📸 Photography sickmint79 takes you to egypt

[sickmint79]

driving from my hotel in amman to the airport was rough at parts, it didn't rain but it was ridiculously foggy. some areas worse than this. note in the jordan thread i mentioned driving to amman from wadi rum and having to take a 15km detour - parts of it were in the mountains, around corners, and with less visibility than this too - definitely the only car that would have been visible is the first.

today we are flying egyptair economy. it's just a short ride. i had a very early flight, but they canceled it. i thought my flight might be pretty empty also because literally no one else was there when i was checking in.

the first espresso machine i had seen at all in jordan. i could have got an actual coffee in amman, but everything was closed due to the strike for solidarity with palestine.

priority pass is a benefit on several US credit cards for lounge access - usually pretty shit domestically, can be pretty nice internationally, especially at major city airports. 3 lounges accessible at amman. one services emirates, but it's just a private lounge it is not theirs. the state carrier here is royal jordanian, part of oneworld (aligned with aa), and the p. pass gets access. note egypt air is part of star alliance (aligned with united). i have a RJ flight later when going back home since it was $1000 round trip cairo to kuala lumpur, and KUL is a short hop to my thai airport KBV. that's when returning back to thailand the long way from the US.

view of the terminal

it has a coffee bar, a pizza bar, and an omelette guy. there was also a breakfast buffet area too (it's actually straight across in the pic above)

i dunno if they left late either but my bird did not arrive for a while and we left over an hour late. poor visibility to land was what we were told, although it seemed to look decent for a while (maybe the air was backed up). gate and my bird, with an RJ bird in the background.

first i've seen a koran on a plane. i wonder if it is in some other middle eastern airlines but just not so prominently placed. i have since seen it in some egyptian ubers. as far as i could tell the plane seemed to have a few tourists, then mostly jordanians/egyptians. the economy and currency are bad in egypt, so some go to jordan to work. they checked in and carried a fuckton of luggage back too. i checked in my carry on bag just so i didn't have to deal with it, but this was the slowest my bag had come out in some time. waiting 30 min iirc at least.

the flight is scheduled as 90 minutes and comes with a meal. i just picked at it a little bit though.

no arrival in egypt pics but the tour company had a guy waiting for me at the airport, iirc in a secure part too. i've been with a guide and driver pretty much ever since from the company during day time. pic from a car ride, if this was in the US you might have some different transformations going on in the gym?

i checked in at my hotel then got an uber to go to zamalek island, which is a nice part of cairo. i did it on recommendation of the reception guy at the hotel. i had this egyptian dish fattah, the closest thing to it might be chilaquiles, although it's quite different. was tasty and filling. i also didn't have knafeh in jordan, but on this guy's recommendation had it egyptian style, from this syrian restaurant. and i'll note i didn't go hame on desserts while in turkey despite their being similar ones, i'm just all out getting to be a fatass on this trip.

how long has this car sat here? see plenty similar, although usually not bmws. i'll also note almost every motorcycle is chinese. some cars are chinese. also plenty of people - some cars - ton of motorcycles/scooters - don't run with their lights on at night. even in poorly lit places. i do not understand this at all.

i memorized arabic numbers so i could read license plates and pick out my ubers in traffic. lots of men are named ahmed or mohamed. it was easy to practice because there is plenty of traffic all around so i would just keep myself busy reading plates. i took some vids but driving here is pretty chaotic as well, definitely moreso than jordan with how people treat lanes, how pedestrians behave, etc.

uber is stupidly cheap. i am tipping the max here in the app (20 egyptian pounds) and here are my current trip costs:
6.12 kilometers | 43 min - EGP 96.14 ($3.11 USD)
19.69 kilometers | 35 min - EGP 153.09
35.08 kilometers | 45 min - EGP 205.36

last guy was oddly timid for an uber driver in egypt and didn't seem to have familiarity with my hotel, despite it being literally one of the most famous ones here and him having over 1000 drives. kinda confusing. in any case, these rides were cheap...

and this is at the official rate of 30.95 EGP per USD. this is a government fixed rate. inflation is bad here, and this is not the free market rate. there is a black market for currency, or a "parallel market" - argentina currently also has a currency crisis, and i was there the last time they did (i think 2013?) where they similarly had a black market, although they called it a blue market. since it is not "bad" - like with a vice like drugs or sex - people come up with other names to justify doing it because they are "good" people. in any case, in argentina in particular i remember walking down florida street in buenos aires and people yelling out "cambio cambio" and you could exchange money all over. not the case in egypt.

i brought some dollars thinking i could just pop in any shop and make things happen, but apparently it's very illegal, the cops watch out for it, etc. technically there is an infinite money glitch in these situations - like covert 100 USD on black market to say 5000 EGP, the go to currency exchange and get dollars back at official rate and end up with $161. i think the reason it doesn't get exploited is that you need to declare if you are entering the country with 10k, probably already looking kinda sus then, but i bet they don't let citizens exchange EGP for USD at most official exchanges, and/or they record it. my passport is taken every time i do that too. of course there's a lot of friction and fees so you wouldn't get $161 but you'd definitely be over $100.

