A billion dollar GEM!!

The previous post in this series is here..

After eating lunch in a moving van, we crossed the Nile again with the ladies singing "Nile nadiya" song.. which I thought was hilarious.

There was a soft opening of the new Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) which we were lucky to visit. The entry ticket was 60 bucks but it was totally worth it. 

They spent a Billion dollars on this museum so far and we were told it might be 3 Billion by the time all the exhibits move in. There were already 15000 pieces in display with entire sections being worked on.

If the Egyptian museum in Cairo blew us away, I have no words to describe what we saw here. The tracks on the museum all radiate from a central point at the bottom of the valley and the museum literally climbs the hill to be level with the Giza plateau. When you reach the top of the escalators, you see the pyramids! 

The museum sections weave across society, kings and power and culture while time is the vertical track. You can trace things in sections horizontally or vertically. For a modern museum, extremely well thought out and organized.

It would take a person like me at least a week in this museum. We had 2  1/2 hours. So we had a bright history student who guided us through this expertly in 2 hours! 

There is a reflective pool of shallow water around this giant statue that is so amazing that some of us didn't realize it was water.. Indraprastha came to mind!

the facade of the museum gives you a Louvre reminder, inside and out..

usually I post pictures before video.. this time it is video before pictures.

We saw a lot of intersting displays.. the women were drawn to the jewelry.. the kids to the lunch boxes, dice and play toys from 3000 years ago..

while we keep hearing about the Romans in Egypt, I did not know Alexander's influence here.

Then we became fans of queen Hutshepsut !! 

The best ruler of Egypt was a woman who prefered trade based relationship with neighbors instead of wars and provocation. Yet after her rule, most of her statues were defaced and she was not on many records (as King Tut) in subequent historic accounts of the king's lineages and lists. 

Now we don't see women outside in Egypt! The world turns.. hopefully it gets better.. but after going to all these museums, I have lost hope on what humanity can do with or without technology. As a collective we are just animals wearing pants and shirts.. Maybe if women took over the world, it will be a better place. As long as men are in charge, we are doomed in the long run! That is the thought that keeps resonating after the multiple museum visits (Same story in Austria in the 1800's with Maria Teresa from another recent trip to a European museum!)

You should absolutely not miss this museum if you visit Egypt. Just fantastic. 

We had 45 minutes before we were to be dropped off at our hotel.  We stopped by a Papyrus place where a Mr. Khan gave us a demo of how papyrus was made today still the same way it was 3500 years ago and how it is stil being painted the same way.  Unfortunately I was so engrossed in his demo (and tired) that it was not recorded. We did buy a tree of life on Papyrus and got our names written in Heiroglyph's (you can see it in the end of the video). 

We decided to spend as much time at this place and there was no dinner stop. Decided to eat the leftovers from lunch for dinner. We were already told that pickup for the next day will be at 4:15AM to go to the airport! There was a collective sigh from everyone. So we literally went up, packed and crashed. 

It has taken 4 blog posts, going over ~400 photos and videos just to cover day 1 in Egypt. When we travel we cover as much as possible in as short a time. No wonder our kids decided they would rather stay home than do these 3:30 AM wake ups and going to airports at 4:30AM etc.. 

We were still jet lagged. So it was lights out as soon as we hit the bed!

Narasimha' at the Egyptian Museum Cairo

Read that title as Narasimha Prime...

The previous post in this series is here..

One of the avatars of god Vishnu is Narasimha (Nar - human, Simha - lion) and has the head of a lion and body of a human.. 

In Egypt, we have the "prime" version.. the head of a human on the body of a lion.. everywhere! Two ancient cultures, just flip the part of the body that is animal. When I told the group  "get your blessings from the Egyptian Narasimhar!" there was a lot of eye rolling. They did appreciate the way my weird brain connects things.

After visiting the Pyramids and Sphinx, we drove across the Nile river into downtown Cairo in peak traffic to reach the Egyptian Museum. It is an old and amazing place. Still without a tourguide, we would have been lost. Ibrahim was upfront and said "I am going to hit the highlgihts and keep moving. So please keep up with me!" and we did.. 

There were a few amazing pieces here like the first steele of North and South Unification , the only statue of the first ruler (a very small figurine), some lifesize statutes of the kings and queens as well as giant statues of Anubis and the pharohs. 

Posting select photos here ..

 

The highlight of the museum of course was the King Tut section. There is a part of this section where photos and videos are allowed.. 

In a relatively small chamber they found so much!!

