Pre-script: We had been making plans to visit Egypt since
2010. But we travelled to almost all neighboring countries of Israel – Jordan,
Turkey, Greece – minus the elusive Egypt. So, we made a sudden plan to visit
Egypt during the Passover holidays in March 2013. Since we had heard a lot
about the places to see from our friends and family, we did not delve much
into the smaller details of things. Unlike Greece, I did not take any part in
trying to get info about various places to see. My husband planned the whole
thing along with his friend, who at that time was living in Cairo. All we did
was decide the days and we were off.
EGYPT..The name of the place reminds you of the Pyramids
and of course “The Mummy”. What you expect and what you see in this
historically enchanting country are miles apart.
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| TGIF, Sharm al Sheikh |
We did not take the usual route of flying to Cairo. We
decided to travel by road most of the way. Since Israel shares a land border
(Taba border crossing) with Egypt, we took the less expensive and more
adventurous route of crossing over the border and driving through Sinai. We
spent more time travelling, but cost wise, I think we saved quite a lot. We
took a 5 hour bus ride from Tel Aviv to Eilat, stayed overnight and crossed
over to Egypt early in the morning. The 3-hour drive from the Taba border to
Sharm El Sheikh was an exciting one. Hearing all the stories of kidnapping in
the Sinai Peninsula, really kept us alert throughout our journey. We could see a vehicle cross by very rarely,
and driving through an entire desert was quite an experience. Most of the
resorts along the Red Sea in Taba looked deserted and empty. I have heard a lot
about the resorts in Sharm Al Sheikh, but seeing them was really shocking.
Imagine walking through a desert and seeing an oasis, that’s how it felt. The
best part of this was this oasis was American. The streets opposite the resorts
were filled with top American outlets like TGIF, McDonalds, KFC, StarBucks
and even Hard Rock Café. We were searching for an Egyptian restaurant but couldn’t,
so we settled for TGIF. We then took a flight from Sharm al Sheikh Airport to
Cairo.
Since I did some basic reading about Taxis, we knew where to
book a taxi before leaving the airport. As the books described we were
surrounded by taxi drivers just outside the airport. Since we pre-booked our
taxi, we didn’t go through the grind of shooing off the mob surrounding us. On
our way to our friend’s house, the first thing we noticed about Cairo was the
traffic. It was almost 9pm, but the traffic did not seem to be moving at all.
And of course, the noise, honking and all the things you find on Indian roads
too. So it seemed like we were home. Ha ha!!! So by the time we reached our
friend’s place, it was almost 11pm. He lived in this great neighborhood, Zamelek,
where we found some of the good restaurants in Cairo. The best part of it all
was that his home was overlooking the river Nile. We were famished with all the
travelling, so we had a quick dinner and went right to bed.
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| Gallery |
Early the next morning, we were off to see the Pyramids of
Giza. As we headed out into the city, the first thing we noticed was a blanket of
dust covering the city’s skyline. We were told that this is a very common
occurrence in Cairo. We did not worry much about it until we reached the
Pyramids. That was where we witnessed our first sand storm, on our first day in
Egypt!! The sand hitting our car made a small crackling sound, which made me a
little scared to get out of our car. The only saving fact was that it was not continuous
but only at certain pockets around the Pyramids. We courageously got out of the
car and met up with our guide, Hameed who was an archaeologist at the site. The
place we stood at was the Great Pyramid, which was the highest pyramid there.
Almost 3000 years old, this massive structure towering above us was about 139m high
with several million blocks, the largest one weighing almost 80 tonnes. It was built
by Pharaoh Khufu. For all who have seen the Mummy, all these words would be
very familiar. There were several passages inside the pyramid, but only one
passage was open to the public. Looking at the weather outside, we headed straight
to explore the passage within the pyramid. They charge about 100 EGP per person
to go into the pyramids. As we walked into the pyramids, we saw a crudely
carved out passage at first. Once inside, we had to go up a ramp which was only
about 4 ft height, so we had to bend and walk through this to enter another
ramp which was called the gallery. This was an amazing room which had the floor
and roof almost parallel throughout the ramp. All this led us to the The King's
Chamber. The only thing remaining in the room, was an empty-broken sarcophagus.
