📸 Photography sickmint79 takes you to egypt

[sickmint79]

morning shot of the nile.

my guide got us some falafel sandwiches and pickles from this stand on the day trip drive out to dendera. this was a 90 minute trip. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendera_Temple_complex

this temple is known for its well preserved colors.

blue skin is generally for the gods, and red for man. here the king is presenting some offerings and the gods are receiving them.

on the way back my guide got dropped off and started heading home. if i visit again i would not hesitate to look him up and go with him again, he was great! i had the driver drop me off at the luxor museum. it was a lot smaller than i expected - perhaps because many items have been moved to the grand egyptian museum now. i got a ticket to go to it on my very last day. it is not open, and has been in a perpetual state of being under construction, and is (i believe by far) the largest museum in the world. at luxor we can see some guys like above, a statue of a god ready to receive offerings. i believe this would have ultimately been in the most sacred part of the temple with minimal access, like just the highest priests.

it's ya boy sobek the croc god

i don't understand this, like 10 items seemed to have braille signs next to them. very confusing.

my precious gold

there were a couple of mummies, although i didn't take pics of them.

i think the box with the animal pots in it contained various removed organs? there was a mummification museum on the walk back to my hotel from here, and i would have gone, but it was past 1:30 by the time i was walking by and it closed oddly early (2pm) so i didn't go in. although if buying a ticket was fast, that might have been enough time to briskly do it, if it was similar in size.

for lunch i walked along the nile until this restaurant, now guideless and with more harassment of dudes trying to get me to go on their boats or ride their taxi or horse carriage etc. it's not unbearable but i can see plenty of people really not liking it, and i've heard women traveling solo here have a rough time.

i had some kind of feta cheese and green olives starter. the salad and baba ghanoush (mostly eggplant) came with. the pita bread when fresh is nice soft and gummy, it's great.

i had a lemon drink and the main was listed as some kind of spicy meatball tomato dish. it was good, it wasn't spicy as in hot though more just spiced i guess.

i saw this famous https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Cataract_Hotel hotel from elephantine island while walking in aswan, my guide noted you could go in and explore for the price of a drink (minimum 500 EGP). the same chain (accor/sofitel) also owns the winter palace here in luxor, which you can just walk in and explore. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sofitel_Winter_Palace_Hotel

i think much of its fame comes from the amazing garden inside the grounds.

forgot to say yesterday i bought some souvenirs, at an alabaster and more factory/workshop near luxor. had an interesting demonstration. i have no need for knicknacks or real place to put them, tbh my parents don't either. in any case i went and got a statue of bastet and a scarab, i think the statue had more real effort and is of harder stone but am sure i overpaid for both, although at least i know they are real. i didn't tell my guide how much i paid because i didn't want him to tell me how badly i overpaid. although in the end i think he's just happy to see them get some money for some honest work, and i should be happy enough knowing that i have something really from egypt and from some stone these guys worked on. the guy bubble wrapped them to all hell so no pics until they escape after i return home.

as i suppose is common everywhere, for reference i got a coffee at my hotel for 90 EGP. i gave the guy 200 expecting 110 back and to be able to use the 10 for a tip to go to the pisser when out and about as many places require one. guy just gave me 100 though. meanwhile a nicely rated coffee shop in town was 40 EGP for the same thing (americano).

another interesting thing of note is gasoline used to be heavily subsidized here - like 80%+ of the cost was subsidized by the government in the fairly recent past. that is closer to 15% now.

today i just have dinner on the menu for tonight (830pm now, 1230pm chicago time). flight to cairo in the morning. visiting coptic cairo (pre-islamic christian cairo area), the bazaar i took a pic of some lanterns at night in earlier before when i was walking around exploring, and the egyptian museum. it is supposed to be pretty cool, but also quite dated - which apparently gives you the feeling of walking around a museum in the 50s or something. after that my official tour is over but i have a ticket to see the huge grand egyptian museum, which includes some kind of new king tut show, access to see the grand staircase (previously i think you needed a $1000 ticket) and a small tour/handful of exhibits. when this thing is finally open - which still could take a long time - i'm sure you'll need at least 2 days to see it.

 

[IZZy]

The food looks pretty damn good, im gonna have to pick your brain when I plan my trip here

 

[Shawn1112]

The food looks pretty damn good, im gonna have to pick your brain when I plan my trip here

Thats the thing that would worry me.

 

[IZZy]

Thats the thing that would worry me.

The food or the planning?

 

[Shawn1112]

The food or the planning?