in any case, my guide said they aren't allowed to do this, and it's all basically done just through knowing people who might want dollars. it kinda feels like if you were trying to find people to exchange money for crypto, but pretend you went to a new city and don't know anyone, and oh yeah, crypto is illegal there. so not ideal. i'm using card and paying official rate on lots of things, and plenty of my purchases are already paid for at this point - but i'm still paying much more than i should when ordering at hotels where food is pricey anyway. like you know a room service burger in the US is expensive period, and i'm paying just as expensively over here really, even though it should be far less. although i've also heard some hotels don't even allow tourists to pay for things there with EGP (although i don't feel like that would happen at mine, nor have i actually experienced or observed that.)

anyway my legal plan to circumvent this was go to a bullion dealer and buy some gold or silver with my USD, then walk out the door and come back in and sell my bullion to them for EGP. my guide thought this was probably not really worth the time or effort given how much i'd be exchanging at the end of the day. i think he's probably also happier if i tip him a $10 bill i have as well. on one hand this cheap is pricey and a few more bucks here and there aren't going to break me anyway, on the other hand at least for expensive/huge margin built in hotel food i'd rather be paying the real free market rate/value of this currency vs. getting hosed.

in any case, here's some egyptian pounds. i only have a 200 and 100. i'll ask the counter for some change later as 10 is good for a bathroom tip/charge and having small bills is good as lots of people expect tips for little things.

some bazaar pics i visited at night, walked around some streets, went to this place which i think was an islamic shrine but not a mosque? or mosque but also had someone in it? didn't take pics of that actual part, guys were actively praying there, i'd feel like a weird dbag doing that. other people were taking pics or video of it in kind of goofy seeming ways though.

old city gate, some guys making bread

i got a bit lost as white boy tourist through some windy places in here. ultimately popped out in the right spot to pick up an uber but it was very dark by a main roadway. what was weird was that some cars - and a shit ton of motorcycles/scooters - did not use their lights. the street was not even well lit here either. i still don't understand this. planned to ask r/egypt. my tour organizer said it was so they 'could better be seen' but i don't understand this logic

my hotel

i have to go on the balcony to see it, but can see 1 pyramid. going all the way to the end of the hall though then outside on the fire escape stairs though is one of the best night views here though, if you didn't get lucky enough to have that last room. i left the hotel and walked up to the closed gate for getting up to the pyramids, the guard yelled at me for even trying to take a picture from outside the gate and taking a picture of the night sky. like the night sky was closed. may have just been fishing for a tip? meh.

i don't think i was even that hungry but just wanted to pay too much for a mediocre burger.

morning from my balcony

my breakfast. it was not included and about $30. i like shakshuka and this was the worst ever from their buffet, because the eggs were legit total rubber after sitting under a warming light forever. i didn't think i had time to get the omelette from the station and meet my guide on time. i thought because the guy who arranged the tour had not messaged me yet that i could go past my 8am brekkie, but in reality another guy was already there and waiting so i was 10 min late to see him. oh well. 1/10 shakshuka, 10/10 view, which i suppose is what i actually paid for. ate all the carby bois even though i didn't walk around thaaat much today.

went with the guide to the pyramids, was nice having someone walk through and explain things as well as someone i could plink questions off of. i'm basically having a 1:1 tour now. my guide works for 2 companies, he does big tours with another and goes all around egypt with them. with this company he does usually solo/couple/family tours in cairo, and i'll probably have him on my last day too.

side of the great pyramid. this was the largest and is the tomb of khufu. it used to be smooth and covered with white limestone, although these are very old, and throughout time either from weather causing parts to crumble or people coming to take parts for raw material, here is what it looks like now. i'm sure you know all about the huge heavy blocks, how they fit so well together, came from all over, and also how the pyramids were actually build by aliens and how cleopatra was black. here's the side and the entrance. it costs extra to go in them. this is the most popular one, i did not go in it.

here is his son khafre's pyramid. it is built on a taller plane than his dad's, but is physically smaller. so he is both honoring his dad but one upping him on the height. it has still maintained some of the original cladding.

people are generally not engaging me with the guide, but if he has a smoke while i poke around, they try to be friendly to chat me up and get me to do something. i don't really have a tough time dodging them, but going here without a guide a lot of people complain about getting significantly harassed "i will never return to egypt" etc. this is probably worst if you try and be too nice and they just engage you forever. i don't put off the vibes that i'm going to do much other than ignore you though so i'm not too worried about that anyway. i do put off dorky tourist vibes so here's me in front of some pyramids. i've got a belt clip on go pro style mount to wear an insta360 clamped on to my pocket, kinda trying to hide it away as you're not allowed to film in the pyramids but i'll be going in the 3rd one. adidas bag coming in clutch here. unfortunately the plastic on this mount snapped this morning. it still kinda works. since you can point the 360 anywhere in post, it's actually not the worst thing in the world if it's kinda all over - because it is recording everywhere. so you can kinda "fix" wherever you want it to actually look when editing.

