Egyptian FAIL

So on my last day or so in Bangkok, I spent my time just aimlessly wandering the city, until the evening hours, at which point I went to watch some Muay Thai at one of the local stadiums.  SO fun.  I sat ringside, and got to watch the fighters do the pre-fight ritual in the middle of the ring, etc etc.  I got to see a pretty good number of fights before I had to leave for the airport, and was very satisfied :D  

The fights just looked so intense to watch, since the fighters were obviously in such incredible shape, and took so many hard hits, and just kept going.  Pretty impressive stuff...

I then caught my cab to the airport, and boarded my long flight to Egypt.  They kept the lights on the ENTIRE flight (9.5 hours), and repeatedly woke me up to get the bad airplane food.  ARG.  I was a grumpasauarus when I got off in Egypt, but knew I was going to get to see Michelle, so it was all ok :D

I finally got to the hostel, and we had the BEST reunion ever.  It was so good to see her!!  It was so fun to have things be just like before I left, and we pretty much spent the day just chatting, seeing the Egyptian museum, and doing.....nothing.....a good day, all in all

The second day was spent in a desperate hunt to find Ibn Tulun mosque, where we officially learned to NEVER trust directions given to you by an Egyptian.  It will most likely be incorrect....But we finally found Ibn Tulun, and got to go up in one of the minarets during the call to prayer, which was a really surreal experience.  The mosque itself was beautiful, but we sadly couldn't go inside due to lack of headscarves....

The harassment has been relatively tame, though we're learning that Egyptian men are probably the creepiest on EARTH.  Instead of cat-calling or doing anything else, they hiss??  Very creepy....Oh, and someone threw popcorn at us last night, but that's really all the aggressive instances we've had....

We did our bit at the pyramids yesterday, except we didn't actually go up to the Giza complex, as first off, it's right by the highway, which sort of kills the magic, and you get HARASSED so badly just trying to get in, that it destroys any enjoyment of the place you might have had.  Our guide drove us up just to get a feel for it, at which point groups of people started CHASING the car, knocking on the window trying to sell us things.....ugh

So instead we spent the day at Saqqara by the step-pyramid and old tombs and whatnot, which was much better, and go to ride camels through the Sahara, away from all the crowds and stuff, which was GREAT.

Today Michelle and I head off to Athens for 3 days, and then I'm off to Budapest! :D

Updates to come!

p.s. - I changed the comment settings so you shouldn't have to log-in to comment, so go for it....