Travels with Ed

Memphis

2009-10-23T22:03:00.000-07:00

23 October 2009

Writing is proving to be harder than I thought now that I am home; there are distractions and tasks competing for my attention at every corner! At any rate, here I am, writing the next page of my story on this Friday night.

At the outset, I would like to explain that I am not up with NAMES of pharaohs, tombs, temples, etc. For 15 days on end, day and night, we visited monument after temple after tomb intensively, relating to thousands of years of ancient Egypt! Where I can remember or have recorded names, I will relay them. Otherwise, forgive my not keeping up with all the titles!

On the evening of 9/26, we went to the "Light and Sound" show at the pyramids. Some of the other light and sound shows I have been to include the Persapolis in Iran and the Bridge over River Quai in Thailand. By comparison, this light and sound show was 'average'. The sound recording was an aging, British English sound. I found myself dozing off in the midst of it, and was surprised to later hear that many of our companions had been doing the same! We all felt they could have done a better job!

In the morning of September 27th, we woke and had a sumptuous breakfast in the hotel's dinning room with a couple from our tour-group. There is something to be said about Egyptian hospitality: I never spent a day in Egypt...anywhere in Egypt, when someone didn't serve me a HUGE, multi-coursed/multi-variety buffet breakfast, most of which were accompanied by a live chef cooking egg dishes to order! (I only realized how grand these breakfasts had been once I got to my bed & breakfast in Amsterdam later on this trip!)

After breakfast, we got on the bus for our morning excursion to Memphis, one of the ancient Egyptian capitals. (This excursion was optional; so not everyone in our tour group was with us. At the suggestion of my travel buddy: Barry, we had signed up for EVERY single optional excursion! Barry and I turned out to be the only two people in that category, which made for a VERY busy and full trip!)

On the way to Memphis, Amro--our tour leader, confirmed that Cairo had a huge trash problem. The government had hired some European trash-collecting companies to do the job in Cairo. The Europeans asked the Egyptian public to drastically change their garbage delivery habits, along with a hefty hike in their monthly trash bills. The result was a disastrous chaos, which ended up in people abandoning their trash in the streets, waterways, and yes, in the great Nile! At the time of our visit the problem was persisting, the signs of which were visible along the route we were traveling.

Memphis, of course, was fascinating. It was in ruins with the usual tourist-track gift shops, complete with the barrage of young Egyptian men trying every trick in the book to get tourists to buy! We saw a larger-than life reclining statue of a pharaoh, the complete view of which entailed walking all around, and then climbing to a second storey terrace to get the top view. Then we saw scores of sphinxes, smaller than THE Sphinx in Giza, that in the ancient times were lined on either side of the road leading to the temple. We also saw other busts, statues, and relics, all subscribing to the ancient Egyptian temple-building style.

On the way to our next destination, we passed by a date-palm-grove, where men were harvesting fresh dates by climbing all the way up to the dates, the way their ancestors had done through the millennia . We were lucky, Amro told us, since fresh harvesting only happened one week during the year, and this was it! Amro went and got us an abundant supply of fresh dates, on which we gorged our faces on the bus. They were of two kinds: the kind that is availabe in California and elsewhereb -- black and juicy, and a drier, purple kind which I had never seen before. This strange member of the date family was hard to chew on, and it left one's mouth with a numb feeling, same as when one ate a persimmon.

This date grove was located at the very edge of the great Sahara Desert; Amro told us between where we were and the Atlantic ocean, encompassing the entire width of North Africa there was nothing but desert, making the grove the last bastion of greenery until western Morocco!

Thereafter, we visited an ancient tomb in the middle of the desert in a region called Sakkara. There were two military personnel guarding the area - one of which was sound asleep in his booth.

The walls of the underground tomb which had belonged to an ancient noble family bore vivid embossed images and colors that had survived the eons. Amro lamented the hordes of tourists visiting the tomb nowadays, for our very breaths and sweat created humidity in the enclosed space that was eroding the colors even as we spoke! He said the government might close this tomb to the visitors along with many other cites in the near future.

Then we walked to yet another temple in ruins, and some truly ancient pyramids--that supposedly served as training ground for the pyramids of Giza which came many centuries later. As we did the math, we realized one of these pyramids were significantly older than the time when Moses had walked those grounds!

