21/ 03/ 2007 (Part 2) - Aswan

We then continued our tour to Philae Temple (Entrance : EP20) As the temple is close to Aswan, we took the opportunity to sleep again :p (To sidetrack a little, our driver asked us at the end of the trip, why is it that we always sleep when we had the chance....hhehe....maybe due to the nature of our job...we are used to "sleeping at anytime anywhere".... like Marie said, we just need to "recharge" the body battery even if it's for 15 minutes then we can walk for few hours :)

Philae Temple
We'd to take a boat (around EP5 both way) to Philae Island . Maybe around 10mins.

About to reach Philae Temple

Here we are : Isis Temple

• At the start of 20th century, Philae and its temples became swamped for 6mths every yr by the high waters of the reservoir created y the construction of the old Asan Dam.



• Supposed to be lost forever, as travellers last time rowed boats to glide among the partly submerged columns (i've seen the postcards that the water was as high as the carved "gods" on the 2ndpicture above)



• Unesco came to rescue



• History : Roman times, Isis was the greatest of all the Egyptian gods,worshipped right across the Roman Empire, and as far as Britain.



• The early Christians also transformed the main's temple hall into a chapel. Their inscriptions were in turn vandalised by early Muslim

We then proceeded to High Dam (Entrance : EP7), err, not that much to see...but some interesting facts, the water that collected behind it became Lake Nasser, the world's largest artificial lake. Lake Nasser sounds familiar??yeahh...the lake which Abu Simble temple is overlooking.

Then we ended the trip in Unfinished Obelisk (Entrance:EP15) Well sorry to say that I personally felt that this was a total waste of money and time. According to facts, because there was a flaw in the rock, that's why it was abandoned. Should it has finished, it'd weigh 1168tonnes, single heaviest piece of stone ever finished.

On the way up to see the Obelisk.

Here it is. Walked up just to see this??...Hmm....

After the whole tour finished around 3pm, we went to our new hotel, hoping that it'd be better than the night's before. It's called Orchid St George (email : orchidahotel@yahoo.com) This was much much better and cleaner than the previous one. (Double :EP120= RM84)