The Land Before Time: Papyrus VIII - Giza, Sphinx, Pyramids of Dahshur, Saqqara

How can I forget the Sphinx? Haha.

The two famous icons of Egypt. In fact Egypt has lots of unique and famous icons that give rise to a variety of souvenirs. I bought quite a few souvenirs from Egypt for myself too.

My only picture that manages to capture all 3 pyramids, plus the sphinx, though not fully.

Actually camels are quite cute animals right? Haha.

A papyrus-making demonstration.

Back here again?! This time we are visiting the Solar Boat Museum on the foot of the pyramid.

Egyptians seem to take pride in their large slabs of stone haha.

A miniature of the Solar Boat - said to be used during the funeral to transport the King to the pyramids by river.

This is the actual size. Wow it's huge!

This solar boat was found buried in one of the pits close to the pyramids.

This air-conditioned museum is the only place where we can take shelter from the sun, sit down peacefully and picnic haha. No annoying people to harass us haha. This photo was taken from where we were relaxing. Hmm...viewing the pyramid from a air-con room...how comfortable hehe.

A final shot with the stones before I bid farewell to them.

Ok that's all for the Giza pyramid complex. We headed further south along the desert to visit other lesser known pyramids in Dahshur and Saqqara.

TLBT Tip No.9: Always carry small change with you. Small denominations seem to be more valuable than large ones. Small coins/notes is convenient for tipping anywhere (you wouldn't want to give SGD10 worth of tips if you lack coins) Shops are very reluctant to accept huge notes and find small change for you. Huge notes demonstrate your ability to pay/tip and people may request more if they notice you have huge notes. Yes, they often peep into your wallet when you open it, so try to not to put so much cash in your main wallet at any point in time.

The Red Pyramid. Ok it looks really red from here.

A closer look at the Red Pyramid. Looks wider and shorter than the Great Pyramid.

Woah this ascend looks pretty steep...

View of the entrance. Surrounded by desert...

This descend is the final blow of the day... This shaft is much much longer than that in the Giza pyramids. It felt like eternity before I reached the bottom. (By the way this is shot from the bottom. I finally know what 'the light at the end of the tunnel' literally means. 井底之蛙 indeed haha.

Yes, this photo is in the correct orientation. Pyramids usually have this kind of high, tapered ceilings.

Left: How the room originally looks like. Right: When I turn on my camera flash. Wow what a difference! (So this is why they often prohibit use of cameras in such places. Didn't climb up the stairs, for safety reasons haha.

Ooh...I see some more pyramids at the distance. Our next destination =)

This is a strange one - Bent Pyramid. Halfway through the construction they found the slope too steep and unstable, hence changed to a gentler slope, giving it an obvious bent appearance haha.

Imhotep Museum, with nice exhibits of mummies. Attempted to take photos but kena caught lol. Didn't want to pay the exorbitant baksheesh so I chose to delete the photos instead. The security guard was smart to check if I really deleted the photos. He took a test shot and viewed it to see the last few photos I've taken.

Entrance to the funerary complex.

The Hypostyle hall at the entrance.

The Step Pyramid. Looks easier to construct haha.

An interesting view we have here. In the foreground is the desert, and the middle is a large patch of greenery. Beyond the greenery, at the background, it's desert again.

Unfortunate to say, the day I visited these pyramids is the day when I encountered the most unscrupulous people I've met in my life. The pyramids were great, but part of the enjoyment is marred by these treacherous people who resort to underhand tactics to suck tourist's money. It even made me think that all Egyptians are like that, though I know it's a fallacy to generalize the whole population based on the actions by a small number of individuals. Their kindness is mostly hypocrisy and pretense. They 'gladly' provide good service to you and demand for exorbitant amount of baksheesh (tips) later. If you tip lesser than what they want (which is often an unreasonable amount) they can instantly turn from an angel to a devil. This little act of tipping thus turned into an extortion.

These touts often fabricate lies and exaggeration to make you believe why you MUST engage their services. The more unscrupulous ones will adopt the 先斩后奏 strategy, by doing things without your consent and later demand for baksheesh saying that you 'used' their services. It's also really annoying when you're asked for baksheesh when you least expect it. It's like "Huh?! Like that also want tips ah?". And it's very hard to totally avoid such situations because sometimes you really need help in a foreign land, using foreign languages and foreign written characters.

No point approaching the police since they will probably side with the locals. Communication may be a problem due to language barrier, and the locals can cook up all kinds of reasons to their favour, and of course use Arabic to convince the police to believe them. The bottomline is, approaching police in a foreign country can be a very very troublesome affair.

Ok enough of these human ugliness. Let's 收拾心情 and continue to enjoy the historical beauty of Egypt.

