Egypt

08-September-2024

Sharm-El-Sheikh

This year, my company VDX.TV decided to hold our semi-annual engineering summit at the Grand Rotana Hotel in Sharm-El-Sheikh, Egypt. It is located on the shore of the Red Sea, about 500 kilometers from Cairo.

The hotel is situated on the east coast, making the sunrise spectacular. There was a small hill on the other side, which made the sunrise even more beautiful.

The hotel was amazing. Its private beach had incredible coral formations—the best I have seen in Egypt.

The official meetings were held from Monday, the 9th, to Sunday, the 13th. It was a packed schedule, but it wasn’t too boring. I spent most of my free time talking with others and had a great time during the summit.

Egypt Trip

14-September-2024 – 20th-September-2024

Once the summit was over, I decided to extend my trip to visit the ruins of ancient Egypt. However, my trip started with a boat ride to a coral reef for snorkeling and diving. I call it Day -1 (minus one), as it was arranged by my office.

Day -1

The destination for the boat trip was about two hours away by boat. The place was filled with boats, resembling a floating village.

We did scuba diving and snorkeling, followed by lunch. Snorkeling was a bit difficult as the gear was mostly defective. However, I still enjoyed the experience.

After lunch, the boat took us to another snorkeling spot. This second location was amazing, with plenty of colorful fish and corals.

At the end of the day, we visited the local town. The entire town is like a mall, with all kinds of shops and stores.

Day 0

Our flight to Cairo was scheduled for the night of the next day (Sunday, 15th September), so we had a free day. We booked a package trip to the famous Blue Hole in Dahab. The package included short ATV rides, a camel ride, snorkeling at the Blue Hole (snorkeling gear was extra), and a visit to the Coloured Canyon.

I enjoyed both the ATV and camel rides.

However, the Blue Hole was a bit of a disappointment. I didn’t snorkel, as there weren’t many corals to see. While the hole itself was prominent, it wasn’t as impressive as we had imagined. Since me and few others didn’t go snorkeling, our guide took us to a higher vantage point where we could take fantastic photos.

After the visit to the Blue Hole, we headed to the Coloured Canyon. I’m not sure about its history, but the canyon was an incredible sight. Although it was very hot, I wished we could have spent more time there. I did manage to take plenty of beautiful photos.

After the trip, we returned to the hotel. I had already checked out in the morning, so I took a shower at the gym and had a quick dinner before we headed to the airport for our flight to Cairo.

Day 1

We hired a trip planner, Mr. Omar (+201005433269), from Luxor. He arranged our entire trip, from airport pickup to airport drop-off. However, he did not arrange the hotel for Sunday night, so we booked a hotel in Giza, assuming we would visit the Pyramids first. However, our guide had other plans, and we went to the Egyptian Museum instead.

Egyptian Museum

The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, or Egyptian Museum, is the oldest museum in Egypt. A true Egyptian tour begins with a visit to the Egyptian Museum.

The museum is filled with ancient Egyptian artifacts like stone and wooden sculptures, sarcophagi, Sphinxes, wall art, scripts, papyri, and much more. It didn’t make sense to capture too many pictures since most of them are readily available on the internet. So, I took minimal photos and enjoyed the tour. While most parts of the museum allow photography, the room with the Funerary Golden Mask of King Tutankhamun has a strict no-photo policy. I accidentally took a picture there, and they politely asked me to delete it. Overall, the trip to the museum was fantastic.

The Perfume Shop, Hibiscus Tea, and Koshari

After visiting the Egyptian Museum, our guide took us to a perfume shop to store our luggage. Since we hadn’t had breakfast yet, they also arranged it for us.

In Egyptian tradition, they offer a welcome drink—either coffee, Hibiscus tea, or a cold drink. The perfume shop followed this tradition. This was the first time I had Hibiscus tea, and I loved it.

They also served us Koshari for breakfast (we paid for it), which is a staple food in Egypt. It was really tasty, but it was far more than we could manage for breakfast, so we were full for the rest of the day.

Since it was a perfume shop, they gave us a demonstration of their perfumes. However, the perfumes were extremely expensive, so we politely declined and left for the Pyramids.

Pyramids and Sphinx

The Pyramids and the Sphinx are the most iconic artifacts to visit in Egypt. Until now, I had only seen them in pictures, but in reality, they were just as magnificent as I had imagined. The pyramids are built on a high plateau, far above the Nile’s water level. The large pyramid consists of millions of individual stones, each likely weighing several tons. The sheer size of these stones is mind-blowing.

After this we finally started for the great pyramid of egypt. Our tour guide arranged the ticket for the pyramid premises, however we had to buy ticket to enter the pyramid. He also suggested not to go inside the large pyramid. Instead, he asked us to go inside the smallest one. It was a good advise as it is suffocating inside.

The place have three prominent pyramids for three faraos. Six (two for each faraos) more smaller, almost destroyed pyramids are their. We didnot go there. But we can see them all.

Our first destination was at the -big pyramid-. We just took few photos, climed a bit and thats all. It is hard to believe that this pyramids are man made. Each pieces of stones are so big that xxx. We climbed upto the entrance and came down.

We went to the smallest pyramid premises and enter the pyramid. It was narrow slippery tunnel with no vetilention. However, it was amazing and we would have missed a important thing if we would not have gone there.

After pyramids, we went to see phinx. It is

The bus journey to Luxor

We took bus to luxor from cairo. It was a 9:30 hrs journey in a marcedes benz luxory bus. We started at 5:30 pm and reached by 3am. The bus stopped multiple times for food and toilet.

Day 2: Luxor

We reached luxor 1hr eariler than we anticipated at 3:00 am. So, tour giude put us at our cruise for freshen up and rest.

