Home Again

Well folks, I am back home again after a relatively quick flight (i just everything as quick when compared to the 13 hour flight I had from Malaysia) from Cairo yesterday. I left in beaming sunshine, and it was somewhat reassuring that, as we burst out of the clouds on our approach to Heathrow, that cloudy grey skies greeted me.

I was picked up by Sam and it was really good to see her again after all this time away. We went back to my house where she had set up a surprise (belated) birthday party for me, so that was lovely, as i was starving.

As promised, I thought I would sum up my trip with a few succinct points about each of the countries I visited.

Egypt

A shot that didn't make it...too much sun!

1. When doing a Nile cruise, you really only need to do a 3/4 day cruise rather than a 7 day one, The 7 day cruise is just two 3/4 day cruises back-to-back.

2. There are not enough E£1 notes in circulation, making baksheesh payments a real dilemma.

3. The Valley of the Kings is hotter than Kylie Minogue in hotpants

4. Haggling with locals is a must - unless you want to pay over twice the price for your plastic camel souvenir (which ironically is made in China!)

5. When in a taxi, make sure you a) Assure them you have a reservation at a hotel already (or else they will take you to a hotel where they get commission) and b) agree the price with the driver before starting the journey. DO not pay until you arrive at the destination.

6. You have to walk out into the middle of traffic in order to cross the Cairo roads. You can't wait for a gap, as there is none.

Crossing the road - Cairo style

7. Following on from 6. Don't be ashamed to ask for help from old ladies to get you across the roads in Cairo, they are more skilled than you at doing it (don't forget to give them baksheesh for helping)

8. A tour of Old Cairo is not really worth the money.

9. Bring some crackers along with you to the pyramid shound and light show, it is so cheesey!

Jordan

Downtown Amman, from the Citadel

1. You need more that 6 hours to do justice to a visit to Petra.

2. While a donkey ride seems like a novelty, the poor animals are treated quite harshly, being made to run in the blistering heat, so try and walk where you can.

3. The view of the Treasury from the siq is one of the most amazing views your eyes will ever see.

4. Driving in Amman is erratic, most cars have visible evidence of a minor collision, don't be afraid to get in a taxi with a crushed side panel, it is normal.

5. You can't get meaningful panorama shots from Mount Nebo on a Canon Ixus 75.


So that is it until next year. It has been fun, lots of fun - but realty has to bite at some point, and I need to pay off my credit card and sort through the thousands of pictures i have taken!!

Jerash and Madaba and the Dead Sea

It has been a whirlwind couple of days in which I have crammed in as much as is humanly possible in the time I have given myself. Alas, I spent to many days indulging myself in Egypt and have not given Jordan the necessary amount of time it truly deserves. Having said that, I have ticked off most of the things I wanted to do, namely Petra and Jerash. I am slightly saddened that I did not appreciate quite how big Petra was. It is a paradise for people like me, as you can climb all around the place, step into tombs and all that, but with only a 6 hour window with which to sightsee, I could only do the basics.

Still, as I am leaving Jordan, the only things I think I would have liked to have seen but didn’t was the Crusader castle at Kerak, and the Wadi Rum (this is a bit further south than Petra). However, these sorts of holidays are all about making choices, and I am glad I saw all I did in Egypt, so I am not totally gutted.

Overall, my feelings about Jordan are that it is a very expensive version of Egypt. The people are very friendly, don’t get me wrong, but where I was haggling for taxi rides in Egypt for E£10, I was haggling for similar taxi rides in Jordan for 10JD (Jordanian Dinar), which is the equivalent to 6 times the price. So, all in all I am glad to be returning to Egpyt.

Anyway, let me cover what I have done in the past couple of days. Firstly, I went to the Roman city of Jerash. This is actually quite an impressive set of Roman ruins, probably some of the best outside of Italy. There is a lovely 1km colonnade of pillars that leads you to various temples and bath houses, there is a hippodrome here, but I was too tight to pay a further 14 Dinars to watch a load of Jordanians dressed as Romans act out the chariot scene from Ben Hur! Also, there are 2 amphitheatres which apparently have the most amazing acoustics.

Shot of the Oval Plaza from the Temple of Zeus

Colunnade of pillars at Jerash

The temple of Artemis, Jerash

However, I could not hear these acoustics because for some reason, which escapes me, the people that run the place thought it would be a good idea to have a troupe in the amphitheatre performing traditional Jordanian melodies such as Frère Jacques and Scotland the Brave on the bagpipes!! Yes, I have photos of this event in case you think the Jordanian sun has addled my brain!! Still, this aside, Jerash was a really lovely place to visit.

The next day – today, I had to check out of my hotel. My flight was not until 8:25pm and so I thought I would check out and spend the rest of the day touring. I went to a place called Madaba, which is famous for its collection of Byzantine mosaics. One of the most famous of which is the Map of the Middle East in mosaic form dating back to the 6th century AD.

The map is laid on the floor of a more modern church and there are patches of it uncovered all around the floor area, suggesting that the map was much bigger that what is currently on display. It was the floor of a church I am guessing, because it has Jerusalem at the very centre of the map.

