My Mom and step-dad came to Doha in early April for a few days of sightseeing and then a trip to Egypt. In their couple days in Doha they got to see the souq, malls, cornice, and go on a desert safari. Then we hopped on a plane to begin our week in Egypt. I was looking forward to seeing more besides just Sharm el sheikh and getting to show them around a little more authentic/historic part of the middle east. Our first night in Cairo we were very lucky to be invited to dinner at the home of one of my friends who is from Cairo. He and his wife have a lovely home and the dinner was amazing. It was a good introduction to the country.

The next day we dug right in to the "must-see" list for Egypt, starting with the Pyramids at Giza. We learned quickly that nothing is free in Egypt (posing for a picture, directions to a good viewing spot, lowering a rope to a side area. All were eager for a little baksheesh (tip). The same day we saw the step and false pyramids at Sakara and the old city of Memphis. After that busy day we took a short rest and then a stroll along the Nile in search of nice views and a good restaurant (found both).

We woke up on Saturday and started out on a city tour of old and new Cairo. Our first stop was the Citadel where we saw some real relics from Egypt’s military history and the Mosque of Mohammed Ali (not the boxer). Our guide shared a few of his views on Islam and how Egypt had gotten the bad end of

a deal where they traded an ancient Egyptian obelisk for a fancy clock tower that has never worked. The same day we also visited some of Cairo's other religious monuments including a Coptic cathedral where it is said Jesus and Mary slept when they came were hiding from the authorities in Jerusalem. We also saw the Ben Ezra Synagogue which claims to be near the place where the Pharaoh’s daughter found Moses in a basket in the weeds.

Wrapping up the day we spent 4 hours exploring the Egypt museum. We walked through the whole thing but I think it would have taken much longer if we had wanted to give every piece our full attention. It all became a bit overwhelming by the end. It's easy to forget that everything you are looking at is 3000+ years old. The standout collection by far however was the group of artifacts from Tutankhamen’s tomb. While he was not a long-lived, powerful or otherwise noteworthy king, he did have the good

fortune of having is tomb go undiscovered until the 1920's when its contents were catalogued and put on display. It really makes you wonder what the original tombs of some of the more significant kings would have looked like.

If that weren't enough, we boarded a train to take the overnight to Luxor. Straight from the train to a cab we were at the Karnack temples by 630am before most of the crowds. We later went to Luxor temple, wandered around for a couple hours and then arrived at the hotel before noon. At that point, it was time for Lunch on rooftop restaurant and a shower/nap at the hotel to beat the mid-day heat. We stayed at a nice little out-of-the-way place on the West Bank that didn’t see anywhere near the traffic the East Bank did. Later in the afternoon, we caught the ferry across the river and wandered around East bank. During the process, a carriage driver attempted to rip us off on a ride (be sure to be crystal clear about Egyptian pounds vs. UK pounds). Luxor museum was small but filled with excellent pieces, much better preserved than what I saw in Cairo. Unfortunately later we went to the mummification museum which was smaller but infinitely less impressive. Polishing it all off with dinner on the bank of the nile; not bad for the first three days.

The next day we set out for what would be a full day exploring all of the sites on the West Bank. The first site we came to were the Colossi of Memnon. These two Giant statures are part of a temple that is now completely gone, but they stand in the middle of a field, protecting the path to the Valley of the Kings where many of Egypt’s Kings Were buried. The Kings Valley /Queen’s valley and Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir al-Bahri are all spread over a large area and we had a guide and car to get us between the different locations. We saw in the Valley of the Kings, tombs of Ramses I, Ramses IX, Tuthmosis III. The Tuthmosis tomb was one of the best hidden, deep at the head of the valley, down several steep shafts and corridors. . Although it was only April, it was already summer. The sun was beating down and the tombs were filled with stale air made more uncomfortable by the crowds of sweating tourists. The art and carvings in the tombs were interesting but all the artifacts had been removed to museums. Still, it was an experience and worth doing, unless you are not good in confined spaces. The same day we also went to the Valley of the Queens and saw the tomb sof Titi, Khaemwaset, Amunherkhepshef, the wifeand sons of one of the Ramses'.

The next morning we left early to travel down to Aswan stopping at Edfu temple (temple or horus) and Kom Ombo temple on the way. At Kom Ombo we were the only ones in the place which was really special considering all the tourists in most other places in Egypt. After arriving in Aswan we checked into a slightly dodgy hotel with a very dodgy elevator (only stopped working one time) but what do you expect for $10 per night. It did have a great view from the rooftop (see below). Later we had a sunset meal overlooking the Nile and finished night walking through the souqs.

For our first day in Aswan we started on a felluca ride with a captain I met the day before in an internet cafe. A felluca is a traditional sailboat and was a very nice way to move around the river. We made stops in the botanical gardens and elephantine island where we saw a sad little museum and remnants of Temple of Abu. We then hopped in a cab and rushed to see the Nubian museum before it closed for the afternoon. After the museum we grabbed a quick bite of lunch and then later in the evening we went to have dinner at a Nubian Village. The visit to the village ended up being a disaster with a tour guide who was very friendly but not very good. We basically walked up and down a street where we were hassled to buy things and almost run over by camels schlepping tourists. After that we had dinner at someone’s home, no interaction, just dinner by ourselves in the living room. Oh, and they showed us a “Nile Crocidile”, 16 incles long in a fish tank in the living room. Nevertheless, our guide seemed terrified. The night ended with our guide crying and apologizing to do better after I responded to his question of what I thought of the tour.

The next day we got up really early for a 3am departure to visit Abu Simbel, Philae Temple, high dam and the unfinished Obelisk. The only way to travel down to Abu Simbel is a 3 hour bus ride in a convoy at crazy speed on marginal roads. The convoy was an experience; everyone meets at the edge of town before dawn and then easily 100 busses, vans, and cars all take off with police/military in the lead towards Abu Simbel. Then for the next 3 hours they all compete to see how dangerously they can overtake each other (including into oncoming traffic). I recommend sleeping, ignorance is bliss. Once there, Abu Simbel was amazing. It was better preserved than anything else I had seen. What is even more incredible is that it was all cut up and moved block by block in the 1960’s to higher ground to protect it from the rising water of Lake Nasser.

After stopping at the Philae Temple (excellent) and High Dam (not worth it) we decided to skip the unfinished obelisk and make it back to the hotel. After a very full day, got on a train for the overnight trip back to Cairo on the train. At this point in time, I’m sure my parents were thinking it was the last time they ever authorized me to plan as much as possible into one week. Our last day and a half was around Cairo where we got the chance to explore the city in more detail and do some souvenir shopping. We literally spent the entire day walking around old Cairo (10 hours)! It was a great way to see the city and really get a feel for the culture. You know you are doing something right when the street is coursing with people (and animals) and there is not another tourist in site. It was a good way to end our trip. I got on a plane and headed back to Doha and my parents survived another half day on their own before flying back to the US.

More photos at:

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In what would the first of a very busy spring for diving, I started out at one of the most famous locations in the world, Sharm el-Sheikh Egypt on the Red Sea. In March of this year I took a 4 day weekend and got in three days diving and one relaxing on the beach. It still was not quite summer temperatures yet to really enjoy the beach but the sun felt great and the diving was excellent. The clarity of the water was great and the number of small fish schooling everywhere was absolutely incredible. Will have to make it back in the future sometime for sure!

I’ve been getting worse and worst at keeping to my regular updates; I guess it has just been a very busy spring. I’m embarrassed this post is almost 2 months post-facto. Just as the weather was getting nice in Doha and starting to be boat/wakeboard weather again, I decided to take a long weekend and check out Moscow. Loosely, the reason for going was to go to a festival called Maslenitsa. Apparently it is some leftover tradition that goes back to the pagan days and celebrates to coming of spring. As you can see from the clothes everyone is wearing in the pictures, it was not quite spring weather. In fact, most of the time I was there it was below freezing and lightly spitting snow. It was the first time that I had been in the snow for a long time (don’t see much of that in Doha). I’m not sure who this guy is but he was one of the characters running around the festival. There were lots of other people (well, mostly children) getting their picture taken with him so I figured I would too.

Besides checking out the festival, there was not too much on the itinerary, just sightseeing around the city in the day and going out at night. I went with a friend from work and we only had three nights in town and our long-delayed departure from Doha on the way out meant that we really only had two nights out on the town. Thanks to my sister and her family employee rate, we were able to get a great deal and stay at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel right next to Red Square. This is THE hotel in Moscow, normally going for $1000+ per night; we paid much, much less. Make no mistakes though, Moscow is an expensive city. We had some great dinners out and went to some great nightclubs but, even with the ruble having fallen 30% against the dollar, it all added up quickly. Part of it could have been that we had the concierge at a $1000 a night hotel giving recommendations. We were also able to meet up with one of our old coworkers and friends from Houston who helped point us in the right direction as well.

