Egpyt 3.0 -Real Cairo-

Day three Egypt was a very looooong day for us. We checked out from Sofitel Hotel at 9am and proceed to The Famous Cairo Museum. I purposely left my short pants in the hotel room because one of my mission during travels is to dispose of my old clothing.

This one was a bit hard to dispose because it has been loyally protecting my ass for 5years now. I bought it before I went to UK in 2004 from Wangsa Maju Carefour. Only RM15, durable but not pretty, in fact LL hated it when I wear this! Bye2 baby, I hope the cleaner that adopted you take good care of ya!

The journey to centre of Cairo brougt me face to face with the infamous Cairo traffic, not as bad as those I had experienced in Kathmandu, Nepal. There iss a part of Cairo that is known as little Paris (-ve any imaginative romantic scenes because this place is dirty) because it was build by Napoleon during his short reign and s0ha blame this little Paris for the bad traffic in Cairo. Little Paris was designed with a roundabout represent the sun in the middle from there a lot of small roads as the sun rays.

After battling through Cairo traffic for an hour, we reached the gate of Cairo Museum and S0ha warned us “No Photo No Video, two metal detectors and tons of guards”. Beside the drawings and crafting on the walls, there isn’t anything left inside all the pyramids; they are either looted or with museums around the world. There were lotta familiar faces among the crowd, most were the people we seen at the Pyramids and they were here in Museum as well.

Everything inside the pyramids, tombs and temples has been looted. The best place to see them is the museum. The museum did not look impressive but it do look very antics, maybe the wanna keep the antics looks to show it anticness.

There are lots and lots of ancient relics inside Cairo museum. There are so many relics that some are still yet to be unwrapped from boxes used to transport them. I was made known that Egypt’s government is building a new museum and the fact that new relics are found almost everyday in Egypt making the museum looks more like a warehouse. Very untidy for a world class museum.

We paid an extra 100 Egyptian pounds to see the mummies, 13 of them in total. Not a beautiful sight but worth the money. They all looks like dried ducks meat with hairs and nails still intact, not a delicious looking meat but much more expensive than the dried ducks meat.

Histories lesson from S0oha but I only recall few, as the over crowded Museum not a good place for memorizing stuffs.

1. There was actually a female pharaohs, Queen Hatshepsut (pronounced as Ha–Chip–Su, sounds like Harisu) and she had no husband but more than a thousands male lovers. Her mummies was one of the 13 I have seen, but I'm not sure which one was her and I also have no intention of getting up close and personal with them, neither do the museum allow it. All her statues are in male form, S0ha said it’s because she wanted to show she is equal of man but I think she was ashamed to be a woman.

2. The scarab beetles known as Kheper in Egypt as regarded as perfect because they *Pat Lam Pat Lui* arent male nor female, so they are "ah Gua". Nowadays we despise Ah Gua but ancient Egyptian thinks that Ah Gua is perfect woh, such a contradicting view.

3. There was one Pharaoh (forget his name adi), about 3500years ago changed Egypt religion from multi-God to Single-God. Some "rumour spreader" believed that, he saw his father ( also Pharoah but I cant recall his name either) armies being crushed by Moses’s One God. But Egyptian converts back to multi-God after his death and destroy all his Statues as well. *Sei tak hau cham ah!*

4. My favourite part of Egypt history was those Sphinxs in Chinese look-alike face, Genghis Khan Head with Lion body. Mongolian did rulezzzzzzzz Egypt for 200 years, for all their building expertises Egyptian were never strong in wars.

This Mongolian story was good for scaring traders away. When you walked pass any store, the salesperson will started ask “Japanese?” “Chinese?” “Korean?” so from now on I just reply “I am Mongolian, we used to rule you for 200 years” Wakakaka, not very diplomatic but very fulfilling.

S0oha talked about British refusal to return Egypt’s ancient relics from London Museum. After I visited Cairo Museum, I will not recommend the British to return those relics too. There were signs “Do Not Touch” inside the Museum but there was no guard or barrier that prevents people from get in contact with some relics. In my 2 hours stay in the museum I have seen people touch, lean and even sat on Relics.

