22.12.2011
We started the tour around 9.15am from the hotel after a briefing with all members of the group.
Today's plan was to visit the great pyramid in Giza, sphinx and also the two other pyramids. We even went in to the third pyramid. It was really nice experience. After that we visited a papyrus shop and they showed us the process how to make it..an interesting one. On the way to Saqqara, we stopped by for lunch. The bread was delicious, we ate some small dishes with grilled chicken/beef (65LE). Saqqara is the old capital of the old kingdom. It houses the oldest stone pyramid (2650 BC..the great pyramid was from 2400BC), called the Step pyramid by King Djozer. The form is not really like the normal pyramid, since it has six steps on its side outline. His son finally built the first stone pyramid with the normal form (without steps) but he didn't get the angle correctly so it's bent, thus called the Bent pyramid. He then managed to make the right one next to the Bent pyramid, with 52deg angle.
We reached our hotel around 17:15 and left for our sleeper train to Aswan at 18:20ish.
23.12.2011
Survived the night train from Cairo to Aswan. I was separated from the other people in the group but it was fine. We arrived around 9am and got my room around 10am. Oh and free wifi too, yay. We started the tour at 2pm to visit High Dam and Philae temple. Philae temple was beautiful and amazing at the same time. It was dedicated for Isis, the goddess of love and magic. Momo our tour guide had an interesting way to tell the story of the god and goddess of Egypt. He selected one of us as each of the god/goddess, I was actually selected as Isis kekeke. So, the God of Ra and his wife have four children, Ozares, Isis, Nefsus and Seth. They married each other; Ozares with Isis, Nefsus with Seth. But Seth was not happy with the arrangement and he decided to kill Ozares and cut him into pieces. Isis was very sad and she tried to find the pieces. To make the story short, she managed to find all except one piece (guess what ^^). With her magic power she can make him back to life and they got a son named Horus. Seth knowing this, tried to catch Isis and Horus (I think Seth finally managed to kill Ozares again, or Ozares only re-awakened for awhile - not sure about it). Basically with the help of Hathor, Isis and Horus could escape from Seth and the story will be continued later when we visited Temple of Horus in Edfu.
Btw, the temple was moved to the current location since the previous location was flooded by water when the Aswan Dam was built. We need to take a small boat to reach the temple. Its almost dark when we left the temple area. We visited the Aswan market and bought several things for our tomorrows felluca trip. I bought some peanuts which is a specialty from Aswan.
24.12.2011
We left at 8.30am for our flight to Abu Simbel. Our flight was at 9.55. It takes about 45 mins flight to go from Aswan to Abu Simbel. We arrived at Abu Simbel area around 11:30 and Momo gave us some background stories before we went in to Abu Simbel and Nefertari temples. The temples and the statues are amazing, it's unbelievable that it was created more than 3000 years ago. The hieroglyph drawing is so clear like it just made at least 50 years ago.
We reached Aswan around 2:30pm and directly went in to our felucca after did some pack - unpack luggage. The first half day of sailing was great we reached a spot close to Nubian village and had an overnight stop there.
25.12.2011
It's Christmas day on the boat but none really celebrated it. We woke up and said morning and merry Christmas to each other. I woke up around 6am and realized that there was beautiful view in front of me. The lights from the villages along the Nile river and the sunrise view, but I was too lazy to go out from my sleeping bag. I only went out from my sleeping bag around 7:30am and went to the Nubian house to fresh up. We continued the sailing after breakfast around 9am. It's quite windy and cold (and I forgot to take out my warm jacket from my big backpack) so I stayed in my sleeping bag. I still cannot believe my self that I am sailing over the Nile river.
So the whole day we spent in our sleeping bag, we got a 'separation anxiety' from our sleeping bag when we separated from each other too long ^^. It's quite cozy to read book or talk together on our felucca. We stopped by in one island with a nice beach and some people swam but not too long since its quite chilly. I with some people decided to walk around the island which was quite interesting. Before dusk we reached our stop in another small island, still had some time to walk before dark and then we had dinner in our felucca, yummy food. After that we had a bon fire and some felucca crew played some instruments and danced with some of us. I didn't stay that long, around 10pm after some bushes hunting to pee, I went straight to the felucca and slept early with Michelle, Stephen and Momo. I must have been slept like dead since I didn't realize that we moved to other stop around midnight where we ended our felucca sail.
26.12.2011
I woke up early and really wanted to pee but I didn't want to pee alone on the bushes. Didn't realize that we reached a more civilized area with a toilet (though don't expect too much about the toilet condition). We all woke up around 6am with Momo order since we have to leave early to continue our journey by bus. Kind of sad leaving the felucca, it's definitely a cozy place to spend a day but I also could not stand any longer to have a shower and a proper toilet. After breakfast, packing, a bit fresh up, and said good bye with our felucca crews in Dawara, we visited Kom Ombo temple (around 15 mins by bus) and Edfu or Horus temple (ca 1hr by bus from Kom Ombo). Horus temple which is Momo's fave, is the most 'complete' temple in Egypt. As its name it's built for Horus, the falcon god who is the son of Isis and Ozares. So we got the continuation of our story in Philae temple. After Horus grew up, he decided to take revenge to his uncle Seth. But Seth was also quite prepared, he managed to take two eyes of Horus which made him blind. Isis knowing this, prayed to Ra and Ra gave her powerful blue eyes for Horus so that he can see everything he wanted to see. This blue eye is now a symbol of protection in this area. I knew it for the first time in Greece and then Turkey. Back to Horus story, he managed to find his uncle Set though Seth changed himself into a hipopothamus and then killed him. Another amazing story about Horus temple is the fact that it has been 3/4 burried by the sand for quite a long period of time before it was found again. This made it preserved nicely.
