Not only was the temperature a shock, but also the whole culture itself. Cairo, with a population of almost 9 million seemed very large and crowed to me, a person who lives in a small Maine town of 997 people. After being picked up and driven to the hotel, I had a chance to look at some of the 500 Cairo mosques and building, which in a city with the majority of the inhabitants being Muslim, adorned nearly every block. Along with the Mosques were the many-leveled apartments that housed the Cairo Inhabitants, a place called "The City of the Dead." Over half the city lives there, a living cemetery that crams people together much like trailer parks. We drive to our hotel, but this Cairo, a city with twenty million residents, and driving is not easy. “Everyone drives pretty fast in Cairo,” said Amr, in perfect English. “But we hardly ever have accidents.” Egyptians do not, however, have many driving laws. There is much horn blowing and sharp turns into traffic; yet surprisingly no one wears seat belts. I exchange looks with my mother and decided it was a small miracle that we made it to the hotel. After resting there the night, Amr assures us that he would pick us up in the morning to tour the great pyramids.

In the same city that houses the City of Dead, there are ancient pyramids and a gigantic sphinx. As my mother and I look up at the Pyramids of Giza, I marvel at the fact that such things are still standing today. Some of the stone is falling apart and some of the pyramids are missing pieces. Still, tourists can walk right up to the pyramids and as the base; vendors and camels roam the outskirts, looking to sell their wares. For those who have not been, the pyramids are a breathtaking work of art. Built in the 4th century BCE, they still stand magically today. “Be careful of people looking to sell you things,” warned Amr as he let us out of the car. “ And watch for people looking for baksheesh.” Baksheesh isan Arabic word for tips, something that are often asked for by vendors or anyone who happens to help you even for a minute. We get out of the car and walk towards the pyramids, confident that we can handle anything that comes our way.

The first man we encounter gives us a present, a scarab beetle (a good luck charm in Egypt). He then offers to take our picture, but heeding the words of Amr, we say “no” and walk away. He follows us, realizing we are different than the average American tourist who might come his way. “If you will not pay baksheesh, then I went the present back,” he demands of us. We oblige and continue to make our way around the pyramid. No sooner have we turned the corner when we come into contact with a man looking to sell us his wears. He picks up one of the gifts he is trying to sell and precedes to place to a white head scarf on my head. “No, no, I do not need a scarf, I'm not interested!” I protest vigorously, but it makes no difference as the vendor continues to beg me to buy. Meanwhile, my mother is walking ahead of me, gesturing me to come. “I must leave now,” I tell the man. I am finally able to run away and continue looking at the pyramids. The excitement was not over for the day however, because Amr decides to take us on a ride on a camel near the Sphinx.

Riding a camel is like nothing else I have ever done before in my life, and even though I had seen camels on television, watching a camel and riding one are decidedly, not the same thing. First, one sits down on the camel while it is still sitting down. Then, it will climb up, at which point has to lean forward to keep from falling off the camel. At six meters high, it is a little bit daunting to sit atop such a high animal, even though it does not travel at a high pace. I clung to the camel and held on with my legs. “Ahh! My mother, who is behind me, lets out a cry as her camel is heading off on another direction. “Help me please,” she cries as the camel is loosing control. The camel herder eventually comes to the rescue and controls both of our camels. We slowly make our way on camels back to the waiting car. At this point, we realized that riding a camel was like riding a horse. The camel herder looked at my mother and said, “I'll give you two hundred camels for your daughter.” I thought he was joking, but the expression on his face looked serious. Needless to say, my mother turned down the offer.

Next, we said goodbye to Amr and took a train south all the way to Aswan and Luxor, in southern Egypt. This was much like taking a train from Maine to Washinton, DC, but the train jostled from side to side. My mother and I said and watched the Egyptian scenery fly by, amazed at the vast landscape. After a day, we disembarked in a town called Luxor, a town well known for its ancient history and temples. If it was hot in Cairo, it was even hotter in southern Egypt, with the desert and dry air. We meet another tour guide, a young man, with a name I can't pronounce or spell. He had a fondness for cigarettes and talking on his cellphone. “I give tours to English and Russian speakers, “ he tells us, in a thick Arabic accent. “I'm the oldest so I have to support my family.” He escorts us t o visit the sights. Southern Egypt is home to the Valley of the Kings, a place where the ancient rulers like King Tut and sixty-three tombs of other powerful rulers.

