The World According To John Rae the Great

OK, here we go again.

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Day 2, Leaving Cairo

After dinner in the hotel we headed out to the station to take the overnight train to Aswan.  It was an ok ride, the seat was fairly spacious and comfortable, the seat able to recline more than usual.  The airconditioning did get too cold at one point though, and I was wearing only one thin jacket.  I was so tired and lazy though to get my other jacket which was at the very bottom of my backpack. 

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Day 3, Aswan

We arrived Aswan just after noon.  I was so looking forward to lunch since all I had were a few not-so-good cookies for breakfast at the train.  Thankfully there was lunch ready for us at the hotel, where I had koshery for the first time, a mix of rice and pasta with lentils, tomato sauce and other herbs.  Immediately afterwards, without even any chance to shower, we headed out to see the Aswan High Dam and the Philae Temple.

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The Aswan High Dam was built in the 1960’s to the early 70’s to control the yearly Nile flooding which destroyed crops and property and also to help Egypt become more energy-independent.  It was the first time I ever saw the dam, which was in itself not very impressive I thought, although the views from atop the dam of Lake Nasser and the reservoir were memorable enough.  Lake Nasser was formed as a result of the dam, making it the largest artificial lake in the world.

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One of the main problems of the formation of Lake Nasser, apart from the environmental damage, was that many of the old temples and antiquities of Ancient Egypt were in danger of being inundated.  One of the projects undertaken by the Egyptian government in coordination with UNESCO was the moving of the nearby Philae temple to higher ground.  They actually moved an entire temple complex!  We had to take a motorboat to get to the temple, which was built during the Ptolemaic period of Egyptian history, hence some Graeco-Roman influence in the art and architecture (which normal unscholared tourists like myself would never have noticed).  It was built as a tribute to the gods Isis and Osiris, and our tour guide Ahmed even made us characters in a little play to explain the story.  (I was an evil god who conspired to have Osiris killed twice.) They made a slight error in rebuilding the temple though, as the inner temple and gates were not perfectly aligned.  Still it was a worthwhile visit, not just for the feeling of being transported back in time for more than two thousand years but also the pleasant sunshine and gentle breeze.  I could have stayed there in the outdoor cafeteria the whole afternoon.

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Back in the hotel we had the rest of the afternoon off, which I spent roaming around the Aswan bazaar, not realy buying anything but just taking pictures.  For dinner we went to a restaurant by the Nile, where I had an overfried and shrunken marinated pigeon and of course some baba gnouche.  After dinner we just drank a few beers and smoked some sheesha again.  This time I tried the capuccino-flavored sheesha, which only had a faint, almost unrecognizable aftertaste of coffee.  I also learned to swear in Arabic for the first time, after forcing our tour guide to tell us how to say "p*t9ng !n3 m0" in his language.  So if I tell you "ebn mit naka", you know what it means.

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Day 4, Abu Simbel

We had to wake up as early as 3:30am to join the hordes of tourists going on a 3-hour convoy to the famed temples of Abu Simbel.  I always have trouble sleeping properly while sitting in a moving vehicle, so I ended up not even bothering to sleep and just listening to oldies in my iPod.  About two-thirds into our journey I was listening to Stevie Wonder and was actually unaware that I was singing along.  Lisa had to point out to me that I was singing loudly, or rather that I was making weird squeaky noises, haha.  (Hey, it was Stevie, so gotta work the high notes.)  Another strange and funny moment brought to you by yours truly.

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The temples of Abu Simbel was the most famous of the salvaging projects resulting from the formation of Lake Nasser.  The first time I saw Ramses II’s temple I got goosebumps, although when I walked nearer and nearer I thought hmmm, this isn’t so big and imposing as I thought.  It was only when I got to the foot of the massive colossi guarding the facade that I realized how big and magnificent they truly were.  Ramses II’s temple and the smaller temple of Queen Nefertari (his 19th wife out of 52 apparently, and the favorite), were both carved out of 2 mountains, so the tremendous work of breaking down, relocating and rebuilding the temple to its new location was an impressive feat by itself.  The grandeur of the place was only slightly spoiled by the presence of the swarm of fellow tourists.  We had a group photo taken, which unfortunately I left and lost in our van on the way back.  Damn!  I hope to get it back tomorrow before we leave.

