Abydos and Dendara Temple

  Luxor, Egypt
Friday, March 14, 2008

As we left Sohag it was very (and unusually) quiet. There was next to no one in the street (cars or pedestrians). Today is Friday and the weekend for Egyptians. It is the main prayer day for Muslims.

There are beautiful tiled mosaic walls in Sohag but as we were on the bus, I couldn't get a photo.

We have really enjoyed our time in these rural villages, where there are not tourists everywhere. That sounds hypocritical when we are tourists too! I can't really explain it but it makes the different culture and experiences seem more real and interesting.

I want to give you a picture if I can, of some of the dwellings we have seen. The poorest dwelling would be four sticks in the ground with a roof woven together with sticks and the with sugar cane husks and leaves places on top for the roof. Some have sugar cane leaves and stalks tied together to make a wall with the entrance remaining open. This type of wall is also used for pens/fences for their animals too. In many places the animals seem to live in the same dwelling with their owners.

There are also mud brick homes. Sometimes the bricks are visible and at other times they have been smoothed to give a rendered type finish. The roof is primarily made of sticks and sugar cane husks as previously described. Sometimes it is piled high and doubles as the feed storage. The windows don't often have glass in the poorer areas and are normally shutters for privacy.

Then we have the homes made of white limestone with mortar. Some of these are rendered with what looks like concrete and some are painted. It seems that the sugar cane/fodder roof is the most common as it can be easily removed and another level built easily if the family expands.

So what did we do today?

Police Escort

With police escort behind and in front, we continued on the Abydos. It is a beautiful temple where alot of the original color remains.

Ramses II Temple Abydos

Colorful picures inside Ramses II Temple

Hieroglyphics Ramses II Temple Abydos

We had to wait until after 1pm to leave as the main prayer was still going. We had Falafel (not real sure of spelling) for lunch. It is a pita type pocket filled with what initially looked like meatballs. However, once you bite into it, it wasn't meat but bright green. They vary what goes into it but I think ours was celery, parsley and some type of bean, which had been rolled into balls then fried. It was quite nice.

From now on we travel in bus convoys so wont be the only tourists at sites. The police escort has been increased. We had two police cars in front (we were the first bus) and there were two motorbikes, which moved up and down the convoy and another police car at the rear of the convoy.

Mum was tired and had a Nanna nap on the bus. After all, she is a Nanna!

The God Bes at Hathor Temple Dendera

Next stop was Dendara, the temple to Hathor. There were great hieroglyphics. The second level of the temple also remains. We were walking on huge paving stones/rocks which had no pillars of support to keep them up! Architectural magnificance.

Hathor suckling a child at Dendera

This temple is also called the "Revolution Temple" unofficially as none of the cartouches contain names like normal and many of the hieroglyphics speak very badly about the Romans who occupied Egypt at this time but could not understand hieroglyphics. You can see that the Egyptian sense of humour has been around for some time!

Sal got very annoyed with another tourist group at Luxor. There were a group of French tourists and they were taking photo's with flash and leaning on the walls. Unfortunately it didn't make a difference. They had no respect.

We arrived at Luxor at about 6pm. We went out for tea. Mum's chicken was so tough that she couldn't even cut it. When they came to collect her untouched plate and realised she wasn't happy they gave her free Apple Pie. She would have preferred not to pay. Mum is even less adventurous with food than me!

Mum is having a great time. Even better than she expected. She also especially enjoyed seeing the farming areas.