Tag Archives: Egypt

Visit to Beni Hassan – Day 5

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Today was another 6.00 am rise. We forgo a morning shower so we’d have plenty of time to eat breakfast. We travelled to the Egyptian Cemetery site of Beni Hassan. This was across the river and took an hour or so to get there. The route was very long, going out of the way so that we stayed on the main roads. This was apparently insisted on by the police. On the road we went past a large prison, many women waiting outside, presumably visiting. Getting on to the main road, we went through a toll. Only cars and trucks are stopped to pay, the tourist buses are allowed to pass through for free.

Arrived at Beni Hassan where there was a short walk up the hill to an array of tombs. Good view of the Nile, which was not far away. For much of the Northern part of the river, the green fertile belt is very small on the East side. The West side has a much wider strip. The East side is more rugged and gets higher very quickly.

There were three tombs we were able to view. On this visit we encountered some German tourists who were there before us! We visited three tombs, tomb 15 Baqet from Dynasty 11, tomb 3 Khnumhotep from Dynasty 12, tomb 2 Amenemhet from Dynasty 12. The first and third tombs had excellent paintings.

We now had an hour’s drive back to the boat for lunch, and then out quickly afterwards to the Tomb of Petrosiris. This tomb was on our side of the river, but we crossed over, went on past where we were in the morning (almost), crossed over the river again, and backtracked a way. It would have been so much better if we could have had a packed lunch and continued to the second site. Several hours of time would have been saved.

At Tuna El Gebel we visited the Tomb of Petrosiris. I did not buy a photography ticket, it was around £15, which was the same price as the previous site. I regretted not buying it very quickly, but did get some pictures when the tomb guardian allowed me to do so after I gave him a tip.

After this tomb, we went into the Catacomb galleries. There was a mummified baboon there to be seen. As we entered the one gallery, one of our group fell badly. The consensus was we would not continue. There were bats in the catacomb. I don’t have photographs as it was rather on the dark side. Amazing how many people don’t like bats!!! We regretted not bringing out bat detector. Luckily the person who fell was fine with no after effects.

The way back to the ship was more direct, on the way we stopped off to see a couple of Baboon statues. We then continued on to the ship through the local roads. They were rather busy and it took sometime to reach the ship, despite out police escort.

We arrived back rather late, time for a quick shower, then cocktails and supper. After supper, we went for a walk around the local town of El Minya, with our guides. But it proved to be rather embarrassing, there were 18 of us on the walk, and 21 police protecting us. Armed police, plain-clothed police, young balaclava wearing police, police motorcyclist and a squad car. Traffic held up at each junction. Other people were kept away from us and we moved along in a tight group. We walked up the street past shops, which we could not enter. One of our group was able to purchase a touch. One of the guides went into the shop with him and bought it in record time. But we did manage to shake hands with some young children who were out near the boat enjoying the fine evening.

Back at the cruise boat there was a Folkloric show in full swing. This had already started before we got back, so we caught only the last minutes of the Whirling Dervish. The rest of the dancing was rather mediocre, one person could dance, while the rest watched and followed along slightly out of time.

We remained at El Minya overnight.

Visit to Maydoum Pyramid at Meidum – Day 4

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Early morning starts are not an issue, on holiday I typically wake at random intervals and look out of the window. Rosemary is not always best pleased when I point something out to her, but I don’t want her to miss anything. But she’s often awake, too. Anyway, we woke before the wake-up call, dressed and headed out for breakfast. For breakfast, today I had a small amount of fruit only. The previous day of heavy eating was beginning to weigh heavily on my stomach.

We walked out of the boat before 7.00, clutching our bottles of water. The hour’s drive to the pyramid was through many villages and fields, on a very hazy day. The pyramid was not in sight until we were right on top of it. Loads of three-wheeler taxis, donkey carts etc. Quite fascinating looking at the crops being grown. Alfalfa for the cattle, oranges, bananas, wheat, and masses of garlic. The cultivated area here extended a long way West of the Nile with some large irrigation canals. The roads were mainly tarmacked dual carriage, with speed humps every mile or so. The pyramid was on higher ground, in a dry area. Nearby, there was construction of new factories. LG has a factory somewhere, and we saw a Samsung factory being built. Egypt is trying to encourage construction in the desert instead of the green Nile belt. Crop production needs to increase as the population of Egypt increases.

