Arrived Aswan: Philae Temple

Hello everyone,

The overnight train last night was wonderful! I’ve been on some pretty terrible ones in China and south east Asia, but this was good. It was just Kristene and I in our cabin, and the beds folded out so we enjoyed a dinner on our table and chairs before the steward came along and converted them into two beds. We even had a small sink in our cabin. I hung up all my washing and it dried, and I managed seven hours of sleep!! Fantastic compared to some previous experiences where I’ve hardly slept at all. The steward even brought us breakfast and a couple of tea this morning, which was enjoyed while watching the Nile pass by outside our window. 

After 14 hours, we arrived in Aswan. You could tell straight away as I mentioned previously that granite is quarried here, because the majority of the station building was made from it. Aswan is also famous for being the place that Agatha Christie stayed when she was writing ‘Death on the Nile’.

We didn’t go to our hotel yet as our rooms weren’t ready, instead we headed straight for Philae Temple. This temple was originally perched on Philae island and is a temple for the God of motherhood and fertility, Isis. It was a pilgrimage site for thousands of years, and one of the last pagan temples to operate. By Roman times, Isis was one of the most important gods worshipped - even as far as Britain. By 550 AD Isis was still being worshipped, however, then Christians transformed the main hall into a chapel and defaced some of the pagan scenes. We could see some of these scratched off. It was one of the last temples built in the classical Egyptian style.

In 1902, the Aswan dam was built and meant that the water levels rose and the temple was flooded for six months every year. People could row around above it and see the temple below. The high dam was then built also, so UNESCO stepped in from 1972 to 1980 and amazingly moved the entire temple block by block to a new location so that Lake Nasser wouldn’t swallow it up completely. The temple now sits 20m higher on Agilika Island.

Philae temple was really impressive and had a magical feel to it due to being on an island with palm trees and big open spaces. We saw many depictions of Isis, her husband Osiris and their son Horus, the falcon god. Interestingly, the ‘evil eye’ may have originated from a legend about Osiris’ brother murdering him, Isis bringing Osiris back to life and falling pregnant with Horus. Then Horus had revenge on Osiris’ brother, but sustained an injury to one eye during the fight. After this time, depictions of one eye were used as a symbol of protection.

We had an hour of free time to explore and I enjoyed walking around at a leisurely pace taking it all in. I’m enjoying the tour so far, but can’t help but feel that many of the optionals/extras are very expensive for what they are. The previous three G Adventures tours I have done have included much more. But I’m keeping an open mind and still having a good time.

On my walk around the complex I saw the room where Horus was apparently born, and some graffiti from French and English people that had visited in the 1800s. Unfortunately they decided to carve this into the sandstone!

On the way back to the hotel we stopped at a perfume place. I absolutely hate being taken to what I like to call “tourist factories”, but this one wasn’t so bad. We were given lots of samples of different oils,  a free five minute massage and a cup of cold hibiscus tea. After having slept on the overnight train this was very well received. However, when the man announced a small bottle was $45, I felt like I was at an auction and thought “I’m out!” That’s 1.5 times my daily budget (not that I’m doing very well at sticking to it so far!!!). The touts outside trying to sell you stuff outside seem much worse here too. 

Now we are at the hotel after checking in, and in the next hour we are heading out to a Nubian Village for dinner. The Nubian people are the local indigenous people from Sudan and southern Egypt, I’ll have more to say tomorrow. I decided to post now because tomorrow we are getting up at 4am to head to Abu Simbel, so I suspect I will want to sleep early once we are back!!

Love to all
Claire
Xoxox