Friday - Saturday, December 29 - 30, 2006
Friday morning at 8:30 EST I left home to head for the airport for a trip that will last me the next 5 weeks. I consider it to be a bad sign when you are awoken at 6:00 am by United's instant update saying that your 9:30 am flight is already delayed until 11:15 am, but that is exactly what happened. Not exactly the most promising way to start out the trip. Fortunately I had given myself a long layover in Chicago and the flight did leave around 11:30, so I made it to ORD with plenty of time to catch the flight to FRA. Bharat got to the airport around the same time that I landed, so he met me at my gate and we walked over to the C terminal RCC. * We had about 15 minutes or so to hang out there before boarding our flight - UA 944.
Note to those of you who care
(you know who you are): Bharat and I were in the C class mini-cabin in seats 9H and 9J. I have never sat in that mini cabin - I think as a group 'quiet' isn't really what we are going for. I know that some people on the boards love it for the quiet and others don't like because the pitch is a few inches less than that of the main biz cabin. I didn't mind it but I probably wouldn't sit there again. It was annoying to be back in biz minus and have the person in front of me recline back onto my feet.
The flight was uneventful and we landed in FRA on time. We stopped by the C-concourse 'arrivals lounge' (aka the RCC). Bizarely you now get an invite with your boarding pass for this - and it calls it an arrivals lounge which I think is being a bit loose with the term considering what other international airlines provide. Anyway, we both took a shower, knowing that we had a long day of travel remaining and then we moved over to the LH Senator Lounge in the B concourse.
Our original plan - and I use that term loosely because we hadn't planned much - called for us to fly to CAI and then go to the train station and take the night train to LXR. On the flight to FRA we started questioning that plan and decided we really aren't train people...and so in the lounge I pulled out my computer and we looked for flights from CAI-LXR. EgyptAir had flights but we couldn't book them on-line because they needed to be paper tickets. Still, we now had a new plan so we adjusted our hotel reservations and figured we would just buy the tickets when we got to Cairo airport.
By the time we were waiting to board LH 582 from FRA-CAI I was starting to die. I got on, settled into my seat, put up the footrest (love that airlines outside the US don't wake you up to put it down before takeoff) and fell asleep for the next 4 hours. Sadly I missed the meal service, which looked quite nice if the menu was any indication. But I awoke feeling much more human and ready to face one more flight...
After clearing customs and immigration in CAI Bharat and I made our way to the main terminal and found an EgyptAir office where we bought tickets to LXR for the 5:30 pm flight that day - about 2 hours from the time of purchase. We checked in and checked our luggage and by that time we only had an hour until we boarded. I again slept on the plane to LXR (many of you are used to the fact that I can not stay awake on planes, but Bharat was a bit amazed by how quickly and thoroughly I fall asleep upon getting into my seat on every airplane).
From LXR we hopped into a cab to the Sheraton Luxor Resort. I am under-impressed with the place, but I will say our balcony overlooks the Nile and the view is incredible. It was about 8pm and we were both starving, so we grabbed dinner at one of the restaurants at the hotel before showering and going to sleep.
Sunday December 31, 2006
The thing about traveling is that your body clock can get pretty messed up. While I fell asleep with no problem I was also wide awake at 4:00 am and could not get back to sleep. Bharat woke up around 6:00 and so we decided we may as well get up and start our day early since we had a lot of sight-seeing on our agenda.
After breakfast we grabbed a cab and headed to Karnak temple. Now, for those of you who have travelled with me you know that my idea of touring 'old shit' (using the words of our dear friend JD) is to go through it at a fairly quick pace - checking it out but not dragging it out. So imagine the terror I felt when Bharat started laying out an itinerary that sounded something like this:
9am -12pm Karnak temple
12pm - 3/4pm - Luxor temple
4pm -? Luxor museum
...3 hours in each of the temples? I figured I could just about do all three things on the list by noon... I decided to calmly nod and smile and see how the morning went. I figured that worst case I'd ditch him and go shopping.
Karnak temples were, as stated above, the first stop. Very impressive and even I enjoyed walking around. My terror slowly subsided as Bharat seemed to be keeping a decent pace touring - and by about 10am he said 'I think we're done'...in a little over an hour. Whew. So we moved on to Luxor temple, which was much smaller and really took us very little time to walk through. We strolled along the east bank of the Nile and enjoyed the view and the fabulous sunshine of the day. Since it was barely 11am at this point we decided to re-think our plan and head
to the west bank.