Most people I spoke to regarding this place, discouraged me from going, but I
think it was a wonderful experience to see what the inside of the Pyramid
looked like. I really enjoyed this experience, maybe not recommended for the
claustrophobic, but definitely a must see.
We then drove through the entire Pyramid complex, looking at
the other two pyramids, which were around. The next pyramid was about 136 m
high with the top part of the pyramid still intact with the original limestone outer
layer. From a distance, this pyramid looked taller than the great Pyramid, but
this was because the 2nd pyramid is on highest ground. Altogether
the entire pyramid complex had 9 Pyramids, only 3 can be seen clearly. We went
to a spot where we could get a panoramic view of all the Pyramids. This was
where we found it hardest to stand still as the stand storm had picked up speed.
If you see the pictures, you can see that it was the worst hair day for me (I
forgot to get a scarf). That day I understood why all the women here wore scarfsJ. We then visited the Great
Sphinx of Giza, which was at the north end of the Giza complex. The face of the Sphinx is said to be that of
Pharaoh Khafra. The temple complex which housed the Sphinx was used for
mummification.
Once we finished the Pyramids, we decided to see the famous
Egyptian Museum, which everyone talks about. Before that we decided to have
lunch. Our driver took us to this wonderful boat restaurant called Pasha, where
we had our first Egyptian Meal. The problem in Cairo is that wherever we need
to go, we needed to give ourselves at least an hour for travel. That’s how bad
the traffic was. So by the time we finished lunch it was 3pm, and the museum
was to close at 4.30pm. We heard that we
need a minimum of 2 hours to see the museum. So we decided to go to the Citadel
instead. On our way to the Citadel, I saw some of the most amazing mosques all
around Old Cairo. This reminded me of our trip to Istanbul, where I had last seen
these many mosques. But compared to Istanbul, these mosques were much more
beautiful in design.
The Citadel and the Alabastar Mosque was this superb
mosque overlooking Old Cairo. We rushed into the mosque before it closed, to
see a wonderful structure with 365 lights for the 365 days of the year. This
mosque was made entirely of Alabastar stone and was built in a Turkish style,
evident from the spike like minarets. This mosque looked very similar to the
Blue Mosque at Istanbul. We did not spend much time here, as it was closing
time. When we left the mosque, it was almost 5.30 pm and the only place which
was open at that time was the Khan e-Khalili Market, which was our next stop. |
| Shopping ticked! |
Our experience in this market was great unlike what I have
heard about the harassment by the shop keepers. We were told not to listen to
the shopkeepers and just get into a shop only if we needed to buy anything, and
that’s exactly what we did. So we bought quite a few souvenirs and gifts for
our friends and family. We found this amazing shop with great Papyrus
paintings and we ended up buying quite a lot from it. The entire market was a
typical tourist market. We spent almost 2 hours at this market and had a
handful of souvenirs. We then had dinner at KFC, which we found at every nook
and corner in Cairo, and then headed back home. We went to bed early, as we
had an early morning flight to catch to Aswan the next day.
The next day started as early as 3am, as we had a flight to
catch to Aswan at 5am. We reached Aswan at 6am and took a taxi to our cruise.
That was our first experience with bargaining. We had a taxi driver who was
very courteous to tell us about Aswan’s history, pointing out to various
landmarks. He even gave us the liberty to decide how much we need to pay him.
This was until we handed him the money and he felt it was not enough. That
was the only thing unpleasant about that day as the bargaining went on for
quite a while and we were late for our guided tour. Once it passed, we checked
into our amazing cruise.