After Horus temple we continued our trip to Luxor around 1.5 hrs by bus.
It's such a heaven to be able to take shower and to have proper toilet at the hotel. It's also the best hotel we had so far. We had around 1.5 hrs free time (shower etc) before our Luxor by night which was beautiful. We then had our egyptian buffet dinner with the chance to order jewellery from a recommended seller. I bought a silver khartus pendant with my name in hieroglyph. We returned to our hotel around 9:30pm. And I went straight to bed...yay for a comfy bed^^
27.12.2011
We started quite early today, I woke up lazily at 5:30am. After a hot shower I managed to get rid some fluids on my head. Yeah I suddenly caught cold after the felluca trip. We gathered at 7am to start our visit to Valley of the Kings. Its basically a cemetery of the kings under the valley. We had a ticket to visit 3 tombs and Momo recommended us to see the tombs of Ramses I, III and IX. It's quite fascinating to see the colorful drawings. I have difficulties to pick my fave one, since each tomb has its unique points. After Valley of the Kings, we visited the temple of Queen Hashetsup. It's a terrace temple and with elegant design, though according to Momo, only 1/3 of what we have now is the original one.
We returned back to the hotel around noon and we had one hr to fresh up and packing before checking out at 1pm. At 1pm we met Momon for a lunch together at Ritz. I had a delicious grilled fish with rice. It's only 47LE (around 6 EUR), quite cheap. After lunch we left around 2:30pm for Karnak Temple which is the biggest temple complex in the world. It has 43ha in total. It's really impressive with its columns area. I think one word to express it is.. grand.. It took around 2000 years (from middle kingdom to Roman period) to finish to finish it.Although there are some parts that still unfinished since the last king has passed away before he managed finished it. There are some areas where we still can see the colors of the drawings on the columns or ceilings... I couldn't imagine how beautiful it was..
After Karnak temple we returned back to the hotel, took our luggage and said good bye to everyone who did not join us to Dahab. We left Luxor around 5:30pm and started out 18hrs bus journey to Dahab.
28.12.2011
After a long bus trip we finally reached Dahab around 10:30am. I managed to get some sleep during the bus trip though it's not really a good sleep, since we stopped every 2.5-4 hrs. We had a big stop in Senzo Mall in Hurghada around 11pm, some people had their supper there,I did some fruits and cookies shopping in the supermarket. We also stopped somewhere close to the tunnel in Suez Canal and Momo explained a bit about it, there is a model and some pics of Suez Canal there.
We stayed in quite big resort by the Red sea, Mercure Dahab Bay View. It's quite a new hotel I think. After taking shower and had some rest a bit, I explored the huge hotel, it has its private beach but it's not a sandy beach so I don't think people can swim there. It's also too cold to swim on the beach too.
We gathered again around 6pm and went to downtown Dahab for dinner and also had an orientation in Dahab market. We returned back around 9:30pm. Heather, my roommate joined the Mt Sinai climb at 11pm, really wanted to do it as well but I am not feeling well because of my cough and running nose. So tonight I have the room for myself.
29.12.2011
Woke up around 7am already but I was on lazy mode until time to catch breakfast. I met Jill, Nadine, and Monique during breakfast and we decided to take taxi to the market. Shopping time with the girls though
I met Kurt and Stephen who were going to play tennis while I was enjoying the free wifi at the lobby. I joined them just to watch their plays and worked as a ball girl some time ;-) I played a bit, and realized my tennis skill is gone already, not that I had a lot before but at least I could play much better^^. After taking shower I joined the group for the usual dinner downtown at 6pm.
We had dinner at Aladin restaurant this time, when we returned back to the hotel Momo asked us to follow him to the swimming pool area. Shane proposed Mel in front of us that evening, such a sweet thing..
30.12.2011
I woke up late and had my last minute breakfast. I didn't really have any plan today, planned to go to the market for another shopping day buy I cancelled it. After spent some time at the lobby to make use of the free wifi, I returned to the room and back on my bed. My cough is not getting any better so I decided to have some more rest. I wrote some postcards, read my book, while watching BBC news or listening songs from my iPhone.
Went to the lobby hotel again some time in the afternoon after I get bored in the room, met some people on our group who have their 'nothing to do' day today.
As usual, we gathered at 5:30pm for latest update from Momo and we had our last dinner together with the whole group since tomorrow morning my group which is going to Jordan, will leave early in the morning to catch a ferry to Aqaba, Jordan. We had dinner in Ali Baba restaurant which has lovely light decoration, we also had an early celebration for Monique's birthday.
After returning to the hotel around 9:30pm we continued to hang out at the Shisha tent until around midnight (and sang the happy bday song for the bday girl). Some people continued the session with dancing party but I decided to go to bed. We should wake up at 6:30am tommorow morning.
31.12.2011
I woke up by a wake up call at 2:20am. Just barely woke up I couldn't really realize that there's change on the plan, I thought its already 6:30am as what we informed before. I was ready to continue my sleep and considered the call as a joke (a bad one ;-)) when I checked my watch and its only 2:20. But then Momo called us again informing the ferry would depart earlier so we had to get ready in 30mins. I managed to get a quick shower (glad that I have packed my stuff already). We gathered at the lobby around 3:15am and some people actually haven't slept at all because they just finished the party.