We found a cab and hired the driver for the day - for the bargain price of about $24. He drove us to the west bank where our first stop was the Colosses of Menmon. Bharat had read the entire Lonely Planet Egypt book and so he gave me history lessons as we rode around :) I was sidetracked by the history lesson by the cargo of the vehicle that we were following...I mean, it isn't often that you follow a pickup truck that is driving around two camels in its bed :)
The second stop was the Valley of the Kings. We did bought the three tomb pass and headed for the tomb of Tuthmosis III. This tomb was apparently recommended in the Lonely Planet Egypt. My guide
(aka Bharat) informed me that king did not want robber to find his tomb and so he was in the most secluded spot and it was built in such a way that it was hard to get to. I should have paid more attention to the details in that statement. The massive amount of steps that one had to climb to get up to the entrance was like a morning workout on the stairclimber. Just when I thought 'whew, made it' as we were winding around in a cave there appeared a massive staircase down. All I could think was 'I am going to have to climb back up this...'. I will say the tomb was worth it. It was really amazing inside. The paint is still so vivid on the walls, and the detail is incredible. Well worth the trip, although we were both wishing we had
followed the advice of Lonely Planet and brought a bottle of water with us.
Note: you can't take cameras into the tombs with you, so the picture on the left is from the Egyptian tourism site but is a picture of the above mentioned tomb.
Friday morning at 8:30 EST I left home to head for the airport for a trip that will last me the next 5 weeks. I consider it to be a bad sign when you are awoken at 6:00 am by United's instant update saying that your 9:30 am flight is already delayed until 11:15 am, but that is exactly what happened. Not exactly the most promising way to start out the trip. Fortunately I had given myself a long layover in Chicago and the flight did leave around 11:30, so I made it to ORD with plenty of time to catch the flight to FRA. Bharat got to the airport around the same time that I landed, so he met me at my gate and we walked over to the C terminal RCC. * We had about 15 minutes or so to hang out there before boarding our flight - UA 944.
Note to those of you who care
(you know who you are): Bharat and I were in the C class mini-cabin in seats 9H and 9J. I have never sat in that mini cabin - I think as a group 'quiet' isn't really what we are going for. I know that some people on the boards love it for the quiet and others don't like because the pitch is a few inches less than that of the main biz cabin. I didn't mind it but I probably wouldn't sit there again. It was annoying to be back in biz minus and have the person in front of me recline back onto my feet.The flight was uneventful and we landed in FRA on time. We stopped by the C-concourse 'arrivals lounge' (aka the RCC). Bizarely you now get an invite with your boarding pass for this - and it calls it an arrivals lounge which I think is being a bit loose with the term considering what other international airlines provide. Anyway, we both took a shower, knowing that we had a long day of travel remaining and then we moved over to the LH Senator Lounge in the B concourse.
Our original plan - and I use that term loosely because we hadn't planned much - called for us to fly to CAI and then go to the train station and take the night train to LXR. On the flight to FRA we started questioning that plan and decided we really aren't train people...and so in the lounge I pulled out my computer and we looked for flights from CAI-LXR. EgyptAir had flights but we couldn't book them on-line because they needed to be paper tickets. Still, we now had a new plan so we adjusted our hotel reservations and figured we would just buy the tickets when we got to Cairo airport.
By the time we were waiting to board LH 582 from FRA-CAI I was starting to die. I got on, settled into my seat, put up the footrest (love that airlines outside the US don't wake you up to put it down before takeoff) and fell asleep for the next 4 hours. Sadly I missed the meal service, which looked quite nice if the menu was any indication. But I awoke feeling much more human and ready to face one more flight...
After clearing customs and immigration in CAI Bharat and I made our way to the main terminal and found an EgyptAir office where we bought tickets to LXR for the 5:30 pm flight that day - about 2 hours from the time of purchase. We checked in and checked our luggage and by that time we only had an hour until we boarded. I again slept on the plane to LXR (many of you are used to the fact that I can not stay awake on planes, but Bharat was a bit amazed by how quickly and thoroughly I fall asleep upon getting into my seat on every airplane).
From LXR we hopped into a cab to the Sheraton Luxor Resort. I am under-impressed with the place, but I will say our balcony overlooks the Nile and the view is incredible. It was about 8pm and we were both starving, so we grabbed dinner at one of the restaurants at the hotel before showering and going to sleep.
Sunday December 31, 2006
The thing about traveling is that your body clock can get pretty messed up. While I fell asleep with no problem I was also wide awake at 4:00 am and could not get back to sleep. Bharat woke up around 6:00 and so we decided we may as well get up and start our day early since we had a lot of sight-seeing on our agenda.
