TravelStream™ news feed for member vipro on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/vipro en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Tue, 24 Jun 2008 10:09:35 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vipro/egypt_2007/1176951960/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vipro/egypt_2007/1176951960/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vipro/egypt_2007/1176951960/tpod.html Tue, 24 Jun 2008 10:09:35 -0400 A 2 weeks tour to try to visit the leftovers by the ancient and the modern Egyptians...

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Aswan, Nile River Valley, Egypt

Chapter 32: Coptic Cairo!

Having spent the night with Cleopatra (the painting) staring at you, I woke up feeling quite exhausted. (C'mon, wouldn't you feel uncomfortable when someone is watching you the whole night?) My flight to Aswan was in the late afternoon so I had the whole morning free to explore around Cairo. Having visited the Islamic Cairo last time, this would be an opportunity to check out the Christian side (Coptic Cairo), especially in a Muslim country. The breakfast was no thrills as it was basically the same thing as before. (...still it was ok to me, much better than the same single "stick" of French bread I had for 3 breakfasts while I was in Spain... never knew why I didn't have any food poisoning then!)

By now I knew the area (around the hostel) quite well that I no longer needed my treasure map. (In fact I had already returned it back to the porter for the next "fortunate" soul.) The journey to the Coptic Cairo area was simple - The metro stopped by there and so there was no dispute with any taxi drivers; but the downside would be a struggle with the crowd to get on and off the train, even after the morning rush hour!

When I said Islamic Cairo was old, then Coptic Cairo must be ancient! It is the oldest part of the city. It is THE area where you could still(!) find Orthodox Christianity in Cairo, not just one or two churches but the whole area of them! This is quite surprising as Egypt is considered an Islamic country and finding other religions in the country would not be that easy. According to tradition, St. Mark, one of the 12 Apostles, introduced Christianity into Egypt in 1st AD. By the 4th Century, Christianity was the official religion
of Egypt.

This entire compound lied within the Roman fortress walls of the 3rd AD where at one time there were more than 20 churches clustered within less than 1 square km; however now only a handful survived!

Once I got off the metro at the Mari Girgis station, while walking along the footbridge my attention was drawn towards the birthday cake-like exterior of St. George's Church. So I swiftly took out my camera and started framing photos. However, as I was still in the proximity of the station, I immediately got interrupted by an uniformed man. (still not sure whether he was a police, a military soldier, a tourist police or just a plain station guard, there were so many different types of uniforms roaming around the streets of Cairo!) But no matter what he was, his don't-mess-with-me look
clearly put his message across quite well. So I "obediently" put away my camera and left with bowing and apologies. (Well at least he wasn't the type that would "fine" you for taking pictures... unlike those I encountered later on in Giza)

Chapter 33: The Hanging Church of Babylon!

The first and the most beautiful church that I went to was the Hanging Church. Like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, I could never understand why it was ever called "hanging" as the church was not suspended by any means at all! Ok it was built on top of a gatehouse of the Roman Fortress, and that was it. The pearl-white twin bell towers and the facade looked very picturesque and gave a very postcard feel but damn it the sun was at the wrong place at the wrong time. No matter how hard I tried and how much I fiddled with the filters and camera settings, the results were still unsatisfactory. At the end I gave up and went inside in a really bad mood.

Once inside I was surprised to hear people speaking in Cantonese. I saw three young Asian listening to an English speaking tour guide. As it was really rare to meet fellow countrymen in this foreign land, I immediately approached them revealing my true identity...

They were also surprised to meet someone from Hong Kong travelling alone in Egypt. Actually they were students (2 boys and 1 girl) travelling around Europe, and took a detour just to visit Cairo for a couple of days, and then would go all the way back up to Europe. (Gosh! They must be really obsessed with the pharaohs and the pyramids to have to come all the way down from Europe just for a couple of days!) But unluckily they also met the sandstorm yesterday and
couldn't go to Giza (where all the famous pyramids are) so they would go to try their luck again this afternoon.

Seeing that their guide was getting impatient I bid goodbye to the trio (this combo of 2 men and a woman forms the Chinese word "angry" and statistics had proven that this combination would usually end up this way too!) and went to explore other places in the compound.






Top: The very beautiful front view of the Hanging Church (left). A series of striking icons of Saints(?) and Angels. (right)
Middle: Interior of the Church, supported by 13 pillars that represent Christ and his disciples, in which one of them is darker than the rest, symbolizing Judas.
Bottom: The inner courtyard (left) and a panel inside the Church that has been cut out of the floor revealing the Water Gate below (right).


I passed by the Roman Towers and someone called at me. It was Youn-Jun! She also had her last minute tour around before going back to Germany. This gave me a chance to bid her goodbye since I didn't have a chance last night.



Left: I asked one of the trio to take a photo for me... I trusted him and this is what he got for me!
Right: It was certainly nice to meet Youn-Jun again in here.


Chapter 34: Here and there, St. George was everywhere!

Afterwards I went to the Church of St. George, but it was closed for renovation. There was a small chapel nearby that was also dedicated to St. George the Martyr. Yes the same one that killed the dragon, the same one that was worshipped in England and Spain and in other European countries! Pilgrims came here to be blessed. The "staff" there took a chain with a sharp hook at the end, and put the hook on the forehead of the pilgrim, while the pilgrim uttered some words of prayers. It surely was a very special way of getting blessed! I think the chain and
the hook was a symbol of martyrdom as almost all the churches in here were dedicated to martyrs (maybe because Christianity in the region was built-up from the flesh and blood of the martyrs?!)

As this really was not my way of getting blessed (and I didn't know how to ask in Arabic for this blessing anyway) so I left the chain alone and continued on. According to the ancient text on the net, the correct chain wrapping
procedure should be:

A unique 'chain wrapping' ritual can be experienced by visitors, whereby a 4-meter iron chain with neck-shackle hanging from the wall is wrapped around one's body (not for the faint-hearted!). The chain is thought to have belonged to St. George during his Roman tortures, and is reputed to possess miraculous healing powers.

Chapter 35: Finding the entrance to the hidden quarter... "Open Sesame" is just what you need!

There was supposed to be a whole area where the very famous Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus Church and other old churches were but I just couldn't find the entrance to the compound. I had the LP map, I had the compass but the entrance to the alleyway was nowhere to be seen! All I could find was just a Greek Orthodox Cemetery with many tombstones, statues and graves. Do I really have to tap the right bricks (three up, two across) in the wall behind the Leaky Cauldron to open up the Alley?

With some "natural talent" and plenty of luck I finally discovered the secret entrance! As Doc Emmett Brown used to
say, 'You are not thinking three dimensionally!' Indeed the map was correct from a 2-dimensional point of view, but the alleyway to the compound was actually underneath, and the entrance was like a subway entrance off the main road! (Ed: I think Doc. Brown was really saying 'You are not thinking fourth dimensionally!')



Left: This is my very "detailed" map from LP, I was going back and forth from item 9 to item 6 but where is the entrance?
Right: Finally found it! A subway entrance? @_@


Once I descended to the alley, it was immediately like a different world. There were many people here, tourists, students and pilgrims. I followed the alleyway to the first stop: Convent of St. George - where the nuns were. The whole place was full of tourists rather than nuns. At the courtyard was a beautiful statue of St. George killing the dragon. Obviously, unlike in the Barcelona Cathedral in Spain, someone actually cleansed the statue here. There was a small chaplet, the guidebook said you could be wrapped by the chains here too but I saw no nuns and no chains inside!



Left: The birthday-cake structure of the Church of St. George
Right: The Convent of St. George, where the nuns (supposed to) lived!




From left to right:
The colorful statue of St. George in Convent of St. George.
The not-so-colourful and not so well-maintained statue in Barcelona Cathedral, Spain.
The spear and the wheel symbolized martyrdom, and how the martyrs suffered for today's Christianity.
A beautiful drawing found inside the monastery of St. George.


I returned to the main alley and followed on. The alley began to branch off into other alleys and soon I found myself in a mini-maze... The approach "Just follow the crowd" worked and brought me to the Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus.



The mini maze inside. In the middle you could find a souvenir shop for replenishment and you could ask for some hints if you couldn't crack the puzzle yourself!


Chapter 36: The Holy Family was here... so were Jeremiah and Moses too!

The entry was free (donations were welcome of course) but I couldn't take any photos inside. It was dedicated to the martyrs Sergius and Bacchus. But the fame of this church owed to the widely held belief that the Holy Family stayed in a cave on this very spot when they fled
from King Herod to Egypt after he ordered to kill every first born. Now that place was just an empty crypt and was fenced off so we could only try to peep from afar. (would appreciate if they had installed some lighting too) There was nothing to see besides an empty cave, but still I felt excited as it was still a holy site.



Left: Well the entrance was by the side and you had to descend a flight of stairs, if not seeing people appearing from below I would have certainly missed it!
Right: The entrance of the church of St. Sergius and Bacchus. No photos are allowed inside. This is as close as you can get.


I then followed the human traffic and found myself at the oldest Synagogue in Egypt - Ben Ezra Synagogue. They said this was the spot where the Prophet Jeremiah gathered the Jews in the 6 BC after Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed the Jerusalem temple. This was the only place in the area where there was a security check outside and you had to be scanned thoroughly before you were admitted! Actually this was a good precaution otherwise the synagogue would probably have been destroyed by the angry Arabs during the Arab-Israel conflicts. It was no longer used as a worshipping place. (I think all the Jews had decided to settle in Israel instead.)

Adjacent to the synagogue was supposed to be a well where the pharaoh's daughter found Moses in the reeds, but I could not find any sign of water at all. In fact I got told to go away by the security guard while trying to explore
the surroundings.

Not far from the synagogue was the Church of St. Barbara, which as you can guess, was dedicated to Barbara, who was beaten to death by her father for trying to convert him to Christianity. Poor girl!



Left: Ben Ezra Synagogue and its security checkpoint. Right: Barbara Church. The interior is better than the exterior.


After this church I decided to leave the compound and headed for lunch. As this was a tourist place almost all restaurants were designed for tourists. I finally settled down in a place where it served lunch buffet for
31 LE. The papyrus-like menu (made of banana skin?) interested me more than the food displayed.




Top Left: The main street. There were just as many tourist police as the tourist coaches. My restuarant was amongst those on the right.
Top Right: The menu was "specially" made like a papyrus.
Bottom Left: All you can eat! out of what you see here... "What you see is what you get!"
Bottom Right: My meal - chicken Kofta + Shawirma chicken + mango juice + suspicous cold salad (which I didn't eat) + 1 banana. (31 LE)


Chapter 37: First mosque in Africa!

After lunch I still had 2 hours to spare before returning back to the hostel. I had a dilemma to choose between the Coptic museum, or waste it on the mosque of Amr ibn al-As. As the mosque of Amr ibn al-As was the first mosque built in the continent of Africa, it seems worthwhile to go and have a look.

Originally constructed in AD 642 by Amr ibm al-As, the general who conquered Egypt for Islam, this was the site where he pitched his first tent and established MISR al-Fustat. The original structure is said to have been made of palm trunks thatched with leaves, but expanded to the current size in AD 827. It is said that no two of its 200 or so columns are the same.




The mosque of Amr ibm al-As. I didn't bother to count if the 200 columns were all different!


Chapter 38: Breaking the law yet again, ain't I a rebel?!

I didn't have the mood nor the time to play the "spot the difference" for the 200 or so columns, so after a while I returned to the metro station Mari Girgis. After I put my 2LE ticket to the ticket machine, the ticket gate did not open. So I sought help from the uniformed man nearby. Without making the slightest effort to investigate my problem, he told me to jump the gate! -_-" So on the 4th day in this country, I broke another law by jumping the ticket gate! The jump wasn't a perfect 10.00 so I decided to try it again when I exited at my destination station (Sadat station) but this time the ticket worked! So I passed through the gate but the ticket returned to me since it was only used once.

'Oh good, I can keep it as a souvenir!'

Just as I was happily putting away the ticket, the station guard, who was watching the entire process, came up to me and "politely" snatched the ticket away from me, leaving me too stunned of speech. @_@

I got my bag in the hostel and waited for the taxi to come. I asked Ahmed to arrange a taxi for me but the driver was late. His usual "Don't worry my friend" didn't really helped to calm me down as if I missed the flight I would have blown my entire schedule for the rest of the trip!

Finally the "driver" came. I had experienced various types of pickups provided by this Hostel:
I had a university student that was a taxi driver; I had a real taxi driver who wore slippers when he drove; I had a pickup that needed to flag his own taxi from the street; and now here came the best: I had a guy wearing in a piece
of business suit who drove his own car with his wife and took me to the airport! No, he was not a chauffeur, but rather looked like a businessman who had just got off work! Even though his car was quite comfortable, I wasn't too comfortable as we were already late and we hit a traffic jam en route. (Just like the metro was always packed with people, the streets of Cairo were always packed with cars!)

Chapter 39: Stuck in the Terminal.. wouldn't mind that if Miss. Zeta Jones is here.

Finally we just made it to the airport. The flight would be leaving within an hour's time and there was a huge long queue at the counter, but luckily the counter had not closed yet. After queuing for a while, the staff at the check-in counter told me that my flight to Aswan would be delayed for 2 hours until 19:20!!

With nothing to do I spent my time on a coffee (17 LE) at the coffee shop in the Cairo's departure hall. Met a Welsh guy who was working in Cyprus and was taking his kids to Luxor (did I say that my delayed flight will still have to stop over in Luxor before landing in Aswan?) The Welsh accent was highly "ne comprend pas" due to a lack of practicing since I left UK 15 years ago. I also saw 3 Chinese looking girls but their snobbish Singaporean accent didn't stir up my slightest interest to chat them up.

With nothing else to do or to see or to speak to, I went to the boarding gate. There was a coffee shop nearby that would serve free coffee if you had an EgyptAir ticket!! But I just paid for one outside! -_- At the end I bought a croissant or my dinner in case the plane didn't have anything to eat on board. (A lesson well-learnt when travelling on Vueling Airlines last year in Spain)

After the sunset, I finally got on the plane. The journey from Cairo to Aswan should take a flight time of around an hour but the plane would stop over in Luxor en route, so that added a 1.5 hours of time in landing, boarding and takeoff. The plane was a jet alright, it had a standard 3-3 seating configuration and served snacks and drinks (juice with artificial colouring) twice in this short journey.

Chapter 40: The true Egyptian Hospitality!

During the entire journey I was stuck with a very, very huge guy sitting on my left. Maged was his name. He was the finance manager of the Hitachi water pumps situated in the south of Aswan. He was heading back to work after his routine vacation in Alexandria, where he lived. He was the nicest local Egyptian I have met during my trip as he didn't have have to to be friendly with you for a purpose. For once, I really felt true sincerity and Egyptian hospitality. We talked a lot and he explained to me why most Muslim women had to be veiled while at the same time advertisements of female singers with makeup on were allowed. However, like all Egyptians, their only association with the Chinese were Bruce Lee and Jacky Chan! Guess what? He knew Jacky Chan more than I did and that put me to shame! and he said he was now saving up for his China trip to tour the temple of Shaolin~ -_-"



Left: I wouldn't mind waiting at the terminal if there is a Zeta-Jones there.
Right: Maged explained why some females could show their faces in public here in Egypt.


By the time I arrived in Aswan, it was 22:30+. I was too tired to bargain with the taxi drivers (besides, there were not many choices at that time) so I got a taxi to Sara Hotel for 60 LE. Sara hotel was not near the city centre but it was a nice hotel with a reasonable price. For an en suite single room with a balcony, it costed me only 22 USD for one night. It definitely was the nicest hotel I have been so far in this country, because it came with a proper bath tub, a fridge and a TV!




A double room with a balcony, toilet and a bathroom. It even came with a bath tub, 2 pieces of soap, a fridge and a TV, what more do you want for USD 22?
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vipro/egypt_2007/1176865740/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vipro/egypt_2007/1176865740/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vipro/egypt_2007/1176865740/tpod.html Thu, 05 Jun 2008 10:44:35 -0400 A 2 weeks tour to try to visit the leftovers by the ancient and the modern Egyptians...

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Cairo, Egypt

Chapter 28: The awakening

Woke up in the morning at about 5am. The sun had not come out yet but the sky was already quite bright. The sky was hazy and the weather was a bit chilling in the early morning. Didn't really have a good sleep at all. (Who could sleep well under a blanket that was as stiff as steel?) The scarab beetle was nowhere to be seen. (yep, checked that it wasn't inside my body too! ^_^) Youn-Jun was up already, and she was busy writing her own diary(?), as for the others... they were still sleeping like a few logs... Their peaceful facial expressions told me that I shouldn't wake them up regardless of anything, even if there was a king cobra hissing nearby.

Ah! I haven't talked much about Youn-Jun, have I? Well, that's because I haven't really talked much to her. She was a Korean, but went to Germany to study. Like the rest of us, she came alone to Cairo, but her uncle here booked for her a tour of the B & W desert. Because of the money she paid (or her uncle paid), she got the privilege of having her own jeep and also an English-speaking guide, all by herself! What we had in contrast, was to share an "oracle" among 4 people. Like all fortune tellers - he spoke, we couldn't understand; we guessed, and got them all wrong!

With no water to brush my teeth with I had to resort to chewing a few chewing gums. (yep, those were brought from HK) Then I started to scout around the area as I didn't really have time to wander far last evening. There were other camps nearby and the nearest one was about 500 metres apart. Since there was nothing much to do, I started to walk further to look for scenic spots for the sunrise.