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We had a bit of free time after lunch when we got back, which I spent having lunch by myself in a nearby restaurant (I wanted some ME time) and going online to write the first part of this entry.  Took a short swim afterwards and then met up with the others again for a native Nubian experience.

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We again took a motorboat to go to a Nubian village on the other side of the Nile.  Nubians are a darker people living in the south of Egypt, looking more like Africans compared to the Arab Egyptians.  We first headed to a school where we had a short class in the Arabic alphabet and numerical system.  As usual I aced the class, hahahaha, it’s just like going back to school and being my old geeky self!  (Yeah I know what some of you are thinking, I’m still a geek.)  We then visited a Nubian home where I got to carry and kiss a baby crocodile, try hibiscus tea and have a henna tattoo of Eyptian symbols around my wrist done by a Nubian woman.

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Another short motorboat ride took us to a native Nubian restaurant apparently only used by tourists (slightly ironic there), where we tried native Nubian cuisine (plus sheesha) and enjoyed some live Nubian music and dances.  At one point we all even got to join in and dance and sing ourselves!  Since I had my camera on me and took it upon myself to document the festivities, my tourmates joked that I was hiding behind the sheesha and the camera to avoid joining in.  (Although I did join in briefly.)  Au contraire, I told them I had no problem being in the spotlight and would’ve done crazier things than the rest of them given the chance!

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It was a great evening, and we also had a grand time sitting on the roofdeck of our boat on the way back.  Since the shops closed only at midnight here we dropped by the bazaar for a while where we shopped for trinkets and spices to bring back home.  I promised myself I would buy my very own sheesha water pipe to bring back to Denmark when we get to Luxor!

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As I write this it’s 12:30am in the 24-hour internet cafe close to the hotel.  Tomorrow morning we are going on a 3-day/2-night felucca (sailing boat) ride down the Nile, to basically laze around, play games, read books, relax, drink, smoke sheesha, go for an occasional dip, visit a few riverside temples and sleep sardine-style on the small boat deck in our sleeping bags underneath the stars!  Really looking forward to that, so expect the next update after three days at the earliest.  It’s been a great journey so far but there’s still so much more to look forward to.  Will keep you (whoever is bothering to read) posted.

Have to make this quick, as I only have an hour and a half before the next excursion…

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Day 1, Arrival

I arrived in Cairo in the middle of the night after a short stop in Milan.  My plane touched down at 2am, and after border and customs clearances and a crazy, overpriced, Marcie-driven cab ride, got to my hotel at 3am.  (To those who don’t know Marcie, she is the only person I know whose car can be moving even when there’s traffic, or can get away with driving 150 k’s without a sweat.)  Unfortunately I didn’t book a room for my arrival, thinking I could just wait a few hours before I could finally check in that morning, so I ended up waiting for almost 10 hours in the hotel lobby before I could finally get to my room.  It was sorta fine until about 8am when my iPod died on me, after which it became a torturous wait, trying to keep myself awake in order not to look silly sleeping on the couch.

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I spent the whole afternoon just sleeping, then at 6pm I went down to the lobby to meet my tour group.  I was both eager and anxious to meet them; I was travelling alone, so I was hoping for some really good company, as my winning personality can of course only save me if the other person reciprocated.

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So far my group seems really cool, and we tolerate, if not enjoy each other’s company.  There’s Katie, a Dutch-Aussie girl who is training to be a tour leader in Europe but is now in Egypt just for vacation; Lisa, a Dutch-Kiwi girl working in London as a market analyst for a pharmaceutical company.  Like me, they are also both travelling alone.  The other 6 people are 3 couples from London and its outskirts:  Matt and Sharon, both working in the education field, Mark as a network administrator and Sharon as a primary school teacher; San and Gemma, both just recently out of university, with San working as an auditor for Deloitte and Gemma taking up a training course before she starts her formal law internship in July.  I met the last couple only the next day as they couldn’t get an earlier flight:  Mark, working in the art department of a gaming studio, and Tina, an American from San Diego, who just finished her law degree and is on vacation in Europe to visit her boyfriend.  Our tour leader and resident Egyptologist is Ahmed, an amiable Egyptian chap who apparently has also been a bodybuilder, keen horse rider and German tour guide.  We all take his word for it.

