Women rock!

The previous post in this series is here..

This day was going to be a busy one. We had been warned. There were three things to cover as part of the tour and two things we added to the list before being dropped at the airport.

We woke up at 4:30 and got ready. Our bags were packed and the porters got it to the van. The amount of offering to the porters was predetermined just like the offerings to various gods during temple visits. We complied. The porter gods smiled on us. The suitcase with the broken wheel had made it this far. 

It was a special day. One of two days the sunrise is smack dab in the middle of the square hole in Karnak temple. This used to be a big festival in olden days. The Egyptian locals made it a festival again for tourist purposes. We made it in through security and the German language tour was still wrapping up. 

there were a few hundred people blocking our view and I had no chance. Still held my camera up to take a timelapse and was hit in the ribs a few times by jostling tourists. Did what I could..(you can see it in the video)

The sun did its glorious thing without making a fuss. We started walking through the temple once it was up. 

Had to increase the shadow lighting to get this image. those stories on the walls with the sun rising between them is marketing genius. Makes it look like the Sun is approving the story!

The night tour with the sound and light show did not do justice to the magnificence of the temple. They also did not cover enough about Queen Hatshepsut and how she rebuilt this place and started lighting up the temple, brought the two gold tipped obelisks to Luxor, etc. etc. 

This women had done more good for Egypt's people than all those Pharoh's before her put together. It was not about the kings and gods.. It was about improving the lives of citizens. She got that!

However her step son who later became king worked hard to erase her from Egyptian memory. A female ruler blessed by Egyptian gods did not fit their narrative. So within a generation, it was erased in mainstream media of the time. However thanks to shifting sands and the Romans and others who didn't care who ruled what when, some of her legacy has been preserved.

Walid took us to a special spot where the sunbeams come down in a dark chamber..it was scary to walk to the center as we didn't know where the ground was. Should have been challenging for folks to build the place!

A candid shot of us trying to stop the photographer from continuous clicking. Walid was filling up my memory by taking 25 shots a minute!

This temple at Karnak used to be all color. There is still some color on the pillars that has survived millenia and it is just amazing. When we imagine non faded colors on pillars and ceilings this size, one can only wonder!

As a Mylapore kid who was awestuck by Kapaleeshwar temple when my mom or grandpa would take me there, it still holds a special place in my heart after 50 years. Now imagine what a walk through this temple in all its colored glory would have meant to kids in those days!

Maybe the Egyptian government should think about restoring at least a small section of this temple to the original colors (if they can figure out what pigments were used and how to color them in the past!) and let us get a true sense of this awesomeness!

This is yet another place that has to be seen to be believed. If you are making plans to visit Luxor, try to be there on the Winter solstice and watch the sunrise at Karnak! It is true the sun rises every day and keeps moving, but a temple built thousands of years ago to align the sunrise to the solitice is worth watchng! A lot of science and engineering went into this!

Granite is not an easy stone to carve or carry! 

A few HDR shots..

A video highlight of the Karnak temple visit..

The grand finale from the night's sound and light show was a focus on the statue around which people would walk counter clockwise 7 times for luck..

We enjoyed this temple complex thoroughly. After this on our way out we got some tea/ coffee at a restaurant / gift shop which was very nice.

Then we went back out to the van. It was time for the next stop which was supposed to be yet another highlight! 

A sound and light show - Karnak temple

We left the Luxor temple and went straight to the Karnak temple by van. 

The previous post in this series is here..

Walid told us exactly where to go, where to sit and how to come out of the show as fast as we can to get ahead of the returning crowd so we could be at our boat before dinner time closed.

This is my first sound and light show. Apparently a lot of historic venues do this thing. 

it was an interesting experience. We go as a group and walk through the temple at night with things being projected on the walls. 

Somehow the lighting was not optimal and the sound was all garbled for a third of the walking show.

There was also a dog that kept sittiing at my foot and walked with me the entire time. San was freaking out about the dog. It was dark and an animal at your feet is not exactly comforting if you are scared. 