The sunrise was better than the sunset last night. The horizon was clear and there was nothing in the path that was blocking the view. After a long wait, the show finally started: first the golden rays, then the orangey egg yolk appeared from the horizon and it gradually rose up to the sky. That was a truly magnificent and enlightening moment, and made me feel so satisfying and fulfilling afterwards. I hadn't watched a proper sunrise for years and it was certainly worth every bit of hardship in getting up so early! When I returned to the camp they were still sleeping. Jamie said she would be very eager to watch the sunrise... Well, obviously the mind was willing but the flesh was a lot weaker...




Top Left: Taken from the top of the horse head. You could see one driver was sleeping behind the jeeps. I think the other one slept inside the jeep. Youn-Jun was writing her diary.
Top Right: The sky god Horus is watching you!
Bottom Left: The SWAT team is now ready! SIR!
Bottom Right: When I came back, they were still sleeping. Zzzz... I was sleeping next to those trashes on the left last night. (where the driver is right now)


Soon afterwards the drivers woke up and started to prepare breakfast. The others woke up one by one and were just sitting there, staring aimlessly like zombies waiting to be fed. (Ed: zombies hunt, prey and feed; they never wait to be fed!)

Soon after, the small table was set and breakfast was ready.

Just like last night's supper, the breakfast was equally "impressive", bread, butter, fig jam and cheese (not sure because I didn't try it out, but those triangular things with silver wrappings looked vaguely familiar to those I had eaten ages before) Wait! There were something extra that weren't included in last night's meal -- Swarms of flies... didn't know where they came from, (did we get caught on their path of seasonal migration? or was it one of the Ten Plagues?) but it was just virtually impossible to leave anything in the open without getting raided by some of them! It was a fierce battle between the humans and the nature... at the end the mere humans had accepted utterly defeat and had to share their food with their victors!




Top Left: This is the English-speaking guide. Nah, he is not the point of the photo. The stiff, filthy and dirty blankets are!
Top Right: The kettle and the blue barrel... yep! our water source for the tea!
Bottom Left: Tables are set, breakfast is almost ready, so are the flies... let the "feast" begin!
Bottom Right: After a hard battle, everyone sort of looked defeated... and Alex went down already!


The "shay" (mint tea) after breakfast was good as it warmed up the stomach a bit. The weather had turned a bit windy now and it was cooler. Soon after the breakfast, the drivers began to pack and dismantle the camp site. We also packed and were ready to leave. But then, Alex was MIA (missing in action) ...

We waited for a long time and before we decided to dispatch the alpha team for the "search and rescue" operation, a figure appeared on the horizon.. it was him! Finally we found him!

After a session of "serious interrogation", he finally confessed that he went to look for the loo. Yes, the sky was well lit now so it wasn't easy to find a shelter for the loo. (where it could just be anywhere last night!) The visibility was so good now that you could hide from one camp but you couldn't hide from the other. Don't get me wrong, the camps were not close to each other at all, but the visibility was so good that you could be easily seen in all directions doing the "business", even from afar. Alex had to walk for about 10 minutes before he could find a spot. (or before he could hold no more? That we never found out!)

Chapter 29: The flower mountain (or what I believe to be!)

We said good-bye to Youn-Jun and the two jeeps left separately. So suddenly we returned to the feeling of being deaf and dumb again. This time the driver was more sane and drove in a normal speed. Soon we arrived in a plain where there were no hills, no rocks and we wondered where we were again! (Only 10 minutes have passed and we already missed Youn-Jun and her English speaking driver!)

So we all looked at the driver, waiting for him to "introduce" the place. Without a word he bent down and picked up one of the many tiny black-coloured stones scattered on the ground.

'Flower stones' he said. He stretched out his hand and showed us a small, black stone with symmetric spikes and randomized patterns all over it. Not really like flowers but the shape and the texture was definitely interesting enough. So we looked down on the ground and what happened to be ordinary, tiny black stones were actually each a flower stone. They all came in different shapes and sizes and like snow flakes, no two were completely the same. The stones were actually basalt rocks left over from previous volcanic eruptions.

Like small kiddies combing the beach for exotic shells, we all had a good time searching for different varieties. It was all very tempting to take them away and keep them. But then I remembered the famous quote: "Take nothing but photos, leave nothing but footprints!" At the end I was proud to announce that none of us left with a single stone.



Left: The ground was full of those tiny flower stones.
Right: Some of the rare specimen.


Once we were done with the gemstone appraisals, we continued on our journey. This time it was a very long drive and by the time we came to a stop still, we were back into the teahouse we visited yesterday. So with nothing better to do we went inside for another relaxing cup of shay.



Our Teahouse, if only it serves marijuana as well...


After the jolly good tea time we finally returned to our starting point - Ahmed Safari Camp. Ahmed(?) came out and "greeted" us. He quickly led Dave and Alex to their rooms since they joined the 3 days 2 nights tour and were staying in the camp for another night. We peeped inside their rooms and they were primitive but looked ok. (however they were bound to be doomed when the sun set tonight - They had no chance against the oasis mosquitoes given with that room condition! In fact I didn't hear from Dave again but Alex seemed to have made it - I got an email from him once when I was back in HK)




Top Left: Finally we are back to the Ahmed Safari Camp.
Top Right: The oracle was well pleased when we said good-bye to him with the tips!
Bottom Left: The lobby "fountain" was made up of strange rocks and skulls and bones found in the desert.
Bottom Right: The interior of the dome was also well decorated.


Lunch wasn't ready yet. Jamie wanted to go for a shower but Ahmed quickly brought out the news that the water pump was broken and there was no hot water until 3 pm! (I always wondered why 3 pm? was he just shutting down the pipes to save water and electricity?) Dave and Alex returned from their rooms. Since their tours wouldn't start until in the afternoon, so we decided to go out of the "hotel campus" and explored a bit of the surrounding of this Bahariyya Oasis.

In the surrounding area of the camp there were a lot more "living creatures" in the oasis than I originally thought. (ok besides flies and mosquitoes) Besides the stray(?) cats and dogs wandering around the roads, there were donkeys (oops! they were mules actually, though the usages were just the same: work, eat & sleep - i.e. just like us?), cows, calves and chickens (they were waiting for us to feed them while we were also waiting for them to feed us) There were also plenty of crops grown in the area. Dave, being the expert in the area, immediately identified a few for us as we walked along. (and sadly speaking, no one else had any better knowledge to challenge him so I presumed he was correct, though he didn't sound too confident nor convincing at times.)



Top Left: The front view of the camp.
Top Right: Those openings on the right were actually guestrooms and their balconies!
Middle Left: Peas in a pod.
Middle Right: Wheat... lots of them...
Bottom Left: I'm a mule, not a donkey, get it right!
Bottom Right: This was the dining room where we had lunches, also where I met Mr. Black Cat!


Chapter 30: Be it a black cat or a white cat, a cat that made me go "OUCH" was a bad cat!

Lunch was back at the same table and the stuff looked extremely familiar (this included the food as well as the flies)... I thought I had a deja-vu for a while. Oh yes, I forgot to mention the green salad, which was also here in yesterday's lunch. Anyway it wasn't important as its look gave me a clear message that would read: "Eat me and thou shall need to find a toilet pretty soon!"

The only thing different today was a black cat came circling around our table to check on how we were doing. Being a "pitiful" person I decided to lure him (?) with a piece of bread. I held it out of his reach but he was one real cat with character! He immediately pounced on my leg as a stepping stone, and then leaped up and used his well-sharpened paw to snatch his prize away, scratching my hand in the process. "OUCH!" Everything happened just so fast! By the time I was able to react he already ran away with his prize! Well that was a bloody stupid thing to do in hindsight! I just hoped that he didn't have any rabies with him. I was kind of worried for a while as he definitely looked quite mad for that piece of bread.

Lunch finished without any more "interesting" event. We sat in the hall waiting for Ahmed to take us back to the bus stop for the 3 o'clock bus. We also discovered that the statement "the water pump was not working" was no joke as the toilet flush water had also stopped and the condition inside was getting critical. With nothing to do we went to the courtyard to do some more chatting while Alex was MIA again. The chatting session would be better if the temperature was cooler and the flies could just leave us alone. (I thought I was good at tolerating them having lived in Perth for so long. I was wrong... they could be extremely annoying!)

Soon enough Ahmed came to round up Jamie and me and took us back to the main street of Bawiti where the bus stop was. Youn-Jun was already there. It turned out that Ahmed invited her to his house alone (hey that's not fair! Just her alone?) but then we had something that she missed: her English-speaking guide did not take her to the flower mountain. He took her straight back to the camp after breakfast this morning. @_@

Chapter 31: Getting there was already tormenting enough? Try going back!

We waited at the bus station and the wait was forever (remembered how long Forrest Gump had to wait for the bus? well, at least he had a box of chocolate!) Finally the bus came and again - I thought I had another deja-vu! Same Driver, same bus. That meant it had no air-conditioning and horrible seats. This time it was worse: the bus was packed with more local people than yesterday and a sandstorm was waiting for us outside the oasis!

So what did we have to go through? A journey of 4 hours inside a packed coach with no fans nor air-con. All the windows were kept shut or else the sand would be blown in. The bus was packed with local people. They were hot, sweated and stank. Seating was uncomfortable and all my water had run out already. Luckily Jamie was a very talkative person and if not for the conversation we had during the entire trip I would have fainted!

The two hour trip to the petrol station (the mid-way stop) was like a nightmare and by the time we got there, I dashed out (despite the fierce sandy wind) and got a pepsi (ok, they didn't have coke, never mind that in this life or death situation)... "Ahhhhhhhh" I finally felt rejuvenated. (rejuvenation was not exaggerating there!) With the help of that pepsi and the continuous conversation with Jamie (gosh! she just loved to talk so much!) the rest of the journey was a lot more bearable than the first half! (Of course the conversation was nowhere romantic under these circumstances!)

It was dark by the time we saw the city lights of Cairo and we stopped somewhere near Giza, which was not where we originally boarded the bus yesterday. Someone from Desert Safary Hostel came to pick me up. I thought I could give Jamie a lift as she also lived near my hostel. But that guy insisted that he only picked me up, and me alone only! Seeing that there was no point in arguing, we said goodbye to each other and I followed that guy, hoping I didn't have to walk as far as I had to walk on my first day. (I had to walk with my full gear on for 15 minutes from the airport to get to the guy's car on the first day!)

Well, my wish sort of came true, as he didn't head for his car after all! He just flagged a taxi nearby, said a few words, then left the taxi with a few more. (which I presume would be swear words) I couldn't believe that his transportation was a street taxi and I couldn't believe he too had to bargain for the fare! So I waited patiently and just let him do the work as he repeated the process again and again. Finally, we got on one and headed back to Desert Safary Hostel.



Left: Entrance of the Desert Safari Hostel, on the 7th floor of an old building. Yes... the white door on the right was the lift!
Right: The Lobby. It came with a TV and a computer for internet surfing! (100 LE/night)


The big guy Ahmed was there to greet me at the reception, with the "Welcome back, my friend!" He first led me to a spacious double room at the corner where a painting of Cleopatra(?) was hung. This room came with a balcony so you could enjoy the noisy traffic down below; but this room only had a shower with no toilet included. So naturally I raised my concern as I had paid for a room with ensuite facilities. His favorite phrase came again:

'Don't you worry my friend! I will show you another room!'

So he led me to another much smaller single room with a toilet included, and what's more, it even came with a forever trickling water supply!




Which one do you prefer? The single room with ensuite toilet or the double room without?


So at the end I gave up and took the Cleopatra room. The first thing I did after a shower was to empty my shoes of the desert sand I brought back with me unwillingly. The process alone took me 15 minutes; every time I shook, some more sand came out. At the end the amount of sand deposited inside the bin allowed me to make a mini sand dune!

Once I finished, I immediately went for the dinner as I was dying of hunger and thirst. It was too tired for me to venture out on interesting cuisines for the night so I chose the authentic Pizza Hut at the end! I needed a place that could guarantee their food was edible as my stomach already had too much adventurous food for the past two days!



Left: On my way back from the oasis, the wind (with the sand) was blowing fiercely.. just look at the slanting plants and the brown smog!
Right: My Pizza Hut dinner! mango juice, spaghetti bolognaise and some green salads... At last I got some fibres, now I just hope it was cleansed properly! (29 LE)
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vipro/egypt_2007/1176780300/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vipro/egypt_2007/1176780300/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vipro/egypt_2007/1176780300/tpod.html Sat, 10 May 2008 01:23:25 -0400 A 2 weeks tour to try to visit the leftovers by the ancient and the modern Egyptians...

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Black and White Desert, Egypt

"... Msg from the HQ: You have been assigned to perform a reconnaissance mission of the Egypt's B & W desert area in order to assess the suitability of the major deliverance of the main forces. Your primary objective is to check the area's climate, life forms and if there are any hostile resistances. At precisely 0800 a special carrier will take you to the Bahariyya Oasis, where you will be joined by other agents from the U.N. Remember, survival is the main key in this mission. Good Luck! Over and Out ..."

Chapter 20: Getting there was already tormenting enough!

Woke up in the morning at 6 am, everyone was still sleeping, so I just checked out and moved my luggage to Desert Safary Hostel where I was supposed to meet the driver there. I had a quick breakfast there. (different hotels, same stuff alright). Last night I had already been told that I was doing the trip alone so I didn't expect any companion. So I left my luggage at the reception (I had already booked tomorrow night with them - another reason why I booked the tour through them so I can freely leave the luggage here) and in a minute or two a driver arrived and took me to the bus station.

Ah! another outsourced taxi driver! So he drove me to the bus station, got me the ticket and escorted me to the right bus... and his job was done! (easy huh?) and I was left alone to find out what surprises that were waiting for me in this trip.

The first event came soon and it was not too pleasant. I got chucked out of my seat because I was sitting in the wrong number...Wait a minute, I was right.. but the lady who chucked me out was also right. It seemed that there were 2 numbering systems for the seats. One was labeled on the back of the seats and the other was labeled on the side, but with a different number. The two systems deviated by 2. But since everyone else had already followed the other system, and that it was a lady asking me (though she wasn't asking that "politely"), so I gave up my seat and changed to a correct one.

My new position was beside a man of a regular built, but the size of the seat was so small (length-wise and breadth-wise) that I felt cramped in it already! (and the bus hadn't even started yet! Now that was just the physical torture! I'd wish it was that simple! The bus came with a stereo sound system that could produce "quality" Islamic chanting throughout the journey. Just imagine a monk endlessly muttering the prayers in your ears for the whole trip, then cross it with some opera singing and you will see what I mean. (If only he was half as good as Pavarotti...) Next, the problem was with the heat: No air-con and no fans.



Left: Our bus. They depart from Cairo to the oasis three times daily: 0700, 0800 and 1500. Rumors said that amongst these three was a phantom bus that actually had air-conditioning inside(!!)... never seen the real thing! As of today I reckon it is still a myth!
Right: Inside of the bus. On the right you can have a glimpse of the "hardbacks"... no, I am not talking about books!


So this 8 o'clock bus started late, and before it hit the highway, it stopped in 2 more stops where more local people came on broad. During one stop, some ladies came up with baskets of tissue papers and bread rolls. (At first I thought that was a free service provided by the bus company, especially when the lady came up with tissue papers first... but C'mon, there was no free lunch in Egypt!) ! Soon the bus was on its way out of Cairo but then suddenly it stopped by the side of a street for 30 minutes. (broken down?)

Finally the journey resumed and soon the city was left behind and all we could see was sand in the surrounding. That was when the sun and the heat (and the sweat of course!) came in. After about 2 hours, the journey came to an intermission. There was a petrol station in the middle of the desert where you could take a break, replenish your supplies, and for the locals, pray as well.

The toilet there, as I heard afterwards, was claimed to be the worst toilet she encountered in her whole trip in Egypt! Now whether her other visits in Egypt had been luxurious or not I don't know but I couldn't verify her statement since I couldn't just go in and have a look inside the ladies. (The gents was ok)

If you hadn't booked any tour before you stepped on this bus, now this break would be the perfect chance to group with other lost souls to form a group to share the cost. However, as I had already booked my own, there was no need to group anymore. Besides, it turned out that at the end all the foreigners (only about 8 people in total) on the bus had already booked theirs too. So this approach wouldn't work in the low season or otherwise you have to risk of paying for the cost of a single jeep alone! (about 600-700 LE)

So after the break we continued the journey and soon enough (2 more sweaty and stuffy hours later) we arrived into an oasis (as I started to see some trees and vegetations) However, no one was sure which stop we should get off so we just waited and waited and started to worry as the locals disappeared one by one. As I have been told that our stop would not be the terminus so I tried to ask around and it turned out that everyone was just as clueless.

Finally the bus stopped in the main street and the driver signaled us to get off. As soon as we stepped out of the bus, a large crowd swarmed(!) towards us each carrying signs, pamphlets and photos of their tours, hotels and packages. Before I got engulfed by the mob someone finally shouted "Desert Safary!" and I knew my savior has finally come. Like a lost sheep, he pulled me out from the crowd and before I could say thanks to him, he went in again and "rescued" a few more. (remembered the scene that private F. Gump rescued his teammates?)



Left: Let's take a break at the petrol station. It was much appreciated after 2 hours of cramping inside a hot and stuffy bus. This place was also famous for the ladies toilet. A must see and feel experience!
Right: Main street of Bawiti, the main town of the oasis. Imagine this peaceful scene was packed with a mob of cannibals trying really hard to "welcome" you... Egyptian Hospitality!


