Sailing up the Nile

we sailed up the Nile in one of those feluccas yesterday. it was a fantastic ride. besides us there are 4 Aussies, 2 Canadians and one Swedish, each group carries a copy of Lonely Planet. lol! no wonder we always end up seeing each other! we spent the afternoon lazied about on the deck (with good shade!), and exchanged our stories with the scams and haggles, and the creative ways we each devised to fend off the ubiquitous touts. one of the fellow traveller did a reverse haggling by asking our captain backsheesh (tipping) for borrowing his knife to cut up salads. the canadian sister didn’t know looking straight into Egyptian men’s eye is to show interest, so they’ve been sending the wrong signals and got much unwanted attention. we had good laughs! as we enjoyed this piece of tranquility and engrossed ourselves in the flow of ancient Nile, we found ourselves becoming the photo opportunity by those tourists on the cruise liners. smile!

now we are in Luxor. enjoyed an afternoon of nothingness. with such a great concentration of ancient ruins here, we’ll take it slow and try not overwhelm ourselves and getting “pharaonic fatique” :)

Abu Simbel

Our 3am morning call woke us up and started a very long but exciting day of visiting Abu Simbel and the philae temple. Abu Simbel is about 3 hours away south of Aswan and land journey must be accompanied by police convoy. so all the tour buses pretty much gather together in the middle of the night and marched south like a caravan. As we traveled through the seemingly endless desert we saw the sun gradually rising above the horizon. so beautiful! even more amazing is the desert mirage we saw on the return trip back to Aswan. I swear i saw a lake! :)

Abu Simbel is a must see. i honestly had a greater time here than the great pyramid of Giza (waaaaay too touristy!). It was designed by Ramses II as show of strength, to set the tone for any boats that sail up the Nile. Imagine you travel up the Nile and suddenly you see these gigantic statues of Ramses II looking down on you! Even after thousads of years, when I looked at it i felt like such a pathetic dwarf! the splendor of the temple doesn’t stop at the exterior, the interior is equally stunning, if not more. It’s filled with hierographs and stone cravings. the sun cast a magial light over the long corridor of the temple. it is said that on certain days of the year (2/22 and 10/22), the sunrise penetrate the temple, reach the innermost chamber and illuminate the four gods of the temple.

the project to move Abu Simbel is just as equally impressive as the monument itself. In the 1960s, when the building of high dam was drawn up, UNESCO set out to save as much monuments as possible from being flooded. During 4 years of time, they moved Abu Simbel from the original site to the current location, stone by stone. every detail, from the orientation to the landscape, was carefully mapped out to put it together in its original form. what a great international effort!

taking a night train down to Aswan

The very modern and comfortable night train took us down to Aswan in about 12 hours. Two airplane style meals are served and the smartly designed cabin has enough room for two twin beds, a basin, and best of all, air con. loved it and had a great night of sleep. :) soon after we woke up we arrived in Aswan. fully rejuvinated and ready for more adventure!

first victory of the day came when we successfully bargained the taxi ride from EL10 down to EL5 (Egyptian pounds). when we arrived at our hotel, we were greeted by the staff with some very refreshing pomegranate juice. what a treat, especially when it’s 100F outside! the hotel also has an excellent rooftop cafe. budget price with mid-range service, and “free” actually means FREE as is defined in oxford dictionary. quite a contrast to our experience in Cairo. we were impressed!

we rested a little bit and then ventured out to Elepantine island to visit some Nubian villages. After shooting off numerous touts for felucca ride and traps for motorboat we finally got on the right ferry (and paid the right fare). here, even a simple thing as riding a ferry can be tricky. we just gotta keep our light bulbs on all the time. :) once we arrived at the island, we were greeted by the chief of the village. he’s quite a celebrity himself within traveller’s circle, partially because his name is in the bible – lonely planet. Growing up, he spent much time with an egyptologist who schooled him, particularly on his language skills. he can now speak 4 languages. i am quite impressed. he showed us around the village and recounted a bit of the history in the area and invited us to his house for tea (left picture). it was an enjoyable walk and of course there’s no such thing as free in Egypt, we made a generous “donation” to help the village but it was well worth the experience.