The picture above is in Red Square looking back at St. Basil’s cathedral. The hat was a purchase in the market earlier in the day. The fur hat was quite popular, I thought the old soviet symbol on the front was a nice touch. Below is another picture looking the opposite direction in Red Square. The Kremlin is on the left and the GUM department store is on the right. The GUM is a historic building that once was the state distribution center for simple consumer goods. Now it is filled with shops from all the glitziest retail brands in the world.

For the second Eid holiday of 2008 I went with a Coworker to Vietnam and Cambodia for a week and a half. The first two days were around Ho Chi Minh City including a trip around the Mekong river delta in a boat. It was a nice mix of city and countryside between the two. One of the more interesting sites in the city was the "war remembrances museum" which could have been more appropriately named the "American atrocities museum". After the better part of an hour looking at pictures and stories of napalm, destruction of villages, Agent Orange and other warm and fuzzies, my friend and I were hoping that there could be someplace where we could let the locals beat us a little so we could feel better. Despite the rough history between US and Vietnam people were generally very friendly to us the whole time we were there. The picture below is on one of the small river passages on the Mekong.
Another of the sites that we saw around HCMC was the Cu Chi tunnel complex. There they had preserved part of a network of tunnels that the Viet Cong had used in the war to move around without detection by the US Army. The network at this site had over 200 km of tunnels at its peak. In addition to the displays of the different types of booby traps and ways that they could sneakily shoot the Americans they also had a shooting range where you could shoot some of the old guns. Since I had already shot AK-47's and M-16's I decided to go for the big one, a fully automatic M-60 machine gun. Note that my ear protection is an old set of stereo headphones with the cord cut off them.

In Hanoi we met up with a friend from work in Houston who had recently started a job in Hanoi. We got to see a bit of the SE Asian expat lifestyle when we met up at a swanky hotel for drinks with some business associates and he then had his driver take us back to the house where his cook had dinner waiting. Seemed like a pretty nice deal to me. After dinner we headed out to see the town. The bar we ended up at was designed in a Wild West theme with wood paneling and wagon wheels everywhere but most of the surfaces inside had been covered in aluminum foil (presumably on the occasion of Christmas). To top it off they had a Vietnamese band playing cover songs on a stage in the middle of the place. Classic. More seriously in Hanoi, we also visited the Hoa Lo Prison or “Hanoi Hilton” as it was called, where John McCain (flight suit below) and other American POW’s were held during the Vietnam War. According to the exhibits, they were treated very well and allowed to do arts and crafts, and play sports in the courtyard. Something tells me that if you asked someone who lived through it they might have a different story.

After a couple days in Hanoi, we went to Halong Bay for an overnight cruise. The name literally means "bay of descended dragons". The limestone formations jut out of the water like the back of a sleeping dragon. This is the view from a cave called Surprise Cave that we stopped at during our cruise. Our boat crew made delicious seafood for every meal with as much crab, ship and fish as you could want, all very spicy and delicious.

After Vietnam, it was off to Siem Reap in Cambodia. Siem Reap is the town very near to the Angkor temple complex, home to many temples dating from ~1100 AD. The one behind me is Angkor Wat and is one of the best preserved of the temples at the site. The whole complex covers many square miles and takes several days to explore. Fortunately we had a great guide that showed us around to all of the highlights. Unfortunately, this included sunrise from the top of a temple after a long night partying in Siem Reap, stairs have never felt so steep.

One of the coolest things about the Angkor temples is how the jungle has grown around them over the centuries. Trees spring forth from walls and roots arch over doorways making for beautiful scenes. Our guide was quick to point out that Tomb Raider was filmed near this spot and Angelina Jolie had been in town for several weeks. The weekend before we arrived there had been a half marathon around the site where several thousand runners ran around the streets and paths through the temples. There seemed to be restoration crews from all the countries of the world working to rebuild or stabilize the ruins and keep the jungle from reclaiming them. Sadly the biggest enemy of the temples was not time but the soldiers and thieves that destroyed or cut the heads off many of the statues during the rule of the Khmer Rouge.

All the rest of my photos online at:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=5p42e5n.1awvzgk3&x=0&y=vf5ulm&localeid=en_US

In keeping with the "you went where" theme, my next trip was to the Islamic Republic of Iran. This had been one of my goals of places to visit since I arrived in Qatar. Getting a visa takes several months so I was always putting it off to go to other places. I finally got my application together and two or three months later, I had my visa. As it worked out, I arrived on November 4th, election Tuesday, which ended up providing lots of opportunities to talk politics. As it seems to be with the rest of the world, everyone in Iran was a big Obama fan, so they were happy that he took the election.


One of the most famous sites in Iran is Persepolis. Dating back to the Achaemenid Empire, it is more that 2500 years old and was only partially completed when it was sacked by Alexander the Great. Certain areas are extremely well preserved with intricate carvings of lotus flowers and warriors of many different empires of the time. At its height, the empire stretched from Turkey to India.

On my trip I spent a day in Tehran, 2 days in Shiraz/Persepolis, and 2 in Esfahan. It was a very fast tour around the highlights of the country but with the limited amount of time I had, I still managed to see some great sites. Some of my favorite sites were old palaces of the Shahs. Many had been destroyed over the years or defaced after the Islamic revolution in the 1970’s but there were some that were wonderfully preserved. While most were not very impressive from the outside, when I walked into the inner courtyard I often found that they had great water features and beautifully manicured gardens. The photo below is from Shiraz which is in the south of Iran and has mild weather all year-round. I happened to catch this shot just as the sun was setting and lighting up the clouds with beautiful purple and pink hues.

After Shiraz, I moved on to Esfahan albeit on the second try. My flight was cancelled one night due to weather so I ended up going back to the hotel at 1am and then catching a car the next morning at 7am for the 7 hour drive. The two other flights I took in Iran were also interesting; one was on a 727 which is a plane significantly older than I am. I’m normally an extremely calm flyer but I convinced myself that we were going to have to make an emergency landing as the engines whined and the plane struggled to gain altitude on takeoff. It didn’t help that they had announced at the start of the flight that I was welcomed to Iran airways “in the name of God the compassionate and merciful”. After making a sharp 180 degree turn I was convinced we were heading back but instead we just continued on our way slowly climbing up to cruising altitude.

Esfahan was my favorite city of the three; it is filled with monuments, mosques, and places and has a river that runs trough the middle of the city, making it a very green place. The center of the city is Imam square that has on its 4 sides: Ali Qapu Palace, Imam Mosque, Sheikh Lotfallah Mosque, and the entrance to the Bazar. The square itself used to be a polo field. This picture is from the balcony of the Ali Qapu Palace where the old Shah used to watch polo matches and relax in the outdoor hot-tub.

I had a bit of free time in Esfahan so I ended up wandering around the city but I spent most of that time exploring the bazar. In typical old bazar style, the market was a maze of wandering hallways, side alleys, and small courtyards with no appearance of order. I would just wander around passing from sections where all they sold were plastic kitchenware to others where you could find any size steel pot you could think of. After walking around all day, I spent my last evening in Iran sitting out on a terrace above the entrance to bazar, overlooking the Imam Square. After a bit of sheisha and some tea, I was ready to head to the airport and head back to Doha.

For more pictures, click the link below:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=5p42e5n.572wbkfv&x=0&y=51w24g&localeid=en_US

In early October a friend and I met up in Bangladesh for a few days of touring around the country. "Why Bangladesh? Nobody goes there," was the question I got from most people when I told them about my plans. It was also part of the reason why I wanted to go. “Off the beaten track” still exists in Bangladesh. In the 5 days that I was there, I saw 4 other white people, not counting my friend. As such, we were quite the attraction ourselves. If anyone is thinking it would be great to be a celebrity, I recommend they go to Bangladesh for a couple weeks. It gives you a good idea of what the constant attention feels like, stares, people wanting to take their photo with you in the city and on the beach (seriously).One of the days when we were travelling between cities, we got to a ferry crossing and had to wait about 30 minutes for the next ferry to cross. Looking around for some entertainment to kill the time, we soon realized that we were the entertainment. I don't think too many tourists make it through that particular crossing. We became even more of a hit when my friend started gambling in a street game. I did the quick math and figured that the "house" had about a 50% advantage but that wasn’t a reason not to play. My friend as betting around 5 Taka (~$0.10) and managed to win a couple times and lose a couple times, walking away with 2 Taka in winnings. I was tempted to put down a 500 Taka note but I didn't want to risk breaking the bank and turning a good time ugly.
At several different times on our trip, our guide arranged for us to have an armed police escort. While he insisted that it was not really necessary, he still seemed compelled to have it. They were always nice guys but what made the situation awkward was when we rolled up to a small village or tourist site full of Bangladeshis. Having an armed security detail does not help you to close the gap between you and the locals. Everyone was brought down to the same level though when we passed over a particularly slippery section of moss-covered rocks. It didn't matter if you were carrying a camera or a gun; it was all you could do to keep from falling on your backside.