We went for hot air baloon before sunrise arround 5am.

Hot Air Baloon Ride

Baloon ride started when sun is about to rise. It was a huge coordination ammong lot of people. First they started blowing cold air to inflate the baloon followed by hot air. As baloon started ascending, we hopped into the basket.

As we ascended, we were mesmorised by the view of horizon filled with baloons. The sun risen behind the Nile river little after we ascended to a level.

We started desending after some time (about 20 minute). However it was pretty long process and involved lot of crews.

Kings valley

Our next destination is the Kings Valley. It is a valley with under ground tombs of Kings and Faraos.

Ancient egyptian have curved out the lime stone to hills to make this tombs.

There are several tombs. However one ticket allows only 3 tomb visits. I cheated a bit and visited 2 6 8 11. 8 was the deepest. 11 had most intact painting.

Karnak village

Guide took us to Karnak village where they were making items out of albaster stone. We were able to reduce the price to 10% of what they asked.

Karnak Temple

Karnak Temple is situated at Luxor. It is built on top a huge area. I contains large numbers of stone piller. Each of the pillers heights is about 10Mtr and diameter is about 2mtr. It also contains several stone culptures of faraos and different annimals they worshipped. I have 2 complete obelix and a half obelix.

Experience on Cruise

We checked in in the cruise at 3:40 am in the morning. However, we were their just for and hour before we went away for hot air baloon ride.

We really checked in at our cruise at 1pm only. We were very tired at that time. So, had our lunch and went for nap. Lunch was really awesome with lot of different salad, vegetables and deserts.

At the evening, I awaked up and found that our ship is about to cross a dam. So, I just put on something and run to the sundeck. The dam was small. However, it needed same manuever as panama canal gate. I has only 1 stage though. So, it was an interesting surprize.

There was another suprise waiting for us at the evening. They throw a free cocktail party. It was well decorated and nice separation between alcoholic and non-alcoholic cocktails. However, they looks exactly same.

We reached Edfu town around 10:30 pm and docked here for the night.

Day 3: Edfu

On the Wednesday morning we got an awake up call from the ship. After having breakfast at the ship, went out. Our tour was waiting there already. He took us to the Edfu temple using horse pulled cart.

The town itself is very simple and ordinary temple. It is very similar to Indian towns.

Edfu Temple

Edfu temple is the second largest temple in the Egypt after Karnak temple. It is the best preserved temple so far.

Edfu temple is temple of revenge and victory. Basically, God horas take revenge for her mother XXX with Seith. The story is interesting and it more interesting with the wall patings. The entire temple is about symbolism same as everything else in the ancient egypt.

The temple was built by 11 different kings from XXX 2 to XXX 12. The outside paintings and curvings are about the King 12 King.

The temple starts with common ground where general people cloud present their offiering to the god. It sorrounded by three wall and the entrance to the holypart of the temple. The three wall also have 32 stone pillers just like Katnak temple. This 32 pillers represent 30 priest, high priest and the king.

The holy part of the temple is primarily made of pillers with very tall cellings. At the end of the holy part there is a sacred area where horas lived. High priest or the king would present there offering to the god thrice every day. They would not show there back to god, so they would walk backward while comming back.

Kom Ombo Temple

Kom ombo Temple is the temple of two god. It is very near to the nile. In fact one of the entrance gate piller fall into to the nile due erosion.

Day 4

Our day 4 started very early as we checkout of the cruise at 4 am in the morning and started for Abu Simbel Temple which is about 200KM south to the Aswan.

Abu Simbel

Abu Simbel temple is situated beside lake nasser. Lake nasser becomes a lake when they build the high dam on river nile. Basically, the high dam created a 500km long lake. Lake nasser is a part of it.

The temple was curved out of hill by cutting out all the stones. The original temple was well bellow the current water level at lake nasser. So, unesco move the entire temple to high land. Unesco actually saved several such temples by moving them to different places.

Temple of Philae

It is another temple that was submerge in the water after 1st dam was buit. They moved the entire temple stone-by-stone to a high ground. Although they did a great job, it is not perfect as the choosen high ground is smaller than the original one. So, they had to squize the temple and they did a pretty bad job as wall in front of another wall.

New Fake Nubian Village

Nubian were lived south the old dam. However, they had to moved to north of it as original village got flooded. Now a the entire village is dependent on tourism. They also pet crocodile as an exbition.

Everyone in my group loved this village. They also pet the crocodile to take photo. However, I hate this place. Every thing about this village is fake and have only one purpose that is to milk the tourist. Every bricks, designs, streets are their for lure tourist. It is like a market not a village.

I also don’t like the idea of petting crocodile. They are not really petting them. That is a show piece for tourist. Villagers kept those crocodile in extremely confined space where they can’t ever strech. When they give the crocodile to a tourist, they tie its jaws so that it can’t bite. It was so cruel. I didn’t pet it.

Aswan

After that Nubian village, we went to a restaurant near to Aswan railway station. We kept our bags there and went to local market after having some lunch.

The sleeping train

We reached station almost 45 min before the time. The train was there. So, we boarded the train.

The train is a big disappointment. The cabin is really really small for the price. Also, it is way below the standard. I mean 3 tier AC train in India is way better than this.

While the train was really dirty and they did not provided any towel, bed was clean and we slept very well. Next morning we awake pretty late and started preparing our self to deboarding at El-giza stop. Train was running on time.

Day 5

We reached to Cairo on time. We deboarded at El-Giza Station. After freshen up a bit, we started our site-seeing.

Museum of Civilization

Our first destination was to the museum of civilizations.

Citadel