[Egypt day 2] Abu Simbel - Aswan High Dam - Unfinished Obelisk - Radamis II - Philae Temple - Perfume Factory - Radamis II

Woke up at 1.30am and packed our stuff. Our flight to Aswan was on Egypt Air at 4.35am. Caught a glimpse of beautiful sunrise on the plane, before reaching Aswan international airport at 6am, 16 Celcius. We immediately walked to departure terminal and checked in for flight to Abu Simbel at 06.55am. This flight took only 30 minutes.

Upon arrival at Abu Simbel, we boarded a chartered bus. It's 7 minutes to reach the temple of Abu Simbel. It is located next to lake Nasser, a nice shimmering blue lake. The main temple's facade was 30m high, with 4 Ramses II statues that were 20m high each. It was relocated in 1964, 65m higher and 200m back from the river, by cutting the stone into vertical blocks. The process took 4 years to complete. The temple itself was built in 15 years by Ramses II who ruled for 64 years. The 4 huge statues on the facade depicted Ramses II in different ages.



Ramses II also built a smaller temple beside the main one, for his most beloved queen Nefertari. On Nefertari's temple facade there were 6 statues, only 2 depicted Nefertari and the other 4 depicted Ramses II himself. Inside each temple there were pillars, statues, small chambers, and writings/paintings all over.



The magnificent thing about Abu Simbel temple was, every 22nd Feb and 22nd Oct, the sun ray would set on the face of the 3rd statue in the last chamber, which was Ramses II's statue.

Then we're back to Aswan with another flight at 10.45am.

In Aswan, we visited the High Dam which was located between Nile river and Nasser lake. It was built to prevent flood in Egypt as well as to generate electricity.



Next stop was the Unfinished Obelisk which was still lying on the granite quarries. Made of granite, its carving process was stopped because there was a crack appeared in the middle part. It was interesting to learn how they made an obelisk from granite and then put it up in a standing position, thousands of years ago.



After a super long day, we had our lunch at the cruise ship, Radamis II. It was a medium-sized cruise ship, consisted of 5 decks and 90 rooms, all with river Nile view. Equivalent to a 5 star hotel, it had a small swimming pool, a few gym equipments, sun deck, very small library, a few terminals with outrageous internet rate, lounge, restaurant, massage rooms, ice cream corner, jewelry shop and souvenir shop. It's not as luxurious as Superstar series but it was not bad at all. We got a room at deck 4, the highest desk for cabins.



In the afternoon we went to the temple of Philae located in Philae island in the Nile River. To get there, we went by bus first and transferred to a motorboat from a nearby jetty. The temple was dedicated to goddess Isis, goddess of magic. The temple complex was big with interesting stories. During Catholic persecution era the temple was used as their hiding place, which explained the altar, symbol of the cross at some walls and the destroyed carvings of the ancient Egyptians' gods and goddesses.