Moments later, other tour guides had also finished rounding up their own guests and the mob, seeing that everyone from the bus had already been taken away, was disappointed and scattered away like insects...

When my guide had finally finished, I noticed that there were 4 of us besides him. Without a word, he took us to a small jeep nearby and signaled us to climb inside it. Yes, climbing was the word as we had to climb up and entered the vehicle from the back, and the space inside was so tight that there were only room for 2 people to sit side-by-side on each side. (yes, like those military personnel transport vehicle)

So during the short journey we had to face each other and none of us spoke a word. One of us was actually wearing a pair of camouflaged army trousers made us all looked like we were a platoon heading to the front line.

After 5 minutes of rough travel inside this "military" vehicle, we arrived to our base - Ahmed Desert Safary Camp. We got off and was "greeted" by (which I think) Ahmed the boss personally. He quickly led us to the restaurant for lunch. Lunch was nothing great, in fact the quality and quantity of the food made me think if we were in the fasting month of Ramadan! (The only thing meaty during the whole meal were the flies hovering around the dishes)

Chapter 21: The Fantastic Four

After a quick lunch and a quick chat, I finally learned my comrades:

The eldest guy David, was a retired merchant who was taking his time off travelling around the world. He spent half of the year in the Spanish Island Tenerife , and half in Aberdeen, Scotland, where he came from. To me, he resembled more like Mr. Crocodile Dundee, than a pure Scot, for his tan and his cowboy hat. Because of his age and experience, he naturally became the leader of this op.

The young guy who was dressed in an army uniform, who looked like he would rather die in the battlefield than anything else, was actually quite shy. Alexendre, or Alex, whom we called him, was from Quebec of Canada. While he excelled in French, his English was not too good, and maybe it was the reason why he looked a bit shy (actually, i mean a bit cool!) He was a student who had just graduated and was also scouting the rest of the world. He had just recently finished the southeast Asia and he was now doing Middle East... With his energetic and fearless character, he would be an irreplaceable hit force in this team.

Just like in every movie there must be a female role, no matter how unimportant the part was. The last member of this team was a girl from the States, who was doing the exchange in London and was taking her Easter Break right now. So instead of seeing the boring old England, Jamie decided to come and check out the land of Pharaohs.

With no time to waste, immediately after the meal Ahmed quickly led this Fantastic Four (named it because the number, the age and sex of this group just matched; with David resembled Mr. Fantastic and Alex the Human Torch, Jamie would be the Invisible Woman but of course I did not look anything like the Thing!) to the Toyota Land Cruiser and was ready to go.



Left: The Ecstastic Four: David the Mr. Ecstastic, Jamie the vincible gal and Alex the Human Torture... Where is the Fling?
Right: The Fantastic Four... See?! there is not much difference!


A word must be said about our tour guide and driver (which I have already forgotten his name). He was a very nice guy, sincere and helped us with bags. Before I thought this was too good to be true, I then realized he couldn't speak any English ... and he was supposed to be our tour guide for the next 2 days! His "chariot" was a Toyota alright, but there was no air-con, the windows were stuck, (couldn't be rolled up or down) and there were no seat belts (or some seat belts had no sockets on the other end!) The only relief was that the car doors could still be opened at will, so at least we didn't have to climb through the windows.

Before we could find Ahmed to complain, (who sneakily disappeared immediately after bringing us to the jeep - He must be a "busy" man, just couldn't wait a bit! ) the engine started and it was a matter of take him (the driver) or leave him. (and got left behind!)

Our first stop after lunch was......... afternoon tea! As Alex forgot to buy water bottles just now, so we had to stop for supplies, and at the same time why not have an afternoon tea? It was here Jamie introduced to me the Egyptian mint tea. (Touareg tea) They just put an unwashed (a bit burnt) mint tea leaf in the tea and in a few minutes later you would get a reddish infusion of one of the best tasted tea I've ever had. The smell was so refreshing and the taste was so chilling. It was definitely better than those mint tea you get from the coffee shop or from teabags. From that moment on, I have fallen in love with the Shay (tea) of Egypt! (The tea in Egypt is by default the mint tea)

After the tea session, we boarded the car again and soon the oasis was behind us and the scenery had changed back from green trees to yellowish sand. After a 30 minutes drive, we started to see black "hills" in the horizon. On a closer look, each hill was actually a sand dune of black sand, a bit like what you see when a hawker is selling "fried chestnut" on the streets in Hong Kong.



Left: Our Toyota Land Cruiser! The outside looked a lot better than the inside. Everything was broken in the inside! Those branches on the roof were for us to set a bonfire at night! Of course those dirty rugs were also part of our camping materials.
Right: "Hills" found in the black desert.


Chapter 22: Black Desert (or what I believe to be!)

Soon enough, the jeep stopped in front of one of the "hills" and the driver just pointed towards the top of the hill and said "Black Desert" and off we went! There was already a well trodden trail on the hill and at first the climb was easy, but soon enough I started to realize it became a bit steep that it was getting hard to balance with a DSLR on one hand while trying to keep it high from the sand and the dust. So at the end I had to retreat and put back the camera in the car before going up again with the all-weather Olympus SW770 camera. But it was this detour that left me right behind the others. While I was still at the middle of the hill, they were already coming back down. Seeing that there was no way to catch up with them I decided to wait and consult their expert opinions before deciding on what to do next.

'So were there any treasures high above the clouds?'
'Nay, you could just see the other side of the hill.' said Jamie in an American accent.
'What's on the other side of the hill?'
'Oh just a scene similar to here, you know, more hills, and black sand'
'....'

So I could have just walked around the hill to see the other side if I wished, and probably it would be a lot quicker. But of course I would miss the breathtaking view of a sea of black sand dunes across the horizon. Well, maybe I should save that till next time then.



Left: After hearing from the "oracle" that we had to go up, without a thought the team started climbing up like zombies...
Right: The "hill" was actually quite steep.


Chapter 23: Crystal Mountain (or what I believe to be!)

The car left the black desert area and a short while later we came to another stop. We patiently waited as David, who had been sitting besides the driver, consulted him where we were and what to do next. Just like any ancient oracle, his words were brief: 'Crystal mountain!'. We looked around in the immediate surroundings and couldn't see any signs of objects glittering, so David asked politely again. His reply was the same. Knowing that prophesies usually required guess works and puzzle solving to understand, we gave up and headed towards an ordinary hill nearby.

Just like any treasures, if they were easy to be found, there wouldn't be any left by now. So having failed to find anything that shone, (the only things that were shining were the reflections of the sweat on our faces) we split up.

David, being the oldest and seemed the most experienced, decided to head off further to scout around for more crystals. I was busy taking photos of other cars passing by. (Every once in a while, one or two cars drove along in high speed, just like in a rally race in the desert) Jamie suddenly shouted,

'I finally know why this is called the white desert!' As she spoke she was wiping her foot on the sand and soon enough underneath the yellow sand were speckles of white sand. Having found something to do, she decided to show off her artistic talent and wrote the word "EGYPT" on the ground.

Soon enough we all went back to the car without really finding out what this place really was meant to be.





Top Left: Are these supposed to be crystals or were we too late that all the crystals were looted by Cpt. Jack Sparrow?
Top Rigft: HAL@2001: "Just what do you think you're doing, Dave?"
Middle Left: The main road as seen from the crystal mountain. The white sand on both sides of the road looked like splashing water waves.
Middle Right: World Rally Championship 2007? Maybe those racers were just off-course! (maybe they were supposed to be in Morocco)
Bottom Left: Jamie was so kind in showing us how to spell,,,
Bottom Right: Seems like she was already too tired out after writing just 5 letters...


Chapter 24: Old White Desert (or what I believe to be!)

Another short ride and we arrived into a place where we finally saw some white sand. 'White desert!' the "oracle" prophesied again. This time it seemed a bit more believable because there was white sand all around. On the landscape there were many rocks of different shapes (mostly mushrooms however) and we also saw some other human life forms for the first time once we entered the desert. Besides taking photos, there were even less to do here than the previous site so we were back in the car 10 minutes afterwards.



Mushrooms of different shapes and sizes were found in the old white desert, but definitely no way as interesting as the "Fairy Chimneys" found in Cappadocia in Turkey.


Chapter 25: The Egypt's "Ayrton Senna"

The car started to leave the main road and entered into a realm of white sand. The car gradually accelerated as we went through the hills and troughs of the white desert. Soon enough we became alarmed by the speed and tried to reach out for the non-existent seat belt (once again), failing that we then tried to grab whatever we could find to cling on to. The total concentration and the fearlessness within the driver's eyes made me think that the spirit of Ayrton Senna da Silva must have got hold of him. I sneakily took a peek over his shoulder at the speedometer and surprisingly, the needle was pointing at ZERO! (Even the speedometer was broken as well!) Seems that prayers would probably be the last words we could utter now.

After 30 minutes of this speed thrill, (as of today I still wonder if that was part of the tour programme?!) we finally arrived in a place where there was more white sand than put together of what we had seen so far. Just now there were only patches of white sand over yellow sand, now the whole area was white, as if the place had been snowing!

We stopped in front of a horse head shaped rock. There was already another car waiting. The two drivers greeted in their Egyptian manner. (I also got a greeting like that yesterday!) It turned out that the other driver was also from Ahmed Desert Safary Camp and he was taking a one-man tour for a Korean lady Youn-Jun. The most marvelous thing about this guy was that he spoke good English... so finally we could say goodbye to guessing of what our driver wanted to say.

Chapter 26: Camping at the New White Desert (or what I believe to be!)

The two drivers started to set up our camp for the day. They parked the two jeeps at right angle and in front of them hanged up pieces of colorful (and at the same time very dirty) rugs to make up a L-shaped partition. More dirty rugs were laid down on the floor and soon after, a small table and cushions appeared and we were sitting comfortably on the covered ground. You could choose to lie down on the dirty rug or on (what appeared to be cleaner) white sand... and we all self-hypnotized in believing the stains of the rugs were just ancient Persian patterns.




Top Left: "Senna, we know you are good, but please look forward while you drive and drift, ok?"
Top Right: By parking two cars in a L shape, our "camp site" was setup. Now all the wind will be blown towards us now! Cool!
Bottom: The horse head, the bear (left) and the sea turtle (right)


The two Egyptian did not slack off... next they created a bonfire with the lumber and twigs we brought with us and started making dinner.

The ladies were very curious of what they were doing (actually anybody would be too after looking at the way they cook - after all, we had to eat those stuff!) I wandered off to the polar bear-shaped rock to try to shoot the sunset.





Top: The bear rider, luckily she had not invested in the stock markets (left) The not-so-beautiful sunset (right)
Middle: The team meeting without any eye contact. Exercise: Try to spot two people where their eyes meet. (left) First it was Senna, now it's Jamie Oliver... let's see how you perform! (right)
Bottom: Jamie had a go first, obviously was not very good; so Youn-Jun took over. Of course she had her secret weapon... What's she adding to the pot? Arabic Kimchi?


Dave came back and shared with us what he had found - an animal salvage site! Being excited of perhaps seeing a couple of skulls and bones and an odd vulture or two I quickly rushed to the crime scene... but what was waiting for me were just trails of animals footprints, and some stains on the sand which was reckoned to be blood... no signs of carcass or bones whatsoever... so it seems that whatever were having the meal there cleaned up everything. Later Youn-Jun said she saw some foxes earlier and most probably they were the owners of the footprints. Well, at least those prints did not belong to anything more threatening! Really didn't want anything to come and clean up our bodies at night!

Sunset was quite disappointing as there was a haze around the area. Soon after dark we began to start our dinner. Each person was rationed with some potato stew and rice, plus ONE portion of an aluminum foil-wrapped chicken! They had calculated precisely that each person had only one share, no more, no less! But obviously they were not good project managers as they didn't cater for contingency. Mine was grilled so well that it turned into carbon completely! (How did they manage to do it if it was wrapped inside an aluminum foil?) Luckily Jamie was a vegetarian and she gave me her share, otherwise I would be a vegetarian on that night!




Our dinner tonight.. A plate of vegetable with oily rice. Ok there was a chicken nearby... So what did you guys think?
Dave & Jamie: 'Hmmm...' (can tell from Jamie's facial expression)
Alex & Youn-Jun: (had a full mouthful)... ok, got your point!
The drivers: 'Man! What do you think? We have been eating these stuff everyday!'


The after meal dessert was a shisha (an oriental tobacco pipe) buried under the sand. I didn't know why they put the pot under the sand, would it taste better? I wouldn't know as I didn't feel like going mouth-to-mouth with them but it seems that Alex was having good puffs from it. (didn't I tell you he was the Human Torch!)



Left: Our bonfire! Gave us our dinner, our tea, some light and warmth! But it also choked me to death when the wind changed direction during the night.
Right: The Human Torch was puffing happily while the driver was praying!


Chapter 27: Being romantic costs... Don't try to be a Valentino

It was dark by now and besides the camp light (from the bonfire and also from a kerosene lamp), the perimeter around was pitch black. So you only need to walk 10 metres and you were completely shrouded in the dark, with only the twinkling stars sparkling above you. The nearest other camp was at least 500 metres from afar. Basically you didn't really have to worry about finding the bathroom as the bathroom was just anywhere!

So I was going to take a walk in the dark to enjoy the starlight when Jamie called me from behind and asked if she could join me. (Wow, I really hadn't been invited by a girl for a long time so there was no reason to turn down a girl) So the two of us headed towards the darkness.

What an romantic scene for a guy and a gal turned out to be a heated discussion between US politics, astrology and Chinese Feng Shui... which was obviously nothing romantic at all...

But being "romantic" had its prices to pay! When we came back to the camp everyone was already set for the night. Those guys, being extremely gentleman to ladies, had already made out the bed for Jamie on a good spot with a sleeping bag laid out. For me there was nothing but an empty space near the dirty stove. There was no more sleeping bags left and the choice was left between dirty blankets or be frozen to death. As I reckoned that I would be too young to die so I chose the blankets. But still, putting on those ancient unwashed blankets were like shoveling dust and dirt all over my body, which "unpleasant" was already a luxury word to describe!

It was only about 9 o'clock and it seemed that Alex and Youn-Jun were sleeping like two "logs" already. Dave and Jamie were lying down doing some bedtime chit-chatting. The two drivers were still smoking the shisha and chatting. Though it was a bit early but there was really nothing to do, so I tried to get some sleep but the wind was blowing the smoke from the bonfire towards us and choked me for the whole night.

Just as I was about to doze off finally, I heard some wing-fluttering noise coming from the side. It all sounded so familiar - 'Cockroaches!' was the first thing that came to my mind. 'Wait a minute! We were in the middle of the desert in Egypt! It can't be...'

So I put on my glasses. Luckily the two drivers were still talking and so there was still enough light for me to see a beetle scurrying around the stove.

'Ah those are just scarabs', said one of the drivers. Even though he reassured that it would be alright, but I still remembered vividly the many scenes of the scarab activities in the movie 'Mummy' and so the night was spent in anxiety and fear at the end.



Left: Picture of a real scarab.
Right: Does this scene in The Mummy remind you of anything? No, John Hannah was not seeing the dentist!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vipro/egypt_2007/1208316540/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vipro/egypt_2007/1208316540/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vipro/egypt_2007/1208316540/tpod.html Mon, 28 Apr 2008 10:11:20 -0400 A 2 weeks tour to try to visit the leftovers by the ancient and the modern Egyptians...

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Cairo, Cairo, Egypt

Chapter 11: Room Service Breakfast!

Woke up at 8 am. Since it said on the package "breakfast is included.." so naturally I waited for breakfast... but everyone was sleeping, including a young guy at the reception. (I presumed he was the porter on duty) So I woke him up and asked for breakfast. Then I went back and waited in the room for a little while and finally I couldn't wait any longer and got out to look for why. He couldn't understand what I wanted! He woke another guy up (who understood English) and 2 minutes later, a room service style breakfast was served. (You could guess the simplicity of the contents from the time of preparation!) I didn't expect anything grand but this was still too simple: 2 rolls, jam, butter and tea on a cheap metal tray! The reason I got it served as a room service was only because there was no dining room outside! But for HK$ 125 a night for an en suite single room with a room service breakfast, what more do you want?



Left: This is Midan Talaat Harb. i.e. a very busy junction where 6 roads intersected. Like all old cities, Cairo had a lot of these Midan and this made it very difficult to rely on the compass to locate the directions,.. especially when the street signs were nearly non-existant.
Right: The other side of the Midan. If you stood still for 5 minutes waiting to cross the road, some "good Samaritans" would bound to show up to "help" you.


Chapter 12: Sealing the Deal... "Big" Deal?!

My first destination was back to Desert Safary Hostel (the one I was supposed to stay yesterday) to close the deal for the Black & White desert trip. The fat guy Ahmed (who always said "Do not worry, my friend") was not there and instead the owner of the two hostels was. He was a tall guy with a moustache and he wore a suit that made him look like a businessman than a receptionist. So I told him that the old porter in Vienna offered me US$ 70 for the trip while Ahmed charged me US$ 80. The owner (forgot his name) was shocked and said US$ 80 was the best deal. Then he went on saying how much better his tour would be comparing with Vienna's and so on, blah, blah, blah. (Obviously the old porter (his real uncle!) was sub-contracting me to a different tour and got to keep the profit in his own pockets.) Finally the moustache owner decided to give me a "SPECIAL" deal of US$ 70 and told me that I shouldn't tell anyone for this was a "SPECIAL" price and was just for me only!!! (The fact was, if I could get a group of 4 people, I could easily get the tour for US$ 25 each at the oasis; but if I failed to find any buddies by the time I got to the oasis, then I would need to pay for the whole jeep which could be US$ 100 or more!)



