Egypt Trip (Episode 4)

Day 4 Luxor (8 Nov 2010)
Wake up at 1am in the morning to take a domestic flight to Luxor. Sigh, what a wonderful hotel and we only get to sleep for … 2 hours? Instead of international buffet breakfast, we have to go to the airport in the middle of the night with our breakfast box, like so cham:(

Temple of Karnak
Luxor was called Thebes in the ancient Egyptian time, it has 2 huge temples in the city: Temple of Karnak and Temple of Luxor. These 2 temples are to be connected by 2 rows of Sphinx Avenue which is 2km long. They just made the discovery few months ago and we can still see the excavation work in progress.

The temple of Karnak is the largest religious complex in the human history, the complex contains a group of temples built by different kings across few centuries. Isis told us that we can not tell which king from the look of their faces because all their faces had been idealized and we can only differentiate them through their cartoush. We saw a huge statue of Ramses II at the temple, and Isis said he is a king that likes to erase other king’s work and put his name on it. Ngam dou dak?

Temple of Luxor
This is a very interesting temple, because you will see a modern mosque in the middle of the temple. Why? Because the temple of Luxor was not discovered until the people there were doing restoration work at the mosque.

They used to have 2 obelisks at the entrance of the temple, and the king of France saw it and ask the king of Egypt to give it to him as a present. The king of Egypt didn’t want to give both away and decided to give only one, and the king of France in return give Egypt a clock that is not working.

Nile Cruise
We embark on board to the very much looking forward Nile cruise. Well, everything seems alright until we decided to tour the other cruise and found out that we are the most cheh kai cruise around, reception, shops, swimming pool and even the canopy also of lower standard than the rest..

But the good thing is we have Jacuzzi bath tub in the room and the staff will fold the towel in animal/flower shape everyday on the bed. And the buffet breakfast, lunch and dinner is good. Over makan almost every meal, sometimes we wake up go jalan, come back eat, sleep, wake up, go jalan, come back eat, repeat 2-3 times but it is still within the same day, we felt like we were in Egypt for a month liao.

Egypt Trip (Episode 3)

Day 3 Cairo (7 Nov 2010)

We woke up 6am in the morning and go for a swim at the beautiful Mediterranean Sea. There is nothing to shout about the Alexandria, but the sea itself sets the perfect place for holiday.

Qaitbay’s Fort
Qaitbay’s Fort looks like one of the Disneyland castle, this is the place where one of the ancient wonders of the world, the Pharos lighthouse once stood. The lighthouse was ruined by earthquakes and Qaitbay used its debris in the construction of his fort.

This is just a photo shoot stop, we didn’t go into the fort, but we bought some souvenirs from the stalls nearby (and it turn out to be the cheapest and nicest souvenir of all time!!). We saw a bunch of people fishing at the sea side and their fishing rod is looooooooooong..

Pompey’s Pillar
Pompey’s Pillar has nothing to do with Pompey, it was initially a temple and the granite pillar is actually dedicated to Roman Emperor Diocletain. There was a famine after Diocletian besieged the city, the Emperor ordered some medicine to be given to the people of Alexandria. He exempted them from paying taxes during these hard times. For that they erected, in his honour, this memorial column.

Pompey is some Roman general that some believed, mistakenly, that his ashes, or the remains were in a pot at the top of the column. Thus today it is called “Pompey’s Pillar”.

Alexandria Library
Another photo shoot stop, land mark wo..

Catacomb
Catacomb was discovered when the people were trying to save a monkey that fell down into a hole. Again no photos were allowed. It is a family tomb lie 35 meter underground. In the centre of the 99 steps spiral stairways is the shaft through which the deceased were lowered by means of rope.
It has 3 different sections: 1 for the tomb of the family, 1 for dining room where the relatives feast (lots of broken table ware and wine jugs were found) and 1 for the burial chamber. It is believed that it started as a family crypt and later expanded to become big enough to accommodate 300 tombs altogether.

To Cairo
Tour guide told us the journey to Cairo is 2 hours, but the jam inside Cairo could be 2 hours as well, yes the traffic started in the long stretch of desert road and we see many new developments along the road. Some city are called 6th of October, because it is the last war with Israel, some street are called 26th of July, because that is their revolution day where they started to be a republic country.

Egypt Trip (Episode 2)

Day 2 Alexandria (7 Nov 2010)
Reach Alexandria, the tiny airport has only one luggage belt, and the immigration officer can even smoke at the counter! The first impression of Egypt was really so so.. We changed USD 150 into LE 855.75 (1 USD = 5.7 LE).

