On October 24, Eid al-Fitr arrived, and Egypt had a five-day holiday.

Qian Dan, Qin Xin, Zeng Zijian, and Shishi went to the south for a vacation together.

Qian Dan was very happy, he could finally put his work aside for a while and accompany Qin Xin for a few days.

Thousands of years of Egypt is not just a few pyramids on the edge of Cairo, and if you want to learn more about the past and present of this ancient country, you must arrange a trip to the south.

The planned itinerary was to take an overnight train ride to Aswan, Egypt's southernmost city, and then take a cruise down the Nile to Luxor, from where they would take the train back to Cairo.

On the night of their departure, they arrived early on the platform of the Giza railway station, and the women chattered and were excited like students on an autumn outing, and the men looked through the tracks until one o'clock in the morning when they saw the train slowly coming from eleven o'clock in the evening.

After daybreak, the train carried them along the banks of the Nile, the windows of which were framed like paintings, changing in a rumbling rhythm.

The Nile is the veritable mother river of the Egyptians, and as far as the eye can see, the narrow strip of land on both sides of the river is fertile land, rice paddies, date palms, sugar cane groves, corn fields, flying spoonbills and herds of cattle and sheep in the autumn sun, and a little further away is only the vast Gobi. If the Egyptians had left this great river, how could they have written a thousand years of glitz?

At half past four in the afternoon, we arrived in Aswan.

More than 900 kilometers south of Cairo, Aswan is the legendary birthplace of the Egyptians and the southern stronghold of ancient Egypt. The banks of the Nile are lined with luxury cruise ships that cater to tourists who are sightseeing along the Nile in southern Egypt, like those in the movie "Tragedy on the Nile".

Shishi rushed to the front and pointed excitedly: "We are this ship, SISI." ”

Qian Dan remembered that Shishi had mentioned this name to him, and said, "Princess Shishi? Your company's ship, right? Qin Xin, this ship is named after Shishi! ”

Qin Xin said enviously: "Yes, Shishi, you are a major shareholder, right?" ”

Shishi said happily: "Minority shareholders, but we paid for this ship. ”

Qin Xin looked at the boat and sighed, "How much does this cost?" ”

While speaking, the group had already walked to the gangplank of the cruise ship, and the staff recognized Shishi and greeted them warmly.

The next day, they got up at three o'clock in the morning and had to travel another two hundred and eighty kilometers south to visit the temple of Abu Simbel.

Abu Simbel is a treacherous region on Egypt's border with Sudan, and has seen more than one attack on tourists in the past few years. The local government demanded that travelers from Aswan to Abu Simbel travel in groups, and their cars arrived at the assembly area on the edge of the city, and by 4 o'clock in the morning, a huge convoy of nearly 100 buses, medium buses, and minibuses was speeding into the desert in the southernmost part of Egypt under the escort of the military and police.

At nearly seven o'clock, the convoy arrived at Abu Simbel, the most mysterious temple in Egypt, right? It is more than 3,000 years old and is the work of Ramses II, the greatest pharaoh and the most avid statue lover.

For a long time, they turned their backs to the vast Nasser Lake, facing the four statues of Ramses II more than 20 meters high on the cliffs.

It is said that the temple was built here as a demonstration to the aliens who came from further south. I don't know that in ancient times, people went to Egypt alone? Or come against the wind and sand in the sound of camel bells? More than 3,000 years ago, when people looked up after a long journey and suddenly saw the four Ramses II with a straight face on the cliff, they should have revered this pharaoh in the heyday of ancient Egypt, right?

A millennium later, Ramses II's efforts to remain in the world are like a small flower tree by the roadside, more often than a background for people fiddling with their cameras.

The temple also has its world-famous wonders, from the four huge statues in the middle of the small temple door into the depth, the temple depth reaches 60 meters, the light is dim on weekdays, just solemn, every year on February 22, October 22 these two days the sun will shine through the temple gate at a certain moment, through the darkness, until shining to the deepest part of the temple in the middle of the statue, the golden light flashes, the majesty is fully revealed.

Unfortunately, they were a few days late in their trip and were not able to admire the ancient Egyptians' prowess in astronomy, geography, mathematics and architecture.

Moreover, the current temple, like many monuments south of Aswan, is no longer original, and the construction of the Aswan Dam solved the problem of electricity supply in modern Egypt and drowned out everything left of ancient Egypt. The Abu Simbel temple in front of you was cut and rebuilt under the initiative of UNESCO and brought together the efforts of experts from dozens of countries.

After leaving Abu Simbel, they went to Aswan Dam and Ferry Island.

The Aswan Dam is a masterpiece of modern hydraulic engineering and a life-changer for the pharaonic remnants of southern Egypt, where the ancient island of Ferry sank into Lake Nasser with the rise of the dam. Archaeologists relocated every stone of the temple to the nearby island of Agilka and rebuilt it as it was, rearranging everything on the island in the same way as it was.