Left: My "room service breakfast"! The bread was good, the tea was good, the fig jam was good too.... not sure about the silvery triangular stuff though...
Right: Under the "VERY SPECIAL DEAL", this was the place where I would end up tomorrow! Come as a guest, leave as a friend? or fiend? We would see...


Chapter 13: Arabic numerals?!

So finally have time for some real action of the day! The first stop was Citadel in Islamic Cairo area. Getting there was a piece of cake - TAXI! So for the first time in this country I flagged a taxi (there were just so many on the streets!) and carefully "negotiated" the fare before boarding. The driver, who couldn't speak English scribbled a 1 on his hand.
'Ah 10LE!', I sort of recalled it from my guide book and got in.
At the end It turned out it was 20 LE (no he didn't cheat me, I think) - I realized the Arabic number for 1 and 2 both looked very similar except the "slash" at the top. (actually 2 and 3 looked even more similar!) So from then on, I thought I really had to learn well the true Arabic numbering system. Who told me for all these years we have been using Arabic numerals? Let's for once learn some authentic Arabic numerals!



Left: A Peugot 206 was already a rare scene on the streets of Cairo! A moving Peugot with a folded-up wing mirror was even rarer!
Right: This score card should help me next time. Notice the 2,3 and 6 are all very similar! Just remember to learn some authentic Arabic numerals!


Chapter 14: The Citadel

The citadel had a remarkable outline when viewed from afar. The silver domes and minarets of the mosque of Mohammed-Ali situated on the summit of the citadel completely dominated the skyline of Islamic Cairo. Home to Egypt's rulers for almost 700 years, the citadel was built by the ruler Salah al-Din (Saladin) between 1176 and 1183 AD, to protect it from the Crusaders. Today it was one of the most popular tourist sites in Cairo though Hong Kong tours would seldom come because their itineraries were too packed with other stuff! (Shame!) This place contained various mosques, museums and battlements that reflected a diverse heritage.




Top Left: The map of the citadel. You can all see the area coverage is huge... let's see how we could break into the stronghold... Alpha and Bravo team would enter from the north, we Charlie would disguise as visitors and enter from the front gate...over!
Top Right: This is the front entrance (Bab al-Gebel), I'd wish I could get inside the huge tower!
Bottom Left: Landmark of the citadel - The Mosque of Mohammed-Ali. The silverish domes sparkled under the bright sunlight.
Bottom Right: These Statues of Lions were found everywhere around.


My first stop was the gem of the whole citadel - the Mosque of Mohammed-Ali, also known as the Alabaster mosque because the lower storey and the forecourt were tiled with alabaster for up to 11.3 metres. It was built by Mohammed Ali who was regarded as the founder of Modern Egypt between 1830-1848. The style was in an Ottoman style (only in Egypt did I realize there were so many different styles of mosques.. and usually the minarets gave them away), and it was this Ottoman style with the many domes that looked by far the grandest if you ask me.

Another feature about the mosque was the ornate clock in the courtyard. It was a gift given by King Louis-Philippe of France in exchange for the obelisk given by Egypt. (That 23m obelisk is now standing in Place de la Concorde in Paris) In fact, it seems that the Egyptian government really liked to give away obelisks as a way of diplomacy, just like the Chinese have their pandas...

The interior of the mosque was similar to what I have seen in Istanbul. Groups of tourists sat down and listened to the guide for stories of the past. Some people were praying. I was taking photos of the marvelous Islamic paintings of the interior of the dome. I didn't have a tripod so I placed the camera on the carpeted floor... and the carpets were quite dusty! @_@




Top Left: The outer cloister of the mosque! This looks European so far...
Top Right: Inner courtyard of the mosque. In the middle was the French ornate clock, so now all the pilgrims could look up to see how long they would have to "go on" until their praying finished.
Bottom Left: The inside of the mosque. There were more visitors than Muslims. Most people just sat there and listened to their tour guides.
Bottom Right: Like most Ottoman-style mosques, their ceilings were very beautifully decorated.


After the mosque, I went to check out other parts of citadel including the very primitive prison museum and also the not-so-interesting police museum. (especially if you couldn't understand a thing on what's written there... obviously it wasn't intended for foreigners) Finally it was the military museum that caught my interest. The first thing that caught my eyes was the statue of Ibrahim Pasha, the son of Mohammed Ali. Once a mighty military general, now he was just a bronze statue standing in the middle of the square. I am not sure how impressive he was at the battles in his days but the posture now as a statue surely was quite impressive!



From left to right:
Bab al-Qullah, the gate that took you into the military museum.
This place, just outside the square of where the mosque was, offered a superb view of the Cairo's streets, minarets and domes.
Beware! The security guard is watching you!... Or is he just slacking off?
One of the cells inside the prison museum. Enjoy your stay, mate!


The military museum used to be the Harem Palace of Mohammed-Ali. It now housed the weapons, uniforms and decorations of the Egyptian arm forces. It also had models of scenes of the Arab-Israeli wars. For the firearms on display, the most impressive inside the museum were the ancient artillery guns (aka cannons). But the most interesting things were outside the museum: In the courtyard was a display of real, Egyptian tanks and jets (mostly Russian) used in the Arab-Israeli wars. You got to see an arsenal of various Egyptian tanks used in the previous wars. Something interesting caught my eye: In the line of tanks displayed, all the tank guns were pointing up except the last two at the far end. Why? The answer was written on the name plaque below - they were captured Israel tanks! These two were painted in green and their tank guns were put down, a bit humiliating if you ask me. As I have studied the Arab-Israel wars before in the history class, it was now quite astonishing to re-read the history from an Arabic country's perspective. (Who was right and who was wrong in those Middle East conflicts? Who knows?!)



1st row: Entrance of the Military Museum, outside it was a statue of Ibrahim Pasha
2nd row: The Egyptian (Russian) tanks in display. All of them had the turrets pointing up except the green ones at the end - which were the Israeli tanks captured from the wars. Quite humiliating if you ask me.
3rd row: The most advanced jets in display. Sadly speaking they were the old Russian models (MIGs) of the 50's and 60's.
4th row: Exhibits displayed inside the museum. An Arab catapult (left) and a scene of the Arabic Israeli war (right)


Perhaps I played around too much with these jets and tanks that I didn't have my lunch until very late in the afternoon. So I satisfied my hunger in a cafeteria just outside the courtyard of the Military Museum and I was the only customer there! In fact besides the lady standing near the ice-cream stall there were no other human beings in sight; including the waitress, the cook nor anyone! Once I sat down, people began to appear from nowhere and started serving me. I had a chicken kofta (I must say the looks were not too appealing) and coke, and the chips and buns came as an extra (not to mention about the "specifically-for-me" flies hovering around the food)

After lunch it was already 4 o'clock so I quickly popped in to see the Carriage Museum, which Lonely Planet (LP) said I would be out by 5 minutes! (Wrong! I was out within 2!) and I went to an old non-functioning Mosque of Suleiman Pasha, an old but beautiful Ottoman Mosque built in 1528. On my way back I passed by the Garden Museum (calling it a garden was already pushing it... museum? Please!) and the Mosque of an-Nasr Mohammed. (Nothing interesting except of the Persian-style minaret. It looked like a pepper pot.)



Top Left: The garden museum... The name speaks of itself... what garden?
Top Right: The carriage museum... Don't let the horse heads fool you... even the most horse loving gamblers would find it boring inside!
Bottom Left: The Persian-style Mosque of an-Nasr Mohammed, with the pepper pot minaret!
Bottom Right: The Ottoman-style Mosque of Suleiman Pasha, as recognized by the dome and the rocket-like minaret!


Near the entrance outside the office where the tourist police dossed off (aka police station) was a place where you could hire some "local" costumes for photography. These include dresses for Cleopatra, belly dancer, Roman generals, sultans, etc... looked kind of fun but it really wasn't time for any role-play as it was already late afternoon and I had only visited one place for the day! (Besides, why did all the male costumes need to show off the belly muscles... err I mean fat actually?!)



Left: The police station at the Citadel... if you want to find the police to help you, don't bother!
Right: My lunch. I was the only guest in the whole restaurant(?) Lamb kofta (yes those brown things), coke, bread, fries and flies(!) (37 LE)


Chapter 15: It's only the 2nd day and I nearly got terminated

The next stop was.. Ibn Tulun. So I went back out to the main road where I came from and tried to flag a taxi. Ok I got the first one's attention.

Me: 'Ibn Tulun?'

Driver: 'Yes!'

Having learnt the lesson just now, I asked for the price.

Driver: '30 LE' - Wow, even more expensive than when I came. Goodbye mate.

2nd One: '20 LE!' - Bye Bye Darling...

3rd One: The taxi stopped by the side of the road, Egypt's traffic was left-hand drive and I was on the right side of the road. I leaned forward and talked to the driver inside.

Me: '10 LE!'

Driver: 'OK'

As I was so excited (and tired) and was about to pull open the door, suddenly I heard a loud noise from behind and before I realized what had happened, in front of me was no longer the front door but the rear door of the cab! A motorcycle from behind couldn't brake and slammed right into the boot of the cab! Luckily I was not leaning on the car otherwise I would have been thrown away from the impact.

So the driver got out of the car and started arguing with the bike driver. I quickly (and subtly) took a picture and decided to get off the scene (yeah I wasn't too helpful, but after all, both drivers looked like they were in a better shape than I were (they were arguing fiercely) so I quickly concluded that help on them wasn't necessary.)

To my surprise, after just a few steps the taxi driver yelled at me. I turned back and saw the bike driver drove away and the taxi driver just wanted to finish off the deal with me! What? His boot was half-dented and he left the guy off just for my 10 LE? Anyway it was immoral to refuse him so I took his cab to the Mosque of Ibn Tulun.

The mosque of Ibn Tulun was only 5 minutes drive away (both the citadel and this mosque was in the Islamic Cairo area), no wonder why he was so keen to get my 10 LE. When I got off, he told me if he wanted me to wait here to take me to another mosque. As I didn't know how long I would spend inside I politely refused him. Just before he drove off, he "kindly" reminded me this part was the old Islamic Cairo and no taxi would go through. So I thanked him for his "reminder" (which unfortunately turned out to be true) and headed towards the mosque.



Left: People were "negotiating" after the crash. The bike was behind the cab.
Right: The tower of Ibn Tulun. It is characterised by its symbolic Iraqi-style minaret.


Chapter 16: Mosque of Ibn Tulun

Mosque of Ahmad Ibn Tulun, is arguably the oldest mosque in the city surviving in its original form, and is the largest mosque in Cairo in terms of land area. Unlike the other mosques in Cairo that were constructed in the Ottoman or the Persian style, this one was constructed in the Iraqi style, and was characterized by the minaret with the outer staircase similar to that of the famous minaret in Samarra. Legend has it that Ibn Tulun himself was accidentally responsible for the design of the structure: While sitting with his officials, he absent-mindedly wound a piece of parchment around his finger. When asked what he was doing, he responded, embarrassed, that he was designing his minaret.

The moment I got in, the distinctive silhouette of the minaret and the sense of space of the courtyard got hold of me. The minaret was situated at the back outside the courtyard. One of the "staff" there took out the keys and offered me access to the minaret for 20 LE (he would open up the doors leading to the minaret). Somehow my instinct told me to turn him down so I only visited the courtyard and the fountain. The fountain was sheltered inside a high domed roof at the centre of the courtyard and there was already a girl student sitting there alone, sketching the minaret. (Actually I always bumped into students doing sketches of mosques during my journey to the mosques in Egypt but how come I never saw any students doing sketches outside the classroom in Hong Kong?)



Left: The centre courtyard of the mosque. You can see the sheer size of the mosque judging by the size of the courtyard.
Right: Inside the fountain. A girl was doing painting of the minaret.


With nothing else to see inside and around the courtyard I decided to leave. Again the "staff" asked me to "contribute involuntary" for the upkeep of the mosque and so I paid 10 LE as I thought it was still a mosque with style after all. When I got back my shoes (not sure if I would get them back if I didn't "voluntarily contribute") the staff kindly told me that I could get to the minaret from around the courtyard outside! Free of Charge! So the previous 20 LE was really a "service fee" for opening a shortcut?... @_@

Once outside, I walked around the wall of the courtyard and quickly arrived at the other side of the courtyard where the minaret stood standing. Wow, no gates, no fences and no security guards so anyone could climb the stairs to the top, free of charge!

In fact another thing famous about this mosque is really because it has only one minaret and it is climbable. The stairs are built on the outside and spiral up to the top. You could enjoy the city view while climbing...

So I started to climb up the stairs towards the top... the stairs were well-built and not too steep, the climb was easy but if you looked out or looked back it could be quite scary as the stairs were not fully enclosed. (i.e. you could easily lean over to do what you want) If you had a death wish it couldn't be easier. Once at the top you could get a magnificent view of the old Islamic Cairo, with dozens of mosques in the surrounding area. Only when you were high up above could you really appreciate the different shapes and styles of different mosques that dominated the skyline of Islamic Cairo.



Left: After climbing for a while This was the view of Cairo at the top of the minaret.
Right: Another view of the old city, notice how many satelite dishes there are at the roofs of the houses!


After finished playing around in Ibn Tulun it was nearly 5 pm. As I was in a hurry to see more mosques, I missed Gayer Anderson Museum which was just around the corner. (Anyway it turned out that the closing time was also 5 pm) There were supposed to be many antiques and collections inside, but to me the only interesting thing was the association of "The Spy who loved me (James Bond film)" that was shot inside.

Chapter 17: Streets of Old Cairo

As my taxi driver had previously "predicted", you would never get a taxi here... and he was right! There were not a single taxi on the old streets of Islamic Cairo... So I had to walk back out alive. Because of this, I could actually enjoy the scenes of old Cairo. The shops and the houses were so old that you felt you were flashed back to the 60's. I saw a scene of a donkey eating hay having pulled the cart for a hard, long day; and another of a boy lowering a roped bucket from the 3rd floor trying to buy something. The merchant took the money and put the goods inside the bucket, and the boy just pulled the rope back up. All these scenes were further enhanced by the continuous chanting of Islamic prayers from the mosques... This was just the side of Egypt that was not easily seen or felt in the main tourist areas.

So after walking for about 10 minutes, and with the help of my treasure map and LP (lonely planet), I came back out to a giant roundabout called Midan Salah ad-din (used to be the Hippodrome). Next to the roundabout were two gigantic mosques of Sultan Hassan and Ar-Rifai. Besides the grand architecture, it was the dark history of the mosque that interested me (...funded by money from the black death, one of the minarets fell down and the owner was murdered before its completion, etc...) Gosh, doesn't it sound excited? However, my enthusiasm quickly came to an end with a single statement of "Sorry we are closed, Come back tomorrow!"... like a prisoner behind bars, I could only hold the bars and admired the grand outlook from outside the gate.




Top Left: The streets of old Cairo. Look at the stores on the left. Yes most of them were as classic as those. I like the feel!
Top Right: James Bond Movie: "The spy who loved me" was shot in Gayer Anderson museum. However the only part I remembered about that film was the white Lotus submariner... and of course the bond girl!
Bottom Left: A boy was making purchase with his hanging basket.
Bottom Right: A donkey was happily having its meal.


Chapter 18: Who was the Good Samaritan?!

I retreated back to the centre of the roundabout to formulate on what to do next. The centre of this roundabout was actually a small park with some benches for visitors to sit on. Not long after I sat there a guy approached me.

His English was good, he looked and sounded really different from those local conning merchants so we chatted for a while. Thinking that he was a good Samaritan, I told him that I tried to get to the mosques but they were closed for visitors after 17:00. He told me that he knew one local and beautiful mosque where it would open and he could take make inside. He told me he was an English teacher and he had just finished his school. So I accepted his offer and then started to follow him. At first he took me along the big streets, then we turned into small alleys and now the sun started to set and the streets became darker and quieter as we walked along. Then he told me that I should put the donation money into the box and not to give to those people at the entrance, and I should donate 25 LE to the mosque and 25 LE to the minaret.

Wait a minute! Why was he setting me prices for me on donation? Suddenly I felt uncomfortable by the location and his suggestion. The risk was a bit too high for the curiosity. So I stopped in middle of the street and told him I would not go. He was surprised and asked me why. Seeing that I was determined to leave, he had to go to the main point: He said his wife was very sick in the hospital and he now needed money to buy blood. (That's an original story!) and asked me if I could help.

So seeing his true intention finally, I decided to leave. But then if there is a 0.001% truth in it, should I not help him? So I took out 5 LE but he said it was nothing. So I finally gave him 20 LE and I looked determined that this was what he could get. So he thanked me with an embrace and a peck on the cheek! What a "warm" greeting! (Well, even if it was a 99.999% lie, all I lost was just HK$ 30 to buy the 0.001% hope that he was not lying... anyway it turned out that at the end he "saved" my life, well sort of)

So after saying good-bye I decided to head towards Khan el-Khalili (the bazaar) on foot. But as soon as I started walking, he told me I should not go this way as it would lead to Necropolis (The City of the Dead) where the cemeteries, the poor and the homeless now lived. He said Necropolis after dark should not be visited as you would never know what those people would do to visitors. (Actually I have heard about bad things about Necropolis before but I just didn't aware that I was walking on that path!) See, on a roundabout even the compass could not give a definite reading... and not to mention the clueless treasure map I had. So the moral of the story? Help others and they would help you back!



