Escape the bustle of Cairo and explore the upper Nile River in Egypt where the relaxed pace lets you enjoy meeting the locals.

The villagers are the true and wonderful Egyptians around the banks of the Nile.

Coming up, get insider advice on your options for cruising the Nile.

When Pico Ayers set out to find Paradise on Earth in South Asia,

he found the unexpected is what intrigued him most.

Everything interesting in our lives is what we can't understand.

Siberia has long been a place of exile.

Sophie Roberts searched far and wide for the pianos that European Russians had shipped there years ago.

She learned never take the piano tuners of Siberia for granted.

They never have a name, you never recognize their importance, but they're the kind of unsung hero.

Looking for the Lost Pianos of Siberia, cruising denial, and finding paradise where you least expect it.

It's where we're going in the hour ahead on Travel with Rick

Steve's. Come along.

What makes a place seem like Paradise on Earth to you?

Author Pico Eyre tells us what his travels to India and Sri Lanka showed him about finding

Paradise wherever you are.

And Sophie Roberts tells us about her adventure searching for the lost pianos of Siberia. That's later in the hour ahead.

Let's open today's travel with Rick Steeves with tips for admiring 5,000 years of civilization while cruising the Nile River in Egypt.

Egypt, it's one and a half times the size of Texas with about a hundred million people.

Its capital, Cairo, is the biggest city in Africa with 20 million people, even more.

The country is essentially a big desert facing the Mediterranean with a lush green ribbon flowing north and south

through it and that ribbon is the fabled Nile so fertile so rich in history and

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