Philae Temple
Another early start and we headed off to the High Dam which produces electricity for all of Egypt and also created the largest artificial lake in the world. It is currently the world’s second largest dam. Then we boarded a small motor boat to Philae Temple where Sam used members of the group to reenact the beliefs of the ancient Egyptian religion for the creation of the world. The Egyptian people no longer believe in this religion and are now roughly 90% Muslim and 10% Christian.
I want there to be a disclaimer on all of the “facts” that are presented in my blog about Egypt that these are the things my guide is telling me and then I am recalling, so inaccuracies should be expected and I apologize for that.
While on the bus Sam told us that there would be lots of people trying to sell us their goods and he would identify to us which items were at a decent price by including the word “sweet” in his description of the price of the items. For example “This bracelet is being sold for 20 Egyptian Pounds, sweet” whereas an item that wasn’t a good deal would be described as “This doll is being sold for 400 Egyptian Pounds” without a sweet after the price. Pretty simple but it was effective assuming of course that Sam wasn’t getting a kickback from any of the sellers.
All temples consisted of three parts, the first part was open to the public, the second part was for the nobles and the priests and the third was only for the high priest and the pharaoh, this place was referred to as the Holy of the Holies and housed the gold statue of the god that the temple was constructed to worship. The temple was covered with carvings of offerings to the gods and hieroglyphics. A lot of the pictures of the gods were damaged when other religions were trying to convert the Egyptians to their faith and used chisels to deface the pictures of the Egyptian gods to prove that the gods weren’t real. Their reasoning was that if the Egyptian Gods were real they would not allow their pictures to be defaced. Later, when the Romans invaded Egypt the temple was used as a secret place for Early Christians to practice their faith.
We were supposed to have lunch on the Felucca but the day was running long and I was getting hungry so I quickly ran down the street to the nearby McDonalds and grabbed a double cheeseburger. It took forever to get the burger and I was forced to run back towards the boat and barely made it onto the felucca in time. Sam got three large Felucca boats for our group and my boat had 14 passengers and three crew members on board. The tour group is made up mostly of Aussies and Kiwis who are currently living in London. My boat consisted of 7 Kiwis, 6 Aussies and 3 crew members from Egypt, I was severely outnumbered on all fronts. The felucca boats are powered only by the wind and weave their way North on the Nile which is downstream.
As soon as we set off sailing the boat was trying to get some toilet stools, for setting up on the shore for bathroom breaks, from another boat when our boat crashed into the other boat. It made a really loud smashing sound but the only thing that appeared to break was one of the toilet stools. Later we clipped the back end of another boat as we were working our way up the river, not a good start. We sailed for a couple of hours and then pulled up along the shore near a Bedouin settlement with toilets and showers. The crew cooked us dinner and then we went ashore to the Bedouin settlement where Sam and another tour guide performed a little skit and then led some Kiwis in a Maori Haka dance. The Maori people are the natives in New Zealand and the Haka dance is performed by the All Blacks rugby team in New Zealand before their rugby matches. I’ve never seen this before and I was quite impressed.
After the dancing the Bedouin people sold sheesha pipes, henna and bracelets to us. We smoked a sheesha pipe and then returned to the boat for the night. Back on the boat we hooked an IPod into speakers and sat around listening to music. We were told several times starting at 10:30pm that we were being too loud and needed to be quieter. The crew considered pushing our boat out into the Nile away from the other boats, but without lights we would have been in danger of being run over by a large Nile cruise boat. Finally around midnight we gave in to the others requests to be quiet and slept soundly on the felucca.
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Another early start and we headed off to the High Dam which produces electricity for all of Egypt and also created the largest artificial lake in the world. It is currently the world’s second largest dam. Then we boarded a small motor boat to Philae Temple where Sam used members of the group to reenact the beliefs of the ancient Egyptian religion for the creation of the world. The Egyptian people no longer believe in this religion and are now roughly 90% Muslim and 10% Christian.
I want there to be a disclaimer on all of the “facts” that are presented in my blog about Egypt that these are the things my guide is telling me and then I am recalling, so inaccuracies should be expected and I apologize for that.
While on the bus Sam told us that there would be lots of people trying to sell us their goods and he would identify to us which items were at a decent price by including the word “sweet” in his description of the price of the items. For example “This bracelet is being sold for 20 Egyptian Pounds, sweet” whereas an item that wasn’t a good deal would be described as “This doll is being sold for 400 Egyptian Pounds” without a sweet after the price. Pretty simple but it was effective assuming of course that Sam wasn’t getting a kickback from any of the sellers.
All temples consisted of three parts, the first part was open to the public, the second part was for the nobles and the priests and the third was only for the high priest and the pharaoh, this place was referred to as the Holy of the Holies and housed the gold statue of the god that the temple was constructed to worship. The temple was covered with carvings of offerings to the gods and hieroglyphics. A lot of the pictures of the gods were damaged when other religions were trying to convert the Egyptians to their faith and used chisels to deface the pictures of the Egyptian gods to prove that the gods weren’t real. Their reasoning was that if the Egyptian Gods were real they would not allow their pictures to be defaced. Later, when the Romans invaded Egypt the temple was used as a secret place for Early Christians to practice their faith.
We were supposed to have lunch on the Felucca but the day was running long and I was getting hungry so I quickly ran down the street to the nearby McDonalds and grabbed a double cheeseburger. It took forever to get the burger and I was forced to run back towards the boat and barely made it onto the felucca in time. Sam got three large Felucca boats for our group and my boat had 14 passengers and three crew members on board. The tour group is made up mostly of Aussies and Kiwis who are currently living in London. My boat consisted of 7 Kiwis, 6 Aussies and 3 crew members from Egypt, I was severely outnumbered on all fronts. The felucca boats are powered only by the wind and weave their way North on the Nile which is downstream.
As soon as we set off sailing the boat was trying to get some toilet stools, for setting up on the shore for bathroom breaks, from another boat when our boat crashed into the other boat. It made a really loud smashing sound but the only thing that appeared to break was one of the toilet stools. Later we clipped the back end of another boat as we were working our way up the river, not a good start. We sailed for a couple of hours and then pulled up along the shore near a Bedouin settlement with toilets and showers. The crew cooked us dinner and then we went ashore to the Bedouin settlement where Sam and another tour guide performed a little skit and then led some Kiwis in a Maori Haka dance. The Maori people are the natives in New Zealand and the Haka dance is performed by the All Blacks rugby team in New Zealand before their rugby matches. I’ve never seen this before and I was quite impressed.
After the dancing the Bedouin people sold sheesha pipes, henna and bracelets to us. We smoked a sheesha pipe and then returned to the boat for the night. Back on the boat we hooked an IPod into speakers and sat around listening to music. We were told several times starting at 10:30pm that we were being too loud and needed to be quieter. The crew considered pushing our boat out into the Nile away from the other boats, but without lights we would have been in danger of being run over by a large Nile cruise boat. Finally around midnight we gave in to the others requests to be quiet and slept soundly on the felucca.
CLICK ON THE PICTURE BELOW TO SEE ALL OF TODAY'S PICTURES
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