Tyler organized Ice hockey tickets to see the LA Lakers, great seat just behind the dug out area (not really sure what it is called).

On Sunday I went and picked up my rental car and started the drive to Vegas, I got out of LA pretty easily once I got on the freeway it was a breeze. It was pretty cool driving through the dessert, but I have a lot more of this to do in the coming week.

Once in Vegas I settled into my hotel room which is cool and waited for Ricky and Tony (my coworkers) to turn up. We went out and got dinner and put our plan down for the coming week. I won't go into too much detail about the conference other than saying it was very long days and I learnt a lot. The evenings were filled with socializing and drinking and last night the band Imagine Dragons played.

So the conference is now officially over and I am going to spend today and tomorrow in Vegas and then starts he big drive that will finish in New Orleans after about eight days. Tyler is coming to Vegas for the weekend, so we will hang out for a couple of days doing a bit of shopping and partying.

Once again the internet has been pretty erratic out in western desert, but I should be happy there was some at least some of the time so I could keep up to date what is happening in the world. So here is the final entry for my trip, I am now at a hotel in Cairo and will be catching a taxi in a couple of hours to the airport. Here is what has happened this week:

Monday So New Years in the Bahariya Oasis was a good as can be expected. We went out for dinner and then moved up to the hotel roof to have some drinks and set off fireworks. It was a pretty good night, though it is strange to be in a place where there are no other celebrations going on.

Tuesday The next day we had a big bus trip to the Siwa Oasis, it took about six hours to there. Half the trip is on a new road and the other half is on the old road which was built during World War II and looks like it has not been maintained since.

We took a detour into the desert to check out the remains of WWII fighter plane that crashed and then just out of Siwa we stopped off at a natural spring that was originally developed by the Romans and used by soldiers during the war. It was so clear and at one end you could still see the original Roman walls and steps. The water comes out of the ground at about 20 degrees.

Once settled into our hotel we went for a walk into town to look at the old part of the city which was all mud brick (and preserved for people to see). We climbed up to the high point of the building to watch the sunset. We went out for dinner and then picked up our bicycles that we were going to use the next day.

Wednesday So today was our bike riding day around Siwa, the first to was the mountain of the dead, a mountain not far out of town where 300 tombs where found which date back the Greek and Roman era when Alexander the Great rule Egypt.

When then went to a temple built by Alexander and then to the place where he was made king of Egypt.

Once final stop for the bike tour was to go to a spring used by Cleopatra, once again it had been enlarged since, but you could still see the original stone work under the water. It was the warmest spring yet at 24 degrees. We hung out at a cafe set up next to the spring where we had lunch and smoothies.

Thursday This day was pretty much a day stuck on a bus again, taking 8 hours to get to Alexandria - our final stop for the tour. Once there we went to Alexandria library and then out to find a local seafood restaurant to eat as we were all starving.

Friday The last day of actually doing touristy things. We started at the catacombs under the city, then to Pompey's Pillar and the museum. After a felafel lunch we then walked to the Citadel on the waters edge.

It has been a very busy week and very little internet to speak of, so here is a run down of my week. I have been able to update my map, but will have to wait until I get home to upload the rest of my photos.

Tuesday

We went to Philae in the morning, this is also one of the temples move and was under water for quite a few years behind the low dam. It would have been a pretty cool dive site during that time, but was eventually moved to dry land.

We then went back to the hotel to pack and went to our Felucca which was going to take us north towards Luxor. We sailed for about two hours before parking for lunch (Xmas lunch). The wind was picking up so it was determined to windy to sail, so we were towed for an hour or so until the wind calmed down and then we sailed until sunset where we parked for dinner and slept the night.

Wednesday

In the morning we transfered from the Felluca to a bus for the rest of the trip to Luxor. On the way we stopped off at Kom Ombo Temple and Edfu Temple. The temples just start to keep on getting bigger and bigger. Once in Luxor we all did our own thing in the afternoon before meeting up to do a night tour of Luxor temple, this is a very popular temple to do at night rather than through the day.

Thursday

It was another early start this morning to do a balloon ride over the west bank of the city where all the tombs and temples are. We were picked up at 5am and driven to the launch site. It was a pretty amazing ride getting to see the sites from above. After about 45 minutes we landed and was driven to meet up with the rest of the group who did not do the ride.

