Into the Valley of the Kings

Last post of the day. Sorry no photos yet, since the internet cafe I am in is uber-sketchy and I think the computer I am using is from 1989. There is a large hole where the USB port should be. But hell, what can I expect for $1/hour of internet, right?

Today we went into the Valley of the Kings. It was amazing and I was really impressed. This is the burial ground for all of the New Kingdom pharoahs. So far 62 tombs have been excavated, the most famous of which is King Tutankhamun's. He wasn't actually a great king and only ruled briefly, with no great battles or buildings during his reign. He just happened to be buried with a whole lot of crap in his tiny tomb and the Egyptologist Howard Carter discovered it (after many, many years and sheer luck at a last ditch effort after his funding got pulled) in November 1922. I actually didn't go into Tut's tomb, nor did I see his recently revealed mummified face. I did see a few other tombs of greater kings and they were beautiful and well preserved. Everything inside of Tut's tomb is now in the Egyptian museum in Cairo (where I will be visiting in 2 days).





















Afterwards we went to the Temple of Hatshepsut, which is cut out of the limestone cliffs so that it is partly rock-cut and partly free standing. Hatshepsut was a woman, but dressed as a man (fake beard and all) to rule as a pharoah for 15 years. I need to do a little more research on the logistics on that (did the people know she was cross-dressing or did they actually think she was a man?) and I'll get back to you.




















Back to Cairo (and slightly chillier temperatures) tomorrow.

Cruisin' Down the Nile

Our "luxury" cruise ship is called the M/S Mojito. Apparently the owner is a big fan of the drink (as am I), although I don't think they even serve mojitos on this ship. Sigh.

We've made our way down the Nile and visited quite a few temples the past few days. Unfortunately, they all start to blur together and look the same. I've had the same experience with chateaus in France and cathedrals in Britain. Except now I'm older and have even less brain capacity.

We are now in Luxor, renamed several times (including Thebes by the Greeks.) The Arabs conquered, saw all of the temples in the city but thought they were old palaces, and thus named the area Al-Uqsur ("The Palaces".)





















It is also the hassle capital of Egypt. Souvenir vendors are everywhere and will follow you for blocks. I've seen them throw shirts onto people in the hopes that they will buy them. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. This doesn't stress me out that much though--the gypsy children of Istanbul are much, much scarier. Plus, I'm from New York--I know how to pointedly ignore people and look unfriendly. However, there are a few other things that cause me great stress in Egypt: the first is hoarding enough clean drinking water (I think I'm always thirsty because I know I can't drink from the tap), the second is having enough small bills to tip. There is a huge unemployment rate here in Egypt and people depend on tips for income. You have to tip for everything, including using public restrooms (god forbid you actually want toilet paper.) I'm totally fine with the tipping, I understand people need to make a living, it's just a matter of my having the small bills for it. Nothing makes me happier here than buying a large bottle of water and getting a bunch LE5 bills (=$1) back in change. No lie.

On a side note, I'm sorry to report that the seafood buffet on the cruise ship did not sit well with Mom. She had a bad bout of food poisoning yesterday. She's better today and managed to endure both the Valley of the Kings (awesome!) and the Temple of Hatshepsut.

My Name is (Fel)luca

We are currently further up (south) the Nile. After that horrid 2:30AM wake-up call we flew down to Abu Simbel to see the temple of Ramses II and Hathor, dedicated to Ramses II's favorite wife (of 5), Queen Nefertari. Afterwards we flew into Aswan, the southern most Egyptian city, maybe about 200km north of Sudan.















Some sites in Aswan:

Aswan High Dam--the old Aswan Dam couldn't control the flooding (although it initially contributed immensely to make the land cultivable). The High Dam is huge, containing 18 times the amount of material used to build the Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza. There were a lot of international politics involved in the building of the High Dam, which I won't get into, but the Soviet Union ended up funding it. The water that has been dammed up is now the largest artificial lake in the world (Lake Nassar), over 500km in length. No one swims in this lake--probably due to a combination of gianormous crocodiles and bad, bad disease causing microbes in the water.