We left the hotel around 3:30am with totally tired face, I slept only barely 1.5 hrs.
We arrived at Nuweiba port 4:30ish and had to wait in a strange pyramid shape building. This day involved quite a lot of waiting time for us. We only went in to the ferry around 6:30ish, and then still some time for the ferry to leave the port, which was around 8am.
Most of us slept during almost 2hrs (including the immigration check) trip to cross the read see or at least tried to sleep.
We met Syuaib our Jordanian tour guide in Aqaba. After some luggage check and other formalities, we left the port to Aqaba city center by bus to have lunch and do some shopping for our camp night in Wadi Rum.
The bus dropped us at some kind of visitor center and we drove a 4x4 jeep to our camp site. We made several stops along the way. Wadi Rum (Rum Valley) is awesome, the rock formation and the pink sand are beautiful. One of our stop was what's called the seven pillars of wisdom of TE Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia).
Our Bedouin camp site was quite big, there were more groups of people having the new years night at the site. During sunset we got a spectacular view on top of the rock. It was really really beautiful.
We had a delicious Bedouin dinner around 7pm and had a a wonderful Bedouin music and dances to entertain us. It was definitely lovely but we were so exhausted. One buy one went to bed after dinner and I tried best to fight my sleepiness and then I couldn't stand it anymore. I decided to return to my bed around 10:30pm. The music was really loud and I could not really get a deep sleep, I woke up when people counting down the change of the year and the sound of fire crackers. So I spent the 'important' moment on the bed in my sleeping bag on the cold Wadi Rum..half awake. It was a quite unforgettable experience to celebrate a new year ^^.
01.01.2012
Initially I wanted to join Heather and Michelle to have a sunrise walk at 5:20am. But it was too cold and I was too lazy to get out from my sleeping bag, so they left me. We scheduled to meet and get ready to continue our trip around 7:30 but they haven't returned back at around 7am. We started to get a panic since they should have returned to the camp ground by that time. Syuaib has asked some people from the camp to look for them using their jeep but they did not find them.Nadeem insisted to join the guys from the camp to have another second trial and the rest of us waited at the camp. Finally they found Heather and Michelle. They indeed got lost, I can imagine it's difficult to get something to refer to on the desert and they did not bring any compass or mobile phone with them. But yeah the most important thing we found them.
We continued our a bit long journey to the other side of Jordan to the Dead sea. I was quite excited, and
the Dead sea is actually quite huge, but Syuaib told us that because high salt concentration we cannot stay there in a long time and also it hurts a lot when the sea water gets to our eyes, which makes sense indeed. It was definitely an awesome experience to be able floating on the water but it was not that easy to do it, at least for me kekeke.Dead sea is also famous with its mud which is good for skin so after some floating moments we decided to take a 'swamp thing' group pic^^. We stayed over night in Madaba.
02.01.2012
We started the morning with a visit to the Greek Orthodox Church of St. George to check its Mosaic map. The 6th century Mosaic Map from two million pieces of vividly colored local stone depicts hills and valleys, villages and towns around Jerusalem and the Holy Land as far as the Nile Delta. Sadly it's only a quarter of the its original size can be seen today, but we still can see the places quite clear on the map. We dropped by to Mount Nebo after that, spending some time there before continuing our trip to Petra.
We arrived in Petra around 3pm and we decided to explore the small town while getting some cash and a late lunch. We joined the Petra by night in the evening which was an awesome experience to get to know Petra for the first time. There were candles a long the way to the Treasury where a musical performance were held. It's definitely a romantic evening^^
03.01.2012
We were ready to explore Petra at 07:30am after having our breakfast at the hotel. Had to wait for some time at the entrance gate because of computer problem at the ticket office. Finally we started the walk along the Siq, the Treasury, the Tombs with a lot of stops where Syuaib our guide explained us some interesting stories. After lunch break we started the climb to Monastery. It's quite tough climb which took us almost one hour before we reached the Monastery, it's impressive though its not as beautiful at the Treasury. We went on to the Monastery, Carl and Shane did the running man dance inside ^^. Some people did more climb to a peak nearby, but I had enough climb for today. We had free time after that, I visited the palace ruins and the Royal tombs with several people in the group but I lost them after the Royal tombs. I met Nadeem at the Treasury, turned out I was the last one left, he knew I was behind. We met Heather, Shane, Mel and Michelle at the entrance gate.
Was totally kaput at the hotel, just realized how un-sporty I am now. It's definitely a good resolution for 2012 to do more sports. Some people joined the cooking class, but I decided to join Declan and Carl for Turkish bath. It was a good decision to pamper myself a bit. The steamy room and the hot stone were good for my cough. Felt better with my leg as well and I couldn't wait for my bed. I was totally on my dreamy mode when Heather returned to our room.
04.01.2012
Syuaib offered us to join another route to Petra today, it involves a lot climbing according to him so I decided to have my normal route and meet the others somewhere in Petra. It also gave me some time to do some souvenir shopping. There were not so many people joined the climb, Shane, Stephen, Heather, and Michelle, the others preferred to have their free time in Wadi Mousa/Petra. I had my wifi time at the hotel after the climbing people gone around 07:30am, then went for souvenirs shopping. I entered Petra around 10am and there were not so many people so I almost had the Siq for myself. Good thing about walking alone is that you can spend as much time as you want to enjoy the Siq. I really love the walk along the Siq and took a lot if pics in almost every corner of it.
