haifa.8

Haifa Fornightly(Editor--Huzefa Mehta) 8th edition 15/2/93 Just returned back from Egypt and travelled along the Nile from Alexandria and Port Said in the North to Luxor and Aswan in the South. The trip "planning" started a few weeks ago when Reena went to get the Egypt visa. She was refused based on the fact that we needed RT tickets(at that point we wanted to cross through Taba at the Eliat border and another border at the Suez) The strange part about Egypt visa is that it actually has two borders and requires different kind of visa depending on where you want to go. If one needs to go just across the border no visa is needed. If one needs to cross the Taba or the border at Gaza but not the border at Suez a visa is obtainable at the embassy or the border immediately but if one has to cross the Suez border to enter Egypt one needs to go through more than just a formality of getting a visa. Going through a travel agent did not help. We needed to show we had enough funds to sponsor our trip When we called the embassy for information their lack of knowledge of English and even Hebrew we just got standard replies "50 shekels one passport photo" After going to the embassy it was "Round trip tickets $500 travellers checks" It took us almost two weeks to get the Egypt visa. After getting the visa we needed to get Reena's entry visa(akinda H1 visa) but it needed to go to Jerusalem to get a permission and we decided to continue inspite of not receiving the visa. Came across a interesting Indian person the Ministry of Interior when we had gone to get our visa. The earlier day we had won the India England match by 9 wickets and he was a cricketer who had played for Ruia college. Small world. Lots of cricket talk at the visa counter. The matches are shown here in Israel on Star-TV. With Ramazan approaching(23rd Feb) we had to make the trip since everything would be closed during Ramazan. We left for Egypt the following Friday. After passing through 2 tough gruelling "routine" questioning at Tel-Aviv we left for Tel Aviv the following Friday. At Cairo we were received by couple of officially dressed people who inquired about our travel plans..also offered us to book us hotels and taxis and stuff about 1/2 hour later we realised this racket and we decided to go our way. This sort of fraudulent business has been mentioned in the LP Egypt guide which we had and never read. We stayed in a decentish hotel(45 pounds per night) in Cairo with shared toilets and bathrooms.. had a very international student like atmosphere.. If there is a city which resembles closest to Bombay it is Cairo. It has a population of 15 million(2nd to Mexico City, Bombay trails 5th at 9 million) Its buildings and lift resemble that of in Old Fort Bombay. Donkeys and goats are found next to 5 star hotels and computer shops. Next day we left for Giza. The taxi driver first took us to a camel market where camels from Sudan are brought in and sold here. The camels are brought to the border near Lake Nasser and put in trucks and transferred in thousands to the markets. Strange customs..we were called in by the owner(?) of the market who explained us how the bargains were made and how each camel was valued etc etc. On an average each camel sells for LE 2000. Next we went to a papyrus exhibit were we got conned into buying papyrus at expensive prices when we later discovered we could buy them for 1 pound each. They write our names in hierogliphics(sp?) and have paintings of many Egyptian pharoahs. Next he drove us to Giza and to the famous Trio pyramids and Sphynx. We rented a horse and camel there to take us to the pyramids(we were still doing the touristi things) Visited inside all the pyramids and inside the Spynx. The Pyramid of Cheops, the tallest one is really impressive from inside, also considering the fact that it is the oldest. It had three small other pyramids near its side for the 3 queens(2500BC) The Sphynx also was build along with the pyramids of Cheops and now has its nose missing because the Turks(under Ottoman) practiced shooting on its face. Then we visited Sakkhara to see the Step Pyramid---which is the oldest pyramid in the world. Egyptians previous to that liked to be buried inside a tomb structure...What Amhotep did was to build a series of tombs one on top of each other create a pyramidical effect. This was the actual start of the pyramid building tradition. The old Egyptians had a very strong belief in life after death and such So they believed in strenghtening their tombs and paid more concentration for their burial places NOT unlike the Greeks or Romans who paid more attention to living and enjoying and hence building castles and forts and capturing territories. Thus most of the wealth was essentially secured inside the tombs and hence tomb robbery was a done thing in the past. There were lots of smaller pyramids at Sakkhara and at Dahsur which also has a bent pyramid..changed from a steeper angle to a lesser angle to hasten the completion. We saw lots of smaller tombs at Sakkhara. There is always a guard at the tomb who demands his baksheesh after seeing the tomb and most of the times he asks us the break the rules by telling us to use flash (which is prohibited) and then asking us for money. Most of the tombs have hieroglyphics inside depicting daily life etc. We also saw one persian tomb which had almost a 100 ft vertical descent used to confuse tomb robbers but did not succeed and the robbers built a spiral staircase inside. Later during the day when we were finishing a guard came to us and told us he would show us a newly explored tomb(last week he said by British archaelogists) he took us about 10 mins into the desert and then to a tomb taking us into one of the rooms in the tomb he wanted to show us some very important pharoanic secret..of course written in hieroglyphics..we just nodded..and then he took us to a chamber where there were newly excavated tombs of course from the skeletons which were lying around. He of course charged us 10 pounds as his baksheesh and then gave us tea. We returned back to Giza where we saw the "Sound and Light" a terrible let down. Day 2 (Saturday). We decided to go to Suez. After about 1 hour of figuring out the right words to say in Arabic we found the exact bus-stop for Suez. We took the bus for Suez..however we found that the actual Suez canal was in Port Said the northern most point of the