Last bits of Egypt...

Folks

Seems I got a bit ahead of myself at the end of the last entry - we're not out of Egypt just yet (the false alarm due to my excitement of reporting to you from outside Egypt). The following entry details our adventure east of the Suez canal: Sinai and the Red Sea.


Day 9 saw us cross the Suez canal and head to Mt Sinai. This is the place where Moses came and received his two stone tablets containing the 10 Commandments (a special prize to those who can rattle all of them off inside 1 minute). It's also the place where he saw the burning bush.


In any event, it's a seriously good hike to get to the top of the mountain. Particularly when the mercury head towards the +35' mark. As you can see, Myla and Digby celebrated the joy of reaching the pinnacle with some special time together.

This is the monastery/chapel at the top of the mountain; thankfully run by the Greek Orthodox church (it would be rubble and hawking stands only if the Egyptians were left to their own devices).

And this is the sun setting.

Day 10 we visited the church at the bottom of Sinai. This is the place where Moses' burning bush is located. Here's a picture. Thoughts?

The monastery is very nice though. The small museum is also very interesting with some of the oldest manuscripts on the planet.

We then left for our beach camp at Nuweiba on the Red Sea. Very comfortable overall but there remained always a sweat inducing heat; not the best for sleeping.

Day 11. Oh the joy. We left at the rather comfortable time of 12 noon for the ferry to Jordan. We were told that the scheduled departure time was 2pm but that it was frequently late. You guessed it - it was late. The wait is not so much of a problem. The detention centre you get to stay in before departing is though. The toilets remided me of a particular scene from Trainspotting... One of the crazy things is that the ferry is still 200 meters from the detention centre. The only way of getting to the ferry is by taking a bus that not so long ago was in service in Iraq.

Some closing comments.

The heat is sapping. Nikki and I consumed 7.5 litres of water in one day. Neither of us went to the toilet more than once (and for little return). Excuse me for being so frank, but it's an apt example of the weather's effect.

Egyptians seem to consider nouns as copyright/trade mark protected. For example, there's "Rotato" chips/crisps. Then there's also the blatant rip off - "Boreos".

What can the horn of a car be used for? Is it:

a) propelling the car forward

b) warning pedestrians of your presence

c) warning donkeys of your presence

d) breaking the silence

e) propelling the car forward

f) projecting abuse at other drivers

g) all of the above.

The answer is (g) all of the above.

Anyway, we're now in Jordan.

This is Eeeeeegypt!

[Updated by Adrian 26 June]

Cairo... madness, absolute madness.

We should have predicted the impending chaos when collecting our Egyptian visa at the airport: it was simply a case of peeling back a visa sticker and placing it in your passport (the stickers conveniently located at a money exchange booth) before walking through a checkpoint and having the sticker date stamped. We knew our peril quite quickly thereafter though; the cat and mouse game on the highway to the hotel involved plenty of tooting horns and fear in equal measure.

Our hotel was located in one of the allegedly nicer places of town. My mind drifted towards thoughts of down town Baghdad...

Enough of that though. I should introduce you to our travelling companions Digby (kangaroo) and Myla (koala). Digby is the good looking one. They thoroughly enjoyed posing in the baking sun for this picture.

The monoliths in the background are the pyramids of Giza. Really amazing. These gargantuans of the ancient world along with the local markets consisted of our activities for days 1 and 2.

Which is the sphinx?

We stayed at the Indiana Hotel. Classy. So very, very classy. We had a bathroom suite complete from the 70's - avocado green no less. The bathroom wasl also well layed out; the regular bathtub shaped curtain rod (rectangular) and curtain sheet cut throught the center of the large corner bathtub basin (triangle shaped). The shower head was also conveniently located right above the curtain rail. No problems here! What helped even more was the complete absence of a drain to take away the torrent of water that never made to you or the bathtub.

The bedroom also looked good. The pictures on the wall came complete with plastic wrapping and price tags...

The night of day 2 saw us taking a sleeper train to Aswan. Quite enjoyable all in all but waking up to the smell of heavy tobacco is not my cup of tea. The train brought us to Aswan and day 3. Things definitely picked up here. We spent the afternoon motor boating around the small islands of the Nile before enjoying a home stay with the local Nubian tribesman (Nubians live on the east bank, other Egyptians on the west bank). We also did a bit of camel riding on the way. It's pretty hot over here at the moment, and so I am unsure who smelled worse; us or the camels?

Day 4

I'm sitting on the right.

This is the temple of Abu Simbel. It's quite outstanding. What's even more interesting is that the entire temple and the slightly smaller neighbouring temple were previously located some distance away. The entire structures were carved up into blocks during the 60's and reassembled in order to protect them from the impending flood of the Aswan dam.

You travel there from Aswan by convoy on Egyptian time. This means you get up at the ungodly hour of 3.30 am to meet the days collection of tourist buses who must travel there together and depart at 4am. Egyptian time means that you don't leave until about 5am. A convoy we were told was for safety reasons such as a breakdown. I suspect it's to stop highway pirates (seriously).

Day 5 was a sail down the Nile on a felucca (traditional Egyptian sailing boat).

The picture above is of our felluca, the Nile Bride. A truly beautiful experience, no motor, just sails. The water in the Nile is pretty cold (about pea size), but we had to take a couple of swims (if not only to cool off), but for the experience of it all. There is a surprisingly strong current that pulls you along that makes you really work to get back to shore. Toilet breaks are along the shore also and you get to run into some interesting locals and wildlife in the process.... joy upon joy.

The picture below is a buffalo shading the Nile sunset.

A small rant if I may now. There are three groups of people I find both extremely annoying and oddly intriguing here in Egypt. First there are the street merchants who think the only way a sale can be achieved is by harangueing you into submission. Then there are the baksheesh - tip merchants. They expect a healthy tip for doing marginally more than nothing. Both of these groups do their best to infringe on the pleasurable time you are trying to have; a bit like a mosquito you can only hear but not see. Finally there are the tourism and antiquities police. There's lots of them and they have big guns. The fancier ones have bayonets as well. I'm not quite sure what they really do. I could really go on here but I'll opt for brevity.

Day 6 was a visit to Luxor and the Karnak temples.


Karnak Temple was bigger than we expected and would have been colossal in it's day.

Day 7 and we visited the the Valley of the Kings. No ordinary entry to such a feted place either; we came on donkeys. That's right, donkeys.

The Valley itself is an amazing place. Quite surprisingly the best tombs are those which have been open since antiquity.

Day 8 and we are back in Cairo after a less than enjoyable overnight train journey. Not much happens.

All in all, Egypt is a place with an amazing ancient history. However, nothing seems to have happened since then. They seem to have taken almost every single advance made by the human race since 300AD or so and decided to shun them all (mobile phones and car horns excepted).

This is a country we have loved for its historical points of interest. I am pretty confident, however, that we will not return.

See day 9 and after for our Egyptian departure and a Jordan update...

Stonehenge...

So as mentioned in the last entry, we headed off on a bus tour with Stonehenge as our final destination. The two of us and 50 odd Americans and Canadians, we can't tell you how glad we were each time the bus stopped to allow us to roam about on our own. First stop was at Bath to have a quick trip to visit the Roman Baths, which although we visited in May last year, this time the sun was shining and we had a different experience in a new light.

We then headed off to Lacock, a lovely old village that is stepping back in time, for a bite to eat and to see the village itself. You may recall the building below as Netherfield from the BBC's Pride and Prejudice.

Then it was off to the main event of Stonehenge.
The stones really are amazing and a true wonder as to how they made them in the form that they did.

So it is off to Cairo next after a short week of packing and moving out of our London flat.