The food

 

[sickmint79]

dinner in luxor. i went to some place on google maps with good reviews and did a mixed grill thing. the place was in arabic, the menu was in arabic, and they could only take cash.

here's what an egyptian 10er looks like, i don't think i had it before.

checking out of my luxor hotel and walking from the lobby to the road, one of the guys there wanted to grab my bag and basically walk me 100 ft outdoors. i didn't want to tip him and was low on cash so i didn't want the help, but relinquished the bag to him. we got outside and chat a tiny bit but mostly just waited. i didn't tip him as it felt silly to once my driver showed up. the guy put my bag in the car - but 1. obvi i coulda done it and 2. the driver typically does this anyway. i didn't tip him, the local tour leader who was in the car with my driver (tbh not sure why he needed to be there) did though for me. he was also the only tour leader i didn't tip at all, because literally the only thing he did was be present along with my driver (who i did tip) to the airport.

i flew to cairo the next day and was able to check in my hotel early. this is the le meridien at the airport again, connected via this walkway.

this is the entry, where i was waiting for my tour company - showed up about 30 to 60 minutes late depending on how you wanna measure it. pretty annoying.

it had my driver, local tour leader, and they were picking me up to take me to my guide in downtown cairo. the company provides tipping guidelines - and this would be the last i'd be seeing my leader here abdul. i actually thought he was the same abdul i emailed with, and helped me assemble my itinerary. i thought he was like the main tour leader for my trip, and the guy who i went back and forth with in plenty of emails. the guidance was 5 USD a day - felt kinda weird to me as in person i only saw him 2 days and we did not do much together - but i tipped him 40 bucks. this was a huge mistake really. he looked at me surprised 'all for me?' and i said something along the lines of thanks for helping me plan everything blah blah. the reality was i should have given him like 10. this is a huge amount, i mean you'd be happy if i gave you $30 for nothing, right? now consider that in egypt that is at the free/black market rate worth 1500 EGP. my last night dinner in egypt was at a [somewhat famous] local fast foody place for egypt's national dish i'll show below - which is cheap ingredients - but with a drink was 75 EGP. so 1500 could go a long way.

not so annoyed i left spending an extra $30 than i should have or would have properly planned/understood, am annoyed that it wasn't better distributed if i was to leave it though, as i'd certainly prefer it would have gone to my guides.

in any case, met with my guide from the first day and we started off with the egyptian museum. it feels like this place has so many mummies and coffins that they don't know what to do with them.

i suppose if you consider that there's literally thousands of years of mummies out there (nobles etc. were mummified too, not just royals) - that there's a whole lot. also supposedly there is still a huge trade in mummies (in the billions) and apparently wealthy victorians would have some kind of parties and eat some mummy parts #richwhitepeoplethings i guess

i had also asked my guides if anyone still believed in egyptian mythology/if it had any kind of revival, expecting it might be done by egyptians. but the reality is they are largely muslim. the answer was yes though, from guess who? lol americans and brits etc. apparently doing more odd rich people things - i was told is by and large mostly women (not surprising) but groups of people into egyptian lore/mysticism/etc. exist and sometimes come to visit. one of my guides took them to a temple we visited, which they paid to have open very early in the morning. they didn't say anything on the way there and he thought they might be deaf. when they arrived they did some kind of meditations and rituals. also they all dressed in white robes. the rituals weren't something written in hieroglyphics on the walls as instructions for how the priests should perform them - they were just things the people made up.

the museum has an old vibe with the display cases and all. i wonder when all of these were set up. some parts of the museum seemed like haphazardly put together where they had more stuff than they knew what to do with (which i'm sure is true) - the basement probably looks something like the end of the first indiana jones movie.

the rosetta stone isn't the only one in multiple languages, but certainly the most famous (and in the british museum) which egypt is trying to get back. here is another though.

some kind of royal dwarf/dancer guy iirc

so i believe this would be a shrine in the holy of holies, the inner most sanctum of a temple. this is probably exactly what jesus doesn't want you worshipping or making offerings to.

this is king tut's dad. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akhenaten. he was worried about the priests and various god cults getting too much power and challenging his own, so he tried to get everyone to change and just worship one god. this was not well received by the priests or the people, and after he died they tried to wipe out his name. he is not written in many records of kings for example. there are multiple theories why art and himself at the time look very different. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akhenaten#Artistic_depictions

on his coffin his cartouche is scratched out of the wood. this is the symbol with an oval around it which always contained a royal name. i assume the face is damaged for the same reason.

some other pieces

some elements from king tut's tomb, which was found intact. most tombs has all their riches robbed from them. you were not allowed to take pictures (even with cell phone) inside the tux exhibit that contained his death mask and other treasures. there was another exhibit that had the same rules for psusennes, who had a rare silver coffin. silver was actually 3x the cost of gold / much more rare at the time. some of tut's items outside of his throne room below. there was quite a bit of treasure in there for someone who ruled shortly and died young; it would have been amazing to see what ramesses II's tomb would have looked like, given that he ruled egypt during its most prosperous time, and he lived a very long time; until 90-92. life expectancy then was like 40-45. these tombs and processes were all to prepare them for the afterlife where they would essentially continue to liver for eternity, but it seemed he may have started believing he could live forever because he was just kinda doing it at the time. iirc it was a tooth infection that eventually did him in. back to tut's stuff, here's the throne from his tomb.

