Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Salaams from Karnak Temple, Egypt






This afternoon we rode in a horse carriage to the Karnak Temple. This ride lasted about 5 minutes. It was sweet. This temple is supposed to be the largest in the world, but they give it a lot of land, basically anything inside this huge mudbrick wall they used to keep out the Nile. The actual Temple itself was pretty big though. But if you took all the Vatican and called it a Temple, it might be bigger.










We have learned a lot about ancient Egypt and their crazy rulers. Ramses (you are the best) II was big on himself and would graffitti over previous pharoah's statues and monuments and call them his own. He lived for 96 yrs ruling for 67 of them. Back in those days, you were lucky to get to 35, so he did pretty good at keeping healthy. We also heard about the female pharoah (name I can't recall) who put up some good lookin obelisks. Her stepson really didn't like her though so when he came to power, he didn't want people to see her obelisk anymore so he built a wall around it. But he didn't finish the wall so the tippity top of the obelisk was still viewable. What a numnut. That's why the obelisk is twotone.


We found this statue of a scarab, basically a huge bug. Thank god I haven't run into a real one. Anyways, legend has it that if you walk around this bug 7 times anti-clockwise, you get to make a wish. You can do it 3 times for a little wish. In this picture, An is squishing it like a bug.


Not much more to say about Karnak, so here's a dude I found in the airplane on the way to Cypress. Brendan Franich from back in the Bell days was travelling on our same route to Egypt. What a small world huh? Way to rock that belt with style, Franich.

5 comments:

Aileen Sandridge said...

Sounds like good times.

All I've got to say is if anybody tries to wall over my obelisk, there's gonna hellz to pay.

Doug said...

Wow, that's pretty random meeting Brendan. Looks like you guys are having lots of fun. No hookah yet though?

Unknown said...

Looks like you guys are having an awesome time. I am soo soo envious of you guys. Come back safely!

meish said...

how awesome that you ran into an old friend! small world, indeed.

anhtuan said...

A: Watch you back (obelisk).

D: The shisha is strong in this country. From the looks of the airplane trip home, I feel like Egypt is the #1 exporter of hookahs. I have no further evidence to support this.

C: Dude, you were just in Vietnam followed 2 days later by Hawaii. I envy yoooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuuu! Happy belated bday, friend.

M: It's pretty nuts huh? On our trip with us was a couple who lives in Palo Alto, also just recently completed his PhD from Stannie. Went all the way round the world to meet them.