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[sickmint79]

on the east of the nile you live and that is where the sun rises. on the west is where the sun sets and you die. all the pyramid complexes have a funeral temple outside, then a long road that leads down to a valley temple by the nile. offerings could be brought there, and priests would take them up to the pyramid and temple complex here.

here's the 3 pyramids in the giza necropolis. i am going in the last one, the next king menkaure. his is smaller - egypt's economy is shrinking. it's also arguably nicer outside with expensive red granite originally. the great pyramid is always open to enter, else they bounce between the next two for which is open. both are separate tickets. the guides seem to treat going inside as not much to see, once you've been in one that's good enough - and this one was less touristed and shorter to get through, so i figured i'd do it instead of the big one.

it's like 70? the passages are 2 ways. going up you're doing more work, i built up a sweat coming out. for the great pyramid you start by going up, it's much longer, and there are more people in it. so yeah, happy i did just this one lol. the big gaping hole here is from an islamic sultan who attempted to destroy it, but this is 8 months of work, then they gave up because it was too much effort.

this mexican family was in front of me, 2 men 2 women. the women bailed like 1/3 the way down the entrance. i do have vid going all the way through.

the fellas coming up into the antechamber i'm standing in on the diagram above.

hall to entrance and passage back out. i did navigate around the mexican ladies, but just let the few people coming down when i got here get all the way through before going up. now if this was 3x as long, with more people in front and more people coming down, then you'd have the great pyramid and a lot less fun lol. overall this wasn't that bad, and at 6'2" felt more comfortable than i thought i would in here.

some cat guys

the great sphinx was the guardian of the temple to the left (khafre's)

his nose was removed by a muslim guy who wanted to destroy it so that people would not worship it as a false idol at some point (pre-napoleon). because this is a tough job he only managed to bust off the nose, although making it ugly/defacing it this much was considered to be a good part of accomplishing that job.

also there is a bad rumor that napoleon's men shot it off, and in the recent movie you'll see they shoot one of the pyramids with a cannon for silly movie dramatic effects i guess. in reality napoleon brought a bunch of people to the area to study them and highly respected everything in egypt. so they took back measurements and paintings and such - they also found and took the rosetta stone.

i did get taken to a couple of shops, although they were ok. not sure i'll be taken to any more on the tour. in any case i thought this place was funny across from the papyrus shop.

the papyrus shop was nice in that it had a really nice educational demo of how the paper was made. some of the pieces looked pretty cool. i have no real home nor place for any of this kind of stuff. it was neat to see and as far as sales, a well run operation.

then we went to a souvenir shop that was supposed to be good - i again don't have a fit for anything, and i'll be going to my parents in less than 10 days but there's really not anything that i could find make work. actually i'd be down for something cool bastet / cat goddess like, but i just didn't see anything there that looked that cool. or really that different from most other places - so not sure anything was really any nicer or just overpriced there. i could be up for a purchase if some egyptian cat emerges that tickles my fancy though.

we had lunch with a pyramid view. it was a set menu. some starters, i had a stuffed chicken, it came with a desert which i ate 2/3 of. i have so much willpower i left 1/3 see? my guide got the fish.

we went to memphis, it was the capital of egypt but was largely destroyed, i believe by muslims. this big statue of ramses is the nicest piece they have in this outdoor museum.

another more intact version also found here is at the grand egyptian museum, which has been taking forever to open. they just opened a little more preview stuff, but it has been sold out as a result of new activity to get to take a peek. i should actually buy a ticket tonight for my last day here. here's the status in the GEM.

here's a pic of me next to this piece in memphis. the guard wanted some money for taking this pic, although i had no small bills so i told him uhhhh sorry only using credit card, no bills. the smarter thing to do is not give your phone to anybody, but eh, i rolled with it with him. i was not with the guide here. i think the tip expectation is a buck / EGP equivalent.

we also went to saqqara and saw the oldest pyramid. this necropolis near memphis has many more pyramids, although smaller of subsequent kings as the economy declined.

early engineering, they weren't sure the columns would hold on their own, so basically built them into this wall for support.

protective snakeys

at a le meridien connected to the airport now, like there's a foot bridge to my terminal. i purchased 5 egypt air flights total, tomorrow is my second. it has, once again, been canceled and moved to a later flight. 8am so still nice that i'm connected to the airport and can walk on over. the breakfast buffet here is cheaper, but at 18 USD i don't think i'll do it. do i have access to a great priority pass lounge there? no, it looks like i have access to a lame one. this airport has a reputation for sucking. so we'll see how she goes.

now i did look at the gym here, but then i saw the coffee shop and it had a lemon cheesecake which i just wanted to try. i mean i like cheesecake, i like lemons, right? in reality i think these things always look better than they are, plus i think had been sitting around a bit. also though i witnessed the first 2 lemon cheesecakes leaving and i bought the last one. i took it with an americano to go to my room, where i remembered, oh yeah, my welcome gift included some sweet snacks. so i pounded down all this sugar with my coffee while i started this thread and gave myself diabetes. the cheesecake was unimpressive sadly.

now i should go use that gym, but i should maybe get some real foodstuffs in my belly now. this thread took a while to make. i might start another with some pics from another trip i didn't post before too. tomorrow i fly to and see aswan. one night at a guesthouse there, the cheapest on my trip, then the next 3 will be on a pricey nile cruise boat. am looking forward to seeing how that is. and like eating all the food on it too lol. i will definitely have some pounds to lose once i get back to thailand.

 

[Pro Stock John]

I enjoy your travel blogging, what is the link to your YT again?

 

[sickmint79]

lol why is it snowing in my chrome browser now, funny to see with these pics

I enjoy your travel blogging, what is the link to your YT again?

my youtube is a mess, i don't like editing so there is nothing with any real production quality. i have a bunch of footage now from various things which i plan on trying to make something useful out of, although that means i actually have to do something plus learn how to edit better in general as well as edit 360 videos, which is a lot of what i've recently taken.

i made this vid on getting a thai license



here's a 360 video, worth putting in 4k on, that you can view all around. i like being able to grab it with a mouse and pull it around on a desktop, if you use your phone it's more awkward trying to do that but if you tilt and hold and move your phone all over it will do it.

