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Published: October 26th 2007
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We arrived in Cairo at around 2.00am in the morning. We met some other aussie travellers and took a ride in a clapped out old volvo to our hostel called 'the let me in hostel'. We were immediately surprised by the Egyptian hospitality when the guy who checked us into the hostel made us a cup of tea at 2.30 in the morning. The first thing we noticed about Egypt was the heat. Even though we had been enjoying the European summer, nothing prepared us for the heat in Cairo. It was absolutely boiling. We spent the first day (tentatively) exploring our surroundings on foot and visited the Cairo Museum and the Hard Rock Cafe on the River Nile for a well earned feed. After fighting off several hundred Egyptian men with comments like ' you a very lucky man' and 'how many camels', Kirsty decided she was covering up from head to toe which entailed pants and long sleeved tops. No headdress though. The traffic in Cairo is also fairly crazy. If you want to get across the street, you virtually have to run for your life to dodge cars, donkeys etc. We didn't witness any accidents though. I think
The Sphinx with the pyramid of Khafre in the background
The Sphinx is actually a lot smaller than I thought it would be. It's half human and half lion and is thought to have been built in the 3rd Millenium BC. chaos theory really might have something to do with it.
The following day we met up with the tour group which was surprisingly small, consisting of three other people - Claire, a New Zealander living in Milan, Christopher from Newfoundland (somewhere in Canada) and Alicia, a Sydney sider living in the UK. On the first day of the tour we visited the Pyramids and the Sphinx. Kirsty became claustrophobic in the one the pyramids and the girls thought the men were being overly cruel to one of the camels. Next we caught an overnight train to Aswan (about 12 hours). It was rather alarming to see a man with a machine gun sitting next to us. Chris said he was a guard but at about three o'clock in the morning this man could be found snoring under a blanket. I am not sure if he was there to protect us or just scare people away with his big gun. All touristy places are guarded in Egypt including every hotel and nearly every restaurant. Most places have scanners where tourists usually walk straight through and Egyptian looking people are searched.
When we arrived in Aswan we took a transfer
Alicia, Claire and Christopher
At the beginning of the Feluca ride to our hotel and relaxed in the pool in the afternoon. The following day we arose at 3.00am in the morning to take the bus to Abul Simbel. Chris ended up back in bed as he wasn't feeling at all well. It's hard to get good food in Egypt. We ended up at KFC a lot, but it was really the only thing our stomachs could handle. We were advised not to even brush our teeth with tap water. That morning we were introduced to the 'convoy' concept which entails all tourist buses congregating at one spot and then speeding at 120 km the whole way to follow the police car that sets the pace at the front. The Egyptian Government has put these rules in place ever since the terrorist attack at one of the sites in 1997. I have never experienced anything more ridiculous. It just provides locals with an ability to charge exorbitant amounts to tour companies to ferry tourists around to sites. The drivers are downright dangerous and have a blatant disregard for their own lives and the lives of the tourists they are carrying. If terrorists wanted to attack tourists again, the convoy provides an
ideal opportunity for them to do so.
Anyway, Abu Simbel was brilliant. It was huge and I couldn't believe that the site had actually been relocated when the Aswan dam was created. We weren't allowed to take photos inside but the photos taken outside were enough to keep anyone happy. This temple was ordered to be built by Ramesses II to honour himself and his wife Nefertari in 1264 BC. That night we had a traditional Nubian dinner and all were henna tattooed by a Nubian woman in her village. The next day we all boarded our Felucca for a two day cruise northwards towards Luxor. We had heard horror stories about the Felucca but we had high winds on the first day so we covered a bit of ground. With such a small group it was a great trip. The second night on the Felucca was really fun as the Captain of our boat entertained us with some singing and drum playing around a fire. We awoke early the next day to catch a bus to our hotel. The following day we awoke early to beat the heat and visit the Hatshepsut temple and ride a donkey into
Approaching Philae Temple
This temple is on a small island and it has been relocated so it didn't drown when they built the Aswan Dam. the valley of the Kings. At the valley of the Kings we visited three temples and Christopher and I forked out the extra cash to go and see King Tut's tomb. It was surprisingly smaller than the other tombs. The tombs inspired me beyond my imagination. They were absolutely huge with really colourful hieroglyphs throughout. Once again, no photos were allowed but that didn't stop the guards from trying to bribe us to take them and pay them off. That afternoon we visited the Karnak temple but by this stage Chris and I were well and truly over sight seeing. The group spent their last night together at an Irish pub in downtown Luxor.
We said goodbye to Alicia and Christopher the following day who were heading to Dahab and the rest of us made our way back to Cairo. We spent another two nights in the lovely Hotel Salma (an overpriced seedy hotel which keeps ripping off its clients) and started preparing for our journey to Bangkok. On our last day we visited the oldest Mosque in Cairo and visited the Kahled Kahli bazarre where we bought a Shisha pipe and some scarab beetles for goodluck. This was
Abu Simbel
The mighty Abu Simbel. Built during the reign of Pharaoh Ramesses II in the 13th Century BC just about our favorite day in Cairo. The smells and the heat and the hustle and bustle of Cairo are absolutely captivating. If you can look beyond getting ripped off and getting food poisoning on a daily basis, the city is amazing. A simple Shalom (hello in arabic) can go a long way.
We headed to the airport early in the morning to catch the plane to Bangkok, Thailand.
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