In the footsteps of Moses

On our last full day in Egypt we had the biggest challenge that we had all be gearing ourselves up for. The Ascension up Mount Sinai. There had been a lot of discussion about when the best time to do this was. The choices were in the evening to see the sunset or early in the morning for the sunrise. Can you tell from the following photo which we did?



There were pros and con to both - Evening meant coming down in the dark, a late dinner, no camels to rescue us if we were too tired to come down under our own steam but time to relax the next day before going to Nuweiba to catch a ferry. Morning meant bloody early, the chance of snow, climbing up in the dark, and a rush to get the ferry. I am sure that it will come as no surprise to you all that I favoured an evening trip and in the end this was the preferred option ( and no I did not have to bribe or turn into bossy teacher for that to happen..... no ones likes getting up at 3am!) Mount Sinai is a cruisey walk 2285m up hill...... not! But I was a good girl and climbed all the way to the top! Without the help of a camel. The last part that was approx 900 steps ( and not nice, evenly spaced western step either I must say) was the hardest. But I was not the last member of our group to make it to the time -- some did not even make to the steps! I did even manage to 'keep up' with the lovely teenaged Georgie, although I suspect that at the end she was going slow for my benefit. Her father was a bloody goat (aged 62!!!!) and he make getting up there seems easy. But don't be fooled - it was very hard and I was very proud to have made it to the top with plenty of time to relax (and eat chocolate) before the sun went down. Horus the Kiwi had it very easy, being carried all the way!




I think we all slept very soundly that night! And that was probably the coldest day in Egypt as well (yes it does get cold in Egypt!) I had to use my lovely sleeping bag to keep warm that night and Ayman, our poor tour guide, spent the whole time shivering! And this man wants to go to Antartica.... I don't think he would even cope with a winter in NZ let alone Antartica!

The main event for the next day was the ferry trip from Nuweiba to Aqaba, Jordan's only sea access. And as I was learning about Egypt, transport is 'interesting'. We had to be at the port at least 2hours before the ship 'sailed' but nothing in Egypt runs to time and we could only find out on the day which of the two crossing we would do. Once at the port there would be very little for us to do while we waited. The whole group was not really looking forward to this experience but needs must and in the end it was actually not that bad. We all hung out together and many of us sharpened our card playing skills. I think in the end the ferry was only one hour late so that is practically on time by Egyptian standards. The ride over was fine - the only interesting moment was when all the 'tourist' were gathered up near the end of the trip and taken to the back of the boat and watched over by a big group of official looking people and John aka Ramses II let them all know as we where leaving that I was trouble! We were meant by a Peregrine person (the travel company) who took care of the whole Visa thing - best thing about being in a tour group! And we all cheered when our Tour bus turned up on time. I think our driver, Jihad, thought we were all a little crazy!
The next day we had the morning free to wander around on our own. So a group of us decided to check out the old castle and port. We were skillfully led by Paul (a English man pretending to be Australian - he has told me that he wants a mention on my blog as the cute English guy - so I have done it!), even though his girlfriend had strong doubts! The castle was mostly in ruins but it was quite fun to climb around on it.



At the port you really realise that you are at the pointy end of a very sharp stick with the borders between Egypt, Israel and Jordan being so close together.

Sleep ... what is that?

Our final day in Aswan was to be a buzy one! One with little or no sleep. The morning adventures were to Abu Simbel - site of two important and impressive temples that were rescued when the Awan High Dam was build. The temples were build by Ramses II, who was fast becoming our fav Egyptian Ruler. One member of the tour party was nicknamed Ramses after a physical similarity with his mummy was noticed by his daughter. (what was my nickname you ask? I acquired two, both egyptain words - Trouble and Crazy Girl).
The day began at 3am. The drive to Abu Simbel was about 2 - 2 1/2 hours and you had to go in a military convey with a police guard..... interesting! Very fast driving with alot of overtaking that would not have met the NZ idea of having 100m clear road at the end. You could only visit the site in the morning and while there was a later convey it meant that the site would be crowded and apparently the site was best seen as the sun rose.



