Egypt - Part 1: Cairo to Aswan

Saturday

It was an early wake up call on Saturday morning, which was a sign of things to come as we set off for our 9 day tour of Egypt. A taxi picked us up at 3.15am and got us out to Heathrow for our 6am flight to Cairo via Rome. We arrived in Cairo around 3pm and we were met by the friendly On the Go tour representatives, as well as a couple of dozen fellow tour members, most of whom turned out to be Kiwis and Aussies living in London!

It was surprisingly easy to get through Cairo airport - very fast and efficient. We were all herded on to some mini buses and we headed through Cairo and out to the west bank, to the Oasis Hotel, not far from the famous Giza pyramids. The journey took around 45 minutes. There was loads of traffic and noise and it reminded us of a cross between Bangkok and Istanbul.

One of the On the Go tour staff, Saeed, was with us on the mini bus and pointed out a few things of interest as we passed through the city. Cairo is the capital of Egypt and it is one of the world's most densely populated cities, with 22 million inhabitants out of a total population of 70 million in Egypt. It was staggering to hear that Cairo has more than three times the population of London and around five times the population of the whole of New Zealand. We passed by the Cairo Central Railway Station and Saeed told us that each day around 3 million people pass through that railway station!

The Oasis Hotel was really nice - a 4-star hotel with a big swimming pool, restaurant, bar, shops and even a nightclub in the complex. We had quick showers and changed our British pounds into Egyptian pounds (which made us feel like drug lords, as we left the currency exchange office with thick wads of cash held together in rubber bands), and then we joined a bunch of fellow tour members and headed to a nearby restaurant for some Egyptian cuisine. We had a lot of pita bread with hummus and various dips/sauces followed by a plate of mixed grill meat with chips, potatoes, salads, some fresh fruit and of course some local ale. It was really good. Then we retreated to the hotel and slept like babies before the massive day to come!

Sunday

We had an early wake-up call on Sunday and enjoyed a quick breakfast before checking out of the hotel. At breakfast we met a couple from New Zealand (Steve and Carla) who are living in London and who are both lawyers (spooky) and who also happened to be in our group, Group C. We were on the bus by 8am for our intro talk from our group leader, Sobhy, before we set off for the Giza pyramids. It was fairly warm in Cairo, around 30-32 degrees, but thankfully our bus had air conditioning!

The first stop for the tour was the Giza pyramids - perhaps one of the most famous sights on the planet. We were amazed by the sheer size of the pyramids as we approached them in the bus. We really were speechless when we hopped off the bus and saw them close up.

The Great Pyramid of Giza (also called the Pyramid of Khufu) is the oldest and largest of the three pyramids in the Giza Necropolis, and is the only remaining member of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It is believed the pyramid was built as a tomb for Fourth Dynasty Egyptian King Khufu (Cheops in Greek) and constructed over a 20 year period concluding around 2560 BC, making it almost 4,600 years old. The Great Pyramid was the tallest man-made structure in the world for over 3,800 years. It is estimated to contain over two million blocks of stone weighing on average around 2.5 tonnes, with some stones at the bottom of the pyramid weighing around 15 tonnes. Despite its size, the precision is amazing - the greatest difference in length between the four 230m sides is only 4cm!

The pyramid complex at Giza is also home to the Pyramid of Khafre and the relatively modest-sized Pyramid of Menkaure, along with a number of smaller satellite edifices known as "Queen's pyramids" and the Great Sphinx.

We were allowed to climb on the bottom few rows (you can see from the photos below how massive the blocks are) and wander around the Great Pyramid, amongst throngs of tourists as well as locals selling souvenirs or offering rides on their camels. Then it was back in the bus and down the road a little to a lookout point where there are stunning views of all three pyramids from a distance.

It was here that we took the opportunity to have a camel ride! Two other couples from our group, Tim and Tania and Trevor and Melissa, joined us on the optional rides. It was so fun - Tim nearly got flipped off the front as his rowdy camel stood up - it was pretty hard to balance actually, as they are not the smoothest of movers. Megan's camel followed behind Tim's, which was a touch unfortunate as she had to deal with Tim's camel's exhaust fumes as well as the rocky ride. The ride lasted for around 10-15 minutes and with the stunning back-drop of the pyramids and the Sahara Desert, it was one of the highlights of the trip!