in the evening we went out to celebrate Pascal’s birthday. after 20 minutes of walk and about 100 times of “la shukran” (“no thanks” in Arabic) we arrived at our 5 star oasis – Old Cataract hotel, we hummed happy birthday song and had a quiet dinner there on the terrace, listened to the Nubian live music, enjoyed the beautiful sunset and just watch the Nile go by and imagine the scene depicted in Agatha Cristie’s death on the Nile , and best of all, not having to deal with the touts coming from all directions.

it was so relaxing that we forgot to take a picture of us. :( so you can only see me holding death on the Nile with my Nubian Hut drink in front of me (left picture). we spent a few relaxing hours here and as soon as we walked out, the reality struck and we were again attacked by taxi drivers and horse carriage tout. good time is over! another about 50 “la shukran” later we were back to our hotel and got to bed early for our 3 0′clock morning call next day.

Arriving in Cairo

I am here experiencing the biggest culture shock in my life. Cairo is the craziest place I’ve ever been to. I don’t even know how to BEGIN to blog about it. There are just so much to say, the smell, the narrow busy streets, the shouting in Arabic, chanting Qur’an, the endless honking, the prayer calling from the mosques 5 times a day, and the infamous scams in any way you can possibly imagine (or not). Riding a taxi in Cairo is an adventure in itself and it starts from the moment you flag one down. Once we hopped in a taxi only to find out the driver doesn’t have the slightest idea of where we want to go. we showed him the map, told him the place in English and still nothing. finally he called his friend who can speak English to translate for us! Lessons learned! always ask the hotel to write the Arabic name for you, at least in Cairo. however the next day we hopped in a taxi again, this time with confidence, and showed the driver the destination written in Arabic. guess what? he is illiterate, which, to my surprise, is not uncommon at all here. He had to stop and ask a pedestrian to read it out for him. what can i say? we felt totally defeated! :) There is NO traffic light on most intersections. Even when there is, it doesn’t make any difference.They say the traffic lights in Cairo are only for jokes. And crossoing the street is an art of finding human buffer and perfect timing. And my ultimate secret weapon to deal with all the street annoyance is Chinese! many Egyptians are multi-lingual, not necessarily fluent, but enough to scam you with your own language. ha. but as soon as i turn around to speak Chinese in a machine gun manner , even the smoothest talking Egyptian shuts up!
the next day we decided to wait no more and headed to the only remaining of the ancient seven wonders – the Great Pyramid of Giza, as well as Saqqara (the oldest pyramid), and Memphis. we hired a taxi for the day and was grateful for having done that. it saved us much hassles! I won’t go into details to describe the places because all the guidebooks can do better. I did decide to pay the outrageous entrance fee to go inside the pyramid. there’s really not much to see inside, the steep stairway ends in a very dark and empty room. however, the feeling of climbing ancient stairways inside the pyramid is indescribable!

the day after we visited the Egyptian museum. what a massive and great collection it has! but at the same time, it is also among the poorest organized museum I’ve ever been to. Five minutes into the museum we decided the only way to make sense out of it is to hire a guide. there’s none to very little descriptions to the items exhibited. Of the few that actually has a little bit of descriptions, they are hand-written, more precisely, scribbled, with occasional usage of white-out!Buy a printer!! for Pharaoh’s sake!! We saw one empty showcase with nothing more than a piece of paper (obviously torn from a notepad), with a scribble of Arabic. they could at least write in English, so we know it’s not a thank-you note left by the thief (as in many Hollywood movies :))! the museum is just amazing and disappointing all at the same time. and what’s even more shocking is we saw this 3000 years old mummy lying around in bright light under room temperature. And by room temperature i mean a room without A/C. i am no mummy expert but shouldn’t they be carefully preserved in certain condition? which was the case in a separate mummy room which charges twice as much as the entrance fee. (how convenient!)perhaps they don’t have enough “VIP” rooms to display all the mummies but that’s just a shame. I can only hope that the new Grand Egyptian Museum, which is set to open in 2009, will make much improvement!