 

[Yaj Yak]

lol why is it snowing in my chrome browser now, funny to see with these pics



my youtube is a mess, i don't like editing so there is nothing with any real production quality. i have a bunch of footage now from various things which i plan on trying to make something useful out of, although that means i actually have to do something plus learn how to edit better in general as well as edit 360 videos, which is a lot of what i've recently taken.

i made this vid on getting a thai license



here's a 360 video, worth putting in 4k on, that you can view all around. i like being able to grab it with a mouse and pull it around on a desktop, if you use your phone it's more awkward trying to do that but if you tilt and hold and move your phone all over it will do it.

it's just tcg in general i think thanks dadddy Mook

 

[Mook]

Snow is only on 3 pages now, not on threads.

 

[CMNTMXR57]

Yea, our overlord is in the Christmas spirit.

That burger above at least looked good even if it wasn't.

EmersonHart13 went to the pyramids not too long ago, I can't recall if he went with a guide like you. I would lose my mind constantly being peddled for something. Get the fuck away from me.

 

[Mook]

Snow should be removed from threads on all styles now.

 

[Pro Stock John]

The second vid is the Hagia Sophia? I was there around 2015, loved Istanbul.

 

[sickmint79]

The second vid is the Hagia Sophia? I was there around 2015, loved Istanbul.

correct. note it's different now - it's been converted to a practicing mosque, from a museum. it now has closings for prayer time, and you can no longer go to the second floor. you can also see some big white sheets on the ceiling that are covering up some christian imagery.

 

[rocco]

Amazing pics! Thanks for sharing.

 

[sickmint79]

i flew down to aswan. my bag unfortunately didn't join me and stayed in cairo.

here i saw one of the dams built on the nile, the new aswan dam built with the help of russia, to control the water level and generate power. there is an old aswan dam that was built with the british as well.

we then took a boat to philae temple.

the original temple was going to be underwater in its location due to the dam. so the temple was cut apart, moved, and reassembled in its new higher location.

a ton of nile cruise boats go between luxor and aswan. there are 2 main styles, large nile cruisers and smaller slower sailboats (usually being pulled by a tug) called dahabiyas. i had lunch on a large one that appears highly rated and owned by my tour company.

these boats dock next to eachother and you walk through one to get onto another, etc. so i think i walked through 3 others to get to it. it was neat seeing the different walkways through each, i never go on cruises of any type. was a pretty good buffet lunch and i grabbed a bit of everything to try.

i then took a boat ferry to elephantine island where my guesthouse was. this island is primarily inhabited by nubians, who differ from egyptians. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nubians my hotel only has 3 rooms and is run by some brothers/cousins. they were pretty funny and offered me some of their lunch. despite eating the above i had to try some anyway, no pics but they had a pretty tasty egg dish. i originally was going to go to a restaurant on the island, but decided to eat at their place later instead. my room:

table where i sat and had their welcome drink.

i went to see a temple on the south side of the island. a windy way there, i took insta360 video but no pics. google maps isn't too sure where i am, like it is only getting me within 20 feet or something instead of an exact location. the streets google has don't look like the streets i'm walking on, in that they are unmarked on the map, or there are additional streets, etc. a bit confusing but i made it to where the temple was.

a guard told me things were closed, a guy by the museum there said to let me up. he then asked for money, and i thought this was a scam - i'm still not sure tbh. i thought the temple was free. it was right next to the museum, which was closing. i said i thought it was free and just kind of sarged past him to go to the temple, by then he had another guy he said was 'ticket booth' and i was like man these guys are BS. they were protesting and the ticket guy had asked me "how much you pay" as we was willing to negotiate - and they only accepted cash - making me further think yeah this is not a museum or legit thing or necessary.

i see some people (tourists) coming out of the temple and ask them if they paid, they said yes, and i asked if they got a ticket and to my surprise a girl showed me one. so i was like oh shit maybe these guys aren't scammers like everyone else is here i ended up paying the full price (200 EGP) and getting a ticket myself. the ticket is clearly for the museum though, and i'm still not sure if it's necessary for the temple. anyway story over no pics.

i wanted a coffee, although don't have an easy time finding much here and especially on my island. there was a sudanese place that was highly rated with sudanese coffee. it was strong and filtered through some spices and such in this vase guy.

walking back to my place with only a half useful google maps.

nice spice store on the way.

i was in around the right area and would have got back to my guest house, but this kid asked where i was going and sent me in the right direction. my place was just around the corner. have more insta360 vid but here's a short phone one of what it's like walking down the street.



my camel tagine dinner.

late at night my lost bag got to aswan, and my tour organizer down here took a ferry and got it to my place. didn't have a ton of sleep as i had to get up quite early to catch a flight to abu simbel for a day trip.

i think i've been on over 600 flights and this was the closest ever to simply a bus in the air. you can drive to abu simbel but the road is supposed to not be great, and it's 3.5-4 hours each way. i got my ticket too late and the only seats left were business class. i heard a woman walking by comment "i wish we would have known we could upgrade to business class!" - i assume she had a tour book the tickets? in any case it was a 40 minute flight. if she slipped me $50 she could have upgrade right there. actually if she just sat down she could have upgraded. i don't think they cared about or checked tickets or manifests etc. here. just get everyone on, fly up and down, then sit and wait to bring basically the same people back.