Madaba map of the world dating from the 6th Century

The whole town of Madaba is actually very liberal, a place where Christians and Muslims live in total harmony side by side. It also prides itself on the beautiful Byzantine mosaics that have been discovered there. I love mosaics, so when the driver pointed out there was a local museum, I thought I would pop along and see it. The local museum was very local, situated in a back alley of a nameless street.

I am just Madaba(out) mosaics....

It seemed a really disorganised mish-mash of a place, with the curator looking like the twin brother of Mahmud Ahmadinijad, the President of Iran. Still he was friendly enough, and I suddenly realised why the museum was in such an obscure place, one of the key exhibits is an untouched Madaban house with mosaics on the floor.

A Madaban house........well its floor

Once my driver realised that I liked mosaics, I was suddenly whisked to a “mosaic school” to show me how they are made. I thought I had left all that nonsense behind me in Egypt so my guard was down, but it seems the Jordanians like showing tourists schools/shops too!

After this, where I bought precisely nothing, I moved on to see a place called Mount Nebo. This mountain is a key site in religious history, as this was the mountain recorded in the bible that Moses saw the Promised Land (Israel) from after years wandering in the desert. This is real bible country and most of the towns around this area have some significant passages in the holy book. The landscape around this area is spectacular, with views of the Jordanian valley going all the way down to the Dead Sea. Looking further across, you can actually see Israel and Palestine from here as well (the West Bank). Alas though my camera can not do justice to the scenery, as I was trying to zoom in on the city of Jericho. Apparently on a good day you can even see Jerusalem from this vantage point as well.

Israel's / Palestine's infamous West Bank, as seen from Mount

Nebo. It looks so calm and peacful from this distance, doesn't it??

Detail is limited, but Jericho is to the right (if you can see it)

Well, after a few token snaps, I moved on and we headed down a steep looking road down the side of the mountain to bring me to the lowest place on earth; the Dead Sea. This place is actually 400m below sea level, and the water there is really odd – the water is so thick with salt, that feels similar to putting your hand in cooking oil. Anyway, I would not be a true British adventurer if I did not roll up my trousers and dip my toe in the waters, so that is what I did.

You can't get any lower than this - Photographing people in the Dead Sea

Apparently the waters have healing properties in them owing to all the salt. However, after a few minutes standing like a muppet with my trousers rolled up, I did not feel the blister on my foot was getting any better, so I left somewhat disappointed.

The final visit of the day was to go to a special view place that allows you to look out over the Dead Sea and deep into Israel. It was quite similar to Mount Nebo only much closer to the Dead Sea. Again my camera was not up to the task and so I only have a few shots of any worth from here, but the views were, once again, amazing.

As I said, this was my last real day of touring, and in the evening I caught a plane back to Cairo, where I am now, shut in a hotel not too far from the airport, waiting for my final trip; the one back to Heathrow. It has been stressful at times, blisteringly hot as well, but I have enjoyed every moment of it. When you have moments like looking at the Pyramids of Giza, or the Treasury at Petra, you realise all the inconveniences are worth it to come face to face with such wonders.

As per last year, I will do one more post tomorrow, a) letting everyone know I am home and b) summarising things I have learned from the trip. Then I will start planning the 2009 tour :D

A Petra-fying Experience

Today I had arranged for a private taxi to take me down to Petra from Amman. The journey is a good 3 hours long, so I decided to be up nice and early once more to maximise the day I had there. The journey to Petra is fairly uninspiring, as all you see for miles around you is desert (the Jordanian desert) with the occasional town/herd of camels thrown in. My driver was Samir, who could not speak great English, but seemed friendly enough (which is always good as I have to spend 6 hours cooped up with him).As we started getting near to Petra, the landscape started to change, and it was much more impressive, with miles of flat desert being replaced with mountains.

Finally we arrived, and I managed to get a lovely view of the town of Petra as we approached. There are two options for getting down to the ruins; you can walk, or you can take a horse/camel or donkey ride. I decided to walk down, as it would enable me to stop and take photos along the way.The ruins of Petra are in a siq. This is a canyon that has been created due to seismic shifts in the tectonic plates (earthquakes), the force of which ripped the stones in two. This has created a truly amazing path down to the ancient city, and I was snapping away furiously at everything along the way. The enclosed nature of the siqs does mean though that caution needs to be exercised if it looks like it is prone to rain there (which from my experience of the middle east can't be that often) as some of them can be prone to flash flooding because they are so narrow.

The journey down the siq was surprisingly long, I kept thinking we must be at the city by now, whenever i saw a bend in the path, thinking it would open up and reveal the city, but no, it just continued on and on. Along the way I met an Australian girl, Pippy, who was with an unofficial "guide", and we ended up walking around together. Single women touring in the middle east attract far more attention than single men, and i think she acquired Omar as a result of this attention. If I am honest, he seemed a bit put out that I was tagging along with them, preferring to have Pippy all to himself, and kept trying to get rid of me in subtle little ways, which was actually quite amusing.

