The Edfu chitra katha

The previous post in this series is here..

Our entire group was ready at 4:30 AM and outside on the street adjoining the dock. The original plan was to have a van ready to take us to Edfu Temple before Sunrise! Given every ship was sending its people there, we were to go early to clear the security check and ticket counter and get in. 

There was a snag. The van never showed. We tried to change plans to go in two horse carts (originally abandoned by our guide Walid as too risky) but others kept getting the horses and we were just waiting for 30 mintues. Walid had to feel the fury of 3 women and two girls who burnt him with their eyes just like those sages in the Amar Chitra Katha cartoons.  He apologized profusely and we finally got our van after 25 minutes of waiting. When we went to the temple entrance, the line was a few hundred meters long and I counted ~ 600 people in the line in front of us!

We made it to the temple after security checks and were amazed by what we saw! This temple reminded me of Uttarakosamangai. Same layout.. a long hallway that takes you to the main sanctum with a lot of pillars and chambers on the way!

A must see highlight video of Edfu temple.. it took me a long time to edit this to under 10 minutes from 56 video clips!

It is one of the most well preserved temples in Egypt. The murals on the large temple walls tell a story just like a cartoon in panels. The fight between a hippo god and a crocodile god and the crocodile emerging victorious is amazing. 

Inside the temple the walls still retain some of the color. If the plain murals look this awesome, imagine how they would have been 2300 years go when every bit of it was painted!! It would have been spellbinding!

this one reminded me of Ravana.. 

the unifier being confered the crowns of the north and south with different crests ! this theme is repeated across a lot of temples. The kings support the gods, the gods support the kings. eventually the kings take over for the gods.. 

the detail on the boat including the little chains was amazing!  Probably why it took a 100 years to finish this temple!

No wonder people came there and donated to the temples and they were the big social and economic centers.

These pictures do not do justice to this temple. It happened to be preserved only because it was buried in the sand and folks used to tunnel into some of these chambers and used it as hideouts.  

tried a pano but again, this is at a scale where pano's don't work..

This one doubled up as a hospital and maternity ward as well apparently. When we first went to the main sanctum, there was a 100 strong crowd and given my height, simply couldn't see or capture photos or videos. Was disappointed with that and walked out to the entrance with the group. Then I asked Walid how much time we had? He said 10 minutes. So I ran 1/2 a mile back and forth to the sanctum. Given all boats were leaving at more or less the same time, the crowd was gone. There were 4 people in the sanctum. 

Ran there, took pictures and videos and captured my running back to the entrance.

The golden idols all gone! 

Then there was more drama. The van driver locked the van with the keys inside! We waited another 15 minutes for a backup van. The ladies burnt him with their eyes again like the sages of folklore! Before they started painting some new murals in Edfu temple on the vanquishing of Walid at Edfu in Etchachrome colors, we got into the new van and drove back to the ship in time for breakfast. 

we were in for a surprise at the breakfast area as three large tables were empty. The entire Chinese and Korean gang was gone! Walid told us that they took a bus to save time and were going to see everything in our next stop ahead of time and fly out. We had more time, so we were going to spend it on the ship the rest of the afternoon! 

More on that in the next post..

If you do the river cruise or not, do not miss Edfu temple! It is just fantastic! 

Sobek-Horus, Shiva-Vishnu.. same same but different

The previous post in this series is here..

Our cruise docked at its first stop, Kom Ombo!

Every ship had docked at around the same time to catch the sunset and it was like a zoo. We could hardly hear our guide in that crowd. To top things off, many guides had powerful laser pointers that should have been banned for public use given their power. They were blinding and for some reason the tourguides were all trying to one up each other in pointing.. that made for bad photos! 

Our guide Walid told us that this was a very special temple that survived intact inspite of all the changes in Egypt over time. 

Special because there was the faction from the North that predominantly believed in the Falcon god Horus. The southern folks were all with the crocodile god Sobek. 

This was cause for a lot of concern. So a great unifier built a temple that had two entrances, similar murals on either side , two side by side shrines and the back wall with a description that split everything including the festivals, offerings, etc. right down the middle. 

As a kid raised in India, could understand some of this. There is always Shiva temples and Vishnu temples and followers of one don't necessarily go to the other even though they acknowledge them both as gods. This wasn't any different. (We actually have a temple in Livermore called the Shiva Vishnu temple, so everyone goes.. it has two shrines but only one entrance. that is progress over the years for you!)

 

There is also some other intersesting stuff at this temple. A scribe on the wall that shows the 12 months and the season during the months. Apparently the Romans moved from 10 months to 12 months after coming to Egypt and realizing that 12 months made sense with the solar and lunar cycles. They inserted July and August as months to commemorate Julius Ceasar and Augustus. (November was the original 9th month). We knew this from history but didn't know this connection with Egyptian temple!

Then there is an inscription of all the surgical instruments used during birthing. There was a Royal birthing room at this temple where surgeons used to practice their craft! It was fascinating. 

We got some photos of this temple that keeps going on and on length wise, with the two parallel tracks for the two gods. 

Finally we came down to yet another interesting area. The crocodile museum. They had so many mummified crocodiles.. some of them more than 20 feet long ! We learned more about Sobek here! 

Then we were late! The boat was going to depart at 7:30 PM latest at dinner time. There was still a crowd trying to get to the docks. I delayed the group trying to find a fridge magnet.

The boat stack up one behind the other, from the dock and you go through multiple boats before you get to yours! 

We all raced to the boat and were almost the last group to get in before they started moving! 

