Follwing the Nile Valley by Road

My trip was unplanned but did have some rough plan wanting to do the Nile Valley (Cairo-Luxor-Aswan-Abu Simbel) by road before I started .

Cairo The vacation started with a bit of a twist with a missed connecting flight from Istanbul to Cairo and then desperately trying to get in touch with an ex-colleague Abed , who was suppose to meet me at Cairo and wasn't aware of the missed flight. The computer that I found at the airport lounge had a Turkish keyboard and Turkish windows installation and all my attempts to get my email account to work failed, finally after hours ,I just asked someone with a laptop to let me use it for just a few mins to drop an e-mail. I reached Cairo at 2a.m. in the morning and took a taxi to the hostel and was surprised to see quite a few shops open people moving around. Abed called the hostel early morning and with only 3hrs of sleep, we drove to the Ramses station to book the train tickets for the sleeping train to Aswan that Night. We then drove down to the Giza Pyramids , passing the downtown and various parts of the city including the Cairo University ,which was quite impressive.





The Giza Pyramids starts where the city ends and you can be in for a big surprise as you might have expected it to be out in a big desert. From the Pyramid site you can see the high rises at a distance. There are 3 (Kufu,Khafre and Menkaure ) main pyramids at Giza. The Giza necropolis served as a cemetery for the elite of the old kingdom of Egypt.

Walking around at 48degrees wasn't that much fun though and so we headed to a local restaurant for a Kosher meal (Macaroni & Rice with some sauce) and then to the Egyptian museum. The museum is huge and has an unbelievable collection of artifacts but wish there were descriptions against the artifacts, since most didn't have any ! One could possibly spend a few days there . After spending few hours there , Abed dropped me to the Giza train station. In between the visits we did have some good discussion/debates about Islam etc.

Having a known contact in the first day of your trip to an unknown land is really nice and makes one feel at ease with the surroundings not to mention Abed was really helpful and was a great resource to understand about how he feels about his country.

Aswan
The sleeping train was nice and comfortable and had a good night's sleep after only few hours of sleep in the past 2 days.

Reached Aswan early morning and tried locating a hotel opposite the Nile River Road. After a bit of rest walked around to the Nubian Museum , cemetery but the heat was getting to me and headed back. Later in the evening I went to the river and got a free to-and-fro boat ride as well.and also met a Taiwanese girl, Hooky at the terrace of the hotel and she introduced me to an interesting Armenian lady who could speak Hindi and loved everything about India and could sing almost all the Hindi songs from Raj Kapoor's numbers to the latest ones, some that even I couldn't hum. Her teenage daughter was also the same. She had learnt Hindi by just watching Hindi movies and said probably she was an Indian in her last birth.

Aswan has a nice slow paced life compared to Cairo and walking around the Nile promenade was quite relaxing.




Woke up at 2:30a.m. to take the bus to Abu Simbel ,since all vehicles leave that early with police leading the pack. Slept through most of the drive but most of the journey was in the middle of nowhere with hardly any settlement . Abu simbel was quite impressive and also hard to believe that the huge structure could be kept intact and moved from one river bank to another, after the construction of the Aswan Dam and floods affecting it in its original location. On the way back stopped and took at boat to an Island where the Philae temple is located . The Philae temple was also beautiful with nice stone inscriptions. Met an Indian family here who live in the middle east but were traveling around Egypt .Got back in the afternoon and after a good rest walked around the bazaar that reminded me of the Indian bazaar's with all its chaos and innumerable shops selling all possible things. All the places in Egypt come to life later in the evening once its get a little cooler and you people all around, men, women in burkhas, children and the buzz continues till midnight. Everybody seems to know Amitabh Bachan in Egypt from a kid to an old man and when they see an Indian walking past they just utter Amitabh Bachan as a way of greeting you :)

In the morning , met the Indian family at the breakfast table and they said they were taking the Felucca across the river and asked me to join them. The Felucca is nothing but a sail boat that works with the wind and we went around to the princes isles and also some other places for the next few hrs. The sailor tried to extend it beyond 3hrs to make more money stating the wind wasn't good enough though we could see other sail boats going past us. After an extended Felucca ride , I reached the hotel just in time to get to the train station to Luxor, a few hrs ride. Hooky and John the two Taiwanese I had met the night before also joined me and we were able to get the onward tickets.

Luxor
Alighted from the train and found the hostel I had in mind right opposite Luxor temple with nice rooms . Naseer, the person at the reception was quite friendly and warned us to be a little careful incase we walked around town because of some festival happening there. We however did walk around a bit before dinner and found that the celebrations had been called off because of swine-flu scare and so there was nothing to keep us from going around. We were then talked into getting a tour to the Luxor West Bank , stating it was next to impossible to do it on our own. We mulled over it and decided to book it for the next morning.

After a good breakfast the next day, we took the tour minibus tour to all the places in the west bank-Collossi of Memmon, Valley of Kings, Hatshepsut,Medinat Habu, Valley of the Queens. These are the burial places of most of the pharaohs of Egypt of the New Kingdom period.The caves inside these huge mountains have beautiful natural dye paintings and has been around for 3000yrs ! whew! Got back in the afternoon and after some rest the 3 of us (the other two Taiwanese traveling partners) walked around the Luxor Temple and surroundings.

Woke up the next morning and went to the train station to get the tickets to Cairo for the Night and then headed to the beautiful temple of Karnak. The Karnak temple is huge and walking around at 40+ degree wasn't too easy but by then I had gotten used to the humidity and heat . After spending few hours around the huge stone marvels, walked back to the hotel and bumped into the Indian Family I had met at Aswan as well. John and Hooky then parted ways and left for Hurgada, a diving place next to the Red Sea and me to Cairo



Back to Cairo
Took the sitting train which had nice big reclining seats and was at Cairo the next morning. Abed came by after his Friday prayers and took me around Old Cairo and Islamic Cairo I was interested in seeing. We also went around the famous Egyptian Market and picked a t-shirt ,didn't want to lug around anything extra on my fully packed backpack and then headed to the Airport.

Thus concluded my 8 days in the Egypt trying to discover the ancient civilization that existed and wondering how advanced the country was way back and how its trying to cope with the ways of the modern world. I had started this journey thinking it was going to be a solo backpacking trip but ended up having traveling friends all throughout the journey. Not bad start of a 3 week vacation.

If one wants to splurge take the cruise ships around instead of the night trains but for me traveling by the local mode has always been the best way out. The train system in Egypt is pretty good,comfortable and inexpensive .




Useful Links:
Metro Map of Cairo
Egyptian Rail Roads
How to travel by train in Egypt
Rough Guide Egypt

Pics from my trip
Cairo and Giza
Around Aswan
Luxor