Day 4 - Aswan, Part II

Dec 12, 2005 - Evening.

By the time we woke up from our slumber in the van, it was already dark and we were rushing in order to get to Philae and catch the Sound and Light Show. I would have loved to say that we arrived there just in time, but we didn't :P We had to use a boat to get to the island, and by the time we got there the show has started around 10 minutes =o/...We couldn't wait and catch for the next show as :


1) The next show was in German (or French I cant remember:P), so we wouldn't have understood it:P

2) We had to get to our Cruise where we will be having our dinner...

The Sound and Light Show was a bit different from what I expected. I though that there will be real life actors reenacting scenes of things that really happened with the temple as the backdrop and stage...in the end it turns out that it's actually just different parts of the temple complex being lit up with different voices narrating and "acting "out the stories...The story that was told was of how the Goddess Isis (whom the temple is dedicated to) went in search of the body of her husband, God Osiris who was murdered by their evil brother Set (it was the custom of the ancient Gods and Pharaoh of Egypt to marry their own siblings). There were actually drawings on the walls depicting the different Gods and Goddesses, so every time someone was talking , the light will fall on the wall with the respctive God's/Goddess' drawing....i.e you imagine that the walls are speaking to you and telling you their stories-lah :P Hmm...interesting :P Nonetheless, the temple is really beautiful though, bathed in yellow light...gives it a kind of eerie beauty....

After the story of Isis and Osiris was told, we were led to an area where there were several rows of benches for us to sit down. From this area we could see the three main temples located on Philae which are the Isis Temple, Hathor Temple and the Temple of Emperor Hadrian. This part of the Sound and Light show tells of the story of how over the years, people of different races (from the Egyptians, Greeks and all those people who came after to rule them:P) and religions has come to this island and used the temple as a place of worship and honour, despite their differences. This part was a bit funny because everytime they wanted to tell about another new bunch of people going to the place, they will play this multi-layered, different, loud and soft and sayup-sayup track of voices that keep chanting :"I come, I come, I come...":P Of course it's to show the diversity of the people coming and how this temple has been honoured through the ages-lah....:P So everytime you hear the "I come, I come, I come..." track coming on you know that it means another new group of people has conquered Egypt or something :P The story of the island is brought across through a conversation between Isis and the River Nile God (i think, or was it Osiris, or Amen-Ra?:P)...Of course they used quite "bunga-bunga" (frilly and poetic) words...They also tell of how men has tamed the River Nile by building the High Dam, and how the temple, like Abu Simbel, had to be transported to its current place in order to not be drowned with the building of the dam...

So anyway, how was this show that our tour guide promised to be so spectacular fared for me?
Uhm, pretty ok I guess....not THAT spectacular:P but the island itself is beautiful...I just wished we could have seen it in the daytime, I'm sure it would have looked quite majestic and magnificent :)...

After the show ended, it was a journey back to the van by boat, then off to the River Nile Cruise where dinner was waiting for us :) The Cruise was not really as I expected at first :P For one, it seemed smaller than I though, and surprisingly empty:P I figured that the other travellers were probably out having a tour of Aswan or something...Even the dining room was empty and we were the only people there...again dinner was buffet style, nothing spectacularly delicious but just usual dishes of rice, beef, chicken, potatoes and fish. By this time I was so thirsty I ordered plain water (which costs us RM10) but I was beyond caring, I needed my water!!! When we told Mohammad about this he said that we will stock up on our water when we get down at one of our stops the next morning, and before then we should try to make do with what we have and also try to drink as much coffee/tea/juice during breakfast which were free:P

Mohammad finished earlier than us so he went to the bar where there was some performance of a guy twirling this big, oblong shape thingy on his arm was happening:P The only spectators (aside from the few staff there) were four middle-aged Germans and us:P The next performance was just plain weird though. There was this brown skinned man, dressed a bit like Tarzan in leaves and stuff, jumping all round, making funny (some even obscene gestures) and yammering gibberish!:P It's supposed to be one of those "interactive" shows and guess who got lucky to be invited up to perform with this crazy fellow???:P

So there I was, standing between to 2 German Aunties (one of them had very kind, smiling brown eyes and she was so excited when I told her I was from Malaysia:P) and 1 German Uncle, and we were supposed to follow whatever actions that the guy was doing, else we will be 'whipped' by this thin string thing he had around his neck. Soon enough, Woonie was also called up to join us, and me, her and one of the German auntie were asked to do some funny gestures and sounds that strangely sounded a lot like the "U Ke Le Le" mating dance rollcall we always do in AIESEC:P. Hmmm....am I feeling weird about this? Yes I am.....Anyways we were let off with big claps after that (the Germans seemed to have enjoyed it very much), and when we asked Mohamamd what did the guy actually said, he told us that the guy "is just saying that you are good because you follow what he said...". Woonie remains unconvinced:P

After Mohammad briefed us on the next morning, it was off to bed...it's been a long day after all. The three of us shared a cabin, with a "damn small bathroom" (as quoted from Kok Hin), a room phone and TV that doesnt work, and an extra single bed for Kok Hin with a too-thin mattress. They later gave him an extra mattress, and the TV was also changed, but our happiness was short-lived as it only had two local channels on...most of the time, depending on which angle the antennae is at. Yes ladies and gentleman, we ARE on a Cruise:P. Still it was good to finally have a bath after almost two days...and despite everything. mine and Woonie's bed was comfortable and warm (except for these 2 scratchy pillows which we didnt use, thank goodness they had another two plain white linen pillows), so it was off to dreamland until the next morning...:)

* My digicam ran out of batteries by this time which explains my lack pf pictures:p And for more information on Philae, click the link below
http://www.bibleplaces.com/philae.htm