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| Inside the cruise |
We had booked 3 nights at the Senosta Moon Goddess cruise,
which had a wonderful ambience. This was our first experience living on a boat,
and both of us were excited!!! As we entered our room, we had the most
exquisite view of the Nile from our own private balcony. Compared to noisy
Cairo, it was super silent and serene. Once we settled in, we were asked to
be ready by 8am for our guided tour of the Philae temple and high dam of
Aswan. After a quick breakfast we met with our guide Hameed at the reception,
along with another family, who coincidentally were also from the Diplomatic Service :)
Aswan, a small tourist city along the banks of the Nile has
a large population of Nubians, who our guide said as having much more darker
skin than any Egyptian. Aswan also had many granite quarries, which is the
source of most of the Obelisks, we would see in Luxor. Our first stop was the
High Dam of Aswan. It is this massive structure across the River Nile. With Lake
Nasseer on one side, the High Dam constructed over a period of 10 years, has
benefitted the Egyptian farmers in terms of controlling flooding and providing irrigation facilities. I did not find the dam very impressive as they
deem it to be. After taking some photographs, we were off to see the Philae
Temple. On our way to the Philae temple, we stopped at the unfinished Obelisk.
This place was basically a granite quarry with an unfinished obelisk, which if
finished would have measured 120ft. It
wasn’t the most pleasurable experience walking around a granite quarry in the
scorching heat.
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| Enroute Philae temple |
We then took a small boat from Aswan to go to the Philae
Temple. This was where you see the actual appearance of the Nubians. They did
seem very different from an average Egyptian. The approach to the temple was
just spectacular. Since this was our first visit to a Temple, I was all ears
when the guide told us about it. This is the temple of the goddess Isis, wife
of Osiris & mother of Horus (falcon headed god). These characters are very
commonly spoken of in most of the temples we saw. Basically, Osiris was
murdered by his brother Seth and dismembered all over Egypt. Isis collected the
fragments and gave birth to Horus. When Horus grows old, he takes his revenge
on Uncle Seth.
When the High Dam was built, a lot of temples were
threatened of the rising water levels. So this temple, originally on Philae Island,
was shifted to Agilkia Island where we stood. The original island can even now be
seen from here. As we entered, we saw a huge courtyard, with Roman pillars on
either side, this lead to a smaller courtyard and then the temple inside. This
was my first glimpse of an ancient Egyptian temple, and I was just stunned at
the sheer size of it. As we entered we see carvings on all the walls. Seeing
all these in movies, and seeing it for real was really exciting. The outer
walls had carvings which were carved inward while the inner temple walls had
carvings which projected outward. This was evident in almost any temple we
visited. In the inner temple walls the most common carvings we saw, were that
of the pharaoh’s offering perfumes, flowers etc to the gods.
At the entrance of
the temple, we saw two falcons, which symbolize protection. This seemed very
similar to our Indian temples. As we went in, I was amazed at the carvings which
were engraved from the ceiling to the floor. Imagine the workmanship, which
went into it creating such massive wall engravings. It was just breathtaking.
We had almost an hour to roam the entire temple and take our pictures. Once we
were out, our boatman was waiting for us to take us back to the mainland of
Aswan. Our touring for the day was done. We returned to our cruise, and were
welcomed with warm hand towels to wipe our dusty faces. This was one thing I
did not like about Egypt. Anytime, we go out, there was a layer of dust
sticking to your face.
Anyway, we were back to our lovely room, cruising along the
Nile, to our next stop, the famous temple of Kom Ombo. This is a grand temple
along the banks of the Nile, is unique in the sense that the southern part of
the temple is dedicated to Sobek- the Crocodile god while the northern part of
the temple is dedicated to the Falcon headed god- Horus. One of the many
offerings made to the gods
were of course crocodiles and these mummified
crocodiles were even displayed in a creepy Crocodile Museum in the temple
premises. This was one the first places, where we actually saw colored carvings
retained on the temple walls. Another interesting part of the temple was the
calendar where the numbers are in hieroglyphics and even the seasons can be
clearly seen. It was almost 6pm by the time we finished our tour. We were back
on the cruise for a good night’s rest heading to the town of Edfu.