At this pyramid there was masses of security. The road had barriers, so the buses had to zig-zag down the entry road, police here had solid metal, floor mounted shields. We were the only tourists at the pyramid. Apparently, there are perhaps a couple of tours a day.

As well as the pyramid, there were some tombs of eminent nobles. The chamber tombs were built of mud brick, some going back to the 4th dynasty of the Old Kingdom

The strangely shaped Maydoum Pyramid was started by King Huni at the end of the 3rd dynasty. King Sneferu, 1st pharaoh of the 4th dynasty, is said to have completed it. The height is about 70 meters. The entrance is on the North side and leads to a 57 meter long passage where there are two small chambers and the burial chamber. We were able to walk down a staircase deep into the pyramid to the burial chamber. Well worth the walk down. Steep, cramped, not for the tall bod, and definitely warm down there. Ended in a climb up two wide-runged vertical ladders. With no free hands (my two were clutching my camera & my phone which I was using as a torch), I did find it a tad tricky.

Soon we were back at the boat, which immediately set sail for El Minya. We took the opportunity to investigate the on board shop where we purchased ourselves some traditional Egyptian clothing, for a dinner to be held on some future night, and a stone cat from Sinai (an essential, R told me). Lunch today was huge, an Egyptian lunch. Chicken, beef, lots of salads, dips, sesame, aubergine, tomatoes etc. Small dishes placed on the table for sharing. We’d managed to sit down with two semi-vegetarians. so were rather overwhelmed by the the quantities of meat dishes. One chap had kidney stone problems, so had learnt to avoid raspberries, chocolate, tomatoes and spinach. He said it really helped him avoid the stones forming.

The afternoon was spent recovering from the indulgence, lying around like dead sheep, but we still managed a cup of tea at the appropriate time.

When we returned for lunch, there was usually a towel construction on one of our beds – an animal, flower or human. Do not understand why, but it seems to be standard for cruises.

Today was Friday, the holy day. The calls to prayer appear to be a competition. You are in view of several mosques at the same time, all with slightly differing clocks. At dawn, midday and sunset the call to prayer was particularly vocal, with each mosque appearing to compete with the neighbouring mosques for their congregation. I was not aware of the afternoon and evening prayers. We had another George Hart lecture This time on Pharaohs and Nomarchs (sic, Nomarchs) covering the Middle Kingdom and a preview of the tomorrow’s sightseeing. I do admit that Heavy Eyelid Syndrome does come with these talks.

Then it was time for preprandials and dinner. (We seemed to have abandoned our no-drinking-on-a-school-night rule.)

Cruise day from Cairo to Beni-Suif – Day 3

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We now made a start on our 600-mile Nile river cruise to Aswan. The long cruise from Cairo to Aswan is still a little unusual, not many boats do this stretch. Nile cruises typically run between Luxor and Aswan. The long cruises operated up until 1991 after which the middle section of the Nile remained closed. In the Nineties members of the al Gama’a al-Islamiyya Islamist group fired at tourist vessels and in 1997 the group killed 62 people, mainly tourists, at the site of Deir el-Bahari in Luxor. The Arab Spring in 2011 and ensuing chaos following the election of Mohamed Morsi made policing the river a low priority. It reopened briefly in 2013 until a change was made to Foreign Office advice. The long cruise started again on the 26th November 2014 following lobbying from travel companies, including the local agent Traveline. Traveline owns our ship, the SS Misr, and provided the Egyptian guides for our trip.

We set sail some time early in the morning, around 4 am apparently. I woke Rosemary at 5.30 to tell her we were travelling, and hence “doing things”, which I thought would please her, but she was not best pleased. There was a late breakfast at 8.00, after which we spent the morning on the deck watching the banks go by. It was not very warm, and I was reduced to putting on my Fat Face sweatshirt. There were many birds to spot, Crows, Pigeons, Egrets, Ibis, Swallows and Kingfishers. The Swallows were swooping over the water feeding on insects, the Egrets seemed to be the garbage collectors. Pied Kingfishers were very abundant when you knew where to look. Nice to watch the mix of green fields and housing. Lots of brick works with their tall chimneys. There was also the constant waving and whistling between the people on the shore and boat. We saw a dredger moving along the Nile, I assume it was moving to another location to dig out some of the irrigation canals. Its method of propulsion was to use its digger bucket, dipping the bucket into the water and swinging it towards the back, alternatively on either side.