After our camel ride we headed to the Pyramid of Khafre, the second pyramid. The second pyramid is 15m shorter than the Great Pyramid, although it appears to be slightly taller by virtue of being built on higher ground. The summit of the second pyramid is the only area that retains the limestone casing that originally covered all three pyramids. Here, we actually went inside the pyramid. We had to queue for a long time as an old man had slipped on the steep passageway inside the pyramid and broken his leg. After he was retrieved by ambulance staff, we headed in.

It was a little disconcerting to see other tourists emerging dripping with sweat and puffing heavily, but we still went in. The passageway is dark, extremely narrow and steep. It is so small we were effectively crouching and waddling down like ducks - you can see how the man broke his leg. To make things worse it was very hot inside the pyramid and there is very little oxygen. It took us less than two minutes to get to the bottom of the first passageway, but in that short time, we had already noticed the heat and the lack of oxygen. A number of our tour group decided to stop there and turn back without making it all the way in to see the king's burial chamber. We both joined them, which was probably a good thing, as by the time we surfaced again, we were sweating and puffing ourselves - not a place for any sort of claustrophobic, that's for sure!

Our next stop was the Great Sphinx, which sits proudly in front of the second pyramid. The Great Sphinx is a statue of a reclining lion with a human head. It is the largest monolith statue in the world, standing at 73m long, 6m wide and 20m high. It is the oldest known monumental sculpture, believed to have been constructed around 2500 BC. The Sphinx's nose was lost sometime before the 15th century and it used to have a stylised beard (a symbol of royalty in ancient Egypt) but that fell off too and a piece of it is now held at the British Museum. The Great Sphinx was partially buried beneath sand for thousands of years.

After visiting the Great Sphinx, we had some lunch on the bus (another Egyptian specialty of noodles, rice, lentils and fried onions) and then visited a papyrus factory on the West Bank of Cairo, where we were given a demonstration on how ancient Egyptians used the papyrus plant to make a thick, strong form of paper, which they then painted and wrote on. It was very interesting. The factory also sold beautiful paintings and art work on papyrus.

After lunch we headed south-west of Cairo to Saqqara, one of the richest archaeological sites in Egypt. It was developed as the royal necropolis for the Old Kingdom capital of Memphis. As Memphis grew, so did this city of the dead, until it spanned 7km north to south. It was eventually abandoned and apart from Djoser's pyramid, it lay buried beneath sand for centuries. Saqqara contains a number of pyramids in various states - some have almost completely crumbled. However, the amazing Djoser step pyramid is still intact and is the oldest pyramid in Egypt, built in the 27th century BC. It was the prototype for the pyramids at Giza and all other pyramids that followed.

We enjoyed wandering around the area in front of Djoser's pyramid before retiring to a nearby tourist resort, where we chilled out for a couple of hours before our overnight train to Aswan. It had been a full-on day and it was great to sit down in the shade by the pool and sink a few cold beers with Steve and Carla.

Our train was due to depart around 8pm but it was slightly delayed - Egyptian time as our tour guide Sobhy told us! The train ride from Cairo to Aswan, in the south of Egypt, takes around 13 hours. Luckily we had upgraded to a sleeper train, fully equipped with fold down bunk beds in our own locked compartment. We were in the cabin next to Tim and Tania, an Australian couple living in London. So we ate our lovely train meal and chatted to them for a while before calling it a day. The gentle rocking of the train meant we were out like a light and got a solid 9 hours' sleep.

Monday

We arrived into sunny and hot Aswan around 10am on Monday. Aswan can get up over 50 degrees celsius in summer, so we were extremely grateful that it was still early spring time and just 42 degrees! Thankfully the heat in Egypt is very dry, rather than humid, so it is not quite as energy-sapping. Aswan was a nice city, a lot smaller and less crowded than Cairo. It is also more rural, so the locals tend to stick to traditional dress and tourists are encouraged to dress very conservatively - no tight revealing clothing, shoulders covered and no shorts for either gender!