We spent the majority of our trip in the Chittagong Hill Tracts in Southeast Bangladesh but on the way there we passed by some of the coastal regions. Bangladesh is one of the biggest ship breakers in the world. Old ships that are going to be taken out of service are brought here and dragged up as far as the can on the beach. Then workers with saws, hammers and torches start cutting pieces off. If you ever wanted a surplus lifeboat, compressor, set of captain’s stateroom furniture, this is your place. Unfortunately for the workers, it is a dangerous job and their living conditions are terrible. This is a picture of one of the villages that was right on the water. It is easy to imagine the devastation that a typhoon could bring to the area.

On the way up into the hill tracts, we stopped in the village of Painam Nagar. It used to be a big trading port on river but now is mostly deserted. There were many colonial buildings and a few Hindu temples. It was many years out of repair and it was neat to see how the jungle was slowly reclaiming it.

More photos online at:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=5p42e5n.5blvttsj&x=0&y=-27rkh8&localeid=en_US

Have you ever been at a party when a friend says “hey, book a ticket and come to Oktoberfest in Munich tonight”? Neither had I until this year. Obviously, there is only one answer to that question, especially during Ramadan. And so it was 10pm and I had a ticket for a flight that left in four hours. The next morning I woke up on touchdown in Bavaria.

Munich for Oktoberfest is one of those things that everyone needs to check off their list at some point in their life. It was great, like a giant carnival for adults that centers on drinking liters of beer in massive tents. If you show up at 11am, you are late to the party and by 1pm people are standing on benches and best friends with everyone at the tables around them.

I was there for four days which during which I subsisted on beer, brauts, and brezeln (pretzels); little surprise that by the final day we were all dressed in lederhosen and well versed in German drinking songs. The final day my flight left at 10:30pm so I ended up going from the tents to the airport (still in lederhosen). The next morning when my flight landed in Doha (still in lederhosen) it all seemed a bit surreal but certainly a good way to pass the last few days of Ramadan.

Lebanon is one of the places that I have wanted to go for most of the time that I have been in Doha. I had heard great things from many different people about its mountains, ruins, beaches, and nightlife. However, it had been in the middle of bit of civil unrest as it failed to elect a government for months until Qatar stepped in and brokered a compromise between the two sides. As things had settled down a little, I got a trip on the calendar started monitoring the news. Lebanon is not a very big country, I did a day tour which covered most of it. The picture above is from Baalbek, an ancient Roman city in the mountains to the East of Beirut. It is said to be one of the top Roman sites in the Middle East and covered quite a large area. Every summer they have a music festival that they setup in one of the ruins or temples. They were making all the preparations as we walked through the site. Missed it by a weekend, something to put on the list for the next time I am there in the summer.

One of the archeological sites that I visited also included a nice exhibit on the Lebanese army and their struggle against the “Zionist invaders” of the Palestinian homeland. I didn’t judge one way or another but I thought it made a cool picture. These guys really don’t like Israel; coming through immigration control on the way into the country two different officials look through every stamp in my passport (and there are a lot now) to see if I had been to Israel before. I guess that is what happens when Hezbollah runs you government.

The terrain in Lebanon is pretty amazing, people say that you can snow ski in the morning on one it’s almost 10,000 foot mountains and then drive down to the beach for the afternoon. It is also famous for its cedar forests. My guide said that this one had been studied and was more than 4,000 years old. It was a nice break to be up in the cooler mountain air after months of summer in Doha.
One of the main reasons for taking the trip to Lebanon on this particular weekend was to see a concert by DJ Tiesto, one of the most famous DJ’s in the world. He was playing in Beirut that weekend, so it seemed like the perfect party to attend in a party city. The nightlife was great, and went all night long. On the last night that I was there, I went to an after-hours club that was in an underground bunker. You drive up to the place and there appears to be nothing but a parking lot but you walk down the stairs and through the heavy metal door and . . . there you are. Best of all though, around 3am I look up and see that the roof is retracting and now the place is open to the night sky. Pretty good last night to the trip.

So, been a while since the last post but only travel to the US since Cyprus so I though I would wait until I went somewhere a little further a field. This time it was for a visit to Beijing. I was there in late July, just in time to see them making all the final preparations to host the 2008 Olympics. Even better, my friend Michelle was working in Beijing for the summer so I had a place to stay and a very excellent, Chinese-speaking, tour guide. I spent a lot of the time walking around Beijing and looking at temples, monuments and wandering through the backstreets. Below is a picture of the Lama Temple which was one of the highlights of Beijing. I drove by the birds nest (national stadium) and the water cube (national aquatic center) but security was very tight with less than 2 weeks to go to the games, so I couldn’t get any good pictures.

One thing that I can say about Beijing in July/August is that it is HOT and humid. I am glad that I wasn’t running 400m or playing in a soccer match, I was soaked through just walking around the streets. On one of the days I did the obligatory visit to the Great Wall and felt like I deserved a gold medal after over 3 hours of walking up and down. I do mean up and down, I don’t think there were any flat sections in the area where I was walking. That nice looking grey in the background, not mist. Humid, muggy, haze.

One of the best parts of the trip was the food. The Chinese food was great obviously but there were specialties from regions of the country that I had never seen before. Some of the strangest things were “Fire of Ignorance Tofu” which was served along with a tofu version of Peking duck (vegetarian restaurant, not my choice but really good). By far the strangest though was the “squirrel fish” (below). Interesting presentation and very tasty but I don’t think I would have ever ordered it if I had only seen the picture.

I was pretty much at the mercy of Michelle the whole time because almost all of the places we went to had no English on the menu. There might have been something available if we had asked but I like to believe that there wasn’t. Even still, there was a dish the first night that was a mystery. Michelle though the character meant “deer” or “donkey”, we ordered it and it was delicious (later confirmed to be deer). The picture below is Michelle ordering at one of the fancy places we went to. The staff to guest ration had to be approaching 1-to-1; service was amazing as was the setting and the show after dinner. The only thing that creeped me out a little was the woman with a fan-shaped hat and platform shoes standing over my shoulder the whole night waiting to refill my teacup whenever it was less that ¾ full.

Beijing was a great place to visit and walk around; despite the heat there were people out on the streets and sitting in parks. One of the nights we went to one of the restaurant areas to walk around and have a couple drinks. At the entrance there were a huge group of Chinese couples ballroom dancing to Chinese music. Some had some pretty good moves; others just tried really hard and seemed to be having a good time despite apparently being deaf to the music.
I left the day after they opened the Olympic Village and you could feel the excitement of the city growing. Everyone was very proud to be from Beijing and was ready to show the world that they can pull off the biggest sporting event in the world. I can’t wait to see the opening ceremony and the show that China puts on. Here's a link to some more of my pictures:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=5p42e5n.389facj7&x=0&y=tfco95&localeid=en_US

So… the trip for April is……Cyprus! Yes, the sunny and politically divided island nation in the eastern Mediterranean. It was time for another weekend trip and Cyprus seemed like a good idea for a little late spring holiday. I also got to meet up with one of my friends from college who was born in Cyprus and currently lives in the capitol.


The water around the island was an amazing shade of blue. The coastline on the West side of the island was quite rocky in places with smooth pebble beaches. This picture is of Petra tou Romiou, allegedly the birthplace of Aphrodite. The beach was covered with smooth, flat, stones that were perfect for skimming across the top of the water.

The capitol of Cyprus is Nicosia and is at the middle of the island’s Turkish/Greek conflict. Since 1974 when the Turks invaded the northern part of the island, Cyprus has been split between the Greek and Turkish parts. Nicosia is split in half by a UN-controlled demilitarized buffer zone. All the streets are blocked along the line except for a few official crossings. Only recently has it been possible to cross the line and travel into the North (which of course I did). It was pretty crazy to see the bullet holes in the sides of buildings and abandoned machinegun bunkers all through the city.

Cyprus did have some amazing ancient Greek and Roman archeological ruins. While I was there I visited several different sites but my favorite was, called Salamis. This was on the eastern part of the island in Northern Cyprus. Since it was north of the line there were very few tourists. It took more than two hours to walk around the entire site but my travel partner and I only saw two or three other people. The site is more than 3000 years old and had amazing views overlooking the ocean. It was easy to see why someone a long time ago would have wanted to build a city there.

It’s been more than a few weeks now, but I am finally getting around to putting up pictures from my trip to India. In later February, I spent a week traveling around the western part of India in the Rajasthan area. The highlight of the trip was the visit to the Taj Mahal; it was amazing.


I was at the Taj at sunset which has to be the best time to be there. It was crowded but the color of the sun on the white marble set against the blue sky was amazing.