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Inside Edfu temple |
The next day we stopped at Edfu, a small town located 60km
north of Aswan which housed the 2nd largest temple in Egypt, the
Temple of Horus. We took a horse cart through the town of Edfu to reach the
temple premises. On the way we even crossed a small train track which was used
to transfer sugarcane from the fields. Once we reached the temple, I was awe
struck at the massive size and beauty of the structure. The temples were just
getting bigger and bigger J
It was not surprising for me to hear that that it took 180 years to build this
temple, and another 22 years to be excavated from under the sand. Once we enter the temple complex we saw this
35m high wall which forms the outer wall of the temple. This wall is 8 floors
high and also house 2 staircases within the walls. On enetering the main
courtyard, we saw a courtyard of roman pillars all around, which was mainly
used by the common people. Another unique feature of this temple was the
pyramidal style of architecture. As you enter the sanctum of the temple, the
roof come down, which is evident from the size of the pillars as we walk into
the temple. The color of the inscriptions in this temple seemed to be intact on
the top of the columns. The next room of columns houses the perfume room, with inscriptions
of the formula used for various perfumes and also the approach to the staircases.
As you enter the sanctum, we find a 150 tonne
niche of the throne of Pharaoh Horus made entirely of red granite. As we
come out, all along the inner side of the outer wall has the inscriptions of
the entire war of Horus and Seth. This temple reminded me a lot of some of
the ancient temples we find in India. I was thoroughly amazed by its beauty
and structural brilliance.
We took our horse cart back to our cruise and bid goodbye
to our wonderful guide and we were
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| At Esna locks |
off to Luxor. The rest of the day was
spent entirely in the cruise. They had arranged for a yummy barbeque lunch on
the deck. As we entered Esna, we had just finished lunch. And we witnessed the moving
of our boats through the Esna locks to move from the Lower Nile to Upper Nile,
which was really interesting. How meticulously they move the huge cruise boats
through the locks in an almost unnoticeable manner were fascinating. They
brought the cruise within the lock, closed both sides of the locks. Allowed the
water to stream out, and once the levels were the same, they opened the locks
and we got out. The best part of all this were the vendors on small boats,
rowing so close to our ship, desperately trying to sell their bed sheets and table cloths. They would throw them overboard and ask us to buy it. It was an interesting
sales strategy. Since we were in the lean season, we did not take much time to
cross the locks. After crossing the locks, we had the entire evening to laze
around in our room, watching TV and sleeping. This was most relaxing for my husband
;-) !!!!
Early the next day, we headed to the Valley of Kings and Valley of Queens in Luxor. These are tombs of various kings and queens
located on the west side of the River Nile. It is believed that these tombs
were made on the western side as the sun sets on the west. As we enter the
Valley of Kings, the most disappointing part of it was that no photography was
allowed. These tombs were located in the desert, with small vehicles taking us
to the main spot. The Valley of Kings
has about 62 tombs dug into the hills at various points in the desert of which
only 10 are open to public. It is
believed that workers start to build the tombs of kings, once they assume the
throne. Once the kings die, all their belongings are brought to the tomb along
with their mummified bodies. The Tomb of
Tuttenkhamum is very small and incomplete as he ruled for only 10 years. The
deepest tomb in the valley of kings was that of Queen Hatpetshut, which was
about 122 m deep. Nothing prepared us for the kind of carvings we saw within
these tombs. The clarity and colors of the carvings were intact like as
though they were painted just yesterday. Now I could imagine how all the
temples we had seen earlier would have actually looked like. Since the tombs were
so well preserved, we could see all the carvings in color. We saw about 3 tombs
and were famished by the end of it. The heat was unbearable.
The Valley of Queens houses about 10 tombs of which 3 were
open to public. These tombs were smaller than the tombs of the kings. This
valley also housed the tombs of the royal children too. The main difference
between these tombs and the tombs in the Valley of Kings was that in these
tombs there were no carvings but everything was just hand painted. Not being able to take photographs here was
the most disappointing thing. Nowhere else in our trip did we see the carvings
so well preserved in their true colors.
Once out of the desert, we were back on the road to the
Temple of Queen Hatshepsut (Hot chicken soup- that’s how our guide made us
remember the name). This temple is also located on the western side of the
Nile, with the amazing mountainous landscape as its backdrop. I really liked
this temple, This temple was a great structure, built on
three levels with rooms on either side of the grand staircase, that we see as
we enter the temple complex. As we
entered the third level, we saw the statues of the Queen on either side of the
entrance. We saw that the queen wore male clothes and even had a beard. The
valley of kings is right behind this temple. In the top most level of the
temple, there was a half finished tunnel, which was being built to go directly
to the valley of kings. 