Left: The gigantic mosques of Sultan Hassan and Ar-Rifai.
Right: Midan Salah ad-din - in the centre of this roundabout was a park where I got picked up by the "Good Samaritan"


Chapter 19: The real heroes!

I took the other exit from the roundabout and started to head north towards Khan el-Khalili. On the way I passed through a small market, where they sold lots of food, meat and vegetables, cooked and raw. It was interesting to see how the local wet market was like - except that I probably had to stay away from those chickens, since Egypt was quite "hot" in the outbreak of the bird flu.

After 10 minutes of walking I still couldn't see any signs of Khan el-Khalili and I started to lose faith in the map. Then I saw two white guys coming from the opposite side. As they were the first tourists I saw in this street I immediately tried to get some directions from them (or at least a better map!) Luckily they just came from Khan el-Khalili and were heading to Citadel. So we exchanged information (I told them the citadel was closed anyway) and we parted for on our own journeys.

Finally I reached Khan el-Khalili. It was already dark and I was hungry. So I tried to find the famous El-fishwal tea house to have a cup of the famous tea before heading back to Talaat Harb for dinner. However, I forgot one thing: if my map could not lead me to Khan el-Khalili from the main roads, how could it possibly lead me to a tiny shop amongst the maze of Khan el-Khalili?

I wandered around and around and soon I was lost. Now even getting out of the maze to get a taxi was not easy. Luckily the two white guys I met earlier just turned up! (They were Swiss, btw.) They decided to head back because everything around the citadel was closed. More surprisingly, they came from the nearest metro station and so knew the way back to the metro station, and what's more, now they were heading back there and could take me along too! (Wow! My heroes! Just what I needed! )

So the three of us left the maze and went towards the nearest metro station. On the way we had to cross a huge road where there was a fence in the middle separating the opposite traffic. The road had many lanes on both sides and the traffic was fast. (It was even faster than what I saw yesterday in front of the Egyptian Museum, and now I had to add the time needed of climbing the fence in the middle too!) I hesitated for a moment, but seeing the two had already went and climbed over (true rebels!); I bit my lips and decided that backing out was no longer an option! So in just 2 days I had already broken the jaywalking law (if any in Egypt) so many times that I couldn't remember... and after this experience, crossing the roads in Cairo was no longer any challenge!

Having said good-bye to my heroes I descended into the metro station of Attaba and 10 minutes later I surfaced on the familiar street of Talaat Harb. As I was walking a guy approached me again and this time offered to lead me to his perfume shop. After been through all these I decided that "blending in with the locals" was impossible in the streets of Cairo - So I firmly said no and left him. (Besides, why on earth would he think a guy would be interested in buying perfume?!)

Dinner was at the famous Felfela restaurant's takeaway shop. The grilled chicken sandwich and the eggplant were really good! Yummy and Cheap!



Left: Khan el-Khalili at night time. Lots of hustles and bustles. Right now I had to fix my stomach first... I'll be back!
Right: My takeaway dinner included a grilled chicken sandwich and an eggplant with naan(?), greasy, yummy and cheap! (6.25 LE)
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vipro/egypt_2007/1176607800/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vipro/egypt_2007/1176607800/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vipro/egypt_2007/1176607800/tpod.html Wed, 26 Mar 2008 11:10:40 -0400 A 2 weeks tour to try to visit the leftovers by the ancient and the modern Egyptians...

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Cairo, Egypt

Chapter 2: The Terminal


The plane arrived in Dubai international Airport at around "middle of the night".. when I say "middle of the night" I mean it was not midnight but rather in the midst of my good dreams. (I presumed it was like 3 am in the morning?) Once you got off the plane, you had to take a bus trip back to the transit terminal. This shuttle bus journey seemed endless... for more than 15 minutes and about 30 turns around the corners (luckily the driver didn't do any drifting... ) the "dizzy" transit passengers finally got "unloaded" into the transit terminal! (Have u heard of getting motion-sickness from an airport transfer bus? C'mon!)



Left: Everyone was getting off like zombies having been waken from the midst of their dreams.
Right: The bus that took us to the terminal. Now imagine what the inertia would be if it cut a few 90 degrees corners during the course...

Now this terminal was shocking! As one of the richest countries in the world I would not be surprised if the terminal was plated in gold but what I found instead was just simply disappointing...
The First Sin: Perhaps the people in Dubai really liked to greet people in the middle of the night and invited them out in the middle of the day... as a result flocks of airplanes just landed after dark and wouldn't leave until the sun came out. As a result all the passengers would then have to accept Dubai's "hospitality" and stayed in the terminal until sunrise.
The Second Sin: The terminal did not have enough seats... By "seats" I mean those objects that allow people to sit on. 99% of these seats were already taken up by the early birds who were the first victims of Dubai's hospitality. They surely knew how to use the 4 seats in a row to allow themselves to sleep comfortably until their departure. The less fortunate souls who were too late to get a comfortable spot had to sleep under the seats... but at least they could also rest in peace! Now for the most unfortunate people like me who couldn't even find any seat or floor space to sleep or sit had to keep walking around aimlessly in the terminal... (felt like lost souls who could neither go to heaven nor hell but were left to walk for eternity)
That's not all, the Final Sin: Even if you finally decided to walk no more and wanted to stand and wait, you didn't know where to wait!! The reason? You wouldn't know where the boarding gate would be... Yes, there was an electronic signboard, but there were too many flights that the board could only show all the flights for the next 15-20 minutes, (imagine how 100 flights to be departed in the next hour could be fitted into a board that could display 50 entries at most?) so you wouldn't get a clue on which boarding gate your plane would be until the final call... orz


Chapter 3: Defending the national treasure!


Amazed by such a "well-featured" terminal I decided just to walk around and tried my best to find a seat to settle down. (All the shops had been thoroughly visited) I was so bored and dared not to fall asleep so after a while I decided to walk around again like a walking zombie... The free internet station was not good to kill time neither as there was already a long queue outside the station. Finally I managed to stumble across 2 Cantonese-speaking girls. At that moment, a white guy was trying to chat them up but since I was so bored (and to defend our national interests!!!) I decided to "interrupt" their conversation. I barged in "politely" and got one girl's attention and finally managed to get both their attentions (The power of mother tongue~ Sorry, mate!) It turned out that they were also transiting to Turkey.. ahem.. Travelling in Turkey was just my specialty and I could by no time get their attention with my expert advices and my past photos. Time flied while I was having fun; luckily one of the girls warned me about that silly signboard (they had experiences with that before!) so I went to the information counter and asked and indeed the boarding gate of my plane had already been assigned but the signboard still didn't show! So reluctantly I had to wave goodbye to the girls in a rush as the gate was on the other end of the terminal (and I didn't have time to ask for their email addresses, man that was the first mistake I made in this trip.. and I still regret about it as of now orz)



Left: The Dubai terminal: Just look at those empty seats, look under them, are they really empty?
Right: Everyone was busy on the net, probably hotmailing to their loved ones on how "great" the terminal was... I think I will just move on and leave them to spread the news


This time, the plane to Cairo was a lot worse than the one I took earlier and there was no more ICE so I just dozed off in this short journey.


Chapter 4: Arrived! What a warm welcome!!


As usual, the flight arrived late in the Cairo International Airport. So I quickly got off the plane and tried to get out the airport as soon as possible as I got a free pickup from Desert Safary Hostel waiting outside. (The only good thing about this hostel) I was one of the first when I arrived in the immigration hall. Then I suddenly remembered I have to change my money into Egyptian pounds. So I went to the various money exchanges and by the time I had changed my money I suddenly found several long queues formed before the immigration counters! A grand tour of Vietnamese just arrived and I was forced to queue at the end! [Then I remembered the gospel's teaching: "If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all..." :O]

One thing that was even more annoying was that on the way from the departure hall to the immigration counters, the pickups from many tourist agents could actually sneak in this restricted area and greeted their guests; but then surprise, surprise, there were no signs which went with my name! After watching the others got greeted and escorted to the immigration counters sourly, I had to pick a queue and queue there by myself.

Luckily I bet on the right queue and somehow it moved extremely fast and I thought to myself, 'hey, maybe my luck hasn't totally run out!' When it was my turn I gave the officer the passport and beamed a smile at him. (just like the signature smile from the famous toothpaste advertisement) Instead of expecting an Egyptian smile in return, he confiscated my passport and told me to wait and signaled the Vietnamese behind to move forward! So standing there like an absolute idiot, I could not do anything but just waited and watched all the other Vietnamese passed through, one by one! Finally an officer came to me and instead of giving me an update he told me to move away so as not to block the counter... orz

After 15 minutes and after all the Vietnamese had gone, I found myself stuck with 2 other guys: one Chinese businessman (he dressed too casually to look like one) holding a Chinese passport; a Malaysian Chinese holding a Malaysian passport; and me, a Chinese guy holding an Australian passport. The only thing we had in common was: we were all male and we travelled alone and we were Asian! I suspected that they thought we were using fake passports to try to sneak in to work illegally! Hello?! Who would want to work in your country??

After 5 more minutes, when the senior officer inside the office finally "woke" up and decided to run some checks on our passports were we finally cleared! But then he commented that I didn't look anything like the photo on the passport! @_@ Gosh, I really think next time I shouldn't shave my hair so short!

I had never in my life got detained before at the immigration and it was a really unpleasant feeling, especially when I was the last to leave the passport control office. Getting the baggage and clearing the customs were no hassle anymore (since the main crowd had already left) When I finally staged my appearance in the arrival hall, a guy came to me with my name on the sign he was holding (with a sigh of relief) - he said he been waiting here for 2 hours already! Poor guy...



Left: The landing card I have to fill-in... ok it has english, so no problem until... hey what does the last row say? Head of Nefertiti Queen? What do I have to fill in?
Middle: So I followed the arrow and turned over, oops, doesn't help much! I called the CA and she didn't know neither.
Right: Finally I managed to get hold of another card! and viola! Q.E.D.


Chapter 5: The Crazy Taxi


So we left the airport and got to get to his "car". It turned out that he was a part-time taxi driver who had been hired by the hostel to pick people up. He must have lost his precious times while waiting for me at the airport! So at the end I gave him US$10 which was quite a lot by their standards (or so I thought!) [maybe I would have given him more if he didn't park his car about 10 minutes away from the airport and neither did he help me to carry my huge rucksack on the way - It definitely wasn't a pleasant walk with the full gear on!]

My first feeling on the infamous "Cairo's Crazy Taxi": first of all, there was no seat belt. So your life was at the mercy of his skills; secondly, the window could not be wound up and down; so I had to eat dust for the whole journey! Thirdly, I did not see the purpose of having traffic signs or lanes on the roads - He was just overtaking virtually every car that was in front of him! (except those that he was not so "skillful" enough to overtake) and they liked to horn a lot - whether it would be a friendly greeting "Hey man!" or an unfriendly one "Up Yours!" Whenever there was a message that could not be conveyed by simple horning they would just shut out of their window to the other drivers, e.g. 'Do you know where xxx is?' and that's why all the taxis did not have the windows wound up, they were wound down for a purpose!



Left: The interior of a typical taxi. The meter is in Arabics! Luckily it was never used! I have never seen one that was working anyway!
Right: Look at the panel of rear mirrors! No wonder why the drivers never needed the side mirrors!


Chapter 6: Don't you worry, my friend!


After a "thrilling" ride from the airport I finally arrived in My Desert Safary Hostel. The word "thrilling" was not exaggerated, remembered the driver was in a hurry?

Anyway at the hotel there was a big guy called Ahmed (I think that's what his name was) on duty. After serving some nice tea he brought in the bad news - his hostel was full unless I wanted to share the shower and bathroom! And then he said

'Don't you worry, my friend, I could fix you up a room in our sister hotel, Pension Vienna.'

Now the phrase 'Don't you worry, my friend' was a sign that you really should start to worry - but too bad I didn't realize that until I learnt about it after many painful lessons!

I waited in Desert Safary until my agent (whom I booked my cruise with) showed up and gave me the boarding pass (you called a piece of an A4 computer printout a boarding pass?) Luckily he showed up or else I would have been conned (I paid 50% already with this company called ATA Tours, whom I randomly hooked up via the internet)

The room in Pension Vienna wasn't that bad. The public toilet and bathroom was a shock! Luckily mine was an en suite, so I didn't have to use it [Thank God!]. Oh the room had a window too, and the view... oh, it's really "A room with a VIEW" - 'Hmm... better leave the window shut'! Overall the room was ok for HK$12x a night, except that it was so lonely! There was not a single soul in the common room at all except the porter on duty. At least in Desert Safary there were more travellers wandering around.






Top Left: The entrance of my "Don't you worry, my friend" hostel... Doesn't look too impressive...
Top Right: The elevator... wow! I am back at the 30's. IMPRESSIVE!
Middle Left: My room! The bathroom is just a partition! At least it has a "door"
Middle Right: Well, there is no compartment for the shower, so basically you just wash the floor every night
Bottom Left: A room with a view... with a view like that I think I will keep my window closed.
Bottom Right: This is the public bathroom and shower, ain't I lucky to have an en suite?


So with no chance of meeting new friends I decided to start my adventure in Cairo on my own. Oops! The hostel didn't offer any free map, but the porter generously lent me their antique - a map of Cairo that's as old as an ancient treasure map, with cello tapes and tears all over it! So having feel a bit like Indiana Jones or Benjamin Gates I was off to the dangerous streets of Cairo...

'Hold It!', the porter said.
'Uh-oh!', I thought.

It turned out that he kindly "escorted" me down to a shop called Scarab (yes, that's the name of the Egyptian beetle as shown in the movie "Mummy") and told me that since he was a special friend of the shopkeeper, he would offer me a very "special" discount today if I bought papyrus from this store! To his dismay I did not treasure his "friendship with the shopkeeper" nor the "very special" discount and left the rip-off shop. Finally I was left alone...

... Not! You would never be alone for long in the streets of Cairo. Before I even arrived at the Egyptian Museum, (that's less than 5 minutes walk from the hotel, if you know the way that was... and it really wasn't easy from that "treasure map" with missing street names) I was joined by a young lad who offered me to take me to Giza for the pyramids.

'What? Now it is 4 pm, the pyramids must have closed by the time we get there?!' I said.
But he said 'Today's Sunday and there are no traffics and you can go there to watch the beautiful sunset!'

Wow! That's a "good" reason! -_-" It seems that everything he said was so true and sincere! (In fact this was a trait that all Egyptians were good at!)


Chapter 7: Do I not know how to cross a road?


At the end he left me his? name card with his uncle's mobile number (he was too young to have one? or could not afford one?) and told me to call him in case I would go in the near future... and he actually did me a favor... he showed(?) me how to cross the hell-like multi-lane road to the Egyptian Museum.

Now "road crossing" in Cairo is really a survival skill you got to learn IF you ever want to survive. (This is no joke because if you don't quickly learn the art, you couldn't go anywhere, not even to any restaurants) Most main roads in Cairo have the following characteristics:

1) Most of the hardest-to-cross roads have multiple lanes or are wide enough for many cars to travel through in parallel. So you have to take a while to finish the crossing;
2) There are no such thing as zebra crossing (all the zebras would be dead judging by the Egyptian chaotic traffics!), very rarely you would find overhead flyovers (for pedestrians) or underground tunnels;
3) There are tons of traffic lights, but they are for cars only and are not for the pedestrians; besides, the red lights mean nothing to the drivers as they usually ignore them anyway.

Conclusion: You could just cross the road anywhere you want, anytime you want (I wondered if there is any law against jaywalking in Egypt! :O)

My first time in doing this was really scary. The traffic was non-stop; cars were just roaming through and there was never a break in the middle. (This street (Sharia Ramses) was actually one of the busiest roads in Cairo) I just didn't know when to start crossing. But the lad just knew... We crossed. I prayed. We arrived.



Left: Try crossing the road with this traffic! I remember the old atari game called "frogger".
Right: The ultimate cure to the traffic problem was the "scarecrow", see? The whole flock had disappeared!


Chapter 8: A night at the Egyptian Museum


Once on the other side of the road I saw the big reddish building called the Egyptian Museum, and for the first time I saw the military there (ok I wasn't sure if they were the army or the police, but they surely were armed!) It was already 4 pm at that time (the museum closed at 6) so I bought the ticket.

'Oh! Cameras were not allowed!'
'Wait! How about if I pay more for a special ticket? The book said there was a special ticket for photography...'
'No, sorry Sir!'
So it seemed that my guidebook was really out-of-date... -_-"

Having turned down a couple of guys who offered to act as my guide to the museum, the first place I went to was... nope, not the entrance, but the cafeteria besides it! My belated lunch was a very dissatisfying ice-cream bar for 15LE (almost as expensive as a Haagen-Dazs in HK) [All food in the cafeteria had an outrageous prices tagged!]

