Egypt Continued

[zahryn]

Day 9: If possible, today has been another, more brilliant day. Yesterday was the Christmas of our dreams and today has been exhausting but mind-bending. We stayed in bed until 11am and then got up, it was our first chance to catch up on our sleep for the past 2 days, so we took it. We left the hotel and stopped at “snack time fast Luxor cafe” for breakfast, where we waited 20 minutes for our beef panini and chicken shawirma. When our food arrived however it was very tasty and exactly what we needed to start our day.
We made our way to the Nile and met up with a guy called Sayid who sorted us a ferry trip to the West Bank and hooked us up with another ‘cousin’ to drive us around for the day. It worked out really well, we met Mohammed Shakespeare who drove us to the Valley of the Kings road where we switched to another car, with another driver we can’t remember the name of, (too many drivers today) who took us the rest of the way. We got out with about 2 hours to kill and walked into the visitor centre where they had a big 3D layout of the tombs. We studied it, checked the Egypt book and settled on our 3 tombs. When you buy a ticket, it entitles you to three of the tombs, except King Tuts tomb which requires a separate ticket. Unfortunately, one of the tombs we had chosen (Seti I) was closed so we substituted Tawroset/Sekhnakht and made our other two Tuthmosis III and Ramses IX from our original choice, The art work and artistry in all the tombs was quite incredible and it was brilliant to see the things we’ve recognised before, in colour. We discovered that the kangaroo snake is actually a light tan/yellow colour and the colours preserved from the light, deep in the tombs are quite striking, the lapis blue and red ochres, these are the ones that stun me the most.
Tuthmosis III was the furthest, the hardest and the hottest, so we started there. 67 steps up the entrance of the tomb and then down to a three layer tomb. They all seem to have similar reliefs, the person the tomb was for with all the Gods, a list of the offerings the person was making to the Gods and then writings in hieroglyphics from any of the following: The Book of the Dead, The Book of Caverns, The Opening of the Mouth Ritual, The Book of the Earth or The Book of the Heavens. Tuthmosis II was unusual as it was one of the first tombs built in the valley, T3 was ex-military and v. paranoid about grave robbers, so he made his tomb very complex with lots of dead-ends and false doors to either mislead or trap would-be robbers.
It was a lot of work, lots of steps and incredibly hot, but well worth the trip. The surprising thing to my mind was how many of the (particularly Ramses descendants) tombs remained unfinished, the owners dying sooner than they thought and leaving the architects to hurriedly widen passages into burial chambers to receive the sarcophagus, but the decoration was still as good as it could be. Next we went through the bazaar to the exit (they all lead you through the bazaars) but the hearts of the hawkers clearly weren’t in it as we barely got hassled at all.
We met our driver and went on to the Temple of Hatshepsut. The Temple is very impressive from the outside, not least of which is due to the massive limestone cliffs it’s carved out of. It looks very modern from a distance, but close-to is properly ancient. The relief in the “Punt” colonnade tell the story of Hatshepsut’s expedition to Punt (Somalia) to bring back Myrrh trees and incenses which were used in ritual in the great temples. It was a successful and much lauded expedition and the paintings show the different peoples, beasts and birds that they encountered. We were really starting to feel the heat and went through a water bottle by this point. We went to the chapel of Hathor, which is to the left of the temple and enjoyed seeing again the scenes of Hathor in her three-phases, woman with horned crown, cow-headed woman and the full shape of the cow. Hathor has a large background in Egyptian lore, as the nurturer and protector of Queens and Pharaohs, I started to feel a real affinity for Her.
We met our driver outside drove round to the Valley of the Queens. We got there right at 4pm, just as the ticket office closed, we also (mistakenly) gave the last of our LE5 notes to the ticket office which meant we only had LE2 for baksheesh in the tombs. The guardians are not good at taking a hint and seem to think that they are enhancing your experience by walking round with you randomly pointing at carvings or pictures and telling you the name of the God/person/royal etc. At one point he pointed to a picture of Anubis, said “Anubis” and I said “Oh really? I thought it was the other Egyptian Jackal-headed God!” but the other thing about Egyptians is that they don’t understand sarcasm so this kind of rapier-sharp wit it completely lost on them.