For centuries, the Valley of the Kings, located near the Luxor and the Nile River has been a place of popular exploration and interest. Even today, one can go down into a few display tombs to get the feeling of being buried six feet under. As we go into one of the tombs, it takes a little while for our eyes to adjust. I see a man standing by the doorway, an Egyptian. He follows us around as we take pictures and then he turns to us. “You must pay baksheesh for pictures.” I give him an Egyptian pound (equivalent to about 25 cents in American dollars), but he is not happy. “No, that is enough for a child.” I pay him five pounds and exit before he can ask for more money. After spending the morning there, my mother and I boarded the cruise ship that would sail down the Nile River from Luxor to Aswan to see the various temples. Before we board the ship, I decide to use the public bathrooms. Much to my surprise, one is expected to pay, not just to use the toilets, but also for toilet paper. The bathroom, for the most part, was clean and taken care of, but was not worth the price I had to pay the woman.

Next, we boarded the cruise ship where mornings could be spent on the top deck of the boat, then an all-you-can-eat buffet for lunch. In the evenings, there was often entertainment and the cruise ship workers were lovely and spoke wonderful English. Two workers in particular were enjoyable to spend time with. First, there was Mohamed, a teddy bear-like young man, not a day past twenty-three, who worked at the front desk. He loved Fifty Cent and American rap music and his dream was to come to America and make lots of money. We exchanged emails and I wrote to him a few times. “Egypt loves you Laila,” Mohamed said to me once. His friend, Jassim, was a massage therapist who worked upstairs. He was a happy man who played ping-pong with me. Unfortunately, we would hit the ping-pong balls out over the side of the boat, into the Nile River.

Laughing, we ran to the side to look over the boat. I think I lost numerous ping-pong balls that trip. That was not the only exciting cruise experience. One night, as we pulled into port, a group of merchants approached our boat in their small rowboats. They began to throw up their merchandise, pretty handmade Egyptian dresses. The idea was to put the dress in a bad, throw it up and then buyers would place their money in the bag and throw it back down. “I'm going to try and catch something!” I shouted to my mother. I caught it, but the prices were so outlandish that I had to through it back. This was, I soon learned, another Egyptian tradition. On top of the inflated prices of the dresses, tourists were expected to also pay the ever-present baksheesh. We soon arrived in Aswan, the destination of our cruise.

In Aswan and surrounding area, the temples are created as an almost shrine to the Gods and ancient rulers. Large figures of the Pharaohs adorn the temples and each one has the Egyptian hieroglyphics on the walls. The Egyptian slaves who worked tirelessly, expecting nothing in return, built Temples and pyramids, centuries ago. One temple in particular, Abu Simbal, was located on the border of Sudan and Egypt. We woke up at about three in the morning to make the van to see Abu Simbal, about a two-hour ride. Crammed into a small van with about twelve other people, I realized that there was nothing glamorous about Egyptian vans. We had to stop along the way, as one of the passengers was sick. Eventually we arrive, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to visit a temple of this magnitude. The sun was beating down on us, but the temple had much to offer.

Visitors are still allowed to walk into the dark, cave-like temple, but pictures are forbidden so as not to ruin the deteriorating walls. Looking up at the temples, I could never imagine what Egypt would look like without any of these ancient historical landmarks. The next day was our last in Aswan, and we had yet another guide, an older man named Humdee. He took us on a felucca, a sailboat-like boat that, in all honesty, came very close to tipping into the water. The idea was to sail to the botanical gardens, but with the wind, it was very hard to tell just how sturdy the boat was.

I am happy to say we made it to the gardens and back without an accident. “So have you ever fallen in?” I asked Humdee. He smiled at me and winked. “Oh yes. I've fallen in many times.” I was glad we were on shore. After that, he drove us to the train station and after that it was back on the airplane with a stop in Milan, Italy. Once my two-week trip was over, I truly missed Egypt. “Remember when we.....” “Wasn't it fun that we went to...” My mother would say to each other, even today. But being in Maine again, I'm happy not to pay for toilet paper and have to pay baksheesh.

