Wrapping up the Egypt leg

The last post in this series is here..

We had finished the Karnak temple sunrise, visited the tombs at the valley of the kings, seen the mortuary temple of Queen Hatshepsut and were on our way to three more stops before being dropped off at the airport.

Our bags had been in the back of the van since the morning.

The next stop was to see the giant statues of Memnon. However the group was tired and did not want to get down. Only I made a dash for it with Walid. He explained the place to me and I took a quick photo and video and we jumped back and and moved. 

We were in West Luxor and had to cross the Nile to East Luxor to get some Egyptian cotton and or linen. We crossed the Winter Palace hotel in Luxor where a lot of celebrities had apparently stayed over the years.

We were told Egypt had the worlds best cotton and linen and shops in East Luxor were authentic for quality (might be pricier than the street shops outside every attraction but autentic and great quality).

Walid stopped at one such shop and we did see the quality and price. We all shopped for what we thought was a good deal given the time. We were given 40 minutes and we came out exactly in 40 minutes. 

The last stop was at an Indian restaurant. We had told Walid that we wanted Indian food at least once. He told us the only Indian place that he knew was in East Luxor and it was the New Taste of India.

We were almost going to be disappointed after reaching that place. They had been reserved for lunch for a group coming from India in one of the ships. That group was late. We got lucky. There was only a buffet with fixed menu (as they were catering to a group). So we had that same fixed vegetarian menu.

The chappati ended up being Pita bread (same as in the cruise) , the gulab jamun was the local egyptian sweet that has a hard shell and no syrup! Still the vegetable dish, channa and daal were Indian. The owner was Egyptian but his father had opened the restaurant after learning desi cooking or so we heard. The lassi was good per family. 

We gobbled up things as fast as we could and were off to the Luxor airport which was on this side of the city. 

The desi group from our ship was waiting outside the airport and told us "bad news. flight is very delayed". Fortunately they were on a different flight and our flight to Cairo was not delayed. 

We were harrassed a bit by the security folks at Luxor aiport. We were security checked every 10 feet by a bunch of folks who had nothing better to do. We questioned why were being checked just after being checked and there were some irate guys who were trying to show they were boss of their station. We just shook our heads and went through with these checks and pat downs. 

The saving grace was the small lounge at the airport which had wifi and charging stations and hot water. We made some Wagh Bakri chai with the hot water and sat there for an hour. Then we were off to Cairo for the night.

There are no direct flights from Luxor to Amman in Jordan. So we had to go spend the night in Cairo and fly out the following morning. 

We said buy to Walid at the airport in Luxor and were met by Latif again in Cairo airport. There was no time for dinner. So we wanted to pick up some veggie falafal sandwitches and rice. Had to wait a good 40 minutes for the order to be made.

We were to go stay in a hotel a little away from the airport. It was more of an apartment type hotel.

The facilities were great with the rooms having a fridge, kitchen and microwave. We ate the dinner in the breakfast area of the hotel. Some rooms away from the freeway were great. We got a room facing the freeway and the noise was deafeneing. It was a bad room. We complained but they had no other rooms or rooms with similar noise! San decided to sleep in the kitchen area in a fold out bed. I was too exhausted to care. It was going to be a short stay anyways as we had to wake up yet again at 3:30 AM to head to Cairo airport at 4AM for a flight to Amman. The drive was a good 20 to 25 minutes and we had to load all the suitcases.

We gave Latif a list of things that were great and the few things he could change for future guests and he was appreciative of the feedback. 

A video highlight of the last few things we did in Egypt..

and that was that..  it was bye bye to Egypt!

If my family allows me to stay glued to the laptop later tomorrow, might finish blogging about the Jordan leg as well.. that is another 1200+ photos and videos to review.

Patriarchy at its dumbest..

The previous post in this series is here..

Have already mentioned Queen Hatshepsut in detail in the post on Karnak temple's sunrise visit. 

After we left the Valley of the kings and the various tombs, our next stop was the mortuary temple of Queen Hatshepsut, which was way outside the original city. 

San finally takes a moving selfie.. that turned out pretty good!

It was literally carved into a mountainside with three visible levels and chambers and corridors that went six deep (when I zoomed in with my iPhone through a restricted gate).

This is one of the few places you can see her beautiful face carved as is without a Pharoh's fake beard and head dress. 

