Travels with Selkit - 2

SEPTEMBER 30th, 2024:
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The Pyramids heritage area opens to visitors at 8 am sharp. To just enter and walk around, you cough up a hefty 540 pounds (over 800 rupees), to get inside the Great Pyramid is a further 1000(!) pounds. I buy both tickets (despite my asking whether there are other attractions, the assistant fails to mention that Menkaure's pyramid is open for a further 200 pounds and I miss out :( ) (*)

As I am about to enter the 'zone', a local-looking couple - husband fair and bearded, wife veiled - approach me with "India?" followed by a request to buy them tickets with my visa card; they don't take cash at the counter. To my surprise, the husband suddenly switches to Hindi asking me where I am from in India. I ask them how come he knows Hindi and he says: "We are not Egyptian. We are actually Gujaratis settled in Tanzania for generations and are here as tourists. I picked up Hindi because I visit India on business often!" They will be the only Indian tourists I get to meet during the entire journey.

The Giza plateau is an uneven limestone sprawl that rises from the fringes of the bustling Giza city and merges into Sahara desert proper a few kilometers to the west. A new extension of the metropolis named October 6th city bypasses this area to the north and appears to reach out a further dozen kilometers into the desert.

Entering the restricted area from Giza, (approximately from the north-east), we first encounter Khufu's Great Pyramid. A few hundred meters beyond is Khafre and a similar distance farther, Menkaure. There is a certain elevated 'panorama point' farther to the south west from where one can take in the full pyramid spectacle.

From the panorama point, the Great Pyramid looks the most modest among the big three - just an illusion of distance and perspective.

The three pyramids are a veritable manmade mountain range. There are points from where each of the three (even the relatively modest Menkaure) looks the most impressive. The sphinx is the major structure closest to the city and guards Khafre's pyramid. And there are several other minor pyramids associated with the major ones. Most visitors merely wander the area in the bracing morning sunshine, ride camels to the panorama point and photograph themselves and one another in all sorts of fancy poses and costumes.

I don't ride camel but walk all over, taking in the atmosphere; the sheer feeling of being among some of the most immense achievements of human intent and planning keeps me going ... and going. It is beginning to get quite hot when I wander back to Khufu and decide to use the entry ticket. One gets in via an opening carved out on the northern face at some height above the ground. And it's quite an ordeal: after the first few dozen feet into the mountain of dressed rock, the passage gets so short that one has to stoop and struggle uphill. Then, there are those who are returning after conquering Khufu squeezing past and there are those who fumble and falter and jam the way (mercifully, not for long). But the biggest problem by far is extreme humidity from exhalations of visitors and you sweat like hell. The stretch called Great Gallery, though a gruelling climb, is a big relief with its very high corbelled vault. The burial chamber is in the very core of the pyramid and looks around 20 feet by 10 or so with a high ceiling; it is an achingly plain affair - no carvings, painting, hieroglyphs, nothing. What remains of Khufu's burial is a mere stone tub. The sarcophagus and all other paraphernalia, not to speak of the mummy itself, are long gone.

No tourist stays for long in there due to the humidity (but incredibly, some staff linger in the burial chamber; they photograph the tourists and demand tips). Indeed, the great gallery apart (and of course, the overall gigantic size), there seems precious little that really impresses in an immediate way. After getting out (at the exit, an assitant offers me a bench to rest a bit and promptly demands that I gift him my yellow ballpen), I also look into the queen's pyramid, a much more modest but still physically taxing affair.

Done with the pyramid interiors, I walk past Khafre and get to the sphinx - the half-beast is a powerful spectacle despite millennia of damage and extreme overexposure in all kinds of media. Almost every visitor walks around a protective wall at a certain distance - to get close and personal, one has to cough up a hundred dollars I am told.

By 1 pm, I am back at the hotel and absolutely weary. At the reception, I talk to the travel assistant and arrange a day trip by car to Saqqara, Dahshur and Memphis tomorrow. "The car will be ready at 8 am. The guide Miss Noora will accompany you. and if you wish, after you return, we can arrange an evening Nile cruise for you. You make a boat ride and have nice drinks and dinner and also there will be a belly dance show!" He says.