Now with the stomach finally settled (sort of) I quickly hurried inside.. The first thing I saw, believe it or not, was the only fake replica in the whole museum - the Rosetta stone. No, this wasn't the software that taught you foreign languages; it was the piece of stone tablet that had the same writing in 3 different languages. With that, the historians could finally decipher ancient hieroglyphs (i.e. those funny ancient Egyptian alphabets that were in the shapes of animals and objects)

The museum itself was a very structural building; two floors, 4 corridors or wings around a central hall. Unlike the British Museum, You REALLY couldn't get lost in this building!

So theoretically, two clockwise trips should complete the whole thing. But after 5 minutes time, I went back to the entrance hall for the gift shop (how handy!) So for 30LE I got myself a guide.. it had 64 colorful pages. The reason I came back was because the exhibits were scattered all around the places and most of them did not have any labels or descriptions.



Left: Just got out from the creepy Egyptian Museum. Don't ever go in when it's near its
closing times.
Right: My "silent" tour guide!


In fact the guidebook wasn't that useful as 64 pages really couldn't cover thousands of artifacts discovered in the old (3000 BC), middle and new kingdom. Time was actually running out so I had to hunt for the gems of the museum....

Tutankhamen! Yes the famous pharaoh whose tomb was uncovered in the 1922 in the Valley of the Kings. It was the most unspoilt ancient Egyptian tomb ever uncovered yet - with all the treasures and burial items left intact inside the tomb.

Tutankhamen (King Tut!) was famous for his young age (8) when he came to throne, and also of the mysterious death not so long after. (at 17) But to most it was his golden death mask and the curse of Tutankhamen that were better known of.

Most of the items found inside the tomb had been transferred to the museum. When his human-shaped sarcophagus was discovered, there were actually 4 coffins, with one inside another. The outermost 3 coffins were wooden and the innermost one was made of 110 kg of pure gold and that's where the mummy lied. One wooden coffin was still placed inside the tomb in the Valley of the King.

During my stay inside Tutankhamen's room, a VIP (I think he was a politician) suddenly arrived and with him the body guards, the organizers, the reporters and the cameramen all came along. Though I was not sure who he was but I was glad he was not important enough to be the target of the terrorist suicidal bombers (C'mon... If I could get that close to him, just about anyone else could!) But at least I got to appear in TV!

Another must-see in the museum was the Royal Mummy Room. You had to pay 100LE to enter to see the corpses - in fact the real mummies of the royal family. To be honest they looked the same as those shown on pictures or on TV. No matter how great they were during their reign, they all looked very similar now - dry, old and fragile! However, the pricey 100LE entrance fee wasn't charged for nothing - the creepy experience of being trapped in a room at 5:30 pm ALONE with 10+ mummies was quite some... priceless feeling! Needless to say, I did not spend too much time studying them in great details and as soon as I checked them all (Yes I didn't miss a single one!) I was outside in no time! : O

Besides those two must-see items, I also checked out the Amarna Room, a room for King Akhenaten, who abolished the beliefs of many gods and only worshiped one god Aten. His statues could easily be identified by the elongated heads and protruding bellies. Tutankhamen was actually his son and during his short-lived throne he managed to revert the religion back to what it was and brought back the multiple gods due to popular demand.



From Left to Right:
The Rosetta Stone, the same writings were inscripted in 3 different languages.
The front view of the Death Mask of King Tutankhamen
The rear view of the Death Mask of King Tutankhamen
King Akhenaten, who was protrayed with the elongated head and protruding belly


Another interesting room displayed the animals' mummies, yet another must-see spot.

I walked and walked and suddenly realized the corridors were getting empty and lots of other visitors had left. Being left alone in a museum full of statues and mummies and other artifacts of over 3000 years old after sunset was not fun (remember the movie "Night at the Museum"?) so I hurried up and swept all the remaining rooms, with the giant colossus of Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye as the finale.

The porter in the Pension Vienna once told me, 'You have to go around Egypt first and visit all the places, learn about their histories before coming back to see the museum. Then you would understand and appreciate more.....' his words for once was quite true! I think I need to go back there again one day!



Left: The interior of the Egyptian Museum. At the centre were the giant colossus of Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye. Imagine how you feel when you dim the lights!
Right: Part of the "Book of the Dead". This shows the weighing of the heart.. Unlike in the movie Mummy, it was not really a book.


Chapter 9: Only the fittest can survive...


It was around 6 and the sun was not set yet. I walked my way to the Sadat Metro station. The metro system was simple with only 4 lines but buying a ticket wasn't easy. Everyone just barged in to the ticket counter and you never got a chance to speak 'I would like err...' before interrupted by other locals who appeared from nowhere and were dying for a ticket. Queuing? What queuing?!

After 5 minutes or more, I finally managed to get a ticket for zone 1. Then I got to play 50:50 to determine which side of the platform to choose as I couldn't identify the Arabic displayed on the sign anywhere on the metro map. But luckily an Egyptian student came and helped me with the right platform. The first time ever a truly friendly Egyptian helped me for no personal gain!

If you already imagined how bad the ticketing process was then it wouldn't require you to have any more imagination on how bad the boarding process was. People who know me know I am not that type of a fragile build to be pushed around. Usually I don't need too much effort to get on or off a train carriage. But in there, I really had to PUSH HARD to get on and get off - especially when I was trying to get off: whenever the door opened at each station, those "bulls" would come rushing in: they really didn't expect people to get off! Had to do some sumo-wrestling!



Left: M does not always represent McDonalds.
Right: There is always a clock on each metro platform. This is definitely a good way to learn the Arabics numerals.


Finally I arrived in the Ramses Train station. The first thing I do was to go to the tourist centre to ask for a map. A tourist centre was so hard to find nowadays in Cairo and this station just happened to have one of them. It turned out to be very primitive with only one lady sitting behind the counter. There were no brochures of any sort whatsoever. OK, maybe she had them with her behind the counter. So I asked her for the map of Cairo, and the reply was in very good English:

'We have run out!'
'Yeah, a long time ago I believe!', I thought.

So this confirmed the fact that Egypt is a very environmental-friendly country. You just wouldn't need to worry about paper recycling. This was the last time in my whole trip that I ever needed to spend time to locate any tourist information centre. That's good!

My next objective was to buy the ticket of the sleeping train for my return trip from Aswan to Cairo. Since their website said that beds were limited on a train (obviously!) and it was so "sophisticated" that it could not accept any advance booking via the net; so I had to spare my time to come personally to buy the ticket in advance! Well, buying the ticket was a breeze: the English was good, there were no queues and for US$ 78(!) I got to have the entire double room for myself. (In Muslim world, room sharing with strangers seemed strictly prohibited?!)

While I was at the station I saw a crowd of 40 to 50 people kneeling and praying to their god Allah in the centre of the station square. Yep it was one of their praying times and it was the first time I saw so many praying together live! (I haven't really seen this scene before in Turkey somehow.) Here people would just abandon their work and came out and pray during the praying times. The square had partitioned an area and prepared the mats for them to pray during the praying times.

As it was not nice (and not too interesting as well) to watch others pray, so I left the station and tried to find a place to eat. However the area around the Ramses station was not really surrounded by any restaurants, so I took the metro back to the Sadat station - the nearest of where I lived.

As the Sadat station was quite a huge station built under a giant roundabout, I emerged on the wrong side of the road. I could go back down to try another exit, but I decided to try my skill (and luck) on crossing the busy streets of Cairo. So I waited and waited but the traffic seemed endless. I had to make my first move somehow. Luckily I saw some ladies crossing the road and I just followed them, while making sure I was "covered", well sort of. This was the second time I crossed the streets of Cairo. After this, I no longer had any problem crossing anymore!



Left: Outside of the Ramses Station.
Right: Inside of the Ramses Station. The people are praying at the back


Chapter 10: Accept the Egyptian's Hospitality!


While I was standing around a corner looking at my clueless map an old guy approached me and asked me which hotel I wanted to go to.

'Ah Vienna, I know the owner there, he is my friend, let me help you and take you back!'

So the good Samaritan took me down the streets towards the hotel. On the way he "revealed" that he was a store owner and offered me to come and visit the shops where he sold "authentic" papyrus. At first I turned down and he said,

'Do you not want to accept the Egyptian Hospitality?'

As I didn't want to portray a rude image of my race, so I thought there was no harm in visiting - "blending in with the locals" was always a primary objective of my trip.

So we went to a small side street and approached a small shop at the basement. A boy, who saw us approaching, immediately lit up the shop, and brought out all the papyrus. The prices were really cheaper than the "Scarab" shop that I visited earlier, and at the end I bought 2 pieces of papyri.

'There is no such thing as getting away with a good deal in Egypt - You will always get conned in Egypt, it all matters to how much or how little, and whether you are willingly being conned or not.'

Whether the old man was really a friend of the hotel owner I could not really find out at the end but he indeed brought me back to the Pension Vienna after the visit to his shop.

I wandered along the main street (Sharia Talaat Harb) trying to find some restaurants or fast food stores for my dinner. It was not easy to find a single restaurant along the street and finally I went inside a shopping mall and settled my dinner in a Egyptian fast food store, with some chicken sandwich, chips and Pepsi.

During my dinner, two Egyptian guys had an argument and were about to start a fight when immediately all the bystanders came rushing in and broke them up. Those bystanders really did not know those two guys in the first place! In Hong Kong I really doubt if anyone else would step forward if such things happened. (maybe they would only step forward with their cameras?!) So it seems that there really was some "Egyptian hospitality" after all.



Left: Well all the words in the menu are in Arabics, definitely not very enlightening...
Right: My dinner included Pepsi, chicken kofta, some chips and a dessert with preservatives,
yuck! (16.75 LE)
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vipro/egypt_2007/1176577800/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vipro/egypt_2007/1176577800/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vipro/egypt_2007/1176577800/tpod.html Mon, 24 Mar 2008 06:50:49 -0400 A 2 weeks tour to try to visit the leftovers by the ancient and the modern Egyptians...

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Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Chapter 1: Nice ICE, nice try!


Unlike last time when I departed for Barcelona, there was no thrill in the lounge in the HK International Airport (HKIA) at all, no CNN good or bad news about Egypt (perhaps there had been so many bad news before that maybe it was now time for it to keep quiet for a while) This time I went to the Plaza Premium Lounge on the far side of the terminal (near gate 40), and this time it really looked and felt like a normal lounge, i.e. you could actually relax and rest in a lounge instead of feeling like the departure lounge of a plane that had been delayed for 20 hours.


For once there is actually tranquility inside a lounge

Talking about the terminal, Emirates Airline was one of the "lucky" few to have the privilege to use the new Terminal 2 (T2) of HKIA. (but first of all, you have to get off on the right (literally!) side of the Airport Express before you could reach the T2)


See, you have to get off on the RIGHT side of the train or else you will have to do some serious walking! (or wait for the next train)

So this Friday the 13th had nothing special and the next thing I knew I was on board the Emirates Airline Boeing 777 to Dubai International airport. A word must be said about this 777-300ER. The seats were relatively more spacious, the ceiling looked higher (once the lights were turned off, you could see tiny lights on the ceilings mimicking the stars of the sky ... cool! They called this mood lighting!) and the crew uniforms were relatively more eye-catching, (actually "interesting" was probably a more appropriate word in this context) and the ICE (Information, Communication and Entertainment) system worked very well, especially on the video on demand... There were more than hundreds of movies and I practically spent the starry, starry night doing the movie marathon until my arrival in Dubai... (i.e. I was too busy to sleep for the whole night!)


Left: Emirates Airline's Boeing 777-300ER, equipped with one of the world's most powerful jet engines GE90-115B.
Right: The crew welcomes you with their traditional red berets and veils. Notice the veil is only worn on one side. (Maybe used for swiping their sweats?)


Left: The inside of the 777 is spacious and looks roomy with the high ceiling. The seats are better designed with the large(r) LCD, remote and folded table all at the front, saving precious space on the sides.
Right: ICE - Information, Communication and Entertainment. All VOD (Video on demand) with tons of movies. Time to catch up those I missed before!




Mood lighting - Once the cabin is dimmed, the ceiling shows all the light spots emulating the starry nights, supposed to make you sleep better with sweet dreams.. er.. but everyone was just too busy with the movies...

At the end, nothing bad happened on friday the 13th, but little did I know that bad luck also had time zone difference, and it already caught up with me on the next day ... and to make the matter worse the friday 13th black cat caught up with me in the middle of the desert and that was another story to be told...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vipro/spain_2006/1152502200/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vipro/spain_2006/1152502200/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vipro/spain_2006/1152502200/tpod.html Fri, 31 Aug 2007 13:34:45 -0400 No pain, no Spain! A country that made me hot and "sweaty"!

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Segovia, Spain

DAY 6: Segovia & Madrid

"In a kingdom far, far away in Segovia, high above the mountains there stood a castle called Alcazar. Legends said that the sleeping beauty was kept waiting there for all her life. Prince Vince, armed with his trustworthy weapon the Nikonion Dee-LXX and his Royal Steed aka the "very fast" Spanish Regional Train, travelled far and wide from the Madrid City to Segovia. On his way he went pass the "Gate with Many Holes", battled the intense and scourging heat of hell and almost got tricked by the "cursed map of forever get lost" given by the enemies-in-disguise. Luckily on his way he was aided by Sir Shang the holy knight of the Chinese Empire. Together they joined forces and battled their way through and towards the legendary Alcazar........ only to find out that the Sleeping Beauty has emmigrated to Walt DisneyLand a long long time ago!"

Day 2 in Madrid, still eating the Danish pastries, no OJ as it could not survive the heat of Madrid without something called a fridge (should have bought those that have tons of preservatives, right?)
Today was Sunday, and there was a massive flea market in Madrid (only opened on sundays), so before going to Segovia I quickly made a detour to the market.
El Rastro was described as the biggest and best market in Madrid. It spanned multiple streets from the top of the hill and all the way down, often referred to have a "thriving mass of vendors, buyers and pickpockets"....
What I found was.... a lack of all!(because I was EARLY! @9am) Not many merchants, not many buyers, and couldn't even spot any pickpockets (not that they were easy to spot) ... however, I saw plenty of local police, chatting up to those vendors who were just setting up the store... many policemen were surrounding one owner... not sure what they said to him. (could that be the famous statement: "any spare change"?)


It was really a flea market selling old stuff, clothes to the locals instead of tourist-oriented... the only interesting stall was the selling of all those army uniforms and helmets. I really wanted to ask them why they were selling German uniforms... but resisted just in case they would gave me a free demonstration of their army knifes free-of-charge!

Since there was nothing much of an interest, I continued doing my photo-hunt of taking photos of different street signs. In the old part of Madrid, almost all the streets signs were drawn up as beautiful icons each showing the meaning of the street name. So if you were bored like me, you could do the "collection" along the way... it was more fun than the treasure hunt.

Since I could not access the Internet last night or the night before, I could not look up the timetable for the trains to Segovia. Luckily, Vicky told me before... "Don't worry, I remember the train departs every 2 hours, 09:00, 11:00, 13:00, etc"... With such assurance, I arrived at the train station at around 10:00, thinking there should be enough time to get the tickets, etc. for the 11:00 train.
Well, it turned out that indeed there was plenty of time... Vicky was right about the 2 hours interval, but the starting point was wrong. The train departed every 10:00, 12:00, 14:00... the moral of the story? Vince, don't be a lazy bugger and do your own homework!
As there was plenty of time left, I could do a bit of exploration of the station. Estacion de Atocha was one of the two main train stations in Madrid connecting between the nearby suburbs with Cercanias (regional trains) and also serving as the terminus for inter-city trains including the high-speed AVE to Sevlla. It turned out that Atocha was more famous because of the Madrid Bombing in 11 March 2004 where 191 people died and 1700+ wounded. It was one of the worst terrorist attacks in the Western World since 9-11. "Fortunately", at that time I was too busy in finding the right ticket booth than to remember that.

