Worthless and Weak

So I haven't updated in a few days... Anyway, to give a very quick summary of the past few days...

Alexandria was ok, I enjoyed the Fort and the Catacombs, and their museum is really great, other than that, not so much.

The Egyptian Museum was awesome, there is simply so much stuff there it's ridiculous. Over 10,000 items from Tutankhamen alone. Also, there was seriously a collection of 20 sided dice, which were from the Roman or Coptic periods.

The Pyramids were incredible, to describe them in a single word. All of them. Going down into them uses muscles that you really don't use at all, because you're climbing up and down weird inclines while hunched over, which is something people almost never do. Long story short, the fronts of my legs are still aching several days later. Moral of the story, stretch before you go into the pyramids.

The historical parts of Cairo itself is a bit underwhelming. I think the problem is that its really hard to wander around Cairo on foot (I wanted to wander around outside of the Citadel, but had a hard time doing it due to the traffic and stuff. The Coptic museum was nice, but like most museums in Egypt, doesn't do a great job at presentation.

Ranking the Museums in Egypt (I kind of feel like I've been to all of them) by presentation:

1. Nubian Museum
2. Alexandria Museum
3. Luxor Museum
4. Coptic Museum
5. Mummification Museum
6. Islamic Ceramics Museum
7. Egyptian Museum
8. Aswan Museum

Ranking them by content:

1. Egyptian Museum

2. Alexandria Museum
3. Luxor Museum
4. Nubian Museum
5. Islamic Ceramics Museum
6. Coptic Museum
7. Mummification Museum
8. Aswan Museum

I think overall, the best Museum was the Egyptian, and the worse (by far) was the Aswan Museum. But thats just me.

The best piece in the Egyptian Museum was innermost coffin of Tutankhamen, which was made of solid gold.

My favorite temple was tough to say, I liked Karnak, its really tough to accurately describe just how big the place is. I also liked the Luxor temple; that was awesome.

The valley of the Queens was probably the most underrated place I went, its almost as good ast he Valley of the Kings, but simply because it's not on the standard tour, probably had about 5% as many tourists there. There were simply no lines and both tombs were easily accessible.

Thats the same with Dahshur, the pyramids were very impressive, but there weren't too many people there, and going inside the pyramid was very easy.

My least favorite temple were the ones at Fayoum, which don't really count because they're hardly temples in the first place (no remaining hieroglyphs if they had any in the first place).

Other than that my least favorite was Kalabsha, which for some reason I was the only person there, which means I had uninvited tour guides with AK-47s following me around (and then of course asking for bakeesh)!

The one thing I wish I could have done was gone to Dendera, especially after I wasn't that impressed with the temple of Horus at Edfu.

If I were to rank the temples...

1. Karnak
2. Abu Simbel (counting both temples as one, as they are quite similar)
3. Luxor
4. Medina Habu
5. Temple of Hatshetshut
6. Horus @ Edfu
7. Ramesseum
8. Kom Ombo
9. Philae
9. Kalabsha

Big gap between Luxor and Medina Habu, another big gap after Kom Ombo.

Of the four cities I went to, I would rank as following:

4. Alexandria. Nice city, very big, but there isn't that much tourist stuff to do. Unless you plan on diving, it can be done as a day trip from Cairo. I did everything there in one day. I loved my hotel though

3. Cairo. Big city. Very very very big. It is nearly impossible to get from one area to another by walking, and sometimes seems impossible to do so by car as well. Absolutely insane.

2. Luxor. Everybody, and I mean everybody, will treat you as a walking pocketbook. You will be approached by strangers multiple times, even if you're just walking a short distance. They are very very aggressive in what ammounts to begging at times.

1. Aswan. Small city, not too much there, much cleaner than Luxor, so the people were much much less aggressive (at least as far as I found). While you will be asked if you want a Feluca or a taxi, a simple no will usually suffice to get them to stop. The vegetation on the islands at Aswan is simply stunning, (both Elephantine Island and more impressively Kitchner's Island). With the backdrop of the gigantic sand dunes on the West bank, Aswan is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen.

Labels: Egypt, vacation

The Egyptian Museum is very big. I mean very very very big. It has lots of stuff, room after room of statues. Row after row of coffins. Hundres of carvings, reliefs, tools, vases and more. Seriously, I went in there at 9:30, and felt I hadn't seen everything until 2:30. Thats a long time, just looking through different rooms.