We then got our donkeys which we were going to ride for about 45 minutes towards the valley of the kings. We were all expecting to be lead along, but were surprised when we were instructed how to make them go faster and stop, we were then off. The only rule we had is that we could not go past the lead donkey. It became a bit of a race and I slowly moved into second place, my donkey "white lightning" then made its final move over taking the last donkey (deciding to bite it on the way past) and I rode to glory.

We then took a ute the rest of the way to valley of the kings. Unlike all the other tombs we had seen so far, by this time the kings were working out the pyramids kept on getting robbed, so they started digging them into mountain so they weren't so obvious.

After a brief history lessson we went into three tombs - Ramsses III, Ramsses IV and Mernptah (entry ticket included access to three of the ten open tombs). There are 60 odd in total, but they cycle through them. We also paid the extra to go and see King Tutts tomb, though not spectacular it is the most famous and his mummy is on display in the tomb.

We then went to the Funerary Temple of Queen Hatshepsut which is very imposing on the landscape and then statues of Memnon, then headed to locals house for lunch. After lunch we took a boat up the river to the Temple of Karnak, the largest temple ever built in the world. It is actually a complex of temples and covers 60 acres in total.

In the evening I went out with some people I ran into at the Valley of the kings, they were staying in the same hostel I was before starting the tour.

Friday

Today our long trek to the desert began, the first leg of the trip was an 8 hour drive to the Dakhla Oasis. This was just really a place to stay the night as we could not get all the way to the White desert in one day. We did go for a walk to the old part of town which is slowly disappearing with redevelopment, but there is still a maze of old mud brick buildings existing.

Saturday

Today was our final step into the desert, though we did have a couple of stops on the way. The first stop was to visit an old Arabic village of El-Kasr, though pretty much empty now it is still pretty much intact and it was amazing wondering through the narrow streets and looking into some of the mud brick buildings.

We then stopped off for lunch at an Badr Museum in the Faratra Oasis, which is owned by a famous artist in Egypt. Here we transferred to 4WD for the rest of our journey. We stopped off looking at the amazing natural formations of the desert before stopping just before sunset to set up camp and prepare for a night in the desert. It gets quite cold during the night, but the camel wool blankets do the job to keep you warm.

Sunday

So yesterday we packed up camp and drove off to see more sites on our way to the Bahariya Oasis where we are going to spend two nights. We stopped of at the mushroom desert (where the formations look like mushrooms), crystal mountain where for some reason there is a massive crystal formation and the black desert.

We have now spent one night in the hotel and we are doing a tour today before going out for dinner for New year and probably have a few drinks on the roof of the hotel (the only place you can drink).

Yesterday was our first day at Aswan, the train was only an hour late - it still has not arrived today and it is 2:30pm. We went for a walk around town and went and saw the Coptic Church and the unfinished Obelisk which still remains in the original granite quarry due to crack that formed while they were trying to make it. If finished it was going to be the heavy single man made object ever.

Last night we caught a Felluca over to the Nubian village on the other side of the river to have dinner with the locals. It was a nice relaxing night.

This morning we had to get up at 2:30am to join the convoy to Abu Simbel, one of they temples they moved when the high dam was built. It is a huge temple and took 4 years to move.

Have a free afternoon to look around town and then dinner out tonight. We are going to Philae Temple early in the morning and then onto the Felluca for the night on the way to Luxor. Will be spending Xmas on the Felluca and won't have internet for a few days.

So today is the first of the trip and it was a big day, we spent the morning being shown around the Cairo Museum - obviously the key attraction is the King Tut display with all the glorious Gold coffins and artifacts buried with him. It was really interesting and our guide has great knowledge of the ancient history.

We then went and saw the Great Pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx. We walked around the biggest and I went in an saw the Solar Boat. This boat was found in pieces buried next to the pyramid and was put back together and measures 43 metres. We then went to the paranamic lookout and did the usual corny photos of doing things to the pyramids.

We then went down to the second pyramid and went inside to have a look at the burial chamber, then down to the Sphinx for an hour before heading for a late lunch. Now we are on the night train on the way to Aswan were we will spend two nights.