After breakfast we grabbed a cab and headed to Karnak temple. Now, for those of you who have travelled with me you know that my idea of touring 'old shit' (using the words of our dear friend JD) is to go through it at a fairly quick pace - checking it out but not dragging it out. So imagine the terror I felt when Bharat started laying out an itinerary that sounded something like this:
9am -12pm Karnak temple
12pm - 3/4pm - Luxor temple
4pm -? Luxor museum
...3 hours in each of the temples? I figured I could just about do all three things on the list by noon... I decided to calmly nod and smile and see how the morning went. I figured that worst case I'd ditch him and go shopping.
Karnak temples were, as stated above, the first stop. Very impressive and even I enjoyed walking around. My terror slowly subsided as Bharat seemed to be keeping a decent pace touring - and by about 10am he said 'I think we're done'...in a little over an hour. Whew. So we moved on to Luxor temple, which was much smaller and really took us very little time to walk through. We strolled along the east bank of the Nile and enjoyed the view and the fabulous sunshine of the day. Since it was barely 11am at this point we decided to re-think our plan and head
to the west bank.We found a cab and hired the driver for the day - for the bargain price of about $24. He drove us to the west bank where our first stop was the Colosses of Menmon. Bharat had read the entire Lonely Planet Egypt book and so he gave me history lessons as we rode around :) I was sidetracked by the history lesson by the cargo of the vehicle that we were following...I mean, it isn't often that you follow a pickup truck that is driving around two camels in its bed :)
The second stop was the Valley of the Kings. We did bought the three tomb pass and headed for the tomb of Tuthmosis III. This tomb was apparently recommended in the Lonely Planet Egypt. My guide
(aka Bharat) informed me that king did not want robber to find his tomb and so he was in the most secluded spot and it was built in such a way that it was hard to get to. I should have paid more attention to the details in that statement. The massive amount of steps that one had to climb to get up to the entrance was like a morning workout on the stairclimber. Just when I thought 'whew, made it' as we were winding around in a cave there appeared a massive staircase down. All I could think was 'I am going to have to climb back up this...'. I will say the tomb was worth it. It was really amazing inside. The paint is still so vivid on the walls, and the detail is incredible. Well worth the trip, although we were both wishing we had
followed the advice of Lonely Planet and brought a bottle of water with us.Note: you can't take cameras into the tombs with you, so the picture on the left is from the Egyptian tourism site but is a picture of the above mentioned tomb.
Our last stop on the west bank was the Temple of Hatshepsut. Very impressive scenary - in fact the temple itself is almost overshadowed by the setting. 
By this time it was about 3pm and we were both pretty exhausted - not to mention that we hadn't eaten since breakfast (at 7:30am) - so we made our way back to the driver and said we were ready to go back to Luxor. We got dropped off in town and made our way to the first place that looked like we could get quick edible food - Murphy's Irish Pub. As Matt always says, you can find an Irish pub anywhere in the world....although I have to admit the fish and chips were not quite authentic - or in any way good - but the beer was ;)
Tonight is New Year's Eve. Bharat and I are not planning anything crazy - we have a lot to accomplish in the way of sightseeing this week - but are going to grab dinner and some drinks. First, however, I'm going to take a nap...
* Glossary for my non FT friends:
FT - flyertalk
RCC - Red Carpet Club
C class - buxiness class
LH - Lufthansa
ORD - Chicago O'hare
FRA - Frankfurt
CAI - Cairo
LXR - Luxor
HYD - Hyderabad, India
DEL - Delhi, India
BOM - Mumbai (Bombay) India
By this time it was about 3pm and we were both pretty exhausted - not to mention that we hadn't eaten since breakfast (at 7:30am) - so we made our way back to the driver and said we were ready to go back to Luxor. We got dropped off in town and made our way to the first place that looked like we could get quick edible food - Murphy's Irish Pub. As Matt always says, you can find an Irish pub anywhere in the world....although I have to admit the fish and chips were not quite authentic - or in any way good - but the beer was ;)
Tonight is New Year's Eve. Bharat and I are not planning anything crazy - we have a lot to accomplish in the way of sightseeing this week - but are going to grab dinner and some drinks. First, however, I'm going to take a nap...
* Glossary for my non FT friends:
FT - flyertalk
RCC - Red Carpet Club
C class - buxiness class
LH - Lufthansa
ORD - Chicago O'hare
FRA - Frankfurt
CAI - Cairo
LXR - Luxor
HYD - Hyderabad, India
DEL - Delhi, India
BOM - Mumbai (Bombay) India
