Travel diary for Sunday, November 21st-Monday, November 22nd. Today starts with the Khan al Khalili bazaar, which has been around since the 14th Century.
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We went to the souk today! It reminds me of the vendors in Berkeley except the shop owners entice you into their shops, offer you drinks and compliment you to death! =) Them Egyptians are some SWEET TALKERS! The alleyways are very narrow and PACKED with stuff. Much of this I can find back in the US in import stores, so I wanted some things very unique to the country. What I kept seeing are these BEAUTIFUL hand-sewn tapestries from pillowcase size to tent size. The most popular is a red pattern -- I see it even in my guidebook. So I bought many to give away as gifts and I got a larger one for myself. =) I got my cartouches ordered and I bought a silver cartouche bracelet, a gallabeh, a very cool novel cigarette water pipe, and I think that's it. We will be going again on Thursday. I sat and had tea in one of the coffee houses in a small alleyway where there were tourists and Egyptians alike smoking their hookas and having tea. It was really cool. A man would come around with a pail of burning embers to keep the water pipes lit.

I was loaded down when we left and we got back to the hotel by 5:15 or so. I ended up posting some emails from their internet system, going back to my room and organizing my purchases and hand washing my laundry. Before I knew it, it was almost midnight and I had to get up by 5:40 AM for our day at the Pyramids!

Monday, November 22nd Giza

Giza: We got to the pyramids at 8:00 AM so we could get tickets to go inside. They only allow 300 tourists into the Great Pyramid per day, and we DEFINITELY wanted to have the opportunity to go inside. Well, we got our tickets with no problem and I bought an extra ticket to bring my camera inside. Like an idiot I loaded the wrong speed film and took only 3 shots before going inside (fortunately, the pictures inside the pyramids turned out great!). My GOD! Talk about a monument that lives up to every expectation and dream! it is truly a wonder when you are inside and you can see the PRECISION of the placed stones. Before I reached the Grand Gallery, on the way to the King's Chamber, is a long walkway up on an incline and you really have to hunch over because it's only about 3.5 feet high. The Grand Gallery is ENORMOUS and looks like it would have been very challenging to climb back before hand rails and modern planks were installed. There were quite a few stones reinforced with steel, so I hope to have captured everything on film OK (I did!).

After climbing the Grand Gallery, we entered the inner sanctum of the Great Pyramid of Khufu: the King's Chamber. I WENT DIRECTLY TO THE SARCOPHAGUS AND LAID IN IT!!!!!!!! WOW!!!!! Just doing that was an incredible THRILL!!!! I laid in there for a good 10-15 minutes, but a pair of tourists outside our group kept talking (there was supposed to be silence observed for those who wished to meditate). I stayed in the sarcophagus and the other women in our group sat in a circle on the floor and meditated for awhile. It was incredible! I didn't feel any viberational change or anything -- I think maybe because of the distractions and I was puffing and a bit sweaty from the long incline. Plus I was just SO EXCITED to be there!!! Wanting to document EVERYTHING, I took photos of me looking up out of the sarcophagus and one of the girls in my group took my picture inside.

We then descended into the Queen's Chamber, which has a high vaulted ceiling. The famous airshafts are in that room as well, and I stood between them to try and become grounded, but I was just TOO excited! I took a picture of one and from there you'd never guess it pointed toward Sirius. We had to start making our way back down, and going through the low shaft that you have to bend down AND going downhill was a tiny bit challenging. I **LOVED** the challenge of the pyramid.

After exiting the Great Pyramid, we walked over to a museum on the other side of the pyramid that was of a huge solarboat they discovered in the 1950s. It was entombed right at the base of the pyramid, but it was unassembled and some parts were rotted away. Well, Egypt hired the best wood restorer in the world to reassemble this boat. The museum has the boat sitting over the tomb they found it in and also displayed intact rope with complex knots. The ancient Egyptians knotted the wood planks together with rope. They then submerged the boat into the water, took it out, let the ropes dry and shrink, therefore tightening the gaps between the planks. They then put a tar coating on and made the boat watertight. Very ingenious! It took 20 yeas to fully restore the boat and it is a wondrous work of art! The paddles of the oars reminded me of a humpback whale's front fins -- they look very organic and natural.

