Return from Egypt

And so the journey into Egypt has ended. I am slightly delirious from the jet lag and have been up since 3am.

Some last thoughts:

It was a great trip and it was really amazing to see the pyramids and tombs in person, up close. However, I don't think I would return to Egypt if given the choice. Egypt is a one-time thing.

Also, Americans have a bad reputation as tourists, but during this trip I noticed they were the most polite and respectful of them all. And as poorly dressed as they normally are, at least they were not wearing this (trust me, it looked much worse in person--and yes, that is a man wearing denim short-shorts):





















And speaking of clothing, I'm so over wearing variations of khaki.

One Step, Two Step...

We had a day to ourselves to wander around Cairo, so we went to see the Nilometer, which they used to measure the depth of the Nile and predict how good the crops would be (and thus the amount of taxes that would have to be paid), and back to Old (Coptic) Cairo to look around and do a little shopping. We decided to take the subway back to the hotel--it couldn't be that difficult, right? There are only two subway lines in the city, and it was pretty easy to use (no doubt it simplified matters that we were only going 2 stops.) We ended up on the women-only car, which was much less crowded than the co-ed ones. The real challenge was when we got out of the subway--crossing the street was seriously like playing a game of chicken with the cars. I don't think being a pedestrian in any other city has been scarier. But we put on our game faces and made it safely back to the hotel.

On our last day in Egypt, we took a visit to the first real pyramid at Saqqara: the Step Pyramid of Zoser. This is the one that started it all.

We also stopped by the ancient city of Memphis, which at one point was the capitol of the kingdom. It was considered a sophisticated city, but unfortunately, there is very little left except an open garden with some statues that have been found in the region.

The day's highlight was stopping by a local sandwich joint and having some falafel and shwarma. I think it may have been the best meal we had in Egypt and it cost just a fraction of the price--lunch for four of us was only $10!

Fresh Off the Boat

There is something about a big, crowded city that just makes me so happy. We are finally off the boat and back in Cairo. It's a dirty, overwhelming place (camels were running down the street tonight and I swear we came close to hitting another car/person/animal every 5 minutes on the road) but it is much more comforting to me than a cruise ship. Cairo reminds me of Taipei when I was a kid--before it became rich and modernized, before the Japanese department stores (I heart Takashimaya), and before there was an American fast food joint every block (not that I wasn't a grateful 9 year old ex-pat when that first McDonald's opened...) Of course, they have their fast food here too--our guide joked that KFC here is Kentucky Fried Camel.

Today was Day 7 of the trip and we have finally seen the pyramids at Giza! I'm a pretty jaded traveler, but I was still impressed. It's strange that the only remaining of the Seven Wonders of the World is stuck smack in the middle of a crowded suburb. The pyramids are massive and the Sphinx is smaller (and in much worse shape) than expected. The best part of Giza was climbing down one of the smaller tombs through a very narrow, steep shaft, into the small burial chamber. Unlike the tombs in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, there were no paintings or carvings inside--just plain ol' unadorned stone.


We also visited Old Cairo where we went to Ben Ezra Synagogue, the oldest in Egypt, the Hanging Church (Coptic), and the Church of St. Sergus, where it is said to be built over a cave that Joseph, Mary and baby Jesus were sheltered after fleeing to Egypt. By the way, Coptic Christians follow the Orthodox calendar, so they celebrate Christmas on my birthday, not on December 25th. We stopped by Islamic Cairo to the famous Khan Al-Khalili market and had some refreshment at Fishawi's Coffeehouse.















The afternoon was spent in the Egyptian Museum, which houses over 120,000 relics and many of them not organized very well. I focused my remaining energy on the booty from King Tut's tomb and the mummies. Ah, mummies. I paid a cool US$20 to go see the husks of a dozen dead kings. I particularly liked the information card on Queen Hatshepsut (who you'll remember from previous posts dressed like a man and ruled Egypt for many years): Now known to be Hatshepsut, great female pharoah of the 18th Dynasty, this mummy is of an obese female with bad teeth who died between the ages of 45 and 60. Ouch.


Crocodile mummy. The largest one at the Egyptian museum must have been around 10-12 feet long.