Other features of the landscape were the number of Dalek-like pigeon lofts. Pigeons are a favourite food in Egypt, not that we were served with any. The number of chimneys on the bank numbered thousands. These were the brick works. Some were derelict, while others were still in use and a small number were actually firing bricks. Egypt has natural gas, so another feature was the number of power cables and power stations on the bank. Some brilliant towers.

To break the day up, we had a talk by the guides, Sherif and Anwar, and then our usual large lunch, back on deck followed by a fire drill (when I found the first life jacket I picked up could not be closed). More time on deck and then tea. After tea, we had a lecture on The Pyramid Age by George Hart. George is a retired Eguptologist from the British Museum. This lecture covered the old period, the Pyramid Age. Just before the lecture started, the tender was launched with a lot of commotion. The tender then had trouble starting its engine, so the accompanying police launch had to rescue them. Unfortunately, the lecture was due to start, so we never saw the outcome of this crisis. I think the tender was launched because of low water levels. I learnt on the last day of the cruise, there was a man at the foredeck of the SS Misr who constantly probed the water to find the depth throughout the whole voyage. I knew there was a crew member who came on deck before we went under a bridge. He would check a height measure against the height of the funnel, and then stand at the front of the boat with the measure upright to make sure we were lower than the bridge. I am not sure what would have happened if we here too high. I can’t believe we could have slowed down in time. If we were found to be too tall, the funnel could be lowered along with all the sun parasols over the loungers. This did happen at one bridge, the crew prepared the deck before we had reached it.

The boat moored up at Beni-Suif at dusk. We were moored up in a secure area, complete with watchtowers, police guards and of course a gated area immediately alongside us.

Dinner, but first cocktails at the bar, Gin Fizz for R and a Mojito for Steve. Tonight was an International buffet. Lamb rack for the meat, and some Red Mullet on the bone for the fish. The Mullet was very nice, though bony. After the dessert came the banging and the cake. Round the room it came, passing Rosemary by. Other tables were asked where the people from room 201 were. I was told by R to go and point out where she was, but somehow I ended up with a glass of red wine instead. Some loss of communication (or perhaps not)! Eventually Rosemary was located and duly received her cake, with a large piece of chocolate with her name iced on. The guides gave her a silver ankh, which was a lot more than I did and very kind of them. She cut the cake and the slices were duly passed around. Another birthday to come I hear.

Early night as we had an early start in the morning, a 5.45 am call for the next day.

Giza and Cairo – Day 2

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Six o’clock alarm, up and breakfast. Headed up the (very) grand staircase for breakfast. The ship’s maitre d’ squirts your hand with disinfectant, a plague of diarrhoea or norovirus would be disastrous amongst the clientele, and advises you on your choice. Breakfast consisted of sticky pastries, cereals (alas no Jordans, which is now sold in French supermarkets), yogurts, fresh fruits, cheeses, breads, boiled eggs, crepes, omelettes. I got stuck behind one client who was trying to explain to the chef what an easy-over egg is.

Soon we were herded onto our buses, clutching our Whispers (radio sound systems) and bottles of water for the trip to Giza and the pyramids.  The road there took us past many rather derelict looking blocks of flats. The Egyptians seem to build reinforced concrete skeleton structures up to around 10 storeys high, using wooden scaffolding. The walls are then filled in with bricks. Many of the apartments are so close together, you could shake hands with your neighbour in the block opposite. So many looked derelict with walls broken down. We were assured by our guide that there was a good property market in these seemingly ruined buildings that had not been completed, often being bought and sold several times over to ensure inflation (30%) did not erode capital.