We visited the only 3 open tombs in the Valley of the Queens (one of which was actually for one of the sons of Ramses III, you draw your own conclusions) the tomb of Nefertari was closed, apparently it usually is, so after the other three we sat for a bit having a drink, then went back to meet our driver who had dumped his car and got us another in the meantime. We drove back to the ferry to meet up with Sayid and paid our driver, M.Shakespeare and Sayid. We went back across the river and also put a deposit down on a felucca ride with Sayid and his boat “Sherry” before saying goodbye and heading towards the AtM (having given Sayid our last LE50) we got some money out and then walked back to the lovely Sindbads café, hot and tires the first mouthful of beer was like ambrosia. These days are amazing and completely exhausting, but we’ve got a system of sit-downs and drink stops worked out and we’re really enjoying ending our days in a café or restaurant, relaxing with tea and shisha late into the evening before going back to the hotel for showers.
Tonight we stayed at Sindbads. G walked back to the hotel earlier to collect our cardies, I’m too broken to walk further than the toilet at the moment, so luckily G was happy to go alone. He stopped off to pick up some charcoal block for our new shisha pipe and stopped on the way back at a pharmacy to get me some ‘Bringo’ bite lotion because my legs have been eaten today by sand flies :o( but the good news is that Bringo works!! While we’ve been sitting here I called the ‘Wide and checked with them about my card, but they have said everything’s fine, I’ve got money in my account and my card hasn’t been stopped so I’ll try it again later at the Bank of Egypt which should be the best chance. It’s possible the Visa network was down, but I’ll keep everything crossed.
A lovely evening, just relaxing with tea and shisha, and a chilled out day to look forward to tomorrow!!


Day 10: I have just finished an amazingly lazy but emotionally tiring day. I woke up quite early and G was still asleep so I carried on reading “The Shack” a book I’d never heard of before picking it up off the shelf in the bookshop last evening. I read most of it last night and it raised a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes so I put it down to go to sleep. When I woke up this morning I read the rest of it (with breaks to blow my nose and wipe my eyes) while G slept. The G woke up and gave me a cuddle, then he read his book while I fell asleep again and it was after 10am before either of us were ready to get up.
We got dressed and made our way down to the Nile, we stopped at another incarnation of the Metropolitan Café and had brunch, then wet to buy more batteries and took a walk to the bank. Praise Be – I can get cash from the national bank of Egypt!! We then went and changed some of it to US$ to buy train tickets, which we will do tomorrow, Our train tickets to Aswan we can buy on the train at the time. After that we went to El Bess bazaar where G got his puzzle ring mended and I bought one for Mum. We also picked up more soap and bottled water for the next couple of days.
By this time it was just after 2pm so we headed back to the hotel. Building work in reception had started in earnest, they were demolishing walls, putting up columns and stucco-ing them. We had to make our way through the rubble to get to the stairs. We had a bit of a lie-down then sorted out what to take to our Fellahs Tent excursion.
We waited on the main road outside the hotel until our driver for the trip picked us up. We drove to Kings Island which is where we left from on the ferry for our sunset cruise, only to be back there again in about 45 minutes after we’d sailed around Bird Island. We observed “Mr & Mrs Beret” a pair of Europeans who were very Bohemian, disdainful and proper, we also met and ignored “Mr & Mrs Red Dress” who were finicky and annoying. Luckily we managed to not sit anywhere near either couple and instead were joined by Judith and Martin who seemed very nice, down-to-earth and very much “our kind of people” :o) Judith is starting a new job with Bravissimo in Leamington in the New Year and Martin is an International Man of Mystery.