The site was made up of two temples. One build by and to honour Ramses II and featured alot of huge statutes of Ramses in the Osiris pose - ie Ramses thought of him self as a god!
But he was kind enough to also build a temple in honour of his favourite wife (Nefertari)! Yes he had many wives ( and over 100 childern, many of whom he out lived!) The wife's temple was not a big or impressive but it was still quite a remarkable feat to build and a remarkable feat to move for modern man as well.



Both temples were carved out of the mountainside and the main temple was designed so that the sun light would highlight an important altar/ group of statues in the heart of the temple twice a year, once on Ramses II birthday and....... I can't remember the other time.... But anyway when it was moved in the 1960's the people in charge got the placement slightly wrong so now the light hit that part a day later.... proving that maybe we have not come as far as we think!



On arrival back as Aswan we were booked into a really nice hotel for the afternoon so we could relax and prepare for the overnight train back to Cairo. The less said about that the better!! But no I did not sleep for the 10 hour journey and while the train left on time ( a rare thing indeed in Egypt) we arrived late into Cairo. But our guide was pretty relaxed about everything and decided that we should still do all the day events even though it meant that we would not finish until around 7 and he was meant to have the afternoon off!
The first place on the Cairo adventure was the oldest mosque - Ibn Tulun Mosque.



Built in the 9th century this mosque is one of the few that will allow women in and it was really quite beautiful and peaceful considering that it is found in the heart of Crazy Cairo ( don't get me started aon the insane driving here! Road rules, lanes and lights seem to have no meaning for these people!) After the mosque we visited two old villa that have been turned into museum. They both featured a range of things from the Ottoman period (17th century) While there were different areas for men and women it seen that the women had the best areas, objects and views of the city.




After so much looking at stuff we headed for a very late lunch at our tour guides favourite place - apparently his dad used to take him there when he was a kid. It was all very authentic food and very tasty. Our last Cairo stop was the famous Khan al-Khalili Bazaar. Hundreds of tiny shops squeezed into very small alleyways where you can buy everything from spices to gold to cloth. And of course all the shop keeper try to get you to buy in their shop and constantly talk to you. As many of you know that is not something that I am overly fond of but by this stage of the tour I had befriended Georgie, a 15 year old Australian girl travelling with her family and she LOVED that whole bartering thing and was actually very good at it. We developed a wee code for when I wanted stuff and she just took over! I probably still paid too much for stuff but it was fun to watch Georgie do her thing!

Images of Egypt

A short clip of some of the things I have seen so far

Where everybody knows your name.....

One of the things that has puzzled me about Egypt was how all the locals I met could say may name correctly without me having to go through the whole routine of explaining how to say it (like banana) where it came from, and how to spell it. Even the first time I talked to my tour guide on the phone, he got it right before I had even said a word.
But now I know

My tour guide was actually surprised that I was not an Egyptian! Dad tells me that the correct spelling of my name is without the h on the end so maybe I am.....
After three days cruising down the Nile we arrived in Aswan which is the southernmost city and where you will find the the Aswan High Dam. When this dam was build much of the area around Aswan was flooded and some temples were save but the vast majority have been lost for ever, namely those belonging to the Nubian culture. The Nubians are Egyptian - with Egyptain facial features but their skin colour is that of Africa and there culture is quite different to the rest of Egypt. One of the temples that was rescused was a Temple to the Goddess Isis on Philae Island II (the first one is now underwater). I quite like the Goddess Isis. Her husband/brother was a guy called Osiris who was chopped up into many pieces (we were told 14, 16, 36, 40 and 42 by different guides). Isis travelled the world to recover the pieces and 'rebuild' her husband. But never managed to find them all - but still was able to have his child (Horus).




In the afternoon the groups decided to go on a trip in a Felucca to visit Kitchener Island (Botanical gardens) Elephantine Island (very old market island) and a local Nubian Island so we could see how they live. It took the group over an hour to decide what to do and I am afriad that the teacher in me came out! Our tour Guide Ayman did not want to make the decision for us but there was no way that this group of 12 people could reach a decision - many had the attention span of a flea and had to have stuff repeated many times and they still could not remember all the option but Miss Hill took control and got them to make a choice! I was even applauded afterwards!
The Nubian Island was very interesting. My fav part was visiting a local school. It was a primay school for about 100 sudents and was very lacking in resoures but we got to see classrooms, IT labs (with three coputers that were even older that the ones at HGHS!) and had a wee lesson in Arabic. I also got photo of a lesson that had happened that day.

