Amma in Egypt – Part 8 – Edfu
Edfu
After finishing our breakfast we visited temple of Edfu. Of all the ancient temples of Egypt the one in Edfu is not only the best preserved but the second largest after the Karnak temple in Luxor.
The temple had been submerged under the desert except for the very top of the pylon entrance. A small amount of stone had been removed from the exposed part but when excavated it was found to be in near perfect condition.
The temple is dedicated to Horus and was built in the Ptolemaic period. This temple is unusual in that it is on the west back of the river which was normally dedicated to the after life.
We returned to the cruise and had lunch. We enjoyed the scenery from the deck as we sailed to Luxor via the Esna lock.
Before we returned to our cruise ,my husband asked me to go and that he would get some water bottles. So I boarded the cruise with the others. Our cruise was parked in the 4rth place. There were 3 other cruise boats parked on the 1st 3 places.
All people had gone into their rooms. I also went to our room and kept all the things and took rest for 5 minutes. I came out and saw that many of them were at the dining room and having lunch. My husband had not yet returned. I started getting a little tensed. I checked the dining hall and found that our table was empty….we were 6 vegetarians who always sat at one table…D, D, A,V, my husband and me. No one was to be seen. I was happy about that. Again I went to the dining hall after a while and saw that D and D were having lunch. I dint know if I was to have lunch or wait for my husband. I was not sure why he was not back yet. I wanted to check with our tour manager but he too was not there.
I went to the reception of the cruise to check. He said everybody had boarded and that he was not sure if anyone was left out. I asked another guy at the reception. I told him my husband had not yet boarded. He said ok. I again explained to him that my husband had not come on board and that we had already started sailing. How would he come on to the boat?
He laughed and said that “we will sail for 5 minutes and then we will get your husband on board. We would not move off without him”. I was not satisfied. I had so many thoughts racing in my mind. I went to the deck to see if I can find him and call out to him.
Suddenly I heard a voice shouting “hai hai….” I saw that my husband and A were standing on another boat. Before he entered the boat…it had started sailing. So he was standing there. He said “ don’t worry. I will come”. After 5 minutes both of them entered the cruise and we had lunch.
There is a photo which my husband has clicked from the other boat. He says he tried to get my tensed expression. One can hardly see me standing on top of the boat at the deck.
After lunch we were waiting for the Esna lock. The tour manager told us not to miss the Esna lock. It was something special. He told us that we should watch it, but we cannot say when it would happen to our cruise. It takes 45 minutes for a cruise to cross the bridge. He said we expect the lock to happen around 3 o’ clock.
After we reach Luxor we planned to go to the Karnak temple. Some people went to sleep after lunch. Some people started watching movies on the TV. We wanted to see the Esna lock. So we waited.
What is the Esna lock anyway??
A lock is used when the water levels are different at different points. The boats need to lowered or raised by pushing water from one side to the other and holding it there till the boat passes from the lower water point.
Some pics can be seen at http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=esna+lock&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=gbJSS6rRII6YsgO6gOmIBw&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CBsQsAQwAw
And http://www.galenfrysinger.com/egypt_esna_locks.htm
The Esna lock.
On the top of the river there was a bridge. Under the bridge they have a big gate to lock the water. The cruise will be on one side. It has to cross the bridge and only then we can go to Luxor. The side on which the cruise is, the water level is high. But on the other side, the water level is low. So the cruise cannot sail into the shallow side. To enable the sailing, first they lock the gate. Then they pump water from the side of the cruise to the other side, upto 6 meters depth. Once the water level goes down on the side of the cruise, the cruise will go down, and once enough water is pumped to the other side, they open the gate. At once the cruise should cross the bridge. After sometime, the water will automatically come back to the first side. The same process is done for every cruise boat. The process takes half an hour to 45 minutes.
We waited for a very long time for it to happen to our cruise. It happened only at about 5:30 to 6:00pm. It took another 4 hours for us to reach Luxor. This was a delay. So our tour manager said that we were going to stay back in the cruise itself.
After dinner we had some Egyptian party and belly dance. There were some small shops on the cruise. So some people went shopping, we went to sleep.
