Exotic Enigmatic Egypt! Part 13 - Final

Exotic Enigmatic Egypt! Part 12

Came evening time, we were all psyched up for a carriage ride into town. Mohamad, our guide had us all walked into a lane where 10 horse carriages were waiting for the 20 of us. It was quite a blast riding convoy into town!

It was hard trying to take a photo while I was riding along. I purposely took the last carriage so that I could take shots from the back.

We actually rode through a night market which had a narrow path. You can see how close the shops are to us on our right and left. The stalls selling clothes and fabric hang their goods above and across; creating an interesting "tunnel". This is one of my fave shots.


After the ride was over, the group of us decided to have a go at Shisha (Hookah). Most of us failed miserably at it as no matter how we sucked and sucked the hose and inhaled, we couldn't get any smoke out from us when we exhaled. So, I guess one could say that we truly sucked at it in the truest sense! Hahaha....Mohamad must have been laughing at us fools at that time and decided to show us how the Egyptians do it!

Exotic Enigmatic Egypt! Part 11

It was our last night on the cruise ship and most of the crew came out after dinner and did a performance for us at the lobby area. Towards the end, they got some of the passengers to join in the singing and dancing and we went to bed feeling a bit sad that the cruise was soon coming to an end.

The next morning after we disembark, we were taken to the Valley Of The Kings, located amongst the desert mountain at the West Bank of the Nile.

Unless you're a tomb raider, this is one mountain you won't want to climb.

Exotic Enigmatic Egypt! Part 10

My sis and family are in town for just a week and I've been accompanying them in a whirlwind of activities for the past 5 days. Anyway, here's a quick and short Part 10 of Egypt which features photos of two temples. Click on the highlighted words to learn more, I'm off to bed soon :o).

Temple Of Kom Ombo and here's the story

The next day, we took the horse carriage to the Temple Of Edfu

Exotic Enigmatic Egypt! Part 9

After the trip to the Temple of Philae, we went back to the cruise ship for lunch and rested a while. Soon, we were off again! This time, we had another tour on a felucca around Elephantine Island.

Some feluccas we saw along the way. The feluccas are mainly used to bring tourists around the island.

Our felucca Captain is from Nubia. They are of a darker skin colour (due to the strong sunlight for sure! The heat gets to scorching level!)

As we sailed along further to the West Bank, there were some strange structures on hills at several areas. Turns out that these structures were actually tombs of nobles (note the stairs). Most of the them were tombs of priests or high officials.

We gladly retreated back to the cool comfort of the cruise ship after the sailboat ride. After dinner, we went to Aswan Bazaar to see the sights which is smaller as compared to Khan El Khalili Bazaar in Cairo.

A spice shop at the Bazaar - the bright blue powder at bottom right is some washing detergent additive. I asked the shopkeeper as I had not seen such a colourful spice before! Hahaha...

A cheery shoe and belt maker

We called it an early night as we were informed that our wake up call the next morning would be at 2.30 am!!! Yes, you read that right, 2.30 am!!! Abu Simbel was our next destination; 290 km away from Aswan. Due to some terrorist attack on tourist before, all tour buses met at a specific point (there were 3 time slots to choose from - 3.30 am, 4 am and I couldn't remember the third time slot) and had to travel by convoy complete with police escorts!

The line of buses goes all the way back! Tourists alighted from the buses to enjoy the very early morning air as we waited for the clock to strike 4 to start on the four hour journey. Most of us slept through the journey ;o).

This is Abu Simbel - Temple of Ramesses II!





The temple was reclaimed from the dam and reconstructed in its present state.

Slaves as depicted along the walls of the temple

Temple of Nefertari - the smaller temple in Abu Simbel

Unfortunately, no photo taking was allowed inside these temples. I was in awe of Abu Simbel's surroundings and felt like I was in a National Geographic documentary (once again!), a feeling that I kept experiencing on this Egypt trip.


To be continued ...

Exotic Enigmatic Egypt! Part 8

Before we left Cairo, we spent a couple of hours in town and ended up sitting in Groppi for coffee and strawberry juice! Groppi is a quaint and rather empty cafe with only a few tables taken up (it was a big and high ceiling cafe). Seeing that it was established since 1891, I decided to Google and found out the story of Groppi.

Some of the goodies which we didn't eat cos we just had lunch! They looked really sweet though.

In the evening, we made our way to catch a sleeper train to Aswan. The last time I took a sleeper train was to Singapore many moons ago and I had no memory of how that went. So, this was considered an experience indeed; coping with the limited space that I shared with my mom and trying not to go to the toilet that often as I don't fancy climbing up and down the ladder.

There's a ladder behind the head rest. Pop that out, take out the ladder and pull the brown area above the head rest. That will be the bed on top, accessible via the ladder hooked on the rack at that top left corner. The little table contraption at the corner (next to the luggage) opens up and it's actually a sink and the metal lid is kept stuck to the wall by strong magnets!