She went to the land of Punt and got back a lot of interesting plants, animals and riches by trading. They are currently guessing that this is somewhere in Somalia or in the Indian ocean as warm water fishes are portrayed in the murals. you can see it in the video highlight.

the usual kings and gods at the entrance.. here she has the fake beard in place..

The temple itself was beautiful but it pained us to see most of her relief on the wall carvings chiseled out completely. Not sure exactly who did this. They think her stepson did it. No matter who did it, it was a dumb move to not celebrate this lady and her accomplishments. 

You see the typical murals of the various gods blessing what was once Hatshepsut's carving.. 

This temple is a good 1/2 mile or more in from the ticket gate and they do have a golf cart service to take us to the ramp that goes up to the temple entrance. 

There are side temples for the jackal headed god Anubis, the godess Hathur and their most beloved giver of live, Amun Ra. We went in and out of those hallways and sanctums in 30 minutes. 

Again when we came out, there was a market and you had to go through it to get to the parking lot for vans. We were back on the road. It was getting tight to squeeze everything in.

A video highlight..

Thousands of years.. the pharoh's are gone. their gold is gone.. their mummies and tombs and temples mostly destroyed.. a few preserved with great luck.. but male chauvinism and keeping women down... that survives the ages!

Did I say the clock was ticking.. We still had three stops before the airport..

Women rock!

The previous post in this series is here..

This day was going to be a busy one. We had been warned. There were three things to cover as part of the tour and two things we added to the list before being dropped at the airport.

We woke up at 4:30 and got ready. Our bags were packed and the porters got it to the van. The amount of offering to the porters was predetermined just like the offerings to various gods during temple visits. We complied. The porter gods smiled on us. The suitcase with the broken wheel had made it this far. 

It was a special day. One of two days the sunrise is smack dab in the middle of the square hole in Karnak temple. This used to be a big festival in olden days. The Egyptian locals made it a festival again for tourist purposes. We made it in through security and the German language tour was still wrapping up. 

there were a few hundred people blocking our view and I had no chance. Still held my camera up to take a timelapse and was hit in the ribs a few times by jostling tourists. Did what I could..(you can see it in the video)

The sun did its glorious thing without making a fuss. We started walking through the temple once it was up. 

Had to increase the shadow lighting to get this image. those stories on the walls with the sun rising between them is marketing genius. Makes it look like the Sun is approving the story!

The night tour with the sound and light show did not do justice to the magnificence of the temple. They also did not cover enough about Queen Hatshepsut and how she rebuilt this place and started lighting up the temple, brought the two gold tipped obelisks to Luxor, etc. etc. 

This women had done more good for Egypt's people than all those Pharoh's before her put together. It was not about the kings and gods.. It was about improving the lives of citizens. She got that!

However her step son who later became king worked hard to erase her from Egyptian memory. A female ruler blessed by Egyptian gods did not fit their narrative. So within a generation, it was erased in mainstream media of the time. However thanks to shifting sands and the Romans and others who didn't care who ruled what when, some of her legacy has been preserved.

Walid took us to a special spot where the sunbeams come down in a dark chamber..it was scary to walk to the center as we didn't know where the ground was. Should have been challenging for folks to build the place!

A candid shot of us trying to stop the photographer from continuous clicking. Walid was filling up my memory by taking 25 shots a minute!

This temple at Karnak used to be all color. There is still some color on the pillars that has survived millenia and it is just amazing. When we imagine non faded colors on pillars and ceilings this size, one can only wonder!

As a Mylapore kid who was awestuck by Kapaleeshwar temple when my mom or grandpa would take me there, it still holds a special place in my heart after 50 years. Now imagine what a walk through this temple in all its colored glory would have meant to kids in those days!

Maybe the Egyptian government should think about restoring at least a small section of this temple to the original colors (if they can figure out what pigments were used and how to color them in the past!) and let us get a true sense of this awesomeness!

This is yet another place that has to be seen to be believed. If you are making plans to visit Luxor, try to be there on the Winter solstice and watch the sunrise at Karnak! It is true the sun rises every day and keeps moving, but a temple built thousands of years ago to align the sunrise to the solitice is worth watchng! A lot of science and engineering went into this!

Granite is not an easy stone to carve or carry! 