Of course they have almost the entirety of the Tomb of Tutenkamen, (except for the King himself - he's still resting something close to peacefully in his grave near Thebes. Including a 200 pound coffin made out of solid gold (wow!)

If you were to list all of the Egyptian Pharoahs by importance, King Tut wouldn't make the top ten. Or fifty. Maybe the top 100. And close to every single one of them would have wanted a splendid burial. This means that there were probably dozens of tombs that had much more and much higher quality stuff that was in Tut's. Imagine if we had found Ramses the great's entact, it would have probably had three coffins of solid gold - but we'll most likely never find another entact royal tomb - I guess we should be lucky that we have one.

Labels: Egypt, vacation

Today was my last half day in Aswan, I'm at the airport right now on route to Alexandria. I went to the temple of Kalabsha (which is by the airport) and then traveled directly to the airport. The temple was nice, but I think I'm getting tired of seeing the generic Greek/Egyptian temple (Edfu, Kom Ombo, Philae and now Kalabsha). Don't get me wrong, they are all quite nice, but (unlike say the temples at Abu Simbel), they are all fairly similar to one another, and also similar to the more standard temples, such as Medina Habu.

Also, I was literally the only tourist there. It was completely empty. I had to find the guards (who were cooking fish) who woke up the ticket agent so I could buy my ticket. Then of course they followed me around everywhere, becoming my unwanted tourguide, and of course wanting a little bit of bakeesh for it.

Now, I'm in the airport, (which also feels a little bit like a ghost town, they are other people, but it is in general quite quiet. I have to take a plane to Cairo and then a cab to the train station and then a train to Alexandria, I probably won't get there until 7 or 8 at night; which I'm really really not looking forward to. Alexandria I've heard is very nice, hopefully it will not have the same type of over-tourist feel that Luxor had. Anyway, I don't have much more to say about this, I'm at the airport with an hour and forty five minutes to spare, I figure that I've tempted fate one too many times with regards to intercity travel that from now on I should play it extra safe.

Ok, now I'm in Alexandria. Instead of taking a train to Alexandria, I just took a car the whole way there. It only cost me about 70 dollars, but it was going to cost a fair amount to get to the train station anyway, and considering how incredibly hectic the station in Luxor was, it's quite possible the one in a city probably 50 times as big might just be worse.

On the way here, nothing much happened, except for one turn, just after we crossed the Nile, I saw the hazy outlines of two incredibly Gigantic triangles. I can't wait to see them up close! (oh, also, I saw the two pyramids of Dahshur from the plane today!)

Labels: Egypt, vacation

very lazy day today. Yesterday by the end of the day I was physically exhausted and felt bad, so I decided to put aside 12 hours for sleep, (went to bed at 9 and set my alarm for 9), I actually woke up at 7 but I wasn't in a hurry to get anywhere in particular.

I got out around 10, managed to find a cab and went to the unfinished obelisk and the temples on Philae. The obelisk was nice, not too much there but it is quite big. The temple was also very good, but I've seen plenty of Greco-Egyptian temples, and they all kind of look the same.

Afterwards, I swam in the pool, and just relaxed, which felt very good. I'm going to try the Kalabsha temple tomorrow before my flight, and then its on to Alexandria.

Overall I've loved Aswan, it has been great. The people are about a billion times nicer than Luxor, you can actually walk through the Souks without being harrassed (that much). Also, the Nile here is very very beautiful. Also, I'm feeling much more comfortable here, maybe its that I'm done with the Jet Lag, maybe I'm just getting used to the culture, or maybe the people here are really much much nicer, but I feel like I'm really enjoying myself.

Well, its off to bed soon (I definitely want to make sure I can get enough sleep.)

Later!

Garrett

Labels: Egypt, vacation

Very Long day today. I woke up at 4am to get to the airport to get to Abu Simbel. Abu Simbel, while only two temples, was awesome. The sitting Ramseses are gigantic! Also, the insides were pretty ornate as well. This is one temple where pictures can do a decent job of doing it justice (unlike Karnak, for instance).

After getting back, I had lunch, then cruised around in a feluca for two hours, I stopped by the desert on the West Bank and roe a camel (which was really fun), and then went to the Nubian Museum, which is great. BUt now I'm exhausted, so I'm going to bed very soon.

Labels: Egypt, vacation

So I can finally upload photos to the web, which means I'm gonna just dump a bunch of photos, you can view at your leisure.