After that, we got back on the bus and on to a carpet weaving workshop. This arrangement seemed to be part of the world-wide tourist trap of being herded to a factory, watching a decorated demo of what they did there, and then being led into a showroom where not so subtle pressure tactics were applied on the tourists to buy the not so cheap products.

Upon completion of the tour, we went back to Le Meridien Pyramids. Barry and I then walked over to the nearby Felfela Restaurant where we consumed a sumptuous lamb stew and rice meal, complemented by lentil soup. Later, we enjoyed a peacful time at the hotel, sipping beverages at the poolside in the cool Cairo September evening.

Explanation of pictures (Top to Bottom):

1. A guy up some 50 meters on a date palm tree,
2, 3. The larger than life statue of a pharaoh, Memphis,
4. One of the sphinxes that used to line up the road to the temple in Memphis,
5. The estern edge of the Sahara Desert outside of Cairo,
6. The temple at Sakkara,
7. The carpet weaving workshop,
8. A toothless, old man at Sakkara who posed with me for a "Bakhshesh" (and you thought I was short!)
9. The remnants of one of the oldest pyramids (if not the oldest) that served as the training ground for the Giza Pyramids which came much later,
10. A guard sound asleep in Sakkara. The Step Pyramid built before Moses is visible in the background.
11. The Step Pyramid up-close,
12. The night at the Giza Pyramids' "Light & Sound" show. One of the pyramids is visible (all lit up) in the bottom left side of the picture.

2009-10-16T00:03:00.000-07:00

Prior to leaving Alexandria, I want to mention a Christian family I had chance to converse with on the Corniche (the main beach strip) on my last night there. A comment our tour guide later made reminded me of this family: They were Egyptians before they were Christians. When it came time to take pictures, while their females were dressed western, I was not allowed to photograph them; only the males were up for that.

This family asked me about what I felt about Iran, and I told them. When it came my turn to ask them about Egypt, I was met by a stunned silence. I immediately realized my own blunder: in Egypt, one is not allowed to speak freely about the politics; once asked, the Egyptian citizen can only cast praise upon the system. Upon my asking the main speaker for this family looked around to the left and then to the right and then behind, and then said in a hushed tone: we can't really speak here. Then amidst my profusions of "oh yes, I understand", came "but the true answer is that we are not happy here". Thereafter, I asked them to accompany me across the street (my usual request on the driver-dominated streets of Middle East) so I could catch the bus back to my hotel, effectively putting an end to an awkward conversation.

The next day upon arriving at the Cairo, I was met by Adel, a pen-pal, who acted as my guide in getting me to the Le Meridien Pyramids Hotel where I was to meet my friend Barry and the rest of the tour-group who would be my company for the next 15 days. After meeting Barry (whom I hadn't seen since our last escapade to Mexico two years prior) and checking into my room, and as I was meandering through the hotel grounds, I realized an Egyptian wedding was to be held there that same evening.

Later during the procession of bride and groom, as myself and many other tourists took part in taking pictures and spontaneously dancing to the very bliss music that was being played live, I felt myself not so much an spectator, but a part of the festivities. Our Egyptians hosts were gracious enough to regard us with humor and expressions of welcome!

The next morning, I realized why the hotel was named thus: the great pyramids were in plain view! After meeting the rest of the group and our tour guide (Amro) over breakfast, we headed out for our first excursion: The Great Pyramids of Giza, which were all of a ten-minute drive away! While in the minibus, Amro asked who wanted to go inside the greatest pyramid? Amro further explained that the corridors inside the pyramid and the burial chamber to which they led were suffocatingly hot amidst throngs of tourists that were perpetually invading the place. (Annually, 12 million people visit Egypt, and guess what the number one attraction in Egypt is!) Furthermore, he explained, there was nothing of interest (paintings, carvings, antiquities, etc.) to be seen inside the pyramid. Only a couple from our group raised their hands.

I did, however, sign up for approaching the pyramids on the classical camel back, the way it has been done through the millennial.

It was a hot/sunny day without a cloud in the sky. (It rarely, if ever, gets cloudy or rainy through most of Egypt, the Mediterranean coast being the exception.) As expected, the place was overrun by tourists and young Egyptian men who tried every which way to make money from the visitors.