With all these different types of trains leaving for destinations all over Spain, it was not surprising that the station had at least 3 sets of ticket counters and 2+ information centres scattered throughout. Now, the people at the ticket booths could not speak English whereas the information centres were full of tourists who could only speak English. So at the end I decided to try my luck and just said "Segovia" over one of the ticket counters (a bit like when you only need to say a single word "Money" when you try to rob the bank) and so got myself the tickets to Segovia. (EUR 9.9, same day return)
The next step was to find out which platform the train would arrive. (Remember that I forfeited the chance of waitng for an hour to get to the information counter) There was a gigantic electronic signboard describing all the trains leaving and arriving and.... Surprise! There was not a trace of the word "Segovia" on it! Up till now I had never thought that boarding a train in the Western World would be that much of a pain. It was the 2nd time I regretted of not taking a bus instead... (The 1st time was when I arrived at 10:00 to find out I had to wait for a 12:00 train; which I could use an extra hour in the flea market instead if I knew the "correct" schedule beforehand)
Having consulted the horoscope and applyed my detective skills and logic reasoning with lateral thinking and some scenario-based problem-solving techniques I finally worked out that the magic number was platform #1. Without a second thought, I hurriedly swipe the ticket and went through the gate....
It was 11:00 and I already had walked back-and-forth between the platform and the waiting room for a zillion times. Life was boring while waiting for a train, and even worse when there were no shops inside the platform and nothing inside the waiting room besdes the TV showing the next train's info. The only thing "exciting" in that hour was the encounter in the WC.
******* Warning! Not for the Light-Hearted *******
There was actually a toilet in the departure area but it was so concealed that it really took me a while to find it. (The waiting room and the ticket gates were on top, with escalators descending down to the platform below. Now in between the waiting room level and the platform there was a mid-level and it turned out that at the far end were another set of "exit-only" ticket gates with the WC next to them. This area was so dimly lit you couldn't see from afar. Since there was nothing better to do, I went inside the toilet. Luckily a train just arrived and an old man went along with me.
Inside the toilets were two men occupying the first two urinals at the time I went in. So I went in and took the third one. During the process I noticed the man next to me was giving eye signals to the man on the first urinal, who obviously was looking left-and-right and was not the slightest bit in doing his "business" there. With my basic instinct I quickly pulled out of the toilet as soon as I could. (Even for an un-alert person like me I could still sense the danger at that moment!) As I said I was lucky because there was an old man who went in with me at the same time; maybe that was the reason I was saved. Thank God!
As mentioned before, this station was so busy with so many trains coming and going every minute and yet the station designers still couldn't think of building more platforms and tracks. As a result, a single platform was shared amongst many trains. If you boarded the train 2 minutes early or later, you could be going somewhere else! So you really had to watch the signboard and also checked the front of the train. You only had about 2 minutes to decide to board or not!
2 hours of train journey. Got myself a window seat, sat opposite to a little girl who liked to kick me whenever she felt like it. (or got excited or bored) My neighbour was her elder sister, not pretty and even if she was I wouldn't dare to chat up to her as their dad (looked like a Spanish Mafia guy) was right opposite to her. So the entire journey I was "cornered" by this family and my only interest was staring at the occasional black bulls grazing upon the grass in the green fields outside.
It was so easy to make money in Madrid! A lady street performer dressed in some medieval costume boarded the train with us in Atocha and during the brief ride, she played an act (?) of a play (I think!) for about 3 minutes and then amongst the applause she came up to everybody and started collecting money from us. (More efficient than the ticket conductor in collecting tickets!) A lot of the tourists actually paid for that! She left in the next stop and could repeat the same thing again on a returning train ..... Hmmm....Maybe on my way back I could do a few rounds of Shao-Lin Kung Fu and earned my trip back! ^_^ Well, if my Chinese Kung-fu could not impress, maybe singing this would:
"Shaolin KungFu sing, ho ho yeah! Shaolin KungFu Geng, Mo Dak Deng..." (song from the movie Shaolin Soccer)


Lunch was eaten on train. It was a grand feast of a cold sandwich and a bottle of water (both obtained from the Atocha station's vending machines. EUR 2.1)
Once arrived in Segovia train station, I immediately looked for bus no. 2 as described by LP. Guess what? NO bus no. 2 in the bus stop. What's worse, just like in Toledo's bus port, there was no tourist information counter there in the train station and therefore no map or any information could be found.
With great difficulty (remember no one could speak English), I finally found a bus route that had a stop in Acueducto. (All other names in all other bus routes could not be recognized) I finally arrived at Acueducto at 14:30 (After 30 minutes of waiting for the bus for a journey of 5 minutes.... reason: today was Sunday!)

Acueducto (Roman Aqueduct) was one of the most recognizable symbol of Segovia. Built in the 1st century AD. Now it was 728m long and made up of 163 arches. At the highest point (ie where the Plaza de Azoguejo was) it was 28m high.

The Acueducto marked the entrance to the old Segovia. The whole area was set high on a rocky spur and surrounded by the two rivers. The shape was often compared to a ship, with Alcazar on its sharp end as the prow, the pinnacles of the Cathedral as the masts and the Acueducto trailing behind like the rudder.
The tourist office was conveniently situated in Plaza de Azoguejo and it was a proper office with a 3D model display showing the entire area of Segovia. As it was nearly 15:00, I quickly got a map and immediately set off towards my primary objective - the Alcazar. It was in this office that I regretted again of not taking the bus. (The person at the counter told me that the bus station was very near to old Segovia than the train station, and the the buses departed every half an hour and the journey only took 1 hour........ Too bad I had already got my return train ticket!)

Unlike Toledo, the streets inside Segovia was more straight forward and you only needed to follow the street in one direction.
After passing Plaza de San Martin (where a statue of Juan Bravo was... supposed to be a local hero) and Plaza Mayor (there is one in every city!) I found myself at the doorsteps of the Cathedral of Segovia.

The Cathedral was the last Gothic Cathedral in Spain and took almost 200 years to complete (talking about the effectiveness of the Spanards) and it was one of the three must-see sites in Segovia. It was also the Cathedral where Queen Isabella was crowned. Having said that, I found myself to be fully "saturated" of cathedrals for the past few days, and decided to skip it at the moment. So I continued until I reached the end of the road....the park where Alcazar was situated.

Alcazar de Segovia was famous for two things:
1. Marriage location of Ferndinard II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile in 1469. This duo (consider a merger in ruling a kingdom, not very often you hear of that!) was responsible for the reunification of Spain and the drive out of the last Moorish King Boabdil in Granada in 1492, thus finished the "Reconquista".
2. The exterior of the castle (Alcazar) gave Walt Disney the vision of his Sleeping Beauty's castle in Disneyland. (so rumors said)

In front of Alcazar I finally met another traveller since Barcelona! Yes, finding and meeting friends in Spain were not as easy as I initially thought. To qualify:
1) They must not be couples as they would be too busy with themselves. Same applied to a pack of people.
2) They must not be European as I could not tell if they were locals or foreigners who could speak English.
3) They must be able to communicate! I could only speak English and Cantonese fluently. So ppl from China, Taiwan and Japanese were out. That left only ppl from HK..... and sorry mate! they only hanged around in shops in the big cities!
Conclusion: Single Asian travellers who could speak English or Cantonese and were more interested in sight-seeing than shopping.... What were the chances for that?
Well, Shang was a mechanical engineer from Mainland China who could speak English very well. He has been seconded to Madrid to study the wind-powered electric plants in Spain. So he was a single, Asian who could communicate........... the only drawback was that it was a he!
Although Shang was not a pretty girl as I had hoped, having someone to talk to and share travel stories was great... it was just like I had been dumb for a few days and suddenly I could speak again! He told me many interesting things in Madrid, and also in his research in the differences between the Chinese and the Spanish girls!


Since he was a nice friend, so together we toured inside Alcazar. As a castle, Alcazar of Segovia was a lot smaller than those castles in England but at least it still looked like an European castle (compared to the Alcazar in Sevilla that was more like a Sultan's Palace) There was an impressive display of some Spanish medieval arms and weapons. Again, the main problem of touring any museum in Spain was that all the descriptions were in Spanish... which gave us a perfect excuse to shorten the touring time.

After the visit I went to the souvenir shop and found that I had lost sight of him when I came out. Since I realized he couldn't have been kidnapped, (even though he was quite handsome but definitely did not look rich) so I left Alcazar and made my way back to the Acueducto.
On the way back I passed by a witch museum. At the entrance was a picture of a woman, which I was not sure if it was the picture of a witch or a person that was bewitched... either way the look was definitely no way near to Emma Watson's (aka Hermione Granger of Harry Potter), so I decided to keep the entrance fee in my wallet and moved on.

Now that I had a map of Segovia and my digital compass, (ie my Casio watch) I decided to walk my way back to the train station. (At that time I had about 1 hour to spare before the next train at 18:50) 'That should be plenty of time, I thought to myself'
I was too naive... the map was simplied and the compass was not accurate enough. One wrong choice in a star-shaped junction and I went the wrong way. The road I took was a long winding road with no street sign and no junction so I did not realize I took the wrong road until after 10 minutes later when the road finally crossed another. As I was going downhill previously it was pretty tough to climb back all the way up. So I had to make a detour to return to the correct route. For the very last time today, I regretted of taking the train to Segovia!
After guessing (the map was simplified!) and running and asking I finally made it back to the train station with 10 minutes to spare before the next train. There I saw Shang standing there on the platform.
It turned out that while I was in the souvenir shop in Alcazar he went to the tower upstairs. (through another entrance right next to the exit) He waited for me up there for 10 minutes and told me the view there was fantastic and it was so good that I should now skip this train and go back there to have a look!
What? Walk another 30 minutes back up and 30 minutes back down (if not lost) and wait another two hours for the next train?...... NO WAY! I really had enough in this "Lost in Segovia" experience!
So I took this 18:50 train with Shang back to Madrid. It turned out that Shang didn't do too well this morning neither.... he boarded the 10:00 train two minutes earlier and realized he got on the wrong train. (He was lucky it was a circle line that he returned to Atocha later, if not he would have wasted the whole day in another city) Finally he managed to catch the 12:00 train to Segovia (ie the same train as mine)
Shang got off in Chamartin station (another equally big train stationin Madrid at the north) and I returned to Atocha. Since my train to Cordoba also departed from this station I decided to go and check out at the information counter.
The lady there could speak good English and gave me an offer of 3 different types of trains that could take me to Cordoba. Although expensive, I opted for AVE. She told me if I wanted to go and get the tickets I could walk across to the ticket office next door to buy them. As I needed to specify the exact train I wanted (ie with the departure time), I decided to leave and buy the ticket tomorrow to give me more flexibility. (I found out that this decision actually costed me tremendously tomorrow!)
Dinner was finally taken in a restaurant in Sol, near the Real Madrid Shop (I originally wanted to go to a cheap 3 course meal restaurant recommended by LP... after wasting 30 minutes, I found that either the editor was drunk while eating at that time or the inflation rate in Spain successfully exceeded China's... the price was nowhere cheap!)
So this restaurant served the same types of Paella as seen in Barcelona, Madrid and Toledo (from OK Paella) and this time I chose the Paella Mixta instead. (EUR 12.25 including a glass of coke) Honestly it was better than the black Arroz Negro before.... but just marginally better. After this I decided I am not ok with OK Paella anymore.
I went back to the hotel just in time to watch the penalty kick shootout between France and Italy (Worldcup Final) and was really surprised that Zidane was nowhere to be seen during the penalty kicks...Well, France lost... I was actually surprised that the French really could not shoot PKs....

My foot prints: Estacion de Atocha (Train Station), Acueducto, Plaza de Azoguejo, Plaza de San Martin, Plaza Mayor, Cathedral de Segovia, Alcazar de Segovia, Gran Vie (to find the not-so-cheap restaurant), Sol

Stay: Lisboa Hostal Madrid (EUR 39, single room)

P.S. Only when I came back did I realize that Zidane got sent out after his famous head-butt in the Final.

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vipro/spain_2006/1152415800/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vipro/spain_2006/1152415800/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vipro/spain_2006/1152415800/tpod.html Wed, 29 Aug 2007 12:09:41 -0400 No pain, no Spain! A country that made me hot and "sweaty"!

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Toledo, Spain

DAY 5: Toledo & Madrid

A Day of ancient history and back to Medieval Times!!
The sleep was ok even with the endless chanting from the old elevator outside the room. Breakfast was a lot richer than the French Bread this time! Overnight supermarket danish pastries and croissants with OJ~ Wow! Just couldn't be better!


First stop was the bus station at Mendez Alvaro. Compared to the train service, the bus company did a very good job. There were buses departing for Toledo every half an hour. No queues at the ticket offices (with clear signs in English on which booths to go to too), no need to wait for the next bus, seats were pre-assigned (though I did not aware of that until someone spoke some Spanish to me in an unfriendly manner) and there was no traffic congestion. In an hour's time we arrived at Toledo's bus station.
Once at the Toledo's bus station, you thought you were just in an ordinary European town... peaceful and quiet with style....... but not the stuff I was looking for! The old city Toldedo was nowhere to be seen. According to LP, there should be a bus no. 5 that would take me to the old city. The only clue I saw was a sign by the escalator, saying "Bus No. 5" (with an up arrow). So naturally I went up the escalator to the ticketing hall, thinking the No. 5 bus would be outside the bus station.
Having combed the surrounding 1km radius of the Toledo bus station on the ground level, I still couldn't find any no. 5 bus stop. The clue just stopped there! So I backtracked (reluctantly) to my first and only clue (ie the sign downstairs) and at last I realized that the "up arrow" actually meant going forward... Near the end of the dimly lit tunnel underground I finally found the legendary no.5 bus stop!


It turned out that I was not the only one (misread/confused) as I met an Indian girl while waiting for the bus, who also had a hard time finding the bus stop. During the short bus journey I realized that she was more of a professional than I was as she didn't even bother to plan her trip. I remembered when we got off in Plaza Zocodover inside Toledo, she (sorry forgot her name) said, "Ah, this looks like a nice place, I think I would stay here for a while!" -- "Sleep where you like, leave when you like"...... the idea sounded so cool to me~ I'd wish I could do the same too!
Well she was the first person I really had a conversation with since I last talked to Vicky et al. (Well those conversations that ultimately led to monetary exchange did not count~~ aka shopping, ordering for food) But sadly the chemistry did not go well and the rendezvous only lasted as short as the journey from Toldedo bus station to Plaza Zocodover. Having wiped my eyes with a piece of Tempo (yes i brought these HK tissues along), I regained myself and continued my journey forth.
The old city of Toledo is self-contained within its city wall on a hill. It was declared as a world heritage site by UNESCO in 1986 and was the former captial of the Spanish Empire and is also a place of co-existence of Christain, Jewish and Moorish cultures. As the bus entered the old city you could really feel you went back in time to the Medieval Ages. All the buildings were still kept in the Medieval styles. Most of the streets were actually alleys that had the width of a car.
As Lonely Planet's map was like an ancient manuscript, (in fact this was not the first time!) I immediately went to the tourist office to get a not-so-ancient but an equally abstract map of Toledo. The office was actually a corner of a souvenir shop in the Plaza Zocodover.
Also in the plaza I saw the McDonalds and a kebab shop. Since Toldedo should have traces of the Moorish culture, I settled my lunch for the kebab. (EUR 3) Well, it seems that when the Moors left this place, they surely took away the secret of making good kebabs with them too.......=_=
While I was eating the "even-worse-than-a-british-kebab" kebab, I saw people trying out the Segways in front of a Segway rental stores. Since the alleyways were so narrow that cars would not be a convenient mean of transportation; the townsfolks here thought of introducing a tour of Toledo by Segways! I thought this was a really cool idea until I found out that the tour was led by a Spanish-speaking tour guide....
Alternatively you could just pay 5 Euros and could enjoy a 10 minute session of "testdriving" the Segway in front of this rental shop. (Yes, you were restricted to the plaza only; no, you can't do a 0-60km/h speed test! sorry mate!)

My first stop was a photo with a statue of Cervantes (Author of Don Quixote de la Mancha), then to Museo de Santa Cruz which the Renaissance architectural style was more interesting than the contents it exhibited. According to LP the museum was supposed to show arts and paintings but I olnly found myself some pre-historic left behinds of the early Spanish settlements (e.g. a pair of mammoth tusks) [I hope I didn't go to the wrong place?!]

After that I went uphill to the highest point of the city, where the Alcazar was cited. This was the squarest Alcazar I had seen in Spain. (i.e. boring with no style!) Franco turned it into a military museum after rebuilding it when it was destroyed during the republican siege. Now it was closed for renovation to allow them to move the army museum from Madrid to here.




Even though the military museum was not yet opened, I could still see signs of arms and armoury everywhere in Toledo -- within the souvenir shops!... Toledo was renowned for the excellence of its swords, shields and armours. Those fine steels were finely crafted and were very impressive and I almost had the urge to strap one to my back and brought it home.(If only they had the Darth Vader's light sabre.....) actually the swordmakers were really up-to-date, they even had the sword that was bore by Aargon (the one from The Lord of the Ring), with all the Elven runes crafted on the blade.

Another type of souvenirs found in an abundance inside Toledo was ceramic tablets/tiles. Each tablet had a painting of either an alphabet, a number or a drawing with nicely decorations. So you could easily buy the whole lot to play scrabble with them in the hotel if you were bored. (Each tile was 1 Euro each, so if you would like to compose a love poem from them, it would surely costed you a fortune, and not to mention how you were going to carry them back all in one piece instead of turning them into more pieces!)
The Cathedral de Toledo looked good from the outside (The bell tower "the belfry" was the tallest in the city!) so I paid EUR 6 to go in. Besides that, I had no memory of what was inside the Cathedral (Come on, I had been to so many cathedrals in the whole trip!) Oh yes, another thing I remembered was I saw a Segway Tour in action and those kids just zoomed past the front of the Cathedral while I was getting a ticket. After all the climbing and panting in the city for the whole afternoon, that was the first time I regretted of not renting a Segway earlier.

After the cathedral it was merely an exercise of orienteering (ie got lost in the maze of alleys while trying to go to a destination). During the exercise, I was "chased" by a car from behind because the alley was so tight that there was no room for me to stop by and let the car squeeze past. (I swore that the car driver was lost too but just couldn't find a place to U-turn or 3-point turn!)

I also came across a marzipan outlet (which turned out to be operated by nuns). It was rumored to be so secret that you rang the doorbell and handed in the money and a hand would give out the goodies.. no faces were shown, no eye contacts were made during the whole process. (and no questions asked!)

There was an El Greco's trail that you could follow to see his works and his past but I only had time to drop by Iglesia de Santo Tome, where his masterpiece, "The Burial of the Count of Orgaz" was housed. Though not much of a fan of him, I paid 2 euro and went inside. There was nothing but just the painting. To be honest the painting was very impressive and the texture of the material (e.g. silk) was very well re-created using the oil painting technique. According to the tour guide, he and Cervantes disguised as part of the crowds in the picture.

