Aimless wanderings in the Egyptian heartland. Part Two- The sweet Oasis.
The road to Siwa is tightly hugged by the desert on both its sides… miles and miles, and you see nothing but vast wastelands. It casts a terror in your heart… what if you were to get lost in it and what if this road was never to end.
Therefore the first signs of vegetation rekindle a hope and snuggle a warm feeling in your heart. We were nearing the sweet oasis of Siwa. It is one of those few places that I will genuinely miss being at, when I get back to India. Siwa has a magic that cannot be replicated elsewhere… not even in a microcosm of culture, as in India.
A day ago when we started from Cairo… we saw a lot of festivities on the streets of Cairo. Drooling at the all decked up Cairo girls… we almost forgot to have our dinners and couldn’t find a bite even in the chilling pre-dawn hours of Marsa Matrouh. We were feeling hungry, despite a couple of biscuits that we ate at a road side coffee shop, on our way to Siwa. Our first priority, therefore, was to get a room and head for the closest place to eat.
On disembarking from the bus we met a chubby local boy Suleiman. He was the driver of one of the Siwi taxis. Siwi taxis are nothing but donkey carts. And yet they represent something profound. They represent the donkey-slow pace life of this place… things move slowly in Siwa… a far cry from the rustle and bustle of Cairo… one sight of the donkey carts, and you know you are at the right place… and this is your moment to unwind.
During my journey to Siwa… Juno gave me his I-pod. And I saw two movies… it was a time well spent… I always wanted to see Kingdom (a movie based on Al-Qaeda network in Saudi) and Dhol (another funny flick from the production house of Priyadarshan). As an avid traveler I would give thumbs up to I-pod.
Suleiman guided us to a string of hotels that suited our budget… we settled for Hotel Al Kilany… it took 80 Egyptian Pound for a small room… with a small balcony. We told Suleiman to come again after two hours, so that we may go for a touring around the place on his donkey cart.
We were lucky to find an extremely good restaurant just in front of the hotel- Abdu's Restaurant. The atmosphere of the hotel is extremely welcoming, informal and relaxing… food is good, actually great and service seems to be personal. Juno and I ate more than our regular diet… were we enjoying!!!!
After an hour of nap… we were ready to go for some exploring in the mesmerizing oasis of Siwa. I hade been in Siwa with the AUC last year... the trip was wonderful, but I had realized that AUC trips are very artificial and curtail one's instinct to explore of his or her own. This to me is a very big impediment. Not that I didn’t enjoy them, but that I could have enjoyed all the more minus these impediments. And to give devil it's due… I met Khveh Niazi in AUC's Siwa trip last year… and what a wonderful person was he.
Suleiman offered us to take to Gebel Maut (literally, the hill of dead), the temple of oracle, the temple of Amun and then to Cleopatra bath. All these places as it turned out are wonderful and wondrous… picture perfect. But the real magic lies somewhere else.
The route to and fro and in between these sites meanders through the by-lanes of the villages, the palm groves… the canal, and a pinch of wilderness. Everybody in Siwa knows everybody… and whenever you meet anybody, he exudes warmth that nourishes your soul. If we hadn’t seen any of the above sites… then also a drive through this place would have been a serendipity.
Last time around when I visited this place with AUC, we were herded into buses and taken to these places… and were lectured on the historical importance of the places being visited. Sounds nice and enriching… but what is lost in the cacophony of the historical facts is a human story that cannot be captured by a carefully crafted chronology. Humans have often created monuments not to be showcased in the annals of history but to express themselves… and when pedestrianized by a deluge of historical facts… these monuments are de-coupled from this human expression.
No amount of historical data can replace… the melancholy and loneliness that Shahjahan must have felt after losing Mumtaz… and if that is not felt or understood, then all the informed visit to the Taj goes in vain. After all what is a Taj but a heap of white marbles without this expression of an emotion?
While visiting Gebel Maut, therefore one must imagine… the yesteryears when people used to bury their near and dear ones in the vicinity… and how sacred a place that would have been to them. While standing atop the Gebel… one can see a bird eye view of the entire oasis… was it an attempt to perch up our elders in a place from where they are able to cast their benevolent eyes upon the posterity? These ponderings unlock the intangible uniqueness of the place.
The temple of Oracle is another such spot. The mighty Alexander visited this temple before starting towards the east, for his conquest… the conquest that brought him to India… fight with Puru and cross the Sutlej. I shuddered to think that somehow… in this distant land, so far away… our destinies were written. And that I today stand atop the ruins of one of the most powerful Oracles in the history of mankind… whose prophecies destroyed the armies of Cambyses and sub served Alexander.
And then the Temple of Amun… a magnificent temple that was decimated by the greed of an Ottoman General who wanted some stones to build his castle. Had his greed not overtaken him… a grand temple would have been in place. It actually made me ponder over the evolution of morality… of consciousness. Today we would like to bludgeon that General… but what about us. The way we go about cutting forests, exploiting nature… and polluting mother earth… wouldn’t our posterity call us imbecile and uncouth? Sure it will.
