Spending the Night in the Middle of the Nile in a Felucca Cruise boat | Egypt Travel Blog: Day 4 (Part 30) 03D19

Felucca Sailing Cruise on the Nile Under Stars – Part 1 | Aswan

Egypt Travel Blog: 10 DAYS Egypt Explorer - Felucca Cruise & Red Sea

On Day 4, we were to spend most of our day and night on the felucca. A felucca is a traditional Egyptian (also widely used the Mediterranean region) wooden boat with a canvas sail, without motors and powered by the wind. Feluccas come in different shapes, sizes and colors. Aswan is the boarding point for most felucca cruises in Egypt.

After breakfast at the Basma Hotel (see previous post), our tour mates all gathered in the lobby and our guide picked us up in a van to head towards the felucca port. I took some videos of the hotel lobby before leaving.

We were driving through Aswan city, in what looked like its downtown or main street. I recorded roadside scenes for most of the part. The road ran along the Nile River. This side of the Nile is a bustling city, but the other side looked very different with mountains and sand dunes.

Finally, we arrived at our destination, which looked like a docking place for lots of motorized ferries and traditional feluccas.

There were various types of ferries and feluccas. Some of them were huge and some of them were mid-sized to small. Some had several decks and some had just one.

We were directed towards our feluccas. I saw a gate-like structure, but the roof or shed was made of bamboo or some kind of plant that looked really good.

And then I saw our designated felucca, which I will describe in the next post in detail.

What to Look for When Buying Chromebooks

What to Look for When Buying Chromebooks

Features You Need for Your Chromebook

If you are shopping for a Chromebook, look for these features first. Chromebooks offer portability and a user-friendly experience, but without these features you won’t enjoy using your Chromebook as much.

Storage – If you find a Chromebook that is very cheap, it most likely has very little storage, such as 16 GB. Do not go below 32 GB storage on your Chromebook. 16 GB will fill up very fast after installing a few apps from Google Play. Running apps from a memory card is not convenient, so the lowest storage I recommend is 32 GB and go higher if you are able to.

USB C Ports – Stay away from Chromebooks if they are not USB C. It offers universal compatibility and you can charge via a USB C port without any additional power adaptor. You don’t want to go back to the old days with a Micro USB port and these old Chromebooks usually have a separate power adaptor input, which is a lot of hassle.

Convertibility - Convertible Chromebooks or Hybrid 2-in-1 Chromebooks offer various modes, such as laptop, tent, presentation and tablet modes. These modes can come in handy when you travel, need to do a presentation or just use as a tablet. The extra cost incurred from buying a Hybrid Chromebook could be worth it if it serves your needs.

Touch Screen – I don’t mind not having a touchscreen for a Windows laptop, but a touchscreen comes in handy on a Chromebook because Chromebooks are meant to be versatile and travel friendly.

Besides, with its capability to install apps from Google Play it makes sense to have a touchscreen feature because these apps really come alive on a touchscreen. Touchscreen Chromebooks might cost a little more, but it’s worth having a look.

The above article is available in video on my YouTube Channel here:

Do Not Buy Chromebook without These 3 Features | Chromebooks Tips & Tricks

At The Basma Hotel, Aswan | Egypt Travel Blog: Day 3 (Part 29) 02D19

One Night and Dinner in The Basma Hotel | Aswan

Egypt Travel Blog: 10 DAYS Egypt Explorer - Felucca Cruise & Red Sea

After arriving at the Basma Hotel, our tour guide handed over our keys and room numbers. Something I loved about being with a tour group is that the tour company pre-arranged everything and I didn’t even have to go through the hassle of checking in while in a foreign country.

Basma Hotel is located on very high ground, possibly the highest point of Aswan. Basma Hotel is a huge hotel complex with 200 rooms and a very big swimming pool. I saw a huge piece of artwork hanging on the entrance door wall that looked like it was made of mosaic or marble. The front of the hotel gives access to amazing views overlooking the beautiful greenery, the city of Aswan, mountains, yellow sand dunes and the amazing Nile River.

Basma Hotel, Aswan, Egypt

It looked like rooms can have 2 different types of views. Rooms on one side will have the Nile view and on the other side will have the city view. Regardless, you get to see the surrounding mountains and yellow sand dunes.

My room got the city mountain view. The problem with this hotel was that it was too old and crying for a renovation. My room had 2 beds. Ultimately, I was OK with my room. It felt clean and tidy, except everything was old. The bathroom was nothing fancy, but acceptable.