After having had our fill with the pyramids from the outside, I managed to buy a ticket from a tourist who had had a change of heart to go visit the inside of the pyramid, after all. (One can only do so by buying a special ticket for about US$8 from the entrance gate, not an easy walk back once one is at the sight!) I realized it was almost the time to meet back at the bus as I stood in the long line leading to the opening of the pyramid. The opening is small; one needs to bend over and climb inside like that all the way to the burial chamber, which is a small room. The entire venture is likely to take around 15 minutes. Walking inside for about 10 feet, however, I decided to make a U-turn.

Upon meeting at the bus, we drove the short distance to the Sphinx (Abul-hol, literally meaning "father of fear"), which was not accessible by tourists and could only be viewed from an approximate 50 ft. distance.

Thereafter, we visited a papyrus factory where they not only made paper out of plant, but created beautiful artwork on it.

For lunch, we stopped at a green garden in Cairo, where we enjoyed a sumptuous multi-course meal, including chicken roasted inside a ground oven.

For the afternoon, we visited the National Museum of Cairo, where among other treasures, we visited antiquities of King Tutankhamon (and the mummies of several pharaohs for a separate ticket fare). In that museum they have so many pieces of artifact now that in the words of Amro, it has turned into a storage place now, with items rowed in very close proximity to each other.

After that, we walked through a traditional market (suk) and then had tea at a coffeehouse before returning to the hotel for the evening.

This was our first full day with the tour, 26 September 2009.

Me and the Camelherder, who constantly asked for "Bakhshesh" (Alms)

Lunch with Friends!

Barry and Me

Rosa and Me!

Greetings from Egypt!

2009-09-28T00:48:00.000-07:00

Good day, all:

It is now 9:50 am, local time. I am sitting in a coffee-net on the west bank of the Nile (I can see the reflection of the river behind me flowing northward on my computer screen) in Luxor. We had to get up at 2:00 am this morning to check out of the hotel in Cairo, pack, have breakfast, head to the airport, and fly to Luxor here. On the flight, for some reason they placed me and a few others in first class, while the rest of the crew sat in the coach section!

So far, the trip has been good! I arrived at my destination on Wednesday, 23rd of September, after a flight from LAX to Paris, then another from Paris to Cairo, and then yet another from Cairo to Alexandria! As I was sitting at the airport in Cairo waiting for my flight to Alexandria, I read in my Egypt travel-guide book that internal flights were a waste of time...and I thought out loud "now you tell me"! I had arrived into Cairo at 6 pm, and my 10 pm flight didn't take off until 11 something!

I hadn't realized that Alexandria is only a two-hour drive from Cairo at the time I booked my Egypt Air flight in June! Just to get to the right terminal within the Cairo airtport cost me US$12 in a cab fare! By the time I arrived at my hotel in Alexandria, it was past 1 am! Somewhat keyed off about the fact that I had missed an entire evening at the airports, I was pleasantly suprised to find the streets in Alexandria PACKED with people, even at that late hour, with all the restaurants and shops still open! Walking on the main strip, I found hordes of people walking about. There were families or groups of friends sitting on the ledges at the beachfront strip, watching traffic and people go by! Vendors were selling seeds and other snacks.

The most memorable thing I witnessed that night was the screeching sound of a car's brakes, then it hitting a man on the street, the man being thrown, and crowds running to the injured man from every which direction. The injured man (who was concious) was carried off to a car, and then transferred to an arriving ambulance. Egypt, like my native Iran, has haphazard traffic regulations. Lanes, cross-walk sections, and other directions painted on the roads are largely ignored, as drivers and pedestrians alike set their own courses!

I continued walking along the main strip when I realized that it was past 3 in the morning and there was still neck-to-neck people on the streets. It occurred to me that I had NEVER seen so many people on the street at that hour in ANY location on earth! I continued walking, chatting with locals, and drinking beverages out of cans when I realized that the day had broken! I had coffee and breakfast watching the sun coming up over the Mediterranian!

I didn't get up until mid-afternoon that Thursday. When I did, all I felt I had energy for was to go sit by the hotel's poolside, where they served me a nice cup of tea. After dozing off for some time, I got up and used the hotel's spa facilities, watched the sun set, and then headed for the famous Alexandria's Fish Market, where I enjoyed a sumptuous seafood dinner.