This picture is from a Jain temple that I visited on the way from Jodhpur to Udaipur. The whole interior was carved with intricate patterns and figures.

This was a somewhat ‘typical’ street in Delhi although using the word typical is a bit of a misnomer since you never know what you will find on a street in India (up to and including a herd of cows in the middle of the city). I also liked how the power and telephone were just sort of hanging down into the street.

Photo from one of the rooms in the castle of the old Maharaja of Jodhpur. Meherangarh is a palace built high on a hill overlooking the city of Jodhpur. The Maharaja still runs the place but now lives in a nice estate on the outskirts of town. As they say, “it’s good to be the king”

Last February it was Carnival in Rio, this year it was Chinese New Year in Hong Kong. One of my friends from Houston now works in HK and has an amazing apartment in the heart of the city that was just too cool not to come visit before she moved on. There ended up being 3 of us that visited, myself and another guy from Doha, and a girl from London, all coworkers from Houston now on expat assignments. This is the view from The Peak, overlooking Hong Kong Island and the New Territories.

One of the days that we visited we went to Lantau Island where there is a very large bronze Buddha Statue. Unfortunately for us, we were there on a very cloudy day and it was hard to see well. The mist gave the whole visit a mysterious feeling as we walked between the different smaller statues and temples on the site.

We planned the trip to line up with the celebration of the Lunar New Year so that we could take part in the festivities as the Year of the Rat was ushered in. There were several different events throughout the week including a Flower Market, a parade, and a fireworks show over the harbor. The fireworks were great and it was fun to walk through the Flower Markets; however, the parade left a little something to be desired. Neither punctual nor that impressive, we decided that we could ditch it and went to eat sushi instead.
Saw this sign above a snack food vendor stall… Not sure what they serve but I think I will pass.


One of the days that we were in HK we decided to get on the high-speed ferry and jet over to Macau, the Las Vegas of Asia. We spent most of the day walking around the island and looking at monuments and relics from the island’s past as a Portuguese colony. After the sun went down it was time to hit the tables at the casinos. A few hours of blackjack and craps was enough to get the experience and tick the box. We got on the midnight ferry back to Hong Kong and counted our winnings (my friends) or losses (me). Fortunately, the Honk Kong Dollar is the currency of choice and at $8HK per $1US you feel like big deal when you’re playing $200+ hands of blackjack (ok, HK dollars)

In the two weeks before Christmas, a friend from work and I went to Kenya and Tanzania to have a safari on the Serengeti and to climb to the highest point in Africa, Uhuru Peak on Mt Kilimanjaro (19,340 feet for those keeping score at home). The scenery on the mountain was spectacular and we saw tons of animals on the safari. I have a few pictures in the post and more on-line at the link at the bottom of this post.

The hike was the first part of the trip, we chose the slightly longer Machame route, seven days on the mountain, to allow for more time for acclimatization to the altitude. Even with the extra days my friend still got sick and was not able to continue after day two. That said, I was not too lonely on the mountain as I was accompanied by the guide, cook, and eight porters. At first I couldn’t figure out why it took so many but then the first day at dinner I saw them setting up the steel table and chairs and it became a little more clear. Other interesting items that were packed: large LPG cylinder for cooking and boiling water, four dozen eggs, and a watermelon (consumed on day 5 on the mountain).

One of the interesting things about Kilimanjaro is that it is a free-standing mounting (extinct volcano) that rises out of the equatorial rainforest of northern Tanzania. The morning you start about 2000feet and then drive up to ~5500feet to the start of the train. Then over the course of the hike you go through several different climate zones from rain forest to high alpine desert.

After five days of hiking you get to the final camp before the summit, Barafu camp (15,400feet), in the late afternoon and have an early dinner so that you can get to bed early also. The reason for the early bedtime is that the summit hike starts at approx. midnight on the beginning of the 6th day. The goal is to leave camp in the middle of the night and hike 6-7 hours in the dark and cold (~ -10 F at the summit) so that you can arrive at the peak for sunrise. The hike is not that long in distance but it is up-up-up and the thin air forces you to take slow, small, deliberate steps all the way to the top. After reaching the summit, you take the necessary pictures and the take off back down the mountain since it is so cold at the top. It takes about 2 hours to get back to the Barafu camp and then after a brief rest, it is 3 more hours of descent to the final camp of the hike at Mweka at a relatively low altitude of 9900feet.

The Kili hike was one of the things that I really wanted to do while I was in Doha since it is so much more accessible than from back home. The altitude on the hike was really challenging as was the cold (especially for a boy who has only ever lives in Tucson, Houston, and Doha) but it was worth it to see some of the amazing views and the unique occurrence of glaciers on a mountain so close to the equator.

After a week on the mountain, the first night back in a lodge with a bed and a hot shower was wonderful. Feeling revived from the shower and bed and reunited with my coworker, I started safari portion of the trip the next morning. Over the 5 days, we went to Ngorongoro Crater, the Serengeti, and Lake Manyara, seeing lots of great animals in each location.

For the safari we had a drive/guide who took us all over the parks in an old Toyota Landcruiser with a pop-up roof so that we could stand up to take pictures of the animals. In contrast to the week on the mountain, there was not getting out of the car and strolling around the grassy plain lest one become a tasty snack for a lion (above) or a leopard (below).

After so many days riding around in the back of a Landcruiser over dusty and bumpy African roads, the bath the elephant was taking looked pretty good. Fortunately, even though the days in the car were long, we always had a nice lodge (or luxury tent camp) to sleep in at the end of the day so I did not have to fight the elephants for access to the water hole.

It was a great trip from start to finish and there are way too many pictures and stories to put on this site. I have a lot more pictures on my photo share site that are split between the climb and the safari sections of my trip, the links are shown below. This trip to Africa will definitely be a highlight of my trips from Doha.

Kilimanjaro climb
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=5p42e5n.6mo08u53&x=0&y=xlsj9t

Safari
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=5p42e5n.c0y47oxj&x=0&y=-md7dxh

Last weekend I went to Yemen with one of my friends from work. Yemen has the unfortunate reputation as one of the places that you have to be a little crazy to travel to. While my going there certainly does nothing to disprove this, there were never any times on the trip where I felt unsafe and the people were nothing but friendly.

Sana’a is the capital of Yemen and is one of the oldest cities in Arabia. The old city is comprised of many old multi-story mud houses that date back to the 11th century. As you can see in the photo the city is adapting to the 21st century with satellite dishes and taxis (note the absolute traffic chaos).
Me with our guide Abdul Aziz by the gate to the old city. In Yemen almost all of the men wear their traditional daggers called Jambias. About the only place that I ever saw anyone not allowed to wear one was in the airport.
The terrain of Yemen is incredible, steep mountains and deep valleys made for lots of long winding trips in from one town to another.

Ok, so Yemen still is a little crazy I guess. This is my friend from work making friends with rural Yemeni’s and being shown how to load and fire an AK-47. Good times.The rest of my photos can be found at: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=5p42e5n.c8xckclz&x=0&y=-dl283w

One of the "must-do's" in Doha is to get a tour company to take you for a trip through the dunes in the southern part of the country to the Inland Sea. You cram into a Landcruiser and then drive south to the end of the pavement, at which point the driver gets out and lets a lot of air out of the tires to improve traction on the sand; this is where the fun begins. These guys drive crazy in the desert, up and down dunes at crazy speeds.

What is particularly amazing about the experience is that there are lots of other people out there as well, just being crazy. If you search "dune bashing accident" on youtube, you will get an idea. Don't know if I would do the same in my car, I think this just adds further support to the rule that you should never buy a Qatari used car.

After a month of Ramadan in Doha, I got to have a very nice long break with an almost 4-week trip to the US. The first week was holiday/vacation where I went fishing in the White Mountains with my dad (pictures above and below). I also saw my grandfather who was in town from Tennessee, my sister back from college, and the rest of my Tucson Friends and family; oh and a weekend in Vegas too. Then I had 2 weeks of a training course for work that was held in Glendale. The course ended in perfect time to go back down to Tucson for the Homecoming weekend where I got to see my Wildcats beat UCLA. For the last week of USA tour 2007, I was in Houston for a work conference before boarding the plane back to Doha. After 4 whirlwind weeks, I was actually looking forward to a bit of a break.

In another effective use of the “why not?” method of reasoning I decided to take a short trip to Kuwait. Only there for one day, I still managed to drive around and get a feel for the place. On the whole it was not that much different than Doha, Abu Dhabi, or some of the other Gulf states. Like in Oman, I decided to rent a car and drive around to “see what I could see”. Fortunately, unlike Oman, there were no encounters with the friendly local military force.