A view looking back up the siq at some lazies using a horse!!

After what seemed like an interminably long walk, I rounded a corner and got a glimpse of the Treasury peeking back at me from the siq. This really was one of those hair standing on the back of your neck moments, and I stared in awe at the tiny sliver I could see from the siq. Ever since I was a young lad (many moons ago now) I remember seeing a picture of this place and wanting to go and visit it and here I was, all these years later, looking at it with my own eyes.

The first glimpse of the treasury from the siq. Hairs
were tingling at the back of my neck at this sight.....

A zoomed in view, trying to cut out the masses......

The money shot, the Treasury in all its glory!! Do you
notice the red tinge from the way that the sun hits it?

The treasury is absolutely gorgeous, it is an amazing sculptural feat by the Nabataeans (which is the name for the Bedouin tribes). The outer casing of the treasury is spectacular, but the inside of it is actually very bland, there is one room that is just square and unadorned in the same way. One thing that really struck me about the ancient city of Petra was that one day was never going to be enough time to visit everything in the area. There is a monastary which is about a 5km walk into the mountains, which would have been nice to see, but I only had 6 hours of visiting time, and I needed to cram in as much as possible.

We walked around the city, taking pictures of the scenic views as much as the buildings within, marvelling at the wonderful swirlling colours of the rock, and the tombs chiselled out of them. There is a courthouse (so Omar told us) up one of the mountainsides, so it was a pretty light trek up, and had a nice view of the city looking down. I can only imagine what the views were like from the High place of Sacrifice (another site in Petra, at the top of the mountain).

A view of part of Petra, all carved out of the mountainside - Impressive!

I completely lost track of time, until I started to feel hungry. My early start had meant that I had not had any breakfast, and it was now 1:30pm and I was famished. We sat and ate lunch, by which time, Pippy and Omar had decided to wander up to the monastery. I was due to meet my driver by 4pm for the journey home, and so I reluctantly left them (much to the relief of Omar) and started making my way back up to the top of the siq, taking pictures as I went.

The journey back up is one i can understand people taking donkeys and horses back up for, but these poor creatures do not look in the best of health and I was not keen on seeing the donkeys being whipped so that they would run uphill (in the baking sun), so I made the decision to walk it back. This also meant that I could get some photos coming back out of the siq too.

I took some more photos of the treasury as I walked past it again. It is quite interesting that at different times of the day it has a different hue to it. When i took photos of it in the morning it was rose red (Petra is actually nicknamed the Rose-red city), but when I returned, it was a golden colour. I lingered around here for some more shots before finally making the long journey back to the surface. I have to admit that by the end of the trek out of the siq, which had taken me about an hour, I was feeling pretty exhausted but at the same time I also felt quite exhilerated and even spent a few minutes haggling with a store owner over a rather tacky Petra hat and t-shirt.

The treasury is thronging with people all of the time,
so this shot is quite lucky. Notice the different colour?

Finally we started the long journey home. I was slowly nodding off, when Samir slammed on his breaks. Standing in the middle of the road was a group of camels, idly milling around. I have heard of humps in the road, but this was ridiculous! Still, I can understand why he braked like he did, as hitting a rabbit is one thing, but hitting a camel would have wiped out the car (they are bigger than a horse). The remainder of the journey was uneventful, the sun was setting and i was slowly nodding off in the car. We got home at about 8pm, which was not bad going, but it was a long day, and after showering and ordering room service, I was soon in bed and sound asleep.

When the sign said humps in the road for 50 yards,
I did not realise that it would be so literal................

I will add pictures later, i have taken almost one thousand, so sorting through them will take time, plus i was too tired to attempt this last night!

Entering Jordan and the Citadel

Early this morning I made the journey from the centre of Cairo to the airport in order to catch my flight to Amman in Jordan. At 5am Cairo is wonderfully peaceful, and not gridlocked with cars! It had not been possible to approach Jordan from any other route other than this, as the hotels all around Petra (where I am trying to get to) are packed out. Therefore I am staying in Amman, and am going to drive down there instead.

The flight was uneventful, but it was interesting to note that the plane has to fly south and go into Saudi Arabia before turning north to Jordan. The simplest route would of course be for it to head due east over Israel. Without asking why, I am suspecting that planes from Arab countries all avoid Israeli airspace, either through choice, or because they have to. I suppose some tensions still run high!

Anyway, I arrived in Jordan and was greeted by Mr Ali, a local taxi driver, who was only too keen to help me part with my tourist dinars when all I wanted was to get to the hotel. Still, he was incredibly friendly and was extremely helpful in showing me a few sights along the way from the airport to the hotel. My early impressions of Jordan are that it is much more friendly and welcoming a place than Egypt, and also less invasive of your personal space (i.e. if you say no, you are not pestered). Also, the people here seem really proud of being Jordanian, and the amount of times I have been asked “we hope you enjoy our country” is nice to see.