this contained his canopic chest, on the left in the background. in the chest are his organs and such removed during the mummification process. they are in 4 jars in the chest, i didn't take a pic so the one after mine is from wikipedia.

we went to the bazaar area, where i have some night pics from during my first day in cairo when exploring on my own. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khan_el-Khalili

lunch with a dessert

we then went to coptic cairo, or the old christian area of cairo. this is the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanging_Church built atop one of the towers of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_Fortress

you can see the columns of the church are different because why carve your own when you can go to a temple no one is practicing in any longer and just take it?

lots of icons here, as well as relics. this is an orthodox church.

this is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saints_Sergius_and_Bacchus_Church where it is claimed that it was built atop the 'crypt where Mary, Joseph and the infant Jesus are said to have rested.'

 

[sickmint79]

after the tour i was on my own and had bought a ticket to the grand egyptian museum. it is not officially open and the tour in november just opened up to some more areas, including an 'immersive king tut experience', guided tour, and viewing of the grand staircase. the last was available before november in a preview ticket i believe which cost over a grand. no cameras are allowed aside from your cell phone (security had me store my 360 camera.) this museum is expected to display over 100k pieces once it is fully open. the louvre is the largest museum in the world, with 73k sq meters of exhibition space. the GEM is noted as having 81k sq m of floor space.

the design here includes the cartouches (names and hieroglyphics) of the kings in the black area.

this 3200 year old ramesses II is very well known to egyptians as it stood in front of cairo's main train station for much of their lives (1995-2006).

some pics from the grand staircase

the immersive thing was cool, enjoyed it more than various other similar type things i've seen of recent. much better to see my last day than first day though as lots of the imagery wasn't explained, but were things i recognized from learning about egyptian beliefs along the way during my tour. at 20 minutes into the 40 minute show i had to change seats because these 2 little girls next to me were recording the entire thing and could not *shut the fawk up* at all. like constantly talking and saying inane stuff like "look at this" etc. i understand now why they have a no kids version of the show an hour after this one .

i think on a clearer night the pyramids would be visible here.

spotted an m5 on my way to abou tarek.

this place is famous and only has one thing on the menu; koshary, the national dish of egypt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koshary

entire meal was 75 EGP. at the free market rate that's basically $1.50. although we had a version of this on the nile cruise, this was much tastier.

bread shop while waiting for my uber. one of many i saw while there.

my room rate at the hotel was $50 more than the prior night i stayed. they put me on the 4th floor but i didn't have the welcome snacky treats that i did the first time. i think because i checked in like 930am so pretty early.

on the way home ---

i thought i was flying out of the terminal i was connected to, and figured i'd be at the airport early/sail through biz lines so not in a rush to get over there. the reality was i found out that i should have been flying out of T2 not the T3 i was connected to. once i did get to the right place, apparently i checked in with less than 6 minutes to go.

although my ticket is business class, this means "club europe" on british airways for anything europe(ish, in this case) - so it is marketed as business class, but is more like first class in the US domestic market in theory. in reality it kinda sucks - it's just economy seats. this one has a cabinet separator, although i think it may be movable based on how many tickets they sell? or at least some planes it does that. in any case, they are all literally the same economy seats, but in this class the middle one is blocked.

it was worse than i expected really. no entertainment system - and this is a 5.5-6 hour flight. i sat down and immediately groaned as my legs hit the seat in front of me too; seat pitch is the measurement for the distance between the seats here, and i found on AA domestic a320/1, there is 32" seat pitch for economy. you generally find this on most international economy seats too; 31-33". this BA configuration though... 29-30". so this was not a super comfortable flight. my ass was pretty sore with 2 hours left.

left 7am. cheese omelette with a coffee, some yogut and fruit.

finally on the ground.

i missed my flight. i also wasted an hour changing terminals as for some reason i thought i had to go from T5 to T4. really i needed to stay in T5. the process to switch was even less efficient than usual so i ended up on 4 bus rides to get out and back to the right place. this isn't why i missed my flight though. i did get to see the concord from the bus.