Contrary to what this entry might sound like, Cairo is a wonderful and fascinating place. Walking in Cairo is like being in a 24 hour open theatre. there are always things that drop our jaws. A view to a whole different world has definitely being opened to me. i am glad i am here!

bye bye Switzerland

Tonight marks the last night of our stay in Switzerland. time really flies. I’ve been here for about 3 months! About half of the time i go to french class. the other half we traveled and just did what we do the best – lazy bums. :) this past weekend i had a little day trip by myself and the whole time I was speaking French (to get direction and inquire information) and i didn’t get lost! Does that mean people actually understood me? :) It feels a little rewarding. I also want to thank Simone and the rest of Vienne family for welcoming me with open arms and hospitality, because of them I had a really comfortable stay in this beautiful swiss countryside. And now I am leaving with loads of memory and good times, and better yet, those recipes passed down from her family in Alsace. Here when we cook, we go to the garden to collect basils, thymes, rosemary and other herbs I’ve never heard of. How natural and how tasteful it is, from the garden directly to your plate! I know now i will want a garden in my next home!

We said that this is like a vacation from our vacation. I am excited to be on the road again but i expect a little “learning curve” to get back on track, things like looking out for pickpockets, haggling, and keeping a hand on the pocket that’s long forgotten in our daily routine. :)

Small town Ollon rarely has people pouring in, with a few exceptions like this weekend. It’s the 4th historic Swiss Hillclimb. When I got off the train yesterday, the parking lot was filled with all sorts of cars from the last century, polished and decked out. There’s actually a race, even though i think they are more like parading than racing. (but i could be wrong). the old engines make huge noise, so loud that the event staff were walking around and giving out ear plugs. :)
Here are some pictures (click to get larger pix)

Where did we come from? (Visiting CERN)

In this aerial view of the Lake Geneva region you can see a yellow circle. nope, it’s not a train track. it’s the plan for the world’s largest particle accelerator, buried 100m underground in the Swiss-France border. If you’ve read Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons, it might ring a bell. it is here, in CERN (European Organization for nuclear research) that the story of this international bestseller starts (i won’t go further for the reason of spoiler :-)). Ever since I arrived in Switzerland I’ve been wanting to visit! but holly molly, when I emailed them to make a reservation, they told me they are fully booked till next year!!! what a bummer. however there is a multimedia center opened for the visitors year-around and today i am feeling extra scientific so off i went.
Although most of the time i tried to recall what proton, atom and all that stuff are from high school physics class (which is way back) and tried to connect the dots, i really marveled at the scale of the project and what the scientists there try to accomplish. They are currently building its most powerful machine ever, the Large Hadron Collider, or LHC. Here are a few things about it:

• It recreates the conditions a millionth of a millionth of a second after the big bang, so that the scientists can gain understanding on the mysteries of how our universe is made and how it came to be.
  
• And it does so by accelerating beams of particles (to as fast as light speed!) and smashing them into each other to create high energy conditions similar to those in the first instants of the Universe.
  
• in just one second, protons travel 11000 times around the 27km ring of the LHC accelerator, crossing the border between France and Switzerland on each circuit

I apologize if these scientific tidbits bore you, but i thought it’s really amazing what they are trying to do. We are so used to who we are that we don’t ask questions anymore. but somewhere out there, there’s a group of devoted scientists who are determined to find out the ultimate answer of mankind. and this dedication brings together top minds across nations and around the world. And to top it off, the world wide web (www) was invented here! Which means without it, i wouldn’t be here typing this entry. :)i wish i will be able to visit the lab on my next trip back here, perhaps i should reserve the tour now!

Welcome to my blogspot

Hi you all!
the fact that you are here probably means you’ve seen my moving announcement on yahoo!360. welcome to my new blog!! You can find all the old posts here and now they are archived nicely by month. You can also leave comments without having to log in. (yay!). there’s a shout box on the left so stop being quiet and give me a shout :) i’d love to hear from you my reader!

last but not least, don’t forget to change your bookmark yo!