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8 of us, excluding Mark and Tina, had dinner close to the hotel for our first taste of genuine Egyptian cuisine.  I had a generous helping of kebab and kofta, and my first taste of baba gnouche (not sure if I’m spelling it right, as they seem to have different spellings for it all over Egypt).  I’ve fallen in love with this native Egyptian dip that I’ve had it everyday since.  I also tried sheesha for the first time, smoking apple-flavored tobacco through a water pipe.  Quite a pleasant experience!  So much better than smoking cigarettes that I intend to buy a water pipe and bring it back to Denmark.  (Think of all the great parties!)

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Day 2, In and around Cairo

The next morning we finally met up with Mark and Sharon and made our way to the Pyramids of Giza.  These spectacular monuments are definitely a must-see, but I think what made the excursion more memorable for me was the camel ride!  We all rode camels around the pyramid complex for grand views and a quick taste of life in the desert.  It was quite funny when we first got on to our camels — I was the first to go, and bravely I chose the camel we all thought was the grumpy/growly one.  With it crouching on the ground, I got on the camel’s back easy enough, but suddenly without warning it just lurched forward and upwards as it tried to stand out.  I screamed out, to my slight embarrassment.  Well not so much screamed as shouted loudly enough to be heard about 5 blocks away.  I got the hang of it quickly though, and by the end of the day I think I was the most comfortable riding the camel’s back, even letting go completely sometimes (sans stirrups) to take pictures of the group and the magnificent views.

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We all went inside the tomb of the 2nd pyramid, starting with a somewhat difficult downward-sloping passage only a meter tall.  Alas there was nothing at all to see, and all I can remember is how stuffy it felt inside.

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Baksheesh Please

In the beginning I felt the Egyptian (and Middle Eastern) tipping culture was quite daunting.  Who do I give baksheesh to?  How much baksheesh do I give?  Should I give baksheesh to the everyone in the hotel???  Thankfully you get used to it quite quickly, and with the way the tour was set up, we didn’t have to worry about tipping for the most part, as Ahmed handed out most of the tips from a pooled tipping kitty as necessary.

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Let’s go for a Wanda

After our visit to the Pyramids we went to the Egyptian museum, which housed thousands upon thousands of Egyptian antiquities, including the famed golden mask of Tutankhamen.  It was really interesting when Ahmed was pointing out and explaining some of the more important pieces, but when he left us alone for a free hour I found that looking at similar-looking cups, plates, papyri, furniture, clothes, carvings and sarcophagi of different pharaohs can be quite boring.  I left after 10 minutes and just enjoyed the sunshine outside while waiting for the others.

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When we got back to the hotel we all took a shower and then Lisa asked around if anyone wanted to go for a Wanda.  I asked what a Wanda is — is it a drug?  Drink?  Another British slang for a shag?  She explained that she meant a walk — a Wander — and the predominantly British or Brit-related tour group laughed and decided then and there I was the funniest person in the bunch, especially after that episode with the camel.  Anyway I did join Lisa for a Wanda and we ended up having coffee somewhere close to the hotel.

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It’s taken longer than I thought — I’m still in Day 2!  To be continued hopefully tomorrow, for now I’ll go for a quick swim and get ready for another boat ride and dinner at a native Egyptian village.

OK, ok, the following post will probably be controversial to some people, but I expect that some others will agree with me.  Let me start off by posting this editorial by Ramon Tulfo on the Inquirer over the public uproar on Corporal Smith’s transfer to US custody.