my connection was almost impossible. my original itinerary had me landing at 10:15 and my outgoing flight leaving at 11:20 for a 65 minute transfer which is already pretty close. since i purchased the ticket, the incoming went to 10:20 arrival and the outgoing to 11:00 for a 40 minute window. i do not believe BA will actually sell you a ticket like this because the minimum connection time is under an hour. we were going to be late and the flight attendant told me before we landed that my flight was the first to be rebooked - she said they do it automatically if there is less than an hour to connect. which i already had for months, so not sure why they didn't already do it. if things went perfectly the plane would have hit the gate at 10:20, and my 11:00 flight would have the gate closed at 10:40, giving me 20 minutes to actually transfer from one plane to the next. so i was in the airport quite a bit longer.

i thought i wouldn't get to check out the lounge, but this gave me a 5 hour layover so i did indeed. mostly have video but here's one of the rounds of things i tried.

my plane is the far 777, there was also an a380 here.

my fare class let me upgrade to first class on the way back for 35k AA miles. so i'll be in this front cabin on the way back, over new year's eve. up until christmas if you were up there you would get a special gift (BA christmas ornament)

menu, bedding, headphones

i had a rare cocktail to start

 

[Pro Stock John]

Great pics and info, maybe you should create your own website it could be a great resource for travelers. I like Atlas Obscura as an example.

Love this pics:

When I was in Delhi a while back I realized that my coworker and I were over tipping based on the reactions of the drivers we hired, but it wasn't much money for us.

 

[sickmint79]

smoked salmon starter

turkey, was pretty good.

i got the chocolate orange mousse... and the apricot souffle... the first one was better.

derping it up in the cabin. i watched a couple movies and slept a bit.

the "light meal" - sandwich was decent

parked at ohare T5 next to an eva air bird

BA, despite the long layover, managed to leave my bag in london. i just got it this morning. took 40 hours. my mom gets anxious driving around ohare, i took an uber to deere park and with the lowest tip it was something like 62 bucks. the same uber in egypt with the highest tip would not even have been 6 bucks lol.

i wrote a complaint about the connection time and delayed baggage, hopefully they will give me some cash. i complained on BA's site. wonder if i should have complained on AA's though, i think i actually bought this from them, but it was all BA operated. hmm. per https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/bri...light-delay-compensation-how-who-contact.html this seems correct.

all in all i quite enjoyed egypt. i'm sure the experience can be very different if you have no guide, or are a woman. i'd definitely advise going there and getting a guide though.

my way around the bad currency rate and getting the actual black market rate, or very close to it, would be bringing a gold coin to sell. this would be particularly useful for buying meals, and for tipping. although USD itself is also accepted/welcomed/preferred for tipping. i would also tell anyone going that they should consider the valley of the queens and queen nefertari's tomb one that is a can't miss and one that they should do last. it's not one i saw but would absolutely make sure to next time. another thing i didn't see but sounds like it is worth a good visit is the recently opened museum of civilization in cairo. if the grand egyptian museum is actually fully open, i kinda expect it to be a 1-2 day affair.

 

[sickmint79]

as an example of how much more detailed that queen's tomb is, here is a pic of seti i tomb in the valley of the kings, which seems to be known as the second best preserved. i didn't actually notice an image this detailed while there, pic from wikipedia.

similarly, here's nerfertari's also from wikipedia, as the best preserved.

 

[sickmint79]

Great pics and info, maybe you should create your own website it could be a great resource for travelers. I like Atlas Obscura as an example.

Love this pics:
View attachment 190535

thanks - i have a site, it's just not updated very often and doesn't have much of an audience and articles are all over the place, like about points, some flight pics, mexican cheeseburgers... i took enough video to make some useful stuff for youtube, i just need to get around to actually making the videos. i like atlas obscura too and check it often for new places i visit, although rarely have i visited any entries.

that building is residential i believe, so you could conceivably live in it! although i think it be a busy loud area to do so in.

When I was in Delhi a while back I realized that my coworker and I were over tipping based on the reactions of the drivers we hired, but it wasn't much money for us.

yeah i always did max there, which was not even a dollar (even at the official conversion rate) - i typically do the minimum offered in the US

 

[Pro Stock John]

Your travel logs really highlight the value of a guide, I think a lot of Americans who don't usually travel outside of the US know this.

So out of curiousity how are you researching local guides?

 

[sickmint79]

Your travel logs really highlight the value of a guide, I think a lot of Americans who don't usually travel outside of the US know this.

So out of curiousity how are you researching local guides?

i don't typically get them, although think they generally are good value. note what is fun about the smithsonian in dc is you have experts giving tours there on everything too - like your guide at the space museum will have worked at nasa, probably be able to point to things he worked on and helped send to space, etc.

i researched some companies for egypt and memphis tours had a good reputation. now that i met some guides i'd just use them again, or ask them who they'd recommend if busy. i could probably put you in contact with one and you could do the same kind of trip and probably for $800 or something less.

 

[sickmint79]

last pic. souvenirs / gifts for my p's, one is a scarab, and a pretty commonly found one there, and one is bastet the cat goddess made out of basalt.