I even had a balcony, but a weird thing made my balcony and views feel weird. It looked like square blocks of concrete structures on the floor level outside my balcony. I was not sure what those were or why they were in front. They could be structures to support the building or something else. They were not directly blocking any views because they came up from the ground up to my balcony floor level. But if I looked from my high floor to the ground, then they block the view. The presence of these concrete blocks made me not like my room as much as I could otherwise. So, I didn’t get to enjoy the balcony and full city view with the mountains beyond.

In the evening, some of my tour members went for an extra tour to the Nubian village, which I skipped. Instead, I took a stroll around the hotel vicinity. I took my time to walk the whole complex and took some pictures and videos. I even exited the hotel boundary to mingle in the local busy streets and browse the shops right next to the hotel, but didn’t stay outside the hotel for too long.

In the evening, I had my coffee inside my suite. I used the hotel-provided instant coffee, although I had my own backup coffee. After coffee, I took some time to write down my travel details and back up SD cards to my portable hard drive. I had been taking notes of my travel details daily to help me write later on.

At night, I headed for dinner at the hotel restaurant. I had a beef curry with rice. The price was 150 LE, which would be $12 CAD. I found the food here was good and they were more attentive than the Oasis Hotel in Giza. The prices were cheaper also with greater quantity. 

The next day we would spend the night in the middle of the Nile in a Felucca Cruise boat.

Limited Time Opportunity: Download Credit Card Hacks For Free on Amazon

Credit Card Hacks:

What Credit Card Companies Don’t Want You to Know By Award-Winning Author Ahmed Dawn

This is a special post to let you all guys know that my latest book Credit Card Hacks has been published and currently available on Amazon.

There is a promotional free download offer, which will expire on December 12, 2020 midnight. Grab your free copy here:

mybook.to/CreditCardHacks

Credit Card Hacks is a must-have guide for digital-age credit card users and delivers simple steps to use credit cards for savings and travelling the globe for free or paying very little.

If you are not using the right credit card, you are losing an opportunity to earn a free point or mile. To help you get started with credit card benefits, this book will show you:

 - How to Pick the Right Credit Cards

- How to Use Promotional Rate Offers

- What Credit Card Feature You Should Never Use

- The Hidden Credit Card Perk No One Uses

- How to Travel for Free/Fly Business Class Using Credit Cards

- And much more

The Day I Knew Invest Now Changed Someone’s Life

The Day I Knew Invest Now Changed Someone’s Life

First Published Date: July 24, 2008

When I was writing Invest Now, I was often occupied with the idea  that the objective of this book would be to change someone’s life. I was not too worried about selling lots of copies, or making lots of money, or even becoming a famous author. I was worried about only one thing. My target was something very simple and straight forward – to change a one person’s life. To help someone with what I have learned all these years, and to enlighten someone’s life with all of the knowledge and hard work I put into my first book. If I accomplish this, I would consider Invest Now a successful venture, and I would consider myself content with the feeling of joy and accomplishment.

And then came the day I had been waiting for. This is what I have wanted to happen since Invest Now was published. On the weekend of July 12, 2008, I was attending a community-based book fair and cultural festival. This event was taking place at the Church of St Columba & All Hallows, 2723 St. Clair Avenue East, Toronto. On Sunday, July 13, some visitors were browsing Invest Now. Some of them were just passing by after having a quick glance at my stall. All of a sudden, a guy rushed to my stall out of nowhere. His first question was, “Are you the author of Invest Now”? I replied, “Yes.” Then what he told me went beyond my imagination. I was totally astonished – but my heart was filled with indescribable joy and a sense of accomplishment. I am now going to share with you what that gentleman told me.

He works as a financial advisor. He came across Invest Now at a local bookstore. At first, he bought one copy for himself out of curiosity. And then, he fell in love with Invest Now instantly. He was having a hard time explaining the world of investments to his clients. Once he found Invest Now, he started giving a copy to his clients. So far, he has distributed 7 or 8 copies, but it did not stop there – he started recommending Invest Now to other advisors at his firm. He also wrote a few articles in the local newspaper, and he recommended Invest Now in those articles. Finally he said, “Thank you, thank you so much for writing a book like this, and helping lots of people to understand such a complex matter in easy way. It saved me so much time and work – before I would spend days explaining investments to my clients; now I give them this book and ask them to read it first before I recommend anything else. You made my life so easy – I appreciate your hard work and thank you for helping so many people.”

It definitely feels good knowing Invest Now has served its purpose, and changed someone’s life. I am sure I will come across many more stories like this in the years to come. However, this is not where everything ends. This is just the beginning. With my website “A Dawn Journal”, and with more books to be published in the future – I will be able to change many others’ lives. I will be able to help a lot more people; that’s what makes me write more. I needed a confidence boost, and this reader just gave me that. What I heard from him was exactly what I needed to be confident in continuing my journey into the future.