We checked in to our cruise ship on arrival, despite the fact it was not leaving Aswan until Tuesday afternoon. The cruise ship was absolutely amazing; 5-star with all the bells and whistles. We were blown away. There was a sun deck on the top with a swimming pool, sun loungers and a bar. The boat had about four levels and the next level below the sun deck, which is where our room was, also had a lounge bar and a pool table. After checking out our rooms on the boat and having a shower, we had lunch in the restaurant. The food was unbelievable - every meal while we stayed on the boat was a buffet with the most amazing food - loads of carbs, all sorts of meat, salads, fresh fruit, great desserts, and all of it delicious.

In the afternoon, we had a trip to the High Dam of Aswan. Two dams straddle the River Nile at Aswan, the older Aswan Dam and the newer High Dam. These dams were constructed to prevent annual flooding, generate electricity and provide water for agriculture. Without impoundment, the River Nile would flood each year during summer, as waters from East Africa flowed down the river as they did in ancient times. These floods brought nutrients and minerals that made the soil around the Nile fertile and ideal for farming. As the population along the river grew, there came a need to control the flood waters to protect and support farmland and cotton fields. In a high-water year, the whole crop may be entirely wiped out, while in a low-water year there was widespread drought and famine.

The British constructed the Aswan Dam between 1889 and 1902. The High Dam was constructed in the 1960s after the first dam almost overflowed. The creation of the High Dam resulted in the largest man-made lake in the world, Lake Nasser. The lake is 550km long and 35km wide at its widest point.

When Lake Nasser was being created as a result of the construction of the High Dam, the anticipated rising waters behind the dam required major relocation projects that were carried out during the 1960s. There were 18 ancient temples in the area. Several important Nubian and Ancient Egyptian archaeological sites were dismantled block by block and moved to higher ground, most notably the Abu Simbel temple.

From the High Dam we took a short bus ride and a ferry crossing to the island of Agilika in the River Nile, to visit the Philae Temple. With the building of the High Dam (1960-70) the Philae Temple was relocated from Philae Island to the nearby island of Agilika. The UNESCO-led project took from 1972 to 1980 to complete, during which time Agilika was landscaped to look like Philae. Our boat dropped us at the southern end of the island and we walked past the oldest building on the island, the Kiosk of Nectanebo II, dating from the 4th century BC, to a long courtyard flanked by colonnades, which leads to the magnificent Temple of Isis, the main building in the Philae temple complex.

Built in the late Ptolemaic and early Roman periods, the temple combines ancient Egyptian and Graeco-Roman architecture. Ptolemy XII Neos Dionysos built the first pylon, which has scenes of him massacring his enemies watched by gods Isis, Horus and Hathor. It was very hot but we enjoyed looking through the temple and taking photos amongst the ruins around the outside of the temple. There were stunning views out across the Nile beyond the rubble and stones lying scattered about the island. After a cold drink in the shade, we headed back to the mainland and returned to Aswan.

We were dropped off in Aswan at the markets. We had been told that on the Tuesday night there would be an Egyptian themed dress-up party on our cruise ship, so Megan bought a blue Egyptian kaftan (top) and Tim bought a traditional Egyptian robe and a headdress for the occasion. We had a great time looking through the markets at the spices, scarves and robes, sheesha pipes and myriad of souvenirs, as well as trying to dodge the aggressive salesmen.

After another long day we retired to the cruise ship and had a few quiet drinks on the sundeck overlooking the Nile, before a magnificent dinner in the ship's restaurant. Then we were treated to some live entertainment in the lounge bar in the form of traditional Nubian dancers (Nubians are the people from the southern area of Egypt, bordering with Sudan). However, nobody was keen for too late a night, as we had a 2.45am wake-up call on Tuesday to look forward to.