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| Columns of Karnak Temple |
On finishing this temple, we were taken back to the cruise
where the first thing we did was get into the swimming pool. Phew..it was a hot
hot day and being in the desert the entire day got to our heads. After a cool
swim, we relaxed a bit and were again off to see one of the largest temples in
Egypt in the city of Luxor. We travelled through the city to reach one of the
major tourist attractions in Egypt - the Karnak Temple, which was on the eastern
side of river Nile. This temple did not have much of a grand façade like some
of the other temples we visited. When I first entered I was surprised to hear
that it was the largest temple, as there was not much remaining of the main
temple walls. As we entered the complex, we are greeted by a number of sphinxes
on either side of the entrance. This complex has 5 temples in a land area of 65
acres taking 1200 years to build. The entrance courtyard had the temple of
Ramses on one side and a statue of king Ramses and his favourite wife
Nefretari. Leaving all this behind, we then entered the Great hall of columns.
When I saw this hall, I was awe struck.
Nothing can prepare you for the sheer size of these columns. I loved
this place having about 134 columns in whole. This was the best place in the
Karnak temple. The pics will tell you the grandeur of these columns. Most of
the inscriptions on these columns were depicting offerings made by King Ramses
to the gods. On exiting this column hall, we saw two huge obelisks. Since this
temple does not have a roof or outer walls all intact, we couldn’t see the
grandeur of it. But the size like they say is really huge. It took us quite
some time to see the entire complex, which was partly in ruins.
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| King Tuttenkhamun & his Queen :) |
We then went to the Luxor temple which has the most
fascinating row of sphinxes facing each other, inviting us to enter the temple
premises. It is believed that this road connects the Luxor temple to the Karnak
temple. As we entered the temple, there were a number of idols of King Ramses
all around the first courtyard. Followed by a long pathway leading to another
courtyard of magnificent pillars, which is the court of Amonhotep III. This
then led us to the sanctum of the temple which is the Birth Shrine of Amenhotep
III. This temple was situated right at the bank of the river Nile. Once we were
done we were escorted back to our cruise. Generally, the cruises were full and
the evenings in the cruise were fun with various shows like belly dancing etc.
But since the political turmoil erupted in Egypt, tourism had suffered. All
along the way, our tourist guides kept complaining about it and how they were
suffering due to the significant drop in tourists. We also suffered as we had
very few co-passengers and hence the evenings were not so enjoyable without
much company. I only hoped that normalcy should return to this beautiful
country sooner.
Early next day, we took a flight back to Cairo from Luxor. The first thing on our list, was to see the Egyptian museum. So we had a quick bite at Pizza Hut and were off to the museum. The museum was this neat orange building with a huge queue waiting to get in. We had been told that it was easy to get a guide in the museum premises itself. Once we surrendered our cameras and got our tickets, we were on the lookout for a guide. We could find just one and we went with him. As we entered the museum we had very high expectations as this was a must see place in Cairo. But once we were inside, we were not that happy. Since we had been to all the temples, we had an idea about the various names that the guide was throwing at us. I mean the sheer volume of things in the museum was just amazing. But we felt that the museum was not organized very well and we were very dependent on the guide to understand what each artefact represented. The most amazing room in the museum is the Mummies room, where I could not believe how well preserved the mummies were. And of course the things from the tomb of Tuttenkhamun were something, which need a special mention. On the whole, we had just a mediocre experience in the museum. We either had a bad guide or very high expectations. But it took us almost 2-3 hours to finish the entire museum.
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| Skyline from Cairo Tower |
We then walked along the Nile, looking at all the colorful
feluccas and reached our taxi. Since we were very close to the famous Tahrir
square, we were very excited to see the state of the place at that time. We
could still see some protesters settled in tents in the square. On our way back
to Zamelek, we stopped at the Cairo tower. This was a tall tower, from which we
could get an amazing view of the city. We paid 70 pounds per head which I felt
was a little expensive. Once on the top floor, they have restaurants, a viewing
platform and a number of couples thronged the place for their selfies. We really
loved the panoramic view of Cairo. Getting back to our friend’s place, we had a
wonderful dinner at a traditional Egyptian restaurant right at the water’s
edge.