I seem to have lost the ability to sleep in with all the crazy early morning wake up calls we seem to get. Not only do the reception people ring us to wake us up but we seem to be also staying next to Mosques and mosques in Egypt all start the day with VERY LOUD calls to prayer before dawn. My tour guide tells me that in the old days it was a more pleasant experience when a man with a tuneful voice would sing the wake up call but in these modern days it is blasted our over loud speakers, so loud that even he has problems understanding what is being said. That said it is worth waking up early as we get to the sites ahead of most tourists. At the moment we are focusing on the truly ancient history with lots of stories about gods and pharaohs. This is the high seasons in Egypt because it is 'cooler' so we spend the morning running around temples and sacred sites and the afternoon relaxing on the boat or shopping. Some places are incredibly busy and I am beginning to see why 'locals' don't like tourist. They can be rude and a little bit pushy!
Key temple that we saw on Day 5 of the trip were Edfu and Komombo. Edfu is a temple deddicated to the falcon header god Horus. I was so impressed by this temple and the many representations of Horus that Kiwi has been named after him. Komombo is dedicated to the crocodile headed god Sobek. At this site a large number of mummifed crocodile were found - apparently the Romans used to practice on them but never really mastered the art.
I am the only kiwi on this tour and am surround by Aussie but it is fair to say that I have made quite an impression on them (good or bad I am not sure but everybody seem to learn my name first) I am subject to teasing on a daily basis but it is all part of the fun! I know they are just jealous! (even if the All black did loss the last game of the season!)
I will try and up load a short video clip of photos soon!

In the Land of internet again!

Well I am ove half way through this first parrt of the tou but internet is a rare and endangered thing in Egypt. I have acutally made it to Jordan and here there is intenet but with a keyboard that only has a few surviving letters (in english - alot in arabic!) so excuse the poor typeing! After a brief visit to the key sights in Cairo the group headed to Luxor on an ove night 'sleeper train'...... little sleeping was done by anyone.... including our tour guide Ayman. He has been doing this fo 8 years and still can't sleep on the train so don't believe Lonely Planet when it tells you that first class is good. Once we arrived in Luxor we move into ou r\Nile Rive cruise boot where we will be based for the next 4 days. Luxor is home to temples and burial sights. The most impessive sight the first day was the journey to Karnak by horse drawn carrt ..... we created a wee traffice jam! The Karnak Temple was verry impressive with huge columns. The next moning we were up extremely early as we had hot air balloon ride where we could see the Valley of the Kings, Temple of Hatshepsut from the air before we visited them on foot! First time in a hot air balloon and it was great! The sun rise was amazing and it is a highlight so far. In the Valley of the Kings we went into three diffeent burail tombs and it is amazing how well they have lasted! THe paintings on the walls of some tombs are still very bright!
Once we had completed the sights we arrived back at the boat and began our cruise down the Nile..... a vey nice way to travel!

Where's Naamah - Uzbekistan

Well Egypt has not really fully joined the modern world yet! Good internet access is hard to come by! But I guess that you should not complaint when you are cruising down the Nile and your biggest worry is wanting to up date your blog! I will not try to up date you on all the going on's as that would take forever! And there are a few others on my tour company who are quite keen to use my computer as we have free wifi. So I will just talk about the first two days.
I finally arrived in Cairo on Sat 5th of Dec after a very interesting flight. The flight had a wee stop over that I did not know about! I can now offically say that I have been to Uzbekistan! The plane was meant to make a short stop there to refuel and drop off people. But as we were leaving the plane there was a total power failure!!! And the short 20min visit to Uzbekistan turned into a two hour 'oh my are we going to be able to get back on the plane' moment. After being thoroughly searched we were allowed back on the plane (why search us we were not able to go anywhere but secure room???)
I was very glad to see my hotel room at about two am but there was only a short time before I had to get up and go off to see the Pyramids and Sphinx. The weather here has been amazing. The Egyptians are freezing cold and I am loving it! But I don't think the Egyptian quite understand the whole tourism industry. They don't really seem to care about the things they have in this country. You can touch just about everything and while there are metal detectors everywhere that go off all the time no one bothers to search you.
The Cairo Musesum is crazy. They have so much stuff but it is all crowded in with poor lighting and very little written information that you can read with the displays. And busy as hell. This is the high season for tourism in Egypt and I have decided that I don't like tourist much. They are rude and pushy!!!
Anyway I have a sweet 15 year old Aussie girl who is desparate to connect with the world wide web so I will sign off now and hope for more internet soon!