Egyptians are a VERY friendly people. Everywhere, people approached me, told me about their living conditions, and asked me about mine and the places I have been to! Even at the restaurant where I was dining, the head-waiter sparked up a conversation with me after he realized I had finished my dinner. I found out this 40 something year-old was a middle school teacher by day! This was his second job, and altogether, he earned US$600 per month which was barely enough to support him, his nonworking wife, and their three children!

Alexandria, affectionately referred to as "Alex" by locals, has a very temporate climate. It is known to be the only place in Egypt where one might ever require a jacket (I thought I was going to need one during my nightly excursions)! It is a very old city; Alexander the Great made it his capital while he was here! Little of its rich history is apparent today, as a good chunk has slid off into the sea (scuba tours are available to go see the underwater ruins)! The remainder has withered through time and invasions, so that all one sees at the first glance is an overpopulated, over-built seaside city! Alexandria's shape is like a thin, long rectangle along the Mediterranian.

These are some other interesting facts about Egyptian life as evidenced through Alexandria: a surprisingly high percentage of Muslim females here VOLUNTARILY wear the traditional hijab; in fact, except for the local Christians and foreign women, I found VERY few others who didn't cover their hair. This is particularly noteworthy to me, since I know that in my native Iran if laws permitted, a significant portion of women would do away with the chadors and veils. The mandated hijab issue is one of the main points of contention of the reformists in Iran and many hundreds of thousands there who pour out into the streets demanding change....and to think that the Egyptians are FREE not to cover, and yet they do it anyways...

Also, among males, touching and intimacy is QUITE common and apparent, even more so than in Iran and other Muslim countries that I have visited! Almost ALL pairs of male friends that I saw walking down the strip were doing so arm-in-arm, the way romantic couples do in the western world. Also, males were very agreeable to being photographed, while with Egyptian females (even with non-hijabbed Christians!) this was almost always a NO-N0!

My second and last day in Alexandria was spent touring the city with a taxi and its driver, arranged for me by the hotel. Among the points of interest were The National Museum of Alexandria (where I saw the well-known bust of Pharaoh Akhenaten and other jaw-dropping works of Egytian art), The Catacombos of Kumel-Shukafa (underground moseleum of second century a.d.), The Montazah Garden and Palace (Palace of the last King, Farouq), Bibliotheque alexandria (the ultra-modern library built on government funds and foreign donations), and The Fort of Quaitbay (the amazing citadel built in the 1480's by Sultan Quaitbay).

The taxi dropped me off at the train station to catch the 4 pm train to Cairo (even though I had paid for the return flight, so many people thought flying was a waste of time that I decided to forego the money and go the train route!).

More later on Cairo and the rest of Egypt!

Please, friends, let me know what you think of the story and pics below so far!

Thanks:)

Cairo Airport, Terminal 3

View from My 7th Floor Hotelroom in Alexandria

Sunset over the Mediterranian

Alexandria at Night

Friends and Family Out at Night

Palestine Hoteland Garden in Alexandria, and Bust of Akhenaten at the Alex. National Museum (Bottom)

Art in Dallas

2009-09-20T22:24:00.000-07:00

Dear family, friends, colleagues, travel-mates:

As some of you may know, I traveled to Dallas last week for a 3-day IRS Tax Forum. The hotel where the Forum was held (and where I was staying)--Hilton Anatole--is known for its collection of Asian Art. The place is almost like a museum, for at every turn, it seems, there is another artifact. I couldn't help but be thrilled by this vast collection; so I made it a habit to take pictures as I came across artworks.

Please forgive the "shaky" appearance of some of these pics, as I came upon them and took pictures quite spontaneously (with one hand), oftentimes holding volumes of publications, food, luggage, etc. In addition to artwork, you will see views of Dallas skyline and other scenes I found interesting. Where I know what the scene is, I will add a short description by each picture.

For those art-lovers out there, hope you enjoy them! Stay tuned for more stories and pics later this month, as I will be traveling to Egypt (Insha-Allah)! What can I say: it is that time of year!

Ed:)

Views from my room (4)

Reclining Buddha (Marble)

Artwork on my floor (20th)

Detect me in the mirror in the background!

Downtown Dallas Skyline (Street View)

The Atrium of the Hotel

Children at Play

Fat (Prosperous) Buddha

Reclining Buddha (Bronze)