Oasis Hotel

Cairo

Megs at

the Great
Pyramid

Tim sitting

on the base

of the Great

Pyramid

Posing with

a camel

View from

the lookout

Tim on

board his

noble

beast

Camels in

the Sahara

Desert

Great Sphinx

and second

pyramid

Great

Sphinx

Djoser step

pyramid

at Saqqara

Waiting for

our night

train

Landscape

near Aswan

Tim on the

High Dam

at Aswan

Philae

Temple

Megs in

Philae

Temple

Behind

Philae

Temple

Megs at

Philae

Temple

Aswan

markets

Monaco - Part 2

Monaco

On Sunday morning we again woke to a glorious sunny French morning...although we were a little slower to get going. We checked out of the hotel and had another brilliant breakfast, this time at Cafe de Lyon. We sat outside soaking up the sunshine and watching the French early-risers going about their business. Breakfast was fantastic - we can fully recommend the crepe au nutella and the chicken club sandwich, although the croissants and pains aux chocolats were top notch too.

We caught the train to Monaco (we were just like locals on the ticket machines by the Sunday) and this time we were treated to a busker with an accordion providing live entertainment on the train. There was also a rather odd guy who leapt up and started singing and dancing along to the accordion music! We also had no problems finding our way from the train station this time. However, some of the bus routes were suspended due to the annual Monaco/French Riviera marathon that was held that morning, which meant that we had to walk up the hill to the Princess Grace Rose Garden.

This would not have been such a problem, except that it was very difficult to find the garden, and we ended up walking a lot further than we probably needed to. The difficulty in finding the garden, in conjunction with our already tired legs having to walk up and down some hills, meant that we were not in the best of moods by the time we found the garden. This was not helped when we saw that there were no roses in the rose garden at all - obviously not the season for roses in Monaco! The garden actually looked rather bland without any colour - so if you're visiting Monaco when it is not rose season, perhaps give this one a miss off your list of things to do.

In saying that, the garden boasts over 3,500 rose bushes of over 150 varieties, so when it is the correct season, the garden will no doubt look amazing! The garden was inaugurated in 1984 and was dedicated to Princess Grace, who was a great lover of flowers. There is a fine statue of Princess Grace at one end of the garden, one of many statues and sculptures scattered throughout Monaco - there is actually a Sculpture Trail that you can walk and admire the works of art as you go.

Our next stop was the Oceanographic Museum and Aquarium, which unfortunately meant a walk back down a hill and a walk up a different hill. The museum was built between 1899 and 1910 to house collections of underwater species brought back by Prince Albert I from his expeditions. In the St Martin Gardens next to the museum there is a bronze statue of Albert I at the helm of his ship - see photo of Megan helping him steer in Part 1 blog.

The aquarium is one of the most famous and impressive of its kind in the world. Over eight tanks, in which for every species the original natural environment is recreated with minerals and local flora, contain fishes of all shapes and colours from the Mediterranean, Red Sea, Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans, as well as shellfish, giant squid, turtles and many other species. The tanks are filled with sea water pumped directly to the foot of the museum and it is constantly renewed.

We were all very impressed with the aquarium - there were so many amazing creatures to see, including small spotted eels, that looked like really small snakes that stand vertically with half of their bodies buried in sand at the bottom of the tank and half sticking out of the sand in the water - very odd. Tim was also amazed by the flat silver-coloured fish that can camouflage themselves in deep sea water by deflecting light downwards, thus becoming almost invisible at the right depth. They look almost see-through on the photo below. Megan was intrigued by the octopus and Libby with the sea horses.

Because of time restrictions we didn't visit the oceanographic museum, although we are reliably informed that it contains skeletons of marine mammals such as killer whales and that it has embalmed penguins, polar bears, sea lions and polar birds, etc etc. Another visit perhaps. We returned to the same spot for lunch, although not to Le Bambi, this time a place further down the street. We had another very nice lunch, the common theme appearing to be hot chips with mayonnaise. Yum!

