Konnichiwa Egypt ! (Part II)

10th February 2008 , Sunday

As I said before , we (my family and I ) went for an 'optional tour' which was a ride in a hot air balloon around Luxor and to watch the Egyptian sunrise from 1500 feet in the air. Unlike in Malaysia , sunrise in Egypt does NOT occur around 7.00 something in the morning but rather at about 5.00 in the morning. . . that being said , we had to wake up at the ungodly hour at 3.00 in the morning. "3.00 in the morning?!" i hear you say , yeah . . 0300 hours indeedy ! We had to be out of the cruise hotel by 3.30 , get onto a van , travel to another hotel(not a cruise hotel but a real one) and get onto a boat to travel to the other side of the Nile River.

The Nile River , before i forget , is a friggin long river that splits Egypt into 2 parts , East Bank and West Bank. Apparently , the ancient Egyptians whose lives revolved around both the Nile and the Sun used the direction of the sunrise as "Life" and sunset as "Death" . Thus , most of the tombs and temples can mostly be found on the West bank.

Anyway, as i was saying , we popped into a long motorboat and had our breakfast , consisting of a cup of Nescafe' instant coffee with sweet cakes (which were unbelievably delicious i might add) in the boat. After breakfast and on the way to the East Bank , our pilot for the hot air balloon , who introduced himself as Rageb told us about the safety precautions , positions to take during landing and things not to do in a hot air balloon. An example, would be not exiting the basket in mid-journey. :P

left to right : Mr I-Forgot-His-Name who was our guide for the hot air ballon ride,my mother , me
and Mr Rageb.
PS: By the gods , it was cold

Skip forward half an hour and we're boarding the Hot Air Balloon. Now there weren't just one or two or even five hot air balloons but more to 10 of em all big , round and juicy . . . um. . i meant big , round and colorful . The hot air balloon was pretty big as it was split into 5 different compartments . . . 4 on each side of the basket for the passengers and 1 in the middle for the pilot. .that being Rageb.

I shared a basket with 3 of my fellow tour-mates and the rest of my family had a compartment of their own. This is mainly because 1 compartment can only take about 4 people . After sufficient blasts of heat into the balloon we had LIFTOFF ! But , it wasn't exactly Apollo 13 . . . it was more of a slow but consistent climb up from 10 to 50 to 100 to 1000 feet . At the top we saw many sights that pictures could tell a thousand words could not . .












left to right : both my sisters , Rageb the pilot , me












A small town below us where even as high as we were , we could hear donkeys braying like donkey Armageddon was near

















My basket homies














MORE hot air balloons !

So i guess you could say that i really enjoyed myself up there. The sights i saw when my eyes were with those of the eagles soaring in the sky were beyond a doubt breathtaking and awe inspiring. Every single second spent seeing the sunrise from that altitude was priceless and incomparable to seeing it on land or in pictures. It was romantic with a touch of wonder in the whole thing. And of course , thank god i didn't fall down.

After the whole thing , we all went back to the cruise ship feeling extremely impressed by the hot air balloon ride. Upon reaching the ship we had a REAL breakfast eggs and all. . speaking of eggs , i have no idea why but i found the eggs on the cruise EXTREMELY scrumptious , till i had 2 friend eggs and 2 omelette's. Now THATS some egg-loving i haveta say . . Hahah

After breakfast , the whole day was more or less a l o o o o n g rest cause we had to sail to the Esna Locks to get to Edfu Temple. So typically , i had to try out all of the facilities the cruise had to offer . . . which consists of a foosball table , pool table , ping pong table , sundeck , bar and spa. I tried em all cept for the pool table and spa cause you had to pay for it and a cheapo like me won't pay 5USD per hour for a bloody pool game. Oh , and there were weights too ! Since i haven't really tried bench pressing before i had a little go at it on the sundeck.

left to right : excitement , pain , wipe out

So anyway , when we reached the Esna Locks , which was in the late afternoon , we could not get in right away as there were other cruise ships before us.

