Day 3: Cairo - The Museum Has Lots of Stuff

View of the Nile from a felucca.

I avenged a long time personal vendetta today. When I lived in Chicago, the King Tut exhibit traveled to the Field Museum and I was incredibly excited to see it. Alas, due to reasons unexplained, the only item from the exhibit that did not make it was the death mask. Of course, that's the one that I, and probably else, really wanted to see. The museum gods lol'd at me. "Ha! If you want to see it, you'll have to go to Egypt! Hehehehe!" Well... I did! Suck it! 

The Egyptian Museum is supersaturated with material. They're building a new one, but until that one opens the current one is bursting at the seams, and understandably so. In addition to the King Tut exhibit, which has literally everything from the tomb (except his body), it also houses pretty much every major Egyptian archaeological find that the British haven't managed to sequester in the London museum. I was a bit lucky, and maybe even strategic, when I found out I had arrived just as the museum opened. While there were about 15 tours just starting on the main level (all in front of the Rosetta Stone), I realized that the rest of the museum was practically empty. I darted upstairs and made my way for the two most popular attractions, the royal mummy room and the King Tut exhibit. Voila, I had the entire mummy room to myself -- well, myself and 11 mummies. I have to admit, that was a little bit weird. Afterward, I ran through the King Tut exhibit to look at the death mask which was at the very end, and also had the whole room to myself. Sweet.

The afternoon was dedicated to a stroll along the banks of the Nile and then a felucca ride on the Nile. Unfortunately the stroll wasn't as peaceful as I would have hoped since every time I stopped to admire the view I was hounded to buy something. My two favorite words have become "no English." They believe me and walk away. Imagine that.

Riding the felucca was almost a sanctuary from being hounded by the river. In fact, in another stroke of luck, I even had the felucca to myself, save the guy piloting it, of course. In one hour, the felucca traveled maybe 500 meters. It was extremely anti-climactic. The wind let us down and the captain just kind of looked at me and shrugged his shoulders. I didn't feel nearly as dumb as the other 3-4 feluccas floating aimlessly on the Nile packed with 15 people, however. At least I could chill by myself.

Random story. As I was walking through the museum, I heard a museum  guide speaking Chinese to a large group. I was like, "Wow, what tour company chartered their own guide from China who knows the museum?" I turned around and, to my surprise, it was a 20-some year old Egyptian girl in a hijab speaking perfect Chinese. Mine paled in comparison. I've never felt so culturally emasculated before.

Since I couldn't take pictures in the museum, I'll just post one from the day before.

Pyramids -- cool from the outside, absolutely frightening from the inside. This was the "tunnel" I had to descend down in order to enter a pyramid. Look at that thing again. Tell me you don't fear for your life already.