you can only see the site on the flight in and from the left side. it's on the descent pretty close to the airport that it comes into view.

closer up, with the ramesses II on the left and a temple for hathor and queen nefertari on the right.

the new dam would have put it underwater so they cut and physically relocated both of these structures to where they sit today.

this guy is about to get a whoopin'

we had some time left after the tour and my guide had asked if i had eaten, which i had but i'm kind of always up for eating some more. he first took me to the cafe area at abu simbel and i was like noooo, take me to somewhere you would eat, just on a normal day. he took me to this place. i had a falafel pita and a bean one. both were pretty good. i'm under the impression much of tcg would not risk chowing here.

time to go back

i chose to do my nile cruise on a dahabiya. you can compare the big boat i ate at prices here https://www.luxorandaswan.com/Egypt/cruise/ms-salacia-nile-cruise with my dahabiya here https://www.luxorandaswan.com/Egypt/cruise/Amoura-Dahabiya i am flying solo and am paying the singles tax, so on top of not making out with anyone in my room they charge me a bunch for an extra human not being their opportunity cost. although my boat is actually quite empty. also i'm paying the list price (more really) for mine, but have brought my own guide so they did not need to provide one. so someone is pocketing a chunk of cash there (i assume my tour company). the incremental cost to go on the dahabiya didn't seem that much more on top of paying for a solo nile cruise already so i went for it.

depending on what your definition of luxury is, it could be a fancier big boat with more amenities (pool, gym, jacuzzi, etc.) or the calmer more intimate dahabiya doing more slow cruising and sailing down or up the nile, depending on your direction.

dahabiya are traditional nile sailboats. wiki:
Until the 1870s the dahabiya was the standard for tourists to travel up and down the river Nile. According to Donald Reid, in 1858 "a forty-day round trip from Cairo to Luxor cost about £110; a fifty-day trip to Aswan and back, about £150".[2] However, Thomas Cook Ltd introduced the steam boat on the river and brought with them the organisational know how to turn a three-month voyage into a 28-day sight-seeing tour. By 1900, as trains had started to compete with the steam boat, dahabiyas were reserved only for the most wealthy, leisured travelers.

breakfast, lunch, and dinner are on the boat. although they took off one of the tables and brought it on land to dine on an island we were docked on last night. also there's a 4 o'clock tea snackie service. lunch the first day and snackies. the food is all from a buffet they change up each day.

lunch today:



most of the time a tugboat pulls us and we are not sailing, although we are sailing as i type this. you don't really notice how much quieter it is until the tug is off. when you hear muslim calls for prayer, you hear it from all different mosques and towns around, although i can't see anything from within the nile they must be in towns and villages and such behind all the greenery, so kinda cool. guys at the front of the boat are praying behind me now.

i asked my guide about growing up here as a christian, as there are 10-20% estimates for them and he is one. and if/how sharia law is applied here. he noted that in court there may be circumstances where sharia is applied even if you are a christian, one example was if you passed on and did not leave a will, then sharia would apply to how your assets are divied up. if you were christian, and you had a will, and someone challenged it in court - then it seemed like sharia would also still apply.

between the tug boat and our boat, i think there's at least 6 crew (1 is a cook). on the boat is me and my guide, then a guatemalan couple and their spanish speaking egyptian guide. so this is a total of 2 boats, 11 people, where only 3 are guests paying for anything. there were 4 americans also scheduled to be on the boat, but they canceled last week. people may do egypt only trips, but it is also common for people to add in jordan and/or israel as well. tourism was down much more in jordan than it is here though. it is unfortunate those folks canceled because i figured meeting them would also be part of the fun and experience.

as it is, the woman doesn't seem to speak much english and her husband translates; my spanish is not conversational itself. we have chat a bit, they also have the one suite on the boat - the back room taking up the whole boat back there, i haven't seen it but i'm sure it's super cool. it's not even listed on the prices for the site i linked above. i figured if you are here from guatemala on this boat you've probably done pretty well for yourself, i know one of the things the guy did was he owned and sold a successful soccer team there. unfortunately he's had some back surgery and i think caught a cold from it being a little chillier at night, so i've seen him a bit less on the boat now. his wife seems sweet and is really into the egyptian mythology.

the first visit we did was kom ombo, a temple for 2 gods, horus and sobek, the crocodile god. it is rare to have a double temple. it has a double entrance and the left and right sides were for each god.

sobek looks pretty cool. one of the ways you can tell this temple has roman influence is because the depictions include belly buttons and knee/calf details.

 

[Z28Camaro]

Great thread and cool journey. It’s a bit of work to post stuff like this - thank you.