Amman is built on hills, and the urban sprawl looks great from on high

I actually arrived too early for my room, as it was still being prepared, and so I had a couple of hours to kill, which Mr Ali managed to fill for me by taking me to the Roman ruins at the Citadel in Amman and showing me the Amphitheatre, even coming along with me and taking a few photos for me. My love of old things, was enough to wake up my flagging body and I happily wandered around in the Jordanian sunshine snapping away at Roman columns.

The Citadel has had many influences over the years, it was firstly a Roman temple dedicated to Hercules, then later, a Byzantine Basilica was built here (6th-7th century), before the Umayyad Arabs arrived destroying the Basilica and they built a palace here ( 9th century). This was destroyed by an earthquake soon after completion, and it seems like all of these things had been left to ruin since that time until recent years, when preservation and restoration of the mosque (in particular) was undertaken.

The Roman temple to Hercules, or should that be Heracles....

Umayyad homesteads....well, what is left of them anyway....

Take my word for it, there are the remains of a 6th Century Byzantine church

Amman is built on hills, so you can get some lovely panoramas from on high of the whole city. The mountain that the citadel is on is the highest in Amman, and so commands spectacular views of the streets below, with one of the nicest being the view down to the Roman amphitheatre hundreds of feet below. The architecture of the city is gorgeous, really reminiscent of other Arabesque countries in North Africa. Combined with the sound of the mosques calling everyone to prayer, it really is a wondrous feast for the senses.

The citadel affords nice views of the Roman amphitheatre

After a couple of hours here, I returned to my hotel, and finally my room was sorted out. I am actually in a brand new wing of the hotel, and the smell of newness is still on the room!! All I can say is this place is lovely, nice and spacious, beautiful decor, a LCD TV, and more facilities than you could shake a stick at.

My room is smells brand new. I like the office in the corner allowing me to
keep my finger on the pulse of the international money markets. Sell, sell!!

Tomorrow I have arranged for another early start so I can make the long trek down to Petra, where I am hoping to find the Holy Grail that Indiana Jones left behind....I think all these early starts are catching up on me (I was up at 4:30am this morning), as this afternoon I just fell asleep for 2 hours (which is smething i rarely do). I am looking forward to returning to work, so that I can have a lie in....

The Citadel and Old Cairo

After a severe case of achy thighs, caused by all the tomb raiding of the past few days, I have finally managed to pull my finger out and arrange my flight out of Egypt and into Jordan. This is the busy season for the region, as the temperatures are now starting to cool down enough to allow visiting the sites without frying to a crisp.

So, tomorrow I fly out of Cairo and into Amman (the capital of Jordan for a few days visit). I have just not had enough time to do what I wanted and leisurely travel back through Europe, so I am going to catch a flight back out of Cairo on Monday, giving me Tuesday and Wednesday to recover before returning to work.

For my final day in Cairo I decided to go and see the Citadel of Salah-Adin (Saladin), and a sample of the religious buildings in the city. If I am honest, this was a bit of a waste of time, the citadel and old Cairo tour is not really worth doing, although the mosque at the citadel is very impressive.

The first site we visited was called the Hanging church (so named because it is built on top of the Roman water gate). It is a very old church, and is Coptic Christian (those buggers who vandalised all the temples!). Coptics, have a different papacy to Roman Catholics, and on the walls, the tour guide (who was Coptic) delighted in showing us the latest Pope - whose name escapes me. Anyway, the church is very nice, and I usually enjoy visiting churches and castles, but for some reason this place did not hold the same appeal as it once might, having feasted my eyes on ancient temples for the past two weeks.

A token snap of the church, but my heart wasn't in it

After this and only a few yards up the road is the Ben Ezra synagogue. This is a place for Jews to meet and pray. It seems a bit strange that Jews live in such an Islamic city, but there are some, although they are not overt about their Jewry (understandably so I suppose). They really are a small section of the population, as out of the 23 million people living in Cairo, it is estimated only 1,300 are Jewish. We were not allowed to take any photos inside the synagogue, but to be honest I was, once again, not really that enthused in taking pictures of this place anyway.

Finally we moved along to the Citadel, a huge fortress on the top of a mountain looking down over Cairo. On this site is a very impressive mosque, the mosque of Mohammed Ali. Before you ask, no, it is not the mosque of the heavyweight boxing champion of the world, but a completely different fellow, who came here during the Ottoman occupation of Cairo. The mosque is made out of alabaster, and it is a blooming big building, easily competing with the Duomo in Florence, or our own St Paul’s cathedral. The tour guide proudly pronounced that this was the best example of a mosque in the world.

This mosque was actually very impressive, reminded me of Age of Empires

Having not been to many mosques, I can’t comment on the validity of this claim, but I do get a sneaking suspicion that if I went to another Islamic country I could see the best mosque in the world there too!

The view from the citadel down into Cairo

Ok, I am keeping this post short and sweet as I need to be up and out at 4:30am tomorrow in order to get to the airport and over to Jordan. Speak to you all from Jordan.

Cairo at sunset

Dahshur and back to Giza

I was up bright and breezy this morning in order to head out and visit my final set of pyramids. Due to the nature of the climate, all trips start very early in the morning (8:20am is early when you are on holiday!!) so that you get most of the temple hopping done before the midday sun.