Here's a rough idea of how it's like. Mom's such a trooper, the Egypt trip is really an experience for her!

Arrving the next day in Aswan, we went off to visit the Temple Of Philae by boat.

I like the place where we docked. Look at the natural "canopy" they use and how everything seems to blend with the surroundings.

And here's The Temple of Philae

It's hard to imagine that this Temple of Philae was once submerged under water!!!

To be continued ...

Exotic Enigmatic Egypt! Part 7

I'm recovering well and will be taking out the stitches tomorrow! Yay! While I can't fully celebrate by having a feast yet, let's head back to my recent Egypt trip ;o)

Now, it was time for lunch and we were rather excited as we were told that we'll be having Chinese (a change from all that pita bread and hummus was most welcomed at that time!) but our hopes and expectation for a yummy meal were dashed when the first dish was set onto our table.

Just look at how they served us vegetable soup - ala army camp style!

We gulped down our food to fill our stomachs as we needed energy for our next activity; shopping in Cairo's biggest shopping bazaar, Khan El Khalili Bazaar. So, not much words from me but here are some scenes from this place.

Chilling upstairs

Someone decided to have a meal at the bazaar - Though after such countless meals like this for the past few days in Egypt, I wouldn't have ordered such a meal. However, I do like the way they served it. All the plates on a big tray and could that possibly be a makeshift vase??? Or is that plant supposed to have its leaves pluck and eaten???? Hahaha....Back to shopping again then!

This cute little girl was selling these beaded headpiece for USD1/piece. She was a great salesperson;demonstrating and teaching her customers how to don one.

From noon till sunset we were shopping at the bazaar. Soon it was time to move on to our next agenda, dinner with cultural performances.

To be continued...

Exotic Enigmatic Egypt! Part 6

Hope everyone had a good weekend apart from the petrol price increase episode. By the way, is it me or do the Malaysian roads seem quieter??? I didn't fill up my petrol tank as I refused to be part of the mayhem on that fateful night petrol prices were due to increase by 40%, a crazy 78 sen-making it RM2.70/litre! Grrr... and it seems it will be reviewed monthly? Guess most of us are staying in more, cooking/baking more? Or not eating at all? Hahaha... Well, no more driving to the shops nearby, will have to allocate more time to walk the distance ;o). But then, we'll also have to arm ourselves with mace/pepper spray and all sorts of of defensive aids to thwart off "evil" as I'm sure the "evil" ones will be looking for more victims since we will be more vulnerable, walking on the roads.

Well, here's another pictorial post of my recent trip to Egypt. Remember to click on the highlighted words for more explanation and details. We start off with dinner, continuing from the previous post.

Dinner under a tent - Al Ezba Restaurant. We got stuck in a 2 hour jam (suppose to be a half hour trip to the restaurant!). By the time we got there, we were really hungry!


Along with the usual side dishes, each table was given a mini BBQ pit where we had some lovely meats; chicken, beef and lamb. They were really tasty-either that or we were just too hungry that taste didn't matter. Hahaha...The meats were tender and full of herbs, spices and were well marinated. Eaten with the bits of capsicum and onions, we got the staff to refill the pit constantly (we were hungry, remember?)


I liked the cute and simple lights here in the restaurants!


The next day, we stopped by Montazah Palace but was told that tourists weren't allowed in (seems their policy changes from time to time). Hence, only this shot taken from outside the gate.


I really liked this quaint looking house located by the sea in the same area across from Montazah Palace. This is just a section of a bigger house.


We went to the Museum in Memphis which had this large statue of Ramsesses II. They had found in six broken pieces in 1882 and it weighs a total of 83 tons! Don't ask me why I took it at this angle :p


A souvenir stall in the area. I like those hanging small colourful carpets, regret not buying any :(

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We then went off to Saqqara to see the Step Pyramid, this is the only entrance to the mortuary located at the south east corner.


Upon entering, we went through this hypostyle hall that has stoned columns resembling papyrus bundles.

Here's the Pyramid of Djoser. According to Wikipedia; during the Third Dynasty of Ancient Egypt (27th century BC), the architect Imhotep built Egypt's first step pyramid, the Pyramid of Djoser, by building a series of six successively smaller mastabas (an earlier form of tomb structure), one atop of another. Later pharaohs, including Sekhemkhet and Khaba, built similar structures. The first step pyramid was built for Djoser (or Zoser).


Look how big it is compared to the people in the foreground.

A total of 9 Cobras are featured on the enclosure wall around Step Pyramid. I thought it was a nice shot of the bird being next to the stone cobras, trying to fit in to be one of them??? Read more about this place HERE.

To be continued...