Egypt – Part 1

No words can describe how much I love Egypt, it was astonishing!! My 10 days wonders of Egypt (8 days to be exact, 2 days were spent onboard) is one of the best trips in my life. If I have to blog out every detail, I might take another 10 days. But since I have all the time in the world now, you will have the pleasure to join me in reminiscing Egypt all over again. =)

On 14 May, my adventure began. My very-free friend BFG, offered me a ride to the airport at 11pm (Thanks buddy!!) to save me the agony of reaching the airport too early by train for my 3am flight. Well, we were still very early because I know BFG didn’t have very good driving record, and I wanted to be safe then sorry. Hahaha!!! Yes, we reach the airport before 12.

Soon after, I was onboard and ready to fly. The flight wasn’t bumpy, but I couldn’t sleep. For the next couple of hours, I was tied down by the safety belt and my eyes glued to the screen in front of me.

Outside Luxor Airport

Our transit was in Doha and following that, it was another 3 hours flight before reaching Luxor. It was 11am, 5 hours behind Singapore time. The local tour receiving us was Spring Tours, one of the tourism agents in Egypt. Our tour guide was Ibrahim and he had a PhD in Archeology. I found him quite familiar, but I couldn’t put into words where I have seen him. Never mind for now. We will be visiting 2 sites before retiring for the day.

In the coach upon arrival

The scorching sun can literary burn us alive!!! I can feel myself drying up just by staying in the heat for merely a few minutes. Perhaps my body is still trying to adapt to the dry heat, but what really gets my head spinning was the lack of water. Nobody had water with them, since we had just touch down from the plane.

Karnak Temple

Left foot forward symbolised warriors

Arms crossed on the chest symbolised pharaoh

I guess not all the tour members were in the mood that day, because everyone was dying from thirst. After a hasten visit to Karnak Temple (also known as the Temple of Amun) which I was in no mood to pay attention, we spotted a vendor selling water and most of us bought water to quenched our extremely dehydrated body. By then, we were hungry and guess where we have to settle our very first meal… Mc Donald’s!!!

Why is Ronald Mc Donald everywhere?!! Stop following me!!!

Ok, I know it is really off to settle our first meal like that, but we were really hungry. Mac in Egypt is more expensive than Singapore generally, but their burgers were bigger. I had a cheeseburger to tame my noisy stomach. We didn’t have the pleasure to enjoy our food in-house, but to take it away to our cruise. So, off we go to the cruise.

Our room on La Traviata

We had our personal balcony!! So romantic...

Our cruise was the La Traviata, an I-don’t-know-how-many stars cruise, but I was not expecting too much either. To my surprise, it was as good as Superstar Virgo in terms of rooms, well furnished and completed with a balcony. After having a quick lunch in our room, we were ready to head off to the second destination – Luxor temple.

Rameses II - The great ruler during the 19th dynasty

There were initially 6 statues of Rameses II but currently only 3 remained. I started to appreciate the art work on the walls through the explanation by Ibrahim. Without him, every stone looks the same. He explained that all the magnificent columns, statues and sphinxes that we see today were once buried before excavations began in the 19th century.

Luxor Temple - Entrance

Rameses II and his wife

At the entrance were 2 statues of Rameses II and an erected obelisk. Upon entering the temple, there are more statues, columns and stones. However, there were evidences of Roman invasion on the wall. It was amazing how stories could be constructed by looking at pictures alone.

The Roman came along and painted the walls

The god of fertility is one example. He had an exceptionally long dick, and for some reason as a punishment, the ancient people cut off one arm and one leg from him. However, with his very long dick, having one leg posses no problem. He walked with one leg and one dick. Interesting ya??

This is the god of fertility -Min, and Rameses II love to have him around

Against a wall with hardly anything left (ash, may I know why we choose this spot?)

That's all for day 1... More exciting happenings on day 2!!