We plunged head first into ancient Egypt with a tour of the Cairo Museum, which is stuffed to the rafters with all sorts of Egyptian goodies like mummies (including cats, scarabs, dogs, horses and even a massive crocodile!), tombs, sarcophagi, statues, jewellery and implements. What I found most impressive was the display containing the entire contents of Tutenkamun's tomb. This guy certainly did well for himself for such a young-un!
The Pyramids of Giza are right near the city so we also checked them out. Pretty amazing structures, almost as amazing as the pictures! You can go inside some of them and crawl up a narrow corridor to the antechamber. Amazing that such a massive sturcture was built just for one king. The nearby 'stepped' pyramids at Saqqara are also interesting and were the 'trial run' for the Giza pyramids. They were almost better because they are more mysterious and there aren't as many tourists swanning around them!
After Cairo we took the train down to Aswan, home of the Aswan High Dam, which was built after the Aswan Dam (which wasn't big enough!). We took a felucca trip up the Nile, which was great, had dinner with a Nubian famiily, and spent too many hours on a bus heading to the temples of Abu Simbel, almost on the border with Sudan and built by Ramses II. These were fantastic. The main temple has four massive figures flanking its entrance and is ornately decorated and painted inside. The most amazing thing about it was that the entire thing was relocated, block for block, to avoid inundation when Lake Nasser was created by the Aswan Dam.
Nearby is Philae temple, which was built for the goddess Isis, and was also relocated to a lofty island site to avoid flooding. During the day it was amazing, and was one of my favourite sites; it was almost more spectacular at night, when we went to a 'light and sound show'. Sound good? Well, corny would be the word I would use. The performance was composed of lasers lighting up certain parts of the temple (great) to coincide with a story being thundered out of a loudspeaker over the site (terrible!). We couldn't help but piss ourselves laughing during the whole performance when the story being told by voices representing the earth, the river Nile and various ancient egyptians was coming up with lines like 'Isis, Goddess of Philae, my waters can no longer come in your temple and flow amongst the full breasted maidens' etc etc... hehe!
We then took the train back up to Luxor, home to 2 massive temples - Karnak and Luxor Temple, and spent the days wandering around their ruins. Karnak was particularly impressive, and so massive that I lost Matt and his brother Tim and didn't find them again until I returned to my hotel.
Not far from Luxor is the Valley of the Kings, which is famous because so many ancient kings were buried here, but in particular for Tutenkahmun, whose tomb is here too. The site is a complex maze of tombs dug into the hillside, out of the sight of marauding thieves. Many of the tombs are beautifully preserved and still have all the paintings adorning the walls and ceilings inside. Not far from here is the Valley of the Queens, which is not as famous but has a great Roman-style temple dedicated to Queen Hatsepshut.
What was interesting about many of the temples was that many of them were defaced by the Romans and English when they came, with faces of ancient kings and queens scratched off the walls and some artwork actually painted over and replaced. Some temples were even converted to churches to worship Christian figures. It was sad to see the graffiti left by soldiers and the Christian influence that destroyed some beautiful carvings and paintings.
After Luxor, and feeling very templed out, we returned to Cairo (yet another mammoth train ride). Then Matt, his brother Hugh and I decided to spend our last couple of days in Egypt in Sinai, the peninsula famous for Mt Sinai and the Red Sea. We had our sights set on scuba diving there, and stayed in a little place called Shark Bay, which was fortunately a hell of a lot less touristy than Sharm El Sheikh, which is tourist and horrible development-central. The development along the coast is absolutely unbelievable and entirely unfettered. I don't know when it will stop, or when the damage to the reefs will!
We did a shore dive on my birthday, which was pretty cool, but the diving didn't get spectacular until we took a boat out for the day to go to the islands in the Straight of Tiran. There are some amazing shipwrecks there and the reefs are absolutely beautiful; long vertical walls of coral, fish and plenty of things I'd never seen before. We dived at Woodhouse and Jackson Reefs.
Unfortunately poor Matt got ill and was unable to come diving with Hugh and I, so he just slept on the deck of the boat all day! Fortunately by the afternoon he was feeling better and able to snorkel a little. It was a great day out, the weather was great, the instructors were champs and now I'm keen to do a diving course when I get home!
But all good things had to come to an end, so we cruised back to Cairo and after a massive argument with the hostel management, parted ways, me off to Paris for the last week of my holiday and the Haskett clan off to Tunisia for some more adventures.
In Paris I spent my week just wandering the city with my jaw trailing behind me at all the grandeur of the architecture after being in Africa (and drooling all day because on every corner there is a bakery, cafe or patisserie!).
It was cool to visit Place Concorde where the second obelisk, removed from Luxor Temple and given to the French by the Egyptian Mohammed Ali as a present, is located, after seeing the other one first in Luxor. I didn't really do much touristy stuff but just enjoyed wandering the city, window shopping and enjoying being back in a bit of normality again. One thing worth mentioning is the Georges Pompidou centre, once a train station but now a cool modern art museum, complete with TinTin exhibition :). It's a work of art in itself!
I also befriended a couple of Moroccan guys who couldn't speak much English, and with my limited French the conversations were quite amusing! Let's just say we both improved our relevant languages. Hung out with a few other backpackers and spent some nice nights up at the Sacre Coeur looking over the city and drinking wine.
So then I returned home, first stopping off in Melbourne for my Red Cross debrief. I caught up with some of my good mates, and spent the weekend with my buddies from school. They had fortuitously organised a bit of a reunion which coincided with my arrival, so it was great fun!
We went to Daylesford where two friends have just bought a house and spent the weekend basically just eating, drinking and enjoying the goodies that beautiful Daylesford has to offer (it is a spa town after all!). Then after a few days at home I went to Canberra to visit some mates from work. We took a road trip up to Sydney, where I am now. Today I'm just cruising into the city to meet up with another friend I met on my travels in Cambodia many years ago. So all up it's been great fun, cheers to everyone that made it so excellent.
So back to reality; when I return home I need to get my life in order again, including finding myself a house, going back to work (d'oh!) and visiting all the pubs I haven't patronised for a year. Hehe! Plus its a great time to be back in Adelaide because there is lots happening events-wise such as WOMADelaide and the Fringe Festival. Should be great.
So, there it is; the end of my adventure. For the time being :)