 

[sickmint79]

Great thread and cool journey. It’s a bit of work to post stuff like this - thank you.

thanks, it helps me too as i can collect some thoughts and write down some things while they are fairly fresh in my mind, it does indeed take more time than i originally expect when i start collecting stuff to upload too. right now the boat internet isn't helping either

there weren't a lot of people when we were there, plus the sun was setting, so i got some cool night shots too.

typically as you go further in to a temple, you are going through sections and doors and going up to being higher and higher level priests, up until the point where you can access the shrines as a high priest. also i'll note in general i'm surprised at the condition of carvings in general, given that so many are unprotected at tourist hands level and given their age. but everything generally is amazingly well preserved that i've seen.

there was also a crocodile mummy musem here for sobek.

i had not paid for this next stop, but it was a small temple area that the guatemalans did. a big nile boat couldn't stop here but the dahabiya can stop a whole lot of places pretty easily so we went out to explore. i forgot the name but i think i have it on a ticket, it was 100 EGP to go. couple snaps from the start here and one of the rooms looking out that was further down the path to the left.

we were the only visitors here. i would assume it gets visited quite rarely. we both had separate guards trailing us. once my guide and i went down to explore a less traversed path, the guard figured we were game and chat with my guide then took us down through some other rough paths to eventually get to this spot. on the way back my guide gave him a tip; the guide was up for showing us more, it was up this area that said it was off limits and being excavated, although my concern was that it had some stairs and climbing up high with absolutely nothing around it so i was not keen to go up it. in any case i'm under the impression that you can slip a guard some cash, especially at a rarely visited location, and they will show you the world.



some cruising



we stopped on another small island i didn't capture the name of, but it has a population of 350 people who primarily live there. mostly farming, fishing, or doing both. eventually we visited the home of one of the people that lived there, they provided some welcome drinks and we chat about how he lives life. he had 15 people in the home, iirc across 4 families. it was kind of like 4 small homes put together with a central room. i didn't take any pics inside. they rarely leave the island. as far as i know the nubian area i visited on elephantine island might have been the lowest income outwardly of any place i've trudged through, up until this point, where life just seemed to be pretty quiet and calm and it would seem subsistence farming. they gave us some bread and eggs before we left.

most (all?) of the homes were made of mud bricks. they had a fair amount of kitties on the island, although most seemed pretty timid. i'm sure they would have come running for food though, as most also looked like they could use some more. vid on the way to their house, other pics on the way back to our boat.

the chef made up the eggs for our lunch that day too. we've also had beef, or both it and chicken, in dinners. the bottom right is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koshary which is egypt's national dish. i'll also note the pita bread i've had on the boat is the softest of anywhere i've had it, seems it must also be the freshest, and i've eaten 2-3x as much as i normally would elsewhere.

this night we had dinner on the island off the boat. only negative was not much light/could have used a little more candles

today we visited edfu. it is the most preserved temple in all of egypt. you need to take some transit to it and they bring you in a horse cab. so this is what it is like on the way there.



also saw a sign for gold.

this is a temple for horus, and one of the stories in depicts is of him battling and defeating his uncle set who is in the form of a hippo during their battle. i also took more 360 vid here but here are some pics too. i'll also note a cool thing about having my own guide is i can just ask him questions about anything anywhere. like walking along and seeing any random thing that catches my eye.

this was on the outer perimeter within the temple walls, it was an area where a temple priest could guide the commoners and show them stories. i have it on video but no pics of the battle between horus and set as a hippo on the right of this wall.

inside the temple. some of the parts were cool because you could walk in and up them.

this was part of the temple stock rooms, and the writings here are all on how to make various perfumes. i was surprised to hear it's only some boutiquey stores in aswan that do small runs of some of them. seems like you could make some fantastic marketing out of this.

here is where the shrine would have been kept. it was also transferred to another temple i'll visit in 2 days for a special ceremony, celebrating a wedding between the gods i believe.

today is my last day sailing. it is pretty cool but as you can see from the prices above, it ain't cheap. tomorrow i'll have breakfast on the boat docked at esna. the large boats sail to luxor and go through some locks. we only sail to esna. we'll get in a car and take it up to the west bank of luxor tomorrow, see a lot, see some of the east side, then the next day see the east side and i'll be free the rest of the day. the original itinerary strangely to me didn't include luxor temple, but included one a long drive away. this trade off did not seem worth it and i think is the only part of the itinerary i modified in a major way. tomorrow should include the most well preserved and colored hieroglyphics i believe. found this guy in my room. in the envelope is a survey, but this is also where you put in tips for the crew. i don't think i mentioned it above much but tips are very common in egypt and expected for a lot of things. eg. apparently you wouldn't tip a bartender. you tip a whole lot of other people though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baksheesh

we just docked in esna. i think there's a 1.5-2 hours before dinner on the boat, i need to hit up an atm, but may just kill some time trying to poke around this town a bit. can't get lost if i stay along the nile instead of go up some roads into it, although a lot of it is looking pretty dark right now. oh well about to go see what i can see.

 

[Pro Stock John]

Great pics and info thanks for doing it all.

 

[sickmint79]

last sunset

i needed to go into town to find an atm. i also just wanted to walk around. normally people don't go to do anything here, the big boats just go on by. the small boats like mine usually dock and stop here and then you drive to luxor the next morning. i saw a temple on google maps i wanted to go check out too, although it was past visiting hours. as i was about to go off the boat, the crew asked if i wanted my guide. i said i think i'll be alright. i don't think they are used to letting guests roam freely so they went and grabbed him anyway, and he said he'd come with me. we went to the temple, it looked like the colors would be pretty visible during the day. i kinda felt like if i gave the guard some money we could have gone down to it, although i didn't try it.

we took the long way back to the boat and chat about some things. one thing that was interesting is that all egyptians have their religion on their ID cards. although i think it may only be christian or muslim. he said you could convert christian to muslim no problem. mustlim to christian though... you are better off moving to a part of the country where nobody knows you if you do that, as most people would be ok but there are some more radical people out there. i also asked about relationships, like a muslim man marrying a christian woman. it sounded like it did not happen a lot, but when it did, basically whatever the man did was considered acceptable. not really acceptable would be a muslim woman being with a non-muslim man. he also said most wedding dresses now were rented for the occasion.