Just imagine, if “Mona Lisa Painting” belongs to the Cairo Museum. She will be verrrrrrrry lucky if she is still there after a week and if she still there after a week, I think she will be naked by then as too many people could have molested her.

The journey from CairoMuseum to our next destination which was secret (I persumed as S0oha never told us where were we going)? Anyway... It was an interesting journey, Sheeps crossing sky bridges... LOL!

Hospital for animals! Dang...

Super size Watermelon...

And also Car from Hollywood! It took us about an hour to reach our next "secret" destination! Salah Al-Din Citadel! Not him again! I had enough of him in Jordan. Its here that we receive our bad news; no sleepers trains, only second class train to Luxor! Sibei duuuuuuuulan adi!

Citadel of Saladin is located at the highest point in Egypt, build by who else? Salah Al-din lorrrr. Today there are about 120 pyramids left in Egypt and Saladin has destroyed 60 of its to build this place. That's 1/3 of total pyramids build in Egypt since 7000years ago. It was like killing 1/3 of Giant Panda in China, so what is the punishment?

Inside the citadel there is a smaller replica of Istanbul Blue Mosque. Inside this mosque there is the corpse of Mohammad Ali (Not the boxer, he isnt dead yet). This mosque is known as Mohammad Ali Mosque and because of this mosque, people also call this Citadel, Citadel of Mohammad Ali. So many names...

"Made in France" means useless product in Egypt because Egyptian made a bad deal with France some years ago. Egypt gave France one few thousands years old Obelisk in exchange of this Big Clock. This big clock, which located at Saladin Citadel, stopped working 2days after the exchanges of gifts. I wont change an ancient relics for a millions clocks, even if the millions clock works perfectly. Cunning French or Stupid Egyptian or maybe both but that’s history. In fact lotta Egypt ancient stuffs has been looted out of the country so its better to give officially than being looted lorr.

The view up there was very good, with one side showing the whole of Cairo and the other side the hills where all the materials for pyramid are taken from. How I wished this was Mid Valley Citidel not Saladin Citadel! It was 1pm but we didnt had our lunch yet and our next destination wasnt lunch as well because we had to rush to another place before it close at 3pm. Ramadan everything close at 3pm... Rush! Rush! Rush!

A Van trip to errrrrrrrrr "secret" location. According to this signboard, this place is known as Qash El-Shama but that name doesnt seems to come up in the internet. Anyway, there were churches, synagogue and fortress inside this ancient city. If not mistaken S0oha did mention something about Fotress of Babylon! Too many places to recall... hehe!

Church of Saint Barbara (Sitt Barbara) build long-long time ago to Commemorate St. Barbara, a beautiful young women who deeds, You can search from WWW!

Unlike all the others tourist spots we went in Egypt, this place was different. Different in the sense that, the traders dont "FORCE" us to buy their stuffs and they even let us took photograth of their works.

Apart from the traders, stuff sold here are also different. Most of them paintings and photos of Jesus!!! s0oha said there is still 12% of Egyptians are christian but all the Egyptian I know in Dubai are Muslim lor?

Nunnery of Saint George, not a spelling mistale of Nursery. Its a NUN-nery! A place for Nun... Not sure if there were any Nun left but I didnt see a single one that day.

Then we went to a Ben Ezra Synagogue. According to local tradition, it is located on the site of where baby Moses was found. S0ha said there is only less 100 Jewish left in Egypt and most of them are old woman. It was an interesting place but no photo was allowed. Before we left, the woman guardian of the house request some tiger palm oil from us because she got headache. Chinese medicine so famous, even Jewish also know. KEKEKE!

S0ha talked about Jewish, she said “Jewish that settled in Jerusalem are not the real Jewish, they just convert to Jewish and claim those land. Most Jewish has move out of Jerusalem or have converted to Christianity or Islam”. Wah liu eh! Wanna make up story also please be smarter la, Cruel Angel was there la!

