Day 29 Bangkok

Fay and our guide under the huge reclining Buddha.

We have a break in touring for two nights in Bangkok. We missed days 27 and 28 somewhere in amongst travelling and changing time zones.

Of course we couldn’t be in Thailand without visiting a temple or three (see photos)….

…. and shopping ….

…. and going on a river cruise – so we did all three and slept a lot!

We are impressed with the "land of smiles" although some Thais seemed to smile more than others!

However at this stage we are all templed out. We can’t really understand the local devotion to a dead man no matter how enlightened.

There seems to be no place for Protestant Christianity anywhere in Thailand (or Egypt) so for connections to our faith we have to rely on memories (and of course photographs) of Israel and Jordan where we walked in Jesus’ footsteps.

Day 29 – 2nd March 2010

Day 26 Alexandria to Cairo

Winter has finally caught up with us and we have exchanged the heat of the desert for the cool winds and storms of the sea at Alexandria. Fay dipped her hand in the Mediterranean with some difficult (photo) adding to her list of seas and oceans she has touched.

Today, the last day of our short tour of Egypt, has seen us visit the National Museum of Alexandria (photos - statues of servants to serve the king in his afterlife and rude jar) and the Monastery of St Macarius in the desert half way between Alexandria and Cairo.

Christians in Egypt in the first Century AD were persecuted by the Roman rulers into fleeing into the desert and forming communities, one of which became the Coptic Orthodox Monastery of St Macarius. The monastery was originally built in 360 AD and rebuilt many times over the Centuries. The present structure was restored from ruins excavated in 1970 (photo). This was a quiet and inspiring place but one dedicated to rituals and practices with which we could feel little empathy.

This is the last day of the Egypt tour. We’ve said goodbye to members of the tour group, we’ve all gone on our separate ways and we leave the land of:
• Pharaohs and Pyramids, Tombs and Temples,
• Crazy traffic (4 cars across two marked lanes, drivers driving with their horns and little buses and cars stopping whenever and wherever they feel like it)
• Small trucks loaded very high with goods often with people perched precariously on top – photo),
• Donkey and horse drawn vehicles,
• Dust storms and flooded streets,
• Unfinished buildings and
• Dirt, dust, litter in the street and pollution.

We’ve enjoyed friendship, fellowship, shared experiences in an exotic land and loads and loads of information about ancient material we’ve been exposed to since school days.

We will probably never be back but we leave having enjoyed every moment of the experience. Next stop (via Tel Aviv) is Bangkok for a few days and then home.



Day 26 – 27th February 2010

Day 25 Alexandria

Highlights of day 25 were:

The drive to Alexandria along the “desert” road,
• Along the way we passed many trucks with people perched on top (photo)
• We had a comfort stop at a café/zoo (photo) with animals we wouldn’t consider putting in a zoo like dogs and guinea pigs.
• We passed many pigeon cotes on the side of the road – pairs of inverted 3m high and 3m diameter mud cones with holes in them (often laid out in patterns). Apparently pigeons are delicacies in Egypt.

Kom El-Shuqafa – under ground catacombs. These were originally a private tomb and then became a public burial place in the 4th Century for many hundreds of people. There were some decorations in these chambers but not nearly as many survived the humidity of the coastal region. It was very musty down there and we found it disconcerting to be standing in among holes used as resting places for the dead.

The “daughter library” was an underground overflow storage for books of the famous Alexandrian library – very similar to the catacombs but with a different function: the storage of papyrus scrolls in little niches in the wall. We tried to imagine the numbering system used to find the scrolls and wondered how these early librarians would have found the books in the dark.

The Roman Theatre, Kom Al-Dikka, this is a small theatre seating about 600 people in one tier. We all stood in the focal point and were suitably impressed by the echo effect. There are Roman baths excavated at the same site. All the monuments are restored not original.

There is evidence of Christian use in many of these remains which we found interesting as it showed us the presence of Christians as well as their inventiveness finding and adapting places to worship.

Amud El-Sawari or Pompey’s Pillar is a 30m high column made from red granite from Aswan. It is amazing that it is still standing when everything around it has fallen victim to earthquake or other natural or human calamity. We marvelled at the mystery of how it was transported and erected without the use of cranes and heavy moving equipment.

The El Morsi Mosque is a very attractive building (photo) but has many very persistent and intrusive touts seeking to sell us all sorts of touristy stuff.

I personally found it very confusing to hear multiple calls to prayer and sermons all at the same time from many local Mosques

A huge modern Library is located on the supposed site of the original family Alexandrian library of antiquity. It is capable of seating 2,000 readers on 11 floors and hold 2 million books.

Our hotel for the night is located in the expansive garden grounds of what used to be the royal palace – we feel very pampered and are starting to feel like home seeing we only have one more day in Egypt.



Day 24 – 25th February 2010

Day 24 – A night we'd rather forget

Every one has their favourite travel stories, this could well be ours.

In the afternoon at Luxor a dust storm rolled in from the Sahara desert. Dust storms affect flights and ours was delayed 90 minutes.

At Cairo there had been heavy rain for most of the day and airport air traffic was very heavy – so we circled Cairo for 20 minutes. Our plane was parked well away from the terminal so bags took forever to be retrieved.

The effect of the heavy rain on the ground was devastating – roads were flooded and impassable in spots for cars and grid lock ensued– our bus driver bullied his way through the traffic maze and we finally got to bed at 1 am.

We had planned to leave the hotel by 7am the next morning but decided on an hour later which was just as well as our guide told us later that he did not get to his home until 3 am.

As you can imagine I’ve left out lots of juicy details which will be recounted at the dinner table at home many times in the future.