I did spend a lot of time wandering around one of the bigger outdoor markets that I had seen in the region. In the typical souq style, the market was divided into sections by what the merchants were selling. I think that I counted 13 large shaded hangers, each about the size of a football field, so this was a very big place. They had everything from rugs to toasters, and old electronics to a seemingly disproportionately large selection of futons and floor cushions. I also wandered over to the livestock section that was as fragrant as one might expect and luckily for all shoppers, well removed from the rest of the market.

At sunset, I found my way to a beach with a western view and watched the sun sink to the horizon. Kuwait burns a lot of oil for power generation and the particulate mater in the atmosphere from the exhaust really gives the sun a special glow.

The most recent adventure was this past weekend to Bangkok. Why Bangkok, why only a weekend you might ask. The answer to the first question is that it is the month of Ramadan and Doha is a little too quiet. The second is that my friend was going to be there for a couple days before traveling out to the South to Kho Samui and there was a frequent flyer mile ticket available. A few weeks ago the conversation went something like “Oh… your are going to be just hanging out in Bangkok for the weekend? It would be fun to come out…I wonder if there are award tickets available? Hey, there are.. might as well go ahead and book it.” And so the deal was sealed in ~5minutes.

I left work on a Thursday night at caught an 8:30 pm overnight flight that got in at ~7am the next morning. Unphased, my friend and I dropped bags at the hotel and the wandered around Bangkok for the better part of 7 hours. Some of the sights of note were the car/scooter repair neighborhood, where men with mallets bang on old auto parts that seem to have already served twice their useful life…..


Chinatown….

Lots and lots of Wats…

And some very creepy statues.

After an evening out and a morning that was mostly squandered on sleep (blame it on the jetlag) we went out to the weekend market which is a seemingly endless maze of tiny shops selling everything from souvenirs to pets and clothes to little dried fish crumbles. Pretty good place to pass most of the day.

After another night out and about 2.5 hours of sleep, it was time to catch my 6am cab to the airport. Slept a little on the plane and with the time change, arrived in Doha mid-morning Sunday, then rolled straight into work for a full day. Quite the whirlwind tour, but a great quick escape during Ramadan

This past weekend I was in Budapest for a chance to relax a little after a long and hot summer in Doha. It was the first time that I had been back since going there with the Flinn Foundation in 2002. Things had changed a lot in those 5 years but it was still the wonderful city that I remembered. Budapest is the kind of city that you can just wander around in for a few days, nurse a drink at an outdoor café, lie on the grass in a park, and have a great time.
I did all those things, but as most of those who know me can attest, I am not that good at sitting around. The week I was leaving for Budapest I was looking at an online events calendar and saw that there was a half-marathon scheduled for the weekend that I was there. The furthest I had ever run was 8.3 miles and I only usually run ~3 miles once or twice a week but I decided to give it a try. I did better than I thought I would given the complete lack of preparation, finishing in 1 hour 52 minutes. I was steadily ticking away 8 minute miles for the first 8 or 9 and then 9-13.1 saw reality catch up with me. I managed to keep running for the whole time, but it was tough. The race finished in front of the Szechenyi Baths so after a quick shower, I got to take a nice soak in the hot springs. The whole thing made for a great random memory.
http://www.budapestmarathon.com/eng/half

Nice picture of the Budapest Parliament building lit up at night.

The famous Chain Bridge and the Castle Hill.

Current conditions in Doha at 12 midnight

Note the heat index. . .nice!

Every now and then I get a little restless and have to go out traveling and exploring. Since Qatar is a pretty small place, my domestic options are rather limited. Last weekend I threw some clothes and food in my backpack and headed to Oman for the weekend. After a short flight, I landed in Muscat, rented a 4WD Pathfinder, and headed off into the mountains. Very unlike me, I had no specific plan other than to drive up into the high mountains and find a place to camp for the night. All I had for navigation was a compass and a one-page map out of the Lonely Planet of the entire country of Oman. After stopping multiple times to a) find someone who spoke English, and b) get directions to a road/trail that I had heard would take you the back way into the mountains, I ended up driving up a canyon in the dark on a track that was getting more and more difficult every mile. When I got to a point that was pretty much impassable, I turned around and decided to drive around the mountains and go up from the side that I had better directions to.
Late in the night I arrived in the area I wanted to be, Wadi Ghul the “Grand Canyon of Arabia”. The road went through the canyon up to the end on then climbed out through switch backs from 1,500 feet of elevation at the bottom to 7,000+ at the rim. I pressed on into the night and got all the way to the top of the rim. When I got to the top there was a small building with lights on; as I was reading the sign that said “Military Radar Station, prohibited area…” a little guy inside the building came to the window, looking very confused to see a western tourist in the middle of nowhere at 1 am. He held up his gun to the window as if to say, “Look at me, I have a gun, get the hell out of here.” My facial expression probably conveyed my response, “Look at you, you have a gun, I’m getting the hell out of here.” I promptly drove back down the hill a bit, pulled off the road, and went to bed for the nigh, stretched out in the back of the car.

The next day I continued my wandering. There are some beautiful places in Oman that reminded me at times of Arizona deserts. The picture below is one of the oases that I came upon in my driving. Above the oasis where the ruins of an old stone city, just like in any desert, people are drawn to sources of water. Even today there is a small village near the spring with people herding goats, picking palm dates, and gawking at the occasional tourist who manages to wander into town.
For the remainder of the day, I drove from village to village, town to town, and got in some good people watching. In Nizwa there is a large souq, or market, selling everything from goats, fish, and vegetables to craft items. I saw these gentlemen sitting around talking and I could not help but take a picture.

After the day in Nizwa, I went back to the capitol, Muscat, to do a little more souvenir shopping. Muscat has been an important port for hundreds of years. The old part of the city is surrounded by stone walls and watchtowers. I bought some Frankincense and Myrrh, no gold unfortunately but I did get a very cool silver-decorated ceremonial Omani dagger or khanjar. Saturday afternoon I got on a plane and headed back to Doha having covered almost 1000km and seeing a lot of Oman in just 2 days. More of my pictures are at the link below.
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=5p42e5n.8v126n4n&x=1&y=oft6sd

This past weekend I went to Bahrain as a break from Doha, to visit some friends, and of course, to take the opportunity to eat some bacon. Strange how small the world can be sometimes. I had been introduced by email to someone but had not made contact with her and she happened to be in the internship program that my friend had organized. There are 4 people from the U of A in the program, so there we were, 6 Wildcats in the desert.
This picture is at an old fort in Bahrain. As you can see, the whole conservative dress thing has kind of gone out the window with the arrival of summer. Sandals, shorts and a Borat "High Five!" shirt, not exactly low profile. The outfit was fine for walking around outside; it was not until I was in the First Class lounge (Qatar Airways frequent flyer yeah!) at the airport that I realized it was possibly not the most appropriate thing to be wearing. Oh well, I was on vacation.

It's been a little while since the last post. April and May have both really flown by. I Went back to the US in the first part of May and fit in just about as much as possible in the 10 days. I made it to Dallas, Dyersburg, Nashville, Houston for work, Tucson, and Phoenix, and got to see friends and family in each place. It was so great to see everyone, only wish I could have made it longer.

The real adventure started on the way back to Doha however. After being out to 2:30 am on Saturday night, I left my parents house at 5am Sunday Morning to catch a flight to Houston. From Houston it was on to Dallas where, unfortunately it was lightning which caused my flight to London to get delayed 3 hours. When I landed on London on Monday morning I had to sprint from the Gatwick North terminal to the South terminal. Despite my best efforts I missed the flight.

The next flight from London to Doha was, unfortunately, out of Heathrow, not Gatwick. So I had to go through Immigration and customs, switch terminals again, claim my bags, get a bus to Heathrow, and then check in again. The delay was going to mean that instead of getting in in the evening I was going to get home at midnight. Unfortunately, the plane that I was going to take had mechanical problems which meant another 6 hours of delay. By the time I finally got back to Doha it was 7 am on Tuesday morning. My luggage however would take another day to find its way home. All told it was a 41 hour trip. And after 2 nights sleeping on planes, I got to shower and head into work afterwards.

So, I am moving into a new apartment at last! Well, almost. In a few weeks I am going to be moving. Today I got to go see the new building and took a few photos of the place. Once I organize some of my things and they finish installing the blast-resistant film on the windows (crazy!) I will be able to move in. These pics are from a sample unit but mine will be the same. I will be on the 12th floor. You can see more pictures at the following link: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=5p42e5n.1l37rtuz&x=0&y=fol31q

The second trip was this weekend to Abu Dhabi. Like Bahrain, it was just a quick half-hour flight away but was someplace else to see. The real excuse for going however was the opening race of the 2007 Red Bull air race season was being held on Friday. Thirteen planes raced over the water in the Corniche around large inflatable pylons. It was a great sunny day and was a good excuse to spend the day sitting by the water.