More than a third of the day remains. By 3 pm, ignoring fatigue, I venture out and take a cab to the Cairo Citadel, built by Saladin of the Crusades fame. But I discover that the place closes by 4 pm and I don't get in - maybe I never will.

It is still a very hot afternoon. Google Maps tells me that the Muslim heart of Cairo (Khan-al-Khalili etc) is within a couple of kilometers and I walk in the general direction along a path skirting the citadel. The idea is to repeat what was done a couple of days back, just potter around Sharia Muski and other gallies and if possible, to listen to the Quran being chanted from Al Azhar. A sapping drag through a dusty and rundown residential district - somewhere there, I see this ruined but still impressive mosque -

gets me under the towering walls and minarets of the 14th century Sultan Hassan mosque and the facing al-Rifai mosque. Once again, I am denied entry because this place too closes by 4. I generally look around, taking pictures of the ornate exteriors of the mosques when a guy approaches with "Bad luck, my Friend. you are too late!" Within a minute, it's clear that Hisham (for that is his name) is in no hurry to let go of me.
"I speak English, I can show you a nice mosque!" he says. Seeing that I am not too keen, he says: "It has great calligraphy! And it is on the way to Khan-el-Khalili; I will show you the way there. On the way, you see mosque too!" I take the bait. We walk.

The area around is weird mix of third world conjestion and medieval architectural charm. I pause to take a pic of a wayside edifice about which Hisham seems to know little; he is sold on showing me just HIS mosque.

Hisham's mosque materializes. It doesn't have much of grandeur and looks plain and not all that old. He leads me in; no one about; an old guy in a turban and jelabia appears. Hisham greets the elder and tells me: "He is the sheikh of the mosque. Please make a donation!" Before my mind converges on an amount, Hisham has decided: "It will be 200 pounds!".

Hisham wants to go up a minaret that he claims has nice views. I am keen on getting the hell out. Then he says: "Okay, but there are some nice details here. See this. This is no mere design but the Shahadah (Muslim declaration of Faith) in stylish calligraphy! But I don't know which letter is which!" The pattern on the wall, looks interesting - I sense at least a couple of Swastikas lurking in there.

I tell Hisham: "I don't have much time and need to go to Khan-al-Khalili". We step out of the mosque and he walks with me for some more time. He has more questions: "Are you a Buddhist?... or a Christian?" I answer: "Well,I am everything.... or nothing!"

At the next crossroads, he points out the direction I need to take and says: "My house is nearby. Farewell. You can give me a tip!... hmm 100 pounds!"

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October 1st:

We leave the hotel at 8 am - Miss Noora, a lookalike of of Gamila (last post) but with a female voice, a smart-looking driver by name Hisham (again!) and self. I occupy the seat next to Hisham overruling Noora's 'offer' to take that seat. A couple of kilometers of very leafy and posh looking suburbs and a suburban straggle begins - very Indian and at times Keralan in looks (of course, there are no coconut trees). A big canal from the Nile runs alongside and a few kilometers to the west, rugged hills devoid of any trace of green follow us - a constant reminder that all this Nile valley business is but a long and thin oasis. Traffic is a free for all and the there are more autorickshaws in these parts than in core Cairo. Noora buys tickets at a roadside joint and in less than an hour, tells me we are in Saqqara. In English that is not quite serviceable (Hisham is a laconic fellow but he seems to know better English), she says: "here, we have the step pyramid of Zoser, then the pyramid of Unas and mestebes with nice pictures on their walls. You go and come back. We will wait outside!"

For the next couple of hours I scour the area. Some of the Mestebe tombs contain remnants of 3rd millennium BC reliefs and murals - most of them seem to show scenes of animal husbandry, animal sacrifices and fishing.

Zoser's step pyramid (27th century BC), conceived as a gigantic stairway to heaven for the resurrected king, is substantial and impressive - and mercifully, not too difficult to get into and to the core burial chamber.