Such ponderings, I think is the essence of traveling. And without them... traveling is soul-less...
Therefore the first signs of vegetation rekindle a hope and snuggle a warm feeling in your heart. We were nearing the sweet oasis of Siwa. It is one of those few places that I will genuinely miss being at, when I get back to India. Siwa has a magic that cannot be replicated elsewhere… not even in a microcosm of culture, as in India.
A day ago when we started from Cairo… we saw a lot of festivities on the streets of Cairo. Drooling at the all decked up Cairo girls… we almost forgot to have our dinners and couldn’t find a bite even in the chilling pre-dawn hours of Marsa Matrouh. We were feeling hungry, despite a couple of biscuits that we ate at a road side coffee shop, on our way to Siwa. Our first priority, therefore, was to get a room and head for the closest place to eat.
On disembarking from the bus we met a chubby local boy Suleiman. He was the driver of one of the Siwi taxis. Siwi taxis are nothing but donkey carts. And yet they represent something profound. They represent the donkey-slow pace life of this place… things move slowly in Siwa… a far cry from the rustle and bustle of Cairo… one sight of the donkey carts, and you know you are at the right place… and this is your moment to unwind.
During my journey to Siwa… Juno gave me his I-pod. And I saw two movies… it was a time well spent… I always wanted to see Kingdom (a movie based on Al-Qaeda network in Saudi) and Dhol (another funny flick from the production house of Priyadarshan). As an avid traveler I would give thumbs up to I-pod.
Suleiman guided us to a string of hotels that suited our budget… we settled for Hotel Al Kilany… it took 80 Egyptian Pound for a small room… with a small balcony. We told Suleiman to come again after two hours, so that we may go for a touring around the place on his donkey cart.
We were lucky to find an extremely good restaurant just in front of the hotel- Abdu's Restaurant. The atmosphere of the hotel is extremely welcoming, informal and relaxing… food is good, actually great and service seems to be personal. Juno and I ate more than our regular diet… were we enjoying!!!!
After an hour of nap… we were ready to go for some exploring in the mesmerizing oasis of Siwa. I hade been in Siwa with the AUC last year... the trip was wonderful, but I had realized that AUC trips are very artificial and curtail one's instinct to explore of his or her own. This to me is a very big impediment. Not that I didn’t enjoy them, but that I could have enjoyed all the more minus these impediments. And to give devil it's due… I met Khveh Niazi in AUC's Siwa trip last year… and what a wonderful person was he.
Suleiman offered us to take to Gebel Maut (literally, the hill of dead), the temple of oracle, the temple of Amun and then to Cleopatra bath. All these places as it turned out are wonderful and wondrous… picture perfect. But the real magic lies somewhere else.
The route to and fro and in between these sites meanders through the by-lanes of the villages, the palm groves… the canal, and a pinch of wilderness. Everybody in Siwa knows everybody… and whenever you meet anybody, he exudes warmth that nourishes your soul. If we hadn’t seen any of the above sites… then also a drive through this place would have been a serendipity.
Last time around when I visited this place with AUC, we were herded into buses and taken to these places… and were lectured on the historical importance of the places being visited. Sounds nice and enriching… but what is lost in the cacophony of the historical facts is a human story that cannot be captured by a carefully crafted chronology. Humans have often created monuments not to be showcased in the annals of history but to express themselves… and when pedestrianized by a deluge of historical facts… these monuments are de-coupled from this human expression.
No amount of historical data can replace… the melancholy and loneliness that Shahjahan must have felt after losing Mumtaz… and if that is not felt or understood, then all the informed visit to the Taj goes in vain. After all what is a Taj but a heap of white marbles without this expression of an emotion?
While visiting Gebel Maut, therefore one must imagine… the yesteryears when people used to bury their near and dear ones in the vicinity… and how sacred a place that would have been to them. While standing atop the Gebel… one can see a bird eye view of the entire oasis… was it an attempt to perch up our elders in a place from where they are able to cast their benevolent eyes upon the posterity? These ponderings unlock the intangible uniqueness of the place.
The temple of Oracle is another such spot. The mighty Alexander visited this temple before starting towards the east, for his conquest… the conquest that brought him to India… fight with Puru and cross the Sutlej. I shuddered to think that somehow… in this distant land, so far away… our destinies were written. And that I today stand atop the ruins of one of the most powerful Oracles in the history of mankind… whose prophecies destroyed the armies of Cambyses and sub served Alexander.
And then the Temple of Amun… a magnificent temple that was decimated by the greed of an Ottoman General who wanted some stones to build his castle. Had his greed not overtaken him… a grand temple would have been in place. It actually made me ponder over the evolution of morality… of consciousness. Today we would like to bludgeon that General… but what about us. The way we go about cutting forests, exploiting nature… and polluting mother earth… wouldn’t our posterity call us imbecile and uncouth? Sure it will.
Such ponderings, I think is the essence of traveling. And without them... traveling is soul-less...
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