Egypt - 13 October 2010 (1)

Cairo Museum

Today was the last day of sight-seeing and what a day!  Moaw, our young guide, arrived in the hotel, dressed in western clothes.  She was wearing a shortish skirt and no headscarf.

The bus took us across the Nile to the museum.  It was already very hot outside and did not get much better when we got inside.  The museum was huge and full of exhibits.  It had two floors with side rooms along every wall.  There was no way we could see everything in the time we had there.  The layout was old-fashioned and the exhibits were not well labelled.  A new museum is being constructed near to the pyramids.  Perhaps they will take the opportunity to improve the layout and update the presentation.

Moaw took us around a selection of the exhibits and pointed out the main items.  She told us how to recognise that a statue, carving or painting was a Pharaoh by the five signs of a king.  She pointed out how representations of even the most humble peasants had eyeliner, which everyone wore to protect their eyes from the sun.  When she described the statues of the ancient gods, they reminded me of the Goa’uld who bear their names.  It made them so much easier to remember.  In one side room, we saw the treasures of the Queen Mother’s pyramid, which included the only surviving statue of Cheops which, unlike his pyramid, is tiny.

We went upstairs to see the Tutankhamun exhibits.  Some, such as chariots and walking sticks, were in the main hall, but we had to queue to enter the room at the back with the most important items.  The queue was not too bad and it did not take long before I was face to face with the iconic blue and gold death mask.  The pressure of the people behind drove me on and it was not long before I found myself out of the room and back in the main hall.

Moaw gave us some free time to explore, but where to start?  She pointed out the room of animal mummies, so that was our first stop.  This too was full of people and the mummies looked very gruesome, so I did not stay long.  I wandered around for a while, but with no guide or guide book, it was difficult to know what I was seeing, so I decided to go out and try to find a café.  That was a problem.  I walked round for a long time trying to find the stairs.  They were well hidden to the side.  The long queue of people on the stairs put an end to any idea of using the toilets.  I looked in the bookshop at the entrance, but did not see anything I was desperate to buy, so I emerged into the heat and headed for the coffee shop.

As I went in, I passed several dozen eggs which had just been delivered and were now cooking in the sun on the hot step.  Most of the others were already in the café.  I bought a bottle of water, which was wonderful and icy cold.  Then I went out and stood with Ruth and Moaw and another guide.  They were sitting on a wall and we were absolutely stunned when a party of Japanese came up and just squeezed into the narrow gaps between them, with no murmurs of apology or anything.  It was so rude, but perhaps that is normal behaviour in Japan.

We walked outside and waited for the bus to reappear.  Anne managed to touch some wet green paint on the railings.  It was not marked and, when a group of girls came up, they got paint on their clothes, despite our warnings.

The bus arrived at last and we were dumped at a papyrus shop while Ruth went off to get some falafel for lunch.  Fortunately the shop had excellent facilities and the demonstration on how to make papyrus was interesting.  We wandered around the paintings on display but only Heuly succumbed to the hard sell.  Then we set off for the pyramids, munching falafel on the bus.  I finished some TUC biscuits I had bought earlier and some crisps, which resembled Pringles, but were immodestly called “Yummy Tummy”.