Now you might be wondering what this Esna Locks is i'm referring to. Well , its essentially a giant bathtub for your cruise ship. No , it is not for cleaning the ship but to raise or lower according to the height of water in the Nile. You see , the River Nile is not totally flat and one part of it is higher than the other( approximately 3 to 4 storeys high ). So , ships like the one i was in at the moment was not built to traverse down a mini waterfall/rapid , and frankly i don't wanna be in a ship that size even if it was built to handle it. Therefore , these crafty Egyptians made a giant drain in which the ship would sail into it and stop while the entrance and exit of the drain be closed . Then , the water will rise or fall gradually according to the height of the Nile where you're heading. I have to say , these Egyptians are fucking awesome.

As i was saying , we could not get into the Esna Locks till later in the night so we just sat there by the shore. At that time , most of my family members were having a nap as they didn't have much sleep in the previous night. Me on the other hand , could not sleep and so i went out onto the sundeck and read the book i brought with me. And so i read and read and read until the damnest thing happned.

I heard someone shout "HELL-LOWW !!" from below. Shocked by the sudden shout i moved to the side of the boat to see who or what was it. Apparently , they were clothes vendors who were selling clothing and towels to tourists. This salesman , who was wearing a shoulder-to-feet one piece was shouting his prices and then he suddenly threw up a piece of clothing in a plastic bag.
It seemed that if i wanted to purchase something , he would throw up the said thing and we would start to bargain to get a price equally agreeable to both parties. After achieving that , i would replace the clothing thrown up by him into the plastic bag ALONG with the money. He would receive the 'package' and return me the purchased clothing. Well, i didn't buy nothing really , i only just saw the whole transaction from other tourists who bought it. :P Which reminds me , there were at least 20 or more of them peddling their wares to all the cruise ships waiting for their turn to enter the Esna Locks which means this happens everyday for them. What a way to earn a living !

After dinner , we had a Galabia Party where everyone dresses up as sheikhs and parties or something. We didn't go for that one as we just got too darn lazy and fell asleep right after dinner.


11th February 2008 , Monday

Visited yet another temple in the morning . The temple being Edfu Temple in Aswan. Once again I was dumbstruck and filled with awe and the scale of the temple. Being at least 3 storeys high and about 80 metres in width and filled with figures depicting the pharoah smiting down his enemies ! And the thought of this building being built nearly 2500 years ago! Totally unbelievable ! Its pretty obvious that ancient Egyptians were both architectural geniuses and very united.

Our esteemed tour guide explained the whole temple from the meaning of the hieroglyphs and the various places in the temple. There was the pylons , center court ,vestibule and most importantly of all , the 'holi of hollies' . . . what?! Yessir, thats what i was thinking when my tour guide said that. Apparently , he was meaning the Holy of Holies. Hahah. The holy of holies was a place where the idol of the God the temple was dedicated to was placed to worship.

Edfu Temple

After Edfu we went back to the ship and did practically nothing once again for the whole day. Once the sun had set however we went to the Kom Ombo Temple. Apparently , this temple looked much better at night rather than in the day. Couldn't really disagree on that when i saw it.

This temple was dedicated to 2 gods which was quite rare as most temples were only dedicated to 1. Them gods being Horus , the god of the sky (the one with the falcon's head) and Sobek , god of crocodiles (the one with a crocodile head)

The temple was much like Edfu in terms of the characteristics but had 2 holy of holies rather that 1. However, in Kom Ombo there were mummified crocodiles on display. Some of the effigies on the wall were chiseled away as it was used as site of pilgrimage for christians in the olden days and idol worship was against their religion.

Crocodilus Mummifus

Once again, we were told of another 'Optional Tour' . This one being a trip to the famous archaeological site of Abu-Simbel or a trip to a Nubian Village and the former being the pricier one. At first , everyone was pretty smitten with the trip to the Nubian Village as it also had a 25 minute camel ride but after reading some of the picture books and seeing pictures of Abu Simbel , everyone jumped the bandwagon and went to Abu Simbel instead. Rightly so too as it was one of the highlights of Egypt.

To Be Continued