waiting for dinner lounging in one of the two spots that were my lazy sailing spots.

the crew actually had 7 people on it. i was told if the boat had more guests they would actually have more. they brought out a cake and had a song for our last night.

in the morning we had breakfast and jumped in a van to drive up to luxor. this was the capital of egypt during its most prosperous time. i'm sure it matters by what you count as a monument, but my guide told me there is so much stuff in luxor that it contains 1/3 of the monuments in the world.

first stop we did was to queen hatshepsut's temple. there were a lot of field trips today.

guards at these places, especially the tombs next, offer to take your picture than expect a tip or will offer you to go into locked rooms and then ask for one. what was odd here was that off a corner room one guard was asking me if i wanted to go smoke shisha behind some locked door. this just seemed weird.

after that we went to the valley of the kings. there are a ton of tombs here. there's a cool model in the visitor's center showing them. kings were buried here for over 500 years. there are also tombs for nobles and others around.

the museum pass gets you access to a certain amount, a subset open to the public. you can also pay extra to go in some others, i ended up paying for 2 extras, ramesses v & vi tomb (180 EGP) and seti i (1800) tomb. the latter was the most expensive and by far. my guide said as an egyptologist, without tourists, he is able to access all the tombs.

there is also a valley of the queens we didn't do - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valley_of_the_Queens and the most expensive ticket, an extra one of 2000 EGP ($65 at current official rate) for queen nefertari - because it is the most well preserved. you are also only allowed 10 minutes in it. i didn't add on valley of the queens because it was not part of the original schedule, and we already had a packed day. now that i've had a chance to see it online - 1. holy shit it looks amazing, like it is so well preserved it seems like it should be a can't miss and 2. i would have definitely sacrificed time from a lot of other things to go see it today. i basically have free time tomorrow afternoon and was going to go visit a museum. if i try and go visit her tomb solo i think it will cost a chunk of transit time (i'm on the wrong side of the nile and the bridge is far apparently) and probably $80 if i do things all on my own. i think adding the guide may be $100, but it would have been $30 today. not sure why that is but he did mention it. i'll see what he thinks tomorrow, given that it really looks amazing now that i've seen it online. although another rule is you are basically not allowed to take pictures or video with literally anything but your phone. which sucks because i'd really like to use the insta360 there.

in any case, these are from the kings today. i mostly took 360 video, so i'll just include a random smattering of some pics across many tombs below. this is a good snake, he is spitting venom onto the enemies of egypt. their arms are bound behind their backs.

snake w/feet was a good guy too https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nehebkau

side note, i was really hoping to find one of the depictions of the cat goddess bastet (or maybe it was a form of amun ra) killing the only real evil god https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apep with a dagger. looking online now it looks like it is in some nobles tombs in another area. also some of those look well preserved, but they are certainly smaller.

guide wasn't totally sure but i'm particularly interested in what is going on with this croc who has a guy's head on his back and looks like he is receiving a white crown of upper egypt. these boats are taking the king (he's on the one off screen to the left) on the journey to the final judgement for the afterlife.

we went for a lunch included in my tour. i ate a bunch of mixed grill stuff. then went to my hotel to check in, the steigenberger nile palace. i had never heard of the brand nor movenpick before this trip, although the latter seems popular in both egypt and jordan and the former at least egypt. inner courtyard, room, and balcony.

we visited karnak, a huge temple complex. i mostly have video but some pics from there:

after we got to luxor, as the sun was setting. valley of the sphinxes, between luxor and karnak.

 

[Shawn1112]

I'm mostly skimming thru your posts, more so looking at the pics, so if it was mentioned already sorry about that.
Have you been offered drugs and or woman for sale?

 

[sickmint79]

here is some pics of more money denominations. i don't have a 10 but that is good for a bathroom tip. 200 is the largest note they make. 1 dollar at the official rate is 31 EGP or on the black market 47-50. consider if you wanted to spend $100 cash on something, you'd need to use 15 of these bills at the official rate. using 50 for market, that's $25 of these largest 200 EGP bills. people buy cars and stuff like this... note things like most hotels you'd want to go to, tours, nile cruises, etc. will expect to charge you and you not pay with a suitcase full of cash.

i went to the gym here before i ate, first time in weeks. was weak and lazy. also annoyed by some women really wanting to use the machines i was on so they could do some useless no effort air pulls on them. whatever, gave me an excuse to leave early . there is a thai restaurant on site, although i don't plan on trying it. went out for dinner near my place. 'deep fried cheese gollash' - like egyptian version of mozzarella sticks, kinda

chicken tagine

national dessert of egypt, i like this most https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Om_Ali

 

[sickmint79]

I'm mostly skimming thru your posts, more so looking at the pics, so if it was mentioned already sorry about that.
Have you been offered drugs and or woman for sale?

i'm not sure how much drugs are here, but i sure wouldn't want to be caught with them. i have absolutely not been offered them. you are more harassed for money or buying something by vendors, who can be quite pushy, although i am left alone from approaches far more given i have a guide. if you have no guide, and you're at the pyramids, they're the worst.

no chicks like that either, i don't think they are going to be that overt about it on the streets ever. my bumble is here but my tinder is currently set to chicago. if anything there might be girls on tinder offering some service, but i don't think i ran into that in jordan and haven't tried swiping here. i mean the reality is there seem to be more chicks in chicago trying to offer services as sugar babies.

