Egypt

---

So from our trip to Dover for the weekend, let us pull it up a notch. Let us talk about travelling to Egypt. We have just returned from this amazing country and im finding it a little hard to try to describe it. So my new tactic is to just start at the begin and go through what we saw.Truely it is so surreal that we have been to Egypt a place that is on everyone places to see list and usually a place that not many people get to.

So the smell of Cairo is thick and polluted the dust that sits in the sky makes for great sunsets, but makes it hard to breath. We were held up in a traffic jam on the motorway because of a wedding procession in old batted taxis. We found Cairo quite unsafe to be wondering around on our own, so our driver took us for a drive around. We went to a great lookout that just showed us the depth of this capitals poverty. I really did not think Cairo would have been so poor, but with a population of 20mill and no basic infer-structure, it is a capital of poverty and confusion. The traffic is insane, there are traffic lights but they are ignored, apparently, when you beep the horn it is to say im here and I want to pass. This oddly enough seems to work. The only road rage we saw was actually between two men on horse and carts, obviously this was because they do not have horns on their horses.

What to say about the Mighty Pyramids, it was fascinating to stand at the base of the huge choeps pyramid. The size of it is astronomical. To take a photo of kaz standing at the base of it I had to stand about 40 metres away from her to get it all in. To truly view the pyramids, as with any tourist place in Egypt you have to get your guard up to fight of the tourist touts. They are everywhere and at the pyramids, they attack you on camels. In saying that this is such a poor country, the people have to make money however; they can, but be ready for major hassling. With that out of the way and as you will see in a second with our photos we did take the mockery out of the pyramids and the poor sphinx as well. It had to be done.

Yes so, we could not help ourselves. From Cairo we headed overnight by one of the famous Egyptian trains. The trains them selves are fine, but if you ever have to take one, pray for clean toilets, because that will make or break that 12 hours on the train.Luckly for me I have a bladder of a camel so I didn’t need to go on the way to Aswan, but poor kaz had to go. Which with out getting to involved required her to roll her jeans up and to not breath while in the toilet. Do not sit near the toilet end of the carriage either.

Aswan is a world away from Cairo, for starter the Nile in the south actually looks blue. Our trip to Abu Simbel was from Aswan, this was an experience of a lifetime in so many ways. From the 3am start, the fact that we were in a convey of about 50 coaches with a police escort heading towards the Sudan border. Driving through the desert to arrive at this amazingly huge temple. A temple, which had been removed when they built the dam, and placed here. It had been moved and re-built so well that you could not even tell where it had been cut. The statues are so tall that an ear, which had been broken during an earthquake, was the same size as Kaz.

Most of the interiors of these temples date back 3000years, but the artwork, is in such a good state. You can still see colours in the temples. Except off course, the temples where the artwork has been defaced or they attempted to clean it and then it is a different story. The stories that are shown on these walls thou are an amazing account of there historical beliefs. Abu Simbel was the first major temple we saw and it was to be the start of a fair few temples, a bit like in Scotland when you see all the castles.

One thing that we did do, which was interesting, but now we are thinking maybe a little silly. We had some accommodation changes at Luxor that meant we had an extra night in Aswan. We were offered a trip to go up into the rock temples where princes of Elephantine Island had been buried. As we stood outside one of the tombs, we were told of the “Curse” of the tomb of which our tour leader did not believe and then in we went. We sat were the coffin would have sat. All 5 people that went into the tomb became sick and remained sick for the rest of our trip.” Yes we had to mess with the Egyptian dead” Obviously, we hadn’t seen enough b grade mummy movies.

We cruised up the Nile for 2 days, which was lovely. Our A.D.D kicked in day 2 and we were kids stuck inside when it rains. The ship stops un-route to see different temples, which was helpful. We have now seen a ship river parking lot that consisted of 3 or 4 ships deep and 7 or 8 rows along the edge of the Nile, an unbelievable site. Try finding your ship when you have to reboard, which is also a very interesting process. We saw Komombo temple at night, they had mummified crocodiles here. This temple also had some amazing artwork.

An early morning horse and cart ride found us at Edfu temple. A very well preserved temple, the Egyptians were a bit of an odd bunch really, this temple for example took 800 years to build, and the people used it for 12 years and then moved on! In the forecourt of this temple is the best-preserved statue. I know im not doing Egypt justice, it is so hard to try to convey the depth of there history, how intelligent the people were of that time to build such amazing structures. This goes way beyond the pyramids; they were like the tip of the ice burg.

The donkey race, this deserves a special mention, mainly because of how competitive kaz is. We went on a donkey ride just before reaching the Valley of the Kings. There had been bets placed apparently among some of the group, a bit of a boys on boys race. Now as we, all know we do not like being beaten and especially by the boys, so the race was on. Kaz used all her charm and ditsy ways, uncontrollable donkey was her best decoy. The race was won and yes by a girl and yes by Kaz.

This brings us to the Valley of the Kings, a huge Barron valley with nothing but you know tombs everywhere. They have found 42 tombs,12 of which are open to the public and they are still searching for new tombs. We went into king tuts, we found out that king tut is not famous at all to the Eygptians, for he was so young when he was king and he did nothing for the country. We only see him as famous because his tomb was the only one that was found in tact. His remains are still in this tomb as well. The colours in Ramses 3 was amazing, we went into 5 tombs, all of which were an amazing experience.

