Up at 3am to join an armed convoy to see Ramses II mighty temple at Abu Simbel. It took around 4 hours to get ther as it is 280km south of Aswan and only 40km north of Sudan. Apparently some tourists got blown up at some stage, hence the military and lots of guns. In fact, the whole of Egypt is filled with military and lots of guns.The temple has been carved out of the mountain and has four colossal statues of Ramses II (each over 20 metres high) which address the Nile. It is pretty amazing that an ancient civilisation created this. The reliefs on the inner walls are awesome too. I just wish I could read them and was allowed to take photos. I find the attention to detail in the carvings phenominal. Nothing is flat on the walls, everything has tone and definition. It was also pretty amazing to think the temple was moved in more recent time to save it from the Nile. You can't tell it has been shifted.
On the way back we passed the Aswan dam (controls the flow of the Nile) and stopped at the temple of Philae - the temple complex of Isis on the island of Philae. I am starting to think everything is the "same, same but different" (a Vietnamese phrase we picked up in the orient) when looking at temples even though they are amazing and I can't get over how old everything is. It was also stinking hot so we quickly looked around and then high tailed it out of there. I was feeling sick by this stage: a combination of heat and a touch of Egyption belly (same symptoms as Bali belly).
In the evening we had a go on the sheeshas - apple tobacco. Quite pleasant but I really couldn't pass my day away in a cloud of their haze as most Egyption men over the age of 50 seem to do. We also ventured back into the souq (open 24 hours as is everything in this country) and ran the gauntlet of cries: "free to look", "One pound for everythng", "Lucky man - viagra hey!" (this was aimed at Jon who was walking with 4 females at the time) and "Come to my shop and I will show you how to spend you money"! An interesting experience... we almost come out scott free!
2 comments:
I can see what's happening here! Those photos are just postcards with pictures of youse cut out and stuck on top! Shame on you! Noone actually goes to these places, you're just supposed to read about them in books and hear about them on SBS news.
Nice photos.
Envies you to be able very much to go to that many place, hoped also
will have more pictures to be able in the future to appreciate. ^_^
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