ON TARGET
Arroyo did the right thing on custody issue

By Ramon Tulfo
Inquirer
Last updated 04:28am (Mla time) 01/04/2007

Published on Page A18 of the January 4, 2007 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

IF YOUR best friend and long-time ally comes knocking at your door to ask for a favor, will you refuse him if you have the power to grant his request?

That’s what President Macapagal-Arroyo did with Uncle Sam’s request for US Marines Lance Cpl. Smith to be turned over to the US Embassy while his conviction is being appealed.

Arroyo used the power of the executive branch of government to transfer custody of Smith to the US Embassy from our correctional system.

Our correctional system, specifically the Bureau of Corrections that would have taken custody of Smith, is under the system.

The secretary of justice, in turn, is a member of the President’s Cabinet. And so is the secretary of the interior, who got the convicted American out of the Makati City Jail.

According to my lawyer-friend, Vicente Chuidian, all prisoners—whether detainees awaiting conviction or who have been convicted—may be housed anywhere at the sole and exclusive jurisdiction of the Chief Executive to whom the secretaries of justice and interior report.

Chuidian said it is the courts that decide whether or not a person should go to jail. But where that person should be jailed is the prerogative of the executive department.

“Is it not a fact that the President can even grant amnesty or pardon?” said Chuidian, an expert trial lawyer.

Forget about the President’s faults or her legitimacy in office. When she made that controversial decision she had the national interest in mind.

Let’s be realistic and practical: We need the Americans more than they need us.

The United States has been giving us more favors than we can return. The United States has been helping us fight the Abu Sayyaf which is backed by the international terrorist group al-Qaida. Abu Sayyaf leaders have been captured or killed one after the other through millions of dollars in reward money put up by the American government. Elite US troops go with Filipino soldiers in hunting down the Abu Sayyaf, although officially both governments won’t admit it.

Our military’s modernization program hinges on US aid. Our internal and external security depends to a great extent on the Americans.

The favor of taking custody over Smith is small compared to the favors we have been receiving from the Americans.

The favor the US government was asking is in consonance with the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), a treaty, which provides that American servicemen being tried in Philippine courts shall remain in US custody during the judicial proceedings.

The bone of contention is whether “judicial proceedings” ends with Smith’s conviction or after the appeal of his conviction is decided by the appellate court.

Anyway, Smith is not scotfree; he’s confined in a room at the US Embassy that has been converted into a jail. He is guarded. The only difference is that he’s a prisoner on US soil and not in a Philippine prison.

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Ask people who have followed the much-publicized rape case from start to finish, most of them will tell you “Nicole” was never raped.
How could there have been a rape when she willingly took off her tight-fitting jeans? If she was forced into involuntary sex, her pants would have been torn off. There was no way her supposed rapist could have taken off her pants in the cramped space of a moving van without her help. And why did the “rapist” have to wear a condom?
She claims she was too drunk at that time for her to have agreed to have sex with the American. But so was Smith, who is younger than Nicole.

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I don’t even want to discuss whether or not I believe "Nicole" was raped.  But all this talk of the president "betraying the country" or giving in like a lap dog to its master by allowing Smith to be given over to the Americans is so impractical and short-sighted.  I commend GMA for being able to make these difficult, unpopular decisions.  Thank heavens there are other level-headed fellows who agree.

Stumbled upon this list of 2007 movie releases.  This should be the best year at the tills, with quite a number of exciting releases left and right.

http://www.firstshowing.net/2006/08/02/why-2007-will-be-a-great-year-for-movies/

Here are the ones I look forward to the most:

Shrek 3

Spider-Man 3

The Simpsons Movie

Transformers

Beowulf

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

The Golden Compass

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End

The Bourne Ultimatum

Ocean’s 13

Fantastic Four: The Rise of the Silver Surfer

Evan Almighty

Blades of Glory

300

Last night I just finished reading the best book ever.  It’s one of those rare books that made me so happy just being able to experience reading it.  Please read Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game.  You won’t be disappointed, promise.

When you live in a country where going to the movies costs more than 800 pesos a pop and the pirated DVD alternative is not just around the corner, you tend to be picky about the movies you watch. Still, with the barrage of really good movies that usually pack themselves around December, just in time for Oscar eligibility and the rich Christmas pockets, I managed to watch 4 films in the last week, with many others still in the horizon.