Nice

We then caught the train back to Nice, where we had hoped to check out a few of the shops in the city centre. However, that plan was thwarted by the Sunday trading laws in France - none of the shops were open! We got down to the beach and walked along the Promenade des Anglais (along with several thousand other tourists and locals). After getting an ice cream from a gelateria we sat down on the beach, away from the crowds on the promenade, for a while.

As we were leaving again, we were treated to a very "special" display from what we could describe as a street busker, only he wasn't "performing" for money; he was doing it for the love of the game. There was a guy who was obviously trying to impersonate Michael Jackson - he had long black hair, crazy pants, an open shirt and he had actually painted his face white to look more like the modern MJ. He then had a stereo sitting on the footpath playing various Michael Jackson songs, while he "danced"/swayed in a drunk hippie kind of way with arms going everywhere. He reminded us of all of the famous David Brent dance-off from The Office TV series.

He had a few moves that kind of passed for Michael Jackson, such as the kick in the air and the grabbing the crotch region and he actually did a very impressive moonwalk. However, the moonwalk was the only impressive part of his routine. The rest was a cross between comical and scary. The best part was watching the expressions on peoples' faces as they walked past - disbelief, shock, fear. A few people took some pretty wide berths around the guy to avoid being hit by a flaying arm. He is probably the best advertisement yet for why kids should not do drugs.
Nevertheless, it was a memorable send-off from the French Riviera.







Tim and a
donkey
sculpture












Princess
Grace
statue in
rose garden






















Oceanographic
museum and
aquarium

















Octopus
sculpture at
aquarium










Tropical
fish












Fish and
shark
tank











Crazy
camou-
flage
fish










Tim on top
of aquarium












Fountain
in Nice











Beach at
Nice













Megs and
Libby on the
beach












Michael
Jackson
impersonator















Nice
again

Monaco - Part 1

Monaco

On Friday night we, along with our friend Libby, flew from London to Nice, in southern France, where we stayed so that we could spend the weekend in Monaco. We had planned the trip with Libby and Ben, although unfortunately Ben was not able to make it, as he had to work through the weekend. We arrived in Nice around 11.30pm and we managed to find our way into the city centre and to the Hotel Ellington without any drama.

The hotel was solid - a jazz-themed boutique hotel with a really fun bar in the lobby. Our room was pretty nice too, although we didn't get the fancy balcony that Libby's room had! We were woken early on Saturday morning by the intense sunshine (something we had not seen for months!) streaming in through the window.

We found a nice little cafe down the road from the hotel, where we had a very French breakfast with croissants, pains aux chocolats, jus d'orange, cafe au lait and yoghurt with berries (that was way too hard to do in French). After breakfast we wandered down one of the main streets of central Nice to the train station and caught a train to Monaco. We were tres impressed to discover that the train journey takes only 15 minutes and costs just €6.60 return! The journey itself was fantastic, as we were treated to spectacular views of the Mediterranean coastline. We arrived in Monaco around 10.30am.

The Principality of Monaco is a small sovereign city-state in the south-eastern corner of France, on the Mediterranean Sea. Monaco is the second smallest country in the world with an area of just 1.95 square kilometres. It apparently takes the average person just 56 minutes to walk across the width of the country. The population of Monaco is around 33,000, which makes it the most densely populated sovereign country in the world. Monaco is a constitutional monarchy and a principality, with Prince Albert II the head of State. The Grimaldi family has ruled Monaco since 1297 and the state's sovereignty was officially recognised by the France-Monegasque Treaty of 1861.

After initially being very confused by Monaco's labyrinth-like streets and hills (along with a number of other tourists), we found our way down to the waterfront area and then headed up the hill to the Prince's Palace. The Prince's Palace, official residence of the Prince of Monaco, was founded in 1191 as a Genoese fortress. Since 1297 it has been the home of the Grimaldi family. Unlike other European ruling families, the absence of alternative palaces and land shortages have meant that the Grimaldi family has ruled from the same residence for more than 700 years.

