Egypt - End of story!!!

It's now been almost a month since we returned from Egypt and I have been super-absorbed with getting settled back into everyday mundane life that I have not had the time to finish our travel tales. Sister Peng will probably have something to say about this half-assed attempt at up-dating this blog, but heh........ I'm trying!!!!

Ananda Camp was wonderful but the daily dose of falafel got really tiring quickly. On the last day of the course, the boys and I went to Zaman Castle for delicious slow food.

Touted as the best food along the coast!!!

Boys with their scrabble buddies Dalia & Rex and Henny, the owner of the castle (who is looking for a massage therapist to work at the castle....... boy was I tempted!!!) Dalia had some amazing stories: she actually went and visited all the places in the EAT, PRAY, LOVE book!! How cool is that?

Don't think Henny is too into kids.............. Stephan was not allowed into the pool as he was deemed to be too young!

After the meal, we started on a new adventure! We rented a little car to drive to St Katherine's Monastry. Roads in this part of Egypt are really deserted and it is basically straight roads through the desert! The police stops along the way are kindda intimidating though; I forgot to get an International Drivers license so was driving with a Singaporean license and was petrified that they would hold us at the police post. All the worries were unfounded and we breezed through with no problems (especially after meeting up with Amr who holds a military special ID that got us through everywhere!!!)

Mt Moses was really amazing. We did the 3 1/2hr climb up and slept up in the mountains under the stars, much as Moses might have done after seeing the burning bush!!! I am not sure if God spoke to us when we were up there, but it was beautiful. The climb up was a little tough especially on Nic & Steph. I forgot Nicolas' inhaler and he had altitude sickness which made the end of the climb extremely difficult. The poor boy was puking and shitting his guts out. Anyways, without going into the ghastly details, we survived the night, saw the sunset and sunrise and did the trek down the mountain. Stephan was truely amazing though..... he climbed all the way and hardly complained. Everyone was sooooooo proud of him! Mathieu, usual Mr GungHo complained that the mountain was too easy and wanted to take short-cuts. Silly mummy that I am, I listened to him and got into some horrible scratches with the mountain sliding from under our feet!

Mt Moses is truely a holy mountain. Muslims, Christians & Jews together, all praying in the same place.

I learnt a great lesson from this trip..... whilst downloading the beautiful wonderful photos from the mountain, I accidently deleted 100s of photos without saving em. I started on my usual rant & rave and Amr stopped me............ "DETACHMENT", he said........ even from photos. And you know what, I breathed deeply and let it pass. I still wish I had some of those beautiful shots I took (and they were pretty good!!), but heh, the memories will always be there and guess what, I was there with friends with cameras and they took great shots too!!! :)

Now, the last part of the trip was DAHAB, and it was here that we really fell in love with Egypt. We spent 5-6 days here but it felt like we were living there for months........ and we could have; we'd wake-up, go for a swim in the sea, have breakfast, sit by the pool or a cafe to read, have lunch with friends, go shopping, visit land with Amr, chat with Lucy, hang-out at the internet cafe, chill @ 7 heaven with the divers, went diving (even learnt to free dive), water the plants with Sam............. It was SOOOO nice. Leaving was really difficult after that!!!

Boys @ their Initiation Dive!

Sam from Fightin Kangaroo and the boys

Being invited home to Mohammed's (from 7 heaven) place in Cairo was such a treat!!! Mama was soooo nice to us and fed us like kings!!!

Egypt - Ananda Camp (Taba / Nuweiba)

The next part of our journey was THE reason we were in Egypt; For me to attend Itzhak’s Yoga Massage course!

The boys and I took a courageous 18hr bus ride from Luxor to Dahab. The bus wasn’t all that bad except for the fact that it did not stop for food and we were absolutely starving. Upon arriving at Dahab, we were exhausted and decided to check into the Hilton for a 1 night reprieve from back-pack fatigue.

The 10 days at Ananda Camp were amazing; time just flew by. The boys had a great time playing with all the people at the camp; Isreali & Egyptian friends - selling sea-shells, painting, chopping up the fence for a science project, catching crabs, fish and digging huge man-size holes!!!! The camp was really isolated and Amr would take them to the gas station (22km away!!!) for a treat to buy ice-cream if they had been good............ haha!!!

