View from the hotel in Aswan

Aswan – December 22nd

Praise the Lord, we are off the train & in a calmer clean environment!!!  The scenery in Aswan was beautiful! In this part of Egypt, they get rain about once every five years.  After showering, we headed to a Nubian Village to have lunch at a local families house & then to visit their school. I was a bit nervous to eat at the home but was reassured the food was safe – and after tasting it, I can say that it was very delicious!!!!! 

on the way to the village

 

the village & our lunch spread

 

Interesting sites we saw heading to the school……

visitor?  taxi, anyone?

 

The children were not in class at the time we visited but one of the Nubian teachers was more than happy to teach us a few things!

 

December 21st – Egyptian Museum, Christian Church, Muslim Mosque – lots of history

In the morning, we headed to the Museum.  Our guide, Mina, told us that to see & learn about everything in the museum, we would need about 3 weeks since there is so much history in there – we opted for the 2 hour tour!!!  I am not a history buff but I have to admit, we saw some pretty neat stuff & learned a lot.  It is amazing to experience a piece of the history in Egypt & to hear a brief description of the main events that took place.  The kids were really excited to see the mummies but after going through a room of about 12 mummies, Justin & Amanda decided to stay with Mina while we toured another room full of mummies. 

Next, we headed to the Coptic Christian Church & the Muslim Mosque.  Again, the history & detailed art work was amazing.  

Christian Church

 

Muslim Mosque

 

The evening we went to the market to shop – it was crazy!  The vendors are very persistent, the alley was narrow, stray cats came out of nowhere & the smell of smoke was everywhere – I actually prefer China markets, & that’s saying a lot!!

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles II

After the train ride from hell, our tour company decided it was better if we not experience any more train travel.  We had been scheduled for a shorter 3 hour afternoon trip to go from Aswan to Luxor but a car was hired and we took the trip by automobile instead.  While we appreciated the thoughtfulness of changing our mode of transportation without us requesting it, I was a little hesitant to experience a 3 hour car ride on the Egyptian roadways.  Cairo had already shown us that what we have experienced in China was relatively tame in comparison.  Overall, car was probably a better choice, but deserves its own top ten list of things observed on what proved to be a very interesting trek up the Nile.  There was no highway, but rather a two lane road that was almost wide enough to make a “third” lane if necessary to avoid collisions while passing.

10. Herding of goats next to the roadway

9. About 5-6 camels lying down in the back of a pickup…these are not small animals

8. Full grown (and overweight) men riding donkeys that seem much too small

7.  Hand signals used by drivers to alert other side to upcoming speed traps

6. How quickly the terrain changes from fertile farms next to the Nile to complete desert with no green in sight

5. Security checks every 20-30 km verifying origin and destination

4. Many non-Chevy pickup trucks with “Chevrolet” painted on rails, even some fake emblems painted on the grill

3. Full grown (and overweight) men riding donkeys that seem much too small

2. What are the passing rules?  Best to keep your eyes closed or watch the scenery

1. Man on a donkey in a long farmer’s robe with straw on the back…talking on a cell phone

The ride was marginally smoother than the train ride, but much more interesting and cleaner.  We will go back to traveling by plane when we leave Luxor and return to Cairo, hopefully that ride will not be worth a blog post.

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

After spending the day touring Cairo and finding that the Chinese drivers really are not that bad, we took a train to Aswan.  Our original itinerary included overnight train trips on both ends of the trip, going to and from Cairo.  Not being experienced train travelers we opted for only one overnight train trip.  Traveling by train is very popular for tourists in Egypt and our travel agent and the website pictures assured us that the ride would be top notch.  Well, top notch in Egypt is not quite top notch.  In fact, I think we could describe the 12 hour train ride as one of our worst traveling experiences…and we have done a lot of traveling.  Shall we do a top ten list for how bad the train was?  Hmmm…that will at least keep the blog short since we it was that bad.

10. We had 3 separate cabins…2 on train 8 and 1 on train 1…very convenient…not

9. “Yes you have a non-smoking cabin”…right…we may be the only ones that have not smoked in the cabin

8. Food…dinner…disgusting…breakfast…5 types of stale plastic wrapped breads

7. Cleanliness…hasn’t been cleaned since the first day of service…and we had the “1st class car”

6. Brakes…the conductor could not get the braking right…could make you fall out of the bed if not careful

5. Train station smelled of coal and diesel, a great appetizer to a fabulous train ride

4. 12 hours?  Could we have gone any slower?

3. Noisy…how many different rattles can a “sleeping car” make?  We did squeeze in a couple of hours of shut eye

2. Bathrooms…worse than the days of fraternity living…after a long night of partying

1. Gotta love sleeping in our day time clothes with our jacket wrapped around the pillow

When some of our friends heard we were doing a train, there was wide speculation that we couldn’t hack it…well they were right.  The train ride was horrible and we hated it.  So glad we have a flight back to Cairo.

Of Pyramids and Camels

Our first day in Egypt started out with great weather.  Sunny and mid 70’s, very pleasant compared to the scorching heat found here during the summer.  We began the day at the 3 pyramids that are about 1/4 mile from our hotel.  The site was truly amazing and it felt strange to be at a site that is so familiar to us through movies/pictures and yet always so far away.  Of course the size was impressive, but even the smooth texture of the limestone of the pyramids was different than our expectation of a gritty/sandy surface. 

 

We ventured into one of the pyramids.  The passages were slightly taller than Amanda making for a interesting  trip in/out.  At the bottom was the tomb were the pharaoh was buried nearly 5000 years ago (of course now emptied).  We could not take pictures inside, but I took one of the entrance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The highlight of the day for the kids was the camel ride that we took next.  They certainly are not the smoothest rides around, either running or walking (we tried both), but nobody fell off.  Amanda began asking when the next ride was immediately after we got off.

We finished the tour off with the Sphinx.  Also impressive when you get a chance to view the detailed work up close. 

Tomorrow we spend the day in Cairo touring several sites before heading to Aswan which is in the south of Egypt.  We are taking a sleeper train to get there, which should be an interesting experience and will probably deserve its own blog.

On Our Way To Egypt

 

We decided to to something different for Christmas vacation this year.  So we headed off to Egypt.  To get there from China, our flight left at 6 am from Shanghai and connected through Dubai.  The flight took 10 1/2 hours due to unfavorable winds.  Combined with a couple hour layover in Dubai and 3 1/2 hour flight to Cairo, it was a long travel day.   We arrived at 5:30 pm in Egypt (6 hours behind Shanghai’s time zone) safe and sound.  Tomorrow we head to the pyramids!