It was nearly 16:00 and I started the journey back to the bus station. From the "map" it seemed the station was very near and it was downhill so I decided to walk along the outer city walls... However, the Spanish heat was never to be underestimated. With a lack of water (no shops around the outer city walls), brilliant sunshine and with WC nowhere to be seen (I only saw a public toilet before lunch in Plaza Zocodover in the entire city!), I finally gave up (almost collapsed) at the entrance gate and "hitch-hiked" a bus back to the bus station. (yes, "hitch-hiked" because there was no bus stop there... but still got to pay! EUR 0.4)


To my surprise, the bus station that was originally nowhere to be seen turned up within 2 minutes of the bus ride..... Well, at least I finally made it to the bus station.
Although I have purchased the "return ticket" before in Madrid, I had to hand-in that "return ticket" (actually it just looked like a sales slip from a supermarket purchase) and the staff would issue a brand-new ticket (and in fact reserved the place for the bus)..... I almost didn't do this step and was going to board the bus straightaway.... Phew! that was lucky! If that bus was full I had to wait for another bus.
The reason for the rush was because of ....... Santiago Bernabeu!
If you didn't know what Santiago Bernabeu is, then maybe the names like Figo, Raul, Carlos, Beckham, Ronaldo and Zidane would ring the bell....Yes! Real Madrid... Santiago Bernabeu is the name of their stadium and also home of their football club.

Since I have been to Barca's Camp Nou, there was no reason why I shouldn't check out their nemesis'. So I "finished" the Toledo trip early and quickly rushed to the stadium.
Getting there was a lot easier than getting to Camp Nou from the metro, as the stadium was quite next to the metro exit. As it was approaching the closing time, I quickly went to the stadium shop to mind my own business. Because there were lots of football stars in Real Madrid, there were no lack of personalized souvenirs... man you could see people queueing up for getting their T-shirts printed/ironed. The templates for the popular stars (like No. 5, No. 23, etc) were sold out and the lady had to "line" up the letters individually to make the name on the T-shirt.
For me I settled for T-shirt key-chains (with the names of the stars on them) But only one Black Ronaldo and one Black Beckham was left, and no traces of Zidane whatsoever. (Zidane had the good-bye match in this stadium just before he left for the world cup about a month ago) There were plenty of Raul and Carlos....... no sign of Owen neither because he left too early~~
After the shopping I managed to squeeze myself in for the self-guided stadium tour just before it closed. For EUR 9 , I got to see the players changing room, coach's seats and the restaurant. Although the size of the stadium was smaller, the tour was better as you got access to places that you wouldn't allow in Camp Nou. (At least I got close to the goal posts here)

The gem of the tour was really the museum at the end of the tour. All those tropies and medals shined in the "Hall of Mirror" and many of them had the player's name on it. The finale was a showcase of the current players' boots and their autographes.

I noticed two things: There was no prayers room so they didn't need last minute prayers. There were no full-size figure-boards (like Ronaldinho's in Camp Nou) for you to take photos with and no bogus trophy for you to hold and take photos too.... A slight disappointment here~
Dinner was eaten in a buffet restaurant (Fresc Co). I initially thought that I could try all the local Spanish Specialities for just 9.7 euro.... Well, it turned out that the only special stuff was Gazpacho (spanish soup? cold and sour, not sure if it had tomato in it) and the rest were just pasta and salads..... On a positive side, I could eat lots of veggies and fruits on that night.


When I went back to the hotel I decided to go to the internet cafe nearby to check out the train schedule for tomorrow... but too bad that it was closing when I reached there (It was only 21:55 at that time!)
At night I saw the live TV broadcast from Valencia that the Pope had come to visit Spain... What a coincidence! but why couldn't he come to Madrid? Why didn't I go to Valencia? So close, yet so far~


Germany beat Portugal 3-1! Yeah, you bastard! (I do not support Germany, but I just plainly hate Portugal)

My foot prints: Mendez Alvaro (Bus Station), Plaza Zocodover, Museo de Santa Cruz, Alcazar, Toledo Cathedral, Iglesia de Santo Tome, Santiago Bernabeu, Goya

Stay: Lisboa Hostal Madrid (EUR 39, single room)
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vipro/spain_2006/1152243001/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vipro/spain_2006/1152243001/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vipro/spain_2006/1152243001/tpod.html Wed, 29 Aug 2007 10:03:44 -0400 No pain, no Spain! A country that made me hot and "sweaty"!

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Madrid, Spain

DAY 4: Barcelona -> Madrid

Having finally finished my French Bread (yes the same 2-footer for 3 consecutive breakfasts) I think it was time for me to pack up and kiss goodbye to this hostal. As the checkout time was 11:00, I decided to leave my huge rucksack at the reception early so that I could come back later to pick it up before I hit for the flight at 15:00. Well, well, well.... the receptionist said the baggage wouldn't be safe there and kindly rented me a full-size locker for 2 euros... how professional could their service be?!
I have only got a couple of hours left in Barcelona before leaving for the airport. So I chose to place my bet on Basilica de Santa Maria del Pi, which LP (Lonely Planet) stated that it has the world's largest rose window. But half-an-hour later, I ended up in the old town (Barri Gotic) inside Basilica de Santa Maria del Mar, whose rose windows were definitely not the world's largest.
The rest of the final hours in Barcelona was spent in Museu Picasso (only for the toilet part) and in the fresh food market "Mercat de Sant Josep".

Mercat de Sant Josep was near Las Ramblas and was a dry and wet food market selling stuff like dry jambon (ham hung on the top of the stall), fresh fruits, neatly laid out seafood, very sweet candied fruits etc. The fruit stores at the front made the market looked very colourful and I couldn't resist for a pack of "fresh" fruits myself for 1 euro.

After this "exciting" detour of the day, I returned back to the hotel to pick up my stuff for the airport. This time I was "cleverer" and took the airport bus in Placa de Catalunya. Though more straight forward this time (you just couldn't get to the wrong airport in an airport shuttle!), the time taken for the journey was awefully long, and was equally crowded too!

Vueling was a budget airline in Spain. The trip from Barcelona to Madrid was quite cheap compared to travelling by train (if you booked early enough) For my first booking, it only costed EUR 20 for the fare (EUR 36.58 inclusive) and you got the privileges to be served by the not-so-polite and not-so-pretty either flight attendants; or strip-searched by the airport security guards... All these you just wouldn't get to enjoy if you took the train or the national coach.
The check-in was smooth once you got to the right queue. (Vicky warned me before of joining the wrong queue!) Like all other budget airlines, boarding was an outdoor activity and was done on foot and involved in climbing the stairs. I also observed that budget airlines had the tendency to have bright sharp colours for their uniforms.... after seeing bright sharp orange for the Easyjet before, this time the Vueling designers had came out with something more shocking: neon-yellow jacket borrowed straight from the road-cleaner/worker at night. (You know, they wore those in case the car drivers didn't see them)... I just hoped these were not designed to let pilots of other planes to know of our plane's presence....

Lunch was served with a donation. (At that time it was around 15:30) With a donation of EUR 4.50, you only got a COLD sandwidth and coke. Well, it was so delicious that I almost had to ask to see the chef. Also, earphones for in-flight movie also required a donation too; which I couldn't be bothered as the movie couldn't even finish before the flight landed anyway. (and not to mention the fact that would I donate for more chances to hear more Spanish dialogues?)
Arrived Madrid at around 16:15. As it was a national flight, no customs would be bothered to hassle you. This time I took airport shuttle again (yes, ever since the first mess with the airport train in Barcelona, I had learnt not to complicate something that was already too complicated)
After changing a couple of metro lines I finaly arrived Hostal Lisboa near Sevilla area. The hotel room was a shock. Well it was spacious but the walls, the carpet gave me a feeling that I was back to the time in the movie "Somewhere in Time", not to mention my room was next to the forever-working elevator. So my only window view was the elevator shaft and my morning call came from the cables and pulleys inside.
According to the golden rule of survival laid down by Vicky, the first thing when I arrived in a new place was to find the supermarket. Voila, there was a grocery right next to the hotel, how convenient!
To my surprise, the shopkeeper was a Chinese immigrant. She couldn't speak English and I couldn't speak Mandarin nor Spanish... so there was not much to talk about except the exchange of goods and money. (She was quite excited to see some Chinese customers around... gosh, she must be bored in the store!) It rhymes!
I then made my way to Plaza de Santa Ana. It was around 17:30 and the sun was still high on the sky. There were lots of open-air restaurants there but all the tables were not set up. Waiters were just lazily pulling out the chairs. Kids were playing football when suddenly one of them kicked the ball to a waiter. Instead of scolding the kids the waiter quickly grabbed the ball and showed off how good his kick was! (yes, just like one of the nike worldcup advertisements)... he played for a while (before the manager came out) and resumed with his chairs. [He actually was quite good controlling the ball]

Someone then approached and asked me for a quick survey... but it was brief: (I: Interviewer, V: Me)
I) How long have you been here in Madrid?
V) Just arrived
I) Where do u come from?
V) Hong Kong
I) Thanks very much for your time! Have a nice day!
Oh! Either they had not heard of what "Hong Kong" was or whether they were panicking since "Hong Kong" was not a model answer... but certainly their target audience did not include Hong Kong people....... which was quite sad as this meant not many tourists came from Hong Kong, well at least not enough to catch their tourism board's attention.
Finally arrived at Puerta del Sol without further interruptions. Sol is the centre of Madrid, and they said all the roads network in Madrid radiate from Sol. To me, Sol was just like another Times Square/Picadilly Circus to me, and the famous boutiques and cafes were more imteresting than any of the landmarks here. (Having said that there was an interesting statue of a bronze Spanish Poohbear trying to climb the strawberry tree (obviously for honey, what else?! ^_^)... they said it was a symbol of Madrid)

Amongst all the shops here I finally found what I wanted - a supermarket. (Remember Vicky's rule #1?)Actually El Corte Ingles was like a nation-wide Spanish Marks and Spencer and it sold all sorts of goodies from raincoats, leather shoes to strawberry jam.
Having loaded up 5 Lt of water, a dozen of danish pastries and croissants, a box of seedless grapes and a bottle of OJ, I was prepared to move on to my next destination....... which sadly was to return to the hotel because of the bulkiness and heaviness of the goodies.




So when I was back at Sol again, it was already 21:00 and I really had to hunt for dinner... Hunting for dinner was not easy in Madrid as many restaurants were not tourists-oriented. i.e. no English Menu! I finally wandered into Plaza Mayor where there were tons of open-air restaurants... almost all English menus offered similar things. After seeing a japanese guy sat down at a restaurant after looking at the menu for a long time, I also followed suit and sat down at the same restaurant too..........
...............Argggggggggggggghhhhhh...............
I had the most expensive meal ever in my entire trip! (EUR 20.20 for 2 entree-sized sauteeed mushroom & Tagliatelle Carbonara and 1 half litre bottle of spring water!)




Having said that, dining openly at Plaza Mayor had a different atmosphere than dining in Las Ramblas. In Las Ramblas, you just saw people passing by. In this Plaza people actually came and gathered in this one big square. Some just sat and rested here, some listened to the "concert".. and there were also street performers and hawkers here too.. I even saw a Chinese trying to promote the foot massage service! You would not feel like dining alone! (though it really hurted my wallet *weep*)


No world cup today!

My foot prints: Basilica de Santa Maria del Mar, Museu Picasso, Mercat de Sant Josep, Placa de Catalunya, Barcelona Airport, Madrid Airport, Puerta del Sol, Plaza Mayor

Stay: Lisboa Hostal Madrid (EUR 39, single room)


]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vipro/spain_2006/1152243000/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vipro/spain_2006/1152243000/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vipro/spain_2006/1152243000/tpod.html Tue, 28 Aug 2007 12:21:44 -0400 No pain, no Spain! A country that made me hot and "sweaty"!

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Montserrat, Spain

DAY 3: Barcelona and Montserrat (Near Barcelona)

Pilgrimage: A journey to a sacred place. To the local Catholics, Montserrat is a sacred place to them; to the Barcelonian football fans, what is more sacred than the Camp Nou?
As Vicky and Kit decided to hit for the beach today, I decided to do some hiking and went to Montserrat myself. On the way to the train station in Placa D' Espanya I came across a local trade fair called
BBB (Bread & Butter Barcelona)... well, as I didn't have time and the ticket to get in, so I wonder whether they would be trading marmalade and margarine as well as bread & butter!
There are two means to get to Montserrat:
1) By train and cable car
2) By train and rack railway (ie those trains that are suitable for climbing steep mountains)



Now this would be an excellent oppotunity to compare the Spanish Cable Car System to our "proudly presents" Ngong Ping 360 (?VfO360), so there was no reason why I didn't take the cable car instead.
After "repetitive trials" (ie 2) of the Montserrat Aeri (cable car), though it was much much older, at least the service was smooth, on-time and did not stop even when the wind blowed. :P To be honest, this cable car journey was one of the steepest climbs I have ever had! well... at least compared to Ocean Park's. (Actually the vertical climb near the end of the journey reminded me of a scene in James Bond's For Your Eyes Only where the basket (and the people inside) was lift up to the monastery high above a vertical cliff)

Montserrat is famous for 3 things:
1) Black Virgin Mary
2) A monastery built on top of serrated mountains
3) The professional-grade boys choir Escolania, who would sing at 13:00 everyday.
Well it seemed that the choirboys were on once-a-year school holidays in July and they were replaced by a not-so-professional British choir which I also missed because the performance time was changed to 12:00 in July.
Another disappointment was the monastery looked too touristy. I didn't see any black hooded Benedictine monks walking around or chanting prayers, but instead waves and waves of tourists of various nations and school kids. (Sorry no one from Hong Kong bothered to come up.. I only saw some Japanese girls)

Ignoring the disappointments, Montserrat and the monastery still gave me a sense of sacredness and tranquility. At least the air was a lot cooler on the mountain than the boiling hot humid atmosphere down in Barcelona.
The statue of Black Virgin was placed behind the altar of the Basilica. (Free admission) Pilgrims had to line up outside the Basilica just to wait to go and see the statue, and to touch the wooden orb that Mary held. (The orb was the only part of the statue that was exposed to public. The rest of the statue was enclosed in a glass container) Legends said whoever touched the orb would get the blessing from Our Mother....... and of course I touched it too.

Lunch was taken in a cafeteria in the Montserrat where you "ordered" (in my case "pointed") your food at the counter and paid on the exit (just like a university canteen) In my case I had the very salty Butifarra (sausage) and Creme de Catalana (like the French Creme Brulee). It turned out the potatoes were the best! (EUR 9.1)

There was an option to take the rack railway further up to the top of the mountain to do some hiking but I decided to rush off to another pilgrimage: Camp Nou.

If you are a soccer fan and if you watch Spanish League you would certainly know what FC Barcelona is. (Barca as the local would call it) The headquarter of this football club is in the stadium Camp Nou.
You must really have a true heart to go on a pilgrimage as the road was never easy. After getting off from the nearest metro station, I had to walk around 10 minutes to reach the stadium, then discovered that the entrance was on the other side of this massive stadium, so I had to walk for another 5-10 minutes before reaching the main entrance..... mind you, you must be a real fan to walk all that far under 38+ C degrees just to visit a football stadium.
Under the influence of Captain Tsubasa (e??c???f), the Camp Nou was not quite what it seemed to be. (and the author had researched! *sigh*) In order to have a real look of a true stadium, I parted 11 Euros for a self-guided tour around the stadium. Inside you had the priviledge of taking photos with Ronaldinho (full-size cardboard figure -_-" ....... I'd rather prefer japanese blow-up maiden dolls if u ask me), visited the chapel (I must say it must be for the players' last-minute prayers) and the museum. The highlight of the musuem was a chance to take a photo while holding the UEFA champions league 2006 trophy cup replica!
As it turned out that I looked more like a worker of a housemoving company than a football team captain holding the championship's trophy, I decided to save my 10 Euros for the photo. My last mission of the trip was the "crazy" shopping of Barca stuff in the official store... but having stuffed myself with those souvenirs, it turned out that the "official" hawker store right outside the entrance of the stadium was also selling exactly the same stuff (with the same holographic sticker) with much cheaper prices!

Agreed to meet Vicky and her friends for dinner at 21:00 so I quickly rushed back to hotel for a shower. It was also the first time I experienced the "quickness" of the Barcelona metro. First, the entire line 3 (green line) was shut down (ie no entry was allowed through the ticket gates), then re-opened after a short while (luckily I did not go away); then waited for 10 minutes before a train came; then stopped at each station in between, with the waiting time in a station's platform greater than the travelling time between each station.
Becoz of that, I could just barely make it on time at the meeting place when I realized all the others arrived much later! (so why the rush?) Dinner was eaten at a local pub-like restaurant (La Esquinica) and it was a tapas night. Alex ordered many dishes of tapas of different varieties and I only remembered I ate a lot of pig's blood and organs... another interesting thing was that you could only pay to the waiter who served you but not to the other waiters... they actually rejected (?) you when you asked for the bill. (EUR 53.35 for 5 ppl)
Having said good-bye to them (All four of them would be heading off to Pamplona for the bull-running festival on the next day) I headed back to the hotel at 23:00. Travelling at night was actually not as bad as ppl said. I believe there were pickpockets everywhere, but I hadn't seen any robberies, physical assaults or bag snatching in Barcelona yet! Thank God!

No world cup today!

My foot prints: Placa d' Espanya, Montserrat, Camp Nou

Stay: Opera Hostal, Barcelona (EUR 43, single room)

P.S. Oh btw, BBB was really a trade show for contemporary top genre fashion!
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