Tom's Travel Blog

What's this?

On our second day in Hanoi we got an early start heading south about sixty miles to the Ninh Binh area.

At the end of our first day in Hanoi, we headed out to explore a bit of the Old Town neighborhood where we were staying at the Silk Path Hotel.

The Temple of Literature Our next stop on our first morning tour was the Temple of Literature.

Travel to Vietnam Our departure to visit Vietnam was scheduled for 1:20 AM so we headed to the Cairo airport at about 10:30 PM.

We interrupted our annual snowbird getaway in Cairo for a two-week vacation to Vietnam this year.

Last winter (2025) we had a very big problem with water leaking through our kitchen ceiling from the apartment above ours.

One of our favorite artifacts of Egyptian architecture is mashrabiya.From the Wikipedia:A mashrabiya or mashrabiyya is an architectural element which is characteristic of traditional architecture in the Islamic world and beyond.

The ladies had expressed an interest in visiting a sliver shop and perhaps purchasing some items.

This year, we snowbirds are taking a vacation from our regular winter nest in Cairo for two weeks and are headed east to Vietnam.

It's official!

Ramadan is coming soon!

It's always interesting to take our first walk down the block after arriving at our Cairo apartment.

This year Linda and the Ladies Tour visited a new restaurant "out in the country" offering a wonderful buffet luncheon of Egyptian home cooking.

We were visiting friends a couple of days ago in Family Park in New Cairo, about a twenty-five mile drive from our side of Cairo - and a world apart, culturally.

HussainJuly 5, 1972 - August 4, 2025 A few days after our arrival in Cairo this year, I was walking down our street to visit one of our local convenience stores.

A visit by bus to the southernmost part of Egypt at Abu Simbel is typically offered as part of the southern experience and our group spent a full morning on this outing.The fact that the boat provides a breakfast box to those leaving Aswan before dawn is…

After a few days in Cairo, Linda and friends traveled south to Aswan, Abu Simbel, Luxor and the Valley of the Kings.

After their overnight stay in the desert south of Wadi al-Hitan (Valley of the Whales) the group moved on to Egypt's only waterfall at Wadi el-Rayan.

Linda noticed them two years ago when we toured the north shore of lake Qurun, opposite the city of Fayoum - stones with an unusual appearance.

After the stop for lunch not far beyond the Climate Museum and whale fossils, the tour continued rambling through the desert for another twenty miles to reach Wadi Rayan and its famous waterfall.

The ladies tour continues with a visit to the "Valley of the Whales", about ninety miles southwest of Cairo.

After a hiatus of six years, Linda returned to the Wissa Wassef Art Center near our apartment in Giza.

Following their tour of Coptic Cairo, the group moved on to a magnificent but less frequently visited church high in the Mokattam hills just east of Old Cairo and overlooking the city.

After spending the first two days of their visit touring the Giza Pyramids, both the old and new museums and the Sakkara pyramid and archeological site, the intrepid travelers set out on Thursday morning for a tour of "Old Cairo," with particular focus on…