Beirut Bound - part 2

Photos & text copyright Yasir Khan 2008

Francois, our driver, drove us up the coast on day 2, stopping for a bit to see the stunning Jeita Grotto on the way. Hugh Hefner has nothing on this baby. Sorry, no pictures, though. They frown on that sort of thing.


So, onward to the 7000-year old port of Byblos - probably my favourite part of the trip, and my first visit to a crusader castle.

Here's the evidence:

Beirut Bound - part 1

Photos & text copyright Yasir Khan 2008

There have been a lot of holidays lately. The last big one was the end of Ramzan/Ramadan - the fasting month, and Suf & I, along with Dr. Vorg & NS, went up the street to Lebanon.

Our first stop - Beirut, the Paris of the middle east. Rich, beautiful, sophisticated, and cosmopolitan. Beirut is at once the playground of Saudi philanderers and the home of Hezbollah. I didn't take too many pictures of the city because I was so busy sampling the fare at one spectacular restaurant or another (lamb kofta in sour cherry sauce at Mayrig in Gemmayzeh - to die for).

But here's a shot that pretty much everyone takes.

Breathing Break: Hakuna Simba!

Photos & text copyright Yasir Khan 2008

Willie and the other safari drivers in the Masai Mara were on edge for our first two days there. Nobody had seen a lion.

It's a safe bet that most people come to the Masai Mara to see lions. Hell, most people spend thousands of dollars on safaris, and if they don't see anything else except for lions, they will go home happy. Drivers like Willie take pride in finding lions for their clients.

It's hard to find lions in the spring, though - the Serengeti / Masai Mara grass is tall, and it rains frequently. So, for 2 nights, the talk at the drivers' dinner table centered around "hakuna simba." No lions. They took it personally.

But on the 3rd day, as we were wrapping up a giraffe, our CB radio began to squawk excitedly.

Kuja! (Look!)

Simba! Simba! Simba! Simba!

A mad rush across the Mara, with constant directions over the CB, led us to this big cat:


What I wasn't prepared for, were the paparazzi:

Photo copyright Sufia Lodhi 2008

For the next 45 minutes, camera shutters from 8 safari vans clicked with her every bored move.

The rest of the Mara thought we were the most ridiculous animals there. We barely noticed.

Breathing Break: Kenya pt. 4

Photos & text copyright Yasir Khan 2008

On day 2, we drove over to Buffalo Springs National Park. We got stuck in the mud, were charged by an elephant, and ate lunch on a hill overlooking herds of these guys. Enjoy:

Breathing Break: Kenya & the Dik-Dik

"The dik-diks... they are never alone," whispered Willie as our van crawled along the dirt road.
"And if one of them dies, the other won't live for too long."
I've been curious about the dik-dik ever since I read my friend Marie's book about her trip across Africa. They're elusive as hell, and will disappear before you can even say "dik-dik." I really wanted to photograph one for Marie, and tried a hundred times to click before they fled.
But perseverance has its payoffs, and I finally got mine. So here you go, Marie - meet Dik and Dik.

Photos & text copyright Yasir Khan 2008

Breathing Break - Kenya Pt. 2

Photos & text copyright Yasir Khan 2008

"We're going past mount Kenya now."
Willie, our driver, woke us up to see Kenya's tallest peak.
"Soon we will cross the equatah."

We had been driving for a couple of hours, heading to the Shaba National Reserve - about 300km north of Nairobi, where we were to spend 2 days at the Sarova Shaba Game Lodge. Normally, we wouldn't be able to afford this palace in the wild. But these are special times in Kenya. The croc you see above was pretty much right outside our room window. Cairomaniac was convinced that crocs can jump, and issued many stern warnings for me to keep my distance. Obviously, she's watched a lot of When Animals Attack and not enough Animal Planet. Needless to say, the croc stayed put. Crikey!

When I tell people about crossing the equator, everybody asks about the water - does it change the direction of the flow when you flush the toilet? Sure enough, there's a guy by the equator sign with a jug of water and a plastic tub with a hole in the bottom.

"Would you like to see a demonstration?"
"No thanks."

I didn't want to pay money to see water go down a hole. Honestly, I'm not the least bit curious.

"Then maybe you can look in my shop? Buy something to keep us going? There have been no tourists lately."

Breathing Break: Kenya Pt. 1

Photographs & text copyright Yasir Khan 2008

I'm a bit late on this. But we got back from Kenya a couple of weeks ago.

People warned us not to go because of the recent political shitstorm. But tickets were cheap, and safari prices were down by almost 20% since people had cancelled their Kenyan vacations en masse. So we went... and had a great time - great food, clean air, and loads of silence. Not to mention loads of wildlife.

Kenyans were on their best behaviour.

Details and pictures coming soon. In the meantime, here's a short video of our trip, courtesy of Sony PS2:



Told you we had a great time. Stay tuned for more.

Go West

All photographs & text in this post copyright Yasir Khan 2008.

If you live in Cairo, you seek out opportunities to get out every now and then for some clean air.
So, last week, we took a trip out into the western desert. Here's the evidence:






And, as true Canadians out in the rocky wilderness, we just had to build inukshuks:


Obviously, some of them worked out better than others.
But we're bloody proud of them all.

In case you're not sure what they want...

All text & photographs in this post copyright Yasir Khan 2008

... it's MONEY!

Spotted this in a roadside cafe on our way back from the western desert. More on that coming soon.

Monks & Mountains

All photographs in this post copyright Yasir Khan 2007

Suf and I took a university trip out to the eastern desert this weekend. We hung out in Ain Sokhna, by the Red Sea, and checked out a couple of monasteries. Here's the evidence:

Saint Anthony: The monastery is at the foot of what I think is the world's tallest mountain - at least that's what it felt like while I was climbing it.

After visiting the monastery, a group of us dared the over-600-metre climb to Saint Anthony's cave. It's basically a slit in the rock face, that leads to a dark, damp womb. I was the last one out of all of us to make it up there. The reward - Tiffany's German chocolate. Benny, please make her a saint.

Saint Paul: He's the one on the left, raisin' the roof in the picture above. Paul is said to have been an absolute hermit, with a much more austere lifestyle than Anthony - he made his own clothes from palm leaves. If you ask me, he had the better cave. And when he died, he was buried by lions.
Now that's gangsta!