In North Africa, there are 80 blocks of such pyramids scattered around the Egypt's Nile River, which have become one of the most miraculous places in the world. The highest pyramid called Cheops Pyramid and it was build by overlapping pile of boulders together. In the making of pyramids, Egyptians were not using any adhesive, glue or nails to attach the pile of boulders and one could even hardly find cracks or gaps among the rocks or stones from the overlapping plot. Nevertheless, the structure is extremely firm and strong that the sharp blades or swords could not even pass through. In addition, Egyptian Pyramids have experiencing 5,000 years of strong wind's erosions and yet these artifacts are remained not touch by the nature. They appeared to stand alone like warriors in the desert. These towering pyramids are such spectacular and superior buildings human had ever made on the Earth.

This is a mysterious place encountered in the Antarctic Island. People call it “a dry valley with no snow cover.” Antarctic is a place with fewer inhabitants and dwellers and thus some unexplainable phenomenon happenings in Antarctica remain mystery to the outsiders. Approximately 14 million square kilometers of the total area of the Antarctic continent have the snow cover. When viewing from the high sky, the central of the Antarctic is like a pot's lid plateau. Most of the areas vividly have their surfaces covered with snow with its thickness reaching 2000m and sometimes may attain the thickness up to 4,800m. In winter, the surrounding ice combines with the ice from the ocean to form up one smooth, large plateau to which people can hardly distinguish between the land and the sea.

Bermuda Triangle is located in Western North Atlantic, which comprises of seven major islands, 150 small islands, some islands composed of reefs group. Any high-tech devices or equipments will become malfunction when reaching this mysterious place and thus the survivors may have encountered problems to communicate with the outside world. Because of its extremely mysterious characteristic, people have called this place as a devil triangle.

In China, people have named this desert as “Moguicheng” or a city of devil. “Moguicheng” is famous in Xinjiang, China. When someone is strolling towards the castle in a sunny day accompanying with a gentle blowing breeze, one may heard a nice rhythm coming from the distance. The melodies are just like 10 million shaking bells, and sometimes one may feel the music like gentle flicking of 10 million guitars' strings. However, when cyclones come, bulks of sands are rising up in the sky by the strong winds, the sky turns pitch dark suddenly like a hell, and the nice music no longer heard but turns into strange sounds. The sounds resemble the roaring of the tigers, trumpeting of the elephants, and sounds by pigs that are being slaughtered, babies' crying, shouting of the women who are going to die, and alternately the sounds change to shouting, mourning and quarreling. The storms are then swirling aggressively by shooting up to the sky accompanying by terrified wolf growling sounds in the cloudy nightfall. People are wandering who had built this city and where do the sounds come from?

This island is legendary full of Surreptitious and specter. Westerners prefer sailing by venturing many historically strange events occurred here in the history of seafaring. In 1707, the British captain of the Andean Julius had discovered this land; however, it was strange that he could hardly reach this land. He later affirmed that this was not an optical illusion, so he marked the “land” on the map. 200 years later, the admiral Makaluofu and his inspection team who were sailing to the North Pole on their icebreaker vessel called "Ye Ermake," accidentally came across this piece of land. In 1925, Navigator called Woershi, too, passed through this land and he memorized the outline of the land. Nevertheless, the investigation team comprising of scientists, who sailed to this land in 1928 never found any islands as claimed by the previous navigators.

This place is located in Henan, China, and local people called it “bingbing bei” or the back of the ice. When midsummer approaches, people tend to move to places that are cool and refreshing. Although the change of four seasons, namely summer, autumn, spring and winter is an unchangeable law, in certain parts of the world, this theory seems not to be applicable. They are some fortunate people live in “warm” zone. This phenomenon is applying to people dwelling in the eastern mountain areas of Liaoning Province, China. They are experiencing warm temperature while other areas of China are experiencing the changes of seasons. Thus, this area has named after this phenomenon as "temperature anomaly zone." This "geothermal anomaly zone" extends from 1.5m out of the town of the left riverbank of Hunjiang to the end part of the right riverbank of Hun River and to the foothills near Guandian Province. The entire length for this "temperature anomaly zone" is approximately 15km, occupying the areas of approximately 106,000 square meters. The advent of summer is always accompanying with a decline of temperature in the area of "temperature anomaly zone." When the temperature reaches as high as 30 degree Celsius during the summer, the temperature is minus 12 degree Celsius at one-meter deep into the underground of this area, and the ice froze underground. When someone dips a drop of water one-meter deep into the underground of this area, the water will immediately turn into ice.