So I am a little behind in my updating of my blog and have two trips to write about. The first trip that I did was to Bahrain for a weekend. No particular reason for the trip, just to see a different place. This was one of the mosque/palaces. Not a bad view for looking out the hotel window. I really liked Bahrain, it was more liberal than Doha but not as seedy as Dubai. It was also really helpful that a friend of a friend lived there who acted as our unofficial tour guide.

Every now and then, Doha seems almost normal, but the almost is critical. For example: imagine a music festival… Local bands play from 12 noon to 12 midnight… It is an outdoor open air venue… People have coolers full of beer, lawn chairs, bbq grills, and are camping out for the night… the venue: the middle of the desert on the slip face of a sand dune. (see, there’s the “almost”) DuneStock 2007… Rock On! http://www.dunestock.net.qa/

So a quick update of what has been going on here in Doha recently, it has been a couple weekends of world-class sports. The first event was the Qatar Open women’s tennis tournament. We had so extra company seats so I got to go to the final match and sit 10 rows back from the court. A couple of the big names that were there were Martina Hingis and Justine Henin. I had a lot of good photos, here are a couple of the best.

This weekend was MotoGP. Again, extra company tickets. On the qualifying day, I got to go to the control tower to watch the races, I was on the 4th floor, the Royal Family was on the 5th, not bad. The next day I had VIP suite passes that were also pretty good. One of the best perks was that I go to go on a ride along on the service road during the race. This is the track that runs just outside the walls of the track and is the one that the ambulances and official cars use, it made for an excellent photo vantage point. The bikes were amazing, on the finishing straight they were getting up to 190MPH and in the turns the drivers would lean the bike over more than 60 degrees.

On one of the last nights that I was in Rio, I went with a group of friends to the top of Sugarloaf mountain. It has a great view of the city and is the best place to watch the sunset from.

This photo is of the main Carnival parade in the Sambadrome, yes that’s right, they have a built-for-purpose stadium for samba parades. It was an amazing spectacle, take the flashiest show you have ever seen in Vegas and convert it into a parade that lasts until five in the morning. I also have a video online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWOGGhqgJSA Apparently for ~$250 you can buy a costume and dance in the parade. If (who I am kidding …When) I go back I am doing that for sure. Rio reunion anyone?

So… another installment in the Rio Carnival story; an (almost) complete recounting of one evening. The evening started innocently enough. After spending most of the day on the beach in the sun, we all went as a group to a Brazilian Churrascaria, think Fogo de Chau. For ~$13 you get access to an endless meat parade. Guys with spits of beef, pork, buffalo, and assorted other meats walk by your table and carve off whatever you point to. Ummm. After dinner it was back to the apartment for drinks. You would be amazed at how many Caiparinas a group of 13 can go through.

With everyone suitably primed it was a little early to go out (11pm) but we wanted to make the most of the evening so we headed off to the club we had picked out for the evening. Fortunately it was close enough that we could walk from the apartment. On the way there RJ and I and two English girls made a detour to find an ATM. After some searching we had found nothing open, there was one (HSBC) that said it was 24 hours and appeared to be open but the door was locked. The girls and I had given up and were walking away but RJ decided to try and force it open (pretty obviously a bad idea). After some jostling, he gets it open and beckons us back. About 5 seconds after entering the lobby (predictably) lights and sirens start going off. One of the girls tried her card and it didn’t work so we decided to scram before the police showed up; not the kind of story that you want to explain in Portuguese. So if you hear things about the crime rate in Rio, I can say that I made my contribution.

After the bank robbery (not something I thought I would ever start a sentence with), we met up with the rest of the group at he club, unfortunately since it was early it was slow, so we decided to go searching for the best party. We walked along Ipanema beach and saw a big party, things looked promising. As we got closer and closer I became more suspicious... rainbow flags… mostly dudes… way too enthusiastic dancing… I didn’t think it was out kind of party. The rest of the group insisted on checking it out, I waited by the road and when they came back about 5 minutes later I had the chance to say I told you so.

What is a group of 13 to do? That is at least 3 taxi’s and trying to get them all to the same place can be quite a challenge. Solution.. illegal mini-bus. We flagged one down and all piled in. And so began our transportation odyssey for the evening. Next stop… another beach party of the non-gay variety. However, it seemed really mellow and the common theory among our group is that everyone was stoned out of their minds. So after a while there, we all got back in another mini-bus and headed to another club (minus 2 people from the group who decided to “hang out for a while”).

This club was not exactly what we were looking for either. There seemed to be a disproportionately high number of old people and Japanese tour groups coming out. We didn’t want to pay the cover so we stood out on the street and had a few beers while we were deciding what to do. There was this crazy old dude with a cute puppy hanging out of his backpack who kept lurking around and trying to get us to finish our beers because he wanted the empty cans. He and this old lady almost got into a fight about who got to keep our empties. About this time the idea of paying prostitutes to have sex with bums came up out of nowhere. Mercifully the conversation moved on and we decided to find away back closer to home.

Not being able to find a mini-bus and having no success negotiating with the taxi drivers, we managed to find yet another mode of transportation for the evening. There was a tour coach parked out in front of the club. I am sure that the driver was waiting for a group of Japanese grandmas to come out all sauced up on caiparinas ready to be shuttled back to their hotel. However, right now he was just waiting there and you know what? He could use an extra $20. After a bit of negotiating we were off again only this time were rolling in style. This coach came complete with nice seats (one for each person, amazing!), air conditioning, and a tour guide microphone/PA system. After some insanely fast driving and a few rounds of sing along we were guess where? Right back at the club where we had started the evening.

Fortunately since it was ~2am at this time the party was in full force. We spent the rest of the night dancing to mostly hip-hop. Around 3:30am a samba band and dancers showed up and started doing their thing. It was quite a show, costumes and the whole bit. My favorite move was when a guy who looked like an older, skinnier Samuel L Jackson, used one of the female dancer’s backside to hit a tambourine. Like I said, quite a show. They actually pulled one of the girls in our group up on the stage and had her shakin’ it like a pro. Finally, as happened every night on the trip, the sun started to light the early-morning sky to let us know it was time to go home and get a little sleep before doing it all over again.

That was just one night, it tired me out just typing it here. If you’ve never been to Carnival, you really need to go.

JC and JCC (I’m the one in the sunglasses). This is the Corcovado statue of Christ the Redeemer, better known to our group as Big Jesus. Sitting high on a hill overlooking the city, it can be seen from almost everywhere.

So, where would be a really random place to go from the Middle East? How about Brazil…in Rio…for Carnival? Yeah, that’ll work. I met up with 4 friends from college and about 6 other random connections (I love you guys) for a week of sunning, partying, and relaxation. We stayed in an apartment in Copacabana and bounced back and forth between Copacabana and Ipanema beaches every day. I will post some more pictures and stories in the next few days

Today I bought the coolest souvenir I have ever seen. Imagine A camel, flashing red eyes, and an Arabic guy with an electric guitar... Now put the whole thing in motion the the theme from Beverly Hills Cop by Axel Foley. You have to see the link below to truly appreciate it. Whoever designed this was a freakin' genius! Best $4 I ever spent!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPxzUYJnkzw

Tomorrow night I am off to Houston for 3 days for business and then vacation after that, Carnival in Rio, woo hoo!

I completed my tour of Qatar this weekend by driving North (see previous blog entries for descriptions of South and West). After I got to the far North part of the country (about an hour drive) I took my Jeep off its leash and let it play in the dirt a little. After driving along the coast for a couple hours I came upon an old ruined village and got out to explore. There was one small metal sign that probably told about the site and its history but it was in Arabic, alas.

I don't think I even mentioned it on my blog, but I bought a car in December, it's a silver '07 Jeep Grand Cherokee.

Sri Lanka was great, a little creepy that there were 2 bus bombings within a day and 20 miles of somewhere I had been but I never felt like I was in an unsafe situation when I was there. I have some of my pictures shown below and many others on the web at the following link: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=5p42e5n.congz7yr&x=0&y=-hf3aew
Back in Doha for now, lets see how long it takes to plan the next adventure. Brazil…? Carnival…? Bring on the randomness.

Two things about this photo really creep me out. First, the Spock-ears, what’s up with that? Second and more importantly, where are this woman’s legs?!?! I am pretty sure that she had some, the picture just came out funny when her black stockings blended in with the curtain in the background. This was part of a cultural show that featured some of the traditional costumes and dances of Sri Lanka. The grand finale of the show was the fire-walking and fire-eating

Many parts of the highlands of Sri Lanka are covered in tea plantations. All of the tea is picked by hand and processed in a method that is not much changed in the last 100 years. I visited on of the working plantations and stayed in a hotel that used to be a tea factory in the early 20th century. One of the souvenirs that I bought was a kilo brick of loose-leaf dried tea. The tea was wrapped in foil packs of 100grams, then all plastic-wrapped together an covered in brown craft paper. I couldn’t help but think as I packed for the airport that the whole thing looked pretty suspicious but my bag arrived apparently unsearched. By the way, if you are interested in a fix, I can hook you up as soon as I split it up into dime bags.