The Holiday – I was supposed to watch Happy Feet with a friend but we ran out of tickets, and the only alternative we had was The Holiday. Not a bad movie really, but of course you should never take these movies seriously.  Kate Winslet was delicious as ever.  (It’s always nice to see women in Hollywood who actually still have flesh.)  Jude Law was his usual charming self.  Cameron Diaz was sparkling and bubbly like always, although I’m beginning to think she’s starting to slide down the Julia Roberts slope.  Jack Black didn’t have enough screen time, but then again he’s not exactly the romantic male lead type.  All in all a pleasant movie as long as you don’t expect too much. In my case, I didn’t expect anything at all.

Eragon – BAD.  I actually finished the book just the day before I watched the movie. I didn’t actually like the book all that much, so I shouldn’t have expected anything from the movie, but the film adaptation just turned out so horrible that the book seemed really good in comparison. I commend Christopher Paolini who started writing the book when he was 15, but as an avid fantasy fan the book was really nothing new, dragged at some parts and had a poor buildup to a scant, unexciting climax.  The only good thing about the book was that you could feel real love between Eragon and Saphira (his dragon), like Paolini’s passion was stamped all over the book. This saving grace was not to be found in the movie, so coupled with an overly-hurried pace, uninspired dialogue and characters that seemed to have been plucked out of Lord of the Rings and Star Wars, the movie was a chore to watch and utterly disappointing. For the producers’ sake, they shouldn’t even try churning out a sequel.

Casino Royale – I was never a big fan of James Bond movies. I thought they were all style and no substance, all about gadgets and not much else. I guess I’m more of a Bourne Identity / Sum of All Fears kind of guy. Casino Royale raised the whole James Bond franchise back to a venerable position. Daniel Craig is a fantastic Bond, so much better than Pierce Brosnan who seemed too frail and pretty for 007. The movie is more plot-driven, with respectable and surprising twists and turns. In Denmark, Casino Royale is perhaps this year’s main film event, with 2 of the main antagonists (Mads Mikkelsen and Jesper Christensen) coming from this proud little country. 

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer – What a beautiful movie.  This is perhaps the best movie I’ve seen since Brokeback Mountain. I never thought they could bring scents and smells to life onscreen but they succeeded mightily on this one. The only other movie as sensuous as Perfume that I can remember watching is The Girl With the Pearl Earring, with the former clearly coming out on top. My friend, whom I watched this movie with, loved the movie as well, which is a tall order since Patrick Suskind’s novel where this is adapted from is his favorite book of all time.  I guess this is one of those rare instances where the film adaptation doesn’t suffer from comparison to the original and actually triumphs.  This movie is highly recommended, with top-notch performances from the whole cast and a penultimate scene that is perhaps the most spectacular I’ve ever seen on cinema.

Lots more movies to watch in the coming weeks:

The Departed

Babel

Happy Feet

Dreamgirls

The Illusionist

The Prestige

Bobby

Children of Men

Little Miss Sunshine

Borat

Egad… it’s been what, 2 months?

Not that I was ever a regular blogger. I still envy the blogging stamina of my friends like Clems and Raz and Dmitry Tursunov. Ok Dmitry isn’t my friend, at least not yet. He’s a tennis player who shot to stardom as the ATP Tour’s resident blogger. For the even more challenged, ATP is the worldwide tennis players’ association. And to the even more clueless, tennis is…

(If by any chance you want to read Dmitry’s blog, follow this link: http://www.atptennis.com/1/en/blog/tursunov/)

Still, I hate blogging here in Friendster. The layout options are so limited I can’t even fix the goddamn spacing. But I’m too lazy to create a new one. Besides, hardly anyone posts comments on my friendster blog anyway! (*note: this is a not-so-obvious call for attention, please COMMENT. Thank you.)

Maybe I should list down some pros and cons on blogging via Friendster.