The next event was the highlight of the entire trip. Our guide was named Azza and she was a take-charge big mama woman and we instantly loved her. Her personality was extremely friendly and inviting, but she didn't take shit from anyone and made you pay attention to her. Well, Azza arranged for us to take a camel trip for a "pyramid phenomenon." We ended up riding those camels for about an hour! Well, we drove out to the scenic part of the plateau where everyone takes pictures of all three pyramids. Then we rode our camels out even further. It was great to get away from the busy tourist area. The first phenomena showed the Great Pyramid Cheops disappearing behind the 2nd pyramid Chephren. (Or Khufu disappearing behind Khafre if you want the Egyptian names of the pyramids). So it looked like only 2 pyramids: Khafre and the little pyramid Menkaura. Then a little further down the road, Menkaura lined up with Khafre, so it looked like just one pyramid! They all have the exact same diagonal. I took lots and lots of pictures! I rode a 27 year-old camel named Moses and BOY did he complain when he had to get down or stand up. He also like to start standing before I was on him! I got some good camel shots. It was a WONDERFUL adventure that not many tourists get to do!

Next was the Sphinx. The Sphinx was grand, of course, but tourists could not go up to it -- I was hoping to go between the paws and get a photo of the tablet. But we could only go to a certain area and I still got some good photos. I made sure to get a picture of the same view as I have in my poster in my old room at my parents house in Elk Grove!

We then left and had some lunch at this marvelous authentic Egyptian restaurant. Had chicken shish kabobs. Next stop was Memphis, which is on the way to Saqqara. We ended up taking the road that went by the hotel we stayed at our first two nights. The route we took led us through alot of agricultural areas -- it was very green, very pretty! I saw date palms in nice rows as well as a mango grove! Mango trees are very pretty, very leafy -- it was my first time seeing them. Well, Memphis wasn't big; it just had a few statues, an alabaster sphinx, and a large (handsome) statue of Ramses II. He was the pharaoh who fathered over 100 children by having many wives from many countries as a sort of peaceful public relations act. Our tourguide, Azza, called Ramses her grandfather, because with all those children he ahd, it's certainly a possibility that she's related to him! I didn't take any photos of Memphis, but I did get a couple of postcards.

Our next stop was to Saqqara and the surrounding tombs. I never knew that there were tombs there! So the group decided to focus on the tombs instead of the pyramid, which was fine by me too. These tombs were extremely valuable to Egyptologists because they depicted everyday life of the ancients. The first tomb we entered was Ptah-hotep, a high official. This tomb is different from a pharaoh's tomb in that it's constructed much like a house. A house for the dead man's soul to come back to and visit. The courtyard of this "house," before entering, was where I got the sand to bring home. The sand by the pyramids was dirty and had bits of litter in it. This sand was fine, clean golden sand, and it comes from a place of holiness, so it is very special. While royal tombs had pictures of the pharaoh going on into the afterlife, Ptah-hotep's tomb showed scenes of him giving orders to his employees along with scenes of hunting, fishing, animal breeding (along with a few pics of copulating animals). It showed games, dancing, and playing instruments. It was remarkable how much detail was still intact -- it looked like new, except only a scarce amount of faded color still existed. This was all carved in limestone, so the walls were white.

By the time we finished with both tombs (we visited another one that was much the same) we were all extremely exhausted, but I talked them into driving near to the Step pyramid to get in a few shots. Afterall, the step pyramid is the oldest pyramid ever and was the precursor to the Great pyramids on the Giza plateau.

We had one last stop to make before going back to the hotel. I had noticed that on our way to Saqqara there were about 4 or 5 carpet schools along the roadway. We stopped briefly at one before coming back. Basically, this sort of social worker many years ago was concerned about the children of families who had farms and would have to forgo shcool and work in the fields, therefore becoming illiterate. He constructed these schools and taught them their schooling part time, the other part he taught them the trade of weaving carpets. One of the young men there (he looked about 18) showed us how they did it -- there were children right there making several as he lectured to us. One was silk, one was cotton, and one was wool. The wool one used a loom, the others the kids tied in the silk or cotton string and boy were they fast! It was a very intimate look at the culture. The children then sold their carpets and the profits went to them and their families and they got an education AND a trade skill. Their work was incredible.