In the early 19th century, Europeans, whose activities were confined to the vicinity of the Mediterranean, said: "There are four great sights that a traveler will remember for the rest of his life: the sea view of Constantinople, the Roman amphitheater in the moonlight, the sunrise from the top of Mount Vesuvius, and the island of Ferrai at sunset." ”

They visited Ferrai Island at noon, and although they didn't see the red glow in the sky, the small island surrounded by green trees and red flowers still showed them a romantic atmosphere that they had never seen in Abu Simbel.

The island of Ferry is not large, the island is the temple, the temple is the island, and the wall carvings in the temple are more fine, which is obviously not the work of the same era as Abu Simbel.

At noon, there were few tourists, Qian Dan and Qin Xin, Zeng Zijian and Shishi, the two of them held hands and wandered for more than an hour in the changes of light and shadow formed by the obstruction of the broken wall.

Then, they sailed into Lake Nasser in a dinghy, bidding farewell to the sparkling island of Ferrai and preparing to say goodbye to Aswan.

The ship "SISI" set anchor at 3:30 p.m. and sailed north along the Nile.

In the evening, the ship docked at Kong Ombo. Khon Ombo, which means "city of gold" in Egyptian, found "crocodiles" when they came ashore without seeing gold. The reason why the boat stopped at Kong Ombo was to see the temple, which was illuminated by the golden lights on the edge of the pier, and tourists were crowded with tourists, who followed the flow of people, and accidentally saw a few crocodile mummies hidden in the temple.

Back to the cabin and open the travel book to make up for the lesson, it turns out that the nearby Nile beach was once a place for crocodiles, so this temple is dedicated to the crocodile god and the eagle god.

The ship set sail again, and the night deepened.

Qian Dan and Qin Xin stood by the porthole window in the room, opened the floor-to-ceiling window, let the river wind lift the curtains, and the moonlight poured into the room. They hugged each other tightly, staring at the lights on the shore flickering on and off, silently intoxicated.

Qian Dan always felt that there was a kind of mystery in the wind, and he had some ambiguity with this place inexplicably, as if he had come thousands of years ago and left abruptly.

In the next room, Zeng Zijian and Shishi also stood by the window, the window was closed, and the two of them whispered.

On the third day, at six o'clock in the morning, the ship docked at Edford.

Edfu is the hometown of the ancient Egyptian god Horus, and there is the best-preserved ancient Egyptian temple, but none of the four of them want to get up, and they sleep until about nine o'clock before they go on deck together.

They played a morning of cards on deck, went down to the dining room for lunch, and then returned to the deck, sat in a row, curled up in chairs, eight feet neatly rested on the side railing, lazily looking at the white sails they met on the river, watching the waterfowl flying around the bow of the boat, watching the sunset over the river, watching the wind blowing the date palm groves, and waiting for the dark and waiting for dinner.

The wind is getting stronger and stronger, and the night is getting thicker and thicker. At half past seven in the evening, after two hundred kilometers down the Nile, they finally arrived in Luxor from Aswan.

Luxor, the capital of Thebes, the heyday of ancient Egyptian civilization, was the envy of the ancient Greeks at the time, and was once the largest city in the world. The Nile River passes through the city, because the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, so the city is the same as Cairo, the east of the river is the bustle of life, and the west of the river is the "city of the dead" where the deceased rest, and some Egyptians say that "if you have not been to Luxor, you have not been to Egypt".

The boat docked at the pier next to the Luxor Temple, and they disembarked and walked long through the crowd along the row of tourist souvenir shops along the river, before finding a quiet restaurant by the river for dinner.

Candlelight flickered, Arab barbecued meat and fish, Egyptian red wine, and the bright moon breeze of the Nile River accompanied them to spend a gentle night on the four oriental faces.

On the fourth day, they raced against time to see Luxor, who was more than 4,000 years old.

In the morning, we went to the Valley of the Kings in the west of the river, the narrow valley looked inconspicuous at all, like a quarry in some poor country, lonely and sultry. But dozens of ancient Egyptian pharaohs have been buried underground, and a number of precious artifacts have been unearthed, including the gold mask of Tutankhamun, now hidden in the National Museum of Egypt.

After leaving the Valley of the Kings and going to the Temple of Hatshepsut, they saw the unusual grace of the female pharaoh.

At noon they passed by the Mannon, two huge stone statues nearly twenty meters high, weathered beyond their faces, but still sitting in the open field by the roadside. It is said that it was once the entrance to a temple, and after many years, only these two "door gods" remained.

The climax of the day is the early afternoon visit to the Karnak Temple. Of the ancient Egyptian temples they had encountered in those days, if Abu Simbel was mysterious, Ferrai was romantic, Conombo was weird, and Hatshepsut was elegant, then the Karnak temple was the most magnificent and the one with the most stories.

Today, people can actually visit only one of the Karnak temple complexes, the temple of Amun, dedicated to the sun god, and less than a tenth of the ancient Karnak temple remains. In the long history of ancient Egypt, more than 50 pharaohs were afraid that the sun god Amun would blame him for not being pious enough and not protecting his royal dignity, so they built temples, tree obelisks, and built various statues here one after another.