We did not tour the opulent palace, but we watched the guards marching in front of the palace and enjoyed the breath-taking views down over Monaco from the hilltop, before carrying on to the cathedral. St Nicholas Cathedral is the Roman Catholic cathedral of Monaco, where many of the Grimaldis are buried, including Grace Kelly and, more recently, Rainier III. It was consecrated in 1875 and is built on the site of the first parish church built in Monaco in 1252.

Further around from the cathedral, through a beautiful little garden, is the impressive Oceanographic Museum and Aquarium. We were all keen to visit the aquarium but decided to do that on Sunday so that we could continue to explore Monaco by foot in the sunshine. Just past the aquarium we noticed a huge four-car garage in front of big house. There was a guy inside the garage tending to one of his four amazing cars. There was a Rolls Royce and a Porsche in the front and a massive 4WD and what looked like an even more impressive sports car at the back. That's a lot of cash in one garage!

We were pretty hungry by this stage, so we headed back down the hill to the waterfront area, taking in the amazing views of the super yachts lined up in the port as we went. We found a place called Le Bambi, where we could sit outside in the sun and look out to the port and all the boats. Le Bambi did some pretty solid chicken paninis, although they charged us €6 for a coke!

After lunch we headed for the Monte Carlo district and the world famous Monte Carlo casino. Don't be fooled by the very strict dress code set out in guide books and websites; so long as you are fairly respectable they will let you in - we were all wearing jeans and Tim did not have a jacket or tie but we had no worries getting in. You do need your passport to get in though.

Aside from the gambling rooms, the casino complex also includes the Grand Theatre de Monte Carlo, an opera and ballet house, and the headquarters of the Ballets de Monte Carlo. Strangely enough, the citizens of Monaco are forbidden to enter the gaming rooms! The magnificent building was opened in 1863.

Inside the casino is every bit as impressive as the outside of the building. The walls and ceilings are decorated with art work, similar to some of the royal palaces we have visited. We all managed to leave the casino as winners, albeit rather small winners. We started on the slot machines, where they have those old fashioned machines with levers that you pull down to spin!!! Tim and Libby both made a bit of money on those, while Megan was far more lucky on the roulette tables.

We watched some of the more serious punters on the tables for a while before we decided to have a go ourselves. There was one guy who put €2,000 on the table in four €500 notes (we didn't even know there were €500 notes!), then scattered the chips he was given all over the place and 10 minutes later repeated the process, again without any luck...pretty quick way to blow €4,000. Tim had a bit of luck with the old red-black-black-red combo, while sneaky old Megan made €25 in one pop.

After quitting while we were ahead, we sat outside the Cafe de Paris next to the casino and enjoyed a drink in the sunshine. There is a big roundabout in front of the casino and it seems that only incredibly expensive cars are allowed to drive around it. While we sat there with our drinks we saw dozens of Ferraris, Porsches, Bentleys, as well as the odd Lamborghini and Rolls Royce...it was insane!

It was getting late in the afternoon and the sun was beginning to disappear behind the hills, so we had a walk through Monte Carlo and down to the Promenade de Champions - a long walkway along the seafront that has a collection of the footprints of some of the world's most famous footballers moulded into the footpath. We saw the footprints of Diego Maradona, Roberto Baggio, Alessandro Del Piero, Pavel Nedved, as well as the supreme football genius, Zinedine Zidane (photo below).

Then it was time to catch the train back to Nice, where we rested our very tired legs before having a couple of drinks in the hotel bar. We made our way towards the Massena Square, where we found dozens of restaurants, including one called Le Maori, complete with Maori artwork on the menus!!! But we opted for another restaurant across the road from Le Maori, where we had a fantastic dinner and some fairly decent French wine. We also wowed our waiter with our extensive French vocabulary, before heading home via the Haagen Dazs ice cream shop - so good!

View from

Princes

Palace

Apart-

ments

and super

yachts

Princes

Palace

Guarding

the palace

St Nicholas

Cathedral

Megan helping

Albert I steer

Spring in

Monaco

Megan in

massive

picture

frame

View over

Monaco

port

Monte Carlo

Casino

Cafe de

Paris

Libby and

Megan at

Cafe de

Paris

Zidane's

footprints on the

Promenade de

Champions