We all then got to the hotel, cleaned up, had some dinner then went to bed. I was developing a cough and I thought it might be from all the smog and dirt in the air.

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November 23rd morning:
Today I woke up and felt like I had been chewed up, digested and shat out forcefully! Jeez did I feel SICK -- Pharaoh finally came through. It was all I could do to go to breakfast to tell Ali that I wouldn't be joining them today. You know me, I have to be on my deathbed before I'd miss out on anything and today was supposed to be the Museum of Antiquities, a sultan's mosque and other areas of Old Cairo. I just couldn't do it. I was sore from the camel ride, had horrible stomach flu, a sinus infection with congestion and felt very weak and shaky. I think I had a fever too. I slept all day and that night too. Would occasionally watch Arabic television. Their soap operas are just like ours! =)

November 24th Wednesday

Museum of Antiquities
Today I was feeling better, but only about 75-80%. I managed to get down a little breakfast. The rest of our stay here (3 more days) are free to do what we want, so after breakfast I rested a little longer and at noon I took a taxi to the Museum of Antiquities. Although I spent about 3 hours there, I felt I got everything I could out of it. I was still feverish and sweating it out (very damp tee-shirt EWW!) and not feeling 100%. I still enjoyed it VERY much! I used a whole roll of film there and I hope they all turned out since flash wasn't allowed. (After I got the photos, many of Tut's gold treasures turned out blurry--I think because of the dimly lit room and the brilliance of the gold.)

It was AMAZING to see all the artifacts I had only seen in books or TV, especially Tutankhamun's treasures. It was almost surreal seeing it all... I also saw King Narmer's palette and that was a thrill too -- it is a relevant piece because it is the first and oldest piece of Egyptian Art found showing the king unifying Upper and Lower Egypt and he became the first Egyptian pharaoh. This was around 3200 BC!! Here is a picture of the famous palette.

There are SO many statues, reliefs, sarcophagi, papyrus, everyday tools and pottery. One thing I have noticed is my recent fascination with Akhnaton. I used to think he was plain ugly, but seeing the statues and sculptures of him in real live have made me see the beauty. Now I'm fascinated by him and plan to do some more reading about him.

I left about 1/2 hour before closing. My fever had broken awhile ago, so I was finally dry and feeling much better but tired. I went back to the hotel and spent the rest of the evening in my room resting, because as the flu goes, I start to feel worse as night falls.

OBSERVATION: I have never seen so much security! But this is very, very good. Every entrance to every tourist attraction has a place to put your bag for x-ray and metal detecting. The Cairo museum had 2 check points AND they came right out and asked me if I was carrying a gun or knife -- AFTER I had passed through the metal detector. Egypt has a separate police force for tourism. They have a black arm band that says "Tourist Police" on their uniform. There are many many many of them and over half carry machine guns. I got some pics of a few of them in the background when I was in the different temples. I definitely felt safe because they were there to protect the tourists from terrorist attacks. Egypt has to protect their #1 economy, afterall...

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Thursday, November 25th -- Thanksgiving

I'm sending the last 3 days together instead of 2 because the 27th is basically all travel back to the USA. So this is the last of my travel diary. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed sharing it! =)
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I went back the the Khan al Khalili today and I hitched a ride with Ali and some of Mme. Abla's associates on the way there. I got a preview of the dinner boat we would be taking that night and it was very pretty and bright with Egyptian motifs galore! It was rather Las Vegas looking though, in that it was almost gaudy in it's decoration. Ali and I were driven to a section of Old Cairo where there were very narrow streets, lots of crowds and arguing and general commotion. Just before being dropped off, we went by the jail that was en route. They use big blue busses to transport prisoners but I didn't see the actual jail house. Ali and I were dropped off in a section of Old Cairo so we could walk to the Khan al Khalili, so I got a personal tour from him of the souk where the local Egyptians live and work. When Ali and I began walking, he pointed out the very, very old mosques, some which were being restored. We even went into one mosque to a section that we didn't have to remove our shoes (it was too dirty in the area required, so I wanted to keep my shoes on) and it opened into a beautiful overgrown courtyard with trees, grass and a gazebo-looking structure.