 

[Pro Stock John]

Amazing pics!!

 

[Shawn1112]

i'm not sure how much drugs are here, but i sure wouldn't want to be caught with them. i have absolutely not been offered them. you are more harassed for money or buying something by vendors, who can be quite pushy, although i am left alone from approaches far more given i have a guide. if you have no guide, and you're at the pyramids, they're the worst.

no chicks like that either, i don't think they are going to be that overt about it on the streets ever. my bumble is here but my tinder is currently set to chicago. if anything there might be girls on tinder offering some service, but i don't think i ran into that in jordan and haven't tried swiping here. i mean the reality is there seem to be more chicks in chicago trying to offer services as sugar babies.

I was curious more so on the drugs as I know they are strict AF about that. My brother was stationed there for about 6 months and I remember him telling us about it. But that was like 10-15yrs ago, so I was curious if it has changed. I thought he said hash was around back then, but not offered out in the open. Also, not sure if it was Egypt or somewhere near Bagdad, they found a shit ton of poppy fields. Like fucking everywhere

 

[frank]

Is there any street racing action going on at night ? Street take overs? Camel racing events?

More serious on the camel racing, that would be cool to see.

 

[rocco]

It's mind boggling to see all the intricate carvings into the stone. I can't imagine how long that took, especially those massive columns. I wouldn't have a clue how to go about building that stuff with primitive tools....unless they had help from aliens.

 

[sickmint79]

I was curious more so on the drugs as I know they are strict AF about that. My brother was stationed there for about 6 months and I remember him telling us about it. But that was like 10-15yrs ago, so I was curious if it has changed. I thought he said hash was around back then, but not offered out in the open. Also, not sure if it was Egypt or somewhere near Bagdad, they found a shit ton of poppy fields. Like fucking everywhere

i asked my guide about some of these. starting with pot. he said if i wandered in town (luxor) that likely some of the horse carriage guys would make some kind of offer to sell me some. he said a user amount for me as a tourist i would not get in trouble. he thought he would be taken to the police station and made to pay a fine. i asked about harder things, he said you could find them, although they are treated much more severely so it is hard to do so. as a tourist if i had a user amount of heroin he still thought i'd be ok, like diplomatically because they don't want to make too big of a deal out of me, but for sure he would be going to jail.

i asked about sex workers too - i haven't flipped my tinder to egypt to even see who is here or if anyone is volunteering their services, this is common in thailand though. so places i have been recently seemed to be almost exclusively for that - like a ton of profiles in istanbul and doha (flew through on the way here.) there's no legally allowed place for it (there actually is in istanbul (secular government) - surprisingly). it is actually illegal here to even have sex outside of marriage.

he mentioned that he thought it was mostly arabs coming in that might be looking for this (maybe used to finding it in UAE for example) and that one might find ladies in this line of work in night clubs in cairo. apparently there was some way to make it semi legal in that one could do something like write up a marriage contract for one night and have it [the sex] be ok - but not the prostitution. i recently saw something like this in a documentary or vice episode or something, i forgot. iirc it was something like child marriage or trafficking in iraq. pretty disturbing.

Is there any street racing action going on at night ? Street take overs? Camel racing events?

More serious on the camel racing, that would be cool to see.

you'd definitely kill someone, drivers don't maintain their lanes, a huge amount of especially motorcycles/scooters do not run with their lights on at night, literally no one wears helmets, and people just walk into the street casually all the time. today my driver nearly hit a kid who just blitzed out in front of us. the streets are also in crappy condition.

i don't have any free time to try it without giving up something else major, but i looked up karting around cairo yesterday. i figured it would be sweet as fuck if i have a video karting with the pyramids in the background. i found mostly closed places and complaints though. so not great for motorsport here. if anything i might expect some bike races, and i'll note most bikes here are chinese brands you've probably never heard of. camel racing is definitely a thing in UAE. i dunno about here for any type of racing, i'll note i didn't look more than the casual look above. one one hand racing is generally an expensive sport, on the other you still got people who will race anything for fun...

probably prettiest kart track i've been to, krabi kart with limestone around it. utter shit maintenance, one of my karts the wheel fell off and i hit the wall. this place was shitty before covid, then covid really rekt it, closed now. was pretty though.



you might enjoy this, good documentary on cuba's drag racing scene and them trying to put together an official legal event. safety level of the cars was wild lol

Havana Motor Club (2015) ⭐ 7.4 | Documentary, Drama, Sport

1h 20m | Not Rated

www.imdb.com

i think it may be on amazon prime now

It's mind boggling to see all the intricate carvings into the stone. I can't imagine how long that took, especially those massive columns. I wouldn't have a clue how to go about building that stuff with primitive tools....unless they had help from aliens.

so some of the surfaces are chiseled in, and then much harder, some of them are chiseled out, like the characters are rising from the surface. note they also were mostly painted. on top of that this stuff is old old, like some literally thousands of years before any history you spend more than a day on in school. like it's wild thinking that in the US we're primarily just going over the more recent euro history then our own young country, while egypt's history is preserved to 2500 years BC. no one else has anything like this. you can find ruins older than egypt's, but egypt has a ton of well preserved stuff - and moreover an enormous amount of documentation written on papyrus as well as all the temples.

 

[DEEZUZ]

God dude..amazing... And Universal definitely got the ride que 100% correct for The Mummy