The pyramids appeared busy to us, but apparently, this was not so. First stop was at a high point to take pictures of the three main pyramids. Then back to the pyramids to see the Solar Boat in its humidity controlled museum. It is a vessel reconstructed from remains found in one of the boat pits sunk around Cheop’s (aka Khufu) pyramid. (We soon discovered everyone in Egyptology has multiple names, some Greek ones, & guises. Sigh. A soon as you thought you’d cracked it and knew who was who, it changed.) The barge was to transport the dead Pharaoh Khufu across the heavens, with the sun god Ra, to his afterlife. The barge, made entirely of Lebanese cedar wood, is over 141 feet long and took 14 years to reassemble. There is evidence of Nile water in the timbers, so perhaps it once floated. We spent some amount of time looking at the old original preserved ropes and the cedar built boat itself. The boat had been found in the 1950s in its original 30 meters long pit, covered with 41 large blocks of limestone weighing about 18 tonnes. These blocks were 4.5 metres long, 1.80 meters high and 85 cm thick. The dismantled parts of the boat were in this pit, placed as 1224 wooden piece in 13 layers.  The whole jigsaw was put together and can be seen here. A model of the original boat has been designed at a scale of 1:10. It shows the boat with 12 oars, ten in the middle, 2 in the stern for the rudder. In addition to the royal cabin in the centre there is a small captain’s cabin at the prow. Interesting construction, the planks were roped together, not pinned.

We were offered an optional visit into the heart of Khufu Pyramid. The ticket was expensive, and we were to go into Meidum pyramid in a couple of days, so there were no takers. Back on the bus, hands disinfected, we were off the to see the Sphinx and the Causeway to the pyramid. As well as the Sphinx, there is the Valley Temple of Khafre built from tremendous granite blocks.

All the sites were heaving with vendors trying to entice you on to their camels or sell you items. We were told it was best to avoid any eye contact or show any sign of interest when passing through such areas. The sales pitches are: one dollar items, which are not the items you will get, but something else, free gifts where they relentlessly chase you down and claim money from you, and cheap camel rides, where they charge you a small amount to get on and take a photo, but a hundred dollars to get off. One chap was offered several camels in exchange for his wife. Fancy not taking up the offer.

Back to the boat accompanies by our police escort. R had not realised there was a police escort, but she had wondered why the vehicle behind us was using its siren and never overtaking. We also had a well-dressed police major on board the coach complete with bulging pocket from his automatic pistol. He had accompanied us around the pyramids earlier. Back on board to disinfectant spray on arrival, hot flannels to mop the brow, and a hot drink to revive oneself. The Egyptians believe a cold drink after being out in the sun is bad for you, you must let the body adjust with a hot drink first. Lunchtime back at the boat was a huge buffet, which could be eaten in several courses.  Normally there is a soup course, then a starter of hummus, other dips, breads, salads, cheeses, cold meats, shellfish. Then the main course, which had potatoes, rice, fish, meat, pasta. Dessert was fruits, cheeses, sticky sweets.  I can see I will be putting on serious weight as the days pass. Rosemary v puzzled as to what was the point of going back for lunch and hence “wasting time”. But the rest of the clientele appeared to think it normal & good.

An hour after our return we were back on the coach to the Cairo Museum, where we had a guided tour of the lower section, taking us through the three ages of the Pharaohs. Then to the breathtaking gold Treasures of Tutankhamun. Free time allowed us to look at more casks and tomb goods such as model figures crafted 4000 years ago. Elsewhere, near Giza I think, there is a new Egyptian museum under construction. When this is complete, all of the Treasures of Tutankhamun will be collated to be under one roof.

I had to buy a photography permit to take photos in the museum, but could not take photos in the Treasures section. Photo permits were to become normal and more expensive than today’s 50 EGP. Thereafter it was usually 350 EGP, about £15 GBP. Some couples with a camera each and different ideas of what needed to be photographed and how, were rather aggrieved.

Back to the coach (hand wash) and police escort, then the boat, (hand wash, hot flannels and hot drink), in time for afternoon tea, complete with sweet, not savoury, nibbles.

