Egypt

Trip duration: 8 days, Dec 2023

Egypt probably figures on most people's bucket lists. Who wouldn't want to admire the only surviving Wonder of the Ancient World, visit 4000 year old temples, see beautiful artwork from that era and more. Ever since my middle school history lessons I was fascinated with the Egyptian civilization and watched many documentaries growing up. The recent movie "Death on the Nile" only made the desire to see these monuments in person stronger. So when a dear friend suggested this for the year end, needless to say we said yes right away... I added Jordan to the end of the trip too, but more on that in the Jordan specific post.

This post will just cover the itinerary and some pro tips. Subsequent posts (linked from this post) will go deeper into the details of all the places we visited.

Pyramids of Giza

Pro tips:

1. Egypt is not an easy country to navigate by yourself. It's highly recommended to go with a tour company. After some research and seeing their rave reviews on Tripadvisor, we selected Egypt Tours Portal and their 8 day package, which covered almost everything we wanted to see. They picked us up from the airport and handled all excursions, hotel stays, most meals, internal flights, cruise.. all the way to the final airport drop. You can also work with them to customize your itinerary if you wish to add/remove days or places to visit.
2. While Egypt can do visa on arrival for many nationalities, it's just easier to get it out of the way before. Just apply online here. It takes 1-2 days and then carry a print of the pdf that's sent to you.
3. Uber works well in Cairo... The only hiccup is the license plate is in Arabic, which makes things quite tricky when you are trying to figure out which white car is your ride.
4. The country is very touristy, which means every place you visit you can expect to be swarmed by vendors trying to sell their local goods.
5. Tipping culture is quite strong. If you are traveling from US, carry a bunch of 1 USD bills.. those worked really well for tipping.
6. Once there, get a bunch of 10 Egyptian pound notes. Those will be useful at public restrooms, which are usually not free.
7. Dec-Jan is the peak season, given the relatively mild temperature... unless you wish to roast in the Sahara desert in summer at 48C. There.. you've been warned!
8. Tap water in Egypt is not potable.. in fact it's bad and is known to cause upset stomachs. Drink bottled water ONLY and carry some anti diarrhea medication just in case.
9. Given the desert, places tend to be very dusty and sandy. So ditch your white clothes and shoes... and carry anti-histamines if you are prone to allergies.
10. All excursions start really early in the morning to beat the crowds and heat and work with the cruise schedule.. so don't expect to sleep in.
11. Egypt is predominantly a Muslim country.. so keep their local culture in mind when selecting your outfits... This applies to men AND women. There are several blogs out there that talk about what clothing is acceptable. Ladies, keep a scarf handy to cover your head in case you are visiting a mosque.

Itinerary

Day 1: Arrive at Cairo. Our flight was delayed so we reached the hotel at 6 am instead of middle of the night. We explored Cairo on our own and then Nile Dinner cruise in the evening

Day 2: Giza and Egyptian Museum. Flight to Luxor

Day 3: Checked into Nile cruise. Luxor East bank.. Karnak and Luxor temples

Day 4: Luxor West bank... Valley of Kings, etc

Day 5: Edfu and Kom Ombo temples

Day 6: Abu Simbel and some shopping at Aswan.

Day 7: Cruise ends. Sight seeing at Aswan. Flight back to Cairo

Day 8: Flight to Amman

What else can you add?

Alexandria

Established in 331 BC by Alexander the Great as his capital, this is Egypt's second largest city and in fact the largest city on the Mediterranean Sea. The city boasts of a vibrant waterfront and also has many historical monuments.

Hurghada OR Sharm-El-Shaikh

In case you are "templed out" and need a break from all things historical, you can head to one of these popular beach resort towns on the Red Sea.

This is obviously a trip where all places are steeped in history. Hopefully the following crash course (courtesy our tour guides and Wikipedia) will help you follow along with the itinerary.

High Level History of Egypt

A common local saying goes "First Egypt existed, then history".. The civilization dates back thousands of years, to pre-historic era. Focusing more on the Pharaonic times, the 31 Egyptian dynasties are broadly divided into three periods or eras, separated by "intermediate periods" when the country was not unified, namely Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom and New Kingdom. This was followed by Alexander the Great's conquest and then the Ptolemaic period, before the Romans attacked and began their rule, ending the Pharaonic rule in Egypt.

As per ancient Egyptian customs, the eastern bank of Nile is where all the temples and palaces were located. Given the sunrise, this represented life. On the other hand, the western bank of Nile, where the sun set represented Death and afterlife, and this is where all tombs and mortuary temples were located. The Egyptians believed in afterlife... in fact they believed that eternal life came only after death and hence steps like mummification were taken to protect the body for the afterlife and tombs were built, filled with everything (and sometimes people) that the pharaoh would need in his "eternal life".

The Egyptian kingdom itself was split into 2... Upper Egypt, based around Thebes (modern day Luxor) and Lower Egypt, based around Memphis. Papyrus was the symbol of Lower Egypt while the Lotus represented Upper Egypt. They worshipped different Gods and had different rituals. Narmer from the Early Dynastic period (which predates the Old Kingdom) was responsible for unifying the two parts.. and subsequently Mentuhotep II did the same during the First Intermediate Period.

Pharaohs from the Old Kingdom lived in their capital Memphis, their capital, and buried their dead in Giza. They built massive pyramids.. unfortunately though these pyramids were "too" visible to grave robbers. To this day 125 pyramids have been discovered and are open to the public.

The Middle Kingdom focused on agriculture and moved their capital south, i.e. further upstream, to Thebes (or Luxor). They also learnt "a little" from their predecessors and stopped building gigantic pyramids. Instead they built their tombs on the West bank of the Nile, facing East. Needless to say, grave robbers found them easily by merely crossing the river by boat.

The New Kingdom was where commerce flourished. The Pharaohs built massive temples and monuments and the country prospered. They also got smart about their burial processes and started creating tombs in the relatively hard to find Valley of the Kings. The famous kings and queens you may have heard of like Rameses (I through XI), Tutankhamun, Nefertiti etc, all belonged to this period.

When Alexander the Great conquered Egypt, the capital moved to Alexandria. The Egyptians did accept the kings of the Ptolemaic era as their new "pharaohs" even though they weren't of Egyptian descent.  They built many beautiful temples along the Nile river that are still around for us to admire. Cleopatra VII was the most famous queen from this period.

Alright.. now moving on to our first stop.. Cairo!