Advertisement
Published: December 4th 2012
Edit Blog Post
What a View!
This was the view right off my Balcony The sleeper train was fun, very bumpy I am woken in the morning by a man bringing breakfast to my door. As we are waiting to arrive I spend a little bit of time looking out the window. The Contiki guide tells us about the Nubian houses. They are like a box without a lid. Their lids are leaves. They are designed this way to keep them cool in the summer which can sometimes reach 50 degrees. People out here sometimes die just because of the heat. When people die here they are buried and a rock is put where they have died. No headstone saying who they are or whatever. Just a rock.
We arrive in Aswan at 10.30am. I hop off the train and am greeted by another Mohamed who takes me to the hotel. The hotel is nice, my room has a lovely view of the Nile and desert afar. Mo my guide has advised he will pick me up at 2.15 to join the others. I see there is a pool, so I chuck on my swimmers (did I just say swimmers? FML... I've been around these Aussies too long!) and head on down. I lax
The High Dam
Such a remarkable sight. Its huge! in the sun and fall asleep. I'm asleep for 30 minutes maybe an hour and I wake up to an instant black tan, but it looks ridiculous as the tan is too low. Awesome..
I head back up to my room get changed and by now Tilly has arrived. We go and get lunch and she tells me about their evening. The normal train which they took (without beds) was ok. Not as bad as they imagined. Their toilets were gross and they got starred at alot. She said the cruise boat looked nice and she got a bit jealous, but she thinks it will be more of an experience on the Felucca. Mo and the others arrive at 2.15pm and we head off first to see the new dam.
The new dam was built 1960-1970 and was engineered and developed with help from the Russians. It was built because they needed to control the Nile. A downfall to that is that now crocodiles are not in the Nile, only behind the dam. It's such a huge dam. We snap some photos and head to the Philie Temple which we get to via a motor boat. The motor
Dayna - Isis
Philea Temple Egypt, this was me outside of it. Its such a stunning Temple. boat is nice and I buy a couple of bracelets on-board for 5egp each.
We arrive at the temple and it's beautiful and big. This is the temple of Isis, goddess of love. Mo tells us to go inside first then come out, he knows the other tour groups are here and it's better to go in before they do. As you go through the first door way you notice every door way after the one previous gets smaller and smaller. There are hieroglyphics on the walls everywhere. You can see Isis, Osiris, Nephthys, Set. They are children of the sun god. Mo tells us the story of these 4 when we come out of the temple (if you don’t want to hear about the story, skip ahead 3 paragraphs). These four were all gods and goddesses of something. The sun god wished for them to Marry but there was a problem. When they were teenagers they were silly and had many problems. Nephthys and Isis liked Osiris, Set and Osiris liked Isis. The sun god decided to fix this and told them that Isis and Osiris were to marry, and set and Nephthys were to marry too.
Philea Temple Egypt
Check out the hieroglyphics! Right before Nephthys and Set were to marry, Nephthys brought Osiris back to her chambers and got him very drunk. And from this Nephthys became pregnant... They obviously got it on lol! Set was not happy about this. Isis because she is the god of love, forgives Osiris. Osiris gets named King of Egypt. Set is not happy about this and kills Osiris and puts him and his sarcophagus across the Mediterranean. Isis is so sad, she is given wings and Nephthys and her fly all over to find his sarcophagus. They find it and bring it back to Egypt and keep it hidden.
One day Set is out hunting and finds it. Furious he cuts Osiris’s body into 16 prices and scatters it all over. Isis was again sad and the Sun God said, if you find all the pieces and put him back together I will help you become pregnant with Osiris’s baby. Isis and Nephthys again look for all the pieces but cannot find one piece, the ‘weeny’. Isis is so sad, she cries so much that her tears full the Nile and from this his ‘weeny’ comes floating to the top. However unfortunately a catfish
Philea Temple Egypt - Sunset
Such a beautiful Temple. Especially with the sun setting on it! comes jumping out of the water and eats it. Not Kidding!
Isis cries to her father and he advises her that if she makes one out of mud and put it on his body, then stand behind him with her wings out, then she will become pregnant. She does this and it works. She gives birth to Horus and Nephthys gives birth to Anubis, however he is classed as shame. However the Sun God made him the Jackal god to get rid of this ‘judgement’ because he believed he, shouldn't be blamed for someone else's mistake.
It's a fantastic story and Mo tells them well. We wander around this beautiful Temple which was actually relocated when the dam was put in because this area did not used to have water in it until the dam was built. The Temple was cut into 42 pieces and at some stage this temple was under water and the French all worked under water to relocate it as they knew how important it was.
We leave the Temple and head back Inland. We are dropped back at the hotel. Tilly and I have dinner and laugh
Philea Temple Egypt
Panorama of the full temple. at the menu. At the bottom it says "all meals come with soup, power and sweets. We laugh a lot over this. Power!? Lol, when we ask many times what is power they only reply, “It comes with the meal”. Haha. We have an early night because tomorrow we are going to Abu Simbel and leave at 3.30am!!. A temple built by Ramses the second and his wife's Nefertari Temple built for her as surprise and gift from him.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.077s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 7; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0393s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb