Aswan

June 22

Cairo > Aswan

If there's one thing I didn't like about this trip, it's the wake up time. Well, can't blame ém coz they were doing their best to give us all the places to see, so no complaints.

We drove from Le Meridian to the Cairo Airport. I took one last look at the Pyramids and smiled to myself. Today we were off to the city called Aswan. It was a short domestic flight and as always, Thomas Cook agents were ready and this time it was Emad who met us at the Aswan Airport.

We were taken straight to our cruise ship. And suddenly everything was small. Kinda like how Alice felt when she had the cake and grew big. The room, the loo, everything. But of course everything was great, only small.

We left our luggage in our cabin and were on our way to the high dam over Lake Nasser. It is the largest artificial lake in the world. Our guide there was Mortez. Emad had left after dropping us at the cruise and introducing us to Mortez. Mortez could read the cartouge I had around my neck. That felt good.

After the dam, we went to the Philae temple. It was on an island, so we went by boat. I wonder how it would have been if my mom was there, she completely hates the idea of boats.

It was lovely to see the temple from the boat as it looked larger as we approached. This temple was dedicated to Isis. The walls were full of hieroglyphs. It was partly destroyed by ancient Christians calling it a pagan place of worship.

Mortez told us how the Christians had hid here during the Roman attack, how the side were the Nubians used were less destroyed, about Hathor's smiling 7 faces, how the temple was rebuilt two times and moved to the current location...

We went back to the cruise. It was still at the dock, so it was like the floating restaurant in Cairo, only, this time we were in the basement so through the circular windows I could see water above my head. It was a buffet, okay-okay types.

We could rest for the rest of the day. But the mission for the day was to find fresh dates to take home for Amma. Of everything we had in the buffet, nothing was as good as the dates. I've had the fresh dates that we get back in India, but these were different, really juicy and great. But sadly, the crew didn't understand the English word dates so we took one from the buffet table and asked them were we could find dates like these.

They gave an attended Mahmood to accompany me and Appa and we were off to the Aswan market near by. Here too, people magically recognized us as Indians. I seriously don't know how. There were a lot of spices in the stores, a lot of sheesha kept out of different shapes and sizes and you could see small groups of people having a little conversation while slowly exhaling the sweet smoke.

One thing in my to-do list in the cruise ship was to have champagne. That couldn't be done. Dinner was buffet again in the same basement restaurant and after that we went to the upper deck to see the night lights and click some pics.

Sleep came really quick because we had woken up early that day and also because we had to the next day as well.

Cairo, Day 2

June 20

Writing this after a very long gap. I had made it a point to jot down things things I saw and did each day during that week I had in Egypt and to put it all here I guess I grew too lazy. Anyways, here goes.

Second day in Cairo. Enid Blyton breakfast repeat :P.

The Cairo museum is where we spent most our day. That place has thousands of years of history spread across its halls. According to Sam, we could distinguish the artifacts of Egypt by their look- if the statues had a dignified look about them, it belonged to the ancient period. The ones from the middle ages were grim and dark. The modern ones were fair in nature.

There were sarcophaguses of stone and alabaster at every turn and corner. Sam told us a lot that day. About Ka, Ba, Hathor, Horus, Isis and Osiris, false doors, embalming, Hatshepsut, Tutmosis, Ramesis...I could travel back in time through his stories and the things I saw there. Honestly, you'll need more than a day to walk leisurely through here and see all the wonders exhibited.

My younger brother can act like a spoilt brat at times. But in ancient Egypt there was a 19-year-old who could cover himself with gold. Yeah, I'm talking about King Tut alright. There was a whole section dedicated to his belongings. On his body, they found 143 gold objects wrapped in the linen coverings. The gold mask alone weighed 11 kg! His solid gold coffin was placed within 3 other coffins (like those Russian dolls), which in turn was inside 4 concentric rooms. His ornaments weer adorned with carnelian, lapiz lazuli and turquoise.

Then there was an ancient Egyptian ornament section. I'm somebody who hates wearing gold just because of the shiny yellow colour and the boring patterns I've seen. But looks like I could be game for the ancient Egyptian kind. There were really pretty, fashionable ones that I absolutely loved. The earrings were too thick, the holes in your ears have to be really wide to put the ones here on.

Another thing I remember from here is a birthing stool. The ancient Egyptians believed the crouching position was the most healthy one for birthing and had special stools with a hole in the middle for this purpose. Other things that caught my attention were a queen's bed, her metal pillow and her slimy internal organs still preserved. A duplicate of the Rosetta stone.Ancient writings, magic spells, charms....

Then there was the mummy room where we saw 12 mummies resting since about a 1000 years. We could still see the hair and nails.

I seriously cannot sum up everything I saw in there. You have to be there to get how it feels. History all around you, all about you.

The day's lunch included Kobeba and beef kofta.

Next we went to St Mary's church. It was a hanging church, placed above wooden beams on an ancient building. Legend has it that Mary had appeared in this church several times. They also say that  Mary and Joseph hid here while travelling to Bethlehem while King Herod was hunting for baby Jesus.

This church had a lot of interesting symbology.The fish shaped tile, the 13 pillared pulpit...

We also went to a market that day. Full of hustle and bustle, people saying Namaste identifying us as Indians, calling out Amitabh, Shahrukh, Amir. It really is a wonder how they knew we were Indians. Yes we are brown skinned, dark hair, dark eyes, but there are a whole lot of other citizens who look like us, right? Pakistanis, Sri Lankans...

Anyways, we said bye to Sam that day. Had an early sleep too, coz the next day was supposed to start at 3:00 am.