Back out on the streets we saw all kinds of heated discussions and arguments in animated Arabic. Egyptians are very lively emotion-showing people and I LOVE that because in America we are always so refrained. I loved seeing men friends walking arm in arm and you won't see that here unless you are in San Francisco! This part of the souk catered to the locals -- we saw no tourists, which was great! Everyday items for sale on the street were things like food (produce and pita breads) and clothes (namely baby clothes, bathrobes and women's underwear). It was weird seeing a table of panties on a small, timeless-looking dirty middle eastern street where moped scooters, cars and horses & donkeys all made their way. Soon we were at the Khan al Khalili again and Ali and I parted and I finished my shopping. I was done by 3 and caught a cab home in enough time to rest before being ready by 7:00 for the dinner cruise.

Well, all in all the cruise was real nice. It lasted for about 2 hours and it went up and down the Nile. The food was buffet-style, but I still didn't have much of an appetite due to my sickness. The boat had 2 levels and was structured much like the Nile Legend that we took in Upper Egypt. We were on the top level and the first live band sounded like elevator music -- it was awful!! They really should have kept with the Egyptian theme and play exotic music too, but because of the extremely high tourist quotient, they must have thought this music was something everyone would enjoy. Blah.

The second hour was when the belly dancer came on and she was pretty good! She was beautiful and her costume was too. The next number was another Whirling Dirvish (I think I wrote about the first one that danced earlier on the Nile cruise). It was cool passing underneath one of the bridges and it was nice to get back at a decent hour.

SIDEBAR: The Egyptians are night people. Since it gets so hot during the day in non-winter months, the majority of activity takes place at night. There were 2 dinner shows that I missed because I was feeling to ill to go. The rest of the tour group doesn't leave for the show until
midnight! Then you get your dinner around 1 or 2 AM and you don't get back until 4 or 5 AM!! So since I'm sick, there would be no way I could have made it and then go sightseeing the following day. Anyway, it turned out that the shows I missed weren't that great anyway, so I didn't feel like I missed out on a whole lot. According to Ali, these shows were more common and more popular a few years ago and the quality used to be better too. Just a sign of the times, I guess.

Friday, November 26th -- LAST DAY!

I feel so guilty! I didn't want to go back to any place. I wanted to see the pyramids again, but I'd have to cash in more traveler's checks and it would be a hassle getting all the way out there. I'm just really really tired and my brain is over stimulated and as much as I'd like to
see the museum or the pyramids again, my mind is just too tired to process it all. This is the point where one needs to just rest if that person is staying longer. Or go on home. Since I had another full day, I took a walk near the hotel and took more pictures. I also took pictures of the hotel -- which is an actual restored palace. It's absolutely stunning! That's basically it for my diary. The 27th we leave for the airport at 6 AM for an 8:00 flight to London. I conclude my diary with a wild intense nightmare I had the night before:

Prelude: For some reason my room sometimes feels as if it sways or jolts or at least MOVES -- it's very weird. I'm on the 8th floor, so I'm wondering what it's like up to the last floor -- the 20th!?!? Anyway, with that in mind, I was dreaming that I was sleeping on the Nile Legend -- the cruise boat we took in Upper Egypt. And I happened to look out the window when I felt rumbling (from my swaying hotel floor) and through my window I saw in my dream the fancy dinner boat headed right for us on a collision course...I mean it was right on top of us! I moan loudly when I'm having a horrible dream and I woke myself up and for what seemed like a LONG time, I didn't know where I was since it was completely dark in my room. It was scary, coming out of a vivid nightmare and being scared shitless to waking up by your own pathetic whimpering to find yourself in complete darkness and not knowing where you are! Whew! It was intense!

So that's it. The flights back were uneventful, except that I had a 2 hour delay from LAX to SFO due to fog in San Francisco.

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