A half day to do random things in Zadar

The previous post in this series is here..

We had spent a nice evening walking around old town and had crashed at 9PM as jet lag hit us hard. We had walked a good 10 miles in the morning through the lag in Plitvice the previous day. 

Our plan was to go cross the bridge and see the new town or city center. Then come back and walk past the parks and churches in Old town before heading out. 

We had breakfast right outside our hotel in the attached restaurant and walked to the newer town. It was just like any other downtown with busy office goers, shoppers in the supermarkets and bakeries, students, tons of them.. after walking a few blocks up and down we came back to the old town and asked the visitor center folks for suggestions.

They said there were two new museums within walking distance. So we went to the Museum of Illusions.

We were the only guests and the ticket was pricey but we had time to kill. We thoroughly enjoyed the place.. a few of the exhibits we did not get at the time.. hindsight being 20/20 now we know how to get the "crawling on the wall" type photos. Another time.. Later we learned that the same museum is there in San Francisco! Zadar is a small place. We had spent an extra 1/2 day than required but it was good to get adjusted to local time zone and relax a bit.

there were tons of other photos.. but posting them here. this is a great place to spend a good 2 hours with family and kids. definitely recommend this as a great time pass! 

After this we decided "no more museums"..and walked through a neighborhood of old town that we had missed the previous day. There was a nice market there where San did some shopping. Those skirts and frocks have never seen daylight after they were bought. Apparently they looked nice at that moment but are not worth wearing in public! The lady at the shop did a good sales job I guess. 

We walked though the square and came back to our hotel.

There was a new Bagel place that had just opened across our hotel. They were out of bagels the previous night. So lunch was fresh bagels and they were really good! Apparently the owner relocated from New York and started a bagel chain in this part of the world. 

Video highlights..

Then we got an Uber to the airport and were off to our next stop..

A slow day in Petra

The previous post in this series is here..

We woke up at 3:30 AM and drove to Cairo Airport from our hotel. Then caught a flight to Amman. There was a pre-paid Visa (thanks to Latif) which we had to get and then clear Immigration and customs. It was a decent airport but the smoking room door was wide open! So the whole area smelled of cigarette smoke. I went to the restroom and found cigarette butts in the toilet. 

This cannot be happening was my first thought. It was an international airport for crying out loud! Came out of that area and once we were out of the airport away from people, took a few deep breaths to calm down. 

We met our driver and guide Zaid. Between him and Ala, our other driver, they were going to drive and guide us for the Jordan leg of the tour. Not all of us could get on the same flight. So six of us made it on a 6:30 flight and the other two were on a 8 AM flight. Given our rest stop break, they made it to Petra within an hour after we reached. 

Most of the folks dozed off during the three hour drive. I was trying to stay up and take videos and also talk to Zaid to understand the area. 

Once we reached Petra, we were all hungry so we went straight to a restaurant suggested by our guides called "My Mom's recipe restaurant". It was walking distance from our hotel and the Petra site entrance and Museum.

The rooftop restaurant was well decorated and cozy!

 

Mom's recipe apparently included too much salt. The lentil soup was good but very salty. The rest of the food was amazing. They had a lot of veggie options. There was even french fries in the menu!

After all of us ate, we went and checked into the Le Maison Hotel. We all got a 2 hour nap. 

We started for the Museum at 4PM. It was a really quiet and nice museum. It was all self explanatory. We spent an hour in the museum, then took pictures outside as the sun started to set. Most of the museum is covered in the video.. I also thought some of the museum claims on plaques were exaggerated..

The first two pics were taken before we went into the museum.. the next two after we came out an hour later..

golden hour makes such a difference..

This was followed by some shopping in the stores next to the museum. We were debating having dinner at one of the other places when we saw that the menus were identical with slightly higher prices. So it was decided that we go back to the rooftop at Mom's recipe in hopes that mom uses less salt for dinner.

Turns out Mom is consistant and they like to make their soup that way! The folks tried a bunch of other veggie items and they all turned out great. The soup was okay with rice, so I made a daal chaawal out of it. It was a win win for the group!

My BIL had planned a surprise cake cutting for my co-sister and Zaid and Ala arranged it nicely. It was a happy moment for the entire group on what was an otherwise long and tiring day. 

Also Jordan was expected to by much colder, but it was pleasant in the evening! 

A video highlights of our first day in Petra..

We made it back to our hotel and for once we had to be at the breakfast area only at 7AM and start sightseeing at 8AM.

That made our day! Finally a night of rest and sleep!

Sobek-Horus, Shiva-Vishnu.. same same but different

The previous post in this series is here..

Our cruise docked at its first stop, Kom Ombo!

Every ship had docked at around the same time to catch the sunset and it was like a zoo. We could hardly hear our guide in that crowd. To top things off, many guides had powerful laser pointers that should have been banned for public use given their power. They were blinding and for some reason the tourguides were all trying to one up each other in pointing.. that made for bad photos! 

Our guide Walid told us that this was a very special temple that survived intact inspite of all the changes in Egypt over time. 

Special because there was the faction from the North that predominantly believed in the Falcon god Horus. The southern folks were all with the crocodile god Sobek. 

This was cause for a lot of concern. So a great unifier built a temple that had two entrances, similar murals on either side , two side by side shrines and the back wall with a description that split everything including the festivals, offerings, etc. right down the middle. 

As a kid raised in India, could understand some of this. There is always Shiva temples and Vishnu temples and followers of one don't necessarily go to the other even though they acknowledge them both as gods. This wasn't any different. (We actually have a temple in Livermore called the Shiva Vishnu temple, so everyone goes.. it has two shrines but only one entrance. that is progress over the years for you!)

 

There is also some other intersesting stuff at this temple. A scribe on the wall that shows the 12 months and the season during the months. Apparently the Romans moved from 10 months to 12 months after coming to Egypt and realizing that 12 months made sense with the solar and lunar cycles. They inserted July and August as months to commemorate Julius Ceasar and Augustus. (November was the original 9th month). We knew this from history but didn't know this connection with Egyptian temple!

Then there is an inscription of all the surgical instruments used during birthing. There was a Royal birthing room at this temple where surgeons used to practice their craft! It was fascinating. 

We got some photos of this temple that keeps going on and on length wise, with the two parallel tracks for the two gods. 

Finally we came down to yet another interesting area. The crocodile museum. They had so many mummified crocodiles.. some of them more than 20 feet long ! We learned more about Sobek here! 

Then we were late! The boat was going to depart at 7:30 PM latest at dinner time. There was still a crowd trying to get to the docks. I delayed the group trying to find a fridge magnet.

The boat stack up one behind the other, from the dock and you go through multiple boats before you get to yours! 

We all raced to the boat and were almost the last group to get in before they started moving! 

Did have time to set everyone up for this masterpiece(and I say that loosely) in front of the mirror. They had started putting Christmas decorations in the dining area! Group photos are challenging.. makign everyone look at themselves in the mirror instead of my camera in the mirror was intersting.. then I looked down and messed up a few shots.. 

A video highlight of Kom Ombo..

We were going to travel and dock sometime late in the night at our second stop for the cruise. 

Walid gave us that look again after dinner. Slightly better but a 5 AM start from the reception area the following morning! We had already gotten used to this. A 3:30 AM wake up to fly, 4AM start to drive to Abu Simbel the next day and now, a 5AM start.

The trend was going in the right direction...