The idea was that after afternoon tea, we could wash and rest before the ship’s welcome cocktail hour. (R muttered that we were not here to rest, but to do things.) (All afternoon teas and evening drinks sessions were accompanied by a pianist in the salon, playing on a grand piano.) Our cabin faced out onto the Nile, so we could sit on our balcony looking over the river and watch the sun set, while listening to the call to prayer. Magical.

The welcome cocktail before supper was in the lounge, complete with a tower of drinks. Back down to the Marasem Restaurant (immediate hand wash) for a waiter-served meal. I don’t have a record of what it was. We sat at tables of six – seven people, a few more settings were laid than required, so you had some choice if you were the last person into the restaurant. Most meals on board were self-serve buffet, with soup, entrée, main course (I did once go up for two mains, fish and then meat), (very) sweet desserts and cheese & breads. The wine and beers served was limited to a couple of glasses, this was never an issue as there were many non-drinkers and your glass was topped up regularly. The wine choice was Red, White or Rose and they were all an Egyptian make called Obelisk.

After dessert, there was a loud racket of banging drums as the cooks came out with a birthday cake for today’s birthday. R became worried, could tomorrow be her turn? She was sure the tour company would ask before inflicting this on her (GDPR).

After dinner, we were entertained by a couple of male musicians who played traditional instruments. The Oud a short-necked, pear-shaped instrument like a Lute, and a Qanun.  Arabic Qanuns are usually constructed with five skin insets that support a single long bridge resting on five arching pillars, whereas the somewhat smaller Turkish Qanuns are based on just four. This allows Arabic variants of the instrument to have more room for the installation of extreme bass and treble strings. Qanuns manufactured in Turkey generally feature 26 courses of strings, with three strings per course in the case of all regional variants. Contemporary Levantine designs use Nylon or PVC strings that are stretched over the bridge poised on fish-skins as described on one end and attached to wooden tuning pegs at the other end. (And yes, quite right, I didn’t write that bit.)

And so to bed in our twin berthed cabin.

Off to Egypt

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We set off to Heathrow Long Stay carpark (seemed cheaper than Purple Parking this time) putting the Post Code in the Sat Nav. Why? I have no idea. I never usually use Post Codes on Sat Navs. I thought it was taking me a strange way, a way I would not have driven under my own steam. Never mind, the location was where I anticipated the car park to be, so Google knew best, and there was a faster way with the present road conditions. (No holdups on the M40 / M25, as usual, these roads can be fast moving.) Near to the carpark, Google announced we were to turn left up a road but it had an unmovable barrier. Hummph, back to manual control and drove to where I knew the carpark really was, yes, we had attempted to drive into the carpark from the wrong side. Soon parked and on the airport bus to Terminal 2. Immediately on entrance, we were spotted by the Noble Caledonia representative (Sheila), who took our booking details and retrieved our EgyptAir boarding passes for us, pointing the way to the bag drop. A snack lunch at ‘EAT’ and then we were soon boarding the flight for Cairo. We were seated amongst other Noble Caledonia passengers at the back of the plane along with Sheila. We thought most of the passengers were a smidge older or so than us.

The EgyptAir flight was 4 hours 30 minutes with lunch and snack, no alcoholic drinks were served as this was a ‘dry’ flight. Apparently, in business class, they would open your duty free and pour it for you. At Cairo, we were issued with our visas (tourist tax) and passed quickly through customs. A long wait for our baggage, which was all collected together. Delay waiting for the coaches and the police escort (oh yes, indeed) to arrive, then we were off to the boat with our escort. The coach journey took us on to the Cairo Inner Ring Road. Just before we crossed the Nile on the Southern side of Cario, we left the motorway and headed to the moored boat. I was following this on Google Maps until I realised I had left data “on”! Thankfully I used only 500K of data, so my bill was not too bad. Six pounds a MegaByte is definitely usury.

On the journey around Cairo, we spotted lots of new flats being erected, large shopping malls, and an IKEA and of course McDonald’s and Burger King.

At the boat, the SS Misr, we were thrown slightly by the huge wooden staircase. We were shown to our cabins, where there was a rather large late-night snack waiting for us. We were also issued with the itinerary for the next day, including the time of the early morning start. Alarm calls for everybody were set for 6.00am. We managed to be in bed just before midnight.