If one were to ask me the old clichéd question ‘what would you do if someone gave you one million dollars, or rupees or euros or whatever currency was going strong at that point of time?’ my answer would be simple…..’See the world’, for I have been bitten by the wander bug and suffer from the incurable disease called wanderlust.

‘Wanderlust’ is a quaint little word in German, commonly defined as a strong desire to travel or to have an itch to get out and see the world. Though a German loanword, it is frequently used in English. It’s a combination of ‘wandern’ which means, to ‘wander’, and ‘lust’ which of course, means ‘desire’.

Part of my ‘see the world’ dream is to visit the Seven Wonders of the World. The genesis of the dream was much before a Website announced the new ‘Seven Wonders of the World’ in Lisbon, Portugal on 07.07.07. I thought of starting my tour with a visit to the seven ancient wonders. But sadly I discovered that except for the one, all others have fallen prey to the ravages of time and nature.

So I decided to start with the only remaining ancient wonder – the Pyramids of Giza –in Egypt. This is purely personal account and if you are looking for a travel guide there are ample guidebooks and websites that will give you information about the history and geography of the pyramids.

I believe every city in the world has a twin and Cairo is the twin city of Mumbai. They are so similar that I could even identify specific streets and lanes. On our way to the hotel we passed the river Nile. It was a sort of

an anticlimax. In my imagination the river Nile, which was a witness to so much history was very different from the one that I saw. This river which saw the birth of one of the first civilisations seemed to be suffering from an overwhelming encroachment of civilisation on both its banks. It was flanked on both the sides by star hotels, shopping malls and huge neon signs.

The next day we were accompanied by our pretty Egyptian tour guide Farheen. Both she and her husband were in the same profession. She came from the neighbouring town of Alexandria but her husband was from Cairo. They met on job fell in love and got married. Though she covered her head with the traditional head scarf ‘shela’, it was not compulsory for her to wear the ‘abaya’ or the ‘burqa’, as it is known in India. They had a son whom they wanted to send to an English medium school.