Cruise started moving @ 12 am. Reach Luxor in the morning (??)
I woke up in the morning. It was already bright but I reckon the sun is not up yet. I wanted to catch the sun rise. Went up to the deck and Kim, Ching Yee and few girls are already up. We saw the cruise approaching Luxor. Luxor was on our right where the sun was rising. On our left i.e. west bank we could see a mountain and we presumed that is the Valley of the Kings. Upon close scrutiny, we could see two hot air balloons.
1. Valley of the Kings
View of the mountain that surrounds the Valley of the Kings. We'll be going there later in the morning.
The bus took us to the Valley of the King, across the Nile via a bridge. As we reach the Valley, Mido started telling us about the valley. In order to hide the tomb, ze have to sepalate the temple from ze tombs. In Ancient Egyptian time, if you remember all the temples we have seen, ze temples and ze tombs are side by side. In order to protect the tomb, ze sepalate the temple by building the temple in the west side of the Nile and the tomb in the east side of Nile. This way, ze Valley is safe. As you can see, every where in the valley looks the same. There have been tourist who were lost. That was the time before these roads are built.
He also said that most Egyptologist considered King Tutankhamun as Zero King. Yet, his tomb with 4 rooms were filled with treasures. Imagine Kings like Ramesses II who had 92 rooms in his . How much treasures there were! All stolen!
Cameras are not allowed in the tomb and he don't suggest us taking pictures as it was too poorly lit anyway. He said we can always buy postcards - there are people selling postcards 10 pieces for USD$1? We reached the stop area for busses and have to take a smaller train-like bus to the tomb.
We went inside 3 tombs:
1. KV 1: Rameses VII. Here he explained at the entrance, in front of a map, the layout of the tomb. He's not allowed to speak inside the tomb as it will be very noisy if all the tour guides started talking.
2. KV 6: Rameses IX.
3. KV 9: Rameses V/VI. This tomb has a sarcophagus.
I asked Mido why some of the relief depicted people standing upside down? Why some stand sideways? He said it was because the ancient people, ze dunno how the second life looked like. It could be like this or that. So they just use their imagination and drew how ze think second life looked like.
2. Queen Hatshepsut Temple
Hatshepsut Temple from a distance
Across the mountain, 5 minute drive from Valley of the King is this magnificient temple build at the foot of the mountain. This temple is pronounced as hot-chick-soup. He told us a story about the Queen and the step son, a famous King who, in order to erase all memory of his evil step mother, expanded Egypt's empire on all direction of the compass. See CY's video, when it is ready, that is..
Closer look at Hatshepsut. It's still quite a long walk. The picture does not do this Temple (in fact, all of Egypt) any justice. One has to go there to appreciate Egypt's majesty.
On our way back to the bus, he pointed to us a group of people above Hatshepsut temple and said that these people walked all the way across the mountain from the Valley of the King. It's extremely hot in these weather and people are still doing it? Why? "Because of adventure". I asked about the hot air ballon and he said that the ballon will take you up (for an hour?) and just stay there. It does not move. And it cost USD$200! So why do people do it? He shrugged "ze thinks it is an adventure."
3. Alabaster factory
Me and CY bought a pyramid each. Who said I didn't spend :P
HZ bought a statue of Isis using our negotiation technique. Back in Malaysia, that statue broke in half.
Kim held a plate and it shattered in her arm.
So much for quality product.
4. Karnak Temple
Main pylons of Karnak Temple. Karnak has so many additions over the years that there are a couple of pylons before leading to the Great Hypostyle Hall.
- biggest temple in Egypt
- talked abt the row of rams leading towards the pylons
- if you notice, the reliefs are dugged much deeper here in order to prove???
- talked abt hypostyle hall, 134 columns.. one row of columns are higher than the other row too allow light to come in. The columns are huge. According to HZ/Kim, 10 of them tried to hug the column with arms outstretched - and they could barely circled it.
- talked abt the obelisks (Hatshepsut's?)