1. Layouting sucks in Friendster, unless you pay for it. I probably don’t need anything complicated, because I definitely won’t spend time on it, but for Chrissakes can somebody just please tell me how to edit the html of my text???

2. No anonymous posting of comments on Friendster. So if you’re not my Friendster, I won’t hear what you have to say.

3. The good thing about blogging in Friendster though is the automatic updates, so my friendsters can always see when I’ve written something.

From the above it seems like I should switch to Blogger or something else, but the bottomline is this: I’m lazy. So I’ll stick with Friendster for the moment.

So what’s been happening the last two months? Was in Bangkok for 4 days, home for almost 3 weeks, then back in Copenhagen with weather that was 5 degrees colder than when I left. I hate how muggy and wet it feels here now, but hey at least I haven’t been rained out while biking to work. Not completely soaked anyway. Nevertheless apparently this was the warmest November in Denmark on record (or in many, many decades, I’m not sure). Sure doesn’t feel like that though.

Being winter now and all I hardly get to see the sun. Actually I feel like I live somewhere in the arctic. I leave home for work, it’s still kinda dark. I leave the office, it’s dark. In the weekends, I wake up from going out the previous night and stay at home with the blinds closed and then leave the house again at night, when it’s dark. Even when I go home at 6:30 am after a long night out, it’s still dark. Jeez. I heard that Vitamin D insufficiency causes some health problems, not to mention higher suicide rates. Good thing I live on the ground floor then.

It was nice to be back home, see my family and friends, shop for clothes and shoes at ridiculously low prices (of course compared to Denmark, most everything is cheap). At some point though I was ready to go home. The days got a bit boring since all the cars were being used and could only use one late in the afternoon. My friends were all busy with work and private stuff so I didn’t have anyone to go out to the beach with on the weekdays even though I was itching to. Of my list of things to do back home in the previous post, I missed out on 2, 8, 15, 18 and 19. 20 (Exercising) I barely accomplished. In fact I should add it to that list instead, considering I gained at least 1 kilo per week I was home.

There’s something about mothers that they always think you are too thin, and they make it their mission to always fatten you up.

Anyway I’m back here in Copenhagen now, it’s still weird to call it home but technically it is. I’m actually glad to be back to my normal routine, contemplating important questions like "Should I wash the whites or coloreds first?" or "When was the last time I vacuumed the house?" or "Can I still use my bedsheets for another 3 months?"

But no, I’m not as messy as I advertise myself to be, as some of my friends will attest. Then again of course they see a more sanitized version of my apartment when they come over, so they haven’t seen the real deal.

In a while I’m going to a kickboxing class for the first time at the gym in the office. The things I do to try and lose weight…

Will post pictures soon. Once I get my lazy ass to upload them.

I’ll be flying out of Copenhagen this evening for a well-deserved vacation at home.  Will be spending a few days in Bangkok first with a friend and then it’s almost 3 weeks of relaxation in Manila!  Well it’s not exactly pure relaxation, as I have quite a few things planned.  Here’s a list of what I intend to do back home:

1.      Attend a friend’s wedding

2.      Go on an advanced diving course in Puerto Galera

3.      Get a massage

4.      Get a haircut

5.      Get a facial

6.      Go to the dentist

7.      Renew my RP driver’s license

8.      Get an international driver’s license

9.      Catch up with family and friends

10.  Go out every weekend (and maybe even on weekdays)

11.  Buy new clothes and shoes

12.  Have my tennis racket fixed (and play tennis!)

13.  Buy Purefoods Corned Beef and Sisig, Mang Tomas, Chippy, dried mango, canned laing, bagoong, banana catsup, Skyflakes, Century Tuna Hot and Spicy, etc. etc…. and ship them to Denmark

14.  Fix my bank disputes, get new ATM and credit cards

15.  Eat lechon

16.  Eat kaldereta

17.  Eat kare-kare

18.  Eat king crabs

19.  Eat tubs of shrimp and oysters

20.  Squeeze some exercise here and there to counter the insane number of calories I’ll be consuming….

Must.  Discipline.  Myself.  Must.  Resist.  Temptation.  Must….