I spotted this great article in the online version of the Louisiana newspaper the New Star.
It’s an article by a local travel agent, Dianne Newcomer, reporting on one of her clients report about the Egypt trip. As she says in the opening paragraph, we as travel agents usually only hear from a client when something has gone wrong. However, I must say with Egypt and Nile Cruises we do get a lot of positive feedback.
Anyway here’s the article, (with credit to The New Star and author Dianne Newcomer).
“Big, gigantic … no, I’d probably say huge-normous — and old — very, very old.”
These were the words Sidney Wilhite of West Monroe kept repeating over and over again as he sat in my travel agency. His redundant use of the same adjectives — just with different inflections each time they were used — was not only humorous but quite understandable considering the man had just returned home from a 12-day trip of Egypt and the Holy Land.
As a travel agent, I always hold my breath whenever a client calls from the airport or comes by to see you the minute he arrives back in town. Yet, one look at Sidney’s face and you could see he wanted to talk about the trip he had just completed with wife Charline and her parents, Don and Ethel Wilkes.
“Everything you have ever read about is just right there! We had no ordinary moments,” Sidney said, “because, just when you think you have seen it all, bam! There’s another temple, pyramid, or tomb even greater and grander. It makes you just stand back and wonder how in the world could they have piled those rocks so high?”
“With over 7000 years of history to be explored in Egypt, I bet you thought this lower Bawcomville boy would have gotten templed out, but I never did. Now, I will admit this trip was primarily for my wife Charline and her parents Don and Ethel Wilkes who are serious scholars of history, but you just can’t go to Egypt and not appreciate what an amazing place it is!”
“Cairo is chaotic, big, and busy. From the moment you arrive, all your senses come alive and, very quickly, you get caught up in all the activity of nightmarish traffic, smells, and sights. We had four days to unwind and explore this area before catching our seven-day Nile cruise.”
“Our first day of touring from Cairo started with Giza and a visit to the pyramids and Sphinx, built in 2690. Cheops Pyramid, the largest of the three, is one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. I expected to be impressed. The Sphinx, which is in the shape of a lion with a pharaoh’s head is 190 feet long and 65 feet wide and carved out of a single piece of rock,” exclaimed Sidney. “Do you realize how really incredibly huge that is?”
“The next day, at the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities in Cairo, we were equally overwhelmed. It has more than 150,000 exhibits on display — or in decay there,” Wilhite said while laughing, who also confessed they could hardly wait to get to the 12 rooms housing the thousands of treasures found in Tutankhamun’s tomb. All that gold and the number of artifacts crammed into the young king’s tomb is pretty dazzling; this king definitely wanted to be prepared to face any type of celestial afterlife — including the hunting of a hippopotamus. It was like nothing I ever expected to see.”
“From Cairo, we flew to Luxor, known as the ‘land of gold’ by the ancient Pharaohs, where we boarded the Sun Boat III, a luxurious Nile yacht. If you want to see Egypt, there is not a better way. I had thought the Pyramids and Sphinx outside of Cairo were knee-weakening with their size and magnificence, but they were only the beginning of the world we were about to see along the Nile!”
“Cleopatra definitely had the right idea, the Nile is the only way to travel in Egypt. Our guide told us to expect 130 miles of antiquity between Luxor and Aswan, and he was right. All of us thoroughly enjoyed the boat. The food was good and service was excellent. One day, we ran late from a tour and missed the dinner seating, The staff noticed our absence from dinner and impressed us by bringing it to our cabin.”
“I also found it totally relaxing and interesting to watch life on the banks of the Nile. Ladies washed clothes in the river and carried water jugs on their heads while the kids played. Falucas (flat bottom boats with sails) constantly floated by our boat, carrying goods to the market. Fields, where much of the work is done with donkeys, were being irrigated with water from the Nile. What we saw here was a way of life very different from the thriving metropolis of Cairo.”
“We saw things that had not changed much in the 2,000 years since Cleopatra cruised these same waters,” added Charline Wilhite. “Whenever our boat tied up, we would head out, not only with our private Egyptologist for the day, but with armed escorts. My mom admitted her preconceived fears about this trip were quickly dissipated. All of the people we encountered were very nice, but, “according to Charline, “unlike some of our other trips, we found it difficult to make a real one-on-one connection with the Egyptian people — except on one rare occasion.”
“This encounter happened when a local Egyptian offered Sidney 25 camels for me, but, when the man refused to throw in his donkey, Sidney called the deal off. I was glad, because I really wanted to continue on the trip. I had not seen Abydos, Temple of Goddess Hathor, Kom Ombo, the Temple of Karnak, the Valley of the Kings, Aswan and Abu Simbel. The best was yet to be — and, was I ever right!”
“I found the entire trip to be totally mesmerizing,” continued Charline. “To be able to be close enough to touch the engravings, to stand in the shadow of Rameses II at Abu Simbel, and walk among the antiquities was all so breathtakingly beautiful. I would not have changed a thing about the trip. The ancients believed their gods traveled up and down the Nile by boat; we felt privileged to be making the same trip!”
“Sometimes, it was difficult to comprehend these 3,000-year-old blocks of stone — so full of beauty and history — were not Disney computer-generated ‘special effects’ created just for us tourists, but, then, when you walk inside King Tut’s tomb and you are told not to talk because the moisture exhaled from your breath harms the tomb of the boy king, you suddenly become very aware how real all of this is. It is not a dream, and you are right there — standing in the ‘leftovers’ of a magnificent world from a long, long time ago. Sidney was right: it’s totally huge-normous!”
A trip to Egypt is a once- in-a-lifetime experience. You don’t want to miss a thing. Call a travel agent who works with the best in the business and let us help you arrange all the details. Like the Wilhites discovered, Egypt is a destination too amazing to leave to chance!
Dianne Newcomer is a travel consultant at Monroe Travel Service, 1908 Glenmar. You may contact her at 323-3465 or 800-365-3465.