We talked and laughed, enjoying the nice company before the entertainment began. Starting with three girls doing funny hip dancing with some synchronisation issues (and 1 of them looked as though her shoes had been bought in Primark for £5) they were quite good and seemed to be enjoying themselves. Judith got pulled up to join in the dancing which was also entertaining. They were followed by 3 men doing some kind of stick dancing, an Egyptian magician (who was very good) and then a snake charmer. I had my picture taken with a snake!! Then there was a guy with two other guys dressed as a horse who did the classic pantomime horse thing with the audience, and seemed to take a shine to me as I was repeatedly knocked backwards on my chair by horsey-kisses.
By this time food was served so we all went out and filled our plates with the tasty (and mysterious) foods. We ate and got full while the band played then after the dessert was finished the next act started with a belly-dancer who was quite smiley, looked like she was enjoying herself but wasn’t as jiggly as the one we saw before. She was really well-covered in make-up though and was making the most of her cleavage. After the belly-dancer came the Sufi dancer who was excellent and he got the biggest cheers. When the evening was finished, we walked to the reception, accompanied by the drummers from the band (I bet the really expensive, exclusive private guest houses loved that!) and said our goodbyes to Judith & Martin before meeting our driver. We were dropped off at Sindbads where I am sobering up with tea & shisha while we finish our relaxing day. We’ll stop at the internet café on our way back to the hotel to get all the current pictures downloaded to memory sticks, nice and safe.


Day 11: We tried to get up at a reasonable hour this morning. We had a busy day on the West Bank planned and didn’t want it to drag on too long. We got up at about 9am, I had slept badly and had trouble getting awake but I was much better after a shower. We tried again (in vain) to find anything resembling breakfast, but ended up in a coffee shop just drinking coffee instead.
We called Sayid after walking out of Souq St and around the Avenue of Sphinx excavation at the Temple of Luxor and he met us on the Corniche to take us down to his ferry. We met up with M.Shakespeare who drive us around today and started out the day by heading to the ticket office, which deals with all the “other” West Bank sites. We drove to the Temple of Seti I against M.Shakespeares advice and there was absolutely nobody else there. It was fantastic and although we couldn’t very well escape the Guardians it was well worth the LE50 we gave the 2 who took us around, they told us stories and gave us lots of extra information, including helping us to identify a couple of the Gods we hadn’t been able to put names to before. They even (in full view of the Tourist Police) helped us to climb carefully up the ruins and onto the roof of the hypostle hall, which gave us an incredible view of the temple, the Nilometer and the surroundings.
After Seti I we drove round to the Ramesseum and managed to avoid all the Guardians to get a peaceful and un-hurried wander around looking at the incredibly massive statue of Ramses II, toppled and broken, very much captivated by Shelleys poem “Ozymandias” which effectively poked fun at Ramses II’s attempt to be remembered forever. After the Ramesseum we stopped at a little café for a drink in the shade while we waited for M.Shakespeares who had arrived about 20 minutes before. We found him sunning himself on a rock in the car park.
Our next stop was a bit more problematic. We went to Deir Al-Medina, the site of the workman’s village which also happened to house 2 amazingly decorated tombs that were made by 2 architects and artists from the Ramses II era. The workman’s village consists of over 70 small houses that have been lived in by the workers who actually created the tombs at the Valleys of the Kings & Queens and also for the workers who built the Ramesseum. It’s a large and fascinating site; we could almost imagine the explosion of sound and smell as we walked around it and it was really good to get a glimpse of how “the other half” lived. The theme was continued in the 2 tombs, there was still the traditional amount of “me with the Gods” type of paintings, but there was a lot more in the way of daily life paintings here, views of people working in fields etc. As well as this there was a much more personal view of religion, my favourite pictures was of a cat (representing Ra) cutting the head off of a serpent (representing Apophis.) It was in the temple of Inherka and the artwork was gorgeous.
