The Land of Nile

Aswan, a smallish town, is where you find Nile in all his glory. This is the land of Nubian, of temples that were submerged under the High Dam. On our first day in Aswan, we were shown the controversial boon to the Egyptians - the High Dam, the smaller Aswan Dam and the Philae Temple.

The High Dam threatened to submerged 23 temples built along the banks of Nile in and around Aswan. It also took down a village of the Nubians who were relocated to safer parts of Aswan, a move they were clearly not happy about. But then again, it supposed to be a boon to the whole of Egypt, not just aswan! We also got a quick and almost passionate heads up of the significance of 6th of Oct and the love lost between Egypt and Israel etc.,

As for Philae temple, it was built for the ancient Egyptian god Isis. In the course of being informed about ancient Egyptian gods and religion, we ended up having a discussion about the religions of the world, with our man Shieko. When Shieko got highly emotional about Islam, we realised it was time to stop!

The next day we were to take the early morning (well actually its almost middle of the night for us) convoy to the temple of Ramses II in Abu Symbel. This was the highlight of the trip for me.

First driving down a desolate high way in the middle of nowhere (only desert all around!) in the middle of the night at over 100km/hr; watching the sun rise over Nile, the 4 large statues of Ramses II sitting magnificently on the west bank facing east as though overlooking the whole process of sun rise. It definitely was the best part of the trip for me. To add to the fun, was our guide, Reham, a young girl from Aswan who had just finished her course in tourism. Her passion for the temple and King Ramses was funny but also sweet. But the real icing on the cake was the priceless expressions on the faces of the American father-son duo who were our company that morning.

The rest of the evening was spent strolling along the corniche in Aswan, watching the sun set, followed by the dinner. Now, I must mention about this dinner - for it exemplifies my main gripe with Egypt. So in this restaurant we had dinner at, we were greeted in the usual 'oh you are Indian, I love India, Indians very nice etc.,' way. Furthermore the waiter assured us that he knows (in an almost sympathetic way!) that we are vegetarians and he will ensure we get the best and their special vegetarian food. So far so good. The food arrives, it is about as good as you can expect in Egypt (Egypt is not a place for food, we were warned and it is indeed true!). He then asks us to give us 50E£ as he doesn't have change and assures us that he would deduct it from the bill. We are a bit perplexed but there can be no harm in it, can there? So we oblige. We then ask for the bill and he comes up with the number 103E£ - in addition to the already handed over 50E£. That means our bill is £150E£. But surely something is wrong. As per the menu card, even if we over estimate and add service charges (which can be more than 20% in some cases!) etc., our bill shouldn't be more than 75E£. So we ask our man quite innocently, if we could have a breakup of our bill, only so we could be more informed about what we are paying for. He loses his cool now. He hands us our 50E£ back, and after 15 long minutes comes up with the bill - a total of 43E£! What the hell! So how did he come up with the 150E£ before??!!!

My point here is, if you want more money, just state it in the menu card! I don't mind paying more for something, as far as you are honest. What is all this cheating about? See, I am not trying to taint Egypt; it is a beautiful place, undoubedtly, but this kind of cheating, which is not a one off case btw, sticks out like sore thumb!

With our stay in Aswan ending on a sour note, we were not really looking forward to our Luxor trip the following day!