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Tanja and I took a nice vacation in Egypt, the first
thing we did was took a lovely felluca (sailboat)
ride on the Nile.
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We found the Egyptians to be very friendly!
Our capitan's name was Ramadan, and he was very
happy to have us onboard. He should be! It was
our first day in Egypt and we paid 70 Egyptian
Pounds for a tour that should have costed about
20 Pounds.
But $15 for 2 hours was worth it anyway.
Needless to say, we learned how to bargain
a lot better by the end of our trip.
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The streets of Cairo were fantastic. Lots to see and
lots of bargains. It's easy to get lost in all the
hustle and bustle (Can you see the man trying to
sell Tanja a T-shirt?)
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A nice way to see the local sights was to rent
a coach. The drivers always want to take you
to all the tourist places.
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This was our cheapest lunch, ta'amiyya for about 25 cents!
Tasty, but the next day ...
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... I was sick and missed the best lunch of the trip.
This place was huge but empty, mainly because
of the recent decline in tourism. In fact, we had
booked a tour with a tour group, but we were the
only 2 people in our group. We had our own personal
tour guide and a chauffeur. It was fantastic!
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Finding toilets, even in tourist areas, was sometimes
difficult. The typical 'squat' type toilets come with
a conveniet hose for washing up (instead of toilet
paper).
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The pyramids at Giza. After this photo was taken,
we went for a ride on a camal. It was very windy,
and not all that warm.
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Northern 'Arafa' or graveyard in Cario is unusual because,
people live, work, and go to school, all within the
grounds of this gigantic cemetary. People first settled
here because of severe housing shortages in Cairo, but
ironically, middle class people sometime choose to move
here because it is less crowded due to strict development
control. This kind of living arangement is unusual in
the Middle East because it can be considered profain
in Islam.
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The temple at Abu Simbel (1200 BC) was the most impressive.
The statues were absolutely massive! The head of
one of the statues has fallen off, and you can
see that I am just about half as tall as the head.
But the most impressive thing about the place is
that the entire cliff in which the temple stands
was moved block by block to it's present location,
about 200 feet above the original site, in the 1960's.
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Tanja was very happy to visit the Valley of the Kings.
Despite the heat, I could not keep up with her,
the typical view of Tanja in the Valley of the
Kings was from behind. ^_^ And she was always saying
something like "Hurry up, we still have to see the
tomb of Tutankhamun".
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The hieroglyphs in some of the tombs and
temples were remarkably well preserved.
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The deep hieroglyphs in the walls of this temple were
carved there on purpose. To prevent them from being
obliterated by succeding dynasties.
Doesn't Tanja look happy to learn this?
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We met some kids on Elephantine Island near Aswan.
They asked us if we had any candy, but we didn't.
We gave them cough drops instead, and tried to explain
that the weren't really candy. I hope they liked
them anyway.
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The temple of Kom Ombo was unique because it was a
double temple to the gods Sobek (crocodile-head)
on the left side and Harwer (falcon-head) on the.
right side.
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There are no more real crocodiles on the Nile,
ever since they built the Aswan Dam in the
the 1960's. This however is a real crocodile
mummy.
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Luxor temple as nothing like the hotel in Las Vegas,
but still, it was massively impressive. There is only
on monolith in front of this temple because the other
on is on the Place de la Concorde in Paris. It's
been there since 1836.
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The beautiful Alabaster Mosque of Mohammed Ali, is home to
a broken clock which was a gift from France in exchange
for the monolith from the temple at Luxor. It was given to
Mohammed Ali, ruler of Egypt by King Louis Philip in 1846.
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Mysterious Tanja.
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Notice any similarity?
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Little known fact: the Egyptians were the first to
invent the telephone.
Check out the hieroglyph next to Tanja's head.
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The best photo I took was this one of Tut's mask.
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Can anyone tell me what this hieroglyph means?
I'll give you $5, I swear.
Dirk Seegert writes:
The meaning of your hieroglyph is absolutely clear:
It's the sign for "Public toilet for men".
Another possiblity could also be:
"Caution, strong winds. Pissing into the wrong
direction could cause wet feet!"
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