So, I barely got to Aswan today. At the train station, there was a line of about 25 people for firstclass tickets, and as I waited for ten minutes, I don't think that one person actually bought a ticket. So the Arab man who was standing next to me told me that I could buy at third class ticket to guarantee a ride, then buy the first class ticket on board.

So I did that, met an American couple on the platform; talked with them for a while, and when the train came, hopped on, and hoped for the best. The first man asked me for a ticket, he spoke less English than I speak Arabic, which means that neither of us had any idea what we were talking about. I talked/argued until the train started moving. Eventually, another man (who also didn't speak English) came up and said more or less the same thing, until I flashed a 50, which seemed to take care of the situation.

But as to Aswan itself, it may be the most beautiful place I've ever seen. The way that the incredible lushness of the island and shores looks against the gigantic sand dunes behind it is simply breathtaking. I took a motorboat tour around the island, and wow, it is beatiful. There are a ton of different bird species flying around and swimming in the river, it is awesome in a word.

Photodump below

Labels: Egypt, pictures, vacation

It appears that I have an on-again off-again guided tour strategy. Today, I took a trip down to Edfu and Kom Ombo, home of two Ptolomean Egyptian Temples, which were about a 1000 years younger than any other temple I've seen so far. Built by the Greeks who ruled over Egypt after Alexander the Great conquered Persia, both temples had very defined heiroglyphs. In addition, the temple of Horus at Edfu was almost completely entact architecturally, all the roofing was still complete. Unfortunately, we arrived there at the exact same time as the cruise boats got there; and because the temple was completely enclosed, it became very crowded. However, it had an absolutely Gigantic first pylon, which was something like 47 meters or 150 feet tall.

The next temple was the temple of Haroeris and Sobek at Kom Ombo. This is supposedly the only temple in Egypt dedicated to two different Gods, so it had two of everything, two main entrances, two entrances from the Open Court, and most importantly two Alters. This temple also has the four depictions of Cleopatra, which are some of the few known depictions of her while she was alive.

My guide was pretty good, it was certainly good to have a guide inside the temples to explain many of the heiroglyphs out. ALthough he did make a few of the mistakes common to guides (he said that Hatshetshut was the first female Pharo, she wasn't the very first), but overall he seemed pretty knowledgeable and very friendly, so it was pretty good overall. The car ride was quite long though, almost three hours back.

Anyway, tomorrow I go to Aswan, which I'm really looking forward to.

Labels: Egypt, vacation

It appears that I have an on-again off-again guided tour strategy. Today, I took a trip down to Edfu and Kom Ombo, home of two Ptolomean Egyptian Temples, which were about a 1000 years younger than any other temple I've seen so far. Built by the Greeks who ruled over Egypt after Alexander the Great conquered Persia, both temples had very defined heiroglyphs. In addition, the temple of Horus at Edfu was almost completely entact architecturally, all the roofing was still complete. Unfortunately, we arrived there at the exact same time as the cruise boats got there; and because the temple was completely enclosed, it became very crowded. However, it had an absolutely Gigantic first pylon, which was something like 47 meters or 150 feet tall.

The next temple was the temple of Haroeris and Sobek at Kom Ombo. This is supposedly the only temple in Egypt dedicated to two different Gods, so it had two of everything, two main entrances, two entrances from the Open Court, and most importantly two Alters. This temple also has the four depictions of Cleopatra, which are some of the few known depictions of her while she was alive.

My guide was pretty good, it was certainly good to have a guide inside the temples to explain many of the heiroglyphs out. ALthough he did make a few of the mistakes common to guides (he said that Hatshetshut was the first female Pharo, she wasn't the very first), but overall he seemed pretty knowledgeable and very friendly, so it was pretty good overall. The car ride was quite long though, almost three hours back.

Anyway, tomorrow I go to Aswan, which I'm really looking forward to.

Labels: Egypt, vacation

Today I slept in till about 10, I guess I was pretty tired. Upon getting up and out, I was harrassed by some guy for too long, finally though when he realized I wasn't going to give him any money he left.

Then I made it over to the West bank again, and hired out a taxi to take me to the places I didn't go yesterday, this was an INCREDIBLE idea, as these places are in general just as good with one tenth the tourists there. The valley of the queens had no lines at all, and the heiroglyphs were just as good (although tombs were smaller). But still, tour groups don't really go there (the big three on the West Bank are the Temple of Hapshetshut, the West Bank, and the Collossi of Memnon (see yesterday's post).

Next up was the Ramasseum, or the temple of Ramses the Great. It was very good, again it was almost empty, and while not quite as impressive as the Temple of Luxor, it was still a very very good temple.