- talked abt the biggest giant scarab in Egypt - how if you circle it a few times, your wishes (love related) will come true.. people touched the scarab until the marks are rubbed off.
- talk abt the lake where the priests cleanse themselves before prayers.
Ahead is the Great Hypostyle Hall. The statue to the left is one of the many statues of Rameses II and his wife (the small figurine at the base).
5. Quick lunch because we are very late!
6. Tea time and sunset at Luxor.
7. Luxor Temple
Luxor Temple at night. To recognize Luxor Temple: It has one sitting statue of Ramses and (supposedly) 2 standing statues at each side of the pylon. There's also one obelisk in the entrance.
Fascinating story telling here because we visited this site in the evening and the air was cool and comfortable.
Story of Ramses II - Mido told us the story by drawing on the sand with his leg, just outside the pylons. Ramses II prayed to God for strength. He said that he's fighting in His name. Please grant him the strength and courage to win or he'll never believe Him again. With total conviction, Ramses II went into the enemy city alone and won the battle. He felt "proud" and inscribed his name in every relief in the temple to tell the world of his conquest in everything.
Luxor Temple is the temple with two standing statues on Ramses II and one sitting statue on each side of the pylons. Also, there should be two obelisks but one of them was given to France in exchange for a clock tower (now in Mohammad Ali Mosque). Mido complained that that obelisk brought lots of tourist to France instead of Egypt.
There is also a mosque in Luxor Temple. The reason is that when the built the mosque, they didn't know that there is an entire temple complex beside it as it was buried in the sand. Only 200 (or 300?) years later they discovered the huge temple complex. By then, the mosque is already a way of life for the Muslims and in Egypt, any building older than 200 years is considered a historical site and cannot be demolished. That is why you can see the mosque in Luxor temple.
Ramses II also liked the statue of King Tutankhamum & wife very much that he put his name on it (Mido called it "recycled") and also built an exact replica.
During ?? AD, the Christians were hunted by Romans and they hid in the temple. They converted the inner temple to a Christian worship area. Ze can't bray to God and
look at the reliefs of all the other Gods, so ze covered it with ?. As you can see here, the ? has peeled off revealing the older reliefs. This ? preserved the reliefs.
How Alexander inscribed his name on one wall of the shrine in the temple to show that he is also a Pharoah of Egypt.
Also saw the first relief with penis - habibi said it depicted "sax" in the ancient times.
9. Karnak Temple Sound & Light
We did not tell Mido that we would be going to Karnak tonight - I asked him in the cruise if he knew whether the Sound & Light will be opened during Ramahdan and he said yes, he thought they would be. I said that we might be going for a visit tonight. After Luxor Temple, I wanted to inform him that we will definitely be going but I couldn't find him in the said obelisk. We were pressing for time, as we had like 10 minutes before the show starts, so we left. We felt guilty of course, as we should have informed our guide where we were going - it's the only responsible thing to do, after all. Later I learned that he waited for us in Luxor Temple. I am sorry about that.
The Sound & Light at Karnak Temple is um, nice. We started at the entrance of the temple. The pylons were lit up. There was a few narrators speaking from some hidden speakers telling us the story of the temple's construction and its history. When the story ends, we moved through the ram sphinxes and into the second pylon. Here we stopped. Certain part of the temple were lit up and another narrator told us story.
I hate to say this but the narrators were boring. These narrators were Englishmen/women and though the accent is clear, the presentation style was too poetic and too, um, classroom-lecture like. After 20 minutes, we were lost and bored and we missed Mido's story telling style.
10. Belly Dancing
There was this odd dance by this guy. He kept on turning around and around and around. It's a wonder that he didn't fell off the stage. Nice performance.
Then came the mock up horse who likes to kiss people's forehead. That's a lame performance. Mido said the horse was not part of any traditional Egyptian dance/culture.
The highlight - belly dancing.. but but.. while she's good, I don't see no belly!! :(