The Land Before Time: Papyrus VII - Pyramids of Giza

The urban settlement of Cairo is divided by Nile River running through the center. Technically the east side is called Cairo, and the west side, Giza. The pyramids in Egypt are all located on the west side, hence called the Pyramids of Giza.


Do you know that the pyramids are the only one of the 'Seven Wonders of the Ancient World' that are still standing today? The rest of the 6 Wonders are either destroyed by wars, fires or earthquakes.


Looking at these ancient marvels is one of the highlights of this trip. =)

Pyramids shot from far, along the way in the taxi. Did you manage to spot the silhouette of the pyramids in my previous photos of Cairo's skyline? Haha... 

We took a horse carriage which first brought us to buy some food necessities. Fortunately the horse knows how to keep left when trodding on the main road alongside the cars haha...

We're here! This is the Great Pyramid of Khufu, the oldest and biggest of the three pyramids in the Giza necropolis.

Visitors have to ascend a few steps to reach the entrance - the smaller hole on the lower right. The bigger hole above, currently sealed off, is probably the old entrance originally used to access the interior.

Posing with the ancient stones. Each block of stone is really huge! Makes me wonder again how the ancient Egyptians managed to transport and stack them.

View from the pyramid entrance. There are not a lot of tourists at the moment, but a lot of touts =(

What is a desert without camels?

The Guardians of the Pyramid haha. No lah, not them...the guardians are men (inside the hole), who are tasked to prevent visitors from doing prohibited things like taking photos inside. It's not hard to imagine what they would do if they were to catch you snapping inside...remember baksheesh? A small fee to make them close one eye...

Looks like a treasure cavern inside haha. And it's pretty cooling too, compared to the outside.

Getting through this passage is more difficult than it seems. The ceiling is really low and you have to bend your body forward while walking down the slope. Such posture strains the entire body and it gets pretty physically demanding, as the passage goes a long long way down. Not for claustrophobics (fear of confined spaces) and acrophobics (fear of heights).    

After a long passageway downslope, we were greeted with an upslope in a high but narrow gallery. Thankfully it's much easier to climb here. (why can't they built the passages level straight?! Lol...) 

This is what the end of the passage looks like...an empty chamber, except for a coffin-like stone and an air-conditional. Pretty disappointing I would say. (You may want to turn up the screen brightness a little)

It became more crowded when we exited. Phew...

A lone camel sits alone by the pyramid. Let me ride you home ~~

Pyramid of Khafre - the second largest pyramid in this complex. It can be easily recognized by a 'cap' at its tip.

Quite a few stalls like this selling souvenirs and wares right in the desert. I wonder if these items are able to withstand the hot sun for a prolonged period... (this is probably better than rain though...)

Welcome to the great Sahara Desert! The biggest desert in the world! Hehe...

I don't really like the person who helped me take this photo, but I have to admit that this shot is well taken.

Lots of tombstones over there. Probably for the nobles.

Pyramid of Menkaure - the smallest out of the 3. It has a characteristic 'scar' in the middle of the front face, as well as a ramp that leads to the entrance at ground level.

Exploring the 'dungeon'. I feel like inside an RPG lol. (No random encounter please)

Another killer passageway. The descend+ascend was so strenuous that I got muscle ache on the next day =(

It feels like I'm participating in an obstacle course in those TV game shows haha.

There are definitely more chambers in the pyramids than we could explore. But these paths are all blocked off to tourists.

Yup, an empty chamber awaits at the end. No relics, nor any ancient carvings on the walls. (All shifted to the Egyptian Museum) Just stones and a lonely air-con. Basically you pay the entrance fee just to put yourself through a dead-end obstacle course haha.

Our horse carriage. Hope the horse doesn't dehydrate haha.

Can't believe I'm really in a true desert right now! And the biggest one in the world too!! *runs amok*

The view from far looks fantastic too! Wanted to do a '逆光' pose but the sun was too high (and too bright) at that time of the day haha.

The King Pyramid accompanied by three Queen Pyramids. Please reserve a Prince Pyramid for me. =p

Being able to see the pyramids with my own eyes was great, but unfortunately the people there were not. There were so many annoying touts around, and I was terribly harassed by them. Shook off one and another one comes by. Even got into a big quarrel with one unreasonable peddler who tried to force his goods onto me.

TLBT Tip No.8: When touts approach you, just ignore them. Don't bother to respond or speak to them. The more you respond or attempt to reject them, the more they will try to follow and harass you. It's even worse if you reject them in English. They would know that you understand English and hence try to push their luck even further. The best is to pretend not to understand English (an advantage of being a yellow-skinned), and treat them as invisible. Should you get into a fix, remember to 破财消灾. After all they are just after your money. 2 dollars might not mean much to us but it means a livelihood to them. Most importantly if anything unpleasant happens, try not to let it affect your mood. Don't let a small incident ruin your trip.

要相信过来人的劝告。。。