A major surprise is the pyramid of Unas; it is badly eroded and looks like just a heap of rubble from afar but the interior passages - hard to work through - are well preserved. And the burial chamber has a real surprise - lots of very neat heiroglyphics - and the ceiling is painted all over as the star-filled night sky - must be of one of the earliest instances of such a decoration which becomes very common in the 2nd millennium BC temples. Unas (c BC 2350) postdates the Giza pyramids by a century and some.

When I get back, Noora is grumpy: "You took too much time!" she cribs. I ask about the Serapeum temple that I have heard stands nearby but Noora is no mood for any more Saqqara. "We are late; need to go to Dahshur soon!". Not sure of how much there is to see at Dahshur and Memphis, I play along; but am less than pleased in that Noora has simply taken over the front seat.

(Long ago (1950), S K Pottekkat wrote from Cairo: "Most women move about covered in black from top to toe but don't ever think of them as non-entities. "They are often seen picking up quarrels with male strangers and even taking over bus seats from grown men by physically pushing them off!")

Dahshur is not more than a dozen kilometers from Saqqara. We drive down broken village roads, past lush vegetation and cultivation reminiscent of pictures of oases or even Kerala (all sustained by intensive canal irrigation driven by Nile) and then, at the end, a couple of kilometers of absolutely barren desert. There seem to be at least three pyramids here - the so-called 'Bent', 'Black' and 'Red' pyramids - out of which Black is not on most people's itinerary. The other two are 'penetrable' but demand considerable physical effort - and leave me utterly spent. As per history, the pre-Khufu pharaoh Snefru build two pyramids - the first one had to be bent due to a flawed initial design and the second, the red one, was a success and worthy forerunner of Khufu's pyramid.

In the interior of the red pyramid - the last and arguably the hardest of all six pyramids that I have explored to get into and out of - are least 2 tall chambers with corbelled vaults that remind one of Khufu's Great Gallery. But neither it nor Bent has any hieroglyphics. Only what looks like an eroded stump remains of the Black pyramid. I only see it from far.

Dahshur is done before 2 pm. "We got to go to the Memphis museum now. Do you want to buy any carpets?" asks Noora. There are many workshops, named after Pharaohs, in the area that produce carpets. I am not interested.

This is how the pyramid of Unas looks:

and the patterns and hieroglyphs in its interior

Part of a restored temple complex leading to the stepped pyramid. The row of hooded cobras at the top of the wall is a famous feature...

'Red' - exterior:

Looking up at the corbelled vault of one of the chambers inside 'Red'

'Bent' from outside:

The Memphis museum is on the way back to Cairo. It is basically a one-piece affair and that one piece is a colossal statue of Ramses. Around 200 years back, the statue was found by an Italian explorer lying face-down in a swamp and it took a Herculean operation to lift and transport it to its present location; the mighty pharaoh rests on his back and gazes into the sky. The feet are missing but everything else is pretty much intact. Quite a reminder of Ramses' imperial power.

We are back at the Giza hotel by 3.15. I wonder why Noora was in such a tearing hurry to leave Saqqara. I don't ask. I have missed Serapeum, maybe forever.... Another (much minor) loser in the bargain is Hisham who misses out on the customary tip that is withheld by my temporarily dark mood.

Owing to fatigue, I spend the rest of the day in a lazy stroll around the hotel neighborhood (even if I want, I can't chill out on the terrace with mugs of cold beer and watch the pyramids - no booze in the hotel; seems alcohol is hard to get in Egypt). By late evening, I realize I could have visited the Grand Egyptian Museum - only 2 km from the hotel and open till 6 pm - and plan a visit there for tomorrow morning. Through the glass window of a closed shop, I see a familiar figure, her face looking a touch sad.

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(•) - Menkaure's pyramid, as I have known for long from children's writer Mali, is haunted by the spirit of one of his queens; over the centuries, she has honeytrapped many young men and driven them insane. And purely as per tradition, Menkaure was a benign n kindly ruler after nearly a century of oppression from Khufu and Khafre.