Medina Habu, the third site I went to today, is the second largest Egyptian Temple, and its Giant heiroglyphs were pretty awesome. Again, I wish I could upload photos, maybe when I get to Aswan... Or worst case, when I get to America.

The rest of the day was spent on a Feluca ride to Banana island, which was nice, (although I got ripped off for it).

Tomorrow, I go to Edfu and Kom Obo, this should be fun and then on to Aswan. (Luxor has been nice, but its been a bit much at times, it seems like you can't walk ten feet without somebody asking you to buy something).

Labels: Egypt, vacation

Yesterday, I decided to go with a booked tour for the west bank of Luxor, as I think I may enjoy having the guide there and the structure. It was pretty good, but the guide didn't know that much, there wasn't too much that he told me that I didn't already know. Also, some of the other people in my tour group were kind of getting on my nerves a little bit, which of course can't be blamed on the tour company, but that is the nature of the beast.

Also, one of the stops was to see the alabastor "factory," to see how stone things are made.

Of all those things, I probably liked the Temple the most, then the Valley, then the light show, and then the Collossi.

The Temple of Hapshetshut is incredibly striking, it is very large, with a three tiered structure, it looks almost greek. ( i really wish I could upload photos.. Maybe when I get to Aswant I will).

The valley of the kings has 60 or so tombs from the new kingdom, Almost all of them are pharoes (hence the name). Unfortunately, as far as we know, all the tombs have been robbed. Most of these were done so in ancient times, probably towards the end of the New Kingdom, the last to be robbed was Tutenkhamun's, in 1922 by archeologist Howard Carter, the contents now mostly reside in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. What's great about the Valley though is the tombs, while very hard to get to, many of them are quite big and all of them have fabolous decorations of hyroglyphs inside.

The Collussi of Memnon is very impressive; it was originally the site of a giant temple, but was destroyed by repeated floods. Now, the most impressive things left are the Two Collossi guarding the entrance, each is about 50 feet tall, and they don't sing anymore.

THe light show at Karnak was fun, a little hokey but it was pretty good, it was of course impressive, mainly because it was just Karnak.

I'm also feeling much more comfortable in Egypt today than I was the last two days, I feel much better walking through the Souks and finding bargaining to be more fun and less stressful.

Labels: Egypt, vacation

If you're ever in Luxor, and you need something, just ask the guy for it. What guy am I talking about? Well, no matter where you are, there will be a guy there, and he can get you what you need. He'll be trying to sell you something, but don't buy what he's selling, but what you want. For instance, tell him you need a taxi, he'll get it for you.


I met a man who told me that he was the only free-mason in Egypt today

Anyway, now that that's out of the way, I can talk about my day. I went to the temple of Luxor and the temple of Karnak, and the Museum of Luxor. My favorite was probably the temple of Karnak.

The Souther Sanctuary, or the temple of Luxor as it is commonly known, is in downtown Luxor, it dominates everything, you really can't miss it.



The road to the temple is lined by sphinxes on either side. These used to go all the way to the temple of Karnak, they're trying to dig them all up, which would be really awesome if it is every completed.

Up close, the temple has two giant statues on either side, with a giant obelisk on the left. The one that used to be on the right is now in Paris.












The entrance to the temple is the most impressive thing about it, but the courtyard is still gigantic.




















The temple was of course used by the ancient egyptians, but in later times it was painted over by Christians and used as a church.



Today, there is a mosque built into the temple.























The "Most Selected of Places" (known today as the temple of Karnak) was next. Its entrance isn't quite as impressive as the one at Luxor, but everything else is. The temple and everything about it is gigantic.




It too has rams lined up to its entrance. The highlight is the Hypsostle hall, filled with dozens of simply gigantic columns, each of which is detailed with hundreds of hyroglyphs.

One of the best things about the temple is the number and quality of hieroglyphs.

Labels: Egypt, vacation

So things sucked today.

Big time.

But thats life.

So right now I'm in what seems like (at least to me) a very empty airport in Cairo, I found a spare outlet, hooked my converter and my laptop into it. So everything that happened to me...

THe first flight (BBoston to Rome) had what seemed to be the entirty of the "Bishop Hendrick's High School" class of 2011, I think I overheard that they were going to sing for the Pope, I'm not too sure about that. Maybe you could check out the Bishop Hendrick's high school web page and find out for me. And, I didn't get a wink of sleep during the entire flight, leaving me very tired while in Rome.

