Day 9 – The Hea(r)t of
the Nile
This middle day of the
cruise, also serving as the middle day of my vacation, was a day with
alternating tourism and sailing, starting overnight, with the boat making the
move from Esna to Edfu before we all woke up. The day would continue on to Kom
Ombu, and finally to Aswan, with multiple temples and museums spliced in the
agenda. Despite this seemingly leisurely day of sailing the Nile, it ended up
being one of the more hectic days, especially given the blistering, unending
Nile heat.
Edfu is the home to
the eponymous Edfu temple, a large, mostly intact, memorial to the God Horus.
The temple is only accessible by foot or by horse-drawn carriage, and of course
as part of the cruise tour, we were made to take the horse-drawn carriage. It
was a little scintillating to see the seemingly hundreds of horse-drawn
carriages taking people from our boat and others to the temple in the morning –
at least in this case the horses were well fed and looked strong.
The Edfu temple is damn
imposing on first visit, with a large, high façade at the front with multiple
large carvings into the walls of the god Horus, along with Amun-ra and the rest
of the gang. On closer inspection revealed an undending series of carvings and
hieroglyphics, visualizing every conceivable story of mythology. These carvings
were more or less on every square inch of the building. It was interesting to
learn that the way built out grandeur of the final temple was done mostly
during the Greek rule in the tail-end of the BCs.
The only place I can
remember that was similar to the Edfu temple in the sheer propensity of the
carvings was the Jain Temple in Ranakpur in Rajasthan, but of course, Edfu was
done a good 1,500 years before Ranakpur (of course, Edfu itself is a good 1,500
years before some of the temples and tombs we’ve already seen – basically
lesson is Egypt is staggeringly ancient). The Edfu temple had some excellent
depictions of ancient medicine, fishing and even a weirdly specific depiction
of Horus killing his God Dad who took the form of a hippo.
Despite the early
start, and getting back on the boat at a reasonable time, it was blisteringly
hot. It makes sense, given we are going further and further down the Nile,
towards Southern Egypt and eventually the equator. It was hard to imagine
anything being hotter than the haze-inducing blaze in the Valley of the Kings,
but little did I know Egypt would accept that challenge whole-heartedly.
Luckily for me, my phone internet wasn’t working so I couldn’t get the actual
reading of just how hot it was.
Back on the boat the
ship began its sailing towards Kom Ombu, another temple step on the path
towards Aswan. Many of us attempted to stay on the sun deck but even with the
slight breeze the moving ship affords, it could not offset the heat. For the
first time maybe all cruise long, the inside AC-enabled lounge area got active
use.
Post lunch, we arrived
in Kom Ombu, in time for another temple run. Nicely the boat parked right next
to the temple. This Nile Cruise business is interesting. There are endless
number of these boats that all have the same basic outlook: 1st
floor – dining room; 2nd floor – main reception + lounge; 3rd
& 4th floors – cabins; 5th floor – sun-deck. Even the
really expensive boats follow this same basic layout, differing only by the
length and grandeur. These boats run in concert with each other, following the
same basic itinerary including stops at the same cities for the same sights at
the same time. By today, we even start recognizing people from other boats that
have been at all the same locations.
The Kom Ombu temple
was smaller than Edfu, but no less impressive given, again, carvings and
hieroglyphs from wall to wall and encompassing every inch of each column. The
Kom Ombu temple is dedicated to two different Gods, both Horus (though not the
same Horus from Edfu) and Sobek, with more of the information and seemingly
import placed on the Sobek half. Sobek takes the form of a crocodile, making
him somewhat a God of evil, but then also a God of strength and valor, with the
conversion driven by some redemption story that flew over my head. Anyway, the
crocodile or Sobek as crocodile-head-on-top-of-man-body was omnipresent
throughout the temple.
Behind the temple was
also a building was purported to be the main hospital of Ancient Egypt in this
area, which had numerous carvings showing operations, pregnant women giving
birth (despite being hieroglyphs, little was left to the imagination), and
medical tools. The Kom Ombu temple had quite a few surviving columns, all well
built, topped with a lotus flower, papyrus flower, or mango tree. The main
identifying feature of the temple was its side-by-side nature, down the
sanctuaries at the back next to each other. Many walls of the temple were taken
in the 1850s by an Ottoman ruler to build a sugar factory, so there is more
imagination needed to fill in the blanks here than at Edfu, but it was quite
imposing and impressive nonetheless.
Next to the Kom Ombu
temple was a small museum showcasing and revering the mummification of
crocodiles. Sadly, this was a building that did not allow photographs (to note:
it didn’t sell a separate ticket either) as I would have really loved to take a
photo of the main centerpiece: a set of about 12 mummified Nile Crocodiles, in
basically preserved form, all 2000+ years old, encased in glass in the center.
It is a beautifully haunting scene, to see these animals, all killers,
mummified into a plastered, but still imposing, existence for all eternity.
Around the glass box were various exhibits giving more information on the
venerated position crocodiles kept in their culture, from honoring Sobek, to
actually using it as a semi-domesticated/semi-virulent-killing-machine animal.
After the croc temple,
we took a brief respite at a coffeeshop near the temple to have another set of
Egyptian teas (this time their omnipresent Hibiscus juice) and hookah. It was a
beautiful scene as the sun slowly started receding, and the impact of the
flood-lights on the Kom Ombu temple becoming increasingly greater. Often times
it will be these memories that get imprinted, these over the onslaught of
carved walls and temples that filled so much of the day.
Back on the boat,
after enjoying the afternoon tea (hibiscus or regular, with assorted
‘crumpets’) most of the people on the boat ascended to the sun-deck to see a
red-hot sun disappear behind the clouds, and the Kom Ombu temple, by now fully
lit up, as a parting view as we began our sail to Aswan.
We reached Aswan
around 8pm, making there be just enough time to take a walk around Aswan after
dark after dinner. The walk went by the Aswan market, a wider, more lightly
lit, more friendly version of the Khal Al-Khalili market in Cairo. The wares
were more or less the same, but overall it was a nice experience. Of course,
the guide added a coffee-shop to the walking tour – he seems to be fairly
hooked to the hookah. The last part of the tour had us go to a local mall,
which was air conditioned, clean, fancy, and had normal stores in it – unlike
India where their fancy malls generally have branded, expensive stores and are
fairly empty because of it.
Aswan seems to be far
more a city than Luxor (not even to speak of the even smaller Edfu’s and
Esna’s), and I’m glad it will be the resting point for the rest of the Egypt
portion of the trip.