Day 24 Luxor

We visited the Valley of the Kings in the cool of the morning. Unfortunately no photos were allowed so there are no images for the blog but we found this an inspiring experience. Apparently digging the Pharaoh’s tomb was initiated as soon as the new king assumed office and only ended when he died – the builders had 70 days (the duration of mummification) to tidy up and leave before the mummy and all the interred items were placed in their places.

The valley was chosen after pyramids were abandoned as being too obvious a target for tomb robbers because it was both secluded and had a pyramid shaped peak above it.

One rubble filled tomb entrance was found and by-passed twice over a hundred years and finally investigated more fully in the late 1990’s and found to be the biggest tomb complex in the valley comprising 95 chambers and still counting. (see www.kv5.com)

Tombs we inspected were:
• Ramses III – for the scenes
• Tausert/Setnakhut – the queen king Tausert and her successor Setnakhut, for the building process and
• Ramses IX – for the colours amazingly lasting 3,000 years.

An informative demonstration of working alabaster was intriguing. As we approached, I thought the guys outside were fashioning wood but they were actually working alabaster – rough shaping, drilling, filing, polishing it into very fine alabaster jars and other ornaments.

We visited the three level Funeral temple of Hatshepsut – it had lots of colour in the images even though they are exposed to the elements. The photo of four statues n a row is from this temple.

On the side of the road we came across the Colossae of Memnon – 20m high statues. The associated temple has long gone it was demolished in an earthquake in 27BC. There was lots of archeological work going on at the site.

A dust storm blew in the afternoon but that doesn’t stop the intrepid tourist so we visited the Karnak Temple a huge complex built over a period of 2,000 years – each king added a bit more to the complex.

Highlights of the complex were:
• A mud brick ramp used in the construction of an unfinished part.
• A “room” with 134 columns – the roof collapsed in the 27 BC earthquake but the columns still stand.
• Most of the columns represented the papyrus plant but the central ones were the papyrus flower.
• The over writing of one king’s name with that of Ramses II (politics!).

Near Tutankhamun's tomb Faysang the chorus of Colin Buchanan's mummy song for our tour group and they all cheered and clapped, of course.

Every ancient thing in this country seems to be built on such a huge scale.



Day 24 – 25th February 2010

Day 23 Edfu to Luxor

We enjoyed an early morning tour of the temple at Edfu. This is a well preserved temple and features the angry god Horus in the form of a falcon (see photo). The stories attached to the images, as recorded on rock and papyrus, show great imagination on the part of the ancient Egyptians.

The day was mostly taken up with a relaxing cruise on the Nile for 9 hours from Edfu to Luxor. Passing through the lock half way was special entertainment specially watching the ship in front of us almost run aground!

This was followed by an evening tour of the Temple at Luxor. After our experience the previous evening we took a torch which aloud us to see the images better as well as the uneven ancient paving. The columns in this structure were awe inspiring in grandeur some represent house building reeds (see photo) and the dusk light gave this visit a very special atmosphere.

We were very impressed and at times amazed at the intricate nature of the rock carving we saw. The carving seemed to cover every available space in these huge structures.

An amazing 3km long avenue of Sphinx is being excavated at Luxor after demolishing and relocating houses, hotels, churches and mosques. Over 2,000 sphinxes are expected to eventually be uncovered in this project. About 70 have been excavated so far (see photo) and would have made a remarkable processional approach to the Temple.

Both temples were buried under many metres of silt as evidenced by
• graffiti high up on columns and
• the presence of a Mosque built at ground level in the 14th Century which is now well up in the air on the top of columns.

And then a demonstration of Papyrus manufacture. Papyrus is manufactured from layers of the strips of the internal part of the stem of the papyrus plant flower. After days of soaking and Days of pressing, a strong and impressively flexible material is formed which was the basis of many records in the 3rd Century BC to the 1st Century AD.

Both of the temples we visited today were used by the early Egyptian Christians as churches who sometimes defaced the images of the pagan gods and at other times covered them with render.


Day 23 – 24th February 2010

Day 22 Aswan to Edfu

A highlight of the day was our visit to a Nubian Village. On the way there we cruised past a wet land full of exotic birds. We saw hooded crows (very common), grey herons, black headed gulls, pied kingfishers and a night heron.

At the village we were treated to the colourful public interior of the home, an informative talk on the Nubian family life and a demonstration of weaving.

Apparently when a Nubian couple marries the normal custom is for
• a large public wedding celebration to involve the whole village hence the need for a large public space in the family home, and
• the man to live with his wife’s family for at least two years and sometimes longer so the family home gets bigger and bigger as the family adds rooms to accommodate nearly the married couples.

The motor ship we are on – cruising the Nile – has about 70 guests on three accommodation floors and one service floor with the restaurant. I spent an interesting time with the captain trying to communicate about speed, engines and what we were passing.

We had a delightful afternoon watching the Nile river bank slide past and talking with new friends from the tour group. One was an IT guru and another was a retired public servant who made and sold replica guns. We have 6 Canadians in the tour group along with 4 Australians, 2 from New Zealand and 2 from the States.

We saw what we expected to see – a thin strip of futile land and then the edge of the Sahara desert, fishermen mending nets, lots of Feluccas, the odd water buffalo and children swimming in the shallows.

And we saw lots we didn’t expect to see – several double sailed tourist hotel ships, a huge suspension bridge and another ship pass us.

We visited Kom Ombo Temple just on dusk so we enjoyed the sun setting while we tried to make out the hieroglyphics – one was part of a calendar and one was a lady in child birth (see the photo). We saw an ancient Nilometer (a well with a tunnel link with the Nile) which allowed the setting of taxes based on the measured maximum height of floods.

Day 22 – 23rd February 2010