I can't get enough of this Egyptian stuff!
Trip Start
Aug 09, 2010
1
5
Trip End
Mar 17, 2012
Where I stayed
Mercure le Shinx, Giza
Hotel Hilton Sharks Bay, Sharm el Sheikh
Nile Cruise; Cairo; Sharm el Sheikh, Al Qāhirah, Egypt
Monday, September 13, 2010
Next, we visited Hatshepsut's Temple which seems to be having a lot of excavation work going on - interesting indeed!
Then on to the West Bank with lots of looks inside lots of Ramses' tombs with the most amazing carvings and hieroglyphs and cartouches in all of them.
At breakneck speed, back over the bridge to the east side and Karnak and Luxor temples. Karnak has to be my very favourite temple in the whole of Egypt. What an amazing hyperstile hall - and the obelisks - well, what can I say to honour the whole site? Nothing to do it all justice, that's for sure. And Luxor temple is so cute and just around the corner from where we stayed at the Isis hotel, many years ago on our first ever trip to Egypt.
Absolutely shattered after all that!
In the next days, sweet little Edfu, wonderful Komombo and on to magnificent Aswan. Aswan is a strange city with all the feel of east meets west. Bankers, sheep and goats all in the same square mile or two. I had missed the bazaar last time, so I absolutely had to do it this time - and guess what - I GOT ROBBED OF ALL OF SEVEN EGYTIAN POUNDS!! Don't know how he managed to do the sleight of hand to achieve it, but oh! boy he did! Worry not, readers, and don't let that put you off wonderful Egypt and the wonderful Egyptian people. And I DID manage to buy a lovely silver charm (I collect them, see) Eye of Horus for only £2.50p equivalent and a stone statue of Anubis for £7 equivalent.
We sailed in a felucca to Kitchener's Island and the gardener there put a lotus blossom in my hair for a little bit of baksheesh!
We saw the unfinished oblisk and Aswan High Dam too. They've made a lot of changes here, especially to the unfinished obelisk, so that you can look at it from almost any angle - EXCELLENT WORK! And I really appreciated being able to climb to its top.
And we visited wonderful Philae temple, sitting there, looking pretty on its own island.
We visited a Nubian village, travelling in style by camel-ride. Now that was my first time on a camel ALL BY MYSELF - Fabulous, except for the poor little two (he can't have been much more, surely?) year old who pulled and pulled in vain to make the obstinate b**g*r move! How fabulous the Nubian village was, with young crocodiles in pools in the house for good luck! I bought a little dress on the market for a song - but not as much a song as the man selling dresses a few yards away! WHAT, ROBBED AGAIN YOU ASK? Only by 2 Egyptian and I just LOVED the man who sold it to me. Good luck to you, sir!
We got up at the crack of dawn (pardon me any Dawn's out there, including my best friend - sorry!) to go to Abu Simbel by coach. I've written a whole article about the way it's changed over the years and if it gets published, I'll post the link on my Travel Pod! Still beautiful, Abu Simbel, but I'm so sorry that you've become BLACKPOOL in so many ways! Oh, dear.
Onward - off the cruise-boat thank the dear lord for his blessings - and on to Cairo - wonderful, hustling, bustling Cairo. And our hotel - only one night, more's the pity - was a dream come true in MARBLE! WOW! But that, of course, is not why we came here! We came here for the Pyramids at Giza. Now, back to our hotel for a tick - our hotel was in Giza and actually OVERLOOKED the Pyramids. Another WOW! It was so hot that day and the desert, naturally, was so dry. We drank and drank and drank water until it came out of our pores at a rate of knots - and still we drank and still we sweated. POO!
But the Pyramids were certainly not poo. And the Sphinx is just sublime, as ever. We travelled with our great guide all around the pyramids, seeing them from every angle imaginable. We went inside the second pyramid to the burial chamber. That was brilliant - absolutely brilliant! Then we went off to see the step pyramid - a bit disappointing because we could get right up to it and walk around it like last time we were there - UNFORTUNATE, BUT TRUE!
We were all knacked but bit the bullet and went to the evening's sound and light show at the pyramids. Dawn said it was 'pap' but I loved it, loved it, loved it!
Next day, we did the Egyptian museum to revisit Tutankhamen's mask and all the other goodies in here. Our guide was really superb, giving us information that we had no clue about from our last , rushed visit here, many years ago. SO, THANK YOU, WONDERFUL GUIDE, BUT I FORGET YOUR NAME! And thank you wonderful Cairo for being so simply stunning.
Onward again, to Sharm el Sheikh that I'd visited before for a very nice afternoon! Yes, I did say 'afternoon' - it's true!
Aparft from the mess-up with hotel accomodation that went on until day 2 (but that's anorther story - what a moan I sound in this my very first blog with Travel Pod! And really I'm a happy soul! - Sharm was very touristy but very nice indeed. I would certainly return to redo all the snorkelling we did in the Red Sea - really remarkable it was; the coral and the fish, from little Nemo's to Manta Rays Angel fish and parrot fish to Barracudas (don't know the spelling- hope it's right). WELL, I never thought I would ever see the like. But I have - and you should too, if you haven't already! We did a whole day on a boat out there in the seas amongst the coral and then found gardens of coral on our bit of private beach at the hotel (at the bottom of our garden, you might say!)
We went out for a Bedouin night. That was a great night, consisting of another camel-ride (this time I got Haniya as my lead. She said she was thirteen, but I reckon 8 or 9 at most - and after giving her a cheap ring I had on my finger, she gave me the rope and I WAS IN CHARGE OF MY CAMEL) We travelled like the wind, my trusty steed and I, until we reached the foot of a hill. I climbed [almost fell] off my magical camel and we made tracks to the top of that hill and watched the sunset over the Sinai Desert. And what a sunset it was too. Only one time in my life have I seen a better one, and this was from my hotel bedroom window at the Isis, the sun going down over the West Bank. Ah, what a memory! To get back on track, people - Oh, those Sanai mountains are to die for - simply die for. Then we got to see the locals bake bread outside their Bedouin tents. We had a meal, and watched a belly-dancer who was not so hot, but then we saw a fire dancer who was hot, hot, hot! He was DAZZLING to say the least. My favourite (or was it? There were so many goodies on this night out) bit came next. Star-gazing. We looked through telescopes that made you believe you could almost touch the moon - and two other planets I forget the name of (perhaps some kind reader who has done the same thing will enlighten my addled brain!)
Fabulous holiday - a few glitches, but never mind! I 'had the time of my life' (DIRTY DANCING, REMEMBER?) A wonderful 60th birthday treat, it was. Thank you, Dave, for spending so much money on me! Ha!
Now that I've found you, Travel Pod, I shall certainly write some more retrospective stuff - and I'll certainly tell you tales of my next port of call - Northumberland National Park, staying at the Pheasant Inn
www.thepheasantinn.com
in Stannersburn in November overnight (not exotic, or even overseas, people, but still stunning!)
BYE FOR NOW. Talk to you in November!
Comments
What a trip- reading your blog and looking at those photos its as if I was there myself- fantastic
Lovely to read about our trip. I particularly like the photos of the Sphinx and the Nubian kiddies.....my little dancer. Thanks Sheilas xx
I can't get enough of this egyptian stuff !
Thanks for the cryptic comment above. Hope you're being sarcastic!
Sounds and looks fab. I look forward to going there myself!
Egypt is on my list. Thanks for sharing your first hand experience.