Our Egypt Vacation - Day 2 - Papyrus Institute

Before catching our flight to Aswan in the night, we visited a Papyrus Gallery. The gentleman demonstrated to us on the process of making this ancient paper.

First, demonstration on the strength of the Papyrus plant

The outer part of the plant was stripped off, leaving the inner part. It was then cut into strips.

The strips will then be place side by side and overlapping each other. It will then put under pressure to dry out and ready for use.

You may notice some of their works in the background of the photos; they even have logo of Barcelona F.C. It was quite impressive.

Our Egypt Vacation - Day 2 - Cairo

The morning started with a visit to the remaining member of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the great pyramids of Giza. It was huge and it must have been some view during it’s time.

Qayyum with pyramid on his palm.

After lunch we visited a perfume shop where we were briefed on the benefits of different types of perfume and smell the different type. At the end, we bought a few of it. The next stop was Memphis, sort of an open air museum where the statue of Ramses II was located plus few other statues.

Nearby Memphis is Sakkara, where the step pyramid is located plus some other pyramid. From here we can actually see the other pyramids around Cairo. Around this area, there were plenty of Carpet factory, they actually called themselves as Carpet School. I’m not sure the meaning of the “school” part but we’ve noticed kids were weaving the carpets.

More photos here

Our Egypt Vacation - Day 1

Ever since our stay in Oman from 2002, we’ve been planning to visit Egypt. We’ve even bought the guide book in 2003 but the trip never materialize until recently. In fact, we almost canceled the trip due to recent bombing in Khan Al Khalili in Feb. We adjusted our itinerary from spending full week just in Cairo to a week visiting major cities of Egypt, following the classical tour of Egypt.

We travelled with QS44 and made arrangement with a travel agent based in Egypt. All our transport, tour guide and hotels were arranged made with Mr. Maghrapy, the service was excellent and highly recommended.

We arrived in Cairo around midday and our program will only start on the next day. During the evening, we made arrangement to see the Pyramid light show. It was just a so-so show but it gives me opportunity to test the high ISO setting of the 5D Mark II. The photo below was taken with ISO 25,600 but has been clean up using Noise Ninja.

After the show, we bought some take-away from one of the popular Shawarma joint in Cairo.

Day 2 will be about pyramids and Cairo.