I visited a couple sites in the north-central part of the island, neither considered to be in the “hot zone” for the current fighting but pretty close to it. You could tell by the increasing prevalence of military checkpoints that it was probably best not to go much farther. The first site I visited was Polonnaruwa which was the capital of Sri Lanka in the 11th-12th centuries. This picture is of the Sigiriya rock fortress ruins, a huge complex complete with royal palace at the top of a 200m tall rock and a sweet mote surrounding the whole thing. My guide was unable to confirm if there were any flesh-hungry piranhas or alligators in the mote, not that I had any reason to think there were; I just think it would be cool. I asked if they had a suggestion box but I think the joke got lost in translation.

Most Sri Lankans are Buddhist and apparently the first few days of the year are a big time to visit temples. All of the temples that I went to were packed with people praying and making offerings. This is a picture from outside the rock-cave temple at Dambulla (1st-century BC). I also visited the Temple of the Tooth Relic in Kandy.

What would you do if the first thing someone told you when you checked into you hotel was “Don’t leave the patio door open because the monkeys will come in your room and whatever you do, don’t feed them”? The idea of building an elaborate monkey trap from a cardboard box, a stick and a pack of floss briefly ran through my mind but fortunately I was mature enough to let it pass. But, you better believe that night I was stuffing bread into my pockets to lure them onto my patio. Mission accomplished. The really creepy thing though was that the bathroom had a full wall of glass so as I am soaping my self up in the shower in the morning I had a family of monkeys watching.

After the overnight flight from Doha I arrived at Colombo airport just before 5am. There really is nothing like the sensation of walking out the doors of customs in a developing country and being hit by the wall of touts trying to sell you a hotel, a ride, or who knows what else. My driver was there waiting however, so it was to the car and we were off. Once again, the company I was with was really first class. The group owns a bunch of hotels and runs the driver/guide tours. All of my hotels were amazing (see pictures below) I am not used to traveling in such luxury, it can spoil you quickly.

Kandalama eco-hotel, build into the forest.
Hotel in Kandy with nice pool.
Hotel in the middle of a tea plantation built into a tea factory from early 20th century.
My last two days at a beach hotel in the south. A whole day sitting on the beach, sipping frozen drinks and soaking up the tropical sun: not a bad way to start the year.

Phase Two of my “have the strangest Christmas / New Years plans ever” scheme took me to Sri Lanka for a week. Once again I had a driver and private driver and car to take me around the country. Probably a good thing http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/01/06/srilanka.bus/index.html I knew the situation before arriving and had been assured by multiple people that the tourist areas were unaffected. Still, on the flight over from Doha I felt a little apprehensive when I was the only white guy on the entire plane. That said though, during my trip I did not see any evidence of the continuing civil war; most people that I talked with were just ready for the fighting to be over so the country can get back to normal.


Traveling around did seem a little dangerous but not from terrorists or bus bombs but from the chaos that is Sri Lankan traffic. Most of the roads are two lanes, unmarked, and in poor condition. In the Capitol, they change streets daily from 2-way to 1-way and back again (to keep terror plots at bay and everyone else confused, apparently). Bus drivers overtake tuk-tuks, tractors, taxi’s, and scooters with reckless abandon before either swerving out of the way of oncoming traffic or bullying that traffic off the side of the road (see diagram below). Mountain roads are so narrow, winding, and full of potholes that we were often only able to make about 25-30 km/hr. My driver was very safe though and we managed to get around the country safely despite me seeing my life flash before my eyes scores of times (not bad by-the-way).

That was the end of my time in Jordan; back to Doha for 3 days before heading off to Sri Lanka for Phase Two.

This is my driver, Talal, really nice guy and very knowledgable about Jordan. We spent a lot f time in the car going from place to place, talking about all sorts of things, trying to help me learn a few phrases in Arabic. He kept telling me that with my beard I could pass as a local (at least until I opened my mouth). This was actually really nice because I could walk around the city at night (don’t tell my mom) and keep a low profile. Further confirmation came when we were driving on the highways there were a couple times we were stooped by police who were looking for a lift in whatever direction we were going. Talal would explain that I was a tourist and we would be on our way. One of the times he starts talking to the officer and I hear “blah blah blah American blah blah blah Hammas blah blah” The guy looks at me and then waves us on through. As we were heading down the road I asked Talal, “Did you just say that I was American even though I look like Hamas?” He sheepishly grinned, I hit it right on the nose.

The last place that I visited was Wadi Rum. This area is a large desert expanse in southern Jordan that was the setting for the filming of the movie Lawrence of Arabia. I took a 2 hour 4x4 trip through the desert and since it was Christmas Eve, I figured that I needed to sport a little Christmas cheer. I am pretty sure that my (Arabic) guide was laughing at me, not with me.

Petra is the main site in Jordan. The most famous thing in Petra it the Treasury (shown) below which is the site of the final scenes in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The whole city is much more than just the one site. There are literally thousands of tounbs carved into the red stone in the Petra Valley. I kicked myself for not bringing some sort of chalice or at least a bottle of Monty Python Holy Grail Ale to pose with. The day I visited the site it was overcast and was raining off and on the whole day. I spent 9 hours hiking around trying to stay relatively dry. At one point I ducked into one of the caves to wait out a heavy downpour and also have a little picknic lunch. I have a lot more pictures online at http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=5p42e5n.2xkq29gz&x=0&y=aegfr1

On the way south to Petra I stopped at a castle in Karak that was used during the crusades. It is really well preserved and has many tunnels that run under the different parts of the castle which are open to the public to explore. For whatever reason there were only maybe a dozen people in the whole site when I was there which made for a sort of erie feeling as I made my way through the passages. I was in a pretty dark room at the far end of the castle and I heard some other tourists walking down the hall towards the entrance to the room I was in. For whatever reason, I said “Wah!” as they walked through the door, which made them jump and gasp. I instantly realized it was a stupid idea and regretted doing it, but fortunately the people laughed and no harm was done.

This is just a random picture that I took when my driver and I were heading south towards Petra. Is this what Promised Land looks like?

One of the almost obligatory stops in Jordan is a swim in the Dead Sea. At 1371 feet below sea level, it is the lowest place on earth. I was expecting to be able to float better than in the regular ocean but it was insane how buoyant the water made me. I was almost able to float nipple-high out of the water if I was standing straight up. Whenever you got out of the water the air would evaporate the water and leave your entire body covered in a white salt powder.

The next site that I went to was Mount Nebo which is where Moses is said to first seen the Promised Land from. On a clear day (not the day I was there :( ) it is possible to look out across the Dead Sea valley and see Jerusalem and Jericho.

Jerash is a very large site of Roman ruins nestled in the hills of a suburb of Amman. Excavations have been going on for 85 years but it is estimated that 90% is still hidden. The city was founded around the time of Alexander the Great and had a population of more that 15,000

Phase One of my “have the strangest Christmas / New Years plans ever” scheme took me to Jordan for the time leading up to and including Christmas. The first place that I stayed was in the capitol, Amman. It is a busy city of two million plus and, compared to Doha, felt much more like the typical dusty city that comes to mind when people think of the Middle East. That is not to imply that is without charm; in fact quite the opposite was true. People were always friendly and willing to strike up a conversation. The region is also full of history dating back thousands of years. This picture is from the Roman Citadel ruins in the heart of the city and was a preview of what I would see the next day on my visit to Jerash.

The Asian games are going on right now in Doha and I wanted to see some of the events, so I picked the craziest thing that I could find in the program: Sepak Takraw. Essentially this sport is kick volleyball but to truly imagine it you have to think about what would happen if a gang of soccer-fan Ninjas got together to kick a ball around and all they could find was a volleyball court. Yep, that pretty-much sums it up.

How pimp is your grocery store? This is one of the options that I have to do my grocery shopping every week. Each time I walk in I get confused; I don’t know if I should buy a loaf of bread or bet $20 on black. Even though it may look it from the outside, it is in fact a supermarket, excuse me Hypermarket, and not a casino. However I do think of myself as a bit of a gambling man, so every week I try to buy something that I have no idea what it is. This week: some sort of pastry with red sauce and what looked like chicken meat hanging out of the top of it. The verdict… winner!

So I woke up one morning at 3am to the sound of back-up horns and a loud rumbling of rocks crashing into a dump truck, looked out of my window to see that a construction site had popped up in the empty lot next to my building. No less than than 6 heavy diggers, a front-end loader, and two dump trucks were working within a hundred yards of my window. They work every night, all night. Hopefully they will get the excavating done quickly. I guess that living next to a construction site is just a part of living in Doha.