Our local tour guide, Isis is a very cheerful lady with all colour coordinated outfit everyday. She teaches us a Egyptian word “habibi” which means darling in English, and that’s how she call us during the whole trip. I can still remember her voice saying “Yalah, habibi, yalah” (Let’s go darling, let’s go)

Montazah Garden
Nothing much to see in Alexandria, went Montazah Garden, situated along the shore, which means access to the lovely beaches and warm Mediterranean Sea water nearby. Nice place to relax on weekend for the local, but for us that come all the way from Kuala Lumpur? I’m a bit disappointed with the arrangement.

Montazah Palace
The Palace was built by King Farouk, that’s why you can see the “F” letter words at all corners of the palace and the daughter and wife also named after some “F” letter words. Funny, the way I say it it’s like THE “f” letter word but trust me it is not, they are just Farouk family..

Quite a boring day until we reach the wonderful powderful hotel at the beach and until they serve us the Kardake (hibiscus drink). Karkade is my favourite local drink in Egypt and I wonder why we have plenty of hibiscus in Malaysia but no one knew that we could make it into drink?

Egypt Trip (Episode 1)

Day 1 Bahrain (6 Nov 2010)
Fly to Bahrain and Gulf Air is a relatively low cost airline, where you can choose the movie you like to watch but you cannot decide when you want to watch because like it or not they screen it all at the same time. And the air stewardess is not polite, no smiling face and serve you food as though you owe them money.

Arrived in Bahrain airport and lost our way, we could not find any of our tour members around, neither transit hall nor arrival hall. Called tour leader but she didn’t on her hand phone (the main point is later on we found out that this is the first time she comes to Egypt and she only joined the company only for 3 months, the rest of the stories I don’t want to tell, don’t want to remember her in the history)

When we first come out from the airport, we saw some cars covered with snow (winter ma..) and the driver corrected us “ it is sand, not snow” Malu betul… Lol

离婚

本来想上网看看在网路上可以找到什么挽救婚姻的方法，最近有两个女性朋友都告诉我她们有离婚的想法。虽然我并不是什么心灵辅导师，也不是什么婚姻专家，可是我觉得一个人在胡思乱想的时候是绝对非常需要一个善意乐观的朋友在身边鼓励开导，否则真的很容易就会想歪头脑，做错决定，后悔莫及。

我知道婚姻是两个人的事，也知道我并不能够做些什么。可是我真的在想，婚姻真的那么脆弱吗？其中一个朋友已经开始搜集关于离婚的资源，相关手续等等。你知道在马来西亚需要结婚至少两年才可以申请离婚吗？如果两年内申请离婚，你必须经过婚姻辅导课程证明两人的感情真的无法挽留法庭才会受理的。

我假装镇定，告诉这位朋友请不要去想如何离婚，请先去想如何挽留这段婚姻。毕竟新婚一两年，可能两人的生活还没有磨合，或者两人的目标还没有确定，或者两人的心态还没有调整，反正怎么样都好一定要大家一起努力过，争取过，千万不要轻易放弃。她知道，所以她给另一半多一次机会，可能是最后一次机会。

虽然马来西亚的离婚率不想西方国家的那么高：美国（51％），澳洲（49％）， 加拿大（49％），德国（44％）。天啊，你可以想像在美国离婚率竟然是51％，根本就是在赌大小，机率一半，我看报道意大利甚至有离婚展览，为大家提供离婚手续或相关的服务。是社会发达的错，还是道德不值钱，还是婚姻失去原有的意义？

同时在网上看到一本书《女人不狠，地位不稳》，里面叫现代女性如何变成三不女人，来保持婚姻的新鲜度。也有其他网站评论，这个三不原理，正好抓住男人的犯贱心理，所以很管用。我真的太天真了，婚姻竟然要有这么多谋算，计划，抓心理，使诡计，婚姻是那么黑暗的吗？白痴的我还以为真诚，坦白，互相体谅，互相尊重就可以了喔。

不过这本书说的一点很真，就是很多女人在婚姻中变成保姆（我觉得我绝对对跌入这个陷阱的其中一人）。为了爱老公，爱小孩，忘了爱自己，结婚几年，老公还容光焕发，做老婆的却看起来像老了十年二十年。圣经不是说过爱是凡事包容，凡事相信，凡事盼望，凡事忍耐，爱是永不止息。难道爱还要算过度过给多少刚好，给多少太多。

想到这里我有点迷路的感觉。。