𝗘𝗴𝘆𝗽𝘁: 𝗢𝗳 𝗧𝗲𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲𝘀, 𝗧𝗼𝗺𝗯𝘀, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗡𝗶𝗹𝗲

Egypt is an ancient civilisation, and our member Ms A. Roy, a teacher, visited the land known as the ‘Gift of the Nile’ in 1970. Here she reminisces about her trip down one of the most important rivers in the world.
I had always wanted to see the Nile, having read about it in history books as a child. During our trip in Egypt, we made time for a cruise along the river and a trip through the desert. We set off on a train from the Giza Station in Cairo to Aswan. The next day we visited the Abu Simbel temples where we saw the famous statue of Rameses II, a piece of engineering marvel. The statue is built in such a way that twice a year, on 22 February and 22 October, the sunlight enters the temple and illuminates Rameses’ face for 20 minutes. In the evening, we reached the Nile and got onto a luxury cruise. As we set sail down the river, my excitement knew no bounds. Our first stop was the Kom Ombo temple. Here in a museum, we saw mummified crocodiles and learnt that in earlier times the reptiles used to be revered. In the evening, we returned to the boat and spent the night there. The next day we disembarked and travelled through the desert on horseback to see the Edfu temple and the amazing pyramids. At evening we returned to the boat.
We set off very early the next day in a bus to see the Valley of the Kings. It was a three-hour journey through the desert, and along the way we saw large tracts of cultivated land on both sides of the road. We were dumbfounded to see such greenery in the middle of the desert. It is no wonder that Egypt is called the ‘Gift of the Nile’. At the Valley of the Kings, we visited the tomb of King Tutankhamen and were stunned by all the gold and the splendour there. In ancient Egypt, pharaohs would be buried with all their worldly possessions, and it is said that Howard Carter, the British archaeologist who discovered the tomb, took 16 years to account for Tutankhamen’s riches. We then visited Nefertiti’s tomb in the Valley of the Queens, the Karnak temple, and Luxor before returning to Cairo.
As mementos, I carried back with me some sand from the desert and some water from the Nile in a small container which sits alongside my collection of river waters from India. I also brought back a sample of the papyrus tree from a papyrus factory and showed it to my students. In their sense of wonder I recognised my own when, as a child, I would read of Egypt and dream of visiting it. My trip to the ancient land remains one of the most memorable ones I have made.