It was around 11am when I accidentally met the climbing guys, they were quite fast since I expected to meet them around noon. We found another trail called El Khubtha, close to the Royal tombs, we did not expect anything. Its only because we still had a lot of time before our meeting time at 3pm at the hotel. Turned out the trail involved a lot of stairs and climbing, I was almost giving up following the others, they were the climbing guys so they dont really have problem with climbing the endless stairs. I kept on fighting, the view was great from the peak. There was a spot where I thought I was ready to give up and wait for the guys to go down but I met an elderly couple enjoying the view there, thats really keeping my courage ^^. At one of the peak there was a small house, the guy who lives there offerred some tea and he told us that there is another trail to view the Treasury. We decided to continue and we're really glad we did it. We reached a point where we can see the Treasury from the top. It was definitely a breathtaking view, I really feel like in Indiana Jones movie trying to find some hidden treasures ^^. It was again a bit climbing up to the small house since there is no other trail to go down so we had to take the same trail again. After that it was only climbing down the stairs, which was so much easier. We had a small break at the cafe in front of the Treasury and then a long walk back to our hotel. I tried my best enjoying my last walk a long the Siq with my heavy leg.
We met up with the whole group at 3pm and started our long journey back to Egypt. We stopped by in Aqaba for 1 hr before our ferry trip to Nuweiba. We said good bye to Syuaib and our driver and the ferry departed relatively on time at 6:35pm. It was for sure a better experience compared to our ferry trip from Egypt. The ferry was small but nice and the service was good. We hung out at the deck watching the lights from Jordan, Israel and Saudi Arabia dissapeared with our own eyes.
We reached Nuweiba around 8:15pm. Sherif, the guy from OTG has waited us with the minibus. Its small bus some people had difficulties to rest their legs properly, good thing for being small so I have no problem with my legs. The 7-8hrs journey to Cairo was okay and quite blurry to me. I still remembered we stopped at rest area with dirty toilet somewhere in Taba. There were several check points a long the way where they checked our passsports (we gave our passports to Sherif so that he can deal with them while we were sleeping). We arrived in Cairo around 4am and I was in hurry to find my comfortable bed at the hotel that I forgot to say good bye to Paul and Jan who would fly back early morning to London.
05.01.2012
We met the group at the breakfast room around 9:30am. Today was the last day of our tour. We met Momo again at the lobby, he guided us on our visit to Egyptian museum. We left around 10am to the busy traffic of Cairo. Egyptian museum is close to the Tahir square, we passed it through on the way to the museum. First impression the museum is not that big but once you walked around it, it's easy to get lost or you realized that you kept on walk around the same area. The Thutankamon and the mummy area are definitely the highlights of the museum. It was weird feeling to see the mummy of the great Ramses II, the same kind if feeling I had when I saw Lenin's body in his musalleum on Red Square.
We left the museum around 2:30pm and had our last buffet lunch together before our visit to a perfumery shop. Shane and Mel left the group since they booked their own accomodation at downtown Cairo.
On the way back to our hotel at Giza, we had beautiful sunset view of Nile river and then the pyramids.
It was lovely afternoon to end our tour as a group.
At the hotel we hung out by the pool accompanying Michelle who had to leave at 8pm from the hotel for her flight back to London. I said good bye to Heather my roomie for the whole trip, she had a very early flight and had to leave the hotel around midnight so she decided to have some hours sleep. I had my own room since today.
After Michele gone, Declan, Carl, and Stephen left us, Nadeem, Monique and me, one by one. Another good bye session, Stephen is going to continue his trip to Israel, Italy, and Switzerland before going back to Oz on Feb. We stayed till around 10:30pm before finally going to our own room.
06.01.2012
I love morning without having to pack my luggage. I met Monique at the breakfast room before she's leaving for her flight at 06:45am from the hotel. Shortly after Monique left, Nadeem joined me and then surprisingly also Stephen who had to leave the hotel at 08am for his flight. Its getting really sad to say good bye one by one like that.
Nadeem and I had our final good bye to Stephen before we left for our Alexandria trip with Momo at 7am.
It took us around 3 hrs drive to get to Alexandria. We stopped by at a place called Lion village which is basically a small zoo but they also have bread making activities, so I had another breakfast with one of the bread the girls there made. Its kind of pastry bread and we ate it by dipping it to cheese sauce, honey or sugar sauce.
We went to Catacombs and then Pompeii pillar, before going to the beach promenade to see the castle. Alexandria is quite relaxing after Cairo, the beach view has the mediteranean feeling which is lovely. We walked around a bit around the castle and then we went to the King palace. It was past noon already but we're not feeling that hungry yet, so we stopped by at the memorial monument before having our lunch in a quite fancy restaurant called Athineos with a delicious seafood menu.
We left Alexandria after lunch and reached our hotel around sunset time at 5pm.
I initially wanted to join Nadeem to downtown but I changed my mind. I still wanted to see Tahir square, El Khalily Market and Al Azhar Mosque, but I did not think I would see them in this trip. There are always reasons to go back to Cairo, I will keep it like that ^^.
I did not realize how tired I was till I was in my room and laid on my bed. I watched a spanish movie and found amused that somehow I could follow the story (and watched it till finish) ^^. I planned to do some packing before sleep but could not make it. It was already early morning by the time I checked the time.
