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books... books... books...
movies... movies... movies...
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i know all of you has been fed up  with the stories of my trip, but i don't care  .
it was a lifetime trip and very interesting for me.
thank you for ahmad  & hanan , our egyptian tour guide who explained everything about egyptology. i'm sorry for asking too many questions  .
here are some places i visited in egypt:
the site is just on the outskirt of cairo. the biggest pyramid in egypt, pyramid khufu is here too. total, there are about 150 pyramids but only 3 are the biggest one. sphinx, the bodyguard of the pyramid is on this site too.
have you seen the kingdom of heaven? saladin  , the guy in the movie is the one who built the citadel. if you look closely, the mosque inside the citadel is similar to the one in istanbul. it's because the mosque (built hundreds years later after the citadel) was built during by muhammad ali pasha during the turkish invansion in egypt.
here, the tourists take pictures with custome as cleopatra, nefertiti, pharaoh, etc with the mosque as the background.
the mosque is part of the famous al azhar university, built in 972.
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some interesting facts about egypt:
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in the local language (arabic), egypt is called as misr, the word egypt is from greek.
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nile river is the longest river on earth, it flows from south to north, passing 8 countries in africa.
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only 5% from the area of egypt can be inhabited. 95% of it is dessert. this 5% is the area along nile river. so it's often said that egypt is the gift  from the nile.
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there are 4 seasons in egypt: spring, summer, fall, winter.
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there 4400 indonesian students studying in egypt, most of them are in al azhar university. |
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pyramid is the oldest and the only one from 7 wonders on earth that you still can see until now. it's about 5000 years old.
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it took about 20 years to built a pyramid.
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since the ancient time, egypt is always invaded by other nations: greek, roman, arab, turk, french, english, and israel. now it's an independent nation.
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cairo is divided into two main area. the new cairo on the east of nile river, built by the english and the old cairo in the west called giza, where you can find one of the pyramids site. |
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the pyramids are always put on the west of nile, because the ancient egyptian believe the death are going west.
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cleopatra is not an egyptian, she's a greek.
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cairo is the city of dust because of it's location surrounded by dessert. |
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cairo is also called as the city of towers, for the fact there are about 80.000 mosques in it.
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when you come to cairo, you will read a sign: 'welcome to cairo, the city of ancient.' you should see cars, they're also ancient, most of them can't be found anymore in indonesia!
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egypt's biggest income: tourism, egyptian workers who work abroad, and suez canal. |
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there are so many collections are display in egyptian museum, if you want to see all of them, it will take you about 4 months.
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it's not allow to take picture inside the egyptian museum.
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have you seen the movie kingdom of heaven? you can visit saladin's mosque in cairo.
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the long vacation for school children in egypt is about 4 months!
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from my experience, the people of egypt are so friendly    .
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internet connection is easily found in cairo, cheaper than in indonesia, about 1.5-2 pound per hour (1 pound = rp 1600). |
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this is 'alaya' written in hieroglyph:
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a few months ago, i looked up some umrah brochures from some travel agents. the umrah plus interested me. they usually have package to turkey, jordan, or egypt.
turkey? been there.
jordan? been there.
egypt?  never been there and all of those history stuff really interested me.
in reality, it wasn't that easy to take the umrah plus  , they have it in the brochure but not many people took it, so i have to wait until there's schedule for egypt.
i almost forgot about the umrah until one of the travel agent called me, they said i can depart on june 4th. it was only about less than 3 weeks away before the departure day, but they said they can take care everything, and i don't have to worry.
i asked the travel agent about the packing list and all because it was my first time. they said i just have to bring some polite moslem clothes and that's all, not other explanation.2 days before the date, i met my cousin who just came back from umrah a month before.
after talking to her, i just realized my knowledge about umrah is a big zero  . she borrowed me a lot of important stuff and beautiful clothes *big hug to mira, thx a lot*.
it took 2 hours from jeddah to cairo by airplane  . from above i could the see dry sinai peninsula, as it was getting closer the egypt, all i saw was dessert. finally when we were above cairo, i could see the greenery along the nile river. we were extremly excited when we arrived in cairo .
on the first day, we took dinner cruise on nile river. then we visited the museum, pyramids, khalili market, some beautiful mosques, papyrus factory, etc, etc...from the whole trip i took almost 800 pictures *just sue me!  *.
more stories and pictures are coming....
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jakarta - riyadh - jeddah - medina - mecca - jeddah - cairo - bangkok - singapore - jakarta.
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i'll be on leave...
really need that.
to the land of the pyramids...
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, i just have to prepare to be tortured 
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