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Small Talk:
No, I haven’t forgotten about the Travelogs. In fact, after blogging normally for a while, I realised that I’m running out of stuff to write about. So, with lots of pictures I still want to show you, here it is. More pictures from Egypt!

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After a hearty lunch on board the MS Orchestra [our cruise ship] I took a short nap before I heard the loud honks of the many cruise ships docked at Esna. I then realised that the synchronised honks [yes, the ships actually honked in a very systematic rhythm] signaled that the cruise has begun.

Lugging my camera with me, I went up to the top deck and found that there were already a lot of people aboard. The staff have already set up a small cafe serving tea, coffee and snacks for the guests. My mom made a mention about a novel titled ‘The Blue Nile‘. It was easy to see why it was titled so.

We departed from Esna at about 4pm, and the sun was just about to set at that time, lending us a beautiful shower of light to drench the landscape in shades of orange and yellow and blue. I couldn’t help but snap away at the scenery because I know I’m never gonna get to see this ever again in my life.

Our ship was one among several hundred cruise ships that ferried some 200-300 tourists on board each. Since everyone was having a good time, and the ships weren’t too far apart from each other, everyone who were on the top deck were waving at every other ship that passed us by - and everyone waved back. It was pretty cool.

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Our tour of East Luxor continues with a visit to another popular destination, The Deir-el Bahri, otherwise known as The Temple of Hatshepsut. Yep, it’s that woman-pharaoh I mentioned in a previous travelog. The Deir-el Bahri is probably the most significant of all the projects executed by Hatshepsut.

Unlike many of the other memorial temples, the Deir el Bahri is a temple complex that is actually carved out of the mountain. Yes, Hatshepsut had the temple be cut out of the sandstone bedrock, which explains how it managed to survive and retain most of its structure. Unfortunately, as I mentioned before, Hatshepsut’s monuments were destroyed by her stepson, and Deir el Bahri was not spared. As such, many of its interior decorations and statues are no more.

After that our guide took us to visit an alabaster factory, where marble ornaments are handmade and sold. The owner explained to us the different types of marble crystals available and how those blocks of marble were carved into various items like pots, plates and statuetttes.

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Small Talk:
More of pictures from my Egypt trip! Yeah, I knew you weren’t waiting for them with baited breath or anything. Still, there’s so many stories and pictures I want to show and share with you :D Tsudzukeru yo!

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After a long nap, I woke up to a nice hot shower and a scrumptuous buffet dinner on board our cruise ship while still docked at Esna. After feeling satisfied, I decided to explore the ship a little bit so I climbed up to the top deck, where there’s a pool, plenty of beach chairs and an open air cafe. Since it was already nighttime and the winds are like razor-sharp cold, there weren’t that many people on the top deck.

However, I looked up and met with a beautiful cloudless sky littered with celestial light.

You seldom [if ever] get so much stars in a single shot here in Malaysia. We have plenty of clouds that obstruct our view, unlike Egypt’s clear blue skies [if you have noticed in previous photos]. This single shot is enough to explain how the Ancient Egyptians came to be such excellent astronomers.

I spent the rest of that night shooting the sky at various different exposures to see if I could get anything interesting, but the one up here is probably the best out of the ones I shot that night. If you must know, yes, I increased the brightness of the stars and gave them a ‘fake’ glow by Gaussian blurring.

The next morning, we rose early to continue with the second part of our tour of Luxor. It was interesting to see locals doing their morning activities - going to school, work, etc. I wondered if the foreigners who come and visit Malaysia feel the same way about us during the mornings. Our coaster arrived and we made a long journey to the other side of the Nile.

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After a long, dark and fucking cold night, I woke up to a shivering morning still on the Luxor-bound train. However, when I looked out the dirty, grimy and fugly windows of the train, I was greeted by some of the most beautiful sceneries I have ever seen in my life.

The express train tore its way across towns, suburbs and naturally, this beautiful rural landscape of fields and and farms. Frankly speaking, the colour combinations were so perfect I never thought I’d live to see it. Along the way, we passed many plantations that pretty much show what kind of agricultural produce that Egypt yields every year. There were various produces including sugarcane, corn, and wheat. There were also orchards bearing apples, oranges and pomegranates, creating a spectrum of beautiful colours decorating that freezing morning.

Some two hours later, our train finally reached its destination. As I disembarked the car, I looked around for a signboard and saw one written in Arabic that read Al-Qusr. Before long, our guide explained that when the Arabs rediscovered this piece of lands, they saw many ruins of temples and intially thought of them and castles and palaces, hence the name Al-Qusr, meaning palaces. When the Europeans came, their lousy frigid tongue couldn’t even pronounce some simple Arabic words and in turn named it to the closest verbal tone they could manage: Luxor.

We had a quick breakfast on board our ride as we made our way to our first destination - The Temple of Karnak.

Our tour of Luxor consisted of several destinations separated by the Nile, conveniently referred to as the Western and Eastern sides of Luxor. We learned later that the Egyptians take everything around them [including themselves] very, very seriously. Most of their beliefs revolve around the Sun’s behaviour of rising from the east and setting in the west. To put simply, when the Sun rises in the east, it symbolises Birth, or the beginning of Life. And - that’s right - when it sets, it symbolises Death. As such, anything that follows this behaviour is instantly regarded as divine and incarnations of various deities. Also, since Egypt is also conveniently divided by the Nile, both sides of the land are also symbolic. If you still follow their logic, lands of the East are known as the Lands of the Living and the west, the Lands of the Dead.

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The drive to Alexandria took us 3 hours along a highway across the desert, and the drive home is of course very much the same. At that time, everyone was happily exhausted from the very active workout and fell asleep for the better part of the journey. However, to be remain seated for over an hour in a constantly shaking vehicle isn’t the most fun thing to do, you see. Luckily for us, our driver realised this and made a pit stop so we could stretch our legs - and also so he could refuel the van.

As you can see, the top half of this image shows the prices for the two different variants of petrol and the bottom half, diesel. I suppose for an Arab country where oil is probably more common than water [lol], having cheap fuel is to be expected. However, we didn’t really get down at the petrol station, but at a rather interesting fruit stall a few minutes further up from the station.

One thing I can say about Egyptian fruits is that they’re absolutely delicious! The oranges are very VERY sweet and the strawberries are super juicy. And uh,.. shall I say that their average sizes are a little bit larger than what we usually find in our region?

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