Today I did things slightly differently; I booked a private tour, which meant that I hired a taxi and a tour guide for the day on my own. This is a bit more expensive then going on the daily tours which picks up people at every hotel, and is a little bit more anti-social, but it has some very distinct advantages, namely that I could choose how long we stayed at the pyramids, and also ask the driver to stop at something interesting I happened to see on the journey, so I could take a quick snap.

Also, it meant that I did not have to endure any more of those bloody carpet / alabaster / papyrus / aromatherapy / cotton schools which are just a front for selling overpriced merchandise to tourists. Don’t get me wrong, the guide did ask if I wanted to see them, but he was told in no uncertain terms that I was not interested and he knew not to pursue it any further.

Actually my guide was a very nice chap call Wagih. He is a Coptic Christian, and I could tell this without even having to ask him. Most Coptic Christians have a traditionally Christian name, like Mary, Joseph etc. but Wagih sounded more of an Islamic name to me at first. However, a lot of Coptics also have a tattooed cross on the underside of their wrist to signify their faith. It was this I noticed on Wagih.

Our first trip of the day was out of Cairo a few miles to a place called Dahshur. This is a site which was built by the forefathers of the builder of the great Pyramid in Giza, and has some interesting designs. Ironically, this was not too far away from Saqqara, which I visited yesterday, but it is not deemed worthy of being on most companies official tour list, and so joy of joys, upon arrival at the site I was pleased to find it completely devoid of tourists (i think there was maybe four or five other people there). This seems really strange, as these pyramids are the hidden gems of the Cairo pyramid circuit. Giza is packed, but here you can walk around with no people touting for business and no tourists getting into shot.

There are two pyramids of note here; one is called the bent pyramid and the other is called the red pyramid. I visited the bent pyramid first. Why is it bent you might ask? Well it is not because it minces around the Sahara saying “hello sailor” at every passing tour party, it is because halfway through the design, the pharaoh (Djoser) who commissioned it became ill, and so the architect needed to finish the building quickly. In order to do this, the architect decided to change the angle to make the completion date quicker. Put simply, a pyramid needs to be finished in a Pharaoh’s lifetime; otherwise he is quickly forgotten about as all resources are diverted to building the new Pharaoh’s pyramid, akin to “the king is dead, long live the king”.

The bent pyramid mincing in the Saharan sand.......the smooth surface is the best

example of how all the pyramids would have looked had they remained untouched

Unfortunately for the architect though, the Pharaoh recovered, saw what a botched job this pyramid was and jailed him for his troubles. He then moved on to commissioning another pyramid next door to it (the red pyramid)., much to the annoyance of the workers! This is a mighty impressive structure, but the pharaoh never saw it completed, as he died only a few years into the construction and, because the people resented him for making them build two pyramids, they interred him in the bent one as a punishment.

The red pyramid - looks the same colour as all the other pyramids to me...

This pyramid was still finished by the Pharaoh’s son, but no one was ever buried in it, as the new Pharaoh was called Khufu (Cheops), he who built the largest pyramid at Giza. The good news for me was that the red pyramid was open to the public, and you could go down into it and see the would-be tombs of the pyramid. Down into the bowels of the pyramid I went.

The climb up to the entrance of the red pyramid was tiring!!!

The smell of ammonia was pretty stifling, but it was not as bad as the journey into Khafre’s pyramid at Giza, which was a) packed with people making the humidity even worse and b) much more strenuous. Furthermore, at the end of this journey there was something more interesting that just a square stone room, and thanks to an earlier baksheesh payment to the guard at the entrance, I was allowed to take my camera in and take a few pictures. This was simply not possible at Khafre, because of the weight of traffic that goes through it.

This is the tunnel to the Pharoahs tomb, it is only about 3 feet high

The roof to the tomb, pretty bland really

There is one other pyramid at the site, called the collapsed pyramid. This being on account that it has –erm- collapsed. The whole site of Dahshur used to be right in the middle of a massive army base, and so I was left wondering if the collapsing was a natural occurrence, or whether a stray shell had wiped out this massive piece of history. Fortunately, in recent years the Egyptian government have realised that these buildings are actually worth preserving and so they have relocated the army base to border the monuments.

After visiting Dahshur, we moved back on to the Giza plateau to look at the Great Pyramids again. This was an opportunity for me to get a closer look at the smallest of the three pyramids, Menkaure, which has three nice satellite pyramids next to it. Also, I wanted to see the Solar Boat, a recently discovered ship at the foot of the Great Pyramid, which it a fully 40 metres long! The last time I was here, we were not afforded the time to see this, because we needed to rush off and visit the papyrus institute!!

The pyramid of Menkaure from the front

As I was in control of what we did on this trip, I was able to spend a nice amount of time wandering around the pyramids, taking photos at leisure. I even managed to walk out into the desert and get a spectacular 6-pyramids-in-1 photo.

The Giza-n money shot - 6 pyramids in the same picture.