A few HDR shots..

A video highlight of the Karnak temple visit..

The grand finale from the night's sound and light show was a focus on the statue around which people would walk counter clockwise 7 times for luck..

We enjoyed this temple complex thoroughly. After this on our way out we got some tea/ coffee at a restaurant / gift shop which was very nice.

Then we went back out to the van. It was time for the next stop which was supposed to be yet another highlight! 

A sound and light show - Karnak temple

We left the Luxor temple and went straight to the Karnak temple by van. 

The previous post in this series is here..

Walid told us exactly where to go, where to sit and how to come out of the show as fast as we can to get ahead of the returning crowd so we could be at our boat before dinner time closed.

This is my first sound and light show. Apparently a lot of historic venues do this thing. 

it was an interesting experience. We go as a group and walk through the temple at night with things being projected on the walls. 

Somehow the lighting was not optimal and the sound was all garbled for a third of the walking show.

There was also a dog that kept sittiing at my foot and walked with me the entire time. San was freaking out about the dog. It was dark and an animal at your feet is not exactly comforting if you are scared. 

Still we enjoyed the show given we could see the stars in the night sky. You can see orion in this picture right above the temple!

from a distance I thought this was a row of sphinxes.. turned out to be Ram's! 

a few more pictures.. 

that part where we sit on a gallery watching things light up randomly over the lake was not that great. It was more like something from Disney and more American than ancient Egyptian. Shakespearean voices don't set the right tone for this show. 

A video highlight of the walk through show..

We raced out to Walid's surprise. We were the first ones out to the parking lot. Have never seen a guide be so proud of his group! We went back to the boat. Was trying to shop for magnets in the shops when Walid said "don't bother. We come back here first thing in the morning. You are here at a special time. There are only two days in the year when the sun shines through the line at the Karnak temple to make it look like it is rising from the sea! Tomorrow is one of those days! you can shop then"

we were dropped off at the dock and we had to walk a block towards our boat. The walkway along the dock in Luxor is well lit in night and looked even more beautiful. 

We were back in the boat and the group was already having dinner. We joined in. The dining room team was very nice and wished us well. It was going to be our last night in the boat. 

The next morning we were to be in the reception area with our bags packed by 5AM. We told them there was no need for wake up calls. We had been up before 4:30 almost every day! Our original van was going to be back. We were going to cover a lot of places in the van and head out of Luxor.

We were given guidelines on what to tip and how. Having had local currency helped. It was interesting how they expected a larger tip when in dollars than in local currency. 

It was time to hit the bed early one more time! 

A walk to remember - Luxor

The previous post in this series is here..

Our boat reached Luxor earlier than planned. So we were all ready and waiting for Walid. He was also ready but asked us to wait for 20 minutes so that the rest of the crowd disperses. "we have time! we can enjoy a nice less crowded walk!" he said. It was a good idea.

We walked from the boat to the Luxor temple. It took us 30-40 minute tops including some photo ops! This is a beautiful walkway with the river on one side and the Luxor temple on the other side. 

Once we went into the temple past security (yes, every temple has a ticket counter and security), we saw the Avenue of the Sphinxes.. 150 of them lined up on either side of a wide road that goes for kilometers to connect Luxor to the Karnak temple on the other side. 

The Luxor temple itself is "small" compared to some of the other templed we had seen. It had its share of history! It was a gateway from the dock to Karnak for the kings in those days. The whole place was beautiful.

The video highlights first, so you have context for most of the photos.. 

There is a mosque on the top which had its own crowd. The whole temple was burried under the mosque and a village and was excavated recently (relatively speaking). 

Romans painted over the original murals with colored faces

Finally there was a bunch of boards describing the major faces in Egyptian history. After my co-sister and me took photos of all these boards something was off.. then we realized we were going left to right.. the picture sequence was right to left.. Arabic style! So have put the pictures in the time sequence into one composite. Each of these is a large board at the entrance to the Avenue of the Sphinxes. You can click on this pic to get the larger size version. 

We were not done for the evening.. We had booked tickets to a sound and light show that was to start an hour later. It was a narrow time window. So a van picked us up at a street corner before we hit the walkway and took us on a road parallel to the avenue of the Sphinx to Karnak... 

The night pictures from that show are proving to be an editing challenge. . . will post that next!