We started the tour around 9.15am from the hotel after a briefing with all members of the group.
Today's plan was to visit the great pyramid in Giza, sphinx and also the two other pyramids. We even went in to the third pyramid. It was really nice experience. After that we visited a papyrus shop and they showed us the process how to make it..an interesting one. On the way to Saqqara, we stopped by for lunch. The bread was delicious, we ate some small dishes with grilled chicken/beef (65LE). Saqqara is the old capital of the old kingdom. It houses the oldest stone pyramid (2650 BC..the great pyramid was from 2400BC), called the Step pyramid by King Djozer. The form is not really like the normal pyramid, since it has six steps on its side outline. His son finally built the first stone pyramid with the normal form (without steps) but he didn't get the angle correctly so it's bent, thus called the Bent pyramid. He then managed to make the right one next to the Bent pyramid, with 52deg angle.
We reached our hotel around 17:15 and left for our sleeper train to Aswan at 18:20ish.
23.12.2011
Survived the night train from Cairo to Aswan. I was separated from the other people in the group but it was fine. We arrived around 9am and got my room around 10am. Oh and free wifi too, yay. We started the tour at 2pm to visit High Dam and Philae temple. Philae temple was beautiful and amazing at the same time. It was dedicated for Isis, the goddess of love and magic. Momo our tour guide had an interesting way to tell the story of the god and goddess of Egypt. He selected one of us as each of the god/goddess, I was actually selected as Isis kekeke. So, the God of Ra and his wife have four children, Ozares, Isis, Nefsus and Seth. They married each other; Ozares with Isis, Nefsus with Seth. But Seth was not happy with the arrangement and he decided to kill Ozares and cut him into pieces. Isis was very sad and she tried to find the pieces. To make the story short, she managed to find all except one piece (guess what ^^). With her magic power she can make him back to life and they got a son named Horus. Seth knowing this, tried to catch Isis and Horus (I think Seth finally managed to kill Ozares again, or Ozares only re-awakened for awhile - not sure about it). Basically with the help of Hathor, Isis and Horus could escape from Seth and the story will be continued later when we visited Temple of Horus in Edfu.
Btw, the temple was moved to the current location since the previous location was flooded by water when the Aswan Dam was built. We need to take a small boat to reach the temple. Its almost dark when we left the temple area. We visited the Aswan market and bought several things for our tomorrows felluca trip. I bought some peanuts which is a specialty from Aswan.
24.12.2011
We left at 8.30am for our flight to Abu Simbel. Our flight was at 9.55. It takes about 45 mins flight to go from Aswan to Abu Simbel. We arrived at Abu Simbel area around 11:30 and Momo gave us some background stories before we went in to Abu Simbel and Nefertari temples. The temples and the statues are amazing, it's unbelievable that it was created more than 3000 years ago. The hieroglyph drawing is so clear like it just made at least 50 years ago.
We reached Aswan around 2:30pm and directly went in to our felucca after did some pack - unpack luggage. The first half day of sailing was great we reached a spot close to Nubian village and had an overnight stop there.
25.12.2011
It's Christmas day on the boat but none really celebrated it. We woke up and said morning and merry Christmas to each other. I woke up around 6am and realized that there was beautiful view in front of me. The lights from the villages along the Nile river and the sunrise view, but I was too lazy to go out from my sleeping bag. I only went out from my sleeping bag around 7:30am and went to the Nubian house to fresh up. We continued the sailing after breakfast around 9am. It's quite windy and cold (and I forgot to take out my warm jacket from my big backpack) so I stayed in my sleeping bag. I still cannot believe my self that I am sailing over the Nile river.
So the whole day we spent in our sleeping bag, we got a 'separation anxiety' from our sleeping bag when we separated from each other too long ^^. It's quite cozy to read book or talk together on our felucca. We stopped by in one island with a nice beach and some people swam but not too long since its quite chilly. I with some people decided to walk around the island which was quite interesting. Before dusk we reached our stop in another small island, still had some time to walk before dark and then we had dinner in our felucca, yummy food. After that we had a bon fire and some felucca crew played some instruments and danced with some of us. I didn't stay that long, around 10pm after some bushes hunting to pee, I went straight to the felucca and slept early with Michelle, Stephen and Momo. I must have been slept like dead since I didn't realize that we moved to other stop around midnight where we ended our felucca sail.
26.12.2011
I woke up early and really wanted to pee but I didn't want to pee alone on the bushes. Didn't realize that we reached a more civilized area with a toilet (though don't expect too much about the toilet condition). We all woke up around 6am with Momo order since we have to leave early to continue our journey by bus. Kind of sad leaving the felucca, it's definitely a cozy place to spend a day but I also could not stand any longer to have a shower and a proper toilet. After breakfast, packing, a bit fresh up, and said good bye with our felucca crews in Dawara, we visited Kom Ombo temple (around 15 mins by bus) and Edfu or Horus temple (ca 1hr by bus from Kom Ombo). Horus temple which is Momo's fave, is the most 'complete' temple in Egypt. As its name it's built for Horus, the falcon god who is the son of Isis and Ozares. So we got the continuation of our story in Philae temple. After Horus grew up, he decided to take revenge to his uncle Seth. But Seth was also quite prepared, he managed to take two eyes of Horus which made him blind. Isis knowing this, prayed to Ra and Ra gave her powerful blue eyes for Horus so that he can see everything he wanted to see. This blue eye is now a symbol of protection in this area. I knew it for the first time in Greece and then Turkey. Back to Horus story, he managed to find his uncle Set though Seth changed himself into a hipopothamus and then killed him. Another amazing story about Horus temple is the fact that it has been 3/4 burried by the sand for quite a long period of time before it was found again. This made it preserved nicely.
