My Egyptian Adventures

I haven't had access to a computer for 7 whole days and before that I was keeping myself rather busy, so here's the first update in nearly two weeks.

I've been to the Cairo museum, I've been to Khan Khalili market, I've been to Aswan, Luxor, Abu Simbel, The Valley of the Kings, The Valley of the Queens, Hatsephut's Temple, The Temple of Karnak, The Temple of Luxor and a small book market which I found on the other side of a metro station. I've met some fantastic people and I've met some arseholes. I've met Australians, Scots, Palestinians, Egyptians, Americans, Germans, Poms and Kiwis. I've seen some pretty cool stuff in the past two weeks and had both great times and rather unpleasant times.

The Cairo Museum is a dream come true for 8-year-olds everywhere. The entrance hall is filled with statues, the largest of which sit at one end facing the entrance. They have serene looks and wry smiles on their faces. It's as if they're quietly laughing at a joke that no one will ever hear again. There are granite sarcophagi dotted everywhere and the floor is dominated by a fresco painted for the heretic Pharoah, Akenaten. Off to one side, slightly away from the other statues is a large beautiful granite bust of a pharoah. The face is staring through you and about 4,000 years back in time. The thousand yard stares of SAS soldiers are nothing compared to the thousand year stares on these statues. The serenity on their faces really gets me. It's as if they're saying 'I know something you don't know, and you'll never find out either.'

There are statues and paintings and models everywhere you look. Papyrus texts cover the walls of the stairwells and gold jewelry fills rooms. Coffins stand against the walls, and 4,000 year old paintings sit there as if they were conceived yesterday. The highlight of course is Tutankhamen's wing. Every treasure from his tomb sits in resplendent glory, surrounded by gawking tourists and shouting guides. Everything though pales in comparison to the famous mask. Someone once described Tutankhamen's mask as 'the most beautiful thing created by man' and you know what? I can't think of any challenger at this point in time. The gold is polished to the highest shine and the lapis lazuli inlay glows blue. The eyes are unparalleled in their realism and I stared at the damn thing for about 40 minutes. I could have stared at it for hours still, but the tourists were swarming, so I left. It sounds sort of silly, but after a while I got tired of seeing these artifacts - it's a sensory overload. You see a few treasures here and there in museums all over the world, and you yearn for more, but here it's a whole different ballgame. Every artifact you could desire is here (as long as you don't request the Rosetta Stone or the Book of the Dead) and it's exhausting. Some of the black granite statues are mesmerising, and would look quite nice in my house, and some are just the same as all the others. To find gems amongst the 'dross' of the museum is fantastic, because you know you've seen the very best of the best.

I met an American guy here at the hostel. His name is Christian, so I call him Christian. He calls me Mike because that's the name of the hotel manager and is one of the only names he can remember. We checked out the Giza pyramids later in the week and I managed to get inside the Great Pyramid. The thing is colossal, truly truly colossal. The entrance looks like a narrow sandstone cave, but after 15 metres or so it narrows down into an even smaller red granite passageway. I'm guessing it's barely 1.2 metres square, so it involved a bit of bending over. This tunnel goes for 20 metres or thereabouts before opening into the Gallery. It's a 3 metre wide, 10 metre high, 40-50 metre long passageway made of massive red granite blocks. The masonry is perfect and the colour flawless. I don't know about other people who've been in there, but I was filled with a sense of wonder - another thing to tick off my Bucket List. At the top of the passage is a short corridor which leads to the burial chamber. This final chamber is 10 metres long, 5 metres wide and at least 6 metres high. The only thing in there is a small sarcophagus. It looks lonely, almost as if it was never meant to be there in the first place. The large box is dwarfed by the room around it. After a couple of minutes in there the lights turned out, so I was essentially stuck in the middle of Khufu's pyramid without a star to steer by. IT WAS AWESOME. Some people in there freaked out a bit, but it was a hell of an adventure, sweaty and oxygen-poor as it was. When the lights came back on I slowly walked out, soaking everything in. I get that uplifted feeling even a week later when I sit here typing this. I was in the pyramid. Epic.

