Home Sweet Home

After 81 days, 34 flights, 35,000 miles in the air, countless miles on the ground, six countries (eight if you count airports) and thousands of dollars, I finally made it home. I had a great time and am really glad I had the opportunity to study abroad in India and travel around Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

Every place I visited was fascinating and enjoyable, but my two favorite countries were India and Thailand. While India may have been dirty and a complete headache, there were so many cool things to see and do. However, if going to India, the trip could probably be condensed in terms of both time and geography, as most of the important sites are located in the same region. I enjoyed Thailand as well because it was really easy to travel in and it was a lot of fun. Thailand is very westernized and there were a lot of things to do there - temples, jungles, beaches, palaces and more. Oh, and the food in Thailand was awesome.

America, F*** Yeah!

I have uploaded all the pictures from my trip. The links are on the right side of the page, but unless you have a lot of free time and patience, I would recommend looking at the "highlights" pictures for the three regions I visited. In total, there are only 100 pictures - all of which have captions and are the best pictures from each region. Enjoy!

Thanks for reading. It feels good to be home.

Formula One

It's been the talk of the town all week. There will be a Formula One race in Bahrain on Sunday. People from near and far have traveled to witness the event. The race has been especially hyped because it's the first race of the season and the return of famed German driver Michael Schumacher. We've been hearing about it all week and were bummed that we would miss it on Sunday. However, some of our hosts were able to score our group about thirty tickets to the qualifying events today. The cars were incredibly fast and incredibly loud. I was able to enjoy them from my seat in Row 1.

Formula One Racer

Next stop: Charlottesville, Virginia

Bahraini Hospitality

My school group has been in Bahrain for about almost a week now and I have been amazed with the hospitality. Sure, our professor has been coming here for thirty years and knows half of the island, but the level of hospitality people have shown is unprecedented. We've visited about a dozen companies and every single one has been ecstatic to have us. We've received tons of gifts and everyone has been very welcoming. Our group has even been featured in the national newspaper twice. Among our company visits, we've seen a number of forts, a camel farm, a handful of mosques, the royal golf club, a horse race and a few other things. Further, we've been invited to dine in a mosque and have had meals at night in the desert and in Bahraini homes in small groups. It has been really interesting to see this side of the Middle East and realize how different it is from what we read in the newspaper and see on CNN.

Dinner at the Desert Camp

Bahrain, Day 3

Tuesday was an extremely long day. Many of us were tired from an evening of Middle Eastern entertainment on Monday night. The hotel put on a belly dancing show complete with a smorgasbord of Middle Eastern fare. Despite going out past midnight, we were out the door by 8:30am to make it in time for the opening bell on the Bahraini Stock Exchange - our picture was in the newspaper on Wednesday morning. After ringing the opening bell, our group went over to Bahrain Central Bank (their version of the Federal Reserve) to learn about their economy and monetary policy.

Next, we went to the Grand Mosque and got a spoonful of Islam. I feel like an expert now. To complete the afternoon, our bus dropped us off on the middle of the bridge to Saudi Arabia to see the sun set over the Arabian Peninsula. Later, we took a three hour walking tour through Manama, the main city in Bahrain. On our tour, we saw a number of mosques and churches and got to experience the marketplace and Bahraini street food.

Bahrain

On our second day in Bahrain, our class visited a ship building yard. This shipyard builds new ships and repairs ships already in service. We were able to tour one of the ships that was under repair - an unnamed American vessel. It was really interesting to see the ship and ask questions and learn about what it's like to be a crew member on a freighter. In the afternoon, our class went to a real estate development that is currently being built. The development is a series of condos and hotels that will be built on man-made islands, reclaimed from the Persian/Arabian Gulf.

Bahrain

The Persian Gulf

After several days in Egypt, I arrived in Bahrain last night after a short stopover in Qatar. The Kingdom of Bahrain - where I will be for the next week - is a tiny island nation in the Persian Gulf, between Saudi Arabia and Iran. There is a bridge that connects the country with Saudi Arabia. Bahrain, which has a population of about one million, is completely westernized (with the exception being pork) and is BY FAR the most developed place I've been to on this trip. It's pretty much just like the U.S. The economy in Bahrain is largely based on oil, yet in recent years, the country has become a money center - much like New York, London or Hong Kong. Bahrain also gained notoriety during the last few years, as a Bahraini prince would host Michael Jackson any time he got into legal trouble (read: little boys).