The Hanging Church El Muallaqa, Dedicated to the Virgin Mary. A hanging church is not what I have expected, I expected it to be something like our Kampung Hanging bridges. The Hanging derives its name from its location on top of the southern tower gate of the old Babylon fortress with its nave suspended above the passage.

The Holy Journey in Egypt, this is for Jacob, Moses and Israelite stories. Wanna know more asked past0r la.

If not mistaken this is an orthodox church and like the catholic churches, there are candles for worshipper to light it on. After some of the worshipper left, came a man that put off all those candles. Opps! Did they man just put off all those worshippers’ wishes? I caught him red-handed just like MCA "VICE" President!

After the synagogue, so0ha lead us to the street. I dunno where was she leading us but that’s her style, the style of secret agent! On the street one guy was pushing a donkey on his cart, this donkey must be very sick. Pity it! A healthy one sure wont get this kinda treatment.

Then we went to another The Mosque of Amr Ibn El-Aas which is the first mosque in the whole of Africa. It has been expanded 10x its original size. 10x it original size... walau eh! macam didnt get pre-approved plan la.

With 3 louds speakers on each side, 4 sides equal 12louds speakers. With 12 biggies do everyone come to pray? I didnt go into the mosque because I dont wanna take off my shoes, some more no mood adi after s0oha said we gonna take a 2nd class train.

I did a very stupid things here, I missed placed my lumix and thought I lost it. Everyone was helping me to find the camera and Roy found it inside my pant's knee pocket. That add to so0ha misery lol! She didnt scold me ask she was already sibei malu didnt get us the promised sleeper train ticket mah!

There were even kids asking for money inside the mosque, what a great place! I left my can of coke here since there wasnt any dustbin available and also there were lot more rubbish in the vicinity before I arrive.

The driver dropped us off near a mosque, the mosque was located near the bazaar. A Boxing match is fight in a boxing ring, a Tennis match is play in a tennis court and our Egypt wars were fought in the Bazaar. The Bazaar as known to us tourist is actually known as Khan el-Khalili, once known as the Turkish bazaar.

We reached the bazaar around 6pm, time for buka puasa. Just like any islamic country, there were lot of free food on the table. The s0oha has been looking at us eating and drinking the whole day, she was quite pissed off. She kept saying "how do you feel when you eat infront of people who cant eat!"

Aiy0, sometimes I beh tahan her attitude. Not that we dont let you eat, infact I was willing to buy her food but she didnt want to eat because of her religious belib la! We should we fast because of her? There were 8 of us la, majority win mah. Somemore lotta kwai lol also eat like hungry ghost and sunbath in bikini la.

There were lotta interesting stuffs in the bazaar, like this super size teapot. There were lot of traders trying to get our attention by asking "Japanese? Korean? Chinese?". Since I learnt about genghis khan used rulez Egypt for 200years, I replied "I am mogolian, we used to rule you for 200years!" hahaaha... They always stunned when I answer that, I think most traders dont have a clue where is mogolia!

S0oha asked us not to buy anything apart from shops she recommended. I have no problem with that because shops she recommended save us the hassle of negotiating with them. Anyway, I wasnt interested to buy anything as I hate taking heavy luggages we have 3 more places to go before going back to Dubai. Just as expected s0oha said she gonna left as for 5mins to take our train ticket but only came back more than 30min later! L0l!

Nothing interest me except this God of Sex! Wow, his pennis is almost the same size as his legs. I didnt bought anything from this shops but they bought a few rings and bracelets with the names written in Heligraphic Writting (Ancient egyptian). Not cheap le, a cheap metal ring for 60LE and bracelet for 90LE!

Guess What! The biggest mystery of all Egypt! IN ARABIC this is "MADE IN CHINA"! wakakaka, everything made in china la. Better go China to buy Egyptian Sourvenior lol!

There were lotta interesting food but not recommended to take, since you know la! Even foreigner cant take mamak stall stuff same thing with us lol, need sometimes in the toilet to adjust la.

We cruised the bazaar for few hours and back to this mosque waiting for the Van to send us to the train station.