The camel riders offered to take me out further to get a 9 pyramids shot, but looking at the way they treated the animals (lots of whipping), I decided that I was not going to support them with my money, and so I walked, but only as far as getting 6 pyramids in shot. The 9 pyramid shot would have been a further kilometre walk in the desert, and I had no air-con!

So after snapping away furiously, I moved back to the base of the Khufu (Cheops) pyramid to go and visit the sun boat. Because this thing is so old and fragile, upon entry you are ordered to put on some special shoe coverings, to prevent any sand/contaminants into the room. The wood has been preserved, but I suppose they are not taking any chances. Or maybe they don’t want to pay for a cleaner to sweep away all the sand the tourist shoes will bring in. Whatever.

These are not the silliest things i have worn on this trip so far.....

The boat is a mighty impressive ship over 40 metres in length and is completely intact, which can't be said of a lot of monuments here. When the Pharaoh died, they buried this boat along with him. I won’t go in to the details, but it is linked to Ra (Sun god) moving across the sky in a large boat, according to Egyptian mythology.

The solar boat...I wonder what "Just one Cornetto" is in Egyptian....

That is the end of seeing pyramids and ancient temples in Egypt, tomorrow’s trip will involve going to see Old Cairo (mosques, synagogue and Coptic Church) and hopefully the Khan Al Khallili bazaar, which is a sort of Egyptian version of Portobello Road.

One final shot of the Sphinx and Khafre Pyramid

Memphis and Saqqara

Today I have booked myself on a tour of Memphis, the original capital of Egypt and Saqarra, another site just outside of Cairo which was pyramids. The Giza pyramids are the most famous purely because of the size of them, but there are many pyramids scattered along the Nile Valley, and these particular pyramids are some of the earliest known pyramids in Egypt, so it is interesting to go and see how the art of pyramid design began and was slowly perfected over the centuries.

Memphis is all much of a muchness, it is another temple dedicated to the God Ptah, who is the creator god of Egyptian mythology, that has been heavily ruined by people either taking the stones to use in other buildings, or by Macedonian conquerors (aka Alexander the Great) who wanted to crush the people’s belief in these gods and replace them with their own.

Token Sphinx shot at Memphis (not in Tennessee)

Still there was a very impressive statue of Ramses II in the little micro-museum they had on site. I say micro because i estimate that there were only about 10 exhibits in the whole place, this thing being so big it too up most of the room!

Ramses II statue that fills up the micro-Museum

After that, we moved on to the main visit of the day at Saqqara. There are a few pyramids here, but all are significantly smaller than their cousins at Giza (pronounced Geez-ay). The first pyramid we saw was the pyramid of Teti, which from the external shots looks just like a mound of sand in the middle of the desert, with a load of bricks scattered on the top.

No, not just a mound of sand, to the trained eye, this is a pyramid

Shot from the other side, this is the entrance to the pyramid of Teti

Sure enough though, we reached the entrance which led down into the ground and after a few metres walking, I was in the inner chamber of the pyramid. This one was actually much nicer than the ones in Giza for several reasons; it was less humid in there, it was less arduous a trek to reach this pharaohs tomb it was less crowded, and at the end of it there was actually something to see! Yes, this pyramids walls were covered with inscriptions and hieroglyphs, so it made it all the more worthwhile to visit. The sad thing with most of these monuments is that the sheer weight of traffic (which i freely admit i was adding to) is damaging them on an unprecedented scale. My tour guide explained that when he was younger, the roof of this chamber has a blue sky and yellow stars, but the years of accumulated sweat moistening the atmosphere in the place had slowly bleached all the colour of it which seems a real shame.

A quick note about the guides, they are not allowed into the pyramids, as the Egypt Tourist board (or whoever manages the sites), wants to keep the flow of tourists moving quickly through the place, and not getting held up with guides wittering on. Therefore what usually happens is several groups congregate outside the front of the entrance are quickly informed about what to look at, and then all rush to get in there first!

Across from the pyramid of Teti is some tombs to important figures in Egyptian culture at the time, but not worthy of a pyramid (which was reserved only for the pharaohs as far as i can tell). Usually high ranking officials, priests and the like would have tombs near to their kings, the plebs would be just thrown in the Nile for crocodiles to eat presumably.


Anyway, for our tour guide, I give ten out of ten for enthusiasm about his culture, as he delights in showing silly western tourists how Egyptians discovered/invented all manner of inventions thousands of years before the concept of “patent offices” had even been thought of. I have to question some of his interpretations of the pictures though. For example a man with some reeds tied around him was deemed by the guide to be the first example of a life jacket, whereas it looked to me (admittedly i have an untrained eye in such matters) as a man just carrying some reeds. That is an important thing to note, the guides are all good fun, but there are points where I think they tell a story, because it is more exciting, rather than just sticking to the facts. So, these days whenever i go out with a guide, i take a pinch of salt with me (and my lonely planet guide book).

This pyramid was closed to the public, no tomb raiding here.....

