I
have always wanted to visit Egypt but hesitated whenever I recall the attacks
on tourists. I don’t know why but the attacks against tourists in Egypt seem to
stand out in my mind - and there have been quite a few over the years. I almost
went in December 2011 and had even made full payment; alas, the agent cancelled
the trip due to the riots back then. Finally, I could no longer ignore the
calls and decided, I would go now or I never would.
My
two colleagues had asked me to consider them in my trips so I thought it would
be a good idea to invite them on this trip. You can go on your own to Egypt but
from my observation and experience, it is more convenient to just go on a tour.
Because the city is mega-huge and the transportation is still somewhat lacking
(I also read that it is not normal for a single girl to be travelling alone
there; you’d be stared at if you even ride the metro alone what more try to
navigate the confusing streets and poor public transportation network. I also
asked my mate and she readily agreed. The number of travellers increased to six
finally as the two colleagues decided to bring their family members along (one
husband and one daughter).
I
went to the MATTA Fair back in September 2012 and after spending hours there,
finally decided on a tour by a company which had departure in end-January to
avail of the public holidays in between.
Friday,
25 January 2013
I
took half-day leave today and left home just before 6 pm. It rained earlier and
the Friday traffic was as bad as ever if not worse. I took the LRT and changed
for KLIA Transit train at Bandar Tasik Selatan, cursing at the station steps. Reached
KLIA at 7.30 pm and went to check in. My mate was already there. There weren’t
that many people ahead of us so I was not happy when I saw we were assigned
seats at row 46. Strewth!
Just
before boarding, we found out about the riots starting in Cairo. Oh well.
Saturday,
26 January 2013
♪♫ Pyramid,
we built this on a solid rock ♪♫
We
landed at almost 6 am. I had decided to perform prayers in the plane and was
glad I did so because it was a long, long wait for our bags. There was some
confusion at first as to whether we needed visa on arrival (we were told by the
cute chap at the check-in counter that we would need visa on arrival but our
travel agent made no mention of this) so we went to buy visa stickers at USD15
each. Then we found out that the visa wasn’t necessary at all and retraced our
steps back to the bank we bought it from to return it and get our USD15 back. That
was confusing alright.
We
were finally reunited with our bags and went out to meet our tour guide. He led
us to the van we would be travelling in and told us that due to the chaos in
central Cairo, our itinerary had been altered. We would visit the pyramids
today and not the next day as scheduled. We dropped by our hotel en route (our
hotel was near the pyramids) to unload our bags and freshen up before making
our way to the pyramids. At last! I had been waiting a long time to see them.
There
was already a small crowd at the pyramids and I think it would have been bigger
on normal days if not for the riots. We took lots of pictures at the Great
Pyramid before we went on to visit the other pyramids. The pyramids’ surface
was not smooth, they were made of rectangle blocks yet from a distance they all
looked smooth. We spent about two hours there even venturing down into the Pyramid
of Khafre (nothing much to see in there and we were not allowed to bring in our
cameras although we did use our smart phones, heh) and climbing out again. We finished
with a visit to the Great Sphinx of Giza, the largest monolith statue in the
world and the oldest known monumental sculpture. Alas, there was a barrier
around the Sphinx so we couldn’t get close enough.
We
had built an appetite by the time we were done (and the last meal we had was
the early breakfast back in the flight) and after a brief visit to a perfume
shop, we headed for lunch at a nearby restaurant, so near we could still see
the pyramids from there. It was buffet-style and our first meal there; alas, it was nothing to shout about. After lunch, we went to a papyrus shop to see how it’s
done. And while there were many fine pieces of papyrus work, we left
empty-handed. We then went back to the hotel and checked in.
We
reconvened for dinner – I felt like hell from the moment I got up from
my rest and had to force myself to swallow - and after some discussion and haggling, agreed to pay for
some optional tours in Cairo and a trip to Abu Simbel.
Sunday,
27 January 2013
We
checked out after breakfast and went to the site of our first optional tour:
The Pharaonic Village. We boarded a floating vessel and went around this (artificial?)
island in the Nile where we had a brief introduction to some of the ancient
Egyptian gods before we sailed along various scenes depicting the daily life of
ancient Egyptians: the farmers, the wine producers, the blacksmiths, the
fisherman, the boat makers, the glass producer... then we docked and went to
visit replicas of a temple, a nobleman’s house and a peasant’s house. We also went
to see a replica of the Tomb of Tutankhamun, Islamic exhibits and Nasser’s
exhibit (Egypt’s second president). Then we crossed over and went to the
Mummification and Anwar al Sadat (Egypt’s third president) exhibits before
taking the boat back to mainland.
After
lunch, we drove to the Saladin Citadel on Mokattam Hill. We performed prayers
at the mosque of Muhammad Ali, an Ottoman mosque which is largely a tourist
centre these days. There is no section for women but we insisted on performing
prayers there nevertheless and went near a pillar to do so. You need to go to
the washroom outside about 50 metres away to perform ablutions though. I don’t
know why the washroom couldn’t be built within the mosque itself; Muslims can
really excel at inconveniencing themselves. We spent about 1.5 hours there before
heading over to Khan el-Khalili, a major souk in Cairo. We spent about 100
minutes there. I wasn’t particularly interested in many things there and was just
content to snap photos of the souk.
We
regrouped at 1745 and made our way to the train station for our 2000 train to
Aswan. We were supposed to pick up our dinner but it wasn’t ready when we got
there so we left without dinner. The train station was very crowded and we
sought refuge in a small coffee shop. No, there was no waiting room. Our train
arrived later than scheduled and it was a quarter to 9 pm before we finally
boarded the train and made our way to our respective couchettes. We were given dinner
on board – rice, vegetables, beans, fish and buns – which we ate in our
couchette (there were two planks that you stick into the wall which act as
trays to hold your dinner tray). There’s also a small sink with small towels and
mini soaps in each couchette and on the wall near our bunks, there was a panel
to control the light, temperature and music (our temperature and music knobs
didn’t work). We also had reading lamps (mine didn’t work though). The conductor
then came to clear our dinner and helped to make our beds. We settled in for the
night ahead of us.
To
be continued
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