After Horus temple we continued our trip to Luxor around 1.5 hrs by bus.
It's such a heaven to be able to take shower and to have proper toilet at the hotel. It's also the best hotel we had so far. We had around 1.5 hrs free time (shower etc) before our Luxor by night which was beautiful. We then had our egyptian buffet dinner with the chance to order jewellery from a recommended seller. I bought a silver khartus pendant with my name in hieroglyph. We returned to our hotel around 9:30pm. And I went straight to bed...yay for a comfy bed^^
27.12.2011
We started quite early today, I woke up lazily at 5:30am. After a hot shower I managed to get rid some fluids on my head. Yeah I suddenly caught cold after the felluca trip. We gathered at 7am to start our visit to Valley of the Kings. Its basically a cemetery of the kings under the valley. We had a ticket to visit 3 tombs and Momo recommended us to see the tombs of Ramses I, III and IX. It's quite fascinating to see the colorful drawings. I have difficulties to pick my fave one, since each tomb has its unique points. After Valley of the Kings, we visited the temple of Queen Hashetsup. It's a terrace temple and with elegant design, though according to Momo, only 1/3 of what we have now is the original one.
We returned back to the hotel around noon and we had one hr to fresh up and packing before checking out at 1pm. At 1pm we met Momon for a lunch together at Ritz. I had a delicious grilled fish with rice. It's only 47LE (around 6 EUR), quite cheap. After lunch we left around 2:30pm for Karnak Temple which is the biggest temple complex in the world. It has 43ha in total. It's really impressive with its columns area. I think one word to express it is.. grand.. It took around 2000 years (from middle kingdom to Roman period) to finish to finish it.Although there are some parts that still unfinished since the last king has passed away before he managed finished it. There are some areas where we still can see the colors of the drawings on the columns or ceilings... I couldn't imagine how beautiful it was..
After Karnak temple we returned back to the hotel, took our luggage and said good bye to everyone who did not join us to Dahab. We left Luxor around 5:30pm and started out 18hrs bus journey to Dahab.
28.12.2011
After a long bus trip we finally reached Dahab around 10:30am. I managed to get some sleep during the bus trip though it's not really a good sleep, since we stopped every 2.5-4 hrs. We had a big stop in Senzo Mall in Hurghada around 11pm, some people had their supper there,I did some fruits and cookies shopping in the supermarket. We also stopped somewhere close to the tunnel in Suez Canal and Momo explained a bit about it, there is a model and some pics of Suez Canal there.
We stayed in quite big resort by the Red sea, Mercure Dahab Bay View. It's quite a new hotel I think. After taking shower and had some rest a bit, I explored the huge hotel, it has its private beach but it's not a sandy beach so I don't think people can swim there. It's also too cold to swim on the beach too.
We gathered again around 6pm and went to downtown Dahab for dinner and also had an orientation in Dahab market. We returned back around 9:30pm. Heather, my roommate joined the Mt Sinai climb at 11pm, really wanted to do it as well but I am not feeling well because of my cough and running nose. So tonight I have the room for myself.
29.12.2011
Woke up around 7am already but I was on lazy mode until time to catch breakfast. I met Jill, Nadine, and Monique during breakfast and we decided to take taxi to the market. Shopping time with the girls though
I met Kurt and Stephen who were going to play tennis while I was enjoying the free wifi at the lobby. I joined them just to watch their plays and worked as a ball girl some time ;-) I played a bit, and realized my tennis skill is gone already, not that I had a lot before but at least I could play much better^^. After taking shower I joined the group for the usual dinner downtown at 6pm.
We had dinner at Aladin restaurant this time, when we returned back to the hotel Momo asked us to follow him to the swimming pool area. Shane proposed Mel in front of us that evening, such a sweet thing..
30.12.2011
I woke up late and had my last minute breakfast. I didn't really have any plan today, planned to go to the market for another shopping day buy I cancelled it. After spent some time at the lobby to make use of the free wifi, I returned to the room and back on my bed. My cough is not getting any better so I decided to have some more rest. I wrote some postcards, read my book, while watching BBC news or listening songs from my iPhone.
Went to the lobby hotel again some time in the afternoon after I get bored in the room, met some people on our group who have their 'nothing to do' day today.
As usual, we gathered at 5:30pm for latest update from Momo and we had our last dinner together with the whole group since tomorrow morning my group which is going to Jordan, will leave early in the morning to catch a ferry to Aqaba, Jordan. We had dinner in Ali Baba restaurant which has lovely light decoration, we also had an early celebration for Monique's birthday.
After returning to the hotel around 9:30pm we continued to hang out at the Shisha tent until around midnight (and sang the happy bday song for the bday girl). Some people continued the session with dancing party but I decided to go to bed. We should wake up at 6:30am tommorow morning.
31.12.2011
I woke up by a wake up call at 2:20am. Just barely woke up I couldn't really realize that there's change on the plan, I thought its already 6:30am as what we informed before. I was ready to continue my sleep and considered the call as a joke (a bad one ;-)) when I checked my watch and its only 2:20. But then Momo called us again informing the ferry would depart earlier so we had to get ready in 30mins. I managed to get a quick shower (glad that I have packed my stuff already). We gathered at the lobby around 3:15am and some people actually haven't slept at all because they just finished the party.