Still we enjoyed the show given we could see the stars in the night sky. You can see orion in this picture right above the temple!

from a distance I thought this was a row of sphinxes.. turned out to be Ram's! 

a few more pictures.. 

that part where we sit on a gallery watching things light up randomly over the lake was not that great. It was more like something from Disney and more American than ancient Egyptian. Shakespearean voices don't set the right tone for this show. 

A video highlight of the walk through show..

We raced out to Walid's surprise. We were the first ones out to the parking lot. Have never seen a guide be so proud of his group! We went back to the boat. Was trying to shop for magnets in the shops when Walid said "don't bother. We come back here first thing in the morning. You are here at a special time. There are only two days in the year when the sun shines through the line at the Karnak temple to make it look like it is rising from the sea! Tomorrow is one of those days! you can shop then"

we were dropped off at the dock and we had to walk a block towards our boat. The walkway along the dock in Luxor is well lit in night and looked even more beautiful. 

We were back in the boat and the group was already having dinner. We joined in. The dining room team was very nice and wished us well. It was going to be our last night in the boat. 

The next morning we were to be in the reception area with our bags packed by 5AM. We told them there was no need for wake up calls. We had been up before 4:30 almost every day! Our original van was going to be back. We were going to cover a lot of places in the van and head out of Luxor.

We were given guidelines on what to tip and how. Having had local currency helped. It was interesting how they expected a larger tip when in dollars than in local currency. 

It was time to hit the bed early one more time! 

Civil Engineering masterclass - Abu Simbel

The previous post on this series is here..

We slept on the boat overnight and woke up at 3:30 AM. The group including kids were all assembled at 4 in the van and the drive started to Abu Simbel from Aswan docks.

Most of us dozed off in the first hour of the drive as it was still dark outside. A little past 6AM the van slowed down for a tea and restroom stop in the middle of the desert! It was good we had some local currency. Restrooms also need local currency for the two sheets of toilet paper they hand you. The restrooms themselves were well maintained but the cigarette smoke was difficult to deal with. Wanted to come home and check what percent of the population smoked and what lung cancer rates were in Egypt. A healthy population is a good idea for any country. With kids (who looked 10 or under) smoking everywhere, it cannot be a good thing!

Enough with the vent. We came out of the shack, ate a packed breakfast that was given to us at the boat, took pictures of a glorious sunrise and kept driving. 

lens flares on iPhones are tricky. was trying to teach a class to the group on how to avoid them.. this is as good as it got. More lessons are required! 

We went past a small city which was mostly engineers supporting local agriculture in the desert. It was a massive project covering acres growing everything from basic vegetables to maize. 

Eventually after 4 hours we made it to Abu Simbel. We got an explanation of how the temple was going to go underwater with the new dam and it took 10 years to literally cut the original temple block by block and reassemble it above the same hill. 

The original temple was perfectly oriented to have the sun come through and shine on the main shrine on two days of the year. The new moved temple up the hill still had that going for it. The original temple was a marvel. Moving something like that in the 70's within a 10 year span with global support was impressive!

The minute you walk around the hill and come across the gigantic statues, it just takes your breath away!

There was still color in the murals on the walls and ceiling. Given we were close to Dec 21st, the sun was angling in and lighting up the entire temple in a golden glow inside! 

A few pictures of the insides of two temples here..

A video highlight of the Abu Simbel visit.. the video captures both the sunrise and the beauty and scale of the temples! 

We had spent a litle over two hours at the temple including a restroom stop and some time at the gift shop buying magnets. Then it was time to start the 4 hour drive back.

It was a race and there were no stops on the way. We had to be back at the boat before 2. Lunch was at 1:30 but the boat was finally going to start moving at 2PM. 

We made it at 1:30! I had enough time to run to the market across the docks with Walid and grab some more large water bottles before we started sailing.. 

We were surprisingly refreshed and were not as tired as we thought we would be! We were all looking forward to moving in the boat on the Nile!