Egypt Trip

Inspired by Karen’s post…I’ve decided to do one of my own…a post about my Egypt trip from my perspective using photos taken by myself as well as my wonderful travel companions (mainly kes cos he’s the only one who’s uploaded the pics!)…

Well…it all started off at Changi Airport but it wasn’t too good a beginning cos I was having a really terrible headache, most probably due to my participation in the CSS Games Day…and I had to hide it from my mum to prevent her from worrying too much…to make things worse, Liverpool was trailing 3-2 thanks to that fluke of a goal by West Ham…thankfully pool won in the end so it wasn’t too bad…here we are at the very beginning of our trip…

I must say that the plane ride was pretty exciting especially since the last time I took a plane was ten years ago…Emirates is pretty good I must say…anyway we had a transit at Dubai first and we decided to hire our own cab to bring us around! I was pretty excited cos I’ve always wanted to see “The Sail”. So we got a cab (more like mini-bus though) to bring us around. And we realized that the driver was also Catholic; I mean how cool is that – meeting a cab driver who’s Catholic in a Middle-eastern country. Heh! Among the many things that we saw were mosques (I still don’t know why but most of them had two towers; Singapore ones tend to have one main dome only), the King’s palace, inclusive of his harem of peacocks, Ski Dubai which is like an indoor ski resort (wasn’t open yet though), Emirate Towers and of cos “The Sail”! Here’s a pic with me and the world’s first 7-star hotel!

To be honest, although the hotel was nice, it definitely wasn’t as impressive as I had seen on tv. I still loved the moment though and in the next pic, you can see me frolicking (if this word is suitable) in the Seas of the Arabia Gulf! The water was fantastic and there’s always something great about soaking in the sea, albeit just the legs. We then went on to have lunch at 9+am. I can’t remember what we ate but I know I liked it. I felt that it was super worth it la, like we toured another country as part of our trip. Dubai’s a land of construction and if the master plan that they have materializes right, it’ll really be an exciting city. Now, off to Egypt! The “sheesh-ta-ool” on the plane was great (it’s something like lamb rolls).

The first day (or rather evening) in Egypt didn’t get off to a very good start. I was irritated with the sudden change of plans – change of hotel from the Pharaoh Hotel to Cleopatra Hotel. It was also a culture shock to see armed policemen outside our hotel carrying weapons ranging from AKs to MP5s and other weapons which I did not learn about in counter-strike. Anyway, the hotel was kinda small but I was cool with it. The lift didn’t work too well and had to be operated by the staff; the corridors outside our room bore a uncanny resemblance to that of a scene I had seen in Munich, the movie. The part of the room that I liked was his window thingy which allowed us to actually go outside the room and take in this view of downtown Cairo.

Here you can see the nicest view of our bedroom

The view of downtown Cairo from Cleopatra Hotel

We walked around town at night to just explore and grab some food. Managed to get some good cheap stuff (to me good stuff = meat, the more the better). There was this guy who started chatting with nan and me also. Quite weird. I guess it’s something I cannot figure about Egyptians – whether they’re being genuinely nice or they’re trying their freaking best to rip you off. In the words of kes, sometimes when they see us, all they see is a dollar sign. At first, it was just a chat but later I started feeling weird when he asked for our numbers and all, so we kinda ignored him and walked faster.

The first official day of our Egypt trip and we were introduced to big fellow (a picture later) in which we were to travel for the 1^st week of our trip. Wasn’t really what I expected but I grew to like that vehicle. Anyway, the first day was mainly the pyramids and the Sphinx. It was also the day I got conned. We traveled on Big Fellow to the pyramids…as with the Sail, it wasn’t as grand from up close but only when u’re up close can you appreciate the immensity of these structures or rather tombs that had been built so many years ago, without the technology that now exists to help us in such mammoth tasks! Check out these pics…

Nan and I in front of one of the pyramids…can you see the Tourism Policeman in white uniform?

Me sitting on one block of the pyramid. Can you imagine how freaking big the pyramids are?

Besides the huge pyramids are little pathetic tombs for the wives of the Kings…most of them were in poor condition and probably reflected the relationship between the King and his wives as well…there was this burial site of a ship though…use the camels to gauge the size!

We traveled further on to the site of the famous Sphinx…I was told that it was being “renovated” so there would be scaffolding on it but it wasn’t as bad as I had anticipated. Felt that the Sphinx needed a nose job though; shouldn’t it be easy in this day and age? ;)

We headed down to the Perfume Museum where I bought 3 bottles for myself and my parents…think that’s the most expensive stuff I got on the trip man…it was also around the area that we had our first taste of Egyptian tea which is served without milk but with mint leaves which you add in…after which we headed down to the Papyrus Museum.

You can see the guy in the pic holding a Papyrus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus) plant at the museum. Basically they used that to make paper and they even taught us how to distinguish real from fake papyrus…apparently it also cannot be torn easily. I loved the painting behind the guide but then it was too expensive.

This painting is some sort of a judgment day whereby the king faces the 12 gods and 6 of them hold the key of life whereas the other 6 do not. Darn, I can’t remember anything else…you guys can ask our unofficial guide – nan. He should remember.

Anyway, the first night was spent out in the Black Desert. If I’m not wrong, it’s name is due to the iron ore that forms the black that covers much of the sand.

We camped out in the Black desert and I must say that the sunset was unforgettable. I just loved it and at that moment, everything seemed worth the trip and all my grumpiness at things that didn’t turn out as planned melted away. However, I didn’t take any pics; they wouldn’t have done it justice anyway. We had to cook our own food and I must say that the food was good even though the portions were small…here’s a pic of kes whipping up some whipped potato…

I still remember that first night in the black desert…the cold wind, the sand that kept going into my mouth and I just felt so uncomfortable…I woke up frozen and just couldn’t move, save for the incessant chattering of my teeth. It took me some time before I could get up and when walking around and moving couldn’t generate enough heat for my body.

It got better during breakfast when I held a hot cup of Milo to my hand…we passed by an oasis town later in the day and walked around…here are some pictures I took…

Here’s us walking as a section through the oasis town…notice the kids on the left…many of them pestered us for pens and I gave away one…if we had more we would have given it to them…these kids were nice though…unlike those we were to see later…

I like this pic cos of the details of the spider-web that can be seen…somehow I think that the web is thicker than normal…must be a pretty big spider…thankfully it wasn’t home…

A “panoramic shot” of the Oasis town…

The White Desert was beautiful to say the least and I will end off the post here cos I really don’t see an end in sight! Enjoy the next few photos and look forward to the continuation of this epic effort to photo-blog about my Egypt experience!

There’re a lot of these white structures that are amazingly created by nature…just look at its size compared to all of us!

And I rem this pic when kes ran towards the structure and said that it was bread…hilarious…

I know it sounds unbelievable but we climbed to the top of this white “snowy” mountain!

And this was the view from the top! Check out the Kumuka truck that we were on looking like a toy…

I’m sure all those of you who have my msn has seen my favourite pic…now here’s the funny version…the best part is that when this pic was taken…I had NO idea that kes was behind me!

Last but not least, I like this picture that was taken after our swim in the cold spring – the water was cold and the surface was super slimy la! There’re just so many nice layers…the sand, the greenery, the sky, which itself seems to be a continuum of colour from near white (nearer to the horizon) and darker blue as it reaches higher up. So much colour in the desert!

To be continued…