Cruising Beautiful NileRiver

                    MAJESTIC EGYPT (Photo Blog VI)

                            By Dr. Narasinha Kamath

………..Continued from Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV and Part V

(Author’s Note 1 : I have attached herewith   2 consecutive Flute Tunes :

2 Boat Songs :  “O RE MAAZI” (Film : Bandini of 1963 and Music : S.D.Burman)  and “O MAAZI RE” (Film : Khushboo of 1975 and Music by R.D.Burman) which was a belated but a befitting reply by R.D.Burman to his father S.D.Burman’s song and one can see both boat songs are equally good). I played these 2 tunes on my flute. I also played these 2 tunes on the deck of the Cruise Ship. I am sure you will enjoy listening to both these tunes while reading the blog.

 

"Royal Lotus Cruiseship" : My wife is in the foregorund (Photo 1)

 

After visiting Magnificent Karnak and LuxorTemples in Luxor, we boarded our cruise ship “Royal Lotus” for a 3-Day cruise of NileRiver (from Luxor to Aswan).

Note that NileRiver is the only river in the world which flows from South to North.

Egypt is a country which consists of about 85% desert and rest 15% habitable land along the NileRiver and Nile River Delta in the North which encompasses Cairo, Alexandria and Suez.

 

My wife enjoying view from the deck of the Cruiseship in Aswan (Photo 2)

 

One of the happiest periods during my 2-weeks Egypt Tour was this 3-day cruise from Luxor to Aswan in beautiful Nile River of Egypt. This short cruise is one my most memorable cruises I ever undertook. Of course, one could take an airplane flight to Luxor or Aswan to visit antique Temples of Edfu. Kom Ombo located on the banks of NileRiver. But there is nothing like Nile River Cruise. Just like there is nothing like taking Konkan Railway while traveling from Mumbai to Udupi (my birthplace near Mangalore) instead of an air plane. This is because you get to appreciate and enjoy natural beauty during a mode of travel that is slower.

Name of my cruise ship was “Royal Lotus” which was a very small cruise ship which had accommodation for only 150 guests. It so happened during our cruise ship travel, there was only our Globus Group of 14 people in the entire cruise ship. So it was like a chartered cruise ship for only 14 guests.


Our Room in the ship. You can see the SWAN made by Cruise Staff Members using a Towel so as to show their art (Photo 3)


Nile River Bank photo taken from the Deck (Photo 4)


Sand Mountains along the Bank of Nile River (Photo 5)


Boat Merchants selling "Galabiya" dress from their small boats (Photo 6)

Most of the big cruise ships that I had traveled before had a capacity for almost 2,000 guests. Although “Royal Lotus” was a small cruise ship, it had all the amenities of big cruise ship. It was almost like a floating 5-Star hotel. It had a nice reception hall at the entrance, a cozy cocktail lounge with a Dance Floor, a large cafeteria, a very comfortable open deck on the topmost floor. The deck had a small swimming pool and a Jacuzzi. This ship had altogether 3 floors with a small Gym, hot tubs, nightclubs, good restaurants, stores and even small libraries. Each state room was equipped with LCD flat TV with channels like CNN and many more popular TV channels. They also had Cameras on the ship, so that we could watch the outside scenic beauty on a specific TV while staying inside our state room.

Photo of another Cruiseship selling acroos our ship (Photo 7)

 

Photo of beautiful Nile River Scenery (Photo 10)

 

I liked “Royal Lotus” better then many other bigger cruise ships that I had traveled earlier. This is because, in this ship there was a personal touch from the staff members of the ship, since we were only 14 guests to look after. They took very good care of me in providing a special menu of vegetarian lunch, dinner and the breakfast since I am a vegetarian.

 

Another photo of Nile River Bank taken from the Deck of our ship (Photo 13)

 

I always enjoy traveling in a cruise ship. This is because you unpack only once unlike those hectic routines of stop and go itineraries of air and land tours. And the cruise ship travel is a very relaxed mode of travel. Our NileRiver cruise offered a wide variety of antiquities along the banks of the River from Luxor where we started till Aswan where we finally disembarked after 3 days of cruising.

 

Most important thing is: during this 3 days ship travel, I got to see rural Egypt along the banks of Nile River where people live the same way as they did for thousands of years living in mud brick homes, tending their fields with wooden plows and moving produce on a donkey. It was a wonderful experience to sit on a shaded deck of the ship while sipping an iced beverage while watching 5,000 years of Egyptian culture slowly drift by with so much scenic beauty along the banks of the NileRiver. Below photos will convince you what a mean here. The greenery alongside the banks of NileRiver is simply breath-taking with large farms and trees of dates (see all of below photos which prove how scenic our travel was). After about 5 miles on either side of the NileRiver banks, you can see the famous harsh Sahara desert with sand, sand and nothing but sand. In Arabic, Sahara means desert.

 

Another Beautiful Scenery (Photo 16)

 

Another Scenic View (Photo 17)

 

Just before sunset from the deck of the ship (Photo 18)

 

Another Photo just before sunset (Photo 19)

 

Sun almost set (Photo 20)

 

On the third and final night of our Cruise Travel they had a Nubian show where every one of us could participate and dance with Nubian dancers (see 2 photos attached below). There was one Nubian lady dancer, 3 Nubian male dancers and 2 musicians with their traditional Nubian musical instruments. It was lots of fun to dance with them as per their instructions.

 

Photographs: By Dr. Kamath and Lalita Kamath

Copyright © 2007 Dr. N.R.Kamath 

(Authors’ Note 2 : I have given numbers to all the photos displayed in this blog, please let me know which photos you liked the most by writing a comment to this blog). Or You may COMMENT by sending me an E-Mail at nrkamath_nrk@yahoo.com

TO BE CONTINUED:

(Author’s Note 3 : This is Part V of my Egypt Tour. In continuation of my Egypt Travelogue, in my next blogs, I will cover about my visits to the famous Temples of Edfu, Kom Ombo, City of Aswan and the Magnificent Temple of Abu Simbel built by most famous Pharaoh King Ramses II).

Please CLICK PLAY button above to listen to my Flute Tune again.