Shennongjia is located at the intersection of Sichuan, in Hubei zone, with the meeting of two rivers, namely China's Yangtze River and Hanjiang River. This region comprises an area of 3,250 square kilometers, accounting for more than 85 % of woodland. The average elevation is 1,700m, with the highest point of 3,105 meters, and with the characteristic of various types of climate. When speaking of Shennongjia, people here will think of “savage.” Since ancient times, large numbers of documentations have revealed the existence of savage roaming around this area. Legendary, people could even hardly identify the authenticity of the savage. The effort of collecting evidence on the existence of savage was initiating by the relevant departments from 1977 to 1980. They had collected savage hairs, footprints and feces left by the savage. This proved to us that a kind of bizarre animal might have existed in Shennongjia not long ago.

This is the famous ancient city of Teotihuacan in America, which called “death to the road.” This region stretched from a so-called main road of “death to the road” to the north-south roadway. In the tenth century AD, Ards heroes who were the earliest team walking along this way leading to a castle found nobody in the city, and thus they believed that the buildings on either side of the road were gods' tomb lands. In 1974, a Mexican person called Dayton • Halisi said that he had found a suitable unit measurement for all these streets and buildings at this city at the International American meeting. This unit length is 1.059m using a calculation from a computer. For example, the units for the Teaodiwakan snake temple, the moon and the Sun Pyramid is the height of 21, 42, and 63 "units" respectively with the ratio of 1:2:3 based upon the ancient calculation.

People not allowed entering this Kunlun Mountains as its name suggested as "The Gates of Hell." This valley is a death valley, which further claims the Kunlun Mountains "The Gates of Hell." The remains found in this valley were the furs, bones, skeletons of wolves, bears and hunters and some scattered lonely tombs, rendering the world in the death of a ghastly terrifying atmosphere. The Xinjiang Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources of a geological team in China had recorded a true story in the year of 1983 on a group of hungry horse that was grazing the grass and disappeared suddenly in the "The Gates of Hell." A herdsman went into the prohibited area of "The Gates of Hell" to search for his horse. After few days, he was found missing but the horse emerged at the foothill of Kunlun Mountains. Later, the herdsman was found lying on a small hill with his clothes badly torn off, barely footed, eyes widely opened with an angry look, a shotgun gripping in one of his hands showing that he was reluctantly to die. The miraculous thing was that no wounds or signs found around his body to show that he had attacked.

Canada Niagara Falls is the world's most mysterious places in the world. Niagara Falls constitutes a part of Canada and the border of United States, the New York State and Ontario, Canada, separating from the Niagara River by flowing northward from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario with a total length of nearly 30 miles. Located in the north, covering an area of 250,000 square miles, Niagara Falls is a smooth exit to these lakes. Its maximum water flow reaches 250,000 cubic feet per second. Niagara Falls is indeed very awesome.

This Geysering is a magical spring found in the upper part of the Yarlung Zangbo River in Tibet, China. The spring bursts out in a short while and stops for a while before following by other bursts. The burst goes on, stops and goes on. In other words, its eruption cycle is continuous for a few minutes, auto stop after a few dozen minutes; and followed by another burst and so forth. It bursts like an eruption with a huge, shocked sound. It vents out some high temperature steam from the mouth of the spring. The spring then expands immediately into one to two meters in diameter, and rushes out as water column as high as 20m into the sky. In addition to China's Geysering, in the place near Reykjavik, capital of Iceland, the Geysering is renowned in the world with its diameter of 20m. When there is drizzling rain, this water column can even soar up as high as 70m into the sky.