The faith that people hold in there religion in Egypt is astounding, %80 are Muslim and %20 are Catholic Orthodox. It is hard to explain the seriousness I guess of there faith, I will give a few examples of what our tour guide spoke of. For her who is now engaged, she is not allowed any physical contact with her partner. If a girl broke, all religious rules and became pregnant before marriage her family would shoot her because she would have dishonoured them. Marriages are still arranged. It is so far removed from our lives, it is hard to comprehend. One culture shock after another is a good way to describe Egypt.
Like all tourist destinations you have to watch pick pockets and so on, but in Egypt with there strict religious rules. The job of a pickpocket can back fire. One of the girls, who was wearing her backpack to her front, watched this person zip open her bag and take something out. About five minutes later the boy came back and gave her what he had taken out of her bag. He had taken a bottle of alcohol gel for washing hands. Hahahaha. For anyone who does not know, there is no alcohol in mainstream Egypt because of there faith. I feel that I have rambled enough on our trip; it really is a place that is hard to describe, mainly due to the differences from North to south, the people from Cairo to the more country areas.

This photo is our we are sick photo; this was one of our sickest days at Karnack temple. It is an amazing place, a photographers dream really.Kaz new I was sick here because I just sat in the shade for most of it and hardly took any photos. After Karnack temple we headed to Luxor temple in the late afternoon, which is a smaller temple then Karnak but still interesting.

It was then time for the return Train trip to Cairo, which I was not looking forward too. Seen I was still sick I just new I was going to have to go to the toilet. This trip was 9 hours, a very long 9 hours, and thankfully, for me the toilets were very clean. I used them a lot. Our day back in Cairo was full on, first stop the museum. Wow, kaz and I are not usually big Museum fans. To much reading and history, but the Egypt museum has 3000-year-old mummies. Also, king tuts mask and a lot of his jewellery, actually there was just lot of king tut stuff. Anyway, we actually really enjoyed the museum. So from there we went to the Hanging church, I still do not get the significance of that, I was still sick and I really was not listening. It was a lovely church though. We went to a mosque just in time to watch the men pray. We hid over in a corner with these full length-hooded cloaks on, usually the woman have to be behind the men when they pray so the men aren’t distracted apparently. For us to sit there and watch these men go what looks like a trance state as they pray to Allah, was quite interesting. There depth of faith in astounding.
Shopping in the Cairo markets was our next stop, for me shopping is a chour when im not sick so this experience was a bit of a struggle. You are hassled continuously by all the market stall owners. The markets wind there way through small ally ways, which all somehow met back up with each other. The down side of the mummies curse was that Kaz was quit sick at the markets as well and she did not feel like shopping either, so all of you who were hanging out for the great Egyptian souvinor, bad luck. We attempted to shop for a while, but we did not even buy ourselves anything. That should explain how sick kaz was as well.

So that was Egypt in a nutshell, an amazing country, a huge and exciting history, which was mostly lost on me. Our time in London is now down to a couple of weeks. We have plans to get to Brighton before we leave and we have a date with paintball as well. In the first week of April, we are hiring a campervan and cruising around some of the areas of England that we have not seen yet, and then it is time to wave farewell to the UK.

Morocco is our first stop for about a month, then Spain and Portugal, for about a month. It gets a bit messy then, but we are heading to Norway and Sweden. Into Russia hopefully, down through Eastern Europe and ending up in Croatia in July. We have to be in Africa at the start of August for 4 months. We will then be checking money supplies, seeing if we can sell the shoes on our feet or something so we can then head to Asia. One great experience after another really, how lucky are we.

So if anyone has holidays coming up, you know pen it in and meet up with us somewhere. We will have a new phone number while we are travelling, it is meant to work in every country we are heading, and it did work in Egypt so that was a good start. Jenny Turner you were meant to be in England before August, that causes us problems seen we are going to be in Africa playing with Gorillas. Sorry but the Gorillas win, they are cuter.

Our number is going to be 07624176549 it is a roaming UK number, no idea what the costs would be to call, it is meant to be quite good though. We hope it all works out, so we can be contactable. We will hopefully be able to check emails quite often as well.

I will just add, and this is funny. The Olympics that as every one knows will be held in England in 2012, and there is work going on everywhere. But on the TV the other night there was a special report that was asking for any female over 5”10 or male over 6”2 who was interested in participating in the Olympics to fill out a form on there web site and send it in. No mention of any type of sporting skill, they are just desperate for tall people. We could not believe what they were saying and we were both laughing. Could you imagine doing that in Australia? The poor English they do not even have enough sporting people to fill there teams.

We hope this email finds you well. We love seeing pics of what people have been up to so keep sending them with a bit of gossip you know how much Kaz likes to keep in the know.

Love
K&K.

---

Photos

walk like an egyptian
pick the tourist attraction.

abu simbel
you wouldnt think there was 100's of tourists here.

tourist shot
the sphynx verse whalan.age might have it.

Mummys curse
5 idiots decide to go into a mummys tomb.5 idiots then all get sick.

Work of art
pick the relic.

tuts tomb
yeap we survived the tomb,and we survived egypt.

crikey the crocodile
might need some help to get this one down.

egypt
just a little to the left.

eye spy
the mighty pyramid.oh my god how did they build these things.

Egypt tour
Again another tour map cos I cant figure out the map... or cant be bothered