Hello, one and all. I’m in Egypt. I’ve seen Cairo and the pyramids, Aswan, Luxor and the valley of the kings and now I’m in Dahab.

Egypt is a funny country - pretty much all of the people live in Cairo, and all the towns are pretty much straight down the Nile. There is a lot of tourism here, unsurprisingly, but the country does still seem very Arab - its not that rare to see people setting up a prayer mat wherever they are for their daily prayer, or on a Friday from having entire side streets and half the train station being filled with massive prayer mats.

The pyramids were pretty impressive, I’d put them on a par with the great wall, really, and the other stuff was all really interesting (we went to a tomb in the valley of the kings that was hidden away so you had to climb and stuff to get there, which was fun). I wanted to take a felucca up the Nile for a few days, but there really wasn’t time.

Dahab is different, though, it feels a lot more western - its pretty much a town for relaxing and diving, and its a lot quieter than the other places in Egypt I’ve been.

Anyway, having lots of fun - the Egyptians are all complaining that its winter here and really cold and wearing sheepskin jackets - it probably gets to about 15 degrees centigrade at night! I’m heading up Mount Sinai tonight to see the sunrise tomorrow, then heading back to Cairo on Tuesday, then to Nairobi on Thursday night for a Kenyan Christmas. Looking forward to it all.