Did have time to set everyone up for this masterpiece(and I say that loosely) in front of the mirror. They had started putting Christmas decorations in the dining area! Group photos are challenging.. makign everyone look at themselves in the mirror instead of my camera in the mirror was intersting.. then I looked down and messed up a few shots.. 

A video highlight of Kom Ombo..

We were going to travel and dock sometime late in the night at our second stop for the cruise. 

Walid gave us that look again after dinner. Slightly better but a 5 AM start from the reception area the following morning! We had already gotten used to this. A 3:30 AM wake up to fly, 4AM start to drive to Abu Simbel the next day and now, a 5AM start.

The trend was going in the right direction...

Planning after 2800 years

The previous post in this series is here..

Our second morning in Egypt started at 3:30 AM to get ready to hit the Cairo airport from Giza. We were flying to Aswan. Once we landed and got the bags, we saw that they broke the wheels on my big suitcase. We were talking to the AirCairo rep at the small Aswan airport to complain that the brand new bag was damaged and he said "this is just a small thing. if you go to the main street in Aswan you can get it fixed!". He didn't even want to accept a complaint. Just bought the suitcase last month. Our guide, a patient softspoken man by the name of Walid, was already waiting and he just shook his head. At that point decided to lift it as much as possible or readjust the weight to be able to drag it with the wheels on the front side! So we loaded it into the large van and started off towards the first stop of the day. 

Aswan dam!

Egypt, the land of the Pharoh's and pyramids gets to go through successive invasions and takeovers from Romans, Greeks, Brits, and Ra knows how many other strifes between the North and South. Every now and then someone comes and unifies the place and claims a throne. 

By the time the military takes over from the monarchy and General Naser leads the country post World War II, he is inheriting a huge population, a developing economy that is hungry for resources and development, which all relies on one thing. Water! A country that is 90% desert needs water. 

As a kid in India we learn a lot about Nehru, Nasser and Tito from Yugoslavia coming up with the concept of Non-Aligned nations that don't want to take sides in the US vs. USSR arms race. They push for economic development over the cold war. That was our history books. 

All these countries got help in some form from the USSR. There is a monument to symbolize the early work.

Egypt did in its early days but when the terms were not favorable, they went to the world bank with even worse terms to get teh Aswan dam built. However, after starting the project, they realized that a lot of old temples were going to be flooded. 

Guess a few old temples in ruins going underwater was not a big deal initially. Given they were relocating so many villages to the other side of the dam, it was understandable. 

Then they literally got international help from the archeology community and chopped up temples block by block and moved them to higher ground. The effort is extremely commendable!

The dam itself is a massive undertaking. We walked on it and took pictures. Got a history and engineering lesson from the display boards on the dam. While all this was going on, I realized Arabic is a beautiful language in Aswan area compared to Cairo. In Cairo, it came across as staccatto and a rude tone. In Aswan the syllables were all blending together and there was a softness to most of the words. 

There is an old Aswan dam which is now more of a sluice gate that is generating minimal electricity. That itself is massive. The new dam is a game changer. Still Egypt has its own version of the "Cauvery water issue" with Ethiopia as they have built a dam as well and that brings in less water into Lake Nasser. 

This is the largest manmade freshwater lake in the world !! No wonder it drowned out so many temples!

After seeing the dam, we went to see the Philae temple. There was a boat ride to the temple, an hour and a half spent at the temple and a ride back. This temple is only 2800 years old. A young temple by Egyptian standards. It was a small but beautiful temple. It had many chambers for the different gods and the offerings. At one point there were gold statues at the altar for every deity. The early Christians came and defaced every face of the old gods to force Christianity on the population. Felt sad seeing those beautiful carvings all faceless. Someone spent so much time and effort into creating those works of art. Kings, queens and military rulers come and go as do religions.. we see leaders statues being pulled down today after revolutions. So our guide explained, it is what time does to this world. He said it is amazing that at least this much is left after a few thousand years. Normally they take the giant stones and make smaller blocks out of it to build houses!

The walkways on the side with the massive pillars have faces on top that gradually increase the smile from the first pillar to the last! That was incredible art work! We had a lot of fun taking pictures around the pillars. There were also a lot of cats in the temple!

Most of these giant stones were quarried 100's of kilometers away and brought here by special boats a few thousand years ago. Even the stones were a resouce for a newly developing country. 

There was a separate complex to the side that was built later in Roman times. 

One thing we were exposed to at the temple was the stores on either side of the walkway to the temple. These are street vendors who try to sell trinkets to the tourists. You cannot walk to any temple without crossing these stores and the kids trying to get you to come to their parents store! It is like the strategic stores at the exit of every ride at Disneyland or the walk out of the airports through duty free shops! Guess they learned that from the Egyptians! Temples were economic centers. In most of the temples you have to pay to use the restrooms. So having local currency in change is recommended! The ladies decided to buy "masala nuts" of the Egyptian variety after sampling a few of them. 

Saw these Egyptian doves and took a picture.. 

We enjoyed the temple visit but were tired and hungry. It was time to go to the hotel. That is when we were told that we were to stay in the cruise , not a hotel. Our next stop was a Nile river cruise that started the following morning. So we expected a hotel stay in the night. Turned out we were staying in the docked cruise ship for the rest of the day as the cruise was supposed to be 3 nights minimum. We were dreading small claustrophobic spaces and tiny bathrooms (after our Mexico cruise experience from years ago).. but found this one to be better than the Giza hotel room! 

We had enough time to put our stuff in the room and have lunch on the cruise. The plan was just to chill out till the next morning or try some optional activities for the evening. 

Video highlights of the dam visit, the Philae temple and the cruise ship room!

To be continued when my jet lag gives me a break..