Today, I will be sharing my travelogue of Egypt with all of you. It was an amazing trip and I enjoyed it very much.
The only negatives of the trip were that it was quite hectic and left me completely exhausted. We had to get up very early for some of the places in Egypt.
But, in this travelogue, I will be sharing some of the places that I visited and what I saw there. So, without further delay, let's get started.
To kickstart things, we firstly took a flight from Raipur to Mumbai on the 16th of September in the evening. The next day, we had a flight from Mumbai to Bahrain that took 3 hours.
From Bahrain, we had another 3-hour flight to Cairo. The airport in Bahrain was so pretty and clean that we couldn't help but take lots of photos. They even had a memorial sort of figure that they had installed at the airport.
We reached Cairo on the 17th of September in the evening. We stayed at the Movenpick hotel there. The hotel was very nice and comfortable.
The next day, we got up and went to see The Great Pyramids of Giza and Sphinx.
The pyramids were so huge that we had to raise our heads all the way up. Tourists are allowed to explore the pyramids from the inside as well. Only one of the pyramids is open to tourists. But, we decided to just climb up and then down from the outside of the pyramid.
Then we saw the Sphinx in all of its glory and took pictures. It looked much bigger than we have seen in pictures. I was so happy to finally see the pyramids and Sphinx for real.
Tourists also can take pictures of the pyramids by placing their hands at an angle that it feels like they are touching the top of the pyramid. A similar activity is done in India with the Taj Mahal.
After this, we went to the famous Egyptian museum where there are various artefacts related to the Egyptian civilization.
After the museum, we had our flight for Aswan in the evening. We went straight to the airport and waited for our flight to arrive. But, it was so torturous as we waited for almost 1-2 hours because of the delayed arrival of the flight.
In Aswan also, we stayed at a Movenpick hotel which we had to go through by motorboat. That hotel was even better than the one in Cairo. But, again the next day we had to get up pretty early.
The next day, we went to a perfume factory and cotton factory in Aswan where they made these things. We saw the glass making at the perfume factory in which they keep the attars.
At the cotton factory, we bought some clothes made of Egyptian cotton. It was a nice visit to these two places.
In the evening, we went to stay on the cruise ship that would take us from Aswan to Luxor. We took some rest on the cruise ship.
This was my first cruise ship ride so I wanted to make the most of it. The name of our cruise ship was Iberotel Crown Emperor.
The first temple that we saw was the Philae Temple. It is dedicated to the Goddess Isis. We even had a sound and light show that same evening at this temple.
The next day, we got up early yet again to go to Edfu Temple. It was a great temple.
The temple is dedicated to Horus and has many beautiful carvings on its walls. All of the Egyptian temples had these carvings telling the achievements and stories of Gods and kings.
Then there is always a sanctum sanctorum where the Egyptians placed a statue of the God or Goddess. One more thing to keep in mind in these temples is that there is always a trinity of Gods and Goddesses that have a temple dedicated to them.
On the evening of the same day, we went to see the temple of Kom-Ombo which also has a crocodile museum.
The temple of Kom-Ombo is dedicated to the crocodile God, Sobek and also to Horus. In the crocodile museum, we saw the mummified Nile crocodiles. They were pretty huge.
The next temple that we went to see was the temple of Abu Simbel. There are two temples in the same complex that are dedicated to the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramesses II and his first wife Nefertari. They were very huge and very beautiful to look at.
The next thing on our itinerary was the Valley of the Kings. It houses the tombs of the many Pharaohs who ruled Egypt during the ancient civilization. Tourists are allowed to visit only the three tombs which are of Ramesses IX, Ramesses III and Ramesses I. Inside these tombs, there are colourful panels which have retained their colours till now.
I recommend that you see the tomb of Ramesses I as it is the most colourful out of the three tombs. But, it is also the deepest tomb as he ruled Egypt for a very long time. The tomb of the boy king Tutankhamun is also present in the valley.
Once we reached Luxor, our guide took us on a whole trip to the various temples present in Luxor. Some of these temples were the temple of Hatshepsut, Luxor Temple and Karnak Temple.
Another place that we saw was the Colossi of Memnon. It contains two statues of the Pharaoh Amenhotep III. Both the statues have been now defaced but they are pretty colossal to look at.
After a whirlwind tour of all the major temples, we did some shopping at Luxor's El Souk market. It is an excellent market to get various types of traditional Egyptian stuff such as souvenirs, clothes, spices etc.
The souvenirs that I recommend that you must buy are the statues of Tutankhamun and Nefertiti along with a Papyrus painting and an Egyptian plaque that depicts ancient Egyptian life.
Some of the other factories that we visited in Egypt were those of Papyrus making and Alabaster. We bought a painting from the factory.
We also did a hot air balloon ride over Luxor and saw the various temples from high in the sky. It was a good ride.
Our flight was from Luxor to Cairo and from there to Abu Dhabi, Mumbai and then back to Raipur on the 24th of September.
So, this was my one-week itinerary of Egypt. Although it was a bit chaotic and tiring, we still managed to cover all the major spots of this place.
Hope you too will also like to plan a trip to this wonderful country. But, I would recommend that you go during the winter months which start from October. We went in the summer month and the sweltering heat just made us tired. The temperature this time around is 40 degrees plus.
The Nile is the major river for Egypt and is supplying water to it for thousands of years. And the amazing fact is that the Nile never dries up and is always full of water all year round. Even when we were on the cruise, we could see the high water content of the Nile.
So, now I take leave of all my dear readers so that they can read and enjoy this amazing travelogue. I will be back with a new travelogue very soon. Till then take care and cheers.
