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 > 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.
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