Another Egyptian Tale -by-Munaza Kazmi

The land of the Pharaohs, famous for its huge pyramids, bandaged mummies, captative desserts, history’s most beautiful woman Cleopatra and no doubt the golden treasures. How much do we really know about Egypt? Beside “The Great Pyramid”, that obviously have no match, but there’re some other horizons of Egypt to discover!

Egypt is the home to our Holy Moses, where he born and lived most of his live and from where we get to know about some of the greatest Pharaohs. It’s the place where Almighty God speaks with Moses and had sent His 10 Commandments, today that mountain known as Mount Sinai, it is the holy land where God displayed a very minor part of His self, about which we can find references in the Holy Quran as “Koh e Toor”.

Apart from history and religion, Egypt is famous for its stunning beeches and coral reefs, tasty food, glittering night life and exotic resorts. These were some of the big reasons I planned this summer for travelling Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, that offers visa on arrival.

I get the ticket of Saudia Airlines and embarked on the journey in the first week of May, from Islamabad International Airport for Egypt by having connecting flight at Jeddah, which is really a good time to travel, since the weather is perfect, cool wind and warm waters.

Am not biased but am really disappointed with Saudia Airlines, even I have filed the complaint online, since the service was actually very poor, food was funny, my four out of four flights were delayed, moreover King Abdul Aziz Airport was seriously very unclean, am talking about the toilets and there was no Free Wifi facility for the passengers, although Star Bucks was offering it for free and there it was like a fish market.

However, I reached Egypt two hours late, where am thankful to my guide who helped me in the visa processing, that saved much of my quality time. Afterwards, I have been transported to the resort, I picked there Grand Rotana Resort and Spa, luxury beachfront resort that is just 8 kilometers away from Sharm El Sheikh International Airport and with easy access to the major tourist locations.

The Resort itself was amazing, I would say it’s a perfect holiday destination, with its 450 meters stretch private beach, a spectacular pool surrounded by a lush tropical landscape with over 2,000 palm trees, beautiful lawns packed with flowers of several colors and kind that spray the air with flowery mist.

During my cheek-in there was a serious mistake done on the part of my travel agent, however am grateful to the management of Rotana that they upgraded my room without any extra charge. I was given “Sea View Room” with private terrace from where I had a landscape view of the mesmerizing boats dancing in the gigantic Red Sea with the background of a dark mountains, tall Palm trees who told me several tales of Egyptian Pharaohs. For dining and entertainment, I had the access to all the 10 restaurants, bars and cafes, where I was served delicious food with big smiles on faces. I loved their hospitality.

Later, in the morning my first experience of bathing in the Egyptian Sun, cool misty breeze from the shores of Red Sea calms the warm rays, makes the water temperature moderate, and let the fish swim closer to even kiss my toes. And there I let go of myself to embrace the deep blue waters that have an eternal power to wash away all the earthy thoughts and worries, the water took me into its own paradise, habituated with creatures of its own, tiny transparent fish, colorful lively reef, some were as a living masterpiece floating with pride.

In the evening my guide took me to the nearby SOHO Square which is huge public area, occupied with several shops, cafes, and park and Old Market to experience the Egyptian culture, where I meet some kind people and have bought some souvenirs to make a show at home.

At 8 pm I was back into the hotel, where I had my dinner at the lavish Ramses Restaurant, after having my dinner around 9 pm I found myself on the road trip moving towards Mount Sinai in a tiny van. It was a group tour however, we were almost 10-12 people in the van, all were Russians except me, a very long and discomfortable drive since the guide there was some sort of an arrogant and person filled with greed, he housed people more than the capacity and there I experienced discrimination and harassment from the guide. Well, I believe this world is filled with different people, some good some…whatever.

Moving forward we all reach to the entry point of the mountain that was highly crowed, but we made our way. Deserts turns extremely cold during the night I haven’t any idea, believe me or not but it was freezing, but thanks to my Russian friend who gave me a shawl to deal with the weather. Then comes the Mountain climb which was challenging, it is 7,497 ft high, with narrow, dark, rocky and difficult route but still my eyes witnessed people of different ages and backgrounds struggling with happiness to reach the top as its the holy place for all the major religions, here I would urge the Egyptian authorities to at least install some network of gas of electric lamps along the way, as its deadly to climb in the dark.

Well, God remain very kind the night was of full moon hence we never had much difficulty, we reached to the top around the sunrise. After offering the prayers, we walk down the mountain and around 9 am finished the trip with a short visit at ST. Catherine’s Monastery, that is said to be the oldest continuously inhabited Christian monastery in the world.

When I reached back to the resort it was 1 pm, the sleepless night, hard weather and the extremely bad condition of my feet forced me to stay next of my days in the comfort and luxury of Rotana, where I ventured the beach, eat good food and thanked my Almighty.