How many airport lounges have you been in that had a spa for your layover? Qatar Airways opened an entirely separate terminal for First and Business class passengers this week, complete with restaurant, game room, and spa (sauna not pictured). I had a trip to Dubai for business and got to sample the services but I forgot my swim trunks (probably the last thing I would ever think to pack carry on). A pretty cool experience, so typical of the opulence and extravagance of the Arabian Gulf.

At the end of a week, my sister and I had seen Istanbul, the Cappadocia region, Pammukule, and Ephesus. Out of the 7 nights we had 3 on buses, 3 in hotels, and 1 in a cave (sort of a hotel). We had just about 45 hours on buses by my estimation and made a complete circuit of the western half of the country. The trip was great and I see some amazing places. The best part about it however was spending time with my sister in such a cool place. Not many people could handle this kind of intense (rough) travel; you rock sis!

The Aegean coast of Turkey has countless archaeological sites there are some that have been discovered and developed, others that are waiting to be developed, and still more that are hidden under the soil. One of the best developed sites is the ancient city of Ephesus. This is the front of one of the more remarkable buildings, the library (coincidentally, the library was connected to the brothel across the street by an underground tunnel so that citizens could discreetly "study") . At its peak, the city housed more than 250 thousand people.

Near Ephesus is the city of Pammukule and ancient ruin of Heiropolis. The ruins were impressive, but the main attraction is the terraced pools of water made from built up calcium carbonate deposits. One of the big features of the ancient city was its baths which were fueled by this same mineral-rich water.

One of the sights that we visited was the house where the Virgin Mary is reported to have lived out her last years. The house dates to the correct period and apparently there is some degree of consensus (at least according to our Turkish guide) that it was actually the house. There is a spring that comes out from under the house and produces honest-to-goodness, certified, pontifically-verified holy water. I mixed a little in with my glass of the local brew and I must say that it was quite tasty, one might even say Divine (although that would be going a little far). This is one mix that they don't have at the Saucer in Houston.

Just a random strange sign while visiting one of the tourist sights. In case you can't tell from the picture, the writing on the top and bottom says "Only 50 cent is enough to feel the magic atmosphere..." I am assume that this has to be some sort of translation error. I didn't try this one but of the toilets that I did sample in Turkey, I would say that they were more "special" than "magic".

In Cappadocia, we stayed in a small town called Goreme. Our hotel was quite unique in that it was a cave carved in the side of a hill. Other than the low ceilings and the somewhat chilly temperature in the low sixties inside, it was not that bad. It sure beat the heck out of the bus the night before (and the next night).

After leaving Istanbul, we took an overnight bus to the Cappadocia region of central Turkey. The land here is filled with strange rock structures and pockmarked with caves. For thousands of years, the local people have been carving caves into the soft rock. You can see the town that is nestled into the rocks in the distance. In historic times, the cities were completely hidden underground. There were thousands of feet of tunnels and hundreds of rooms in some of these complexes. For protection from outsiders, the only evidence of their existence were several well-hidden entrances. Today many of the rocks have partially collapsed, exposing some of the rooms of the complexes.

This is a picture from inside the Hagia Sofia in Istanbul. The building was originally constructed as a church in 537 ad as a church but then was converted to a mosque in 1453 by the Ottoman Turks and at last a secular monument by the Turkish government in 1935 to preserve both the Christian and Islamic history of the building.

We arrived in Istanbul in the final days of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. The city was busy with preparations for the three-day celebration at the end of the month. On the first day that we were in the city we were eating lunch on the rooftop of a restaurant near the Blue Mosque (background) and then mid-day prayer came on over the loudspeaker. Having been in Doha for a few weeks, it is someting that I am now used to, but it seemed a little strange to my sister.

For my first vacation for trip from Doha, I met my sister in Turkey for a 1-week whirlwind tour. She has been studying in Spain this semester and was able to take a couple days off of class to come meet me. This picture was taken in Selcuk, near Ephesus, at the Basilica of St. John.

Recently I discovered that my apartment building has a rooftop terrace. Well, it has a roof and an unlocked access door, so it works. This picture is from my roof of the tower that they have built for the Asian Games. It is in the shape of a giant torch and will have a flame throughout the games. It is hard to tell from the pic, but it is massive; it is miles away in this picture. It does make a nice backdrop for a sunset while having a beer on the roof. As the weather is finally cooling off here, the roof is becoming a nice place to relax at the end of the day. Cooling off is a relative term, it has been over 100 degrees in recently (mid-October). Another interesting weather anomaly was to wake up in the morning and find that the weather is 85 degrees with dense fog, that is some impressive humidity.

Camels in the middle of the road. As I was driving along the road, I came across a group of about 20 camels slowly walking their way across the road. After passing the main highway (if you can call it that), they headed down the road to some industrial area. Not something that happens every day in most places. Also not the impending sandstorm on the road ahead.

When you are in a place that has $0.70 gasoline and not a lot else going on, the thought of just getting in the car to drive and explore is pretty common. The first weekend I drove South. This picture is from my drive West. Qatar is a pretty small country so you can drive all the way West and back again in about 4 hours round trip. Along the way I saw this sign and thought, "yeah, camels on the road, like that ever happens." I was soon to be proved wrong.

I really need to get a SUV soon. Another fun thing to do in Doha is drive in the sand. Apparently, there are not too many rules as to where you can and cannot drive. Example: you see a sand dune and think, "wow, that is a cool dune, I think I would like to drive on it." All you do is swerve off the road and have at it. It was all I could do to keep my rental car firmly on the asphalt. I had this awful little voice on my shoulder saying, "do it, it's only a rental. Just stay out of the deep sand." I avoided the temptation, but it was close. Once I get a 4x4 there are some great trips to do where you really get out into the dunes and can explore the country. From everyone that I have talked to, as long as you go in a caravan (to take care of mechanical problems) it is a totally safe thing to do.

Oh camel... You and I have a date with destiny..... Soon... soon. I am sure that there will be many future amusing camel pictures much better than this one, I just felt I needed to get one on here as soon as possible.

One of the best things about the country of Qatar is its wealth of beautiful beaches. Whether it is in Doha at one of the hotel beaches or in total seclusion at an undeveloped area, the sand is soft , the sun hot, and the water warm. And so I spent my first weekend day at the Sealine Beach resort about 45 min south of Doha. After swimming and sunning and then swimming again all I could think was, "they are paying me extra for this?!?" The only thing missing was a nice cold drink (curse you Ramadan!)

To the surprise of many, Doha is quite the modern city. Well.... it will be soon. Some of the architecture here is simply amazing. Just like Dubai, the government has a lot of money in its pocket and a strong desire to be known as a world class city. Once the building and road construction is complete, it will be well on its way. For now though, you have to make sure that you have patience for the traffic diversions and a car that can negotiate the occasional patches of off-road detours.

What's with a statue of swords crossing a major road? Is that something that is required in every Middle-eastern city? This is about 2 blocks from my apartment and on my way to work in the morning. Every time I drive under it I feel like I need to be in a tank or towing some sort of missile with the country's flag draped across it. Instead I just hold my fist up in the air and make my best scowling face. Grrrrr!

One of the bedrooms. The apartment that they have me in is very nice. Spacious, 2BR, 2BA, washer and dryer inside, nice kitchen. I have a spare king bed, so friends and family, if you ever find yourself in the middle east, you have a place to crash!

The living room. Still a littel bare, but hopefully a little better once my shipment clease customs and I can hang some of my pictures on the walls. Also: note the crazy curtains complete with tassles and sequens.

Home Sweet Home, for now. This is the building that I am living in Doha right now. I will probably move somewhere else after the Asian Games are over but right now the entire city is incredibly tight for housing. This place is not bad though, brand new (still partially being finished), currently running on a generator until the city hooks it up to the power grid.

This is a view of the city as it currently stands. Doha is in the middle of an amazing building boom right now. I heard the other day that there are over 120 high-rise buildings under construction right now. Walking through the downtown area and seeing all of the cranes is very impressive. This is only about half of the skyline, once I get a better computer setup, I will publish a view of the whole thing.

Part of the reason for the frantic building is the coming of the 2006 Asian Games in December. This is kind of like the "Asian Olympics" and is basically going to overrun the city for a couple weeks. Some of the new high rises are done and empty, waiting for athletes and press from the games, others are being worked 24/7 to be done in time. As you drive around the city it seems like everything is under construction. Qatar sees the event as its opportunity to make an appearance on the world stage and has its fingers crossed that everything goes smoothly.

Welcome everyone to my second attempt at blogging. I recently moved to Doha, Qatar for work will be here for approximately two years. I hope to share, through this blog, some of the stories and sights from my time in the Middle East. I don't imagine that I will be updating the site more often than once a week, except when I am on a trip to somewhere else in the region. Thanks for sharing in my adventures!