Im now in sunny Seville, a really nice town - a superb place to just wander around. The streets, most of which are pedestrianised, are full of beautiful old buildings filled with coffee shops and small boutique shops. Most of the place is up-market meaning prices of home once again :s. So for the past couple of days Ive just been sitting around in courtyards sipping nice cold cervezas and coffee's - neither of which I could get in the middle east. A real pain. B...

Back in Cairo once again. The last week has been spent on a whistle-stop tour up and down the Nile, all the way to Abu Simble just north of Sudan, over 5 days. Cramming in days full of ancient sightseeing with brief stretches lounging in the hotel pool - a fantastic accessory in the 30-40C heat.The Pyramids were no less incredible than I expected. The scale of them is difficult to comprehend, even when your standing next to them. They can seem only a dozen stori...

Since I last updated Ive passed through half of Syria and all of jordan and Im now in Egypt. So i better start where i left off. Syria was a very impressive country. The people there were probably the nicest that Ive met on my travels, going through busy shoppping streets people didnt pressure you or irritate you into their restaurants. On the way I visited Palmyra, a little oasis in the desert where an ancient city once lay. A pretty fascinating ancient town - ...

Urfa is a city completely different from anything Ive experianced before. It really does feel a lot more like the middle east. No High rise buildings, no tourist rubbish. Just the real country, a really refreshing change. The tour leader is also a lot, lot better than the last and seems to be genuinely interested in the people in the tour group. He's made so much more effort than the last guy to explain to us the culture and the history of the city. One of the ma...

Urfa is a city completely different from anything Ive experianced before. It really does feel a lot more like the middle east. No High rise buildings, no tourist rubbish. Just the real country, a really refreshing change. The tour leader is also a lot, lot better than the last and seems to be genuinely interested in the people in the tour group. He's made so much more effort than the last guy to explain to us the culture and the history of the city. One of the ma...