I, one eye on the boys, the other on Itzhak, as I did my 3rd massage course in 6 months!! I know, I am probably going a little OTT, but the course was great. Going back to basics was essential; after learning all the fancy technical stuff at Arnaud's course, it was really good to be reminded about the philosophy behind what we do and understand why we practise this art....... to give in humility to others, to treat the physical body in order to give balance @ an emotional / spiritual level.............

(For more details about this part of the trip, check out http://www.yogabodywork.blogspot.com/)

Nile Cruise - Aswan - Luxor

We took the overnight train from Cairo to Aswan to start our journey along the Nile on a 5 star cruise ship. Needless to say, the 1st class trains in Egypt are awful. (But still much better than the 2nd class wagons that had no lights, people piled on top of each other along the aisles and overflowing from the compartments!!!)

The boys were so cute carrying their back-packs! (They didn’t think it was so cute to be walking around with em though!)

When we got to Aswan, of course we were not brought to the ship we booked; that would have been too simple. We were given some story about the ships being over-booked and being up-graded……. Ya right!!! Anyway, we had already paid, so we thought we’d make the best of it. I am not sure what the 5 stars were for, but we had a largish bath-tub on the upper deck disguised as a pool, a pretty comfortable room and all was good.

Our 5 star cruise ship, THE SERENADE!! We actually booked to go on the L'Aube du Nile...

Sound & Light Show @ Philae Temple

The walls of the temples were like giant size comic books. I believe this one told of the story of Horus taking revenge and defeating his uncle, the brother of Osiris for killing his father. In this pictoral, the evil brother was depicted in the form of a hippopotamus. He can also sometimes be drawn as a snake, donkey or.......em, I think crocodile.....

The walls are truely amazing. There are some that are medical journals (Enemas where already really big in those days), calendars etc....

It was a good thing that we decided to visit the temples with the cruise cos the temperature in Aswan, Edfu and Luxor was in the 60s. Yes, it is not imaginable……. We could hardly breath!! Anyway, there was only a Lebanese couple on their honeymoon and us in our group so the visits were nice. We did all the temples…… and all the temples pretty much morphed into one………. Since I am writing this more than 2 weeks post-motem, I can’t remember most of it anymore! There was the Temple of Philae (in honor of Isis), where we watched the astronomically over-priced and kitsch Sound & Light show, Kom omo (in honour of Sobek the evil crocodile God) and Horus, son of Isis, The valley of the kings, karnak temple, Nefretitit temple…………. It was all supremely interesting but I don't remember much of it.....

The sacred Scarab-beetle represents eternal life cos it is the only insect that is asexual (I think that is what it is when they have both male & female in the same body and are able to auto-reproduce.) This beetle was either in Luxor or Karnak but it is a very special beetle. Go around the beetle anti-clockwise : 3 times for luck, 5 times to be married, 7 times for children and 10 for money. Our little typical Sporean boys of course ran around the beetle 10 times!!!

The largest Obelix in the world - Temple of Karnak!!! (By Nephretiti, I think).

The famous Obelix in Paris was taken from the Temple of Luxor. There were actually 2 of matching obelix here. Mohammad Ali sent over one of em as a gift to France and you know what the stingy french sent to Egypt; a crappy clock that is now in the citidal in Cairo. haha.

@ Aswan Dam - the 2nd largest dam in the world after the one in Brazil (Don't ask me which one cos the guide couldn't remember...)

Anyway, the Dam was built with help from the Russians and this created the largest man-made lake, Lake Nasser. Thanks to the dam, the lands along the Nile are no longer as fertile as they used to be and the best......... they flooded AbuSimbel, Philae Temple and a bunch of other historic stuff. Unesco had to come and rescue the temples and move em to higher ground brick by brick.......... The things that we do to our environment in the name of development!!!

Boys sailing on the Felucca. My original plan was to sail the Nile on a Felucca. This would have meant 5 days on a boat with no toilets, no showers, no fans, no aircon and camping out under the stars............ I think it was a good thing we took the cruise considering how the kids took turns being violently ill that week. (Mixture of food poisoning, unbearably hot weather and the fly vomit from the week before??)