Long Haul and Layovers

So I am half way through the flights to get me to other side of the world. I really think that our modern scientist and engineers are a bit slack. Why have they not yet come up with cool beaming technology to make this stuff happen when we simply say "Beam me up Scottie" I mean come on.... get with the programme! At the moment I am sitting in a hotel in Seoul and I would highly recommend Korean Air. While long haul flights are never fun I am enjoying the fact that I have night stopover where they pay to send me to a nice hotel, arrange transfers to and from the hotel and provide me with three meals! And this is a really nice hotel. Normally when I travel the logical behind booking hotels is "hey I am only sleeping there so it does not have to be flash'. I have never stayed in a hotel where they provide you with not one but two bathrobes.... and yes I will leave it behind when I go. I even have a bit of a view. But buggered if I can work out how to work the toilet (other than the basic function of flushing of course) It even has the kiwi confused.
I have decided that Auckland airport must be one of the most boring airports to have a stop over in. And I had to be there for 8 hours before I could check in. There is nothing to do prior to check in other than watch people arrive and no there were not comfortable places to have a wee snooze. I have learnt a few things about the airport however:
MacDonalds is open 24 7 but I don't know when they change to the breakfast menu
Avis rental is opening for the least amount of time (alot of people had issues returning keys as they were not open)
If you need Airport help between 12am and 8am forget it there is no one at the desk
And there were no Love Actually moments when I was there (but as I was leaving a lot of camera showed up so I guess someone important was arriving)
Tomorrow I have a 14 hours flight to look forward to and I want a good nights sleep before I do that so off to bed I go!

Six Days of Summer

The first stop on my trip is Brisbane. My best friend Naomi (and her manthing Aaron, another really good friend) live here and I figured that I won't be able to see them much once I hit the UK. And a few days in Brisbane might be the only sunshine I see for quite some time. So far the weather has not disappointed. Temperatures have been in the mid 30's since I arrived and the only patch of bad weather hit further up north from where I am. Not so lucky for Aaron's parents who are also visiting. They were caught in the thunder and lighting storm that up rooted large tree right in front of them. Nay and I had decided to stay home and seek air conditioned spaces so we missed all the excitment!
For the first two days of my visit here we did all the tourist things: going to markets, visiting a mountain thingy in the middle of Brisbane and having lots of bbq's. Good times but I don't think that I could live here, just too damn hot and really the city is not that pretty!
The best part so far has been that fact that I have escaped from work! There was so much to do before I left but now that I have I can't worry about what still needs to be done, bugger the scheme, school mag, junior camps and Kamar! I did find a whole lot of photo's from the school cross country that I had been fantically looking for but hey can't do anything now! Instead I have been reading books and taking nanna naps!
Naomi has time off from work on Wednesday and Tuesday. She is menat to be "working from home" and I am sure we can do that in shopping malls and beaches.
Hope everyone at HGHS is enjoying school camps

Catch ya later

The Great Plan

So finally I am off on my big OE. I know that most people my age have already done their big travel experience but I was always a bit of a slow starter. As most of you know I am off to England for 2010 bu on the way over I am travelling through the Middle East. I have created a wee time line of the first part of my trip so you can work out where I am and what I might be doing.



And the good news is that I have a job! That was the one thing that I was really worried about and it didn't help that EVERYONE kept asking me if I had a job. I was being to think that I was unemployable! In saying that the boss lady at HGHS has hired three people to replace me. That does make me feel special!
The school is called Thurston Community College and I have included a line to their website. I will be living in the town of Bury St Edmunds which is about 1 &1/2 hours from London by train and 45mins to Cambridge. It is also close to Colchester and Clacton-On-Sea where I ended up after the Paris disaster last year so I have fond feelings for that part of the country. The town looks really pretty in the pictures and has 11 shoes stores!

Look out world..... here I come!