Canal. We then took another bus to Ismalia and then to Port Said..We reached around 4:30 and the last bus was at 6:00 so we hurried and took a few patel shots. Day 3 (Sunday). We decided to apply for a student card. The students staying in our lodge said it was the easiest thing you could get and all the prices in Cairo are reduced by 50 % so with no qualms attached we went to Cairo University for the student card. It was closed so we decided to get Reenas visa to Israel..we spent about 2 hours looking for the street and no taxiwala knew about it nor did anyone..and we were of course scared to mention Israel consulate to anyone in Egypt but we somehow made it. She got her visa..we went back to the University to get the Student card. He saw mine and Reena's passport and read student as our professions and gave us the card. We then ran around Cairo to get our flights changed from Friday to next Sunday..took us a while but we made it. We returned back to our hotel and booked the train to Luxor. We spent the remaining time going to Cairo tower to see the pyramids. Its the talled structure in Cairo. We left for Luxor that night. Day 4 (Monday) We reached in the morning and were promptly taken by a hotel vendor to his place. Cost us 8 pounds per person per night. We rented bikes and toured the place. Luxor is south of Cairo I dont know how many km's but approximately 12 hours by train. We visited the Luxor temple, the Karnak temple really huge apostyle halls having almost 100 huge pillars. Huge kiosks and pylons. We took a felluca on the Nile for about 3 hours and visited a banana island(free plucking of bananas). Visited the Luxor museum later that evening. Day 5 (Tuesday) We crossed the Nile to sea the West Bank of Luxor. We went to the valley of the kings to see excavated tombs. We visited the tomb of Tutankhamun which has a very famous story behind it which I must tell. Tutankhamum was son in law of Amonthesis IV(Amhotep). He died at a age of 17. His tomb was quite unknown for quite a while. Mr. Carter a English Egyptologist was convinced the tomb was in the valley of the kings. After his funding was stopped he sponsored his own research. After some days he found paths leading down to the tomb. He kept digging till he reached the seal. He filled up the tomb steps to cover the path..and called for the officials..the tomb was then opened up and the treasures were unbelievable..there were shrines all in gold..his tomb..and unimaginable amount of gold was present.. We saw these treasures later in the Egypt Museum We then visited Temple of Hatsheput(Deir E Bahri), Ramesuem, Seti Temple Valley of Queens and others. Day 6 (wednesday) We took the train to Aswan. A four hour train journey took almost 8 hrs and we reached at 2 am in the morning. Stayed in a small hotel..went to Aswan dam/Eliphantine island and temple of philae. Aswan dam was constructed by Nasser. Due to the level of water raised in the Nile lots of artifacts and historical sites were to be submerged. The US/UK and the world bank refused financial support. Hence Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal company(owned by british and France) to get funds. This was followed by an attack by Israel and Britian on Suez. Nasser however still continued with the dam and flooded lots of Nubian villages in Sudan. Temple of philae was to be submerged so UNESCO collected each artifact and stone of the temple and reconstructed the temple on the nearby island. The Suez canal remained unoperational for some years till Egypt(Sadat) reclaimed it back by negotiating with Israel. This negotiation infuriated the Arab world and he was assasinated by the Brothers of Islam a fundamentalist terrorist group(of which Hamas is also a part of) Day 7(Thursday) We reached Cairo back at 1 pm with a grueling 20 hour train ride. We visited Islamic cairo that day seeing huge mosques(Sultan Ali, Ibn Tuln, Mohammed Ali, Al Azhar and many more). The oldest and largest mosques exist here. The oldest University and mosque in the world Al Azhar is also here. We visited the Citadel too which has the four dome Mohammed Ali mosque. Very impressive. The laid back life of renting hookah from a restaurant and playing backgammon on the streets is a common sight in the vibrant markets. We bought a few arabic cassettes specifically from a algerian singer called khaled whose song "didi" is commonly heard in Israel. Day 8(friday) We visited Alexandria. Visited a Roman Amphitheatre and a Roman fort. We travelled by a tram through the city which was ridiculously cheap(10 piastas). We boarded a bus to go to palace and took us almost an hour and half to get there. We visited a hotel (Hotel Cecil) where the alied army chief was supposed to have been stationed. We returned back in the evening. Egyptians are chronic smokers. Inspite of all signs in trains and buses everyone seems to ignore them and any complaints to the authorities(we had tried before once on our way to Luxor) not to any avail. The buses we took were quite fashionable. Had two TV's a bathroom and also a waitress..who seemed to give away food and then charge everyone for it. The VCR's play a Arabic movie almost like a Hindi movie and at a very high volume. Imagine travelling in a bus playing an Arabic movie at high volume in which 90% of the men are smoking..it's air conditioned so you cannot even open the window..The visibility starts to deteriorate because of the heavy smoke and you cough to let them know it is irritating but it is ignored and then you complain but it is still ignored,you just wait till someone around stops smoking and clears up the air around you.. Day 9(Saturday) We visited the Cairo Museum. Certainly beautiful and its star attractions are Tutankhamuns treasures. If treasures of a smaller pharoah was so much then it is imaginable what tombs of treasures of a bigger pharoah would be. Some random statistics(only for Jayesh). If one were to spend one minute on each exhibit in Cairo Museum it would take 9 months to see the Museum. We were bored after about 2 hours. Very interestingly enough lots of treasures on display at Cairo Museum has the sign "Transferred to London Museum". We spent the evening seeing Coptic side of Egypt. What we wanted to do was see a belly dance show. A sleazy bar in Cairo on the Nile wanted to charge us LE 100 per person to see the show. We backed out. Day 10(Sunday) We left Cairo arrived Tel-Aviv.