We ended our visit in Aswan with a felucca (traditional canvas sail boat) ride on the Nile to nowhere. It was quite pleasant cruising around for an hour.


I should also mention that we picked up two travel companions for this part of our trip: Frank and Jeanette, an octogenarian couple from Florida by way of NJ. They are quite nice, but nowhere near spry. AT ALL.

Flight into Egypt

After an uneventful 10 hour plane ride, we arrived in Cairo. Looking out the airplane window, I'm not sure what I was expecting (okay, so maybe I was hoping I'd see the Pyramids at Giza on my right, and the Nile on my left), but everything here is sand colored. Everything. We were met at the airport by our guide, Hashem. He speaks very low and fast, with a rather heavy accent--I've had to ask him to repeat himself several times. At least I know that, in theory, I should be able to understand everything he's saying, rather than those Taiwanese tours I've been on when it's about a 40% comprehension rate and most of it is context.

Cairo has a population of about 20 million and the traffic reflects that. It is more insane than New York or Taipei and more along the lines of Istanbul. Basically, frightening.

Wake-up call at 2:30AM. We have a 5:30AM flight down south to see the Temple of Ramses II and Nefertari in Abu Simbel, then another flight further up the Nile to Aswan. We'll stay one night in the Old Cataract Hotel, where Agatha Christie wrote Death on the Nile, then we'll be on a Nile cruise for 4 days. I probably won't post until we arrive back in Cairo.
















Dysentery report: so far, so good.

Let the Camel Races Begin!

And so, I'm off to Egypt! It will be my first time in Africa and I can finally put those Egyptian art history classes to use.






















Gippy Tummy

On a side note, I've been a little concerned about dysentery (a/k/a "gippy tummy" or "King Tut's Revenge") in Egypt since folks I know who have traveled there have gotten sick, and from past travel experience it appears that I am more of a fragile flower than I'd like to admit. I asked my mom to get some antibiotics from an uncle in Taiwan. I suggested Cipro--if it's good enough for anthrax it should be good enough for whatever is hurting my stomach, right? She comes back with this bottle of pills:

A wee bit sketchy, if you ask me, but I'm still going to take them along even if there isn't any dosage information or instructions on how to take them. And according to the Ofloxacin website, this will help if I pick up any bacterial skin infections, the clap or pneumonia, yet no mention about enteric infections. Hmmm...

Whoa, Philly!

I am quite fond of Philadelphia, city of Brotherly Love. I recently went there with the usual suspects and we had a very simple agenda:





1. Lunch at Reading Terminal Market and getting some fudge from my favorite chocolate shop--I bought 2lbs of the yummy goodness.
2. Seeing the Liberty Bell and not getting angry about not being able to touch it anymore (Christina has some wells of bitterness towards Philly and the Liberty Bell because she remembers when you were allowed to put your grubby fingers on it.
3. Dairy Queen--because as great as New York is, there aren't any Dairy Queens. Sometimes you just want a Butterfinger Blizzard.
4. Shopping. Because, well, we like to shop.













We also went to Eastern State Penitentiary:


















Located just a few blocks away from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the prison was opened in 1928 and considered to be the world's first true penitentiary. I have to admit, the place was cold and dank, and the lighting left much to be desired. I guess this created "atmosphere"? The most interesting thing I learned from the place was that it the birthplace of a new system of incarceration, referred to as the Pennsylvania System, and utilized solitary confinement as a form of rehabilitation. This is in contrast to the New York System which had prisoners work together in silence. Sing Sing prison upstate is an example of this system. I am glad that I learned this from the museum and not firsthand experience.



Tidbits: The movie Twelve Monkeys used ESP as the setting for the mental hospital

















Al Capone spent some time here (in quite a luxe room, actually). They said he would spend brief periods in prison to avoid mob trouble.
















There was also a feral cat population that took over the penitentiary after it closed in the '70s. Over time they fixed all of the cats, so eventually the population died out. There are these slightly creepy white ceramic sculptures of cats placed all around the place to represent them.