The Land of Thebes

Luxor, the ancient capital, turned out to be the surprise package for me. I say surprise because my expectations had been severely diminished after Aswan. But the land of Thebes as it was popularly referred to in the glorious times of the Pharaohs was truly magical. One can truly experience 'timelessness' here.

We began our sojourn in Luxor with the 'traditional' felucca ride on the Nile. We were taken to Banana Island where we were made to taste the Egyptian version of our Yelakky! I wouldn't call it an 'out of the world' experience, but the sail back at sunset was refreshing certainly.

That evening we were to watch the sound&light show at the Karnak temple and what an evening it turned out to be! The magnificent temple, the biggest of all the pharaonic temples, in the heart of the land of Thebes, is dedicated to Sun god - Amun Ra. Every Pharaoh worth his salt wanted to leave his mark in this temple, it is said, not only to pay his obeisance to the most celebrated God but also to proclaim his superiority. The temple stands on the East Bank of the river Nile; East Bank is more famously referred to as the 'land of the living'. This was the place where pharaonic civilization flourished!

In the late hours of the evening, when Amun Ra had called it a day, we were transported back to the glorious bygone years, thousand of them. We sat there partly enraptured, partly sad (that it was all gone!) but mainly spellbound! I can't say if it was the beauty of the place, the quality of the show or just my minimal expectations that were surpassed that made me fall in love with the place. But I can say that simply imagining the life that must've been in the ancient land of Thebes was exhilarating! At the end, the silence and darkness added to a strangely likeable eeriness to the air.

With Amun Ra and others fleeting in and out of my head, I started the following day, more upbeat and excited than I had been the whole of the trip. We were to visit the West Bank, known as the 'land of the dead'. It was the place where the Pharaohs, after having lived a glorious life in the East Bank, were buried in their magnificent tombs - all preparations for their after life being made elaborately. There are more than 60 tombs of the Pharaohs excavated so far, in the Valley of Kings and many more of the Queens and Noble men in the Valley of Queens. Then there was this beautiful temple of the Queen of Hatschepsut (a tongue twister of a name that I finally got round to pronouncing properly!) to be seen.

We could get into any 4 of the many tombs in the Valley of Kings for one ticket. Our guide, a young girl from Luxor (let's call her Samira, for I don't remember her name but it was something like that), patiently and enthusiastically educated us on all and sundry of the valley; she even gave us a mini discourse on stories of after life - most of which of course went way over my head! We gave the Tutankhamen's tomb a miss (it's not much of a miss I am told!) but the tomb of one of the Ramses (5 or 6or something like that) was great. It is the deepest of all and once again made me sufficiently claustrophobic; and once again I survived (too bad for you!).

As we were on a time crunch, we decided to give Valley of Queens a miss; the tomb of Nefretari or Nefertiti, one of them is supposed to be the most beautiful tomb That tomb was closed anyway, so there was no point in going up to Valley of Queens.

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Nefertari is the wife of Amenothoph, uncle of Tut but more commonly known as the Pharaoh who wanted to get rid of the God Amun Ra and believed that there was only one god, 'Love'. He was the first known Monotheist of that age.

Nefertiti, is the wife of Ramses 2, the most beautiful women; now Ramses had many wives but Nefertiti was his beloved, so it was widely believed that she knew some sort of magic (hee hee!).
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We then turned to the temple of Queen Hatschepsut (seriously, try pronouncing it!); Samira made me say it over and over again till I got it right :-)! Oh, btw, Samira, her mom, her entire family loves India, Indian movies; they think Indians are the best dancers in the world. She thinks Indian women are the most beautiful in the world etc., etc.,! :)

Anyway, Queen Hatschepsut was the eldest daughter of one of the Pharaohs (my memory!) and she believed she had the right to throne more so than any one else. She built the temple, again for Amun Ra, directly opposite to the temple at Karnak. It was built at an elevation in such a way that when Amun Ra woke up in the morning, as his rays gleaming through the magnificent pillars of the temple of Karnak on the opposite bank, one could see him rising, from this temple and pay their obeisance. She was a powerful queen and it is said that her rule was a period when the Land of Thebes was beautified a great deal. But the jealous Amenotophe along with tutmosis 3 (who was her Nephew and wanted the throne!) tried to overthrow her and in the process damaged the beautiful temple a fair deal as well.

One can approach the temple of Queen Hatschepsut by foot from Valley of Kings. It's roughly a 45 minute hike. But if you intend to do that, you need to reach the place really early in the morning, if you don't want to be fried (or deep fried) that is! We of course neither went early nor had the time for the hike. On the way back we stopped for a quick photo stop at the Colossi of Memnon, ruins (destroyed by earthquake) of what was once a huge Colossi ;-P. If you insist, this is the story of the colossi!

We didn't have time to do much else in Luxor as we were to reach the bus station to take our first public (read non touristy!) bus trip to our next stop, the Red Sea Coast!

The bus journey was an experience. We got to listen to some Sufi chants (at least I think they were) and watch an Arabic movie. It soon became obvious why Egyptians are crazy about Hindi movies and more importantly why they think Indians are great dancers! And I had no clue what I had just seen. It seemed like some random collection of unrelated scenes (comedy scenes at that).

After 6 long hours (the roads were amazing, a private car should be able to do the distance in 2.5 or 3 hours!) we reached Hurghada - a small but immensely popular coastal resort.

Before leaving though I would only say and say so with much conviction that a trip to Egypt sans Luxor is best not done!

P.S - I am not sure how many of the facts (if any!) I have got correct(haven't got the best memory I am afraid!)