We left the hotel around 3:30am with totally tired face, I slept only barely 1.5 hrs.
We arrived at Nuweiba port 4:30ish and had to wait in a strange pyramid shape building. This day involved quite a lot of waiting time for us. We only went in to the ferry around 6:30ish, and then still some time for the ferry to leave the port, which was around 8am.
Most of us slept during almost 2hrs (including the immigration check) trip to cross the read see or at least tried to sleep.
We met Syuaib our Jordanian tour guide in Aqaba. After some luggage check and other formalities, we left the port to Aqaba city center by bus to have lunch and do some shopping for our camp night in Wadi Rum.
The bus dropped us at some kind of visitor center and we drove a 4x4 jeep to our camp site. We made several stops along the way. Wadi Rum (Rum Valley) is awesome, the rock formation and the pink sand are beautiful. One of our stop was what's called the seven pillars of wisdom of TE Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia).
Our Bedouin camp site was quite big, there were more groups of people having the new years night at the site. During sunset we got a spectacular view on top of the rock. It was really really beautiful.
We had a delicious Bedouin dinner around 7pm and had a a wonderful Bedouin music and dances to entertain us. It was definitely lovely but we were so exhausted. One buy one went to bed after dinner and I tried best to fight my sleepiness and then I couldn't stand it anymore. I decided to return to my bed around 10:30pm. The music was really loud and I could not really get a deep sleep, I woke up when people counting down the change of the year and the sound of fire crackers. So I spent the 'important' moment on the bed in my sleeping bag on the cold Wadi Rum..half awake. It was a quite unforgettable experience to celebrate a new year ^^.
01.01.2012
Initially I wanted to join Heather and Michelle to have a sunrise walk at 5:20am. But it was too cold and I was too lazy to get out from my sleeping bag, so they left me. We scheduled to meet and get ready to continue our trip around 7:30 but they haven't returned back at around 7am. We started to get a panic since they should have returned to the camp ground by that time. Syuaib has asked some people from the camp to look for them using their jeep but they did not find them.Nadeem insisted to join the guys from the camp to have another second trial and the rest of us waited at the camp. Finally they found Heather and Michelle. They indeed got lost, I can imagine it's difficult to get something to refer to on the desert and they did not bring any compass or mobile phone with them. But yeah the most important thing we found them.
We continued our a bit long journey to the other side of Jordan to the Dead sea. I was quite excited, and
the Dead sea is actually quite huge, but Syuaib told us that because high salt concentration we cannot stay there in a long time and also it hurts a lot when the sea water gets to our eyes, which makes sense indeed. It was definitely an awesome experience to be able floating on the water but it was not that easy to do it, at least for me kekeke.Dead sea is also famous with its mud which is good for skin so after some floating moments we decided to take a 'swamp thing' group pic^^. We stayed over night in Madaba.
02.01.2012
We started the morning with a visit to the Greek Orthodox Church of St. George to check its Mosaic map. The 6th century Mosaic Map from two million pieces of vividly colored local stone depicts hills and valleys, villages and towns around Jerusalem and the Holy Land as far as the Nile Delta. Sadly it's only a quarter of the its original size can be seen today, but we still can see the places quite clear on the map. We dropped by to Mount Nebo after that, spending some time there before continuing our trip to Petra.
We arrived in Petra around 3pm and we decided to explore the small town while getting some cash and a late lunch. We joined the Petra by night in the evening which was an awesome experience to get to know Petra for the first time. There were candles a long the way to the Treasury where a musical performance were held. It's definitely a romantic evening^^
03.01.2012
We were ready to explore Petra at 07:30am after having our breakfast at the hotel. Had to wait for some time at the entrance gate because of computer problem at the ticket office. Finally we started the walk along the Siq, the Treasury, the Tombs with a lot of stops where Syuaib our guide explained us some interesting stories. After lunch break we started the climb to Monastery. It's quite tough climb which took us almost one hour before we reached the Monastery, it's impressive though its not as beautiful at the Treasury. We went on to the Monastery, Carl and Shane did the running man dance inside ^^. Some people did more climb to a peak nearby, but I had enough climb for today. We had free time after that, I visited the palace ruins and the Royal tombs with several people in the group but I lost them after the Royal tombs. I met Nadeem at the Treasury, turned out I was the last one left, he knew I was behind. We met Heather, Shane, Mel and Michelle at the entrance gate.
Was totally kaput at the hotel, just realized how un-sporty I am now. It's definitely a good resolution for 2012 to do more sports. Some people joined the cooking class, but I decided to join Declan and Carl for Turkish bath. It was a good decision to pamper myself a bit. The steamy room and the hot stone were good for my cough. Felt better with my leg as well and I couldn't wait for my bed. I was totally on my dreamy mode when Heather returned to our room.
04.01.2012
Syuaib offered us to join another route to Petra today, it involves a lot climbing according to him so I decided to have my normal route and meet the others somewhere in Petra. It also gave me some time to do some souvenir shopping. There were not so many people joined the climb, Shane, Stephen, Heather, and Michelle, the others preferred to have their free time in Wadi Mousa/Petra. I had my wifi time at the hotel after the climbing people gone around 07:30am, then went for souvenirs shopping. I entered Petra around 10am and there were not so many people so I almost had the Siq for myself. Good thing about walking alone is that you can spend as much time as you want to enjoy the Siq. I really love the walk along the Siq and took a lot if pics in almost every corner of it.