After this pyramid we moved on to what i would consider a more impressive structure, in that it looked like a pyramid!! It is called the Step pyramid and was erected in memory of Netjerikhet (Djoser for short). It has a slight Mayan feel to it, but the guide delighted in telling us that those pesky Mayans were only a glint in the milkman’s eye when this monument was being constructed.

Viscious guard dog at the entrance to the Step Pyramid,
he was off duty today though, as it is a national holiday

The step pyramid was designed and its building co-ordinated by a priest called Imhotep (people may remember this name from the film, The Mummy). Alas, to my disappointment, any ideas of a Hollywood style re-emergence of this 4,000 year old dinosaur were soon dispelled when the guide told us that many of the tombs were raided (not by Lara Croft) and the body was, in all likelihood, dumped in the Nile.

The Step Pyramid of Djoser

After a few minutes walking around (it never seems like i have enough time on these trips out) it was time to move on, and we were going to the most interesting place of the day – a carpet school. Yep, that is right they have sneakily added this one in. In truth, it was one of the few visits i have not seen before, so i popped in to get a demonstration on how they use a loom and how many knots are needed to make a square centimetre of fabric, which is all well and good, but i want to be looking at monuments, not haggling over carpets which I couldn’t possibly get into my suitcase anyway! So, after the demonstration i walked almost immediately out and started taking photos of some date trees. Dates grow everywhere around Cairo, and to my surprise, they come in a variety of colours; red, yellow, black are ones i have seen so far.

My sixth sense told me that a visit to a school/shop was looming....

Ok, I need to rush, as i have to get showered and ready for today's adventure - i am returning to the Pyramids at Giza and also going to the necropolis at Dahshur. I will add the photos to this when i get back.

Egyptian Museum - Ground floor

Yesterday, I decided to face the bureaucratic nightmare that is the Egyptian museum for a second time in order to see the ground floor (and to make some purchases in the splendid bookshop there).

Like I said in my earlier communiqué on the Museum, the ground floor is based on Old Kingdom’s artefacts. There being must less trinket based and more large-statue based. As soon as you enter the hall the first thing you see is a plaster reconstruction of the Rosetta Stone. It invariably has hoards of people all around it with tour guides excitedly explaining how scholars used the stone to decipher hieroglyphics. You can almost hear them spitting at the fact they have to admit the original is in the British museum. It never ceases to amaze me though that people will take pictures of anything, and true enough, there were people standing by this plaster reconstruction (which must be all o 20 years old) to pose for a snap.

Still, I wandered around the floor and there are some mighty impressive statues all around the place, including a massive 50ft high 25ft wide statue that, for the life of me, i can't begin to work out how they got the thing into the museum. I am assuming that it must be broken in twain somewhere, but i could not see the join line. Either that or they built the museum around it!!

I have to admit though that by the end of the museum i was full to overflowing with looking at Egypticana. After that i went and arranged a tour for tomorrow to see some of the lesser know pyramids at Saqarra, and see the temple of Ramses II at Memphis. No, not the place in Tennessee, Memphis was the original capital of Egypt many thousands of years ago.

Short post today and no pictures either. I purposely didn't bring my camera this time and typically, there were loads of people all snapping away without a care in the world (maybe i just happened to get a particularly prickly guard the other day!!) with the guards doing next to nothing to stop this from happening

Still, i am hoping that i will be able to make amends on the picture front with the visits tomorrow.......

It's the Pyramids, Geezer

Well, I suppose it would be very remiss of me to come all this way and not manage to see the Pyramids, so last night I dedicated to seeing the laser show they put on, with a tour of the three Pyramids and the Sphinx this morning/afternoon.

The laser (aka sound and light) show is something that I find difficult to describe in words. "Cheesy" would be the one that sums it up best. You arrive at the Pyramids after sunset and they are beautifully lit, showing off their magnificence. You take your seat and wait for the fun to start. Straight away I knew this was going to be bad because as soon as the entry barrier opened, you had fully grown adults behaving like children and sprinting so they could get to the front seats! Still I found a seat in the third row, which was perfectly fine, and I settled down to watch.

Nice lighting, shame about the narration

BOOM!!!BOOM!!!BOOM!!!

An unnecessarily thunderous noise bellowed out of the speakers, followed by an over the top fanfare that would not have been out of place in Ben-Hur. Then, Omar Sharif's voice (I think) booms out a welcome from the Sphinx. For the remainder of the show the impression is given to the audience that it is the Sphinx that is the narrator of the story of Egypt. Interspersed with the BOOMing was a haunting xylophone/chime tune, which was reminiscent of the theme to Tales of the Unexpected. They really need to update their music to something more contemporary, like Eminem (will the Real Slim Sphinx-y please stand up?).

