Monday, October 02, 2006

Egypt Part 3

(continued from Egypt part 2)

finally i've had time to add the rest of the pictures from my trip...from aswan to luxor back to cairo to see the pyramids, then back to amsterdaaam

From Cairo I took a (fairly decent) train to:

Aswan


Aswan is the southern most city in Egypt. It would take about one week to get from Aswan to Luxor on a feluca (sail boat), one very miserable gut-wrenching week (get to that later). It's one of the driest places on earth...but for some reason there is tons of pot here. Or so I've heard. Aswan is all about islands, bizarres, and riverside restaurants.

The people are very friendly and welcoming as you can see->


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My first journey in Aswan was to see some of the ancient relics. (Thats me and my cab driver)

Stopped at the island of Philae to see the Temple of Isis. Tourists have been coming here since it was constructed in the Ptolemaic times (around 300bc).


It was pretty fucking impressive...even the romans were coming to visit back throughout their empire.






The boat driver, named Muhammad of course, was nice enough to bring me to the island him and his family lived on. Nice guy, ripped me off pretty bad on the price of the boat ride, but with a really big smile.


As you can see it looks a little different then the rest of Egypt...

















Muhammad took me to his friends house, the pimpest on the block->

had a sat dish, playstation 2, ac pumpin full blast and they hooked it up with some food...

me-oh what is that, its amazing
him-its meat
me-from where
him-an animal
me-yea i know, which
him-i am not sure
me-pass the fanta


After I got back I just walked around the whole city with my headphones on and took pictures...

I can't tell which I liked better of these 2 pictures so I posted both--->>


Gotta love the tie and the glasses...and that pattern on the shirt->















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Ok, back to the fellucas....I was supposed to take a trip on one of these from Aswan upriver on the nile to Luxor. Throughout my whole first day and night I kept hearing from all the other travlers what a miserable experience it is. You get on the boat at around 10, ride all day and night, hot as fuck, sun blazing, no bathroom...and arrive the next morning in Luxor. FUCK THAT!

I skipped out and just took a little day trip to elephantine island on the boat...the whole 1 hour I was riding sucked...def a good call to cancel.




The island was kind of similar to the one the previous day with a little more color..-->






Hopped on the 6am train to Luxor

Luxor's been a tourist mecca forevar. I got there, put my stuff down, and headed to Karnak Temple. The place was incredible...its the second most visited site in Egypt after the pyramids-->>

It took about 1300 years to build and you can tell, the number of things to see is overwhelming.






def wasnt supposed to go in here, climbed all the way up to the top of the structure-->

















Soo HOT out...100+

next stop Luxor Temple. Constructed over 3000 YEARS AGO, even Tut added columns-->




















Woke up early to head to the Valley of the Kings


I tried to buy a plot but we couldnt work out the logistics...got to go in to see some of the great tombs...but no pictures allowed...usually that doesnt stop me as you'll see in the pyramids, but they had some annoying mofos at every tomb...I saw the tomb of Ramses III, IV, I'm blanking on the 3rd though.












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At this point i pulled what some might call a stupid move...not me though..if you look in the next picture youll see some scaffolding through the doorway-->>

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this shot is a view from the top right before I got yelled at-->>

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Well I climbed up that on the couple thousand y/o structure...and out came the police with the machine guns..luckily I talked my way out of trouble by blaming some random guy.














the nile early evening-->

overnight train baaack to Cairo...still have to see the pyramids obv.

all the pictures taken back in the Islamic section of cairo, see the last post for more info on that..


This guy was hilarious, when i showed him the picture on the screen of the camera he goes "Now thats one sexy mother fucker" in an intense african accent-->




def should have gotten Saeid to repair my hair-->






Last day in Egypt and time for main attraction.

PYRAMIDS!!!

Something I find about all these famous sights is that they usually live up to the hype. Machu Piccu, Angkor Wat, Great Wall, Petra...you cant say one is better then the other . The Pyramids obviously ranks among these. Its hard to describe and even harder to take pictures of. The sun is blaaaaaazing. Oh, and camels dont make for steady rides.


That one above is the Great Pyramid of Cheops. They only let 150 people a day go inside so I went at like 6am and was the 3rd person to enter behind 2 japanse guys...they were serious about not bringing cameras...luckily I have 2 and they stop searching when they take your first so I took a few snaps, none of which came out great and a little vid where you can hear a little japanese.
















somehow this picture came out looking a little 3d-->














downtown cairo at night-->





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Egypt was def high on the list...I had a great time but was really excited to get to Amsterdam then get back home. Didnt take many pictures but I was increibly lucky enough to get to catch a Streets concert. I dont know how good I remember the night, but I do remember it was sick...





pouring brandy in somebodys mouth while performing "too much brandy"-->


somehow this came out-->

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if you havent yet, check out Egypt and Jordan Part 1, and Egypt Part 2

posted by Evan at 4:49 PM 1 comments