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Published: April 8th 2010
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6 April 2010
An interesting experience tonight. We bought some alcohol for our feluca trip tomorrow. As most of you know, muslims don’t drink, although it is available at some places but very limited. So, I haven’t had a drink at all and Tim had a beer at dinner in the restaurant. We were told we could get some drinks at the duty free shop near our hotel. This shop was actually a white goods shop, and upstairs a small area for grog, no shop front as such, and away from the public eye. There were about 8 guilty looking muslim customers up there buying beer. All young and I image the cool set. We bought a small bottle of scotch, labelled ‘Johnny Waler’ for 15 Egyptian pounds (approx $3) - Bargain! To be honest, I actually like the no alcohol rule. There is no trouble on the streets at night, and very little violent or any crime at all for that matter.
A sleep in this morning and off to the fellucas for our sail down the Nile. The most relaxing experience ever. Sarah got straight into it playing cards with the others in which she won nearly
all the games Rach and I read and Tim had a little snooze. We had a lovely cool breeze, which was a stark contrast to the stinking hot days we have been having. I helped the cook, peeling and chopping vegies. He made the most amazing dishes on board. We made toilet stops along the way, just at the side of the river. At about 4.30pm we got to our overnight spot, the boys dug out and set up a toilet tent for us, I helped again with dinner preparations, all very relaxing and enjoyable. After dinner we danced around a camp fire, played imaginary ball, sang and had a high jump and limbo competition which of course Sarah and Rachel did very well at.
We all slept together on the deck of the felluca. It was really fun. No-one slept particularly well, Tim was splashed a little by a jumping fish, but all good fun. Lovely breakfast of pancakes, again, it was amazing, just cooked on the boat on a little gas stove.
After a very short sail we were bundled in to the bus by a crazy guy, another Mohumoud, 80% of males here are called
Mahomaud. Our guide got us to yell out to him, Mohumoud ong, which we all did and were then told it means ‘asshole’. Oops! All good fun and we were off to Edfu temple. This temple was amazing. Huge and the best preserved one in Egypt. Edfu is the temple of Horace and built by several pharaohs and took over 120 years to complete. After Edfu, we continued onto Luxor (3 hour trip by bus) and settled in to the hotel. We had a quick bite to eat at an English style coffee shop. They had real milk, not powdered, for our coffee and apple pie. Whoo hoo. Then we went to Karnak Temple. This place was a real highlight. Crammed with statues, columns, hieroclyphs and oblisks spread over 60 acres. Some areas had the pained colours still evident. I really enjoyed this place and we took many many photos. We were eventually kicked out of the place and we met some people from Noosa on the way back to the bus. Small world.
7 April
Luxor is lovely. We checked out the town, bought my charm and the girls got a couple charms for their bracelets. We had
Egyptian fast food for dinner. Just like McDonalds only much much better. The place was called ‘Snack Time’. Everything is so cheap here. Burger and fries costs approx 20 Egyptian pounds ($4). We had felafels and Egyptian bread the other day for lunch at a cost of 25 Australian cents - wow and it was delicious. You pay 1 Egyptian pound (20 cents) to visit the toilet and get some toilet paper. We are having a great time.
The Egyptian part of the tour finishes tomorrow; we are going on the overnight train back to Cairo tonight. I’ll be sad to leave our group as the people are really nice. We will meet the new crew tomorrow night and a couple of Melbourne guys are joining us from this tour, Gordon and David.
This morning we went to the Valley of the Kings. We rode donkeys to the Valley. It was so fun. Some were really naughty and one fell over, poor thing. We visited three tombs and they were fantastic. Unfortunately, no photos allowed. The kings buried here are from the time of the new kingdom, in which being buried in pyramids was out of fashion and
these kings made their tombs in caves. The location of the tombs was top secret and only the high priests and workers knew their location. They built a special city to accommodate the workers as they had to leave their families permanenetly. The tombs however were inevitably robbed though, with the exception of King Tutankamen’s tomb. This was discovered by Howard Carter, archaeologist, in 1922, after 6 years of his searching for it. The story goes that when the neighbouring tombs were built, the spoil covered the entrance of Tutankamens tomb. The heap of dirt settled and when Howard Carter arrived he pirtched his tent setup and looked for the tomb for nearly 6 years. When Lord Canarvon, the financier, decided to pull the pin, they pulled down Howard Carters tent and decided to have a look underneath and bingo! Tutkamens mummy is still in the tomb in a perspex case. So now awaiting affects of his curse . Anyhow, it was really amazing but hot hot hot. We also went to Queen Hapsutut’s temple but it was just too hot to enjoy. We had a lovely lunch at a local house, and now at hotel for our final night
together.
Tim and the girls went to the mummification museum here in Luxor, it was only small but had lots of exhbits of the mummification process including some of the original instruments. They saw the tools, canoptic jars, artifacts that were buried with the mummies and they even had a mummy.
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Lisa-Maree Crimmins (Ellett)
non-member comment
What a great blog!
Hi Suz, Tim, Sara Rachel, What a fantastic trip you are having keep up the Blogs Suz! I am catching up on some work and then some wedding tasks....today the boy is gliding well doing tug endorsement. Final check ? You would know Tim :) LM XXXX