[Bashies] I'm back from Egypt!

[Tiffany]

Wow, I'll be forever envious :) 

--- luinfalathiel <luinfalathiel@yahoo.ca> wrote:
> 
> Some of you may have seen this - I posted it on
> TORn's main message board yesterday afternoon - but
> for those of you who don't check there, here's my
> story ....
> Hope you were all behaving yourselves while I was
> away. I saw no LOTR material over there ... in fact,
> I'm ashamed to say that there were days when I
> didn't even think about it (gasp)! ;) 
> This will be a shortish report, because if I tried
> to tell you everything I might just crash the
> server. I will be putting my pix up on my site in a
> few days when I get my 10 rolls (!) of film
> developed. 
> It's an incredible country. The people (ordinary
> Egyptians, that is, not the DARNED SHOP VENDORS) are
> really friendly, especially the children, who are
> always shouting "Hello, welcome to Egypt!" and want
> to shake your hand. 
> You may be interested to hear that a man offered
> 300,000 camels for my hand in marriage. Considering
> that a decent camel is worth $1000 Cdn or so, it's
> nice to know that I'm so highly valued. ;) Although
> another of our party was offered 200,000 camels and
> two small elephants. 
> I got to go inside the pyramid of Chephren, the
> second largest one. (The Great Pyramid was closed
> that day, they open them on a rotating basis.) DO
> NOT go in there if you have even a weeee bit of
> claustrophobia. The entrance passage is very steeply
> slanted downward and you have to do it all at a
> crouch, because it's only about 3 x 3.5 feet. Plus,
> it's amazingly stuffy and hot because it's a big
> stone monument stuffed with sweating tourists.
> Amazing though, the walls are so smooth that you can
> barely see where the stones have been fitted
> together. Inside, that is. Outside of course they
> are very heavily weathered. 
> The Sphinx is actually down a hill from Chephren's
> pyramid, it used to sit very close to the banks of
> the Nile when it would flood. Traces of the original
> paint can still be seen on the headdress. I was very
> moved to see the Sphinx with the pyramids in the
> background just like in the books and on TV!!!!
> *sigh* 
> Do not rent a car in Cairo unless you have
> superhuman reflexes. There don't seem to be any
> particular rules of the road. No one uses brakes, no
> one signals - a small toot of the horn and they
> shoot into a small space in front of someone else
> ... plus there are pedestrians leaping out at
> random, donkey carts, dogs, cats .... I was glad
> that we were with an experienced Egyptian driver at
> all times!!! There is also no real check on car
> emissions, so the pollution there is VERY bad. 
> The Egyptian Museum is amazing, if a little
> confusing, a lot of things are poorly labelled or
> not identified at all. If you spent one minute in
> front of every exhibit, it would take you NINE
> MONTHS to see everything. 
> Gazed upon the mask of Tutankhamun. It's a
> mesmerizing piece of work, it was hard to tear
> myself away from it. The treasure of his tomb is
> magnificent. The loveliest thing for me though was
> the little bouquet of flowers that had been left on
> his coffin by his queen .... 
> We only spent one day in Alexandria, and
> unfortunately it was the one day that the new
> library was CLOSED!! We only got to see it from the
> outside. Well, I plan to go back at some point
> anyways. :) Still disappointed though. But walking
> along the beach under a full moon with my toes in
> the warm Mediterranean made up for it a little. 
> After Alex, up to Luxor by train. The Valley of the
> Kings was awesome. We rode donkeys most of the way.
> Had to walk over the top of a ridge, it was very
> steep and hot, I'd say it was about 31 degrees C by
> 9am and climbing fast. We visited three tombs -
> Ramses IX, Ramses III and Prince Merneptah. Tut's
> tomb was an extra 40 Egyptian pounds (about $15 Cdn)
> but I didn't go in because it's not one of the best
> tombs in the valley, historic though it may be. 
> The Temple of Hatshepsut, one of Egypt's most
> powerful queens, is gorgeous. The thing that
> astonishes me the most is the paint that still
> remains on a lot of these 3000 year old walls that
> are outside in the sun and wind! The Temple of
> Karnak was the same, just astonishing. 
> If you get to Luxor you MUST visit the Valley of the
> Queens and the tomb of Nefertari, the favorite wife
> of Rameses II (Rameses the Great). It looks like it
> was just done last week. Jewel-like colours on the
> walls. Her name means "the most beautiful one" and
> she was obviously a lovely woman. 
> Took a boat up the Nile to Aswan. I think Aswan was
> my fave part of the trip, it is a really relaxing
> place, not so touristy as the cities everyone wants
> to see. Still a fair number of vendors in the bazaar
> yelling "Lady! Hey, lady! Excuse me! Special price
> for you! Lady! Lady! Hello!" *grumble* We took a
> felucca ride around Elephantine Island (singing old
> sea shanties, much to the amusement of our boatman
> and other locals!) which concluded with sunset over
> the Western Desert. 
> Also, we rode camels over the desert to the
> Monastery of St. Simeon, from the 6th century CE.
> They were all killed by the Bedouin and the
> monastery was destroyed, but you can still see the
> paintings of the saints in corners. My camel's name
> was Bibi. We got along pretty well. :) 
> Abu Simbel is amazing again ... the Temple of Philae
> .... there is soooooo much more I could tell you
> .... if you get a chance to go DO IT!!! 
> I'm going to stop this report now because I'm pretty
> jet-lagged. As much fun as I had, it's good to be
> home. 
> 
> 
> 
> ---------------------------------
> Post your free ad now! Yahoo! Canada Personals
> 


__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
HotJobs - Search new jobs daily now
http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/