The Sphinx informs us the even Alexander the Great bowed before him (no actual
evidence of this), but forgets to mention that Napoleon's troops used his nose (now
in the British Museum) as target practice...they have no respect those Frenchies;)

Lots of cheesy lines ensue, one classic I can remember is "man fears time, but time fears the Pyramids"[fanfare]. To add a bit of drama to the proceedings, they change the colours of the lighting so that at some points the Sphinx is blue, others he is green, or maybe even red. This was quite a nice series of effects, but my camera is not up to taking meaningful photos in the dark like that, so out of the many I took, only a handful are worth keeping. Personally, I was thankful when the show was over and the noise had stopped, then I could go to the front and take a couple of tasteful shots of the Pyramids and Sphinx at night. Still on the plus side, it is something I can say I have done.

Man fears time, but time fears a piece of crafted limestone
that's been slowly weathering away over the ages (i.e. time)

So, today I arranged a day trip to the Pyramids and Sphinx. Getting there was an ordeal in itself. I got into the tour bus, which stops off at a variety of hotels to pick up people, and we seemed to keep going around in circles for almost an hour. First of all we went back to one hotel to drop a couple off who got on the wrong tour, then we had to cross the city to get back to my hotel and pick someone else up who belatedly decided to go on the tour. Then I found out he was not going on our tour, but we were handing him over to another tour, and just dropping him off. Then we had to switch buses as the bus I was on was for a different tour. Nothing in Egypt is ever straightforward, but as long as you just sit back and go with it, you will be fine.

Finally we got there, and I was not disappointed with what I saw. To see the only remaining wonder of the ancient world is quite a humbling experience if i am honest. The Pyramids as viewed from the sound and light show seemed very small, but that was down to two factors; firstly, there is a large bank of sand between the seats at the sound and light show and the Pyramids, making them look stunted, and secondly, the distance of the seats from the Pyramids must be close to 1km. Now though, up close and personal, these monuments were, well, monumental. Each brick weighs between 10 and 50 tonnes, and most of them were almost as tall as me.

The Pyramid of Khufu (Cheops) stands 143 metres high

A view looking straight up Khufu - to give you a sense of scale, I
would estimate that each one of those bricks is almost as tall me!!

Ok, factoid time. for the largest Pyramid (Cheops) it is estimated that 2.3 million of these bricks were used, and the tour guide delighted in telling us that Napoleon had his mathematicians work out that if all the bricks were laid out end-to-end, it would be long enough to completely surround France with a three metre high, half a metre thick wall (seems like a more productive use of the bricks to me ;) )

The second Pyramid, which is known as Khafre (or sometimes Chephren) is one that you can enter, for an additional fee of course. I am not the sort of person that is going to turn down that sort of opportunity, and so I excitedly entered the Pharaoh’s inner sanctum (if you will excuse the term). Once again, no photography is allowed in there, although there is not much to snap in there anyway, it is very bland and could just be any stone room.

The Pyramid of Khafre stands at 138 metres

The entrance into the Pyramid of Khafre

The side of the Pyramid of Khafre with the Pyramid
of Menkaure (which is the smallest) in the distance.

What was noticeable though was a blast of hot stagnant air as you enter the tunnel leading down into the Pyramid. It smells like a 4000 year old mummy's laundry basket, and the further you go into the pyramid, the more stiflingly hot it becomes. This is probably due to a combination of the lighting and the amount of tourist traffic it seems to get. The tunnel itself is not for someone with claustrophobic tendencies (think of all those millions of tonnes of rock that could come crashing down on you at any moment!), or for people with back problems as you have to hunch for a most of the journey. I am suspecting that ancient Egyptians were midgets.

The Pyramid of Menkaure with satellite pyramids (so that
the Pharaoh could watch Sky Sports in the afterlife.....)

After this, we kept moving around the Giza plateau for a variety of different photographic opportunities. At this point, I should mention that I seemed to get paired with some French chap who looked a bit like a young Gerard Depardieu and could speak very little English. He was nice enough, but the language barrier was a bit of an obstacle, and I don’t think he fully understood that I did not want to go out with him later to pick up girls at the nightclub across the river from the hotel (I am honestly not making up this stereotype at all, that is what he wanted to do!).

The Sphinx (in case you had not guessed) with the Pyramid of Khafre

Close up of the Sphinx

After an afternoon snapping, I was looking forward to getting home when, all of a sudden, the tour guide started telling us about how papyrus was made. Regular readers will recognise these classic warning signs, and true enough we were soon parked up outside a shop which was going to show how papyrus is made. The lesson was conducted by a young man who clearly did not have the heart in demonstrating this ancient art to us, as the whole thing lasted under a minute and we were left to browse the shop while the tour-guide was given a Pepsi for her skills in getting us into the shop.

We all left without making a purchase, and got back in the car. Then she mentioned the most evil word in the English language to me at the moment, "aromatherapy", and I quickly piped up with "I have seen that already, so I will wait in the car". Fortunately a couple of others on the tour had seen this too, and so the visit to have a variety of unguents smeared on your body was cancelled (something which I think the guide and the driver had a mini-argument about, as they did not speak to each other on the way back).

So that was today’s adventure. Tomorrow I think I will visit some of the other Pyramids in the area (there are 109 Pyramids in total, the 3 at Giza being the most famous of them), notably at Memphis (not the US one) and Darshur (not Darfur, which is in the Sudan).