Christian and I checked out the Khan Kalili market too. It's a thousand-year-old market which sits in Cairo. If you want to be surrounded by exotic smells, clothes, people and language, then go here. Just be prepared for the hassle. I'm not claustrophobic in the slightest, but my heart did start to race a bit as the stall holders swarmed around and tried to drag me into their store, 'La, halas' is all I could say (No, it's over/finished/done in Arabic). One joker told me that he 'didn't care about my money, just my friendship' as he tried to charge me 270 LE (about $65 AUD) for 2 head scarves. We got down to 80 for two when Christian said 'This guy over here wants 40 for 2'. Problem solved. I swear I've turned into a magpie. I don't look at jewelry at all at home, but as soon as I pass a jewelry shop here I go 'Ooh! Shiny!' and gravitate towards it. The thing about the jewelry here is that alot of it is modelled in the same style as the artifacts that were taken from tombs, so there's the wonderful mix of gold and lapis lazuli. I wouldn't wear it because it's too flashy, and I wouldn't buy it because gold is bloody expensive, but it is nice to look at. I almost want to build a damn nest out of the stuff and fluff my plumage.

One guy had the nerve to grab my arm and drag me towards his shop despite my protestations. I grabbed his bicep, gripped under the muscle and said 'No. Halas. Understand?' He let go. that's a problem I've found over here, and I'm starting to understand why the middle-east struggles with the idea of peace. It seems that the only language these people will listen to come the end is the language of threats or physical violence. I don't like that. I liked floating through Peru, smiling at everyone and being open to new experiences. Here I have to shut down a bit and play the stone-hearted arsehole. It can be fun, for sure, but after a while I get tired of being on edge. At any rate, I found an eye of Horus for my travel necklace that I'm putting together and went on my way. Our driver, Achmed spent the day trying to teach us Arabic. Christian is quite the linguist, so he knew the right questions to ask. We can now say 'Where is [insert word here]' 'I want [insert word here] 'My friend' 'That' 'BAKSHEESH! (Give me a tip!) and 'Gay'. I'm not sure how many times I've told an Egyptian that Christian is gay, nor how many times he's returned the favour, but it's happened ALOT. Isn't learning fun? I think the highlight was yelling 'Gay gay gay gay gay' out of the car as we drove through downtown Cairo. Apparently this is considered very offensive. I like to think we're doing our part to improve international relations with the Middle-east.

I met up with Rose and Linda again on the 10th. My travel plans had changed which meant we could catch up again (travellers can't take day trains anymore, so it meant spending an extra day and night in Cairo). We went to the Mohammed Ali mosque, some other mosque, the Egyptian museum where I looked at tut's mask again then picked up Christian and went out to dinner at some Egyptian place. The food was pretty good, but part of my kebab dish wasn't chunks of meat, it was more like mince that had been cooked on a stick. It looked like a dog turd steaming happily on a bed of lettuce. Food fit for a beggar. From the restaurant we went to the river where we took a felucca ride along the Nile thanks to Mostafa, Rose's Egyptian friend. Sailing the Nile is nice at night; there are no crowds, there isn't much sound, the sky is clearer, the lights shine brightly, and there are hardly any Egyptians around either. I'll get to why the last one is important later on. From the felucca we hit the market again. Christian bought 2 Galabayas (Arab man-dresses) and I grabbed a couple of floaty shirts. Took ages to find what I wanted, but I got it in the end and paid too much because I couldn't be arsed arguing with a shirt seller at 2am. A change had come over Rose and Linda since I'd last seen them. When they left they were fairly floaty and tolerant of most things, but since their return from Luxor and Aswan they wanted out. They didn't tolerate the hassle for a second and they seemed pretty on edge and angry. Some of the negative energy rubbed off on me, and some of the shine of Egypt was tarnished a bit. It wasn't their fault though - I'd been walking around with a Kiwi the day earlier, and he too had come back from Luxor and Aswan steaming. He was sick of the constant Baksheesh and conmen too. It was more the fact that I was reaching the end of my tether too as far as Cairo was concerned and I needed a change of scenery.

We said goodbye to the girls and went back to the hotel. The next day was the day we slummed around and prepared for the night train to Aswan... Ah the night train to Aswan. That was an... interesting trip. More on that in the next update tomorrow.