At three o'clock in the afternoon, the sun was shining just right, and they were greeted outside the temple gate of Karnak by two columns of sphinxes, the sphinx symbolizing authority, and the sheep were the favorite of the god Amun. Under each sheep's head, between the lion's claws, there are statuettes of the pharaohs, is it their good wish that "there is someone above"?

They walked through the corridor between two columns of sphinxes, through a narrow gate in the middle of the thick wall, and entered the temple of Karnak. The first thing they saw was a large round stone pillar in the spacious atrium that was more than 20 meters high and could only be surrounded by four or five people, which is said to be the surviving pillar of a "pavilion" built more than 600 years BC. Behind the column is an eight-meter-tall statue of Ramses II, and on the soles of Pharaoh's feet stands a life-size statue of his wife. From Abu Simbel to Luxor, the image of Ramses II has long been remembered by them through statues.

Further on, through another wall, you will enter the famous multi-column hall. This hall was seen in the movie "Tragedy on the Nile" they watched when they were children, and there were 134 large stone pillars more than 20 meters high and 3 or 4 meters in diameter neatly arranged in the hall, and the stone pillars were engraved with stories from the past.

The sun blurred their eyes, and they walked among the ancient stone pillars, as if they were not careful, they would travel through time and space, and fall into the battlefields and court battles, the pastoral warmth, the romance on the river, the imaginary reality of the pharaohs and the gods.

Continuing deeper into the temple, two obelisks stand proudly towards the sky, built by the female pharaoh Hatshepsut. She gathered fine stone from Aswan, erected the two highest obelisks of the time, and carved an inscription on them, claiming that she was the daughter of the sun god Amun, hoping to declare to the world that everything was destined and that she would not doubt her authority as a pharaoh just because she was a woman.

As the sun set, they left the Karnak temple and went to the Luxor temple by the Nile.

The Luxor Temple, the last place they visited, was smaller than the Karnak Temple, with a more compact layout and a bustling crowd at night. The four of them walked out of the temple gate and sat side by side under a big tree in the square outside the door, with two women sitting in the middle and two men sitting on either side.

The spotlights cast a seductive light to render a lonely obelisk at the entrance of the temple, and Tsang pointed to it: "This was originally a pair of obelisks, the other was given to the French as a gift by the then governor of Egypt in the 19th century, and now stands on the Place de la Concorde in Paris." ”

Qin Xin said, "When are we going to Paris together to see the other obelisk?" ”

Shishi quickly chimed in: "Okay, I'm going to Paris!" ”

Qian Dan's usual 24-hour on, always ringing mobile phone is rare and quiet for a few days, which makes him completely relaxed for a few days, and he is still unsatisfied with the beautiful trip to the south: "Paris is going to be going, London is going to be going, New York is also going to be going, but these days are really relaxing, I don't want to go back to Cairo, can we change boats and take back to Aswan from Luxor?" ”

Qin Xin put a hand around his shoulder and coquettishly said, "I don't want to leave either." ”

Zeng Zijian asked, "When will you return to China?" ”

Qin Xin curled his lips: "After Eid al-Fitr, I will leave on the 30th." ”

Shishi pulled Qin Xin over from Qian Dan and hugged her: "Oh, time flies too fast, I don't want you to leave at all, accompany me in Egypt!" ”

Qin Xin touched Shishi's belly and asked, "When do you plan to return to China to give birth to a baby?" ”

Shishi said: "I haven't thought about it yet, I'll tell you if I've thought about it." However, if I give birth in Cairo, I can't do it. ”

Qian Dan interjected in surprise: "Won't it?" Born in Cairo? I know we have families who have given birth in Saudi Arabia, but no one has given birth in Egypt yet, right? ”

A trace of uneasiness flashed on Shishi's face, and she said with some uncertainty: "We just made the business bigger here, and we have been in Egypt for at least half a year after returning to China to give birth to a baby, right?" ”

Zeng Zijian seemed to be answering Qian Dan's surprise, as if he was comforting Shishi, saying: "You can also find a good hospital in Cairo, and the doctors are all coming back from England and France, and the level is not bad." ”

Qin Xin said: "You really have the idea of giving birth to a baby in Cairo? I admire you so much! Shishi has been here for more than a year, and now there is a cruise ship on the Nile, and your life is so different! ”

Shishi sighed proudly: "The pressure is great, we bought this ship and almost staked our entire net worth." ”

Zeng Zijian didn't want to go deeper into this topic, he stood up: "It's not early, we're almost back on the boat." There's a carriage for tourists on the road, so let's take the carriage back. ”

"Okay, okay", Shishi let go of Qin Xin and stood up.

The four Chinese walked briskly and walked side by side towards the side of the road, leaving behind thousands of years of Egyptian temples and their short but wonderful southern time.