2008 4 9
into 3rd day of my trip already, things went pretty smooth just as planned =)
Apr 7
no problem boarding plane at all, all my previous worries were too much ~~ cairo airport wasn't as bad as ppl said on9, since i've seen so many worser ones~~
wanna took e airport bus to go downtown to take metro in order to get to the main train station, but waited almost for an hour the free shuttle to another terminal never came, at e end shared cab w/ an Argentina couple to go straight to the train station~~ we were kinda having the similiar route, go straight south to Aswan first & then slowly go back North~~
however, as planned, it was hard to buy a train tic direct from e counter, luckily met a local Egyptian guy who was soooo kind to help me to buy "yellow cow tic"; the Arginatina couple, however, were more rich & were willing to buy the sleeper trains instead, US$60, my 1st class local seater train only cost LE$110 ~~
since overnite train only departed at 12:30 midnite, went to the famous souq for a walk, but was sooooo messy & crowded & din really buy anything~~
Apr 8
all e info on9 & even lonely planet said that the journey should take 12hrs, at the end the truth was 15hrs!! finally reached Aswan at 3pm, tot the Egyptian guy would meet me there as promised, but obviously got fly plane~~ anyway, bumped into the Argintina couple again, although they took e expensive sleeper train, it got delayed / stuck in e route, they were only 2hrs earlier than me~~ chit chat for a while & headed to diff direction again, but at the end we ended up booking the same budget hostel, how small is this Aswan~~
as suggested by all the on9 info & lonely planet, there are only a few must-see & a day tour is the best for tat, at e end, me & Argentina couple signed up for the same tour the next day again ~~
finally managed to meet up w/ e Egyptian guy again, had a simple dinner together & he was busy for his business already, went to walk arourd in the famous nearby souq, felt like walking in those traditional souqs shown in HK TV drama, haha ~~ at e end bought 2 big pharaoh pictures, actually very ex lah, also dunno how to bring back home since they are thin thin dry banana leaves~~
Apr 9
got up at 3am for the Abu Simbel day tour, omg, minibus was full full, spent 3hrs drive heading to tis Southest town in Egypt, couldn't believe there were like 20+ big coaches going there as well, who said Apr is low traveling season here?
omg, there were like 1000 tourists visiting tis 2 famous Abu Simbel temples together, 90% were caucasian thou, almost everyone was holding a lonely planet, no wonder everyone is traveling the same route........
the carving on the walls were so cool lah, but i didnt really noe how to appreciate em, did try to read the history / stories of all these "pharaoh", but there were 2 many names/ terms which really made no sense to me ~~
spent 2 hrs at these 2 temples & then spent another 3 hrs drive back to Aswan again, then dropped by a few famous sightseeing spots there~~ met 3 other "solo travelers", 2 Japs & 1 Korean, they wore soooooo unstylish (just like me XP), at first i tot they were from mainland China/ SE Asia, was shocked to find out their real nationalities~~
1st time ever meeting so many "solo travelers" at one time, the main pt is all are Asian!!! the korean gal was getting an Egyptian scholorship to study Arabic in Cairo, sounds sooooo cool, so jealous, haha, so she was skipping sch to do tis traveling~~ The Jap gal is spending one year to travel the world, omg, did read about tis kind of ppl & those i met were only Caucasian only, first time meeting an Asian gal doing tis~~ She's in her 5th mth already, went to sooooo many counties already, her next stop will be Hurgary~~ The Jap guy is in his 1 mth holiday visiting 2 countries, Egypt & Jordan, his English sucks!! he needs to use 10sec at least to organise his sentense b4 he could speak it out, couldn't imagin how non-Eng speaking ppl travel in the world????
trip finished, we all headed to our own direction again, me wanted to visit the Nubia museum at nite, but was too tired & lazy so decided to give it a miss; decided to spend 2 days 2 nites for a felucca trip to Luxor, thou everyone discouraged me doing it, but i think it sounds soooo fun, no toilet on board isn't my main concern, not enough warm clothes is ~~
so far everything went pretty smooth, no big problem yet, hopefully it continues till the end of e trip ~ in sha allah
4 solo travelers ~~ path crossed @ Abu Simbel