Downtown Manama - Bahrain's Capital

I met up with about thirty classmates from business school who are taking a week-long class in Bahrain with me. Today, we talked with a few banks who educated us about Islamic Finance. Basically, the banks must adhere to the principles of Islam, one of which strictly forbids charging interest. To get around this, the banks set up investments and accounts in a specific way to get around the restriction on interest charges and payments. It's a fairly interesting (pun intended) structure and process.

Luxor

We left Cairo on Wednesday evening and headed for Luxor via overnight train. Luxor is on the Nile in the middle of the country. It was one of the most important cities in Ancient Egypt and, thus, is home to a number of temples and tombs. On our first day, we explored Luxor Temple and the Temple of Karnak. Both are large complexes constructed on the bank of the Nile. Luxor is a lot hotter than Cairo - making the pool at our hotel perfect. It's also a lot cleaner and more touristy than Cairo.

Temple Paintings

Today, our second day, we crossed the Nile to see a few temples and Valley of the Kings. Valley of the Kings is a large valley in which a number of Egyptian pharaohs were buried. There are roughly sixty tombs that have been unearthed, but archaeologists believe there are about thirty more which haven't been discovered. This is the location that King Tut's tomb was discovered in 1922 - yet all the treasures have been moved to Cairo, Berlin and England. We went into three of the tombs, but there isn't a whole lot to see as all have been robbed over the centuries. Most have paintings and hieroglyphs on the walls.

Luxor Temple

We're heading to Bahrain tomorrow, which is my final destination before coming home next week.

Pyramids

Our motley crew - all eight of us - visited the pyramids at Giza on Tuesday. There are three large pyramids and several small ones. Tourists are permitted into the two larger pyramids, but the third one is closed to help maintain the integrity of the structure. The first pyramid, the Great Pyramid or Cheops, is the oldest and largest and is the only remaining building of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. We waited in line for tickets to make sure we were able to go inside. Not a whole lot inside - just stale air, lots of climbing and darkness.

The Great Pyramid

The Sphinx and the Great Pyramid

After touring the pyramids and seeing the Sphinx - all of which were smaller than I anticipated - three of the eight of us decided to ride camels to the top of a hill to get a better view. Camels are a lot bumpier than I had imagined and they can go relatively fast as well. One person with us actually got bucked off his camel - but he landed on the sand and was alright. We then stayed around to see a light show at the pyramids.

Riding a Camel

The Pyramids at Giza

Cairo

My ten weeks in Asia are over. The last two weeks of my trip begin today in the Middle East. I landed in Cairo at 6:30am today and had one final day before a number of my classmates arrive. Several are arriving this evening - seven to be exact - while we will be meeting up with more on Saturday in Bahrain, where we have a week-long class. Our plans in Egypt include exploring Cairo, visiting the pyramids and heading down to Luxor and the Valley of the Kings.

The first reaction I had this morning was, "Holy sh*t it's cold!" I don't know if it's because I was expecting ridiculously high temps or the last ten weeks have been unbearably hot. Either way, I was not expecting the temperature to be in the mid-fifties this morning - which to me feels like below zero.

I spent the day - while wearing pants for the first time in weeks - at the train ticketing office and walking through the old town. It seems that Egypt has used India's playbook when it comes to bureaucracy. In order to buy eight train tickets for Wednesday night, it took me more than two hours and multiple trips to the train station. Like the Indians, the folks at Egyptian Rail make everything 18 steps more difficult than it should have to be. Despite that, I was able to procure tickets to Luxor. After that debacle, I rode the Cairo subway to the old town. It was nothing overly impressive, just several ancient churches, synagogues and mosques all clustered together. The real highlight will be the pyramids tomorrow.

It's Miller Time!

On a side note, I've uploaded all of my pictures from Southeast Asia and have also created a highlights album, which only has 25 pictures. You can view both by clicking on the links on the right side of this page.