As with many of the places we’ve been, we were followed around the site by some American tourists, these were particularly a) annoying and b) hilarious because one of the guys (an Aussie guide by the sound of him) clearly didn’t know what he was talking about!! It started in the tomb of Sennedjem where he was holding forth on the “Canoptic Jars” into which (he told them) would go the heart, lungs and intestines of the dead person. He reckoned there were only 3 (even though they are represented by the 4 sons of Horus) and it’s the lungs, liver, stomach and intestines which go into the Canopic jars, not the heart which was weighed by Horus, under the watchful eye of Sobek to determine whether or not the person was good (as told in the story of the “Last Judgement”) The guy seemed to never have even read a book, he described Anubis as the “Evil God of the Underworld” and my favourite relief of the Cat and the Serpent he described as “The sacred Cobra trying to protect the tree of life (?!?!) from the Lion” which just made me angry.
A nice calm walk through the workers village took us to a Ptolemaic chapel, which was built to honour Hathor (Goddess of Love & Passion) and Maat (Goddess of Truth and the personification of Cosmic Order) it had been surrounded by a Roman style mud-brick fort and was covered in Graeco-Roman graffiti but the inside was pure Egyptian. We saw again and again the precision of the mirroring of hieroglyphs and reliefs on the lintels and walls. G’s favourite part was identifying the “Last Judgement” actually in real life on a wall in the chapel, rather than just on a piece of tourist papyrus. The Guardian there was very obviously enthusiastic about his subject and his face lit up when we recognised the “Last Judgement.”
Another example (like at Seti I) of taking a leap of faith and going with our gut feelings about people. The Guardians who are worth the money are the ones who are enthusiastic to pass knowledge on to you, not the ones who wander up, point at a picture on the wall and say “Anubis” before asking for baksheesh.
We stopped on the way back to the river to snap the Colossi of Memnon. Not many people seem to realise that thse two are the only remaining parts of (what was) Egypts biggest temple, bigger even than Karnak. It was built as a funerary temple for Amenhotep III…..out of mud bricks…..on the flood plain of the Nile so typically and as expected it all melted in the waters and washed away. None of this detracts from the magnitude and magnificence of these faceless wonders
We went back to the ferry and across to the East Bank, starving and thirsty. We had an hour before we were due to meet Shakespeare for our felucca ride so we chilled out at Sindbads with our usual “2 Stella, Tahina salad and 2 falafel” which were incredibly welcome. G went back to the hotel to pick up our cardies so we could chill after the ride and I went up to meet Shakespeare. We discovered that he’d taken a fare up to banana island so we stayed long enough to pick up some cake to have for breakfast then walked back to an ahwaz on our hotel street.
It was very pleasant smoking shisha, drinking tea and watching the world go by, there were backgammon and dominoes games happening, men getting their shoes cleaned etc. An Indian couple came in with (what looked like) their Arabic guide, sat down and ordered 1 tea (for her) and 1 coffee (for him) We smiled to hear her say that her Lipton tea was too strong and ask for milk, we also laughed to hear him complain that his turkish coffee was too strong and bitter and ask for “lots of sugar and milk” “tourists”!!
We got dirty looks from a group of four lads who passed, clearly disapproving of us being in a “local” place doing “local” thing, but later an older couple passed and the lady looked at me just as I was blew out a mouthful of smoke and gave me such a big smile.
After we left we met a very confused looking couple from the Netherlands who were looking for a restaurant, they had the map of the Egypt book open so we showed them where they were and how to get to the restaurant, before passing the time of day sharing experiences in Cairo and talking about the weather going on in our respective homes.
On our way back along the temple we finally succumbed to pop-up t-shirt guy, Garry bought himself a t-shirt and I bought a hieroglyph t-shirt for dad, we also managed to add him to our ever-expanding Egyptian family. We also went and got cash out today so we can avoid the day-trip guy, Khaled and (from tmrw) Sayid who all think we’re staying until Friday, we lied because they just won’t leave us alone.
We came to Sindbads for a beer and some dinner, I had some kind of meatballs with rice in a spicy tomato sauce, while G had a mixed grill. Now we’re chilling with our drinks, about to move onto hot tea with more shisha. Gods these holidays are hard work!!