A fan with ivory handle and ostrich feathers that was miraculously preserved for 3000+ years

Jars with heads that screw on made of alabaster where king Tut's internal organs were separately mummified..

Jackals seem to be another commonality between the dead, spirit world and life after death. The Tantric worshipers who do penence sitting on dead bodies in a cemetary in India also wait for a Jackal to show up as part of the success of their ritual. Just thought it was an interesting parallel..

 

King Tut ruled for ~10 years and he was a kid. His tomb had treasures like this. Just imagine the larger empty tombs we visited earlier ! Rameses II was 93 when he passed on to his afterlife.. One can only imagine how much got looted from there...

We did get to see the golden mask and the actual coffins of king Tut. However there was no photos or videos allowed in that section. There were many guards continuosly following folks and making them delete photos. I just respected their rule and put my cameras away. That golden mask with blue black and gold is a few thousand years old made me think a lot. How can something that great just disappear ? No matter how impregnable they thought their tombs were, it just took less than 10 generations for folks to loot it all. Nothing is sacred. It just goes to show how insignificant and arrogant we are in todays age knowing what happened in the past. 

The rest of the photos are in this slideshow..

we walked past another section of large statues.. 

We then walked out of the musem through the place where the famous Egyptologist Auguste Mariette is buried right outside the museum. 

A video highlight of this visit..

After this we got back into the van and drove towards Giza again. Given the time constraint and the hunger levels, we had to eat in the van. Ibrahim picked up some vegetarian food for us. Sadly he realized there was not much I could have given everything there had sesame seeds. So I was given white rice cooked with vermiceli. It was plain rice but the vermicelli added a flavor to it and I gobbled it up. The rest of the group were very happy with the food and ganna (sugarcane juice) that was given. 

Our next stop in the next post!

From Rameshwaram to Rameseswaram

Our first trip of 2024 was to Rameshwaram in India. Our last trip for 2024 was to the land of Rameses.. 

We have made three big trips this year (including the 25th anniversary trip to Europe in the summer) and they have all been with just the two of us. At this point I am slowly getting used to traveling with San without the kids. Miss them everytime the camera is pointed anywhere but time will bring them back to my photos.  This trip was a success given it could have been canceled at any minute. Our flights changed so many times since we booked it. 

As usual all credit to San for taking me along on this trip. All I did was take pictures, haul luggage and irritate her at times with my being overly concerned about anything and everything. 

We did go with friends and family and that made it special.  

Having learned the lesson from summer(never blogged about that trip), will write about this one before my memory fades. 

We went on Lufthansa from SFO to Cairo with a 2+  hour halt in Frankfurt. It was nice flights and we had fun walking around Frankfurt airport and window shopping!

Watched a sunset on the way from Frankfurt to Cairo..this was somewhere above Greece..

Once we got to Cairo airport we got a Visa at Entry for 25 USD per person. Paid cash at the counter right before immigration check and  they give us a sticker. You hand that to the immigration officer who sticks it on to the passport and stamps it. First time I saw this procedure! 

We were out very quick. The trip was organized by Latif aka George in Cairo. He had folks meet us as soon as we came out of the plane and was waiting for us outside the airport parking lot. We drove straight to Giza. 

Our hotel was literally facing the pyramids. At first I thought we were staying at the Grand Hyatt.. then learned it is a hotel called Hayat ! Every house on that road became a hotel or airbnb apparently. Ours was a decent hotel and the folks were nice.  As soon as we drove and checked in, they asked us to go to the roof of the hotel right away to check out the view.

What a view it was!! 

This was pretty much what is was in the reflected city lights! Have always wanted to see the great pyramids. It is always surreal when you see them like this!

We were given some fruit drinks to enjoy while watching the view... 

Then it was time to hit the bed. We were told to be back on the roof for a sunrise breakfast to watch the sun light up the pyramid face. Folks here seemed to be all about getitng the right photos and that was music to my ears!

A warning to folks who read this blog and make vacation plans.. 

The thing that hit us as soon as we went out of the airport in Caior was the cigarette smell. It is everywhere. Even the non smoking room in the hotel has smoke coming in from the drain pipes. The rooftops, the cars we drive in.. seems to be unavoidable. Every adult male we saw who looked like a local was smoking! 

If you are averse to smoking, wear an N95 mask the entire time. All of us had a tough time with that throughout the trip. I lost my appetite after smelling all that smoke. Also you don't see any women outside the airport. When we went into Giza the thing that struck us was we did not see any females on the miles of road we drove around. so many shops and folks on the street.. all men! The women in our car noticed it right way. 

More on the next post..