Rome's international part of their airport is very confusing, you have to take a tram to the security checkpoint, and then take the same tram back to the terminal you just left. The system they have actually works, but when I did it I felt that I didn't know what the hell I was doing.

The layover in Rome was four hours, I spent it in a desperate struggle to try to stay awake as I was very concerned that if I were to sleep there, I would sleep through my connection.

I evenetually pulled out this laptop and just started writing, that seemed to work Ok at keeping me awake.

Btw, If you ever want to go on a vacation to Rome to shop, you could just go to some other place, provided you have a stop over at Rome. I swear, they have more highscale Italian boutiques than they do gates.

The flight to Cairo was actually pretty good, a man and his wife asked me to trade seats with one of them, as their three girls were sitting alone they wanted to sit next to them. Naturally, I agreed, so as I went to their seat, it turns out it was an emergency exit row! Jackpot. So I actually managed to get some sleep (probably only an hour or two, but it felt excellent.

When I got to Cairo, I had no idea what the hell to do in regards to getting my Visa. I knew that it cost 15 dollars, but I didn't know where to get it. Turns out you have to buy one at the bank and THEn go to passport control.

I was worried about customs, but that was easy. I just walked right past, my bag was waiting for me. Didn't have to declare anything. When I went to the other terminal to get to Luxor (which is where I am right now) (the terminal, not Luxor) (although as I can't post anything from here, I'll have to wait until I get to Luxor until I post this, so I probably will be in Luxor), the lady at the check-in couldn't seem to find my reservation. She told me that my only option was to go to the Flight Controller. The flight controller was a guy who, would ask one question, then would get a phone call on his office phone, as soon as he was done with that, his walkie-talkie would buzz, and he'd have to take that, and his cell phone would ring, and he would randomly get up and yell at people. Eventually, he managed to sign me in and print out my bording pass, (incredibly glad to have it). As I was leaving, I attempted to say "Shukarum Lucca" which I think means thank you in Arabic; and both he and the guy standing next to me laughed at that. No idea if that means that I did anything wrong in saying it, but at least he wasn't mad.

So, after getting some bad Pesto (bad in the sense of it was tough and not tasty, not bad in the sense of making me sick), I managed to find the gate, and am I now writing this very message that you are reading right now.

All thats left for me to do is to go to Luxor, get my bag, get a cab (this is what I'm dreading the most), get to my hotel, check in, and pass out. Its been a very long day (or two days by now), and I can't wait for it to be over, and for my actual vacation to begin.

Ok, so because I have nothing else to do besides find some way to entertain myself for the next hour, I'm going to write about the movie that I saw while Iwas on the airplace. It was "The House on hautned hill" but it was the original one, with Vincent Price. Its available to download for free from the internet because somehow it lost its copyright protection.

The movie was somewhat decent in terms of getting what you expect, I think the only reason anybody sees a Vincent price film is just to listed to Vincent price talk, and he does that enough. But there were several absolutely gigantic plotholes that I really have no choice but to expose.

(btw, spoiler alerts!) The biggest plot-hole was why the Pscyologist and the Price's wife wanted to dump Price's body in acid, after having gotten the freaked out girl to shoot him. I mean, if the whole plan was to get her to shoot him in the first place, wouldn't you want to keep suspicions as low as possible.

Also, what the hell was up with the rope scene? There was absolutley no way for the rope to grab the girl like that without any actual supernatural powers. And another thing, every supernatural type power (save two or three ones) was never actually explained.

And why did the test-pilot go into the wall at the end, and what did he find there?

Finally, the best part of the movie by far is the dancing skeleton at the end of the movie, because it looks so incredibly incredibly fake, and up to that point in the movie you could convince yourself that you were actually whatching a good movie in which everything will be explained in a great climanx; but when the skeleton starts dancing, you're in Silly Symphony territory there.

Anyway, bottom line America, watch this movie if you're bored and have nothing better to do, of ir you're a big fan of Vincent Price. In any case, it has to be better than the new one, right?

Labels: Egypt, vacation

In order to celebrate Black History Month I'm totally going to Africa.

Labels: vacation

So psyched! I just did 10 lessons in Arabic, and it was almost like I could read those words, I was sounding out the letters, and was soon able to start reading some words, (like a native speaker will do). I think I'm slowly getting there. But I've only got a week left :(. But on the plus side, I only have one week left till vacation!!

Labels: arabic, vacation