Next day, we were off to Alexandria. It was little less than
3 hour drive from Cairo city. We picked Alexandria as it was one of the larger
cities closer to Cairo. We reached around 11 am and directly visited the
Roman theatre, which was typically an amphitheater in ruins. Alexandria was a
crowded city with trams plying on the roads, with crowded small streets. We
felt like it was similar to Cairo in many ways. Once we were done with the
theatre, we stopped for lunch at this beautiful restaurant along the water’s
edge. We could see the entire beach area of Alexandria from this restaurant. We
then visited this beautiful fortress overlooking the Mediterranean, The Citadel
of Quaitbay. This citadel was built in 1480 on the exact site of the famous
Lighthouse of Alexandria. The Citadel was this massive fortress, with a
great view of the Mediterranean. We spent almost 2 hours at the citadel. My
husband checked about scuba diving option as most of the ancient town of
Alexandria was submerged under water, but we were unlucky as most of the dive
centers close by noon. |
| Library of Alexandria |
Our next stop was the most amazing structure in Alexandria,
the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. As we entered the building, we could see that the
premises was brimming with students. We surrendered our belongings at the
entrance and got our tickets. Once inside, we were given a private tour of the
library, free of charge. It is believed that the original library held the
largest collection of manuscripts in the world until it burned down in the 3rd
century. The dramatic new library, resembling an angled discus or a great
sundial, was designed by a Norwegian architect completed in 2002. The Library has a lot of religious significance because of
its original role as a temple and its collection of many religious manuscripts.
They have a number of permanent exhibitions housed in the library. The inside of the library was a modern
structure with a glass wall which is the source of natural light entering the
reading hall. We were just awe struck looking at this hall. The outer wall of the library has
inscriptions of all the ancient languages of the world, including Tamil. Our
overall experience in Alexandria was saved by the magnificent Bibliotheca.
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| Tamil inscription in Bibliotheca |
We got stuck in traffic on our way back to Cairo as there were
some protests (which were very common in Egypt now) going on in some villages
outside Cairo. Our driver starting went off the main road into the small roads
inside the villages. We got a bit worried as he was stopping every now and then
to enquire about the way from local villagers. The last thing we wanted was to
get lost in the middle of the night in no-man’s land. On top of it, we had a
morning flight to catch from Cairo. My husband called his friend to check about
the situation and he assured that there was nothing to worry. But our discomfort only eased when our driver finally brought us to
the main road leading to Cairo. We reached our friend’s house past mid-night
and settled into bad.
Next morning, we bid adieu to our gracious host and set-off
to Cairo airport. We traced our route, went to Sharm al Sheikh to Taba
crossing. This time fatigue overtook our vigil and both of us had a good long
sleep during the driver through Sinai. We reached the Taba crossing by 4:30pm
and crossed over to Eilat. Since our bus was only in the night, my husband went
for a swim in the Red Sea. We had dinner and went to the Eilat bus station. When
the bus was on the outskirts of Eilat, I could see the Taba Mountains on the
left and all fond memories of a wonderful trip to Egypt flashed quickly. As the
light inside the bus was fading, I was saying good-bye not only to this ancient
country loaded with history, culture and civilization, but also to the lovely
Red-sea city of Eilat. I suddenly realized that we would be leaving Israel in a
couple of months. My heart became heavy and I had a sleepless night during the
5-hour drive to Tel Aviv.
Post-script: This blog/post is long overdue. But after we moved
to the Maldives in June-July 2013, I conceived Ahaan. Then came the busy period
of being pampered by everyone in the family – both during pregnancy and after
childbirth. After his birth, Ahaan gave me unlimited happiness and very limited
free time. So I am glad that I was able to complete this post after two long
years. My apologies if the flow was not smooth; after all the blog was composed
during the short breaks my little darling gave me :D
More photos from the Egypt trip
Inside the Great Pyramid of Giza
At the Temple of Kom Ombo
Outside Temple of Edfu
At Temple of Queen Hatshepsut
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