About:
Dr. Bharatkumar Bhate is M.S. General Surgeon (Gold Medalist) by qualification with an experience of 30,000+ operations and is based at Rajkot, Gujarat. He is an avid reader and a passionate writer. In this blog, he shares his travel experiences and creative writings.
Connect on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrBhateRajkot
Blog:
(Egypt - Day 2)
Friends,
On second day of our #Egypt tour we left Cairo early morning to catch domestic flight to Aswan. We reached in 1 hr 15 min.
#Aswan is a medium sized nice city. Our sightseeing started from airport itself by pre-booked taxi and English speaking guide by our travel agency.
Our first attraction was Aswan High Dam.
Egypt was a desert country before this dam was constructed. Rainfall in Africa was responsible for big floods in Nile river every year in Egypt and Sudan. The President Nasser of Egypt had started the project of dam in 1960 with the help of World Bank. He had many problems but his determination was strong for this dream project . The dam was completed in 1971 but Nasser left this world little early.
This dam has storage capacity to provide water to Egypt and Sudan for 15 years non-stop. The floods were controlled and farmers were able to take four crops instead of one. The desert decreased and prosperity of the country increased.
This high dam has six outlets in different directions with turbine in each outlet producing total 2000 megawatt energy.
Aswan dam is not an RCC structure but made up of stones and mud.
Eleven important temples were supposed to get buried under water. Nine of them were shifted elsewhere. One of them is Philae Temple which was our next destination to visit.
Entry fee to Aswan dam is 100 Egyptian pounds (₹ 410) per person.
Next we reached a place which is entry point to Philae Temple on bank of Nile river. Entry ticket is 180 Pounds (₹ 750). We have to travel to temple by small boat which again costs almost ₹500 each.
The temple was built originally by Egyptian people but later Romans and Greek people invaded Egypt and tried to impose Christianity religion. So they destroyed many art and sculpture on walls of the temple and established a church in place of the temple. Yet, a lot of it is preserved.
This temple has a story of love between a poor country boy and a princess. The story proceeds in unbelievable way as usual and God comes to help the lovers and ultimately they get married. Lot of sculptures show offerings by boy to girl and king to queen.
This temple is worth visiting.
Our last tourist attraction was to see Unfinished Obelisk. The obelisk is a very large single stone erected vertically in temples in Egypt and nearby countries including Europe. I had seen Obelisk in a square at France and in Church of Vatican City. All these obelisks are 50 to 100 feet long and weigh in many tons. They are prepared by cutting single largest piece of granite stone in mountain. It takes about 6-7 months to prepare obelisk and then another 3-4 months to transfer it to its destination in river Nile or on wooden logs by road.
The unfinished Obelisk at Aswan was broken with long crack and so it's further cutting was abandoned.
It is located on a small granite hill.
Entry fee is 80 Egyptian pounds (₹310).
Here ends our sightseeing at Aswan and we embarked in 5 Star Deluxe Cruise for 3Nights and 4Days journey in Nile river.
More details of the cruise tomorrow.
Have a nice time friends.
- Dr. Bharat Bhate