It was around 11am when I accidentally met the climbing guys, they were quite fast since I expected to meet them around noon. We found another trail called El Khubtha, close to the Royal tombs, we did not expect anything. Its only because we still had a lot of time before our meeting time at 3pm at the hotel. Turned out the trail involved a lot of stairs and climbing, I was almost giving up following the others, they were the climbing guys so they dont really have problem with climbing the endless stairs. I kept on fighting, the view was great from the peak. There was a spot where I thought I was ready to give up and wait for the guys to go down but I met an elderly couple enjoying the view there, thats really keeping my courage ^^. At one of the peak there was a small house, the guy who lives there offerred some tea and he told us that there is another trail to view the Treasury. We decided to continue and we're really glad we did it. We reached a point where we can see the Treasury from the top. It was definitely a breathtaking view, I really feel like in Indiana Jones movie trying to find some hidden treasures ^^. It was again a bit climbing up to the small house since there is no other trail to go down so we had to take the same trail again. After that it was only climbing down the stairs, which was so much easier. We had a small break at the cafe in front of the Treasury and then a long walk back to our hotel. I tried my best enjoying my last walk a long the Siq with my heavy leg.
We met up with the whole group at 3pm and started our long journey back to Egypt. We stopped by in Aqaba for 1 hr before our ferry trip to Nuweiba. We said good bye to Syuaib and our driver and the ferry departed relatively on time at 6:35pm. It was for sure a better experience compared to our ferry trip from Egypt. The ferry was small but nice and the service was good. We hung out at the deck watching the lights from Jordan, Israel and Saudi Arabia dissapeared with our own eyes.
We reached Nuweiba around 8:15pm. Sherif, the guy from OTG has waited us with the minibus. Its small bus some people had difficulties to rest their legs properly, good thing for being small so I have no problem with my legs. The 7-8hrs journey to Cairo was okay and quite blurry to me. I still remembered we stopped at rest area with dirty toilet somewhere in Taba. There were several check points a long the way where they checked our passsports (we gave our passports to Sherif so that he can deal with them while we were sleeping). We arrived in Cairo around 4am and I was in hurry to find my comfortable bed at the hotel that I forgot to say good bye to Paul and Jan who would fly back early morning to London.
05.01.2012
We met the group at the breakfast room around 9:30am. Today was the last day of our tour. We met Momo again at the lobby, he guided us on our visit to Egyptian museum. We left around 10am to the busy traffic of Cairo. Egyptian museum is close to the Tahir square, we passed it through on the way to the museum. First impression the museum is not that big but once you walked around it, it's easy to get lost or you realized that you kept on walk around the same area. The Thutankamon and the mummy area are definitely the highlights of the museum. It was weird feeling to see the mummy of the great Ramses II, the same kind if feeling I had when I saw Lenin's body in his musalleum on Red Square.
We left the museum around 2:30pm and had our last buffet lunch together before our visit to a perfumery shop. Shane and Mel left the group since they booked their own accomodation at downtown Cairo.
On the way back to our hotel at Giza, we had beautiful sunset view of Nile river and then the pyramids.
It was lovely afternoon to end our tour as a group.
At the hotel we hung out by the pool accompanying Michelle who had to leave at 8pm from the hotel for her flight back to London. I said good bye to Heather my roomie for the whole trip, she had a very early flight and had to leave the hotel around midnight so she decided to have some hours sleep. I had my own room since today.
After Michele gone, Declan, Carl, and Stephen left us, Nadeem, Monique and me, one by one. Another good bye session, Stephen is going to continue his trip to Israel, Italy, and Switzerland before going back to Oz on Feb. We stayed till around 10:30pm before finally going to our own room.
06.01.2012
I love morning without having to pack my luggage. I met Monique at the breakfast room before she's leaving for her flight at 06:45am from the hotel. Shortly after Monique left, Nadeem joined me and then surprisingly also Stephen who had to leave the hotel at 08am for his flight. Its getting really sad to say good bye one by one like that.
Nadeem and I had our final good bye to Stephen before we left for our Alexandria trip with Momo at 7am.
It took us around 3 hrs drive to get to Alexandria. We stopped by at a place called Lion village which is basically a small zoo but they also have bread making activities, so I had another breakfast with one of the bread the girls there made. Its kind of pastry bread and we ate it by dipping it to cheese sauce, honey or sugar sauce.
We went to Catacombs and then Pompeii pillar, before going to the beach promenade to see the castle. Alexandria is quite relaxing after Cairo, the beach view has the mediteranean feeling which is lovely. We walked around a bit around the castle and then we went to the King palace. It was past noon already but we're not feeling that hungry yet, so we stopped by at the memorial monument before having our lunch in a quite fancy restaurant called Athineos with a delicious seafood menu.
We left Alexandria after lunch and reached our hotel around sunset time at 5pm.
I initially wanted to join Nadeem to downtown but I changed my mind. I still wanted to see Tahir square, El Khalily Market and Al Azhar Mosque, but I did not think I would see them in this trip. There are always reasons to go back to Cairo, I will keep it like that ^^.
I did not realize how tired I was till I was in my room and laid on my bed. I watched a spanish movie and found amused that somehow I could follow the story (and watched it till finish) ^^. I planned to do some packing before sleep but could not make it. It was already early morning by the time I checked the time.
